Metal Mixtape: 1993 - Packaged Rebellion

In this month’s Decibel (#40, Dethklok cover), I’ve written the “Will Consider Trades” column, which constructs a hypothetical mixtape from a chosen year. Reading about a mixtape one can’t hear isn’t much fun, so here is the actual “mixtape,” sequenced and volume-normalized for your enjoyment. (Funny how “mixtape” still has a certain cachet; “mix CD” isn’t as cool, and the rather lame “playlist” is where we are now.) The year is 1993, when I graduated from high school. This tape is a snapshot of what I was listening to then; some tunes made it onto actual mixtapes, probably for my then- (and long-suffering) girlfriend, the heroine of the column.

1993 – Packaged Rebellion [95.7MB .zip]

1. Clutch – A Shogun Named Marcus
2. Fugazi – Public Witness Program
3. Danzig – It’s Coming Down
4. Entombed – Full of Hell
5. Sepultura – We Who Are Not as Others
6. Morbid Angel – God of Emptiness
7. Death – Trapped in a Corner
8. Carcass – Death Certificate
9. Disincarnate – Monarch of the Sleeping Marches
10. Anthrax – Room for One More
11. Helmet & House of Pain – Just Another Victim
12. Fear Factory – Self Immolation (Vein Tap Mix)
13. KMFDM – A Drug Against War

Through the years, my CD collection has undergone tremendous flux, so now I own remastered editions of some of these records. Though these editions often have cool liner notes and extras, the majority of them sound worse than their originals. Records acquire their mystique for what they are; to alter their sound is to alter the chemistry, however flawed, that yielded the mystique. Remastering these days usually consists of brickwall compression, which is almost always unnecessary. Carcass had a major label budget for “Death Certificate,” but jeezus, was the production this punchy and Killswitch Engage-like? Compiling these tunes makes me want to seek out original, unremastered copies of their albums.