Anatomy of a Mixtape - "Olive Juice '87" Part XII "Eject"

 

"Eject"

Part 12 of 12

Track #9 - “Land of Confusion”

This could have actually been a great title for this mixtape with it’s somewhat inconsistent tracklist of songs with a purpose throughout most but then topped off by an inexplicable rash of questionable Top 40 songs of the day. Some of which barely balance on the fine line between a Top 40 hit and pop song obscurity.

Track #10 - “Let’s Wait Awhile”

This Janet Jackson number wasn’t released as a single until January of 1987, putting the timeline of these B-side leftovers and the inception of “Olive Juice ‘87” incredibly close. The amount of time it takes for a single to break into heavy play and gain traction among the listener base can be weeks, sometimes months. You need that window of airplay before a song is ingrained to the point that a teenager in 1987 wants to tape it off the radio. Granted this was the 5th single from Janet’s “Control” album so it may have hit heavy airplay right off the bat, but still. We’re cutting it close to March 4th for this to have been laid down on a radio compilation mixtape, only to have it potentially dubbed over. If that is how things went down on side B.

Track #11 - “Love You Down”

Ready for the World, or, sometimes known as RFTW, makes an appearance here with a sloppy, accidental “pause” during the recording at the very beginning. Could have been a fat finger-mistake or possibly the recorder was unsure if they’d actually pressed the “record” button and gave a double tap. But whatever it was, I would expect nothing less from a mixtaper taping songs off the local Top 40 radio station. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened more often on these side B orphans, quite frankly.

Track #12 - “Somewhere Out There”

This duet by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram doesn’t even get a full verse before recording is halted in, what I can only assume, was a case of, “Oh shit, this isn’t the song I thought it was,” regret.

Track #13 - “Lean On Me”

The only track to make it onto “Olive Juice ‘87” twice, and why not? This song by Club Nouveau was all over the place in the late winter/early spring of 1987 including high school dances, Top 40 radio, mixtapes for girlfriends or boyfriends, and hastily made personal mixes of songs taped off the radio.

Track #14 - “Talk to Me”

This one from Chico DeBarge’s debut solo album launches, not quite at the beginning, I wouldn’t even say in the middle, but more at the end of the song. It’s the sort of recording you get when you decide, “I want to tape some songs off the radio,” and as soon as you tune in, you discover they're playing one of the songs you’ve been waiting countless hours in your bedroom for the station to play, and even though you have no idea where they are currently in the song, you decide that having even a little bit of “Talk to Me” by Chico DeBarge is better than not having any of “Talk to Me” by Chico DeBarge. So while you try to steady your hand from the nerves racing through your body because you don’t want to miss catching any more of the song on tape, you anxiously hit record, hoping you’re cued in the right spot, only to realize a minute later, they were at the end of the fucking song!

Track #15 - “Suburbia”

The final track on side B, as it turns out, is “Suburbia” by the Pet Shop Boys. Very interesting. It’s a dramatic departure from everything that made its way onto side B before it, yet it’s exactly in line with most of the other songs that make up “Olive Juice ‘87” on side A.

Was “Suburbia” even getting Top 40 airplay? “West End Boys” was, of course, but I’m not even sure if this is something that Cape 104 would have been playing even if EMI had been testing out its reception to the Top 40 audience. 

Maybe Olive Juice didn’t steal this tape from a sibling. Maybe this was his work on side B all along, and when the time called for love, he reached for the only tape he had at his disposal? A Maxell XL II 90 he lost the labels for but had been using to compile songs recorded off the radio, when he was on the fringe of discovering 80s New Wave.

The tape ends before “Suburbia” finishes. He ran out of space. The true sign of a person who was taping off the radio, just looking to cram as much on the cassette as possible before the tape ran out. No careful planning. No timing involved. Just taping songs. And as we know, without careful planning, the tape is always going to run out on you.

So who is Olive Juice?

Olive Juice was a high school kid, upper classmen, possibly gay, who was into alternative music and wanted to make a mixtape for his girlfriend or boyfriend. He dubbed it “Olive Juice ‘87” in an effort to be discreet.

When it came time to make the tape, he had a cassette in his room with a bunch of songs he and his sister had taped off the radio. Realizing he didn’t like too many of those songs, he decided to dub over them for this mix.

While a lot of planning and effort went into side A, including the purposeful intro with the familiar radio hits, the almost-to-the-second simultaneous end of tape and tracklist, and the recording protection tabs popped out for side A — side B was never completed. Love and relationships are like mixtapes, you can put the sincerest effort into side A, but if you don’t follow through with the same focus and attention on side B, the tape is going to run out on you.

And with side B never completed, sadly, the initial care and sentimental meaning behind “Olive Juice ‘87” was never shared with its intended recipient.

Instead, the days passed, the relationship ended, and “Olive Juice ‘87” ended up in a shoe box in a closet at mom’s house, completely neglected and forgotten for decades, until it was purchased at the Dennis Union Auction & Bizarre in August of 2016.

And now it lives on as a Spotify Playlist for you to enjoy.