Release date: August 1999
Description: A lime green disc with an eMusic logo on it. “Join the MP3 Internet music (r)evolution!”
From the start, we’ve got all sorts of ’90s-isms. The capitalization of MP3 and Internet, the decapitalization of an e in front of a word, and some wordplay off “evolution” (I assume “love-ution” isn’t far behind).
The songs
There are 11 songs on this disc, all from eMusic.com. So it’s a small start, but MusicMatch would start acquiring more and more songs and turn this into a big deal.
Here are the songs:
| Artist | Song | Notes |
| Carey Bell | That Spot Right There (15-second demo) | Anyone who owned MusicMatch Jukebox (or MMJB, as the filenames often had) for awhile knows this 15 seconds of the song. I was surprised how much other song was with it when I finally heard the whole thing. It never even occurred to me that there was more song for decades. |
| The Apples in Stereo | Strawberryfire | A Beatles-style psychedelic slow jam |
| Bouncing Souls | Fight to Live | A shouty punk thing. |
| Fats Domino | Blueberry Hill | A live recording of the oldie. |
| Ike and Tina Turner | Mississippi Rollin Stone | Probably the original studio version, but I’m not sure. Tina really goes for it. |
| John Lee Hooker | Tupelo | He talks about Tupelo a lot in a live performance while a little bit of guitar happens. I don’t get this one. |
| Lightnin’ Hopkins | Gambler’s Blues | Some more old blues. He loses all his money in a “no good gamblin’ game.” |
| Mark Pistel | Skin Up | Bleepy Detroit techno with a fast snare roll at the end of most measures. This showed up on 3 MMJB editions, so it’s one that people tend to remember most. It’s my default first guess if someone’s trying to remember a song off here, and often that’s right. |
| Professor Shehab and Robert Musso | Avatar | One of the infinity dubby/ambient projects that Bill Laswell got involved in. I’ve always been fond of this track; it goes at a decent pace and has some drone strings and a watery bleep in the background. |
| They Might Be Giants | Older | Their classic birthday song. Time is still marching on. |
| Voodoo Glow Skulls | Left for Dead | Ska-punk, because it’s 1999 and by law you must. |
Next: MusicMatch Jukebox 4.3
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