About this time last year the pre-ordered edition of Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline was delivered to my Kindle and I spent the Thanksgiving break diving back into the world of Oasis 80’s nostalgia. So I am way past due to share the playlist of songs I put together based on all of the music references from this novel.
Below is a list of every song in the playlist (linked to the singles in iTunes) so you can build your own playlist using either your own music library or the music streaming service of your choice (you get extra points if you create your own mixed cassette tape with these songs). If your music app of choice is Apple Music, then you can get it for free and download my shared Apple Music playlist here.
- “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” by Talking Heads
- “Back in Time” by Huey Lewis & The News
- “Space Age Love Song” by Flock of Seagulls
- “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” by Timbuk 3
- “Just Can’t Get Enough” by Depeche Mode
- “Don’t Let’s Start” by They Might Be Giants
- “Cowgirl” by Underworld
- “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths
- “Back to Life” bu Soul II Soul
- “Push It” by Salt-N-Pepa
- “It’s a Mistake” by Men at Work
- “Fly Like an Eagle” by Steve Miller Band
- “Obsession” by Animation
- “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield
- “My Best Friend’s Girl” by The Cars
- “You Just Haven’t Earned it yet, Baby” by Kirsty MacColl
- “It’S All in the Game” by Carmel
- “Oh Yeah” by Yello
- “Kajagoogoo” by Kajagoogoo
- “Eighties” by Killing Joke
- “Brilliant Mind” by Furniture (not available in Apple Music)
- “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds
- “Beat’s So Lonely” by Charlie Sexton
- “I Want a New Duck” by Weird Al Yankovic
- “Peter Gunn Theme” by The Blues Brothers
- “Holiday Road” by Lindsey Buckingham
- “More Than a Feeling” by Boston
- “March of the Swivel Heads” by English Beat
- “Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes)” by Book of Love
- “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” by The Dream Academy
- “If You Leave” by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
- “Heroes” by David Bowie
- “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince & The Revolution
- “Paisley Park” by Prince & The Revolution
- “Interactive”by Prince
- “U Got the Look” by Prince
- “Raspberry Beret” by Prince & The Revolution
- “Little Red Corvette” by Prince & The Revolution
- “The Bird” by The Time
- “Thieves in the Temple” by Prince
- “When Doves Cry” by Prince & The Revolution
- “I Would Die 4 U” by Prince & The Revolution
For the song “Brilliant Mind” by Furniture I had to purchase the entire album just to get the one track off the album (thank you music industry and your customer unfriendly business model). But then just to make it even more difficult, my new album purchase would not show up in Apple Music. I had to do a bit of digging and it turns out this kind of “handshake” error between iTunes purchases and Apple Music can happen and the best way to immediately fix the problem is to sign out of your Apple accounts (for me it is both an AppleID for purchases and my iCloud account for services) and then sign back in. Kinda makes me long for the days when I had to drive to a music shop and actually buy my music the old fashioned way. Since I purchased this soundtrack from iTunes it has since become unavailable, so if you want the track you will likely have to purchase it elsewhere and import it into your library.
The “Lights Out” track from the album of the same name by Peter Wolf is also not available on Apple Music. In fact, it is likely not available on most streaming services. The only option I could find for purchasing this song is by buying it on vinyl. There is however a music video available on YouTube.
If you are on another music streaming service and put together a Ready Player Two playlist on that service, let me know in the comments and I will link to your playlist in this post (and give you credit of course).
If you enjoyed this playlist, I have a few other geeky playlists I’ve published on GeekDad that you might enjoy:
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