Hiya, I was at my folks place the other day and decided to go through/collect a few dozen CDs that were lying around unused. I mainly focused on a large drawer of audio CDs, picking out all the unlabelled burnt CDs I could find (about 30-35), then I was offered our family's old PC software/games disc folder (yes, we were a family that did that and mostly discarded the cases, I guess XD). I have since gone through every unlabelled (or not clearly labelled) CD and wanted to share some interesting standouts.



The Burnt Audio CDs

These were mostly homemade mix CDs, and would have been created by my older siblings or their friends (I wasn't developed enough to burn CDs at this point). Some were clearly genre themed, like a few Classic Rock/Punk ones and some reaaaaly good EDM/Hardstyle/Trance mixes, while others were in a genre mixing 'all my favourite songs' style. I don't think I could identify any created after 2002 (judging by song release dates), with the majority being made in the late 90s. I listened through them all and wrote down track lists (that I could identify from memory or lyrics searches). Out of all 30ish, only three were busted! Not bad for 25+ year old burnt discs. There are too many to list them all here, so I will just share the most cooked tracklist I came across.

'Booya' mix (c. 2001)

A 'favourite songs' mix, made by a sibling, that gave me musical whiplash. Identified only by the inked phrase 'Booya' (as in the exclamation of success)

This was the first one I listened to, the every second-to-third song genre change had me screaming XD. The Rahzel track was new to me though, he beatboxes and sings at the same time, it was pretty good.



The Commercial Audio CDs

I just picked up stuff I remember owning or CDs that looked interesting. A few examples are below;


'Nocturnal Instincts'

Image of a CD with a simple Flash cartoon-style drawing of a woman and the title 'Nocturnal Instincts' across the lower centre

This CD art stood out to me, looks like it was done in early Flash. I can't find any information about this album or the band online, but judging by the CD/plain case it was in, I think this might be a smaller local group. One of my siblings had a band around this time (the CD is dated 1998), it could have been picked up at a gig. The music itself sounds like the group was heavily influenced by Primus.


'Off The Leash'

Leaflet album art from the compilation CD 'Off The Leash'

"18 dog-gone cool trax". A random commercially made/licensed compilation CD, with no date listed but none of the tracks are newer than 1995. The leaflet art reminded me of Mambo stuff from the era. Can see the track list on discogs, it's mostly rock/alternative.


'fjf Cubas - Purimuy (Walking) Vol.2'

Ablum cover leaflet for 'fjf Cubas - Purimuy (Walking) Vol.2'

This reminded me of Myst, and the wonders of early 00s image manipulation (dated 2004). I love the floating instruments. The CD was sadly missing from the case.



The PC Software & Games Disc Folder

This had like every game I remember playing from childhood, although it kinda maxes out at around 2004. I started being able to buy my own games (which were taken with me when moving), or playing online stuff like Habbo and Runescape, I also got an Xbox around then. These are a mix of burnt and commercial discs, I'll list most of them below;

Commerical CDs

Sims 1 Deluxe Edition + Unleashed + Superstar: Played to death, the deluxe edition allowed you create a custom Sim with a crappy webcam pic of your face on it. I had my closest friends and I walking around town like Goldeneye 007 character models.

Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring: This ran at like 10-15 FPS most of the time, I only ever got to the Tom Bombadil section and was softlocked/glitched out of progressing.

Commandos 2: Still really solid tactical stratgy game with amazing isometric backgrounds.

Big Red Racing: 'whacky' 90s car racer, lots of fun.

Risk: kinda meh

Counter-Strike: I never really played it much

Spycraft: Really odd FMV forward spy adventure game, that features actual former KGB and CIA heads in acting roles. Polygon has a comprehensive documentary about it (before they laid off most of their staff).

Heroes IV: I don't think I was ever any good at this game, but I still think the graphics look great.

Lego Island: The greatest childrens game ever made. MattKC has a good documentary video about the making of (he's the guy that started decompiling it a few years back). Now playable in browser.

Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed - Special Edition: The first NFS game available for PC. When you won all the races it would unlock this bonus wild looking purple concept car that was faster than anything else in the game.

Grand Theft Auto 1 & London: Both of these came in a dual case together and have stickers on them from a local video rental store, so we either never returned them, or they sold off old stock. That store actually held on a while, moving once before closing in 2018.

Robot City: Super eerie and spooky point-and-click adventure from 1995, where you crashland on a planet inhabited only by robots and are accused of a murder. I want to replay this, my child mind couldn't deal with it at the time.

Lego Mindstorms: I have absolutely no memory of this game.

Disney's Hotshots Pinball: Came in a cereal packet.

GTA 2: Possibly my most played out of all of these. I would replay the second map the most. Also it has one of the greatest soundtracks of all time, and a unique (for GTA) retrofuturistic setting.

'Heroes Demo Disc': I don't know where this one came from, maybe a pack-in with another game, or some fast food places used to include demo discs with meal deals around this time (the newest game is from 2001). I have played the first level of Hitman: Codename 47 a few hundred times, Project I.G.I sucks, the rest are good. The disc art belongs in a museum, see below;

Image of the Heroes Demo Disc CD

Burnt Games & Software

Just gonna list some standouts/ones I had to label.


Red Alert

Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds + Clone Campaigns

Deadlock: Planetary Conquest

Three separate burnt copies of Diablo 1

'Half-Life Package': Includes the base game plus the CounterStrike, Firearms, and Team Fortress mods.

Theme Hospital: I love this game, but it stands out more for the disc. Someone copied by hand the legit disc info, including the G rating and Bullfrog logo, but the ink has bled over time. See the image below, the clear Verbatim CD logo at the bottom is not edited, that's what the real disc looks like;

Image of a CD with the hand drawn label meant to copy the legitimate disc of Theme Hospital

'(First Name) CD': A useful collection of games and software, circa. 1998-1999. Includes the following folders/software;

'Mixed Games': A collection of around 80 DOS-9X games circa. 2000, including;

Abuse, Aladdin, Alien, Aliens (Doom Total Conversion Mod), Alone in the Dark 1 + 2, Armada, Battle Bugs, Battle Chess 2, Beach Head 2000, Big Red Racing, Blockout, Blackthorne, Bubble Bobble, Cannon Fodder 1 + 2, Civilization 2, Chessmaster 3000, Command & Conquer, Comanche, Cool Spot, Destruction Derby, Descent 1 + 2, Doom 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Dune 1 + 2, Eye of the Beholder 1-3, Earthworm Jim 1 + 2, F1 Grand Prix, Flashback, FX Fighter, Gauntlet, Gods, Golden Axe, Heretic, Hexen 1 + 2, Hi-Octane, IndyCar Racing, Ironman Offroad Racing, James Pond 2: RoboCod, Jazz Jackrabbit, Links 386 Pro, Lemmings 1 + 2 + "Oh No! More Lemmings", Lion King, Loderunner, Mega-Lo-Mania, Megapede, Micro MAchine 1 + 2, Mortal Kombat 1-3, Metaltech Battledrome, Nascar Racing, Outpost, Populous 1 + 2, Prince of Persia 1 + 2, Psycho, Quake (Original + Shareware versions), Primal Rage, Rally Championships, Raptor, Risky Woods, Rise of the Triad, Speedball 2, SimCity 2000, Shadow Knights, Super Karts, Ultima VIII: Pagan.


Anyway, that's it for now. There was a bunch of old software amongst the PC disc folder that I will eventually get around to imaging and uploading on archive.org (if it's not already there). I may also put some of the burnt stuff up too like the VQF software.

Thanks for reading :)