A few people, confronted with a stack of CDs, have taken this one because of the name. Whoops. This isn't about romance, it's about high school. I used to live for Sunday night, when MTV ran its "alternative" program 120 Minutes; it was a fabulous and confounding combination of combat-boot canon, disoriented singer-songwriters, marketing misfires, veiled queerness, and nobody's-watching-anyway curveballs. (We, of course, gave any video bequeathed to us by Dave Kendall the benefit of the doubt, which is how I ended up with four CDs by Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, but anyway.)

This is my best impression of that.

Download THE OPTION presents A FIRST KISS and catch up on past weeks here. Tracks:

01 Bottomless Pit - Fish Eyes
02 Lesley Roy - I'm Gone, I'm Going
03 The Cure - Real Snow White
04 Wire - One Of Us
05 Situationists - We Are Weightless
07 Robots In Disguise - The Tears
08 Paul Kerschen - The Reverberator
08 R.E.M. - Horse To Water
09 The Killers - Spaceman
10 Xiu Xiu - White Nerd
11 BWO - Lay Your Love On Me
12 Retard-O-Bot - I Don't Think You Really Mean It (Proper)
13 Electric Six - Lovers Beware
14 Add - The Blitz
15 The Maccabees - Latchmere
16 The Assistants - Stop Dead
17 Absentee - Pips
18 School Of Seven Bells - Half Asleep
19 Esser - Long Arms
20 These New Puritans - Navigate, Navigate

Small print: Paul Kerschen's album is downloadable at (paulkerschen.com/oilandwater) and available on CD. Add's song, like all his music, is at actdead.com. The These New Puritans piece was apparently written for a fashion show and then released on vinyl and iTunes.

* This is the fourth of eight mixes for 2008.
* Concept by M. Holloway.
* Catalysis by F. Lynch, T. Horn and HTW.

* Mix by
* your favorite station bumper,
* JJ Rackjobber.