In 2022, a 32-year-old song from The Human League started creeping into my sets. I’ve been a fan of the band since childhood and play them often when I DJ. Yet, I never played “Heart Like a Wheel,” let alone the extended mix of the song, before this year. I began playing “Heart Like a Wheel” because I heard it on a MARS FM broadcast nearly as old as the song itself.

MARS FM 103.1 was a short-lived radio station in Los Angeles during the early 1990s with a truly alternative format. While MARS was known as the “rave” radio station, they played everything from Morrissey to Arrested Development to Messiah. (Check out these old playlists.) It was wild. Years after the station’s demise, my friends and I recalled it in many conversations. A lot of us were, in some way, influenced by the sound of MARS.