The Golden Age of Mix Tapes

A new book by Thurston Moore, "Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture," recalls the heyday of mix tape making through a variety of essays (and actual mix tape playlists) from the likes of Mike Watt, Dean Wareham, Jim O'Rourke, Kate Spade(!), and dozens more. Please note that this book concerns itself with mix tapes, not the arguably inferior mix CDs or MP3 playlists. Salon recently wrote about the book (free, but you need to watch an ad first), but maybe you're more interested in checking out some non-celebrity mix tapes (and CDs, and playlists).

Comments

[Rob S.]

What makes mix CD's suck, in my opinion, is that the person that made it didn't have to sit there and listen to every song as they record it. It was a labor of love, making mix tapes was.

[squinchy]

I got boxes and boxes of mixed tapes from friends and sometimes I think about 'digitizing' them just in the interest of archiving them. Is a cd-r of a mixed tape still a mixed tape?
On a more contrarian note, I'm kinda sick of Thurston being the conduit for all things cool. He's in every music doc, spouting his nonsense. And now he writes a book. The nerve! He should shut up and learn to tune his guitar already...

[Lefty Von Righty]

One of the charms of the mix tape was getting to the end of a really good side and then wondering what was on the next. Would it be a hot side and cool side like Wham's Music from the Edge of Heaven? Would the groove continue? Would side B be Auntie Beth peeling carrots. Who was to know? No one until you turned it over - or read the track listing.

Mix cds suffer from a few problems. One is the length burden. Too often I've been given discs with a haphazard 80 minutes worth of music. Why not cut out half of the flotsom and leave me with 40 minutes of a good jam?

And as Rob S. said, it's too easy to drag and drop tracks without laboring over the product.

Ah, a lost craft.

[fatty]

I have tried the mix CD-R, but it doesn't have the charm. It's too easy to drag a bunch of files into toast. I need to listen to a song and have a light bulb pop up as to what song comes next. and yes, 80 minutes is too long. In the process of making a mix tape I will listen to the first 20 minutes and curse myself when songs don't transition well. and I have to go back, redo. The real sublime moment is when you finish a side and it fits perfectly, with only a couple seconds till the leader.

but at least with CD-R's...I don't have to deal with this tedious bullshit and can get on with my life. I have spent too many hours waiting in lines, waiting for the bus, riding my bike thinking of the perfect chronology of a mix tape. Besides, everyone I make mix tapes for could care less.

[krokus]

I still have and listen to some mix tapes my best friend made for me in 1982. I lost an outstanding tape once when I left the boombox in the car. Car window broken, boombox gone, but what I was most upset about was the tape. I still am. Damn.

[MrHoOLigOoLy]

Anyone still make "mix tapes" for themselves and friends? Once upon a time (in a galaxy not TOO far away) mix tapes were a great way to make a statement to someone without actually saying what was on one's mind.....the girl you were good friends with who you hoped would become more than that --- or if you were in a melancholy state and just wanted to wallow in your blues for a while, in hopes that they'd lift after hearing the music on the tape over and over, etc. The mix tape was an art form. You had to really think about what you wanted to put on both sides, and sometimes your initial selections just wouldn't "feel" right once you started recording, so you'd go with a stream of consciousness approach. Also, if someone had a large music collection comprised of different formats (vinyl, cassettes, CDs, even videos -- for snippets of dialog from movies for instance), you'd combine all those sources in one place. Think of the movie "High Fidelity" where Cusack and his record store employees (Jack Black and Todd Louiso) go on and on about their "top 5" song lists. In this digital age, with CD ripping and burning and downloading being such a quick process the PERSONALITY and EMOTION that went into the mix tape is something I truly miss. Truth be told, both my vehicles only have cassette players in them so I still make mixes for the cars. I also love it when I uncover an old mix tape that someone from my past made for me, with me in mind. I know that that person took a significant chunk of time out of his or her day just for me...perhaps to get me into music I was unfamiliar with, or maybe to say something more meaningful.

I just may make one tonight! : )

[Jer]

The problem with mix CDs is that you can skip tracks, or press the "random play" button. With mix tapes, you're pretty much forced to listen to every song in the order that the mixer intended. One of my favorite tricks was to juxtapose wildly differing genres, ie Venom's "Leave Me In Hell" sandwiched between The Sundays' ultra-mellow "Wild Horses" and Tupac's "California Love".

My first computer played MP3s, but didn't have a CD burner, so I actually used the computer's "Line Out" into my cassette recorder to make mix tapes from MP3s. Pitiful.