Mix Tapes Matter

I feel that the art of making mix tapes has been lost on this budding generation. Don’t even parade playlists as a contemporary equivalent. It’s like saying listening to Britney Spears and being placed in an iron maiden are the same thing. Even though they share striking similarities in both experience and presentation, they are not the same thing. A playlist is just a malleable grouping of shortcuts, listed underneath an equally malleable title. But a mix tape/CD (lets be fare) has finality, mobility, and you can draw pretty pictures on it too.

The Mix Tape/CD, unlike the Comodore 64, it is not an archaic relic that should be left to die, without dignity, by the side of the road. Creating a Mix Tape/CD has a very valuable purpose, one that if not nurtured, might have detrimental effects on the music listening community. With storage space growing exponentially, our capacity to horde music is also increasing, and horde we do. Instead of hunting down rare vinyl’s, or ordering limited edition CD’s, we download discographies and copy them onto any drive that will house them. We have so much music that at any given time we are inundated by the choices at hand. That being said, in and amongst that electronic pile of songs are the few tracks, that for a time being, you’d rather be listening to over all the others. But all we do is list them, over listen to the songs or wait till our moods/ identity/ circumstances change and then we delete the playlist and start anew. The compilation that helped define you is now gone, but the music remains, kept out of a mixture of status and nostalgia.

It seems so clean, efficient and productive. For all those that think it’s a natural progression towards a better way of doing things, let me remind you that the “Foucault’s Fist” attachment for my strap-on is arriving soon. The whole point of the mix tape is that there is a limited amount of space and often the songs are meant to be listened through in a certain and planned order. The result is that the compilation has undergone thought, planning, and feeling. The Tape/CD made in an emotion/ idea/ dream/ identity, and exists to convey that which resonates with said emotion/ idea/ dream/ identity.

Therefore, having a record of these compilations, one can create a personal timeline for oneself. At any time you can slide the Tape/CD into your car, go back and rediscover parts of yourself you had either discarded or forgotten. Music, like any art, is not there to be skipped though, with the random button glowing. I guess my message is; make Mix CD’s and print your photos. Make cool covers for them, put time and effort into enjoying the music that had so much time and effort put into it, lest we loose the record of ourselves.