My Partially Borrowed Theory of the Mix-Tape

I love making mix tapes, and started doing this when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I have constructed rules and a precise methodology for creating them.

I grew up literally surrounded by music. My mother listened to it while I was in the womb, she tells me. I've been told I could only sleep next to a blaring speaker--Led Zeppelin, the Who, -anything loud. Yet, my great-grandmother played piano in our living room, usually from an old Broadman hymnal with shape notes when I was with her. My grandparents, at their home, played artists like Anne Murray, Charlie Pride, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and B.J Thomas. My uncle, only 9 years older than I, was in to funk music and exposed me to groups like Parliament and the jazzy sound of Chuck Mangione. We’d dance in his room to “Flashlight.” He could pull off the best “robot.” His brother, my older uncle, was all southern rock and Peter Frampton. I would giggle at the sound of his talkbox hooked into his guitar. His albums would play on repeat when my grandparents were away.

 

Many people will say that music is their life, but I honestly believe there is a multi-volume work that serves as God’s soundtrack when he replays my history. I wonder if he’d let me burn a copy?

 

I've read that the cassette was invented to make sure that you would not have to listen your mother, in any environment, but especially in the car, from the ages of 13 to 15. As a teen you could usually find me with headphones on in most familial gatherings, but to the dismay of my mother and her music I had discovered pop radio. I had forsaken her legitimate bands for acts like Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Expose, Nu Shooz, and Duran Duran. I became a slave to Top 40 radio. I had fingerless, lace gloves and a white gardening glove I drew dots on with silver paint to wear on only one hand. Floppy-haired pop music posters adorned my walls, and my mother and I would wrestle with the radio dial in the car. Most of the time, she would let me win.

 

I purchased my very first album at around 7 or 8 years of age. I bought Aerosmith’s Greatest Hits (the red cover). I had wanted Alvin and the Chipmunks. After all, I had earned the money doing chores I really didn’t want to do, but the decision of what to buy was forced upon me by guilt and the man who was living in my mother’s house at that time. He made a pretty valid argument by adult standards, but as a kid who liked nothing more than a steady diet of sugar and squeaky clean, sanitized entertainment, Aerosmith did seem a little beyond my years. 

The man who lived with my mother also was a collector of the record album. And since it wasn’t common to play vinyl in the car, he would make tapes of songs he liked to play for travel. It wasn’t long before I developed this intense passion, too. And so, a creative spark was born. A passion emerged and new life was birthed. While other kids were riding their bikes or watching Saturday morning cartoons, I was hidden away in a room making mixed tapes. I had noticed that the man who lived with my mother carefully fashioned his tapes, made sure that each song and artist was well-represented, and I studied his method dutifully. I, too, developed a real procedure to mix-tape crafting. It was both an art and a science. Certain songs could not occupy the same side, and it was complete blasphemy to mix genres! I wasn’t sure what “blasphemy” really was, but I knew my very religious grandmother said it a lot when she was unhappy, and I was certain it applied to this situation as well. And really, I thought I was the only person on the planet who devoted so much time to making mix tapes until I discovered the book “High Fidelity” by Nick Hornby and read, 

"I spent hours putting that cassette together. To me, making a tape is like writing a letter -- there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again, and I wanted it to be a good one. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention . . . and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs and . . . oh, there are loads of rules." (Nick H.)

I remember thinking that I had met a soulmate in this author. This is exactly the way I’d thought about my technique. A ridiculous amount of thought goes into every aspect of the mix tape. Songs must speak to each other like lovers, beats must resemble one another from one song to the next, and you must take out ones that don’t seem to fit even if you really, really wanted to put them on the tape…I mean, there are actually rules! I have even found websites written by other mix tape aficionados and they have their own methods and processes. And while one person has a brilliant style, mostly me, I think the mix tape is personal, and you can’t really borrow from anyone else’s methods. You must develop your own flow. 

Mix tapes are also not just to be savored alone, but should be shared with people. A creation should be a mix of music that those you deem worthy don’t really know but will like. Your desired outcome is that they will think you’re cool and listen to your musical advice (because it’s far superior to that drivel they are listening to). However, beware of those who claim Celine Dion to be one of their favorite artists. They will not like a mix of the Clash, Pixies, Damien Rice, and the Rentals. They just won’t get it.

 

Mix tapes for good friends should be like letters written completely in lyrics. If you love them, you must be careful what the music reveals. You must know what it is you want to say, and be sure the music doesn’t reveal too much, but doesn’t club them over the head with affection (perish the thought, but they may not like you back). Music is a language and mix tapes are fabulous forms of communication. I've always enjoyed making mix tapes for friends. So to steal a line from Nick Hornby himself, “all I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when… other people don't like them as much as I do.”

 

I’ve made mix tapes for friends, lovers, failed lovers, those I wanted to be a lover, those I respected, those I envied, and even those I wanted to impress. It is my gift, my talent, my one strength that I can be proud of and feel superior to most everyone else, unless I do come across a more superior mix tape artist (which happens rarely, if at all). 

If I made you a mix tape (CD), it means that I must love you enough to share my art. For some, it means more. What else can I do but write you a letter in songs? Listen to what the words say. Figure it out.