I discovered this website, Muxtape. It's a site people upload mp3s to.* They create mp3 mixes that are about as long as a standard album, 12 to 14 songs, and you can listen to the tunes in streaming audio format. So far, I haven't found any mixes that really jumped out at me as that perfect Awesome Mix Tape I really needed to hear today, but I still like the idea.It brings me back. I know this is obvious, but mix tapes were rad. The thing was, you had to take time to make them; you had to put the needle on the record or the tape in the other cassette deck and listen to the mix as you made it. If you were using a 90 or 120-minute tape, that was a good couple of hours spent hanging in your room, listening to music, fantasizing about the hottie you were going to give the tape to. Because, the thing is, 85% of all mix tapes were made for current or prospective hook-ups.** They were a demonstration of taste and style, and a skillfully crafted one was almost as effective as a totally sweet dance move in making romance happen.
The fun of the cassette format, teenage make-outs to the side, is that you could toss tapes around and pile them up in boxes in a way that you can't get away with with CDs or iPods. A walkman was portable and durable; you could stuff it in your pocket or your back pack and not spend the whole time worrying that you were going to break it by accidentally applying two foot-pounds of pressure at the wrong moment.
The other great thing about tapes, something that sets them apart from records, CDs, and mp3 mixes alike, is that they started from where you stopped them. This led to actually listening to every song on an album, not just re-listening to the first few tunes after you put the CD in or start the mix. I still have tons of CDs from the last ten years whose latter halves I barely know compared to the former; in tape days, I knew whole albums all the way through.
So: mix tapes. They were awesome. Next, I'll discuss why the 8-bit NES was the best video game machine of all time. I'm showing my age a lot these days.
* Other ways to phrase this: "A site to which people upload mp3s." "A site up to which people mp3s load." "A site load up to mp3s, people!"
** This is also true of back rubs.
5 comments:
my "new" car has a tape player, so when i was cleaning out my closet, instead of throwing all my old tapes into storage, i put them on the floor of my car. now i have the most nostalgic feeling every time i drive. i just look at the foot of the passenger seat and pick a tape out of the pile. i don't have any mix tapes from boyfriends though, only ladies and gay boys. none of the guys i dated bothered with mix tapes. i think it is a major flaw in my dating history. one of many major flaws in my dating history i suppose, but that shit belongs on my blog, not your comment section.
No way, dude, it's totally relevant! I think our generation's personal histories are written in mix tapes.
I think the best mix tapes were when you got a 90 minute tape and tried to fit as much as you could on it - I remember one of my favorite gifts was a mix tape I got from my cousins for my birthday when I was a teenager. :) I still like records better... but I do appreciate your portability point. :) Records aren't precisely portable.
Records are dope. I wish my current apartment was large enough to accommodate my turntable; right now it lives in the top corner of my closet, waiting for a home.
Points, I have a couple!
One; a brilliant set of observations which serves among other things to remind me how much I wish you guys were back in Portland
Two; historically having been bad about being able to even talk to crushes, especially in the cassette era, probably contributes to my most prized mix tape being the "Nu Myusik" comp that my cousins Adam and Ziggy made for me when I was perhaps 10. Residents to Dead Kennedys to Adam and the Ants, and the other side having some great music they did on a synthesizer which Adam built. Sadly, lost upon lending it to a music professor I had who had been Adam's high school electronic music teacher, back about when he built the synth.
There was, I think, actually a third point, really summing up my thoughts on mix tapes, or perhaps bringing in another angle I had. But I started this at 1:30, then we had Bicycle Maintenance Day II, and now I am tired and slightly crisp.
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