The Lost Art of the Mix-tape

In a world of iPods, Playlists and iTunes, it’s easy to forget the art of the humble mixtape. Gone are the hours spent sweating over getting just the right number of songs onto the side of a TDK C-90, and it has been replaced with a simple algorithim or smart setting in iTunes. However there seems to be something of a renaissance, or at the very least a sense of nostaligia, for this somewhat old fashioned way of circulating music. Not only was there a fantastic program on Radio 4 by David Quatick (listen to it on iPlayer here), but that have also been several articles in the broadsheets, especially here, in the Independent.

Now, as something of an afficianado of the mix-tape back in the day, it got me all misty eyed about those lost days spent making tape after tape in my student house or back at my parents house. It made me nostalgic fro the clunk-click of pressing play and record at just the right time. The despair of hearing your tape run out seconds before the climax of your epic closer. And of course, who could forget the hours spent making artwork and play-testing your creation until it was just perfect.

Although I would later move on to mini-disc and later iTunes Playlists, my first love was always the mix-tape, and during my recent clear out, I found several classic examples of this artform and it made me misty-eyed for those lost days. Tapes that introduced me to the likes of Jane’s Addiction, Dinosaur Jr., Teenage Fanclub, Tom Waits, Billy Bragg , Nick Cave and more besides. OK, so it’s so much easier to create a playlist on iTunes and then burn it to a CD, but it somehow just isn’t as rewarding. Therefore, I thought I would share with you my top 10 mix-tape tips that I formulated over the years,

1. Pick a theme, whether it’s girls names, types of food or indie rock, you need a solid basis for any mixtape to truly work. (Of course your theme can always be ‘Random’!)

2. No songs over 5 minutes or you won’t have room for anything else – although I distinctly remember Carter making a mixtape that comprised of the longest songs he could when we were at uni and it consisted of about 5 songs on a C-90

3. The most important songs are the first and last of each side. Pick an upbeat tune with a strong intro to start and a mellow acoustic number to close.

4. Never have the same artist twice. Variety is the key!

5. If you are chosing songs by artist, then chose something obscure, not the most obvious ones. This is your chance to educate people musically, so don’t always go for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ when you could chose ‘Lovebuzz’.

6. Although obscure is invariably best, mix it up with the odd ‘crowd pleaser’, your potential listeners won’t regret it. (This is especially key when making tapes for car journeys, as you will need as many ‘hits’ as possible to avoid the tape going out of the window at 70mph).

7. Once you start recording, always press pause between songs, never press stop – unless that is you want that horrid thunk noise in the middle.

8. Songs must always fit exactly. A few seconds dead air is fine, but having a song get interrupted and then continue on the second side is a cardinal sin. Make sure to have a good collection of short songs to fill space (or invest in a stop watch!).

9. If you are making the tape for someone, make sure to be as thorough as possible with the tracklisting. This may be the first and only time they hear this song, so make sure they know what it is. This is especially important if you are trying to impress a ‘lady’.

10.  Album artwork. The cherry on top of the cake is a good tape sleeve. Perhaps the only time once you leave play school that it is acceptable to cut pictues out of a magazine and get pritt stick on the sofa. Choose an interesting and enigmatic image and title, that more than likely has nothing to do with the subject of the CD in question. If all fails though, scrawl it all down in biro.

After all that, I think it’s time I dusted off my recording muscles and broke out the sellotape to stick over the tabs of my old C-90s. I wonder if I can make a tape comprises solely of song beginning with the letter J.

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