I'm Swimming Through the Stereo

Zen and the Art of the Mix Tape

Rob: The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.

And that qoute is from one of my favorite movies, the 2000 masterpiece starring John Cusack, High Fidelity. I've been thinking about this post for quite awhile and finally decided to put said words to print.

Courtesy of my favorite online reference source, here is some history on the mixtape.

When I bought my first computer back in the summer of '97, it was just prior to the MP3/CD/DVD burner revolution. MP3s were practically unknown, CD Burners were only for the few bourgeoisie who could afford one, and DVDs were just coming into the marketplace. That said, I did not get my first CD burner until August of aught-four when I bought my sleek new laptop. Having a CD burner I actually got to be able to make mix-CDs. As I have made various mixes throughout the past year for both myself and others, I have realized that making a mix CD is a definite fine art.

The Songs
When making a mix, the songs are the meat. They provide the substance and will convey the message you are trying to send. All of the mixes I have made have some sort of meaning. Whether it is making a CD to get me pumped to run a marathon...to send to someone across the sea I've never met...or making a sweet-ass 80s mix, each song must serve a purpose. It is exteremely difficult to make a good mix with some shitty filler music. CDs hold around 74 minutes of music. That is a lot of songs. Most of the professionals (i.e. the guys that you hear on the radio) rarely use all 74 minutes. Most CDs don't even go a full hour. That said, the home mix-maker feels not only inclined, but it is a duty to fill up the whole CD. Not only do you need a lot of songs, but you need upwards of 15-20 songs that have both significance and meaning to the theme of the mix.

I am a personal believer in themes when it comes to making a mix. I find it particularly hard and honestly, the quality is bad, when various songs are thrown together that seem to have no connection. Having a theme doesn't mean you need to stick to similar sounds & genres. No. But you need the glue that holds your meat together. OK, perhaps that is not the most accurate metaphor, but my readership is an intelligent one and gets the idea. The theme is that glue. Whether it is a "Names Named" mix where each song title is a person's name aka "Alison, Kate, Wendell Gee, King Nothing...etc" or a all songs that contain a similar word (World is a good one for that), a them is not only needed but really required in order to have a valid mix.

Song Order
Once the songs are determined the next order of business is the song order. This may be even more crucial then the actual songs themselves. You need a song order that flows from one song to the next. You are always going to have sections that move from loud to soft and from slow to fast. These sections are where you need to pay careful attention. The song order will make or break your mix CD. After I have my songs selected, I will pine for hours listening to the last 30 seconds of one song and the first 30 of the next to make sure I have a good transistion. For the hard-core musicphiles out there, knowing the keys of the songs will ensure smooth and elegant transitions. A lot of people like to make the mix top-heavy where the first couple songs are "the best" and the last songs get lost. That is a no-no. You need to order the songs so that the mix ebbs and flows. When you realize how hard it is to actually order the songs you will appreciate the fact that bands pay careful attention to song order and spend copious amounts of time to perfect it.

Two of my all-time favorite transitions come from, who else, R.E.M. From their 1988 output, Green, the song The Wrong Child* (probably one of their least favorite songs amongst their hardcore fans) comes before Orange Crush (one of their more favorite songs). At the end of The Wrong Child, Michael Stipe holds onto an innocent plea of "it's Okayyyyyy" while an acoustic guitar backs him. This follows with a moment of quiet leading into the snare-drum intro into the hard-rocker Orange Crush. Likewise on their 1998 LP (and debut as a trio) the song Hope leads into At My Most Beautiful. The last minute or so of Hope is an instrumental mess of building noise and dissonance. At the last second the noise releases, reverberates for a split second leading to the quiet piano intro of At My Most Beautiful. Two styles: soft to loud and loud to soft are both described here. In the context of their respective albums and songs, it takes the whole experience a step higher.

The Reason
Ahh yes and so we've come to why you are making said mix. Some of the reasons for a mix: participation in a mix-CD trade; a party mix; a road trip mix; maybe you want to give someone (a friend, family member) exposure to other styles of music; and of course one of the most popular reasons to make a mix is for that special someone in your life. Whatever the reason, I've thought about the songs that have 1) been given to me on a mix and 2) I have given to others on a mix. And this has gotten me thinking:

If someone puts a song on a mix for me, am I allowed to put it on a mix for someone else?
and the corollary:
If I put a song on a mix for someone, does that forbid me from putting that song on another mix for someone else?

Are songs that are shared between people effectively contracts between the two parties or are they just an entity of the public domain that anyone can share and can be shared by many peoples? I have broken the 2nd part of my corollary. I did it without even thinking about it. But then it got me thinking about my own style of making mixes -- to include at least one song I've had on other mixes as a way to overlap them. Now that just makes my corollary invalid, but I'm just stating questions & opinon here. By no means are these rules set in stone. Just thoughts I've had.

As a reward for those that have made it this far, I'll leave you with two links from Tiny Mix Tapes. OK, that's officially three, but who's counting. The first is an article entitled "Music Snobbery in the Dating World." The second is to their Automatic Mix Tapes Generator. Readers can submit topics to be covered and others will provide a written mix of songs for that compilation. It is a fun read for both the topics people submit and the songs on the mixes. It updates every couple of days.

So the next time you do a mix, think about what you are doing. It is a true art form. Each song has meaning and where that song occurs in the mix gives it enhanced meaning. Go forth and make good mixes!