| here is an old essay I wrote... |
[Jul. 29th, 2007|04:57 am] |
The other night when I was cleaning out my closet, I found my old leather jacket. I was about to go out to see my friends Nick and Randy spin jungle at a new club downtown. I thought it might be funny if I wore it out, so I put it on. I noticed a familiar rattle in the inside pocket. I reached inside and pulled out a mix tape, appropriately titled, "Bree is stoopid." Ah, my punk rock friends. My friend Chris had given it to me for Christmas in 1998. On the way to the club, I slapped it in my hardly-ever-used cassette player in my car. And out pumped modern-punk classics like The Queers' "This Place Sucks" and G.G. Allen's "Twelve Days of Christmas." For good measure and to accurately display Chris' particular taste in music, the tape also included some Beach Boys and other assorted 60’s pop and the Go Gos’ "Lust to Love."
As soon as I put it in, I could picture my friend Chris scrambling around his basement bedroom for his 7 inches, which were folded in-between piles of dirty band tee shirts and overflowing ashtrays. I imagined him digging through his car, underneath the piles of fast food containers and empty soda cans for the tape with that live version of that song that he knew I would like… I remembered my friend John torturing him for his obsession with the Beach Boys and sappy love songs like All's "She's My Ex" and "Just Perfect." In a way, this tape summed up my friend Chris.
When I got home that night, I decided to look through the rest of my mix tapes. My freshmen year in high school, I was in love with a senior and that summer he made me a mix tape for my birthday, complete with a five page explanation of why he included each song with some background about the bands and songs. (I would later steal this technique for my own mix tapes.) As R.E.M's "You Are the Everything" played, I pictured him cautiously contemplating which songs would relate his distant crush on me, yet not reveal his true feelings too blatantly. (We ended up dating the following summer.) Or at least I hope that's what he did as he laid Julian Cope carefully next to the Beautiful South, adding some of his childhood fairy tale records in-between songs. My last semester of BU I spent studying in London. One night, I ran into a boy wearing a Screeching Weasel tee shirt at a cheesy night club. Using the tee shirt as an opening, I struck up a conversation and by the end of the night we were huddled together in a corner tossing bands we liked back and forth. I mentioned that I didn't have a lot of music because I was limited in what I could take to London to live for a semester. We exchanged addresses, since we didn't have a phone in our flat yet. That Monday, I got a mix tape with a bunch of the bands we'd talked about at the club. My roommates were so impressed with his romanticism that I was embarrassed. After college, I remember my live-in boyfriend's sister nearly dying of shock when she learned that her brother had gone to the trouble of making me a mix tape for Valentine's Day. "That's probably the most romantic thing he's ever done Bree," she said. And while it might seem like much, it was. Making a mix tape is a process.
And while mix tapes don't have to be romantic, I can safely say that all the tapes I've gotten (nearly all from boys by the way) or gave had a lot of thought behind them, if not love or lust or whatever. Anyway, the whole thing got me to thinking about mix tapes-- a concept brought to mainstream Hollywood light when John Cusack gives his dissertation on the art of the mix tape in High Fidelity. I've never been one of those girls who guys buy jewelry or flowers as gifts. I've pretty much always gotten concert tee shirts and mix tapes. And while sometimes this may bother me, I have to admit that there is no better gift than a well-done mix tape.
Mostly because, with a mix tape, there is careful planning and long hours that go into making one. I would lose entire Saturdays rummaging through my collection trying to put together the perfect, customized mix for the recipient. First you drag out all of your cassettes, records and CDs and pick out your favorite songs from each one. Then you think about each song and how cool it will make you look to the other person, meaning if you put the Cure's "Boys Don't Cry" on there because it's your favorite from that album will you look lame? Cos like everybody knows that song. They even play it on the radio. So, you opt for "Grinding Halt" instead. Then you look for obscure songs that only you have, B-Sides, 7 inches, live bootlegs. You try to include songs that represent who you are and you're sure to include enough classics with new music, so you show that you know your shit and you were into this music before it was cool, you know its history. You try and relate every aspect of your personality or mood in music. Then you work out the order. Order is very important. You want to switch up the mood and make sure nothing drags. Then you record it and hope that you songs are planned well enough that nothing gets cut off. Once it's recorded, there is packaging. Collages, drawings, etc… I am not an artist so I stuck to collages and quotes. Making a mix tape was an all day process. It took time and effort and you were limited to your own collection for the most part. Meaning you actually bought everything on there, you owned it, it was yours and therefore a testament to your impeccable taste.
Now with CD Burners and MP3's, I tend to think that making a mix for someone is not the thoughtful, romantic gesture it used to be. In fact, it's too easy. It now takes me less than a half-hour to flip through my MP3's, grab them and burn them onto a CD. Hell, I can even search for songs I don't have, listening to them and then trashing them if I don’t like them, and I can also preview the order 50 times if I wanted to. My program even prints out covers. I'm not saying I mind, but I was just thinking that we might lose an art form with all this technology. Last night I burned two CDs for my friend Kendra. It took me longer to make the covers than to burn the CDs. Now, it's probably better that I have the technology to do it because otherwise, Kendra wouldn't have gotten jack, I don't have days to spend making mix tapes any more, especially not for a chick. But you know, if I get a mix CD for Valentine's Day, I may be pissed. Not that I wouldn't value someone picking out songs they thought I would like, but it would seem somehow too easy. I mean how could dragging and dropping compare to someone agonizing for a day with the record, play and pause buttons and switching from phono to tape? I mean how will indie and punk boys get chicks now? Without mix tapes, I may never get a thoughtful gift from a guy again. |
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