At worst making a mixtape meant having a lot of luck and a lot of time. First, you had to have a hand-held cassette tape recorder. Then you had to sit next to a radio with a decent speaker and just wait for the song you wanted to come on. If you were really lucky, the radio DJ just let the song play, but most of the time he would talk during the introduction to the song or over the ending. You took what you could get.
In that situation, you were lucky just to get the song at all. You can forget about arranging the songs on the tape in any kind of order, you're recording them as you hear them come on the radio. I mean, it was really dumb, you would sit for hours with the microphone of a cassette tape recorder pressed up against a radio speaker waiting for just the right moment to hit the "record" button. Oh, and goodness forbid someone in your house should walk up to you and start talking or making any kind of noise while you're recording a song -- whatever it is they did will be on that tape.
If you had some money, you could get fancy and use a double cassette tape recorder like the one in the picture below.
And, that's the whole thing right there. Of course, there's always some satisfaction in putting together a mixtape for yourself. It's always exciting to hear how well one song moves into the next to create a message. I just found out that David Guetta's Titanium somehow sounds really good when it's preceded by Elton's Crocodile Rock. One song is hopeful sounding and the other is about being impenetrable -- together, they create this intangible feeling of fun and satisfaction.
There's no hardened set of rules when it comes to making a tape, but here are a few from High Fidelity. John Cusack does a great job of explaining how a mixtape is made (Here's the link):
The difference between a good tape and a great tape is whether you were making it for yourself or for someone you love. You almost never take the time and care to pick out just the right songs for yourself as you would for the person you want to hear the music. Like John said, you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel and it's a delicate thing.
You've got to be careful about the songs you choose. Music combined with lyrics can cause a major emotional event. Again, here's what John thinks about music and its potential impact on the psyche (link):
We're talking about some pretty powerful forces here. You can't just give someone a tape with "In Your Eyes" on it without expecting them to confront you and either accept you and your obvious confession of love or reject you and every ounce of emotion expressed in that song.
Is it worth it? It takes a lot of time and detail to make a compilation. Finding just the right songs and arranging them in a meticulous order to express an emotion is a significant commitment. And, you might never deliver the tape. If you're like I was, you probably have dozens of tapes you never delivered for fear of being rejected. And, it's a terrible thing to pour every drop of feeling you have into something only for it to sit on the desk in your bedroom as a daily reminder that you're a coward.
The most important mixtape I ever made was for my wife. I made it for her before we were even dating. I say that we weren't dating, but there's no question in my mind that despite our official status I had let myself fall right off a cliff in love with her. And, to add emotional weight behind the making of the tape, we had only known each other for about five months before I was to leave for two years as a missionary for my church.
Jessica held on to that CD for the 24 months that I was gone and she listened to it as a reminder of my love for her. This is how it is with mixtape. You let Whitney Houston and Billy Joel say what you can't say yourself and you hope it's enough.
Oh, and if you doubt the power or relevance of pop music, here you go. You're welcome (link):
No comments:
Post a Comment