Ipod shuffles: the mixtape for a new generation?
Okay, so now I’m going to make you jog your memory back in time, back to the first time a member of the opposite sex affected you. So much so, that you became like a possessed soul, spending hours each night digging through record crates, shuffling through cd boxes, tuning into the radio or waiting to record that fresh new clip from TV, just so you could piece together a personalised mix tape to show them exactly how you felt.
If you’re a hardcore music fan, then it may not have just been a member of the opposite sex that had you concealing fresh black bags under your eyes each morning before class. It may be the meeting of minds in a new friendship, like when you first share a class with someone that’s been sharing the playground with you for years, but remained a stranger, only to find that they have similar tastes, interests and ideals as you do. So you each go home and seal the fresh budship with a perfectly selected mix, which you will swap in the morning.
The heightened feeling we got when we received these mix tapes never seemed to lose it’s lustre, it didn’t matter how many we got, we treated them all with the same love and respect, playing them until the tape inside the cassette slowly started to unravel from too much playing and rewinding in our walkmans and stereos. They were our own little piece of someone’s heart, someone that loved us and cared about us enough to share some of the most amazing and beautiful music they’d ever come across. We’d listen to them so much that we suffered something called a ‘mixtape recall’ for years to come…whenever we’d hear one of those tracks later on, whether it was on the radio, on CD or in a club, our minds would instantly start breaking into whichever track came next on the mixtape the track appeared on…remember that feeling? It still haunts me to some degree to this day?
The fall of the mixtape, I thought just came with age and the amount of ‘spare time’ we just can’t seem to find anymore. As we started to find ourselves studying for Uni, working away all of our spare time or taking on all of the other responsibilities that came with being an adult. But it seems this wasn’t the case at all, it was just a change in generations and with the new millennium, somehow the gentle art of making a mixtape slipped through the cracks and didn’t make it into the new generation.
With the rise and rise of music downloading you’d think that mixtapes would be enjoying the greatest hayday they’ve ever experienced, albeit in the form of mix CDs (which, when you think about it kinda defeats the purpose of the mixtape, with the horrible ‘skip’ button) rather than tapes, but alas, it seems we’ve all become a little too absorbed in our own lives to reach out musically to those around us.
I attempted a few times to bring back the art of the mix, but instead found myself making them for a friend that sits all too comfortably waiting to be told what is cool and what she should like, with no thirst of her own to go out in search of it on her own two feet and own open mind. So the brilliant mixes kinda just started to turn her into an empty copy of me or whomever else decided to take the time to make her a mix. Is this the way of the new generation? I mean there’s so much out there to enlighten and so much still out there to discover and be enlightened with when the favour is returned, but the only people I’ve found that really understand the concept of a mix, seem to be DJs and band members.
I’ve now given up on a big resurgence in the mixtape/mix CD market and finally invested in the Apple Generation. I got an ipod shuffle and seeing as though I seem to get sick with 60% of anything I would pick in record time. I decided to look to someone who still understands the value of a good mix (one of the hottest French producers of our time, no less), someone who still subscribes to the mixtape ethos for his sets and handed over my virgin ipod to his expert mixing hands to surprise me.
Is this the start of a new trend? Compiling Ipod shuffles rather than tapes and CDs? Is this what we’ve come to? Does it hold the same magic as a tape with a carefully collaged cover and tracklist written in scribbly adolescent writing?
Are there any surviving mixtape makers still out there that survived the D day that the downloading generation brought upon us?
Semone Maksimovic
lars wrote:
…I hope so!
thanks for reminding us
Posted on 27-Okt-06 at 1:57 pm | Permalink
nimrod wrote:
hm … back in da days it was mainly male buddies I got mix tapes from and it was male buddies I made mix tapes for … most girls just never really appreciated the effort that much … or weren’t that big on napalm death, slayer and geto boys.
Posted on 27-Okt-06 at 3:56 pm | Permalink
nimrod wrote:
yeah, imagine a gal’s heart throbbing to the snare on “scum” or to bushwick bill rapping “welcome to the disease there is no cure for…” nope … not very likely. mix tapes were so much male bonding … i still keep a few even if I don’t have a tape player any more and will likely never listen to them again.
Posted on 27-Okt-06 at 4:15 pm | Permalink
semone wrote:
really?! my god! I couldn’t imagine fgrowing up without making them every night and getting them every second day…without them I would have had no avenue of self-expression!
Then again, I’ve always known I was one of the guys…getting most of them into Atari Teenage Riot, the Beasties in their dirty sounding punk/metal days, making tapes for the older boy that belonged to my parents friends…charming him with the likes of Gunners, Slayer and *big shudders* the hair metal revolution of Poison etc.
Posted on 28-Okt-06 at 12:37 pm | Permalink
arty fischl wrote:
i still have all my mixtapes from my eighties, made by myself and only for myself. listening to them reminds me of this time and brings back all the memories, the feelings inside of me that i had when i was, hmmm, let me say younger than today!
the best mixtapes i’ve ever got from anyone else were those of my girlfriend. and people, i can tell you she’s 100% female!!!
hotellounge of belgium band dEUS broke my heart and breaks it gain and agin while listening this tape. sometimes it’s not that easy. it’s too beautiful and pure love.
p.s. hey semone, very nice to get in touch with you. it cuts the long distance between europe and australia in pieces. its good to know thta there is a reliable member of our little png-family on the other half of the world!!
Posted on 29-Okt-06 at 12:35 pm | Permalink
Semone wrote:
Ah, glad I bought some mixtape memories back to people…The Cure’s Love Song on a mixtape broke my heart as a teen and still does the same thing to this day, so beautiful!! At The Drive In’s Napoleon Solo is another more recent fave to stick on a mix and rip people’s heart’s out with (it’s about two young female friends of theirs that died in a car accident while they were away on tour…you actually hear the tears in Cedric’s voice, as his heart is torn).
Great to get in touch with you guys too
I love being a distant member of the PNG family, the love is strong even across seas and language barriers 
x
Posted on 30-Okt-06 at 12:45 pm | Permalink
micky wrote:
hey semone! this one indeed brought back good memories, as mixtapes usually do, when you listen to them years after they were made for you…
i only did those tapes for girls and women i admire(d), and maybe one copy for my best male buddie, but only when i thought, that the mix was ultimate stuff!
but there is one thing which will never come with CD-mixes and iPod- and whatsoever-Shuffles: ORIGINALITY, CREATIVITY AND HEART(BLOOD). okay it´s three things ; )
the cut and paste cover, handwritten song titles, maybe excerpts from important parts of the lyrics (hidden love messages, …), the possibility of mixing in whatever you want (dialogue from the tv-screen, spoken word from dictaphones etc.) and the neccessarity of composing all this stuff to one fine meal in hours of experimenting with your analogue equipment, changing the recording level from the seveninch to the film sequence… this is real HEART, this is real SOUL, this is what music is all about.
no CD, no iPod no mp3 can capture this.
thanks for reminding us, as lars said, I agree to that!
p.s. i would like the idea, to send you two mixtapes: one i did, and one i got from some girl back in the days. if i get the same from you. but it got to be old ones!
just send me yours snailmail address on myspace ; )
Posted on 30-Okt-06 at 6:47 pm | Permalink
semone wrote:
hey Micky,
Okay, you’re on…what’s your email address and I’ll send through my postal…haha, there’s going to be some mixtape goodness coming your way soon
I do agree that mp3 players can’t be filled with the same love and heart-wrenching attention, but when it comes to cds, I always make covers just like the old days of the cassette…the only annoyance with them however is the ’skip’ button though
As for my ipod shuffle, I have no doubt I chose the best person possible to fill it and know it’s been filled from the heart…so much so that he bought one himself and filled it just the same
Posted on 31-Okt-06 at 12:48 pm | Permalink
micky wrote:
hey semone!
your last sentence is the important thing: there is still a place for love and romance with/in everything (even CDs and iPods), you´re right.
i think there´s some romance going on…
; )
I added you on myspace to exchange the addresses…
see you there!
Posted on 31-Okt-06 at 1:16 pm | Permalink
nimrod wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP83IrERdP4&eurl=
now that is a wild mix
Posted on 31-Okt-06 at 4:03 pm | Permalink
semone wrote:
haha…that’s HILARIOUS N
Now Micky, don’t go jumping to conclusions, although I do love this man with all my heart for what he’s done for music, that may very well be just all…although a little international flirting never hurt anyone, it’s just cool to believe in romance again sometimes
Okay, I just added you on myspace…so let’s get address -swapping
Posted on 01-Nov-06 at 9:52 am | Permalink
persona non grata » mixtapes and misshapes wrote:
[…] Ergänzend zu Semones wunderbarer Abhandlung über den Verlust der Mixtapes (Jugend, Unschuld…) hier noch ein Link zu einem netten Versuch der Wiederbelebung: das Magazin rote raupe bietet schon seit einiger Zeit selbstgezimmerte Zusammenstellungen zum Onlinehören an. Ist nicht unbedingt persönlich und hat weder liebenswert gestaltete Cover, noch zuckersüße Schönschrift zu bieten. Aber immerhin 20 Mal Musik zum Entdecken. […]
Posted on 04-Dez-06 at 2:40 am | Permalink