100 Things, Day 2
Apr. 27th, 2012 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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luxken27's ode to Buddy Holly, today's installment is the art of the mix tape.
My first* mixtape was made for me by a friend of mine in Australia. We met online doing a CCG card trade, although I think we'd interacted a bit prior to the trade. He was away from home and I didn't mind waiting for him to make it back home for the trade, so we emailed. And when he did get home, we went to letters and email. And that somehow translated to me getting a mixtape in the mail one day. I don't remember much about how it came to be, like whether I'd mentioned I'd never really gotten one before or he just wanted to introduce me to his kind of music. Whatever the case, a tape I now had.
Which is how I learned that in the right hands, a mixtape could be a musical map to whomever made it. Listening to the tape was a lot like talking to him. Sometimes bouncing around the room, seeming like he'd never come down off whatever high he was possibly on (pretty much the entirety of side one) or randomly ending the tape with a snippet from a Kevin Smith movie or getting to the slightly less bouncy but no less fun debates over love in its many different forms. Y'know, random and awesome and completely unlike anyone I've known since.
Of course this meant that I had to try it myself and for quite awhile it was pretty likely that at any given time, Cass, Ari, or I (not to mention nebs and Nelle) was working on a tape for someone else, or possibly everyone else. You had to take your time and plan with a proper mix tape. You had to know exactly how long you had before the tape ran out and had to be quick on the draw to catch a song as it was ending so you didn't end up with abrupt transitions. You had to know when to hold back on the sad songs because too much sad and you'll break someone's heart all over again. And then there was the question of whether you were tailoring the tape to their tastes or giving them a piece of your own and their tastes be damned.
Obviously, mix tapes? Serious business. But yeah, the art of the mixtape is a life changer.
Selected songs from the mix tape in question:
Side 1, Track 1:
Side 2, Track 1:
Track 4:
Track 6:
Track 9 (last full song):
* - Not entirely true. This is the first tape I got to keep, but that's a story for another time.
luxken27's ode to Buddy Holly, today's installment is the art of the mix tape. My first* mixtape was made for me by a friend of mine in Australia. We met online doing a CCG card trade, although I think we'd interacted a bit prior to the trade. He was away from home and I didn't mind waiting for him to make it back home for the trade, so we emailed. And when he did get home, we went to letters and email. And that somehow translated to me getting a mixtape in the mail one day. I don't remember much about how it came to be, like whether I'd mentioned I'd never really gotten one before or he just wanted to introduce me to his kind of music. Whatever the case, a tape I now had.
Which is how I learned that in the right hands, a mixtape could be a musical map to whomever made it. Listening to the tape was a lot like talking to him. Sometimes bouncing around the room, seeming like he'd never come down off whatever high he was possibly on (pretty much the entirety of side one) or randomly ending the tape with a snippet from a Kevin Smith movie or getting to the slightly less bouncy but no less fun debates over love in its many different forms. Y'know, random and awesome and completely unlike anyone I've known since.
Of course this meant that I had to try it myself and for quite awhile it was pretty likely that at any given time, Cass, Ari, or I (not to mention nebs and Nelle) was working on a tape for someone else, or possibly everyone else. You had to take your time and plan with a proper mix tape. You had to know exactly how long you had before the tape ran out and had to be quick on the draw to catch a song as it was ending so you didn't end up with abrupt transitions. You had to know when to hold back on the sad songs because too much sad and you'll break someone's heart all over again. And then there was the question of whether you were tailoring the tape to their tastes or giving them a piece of your own and their tastes be damned.
Obviously, mix tapes? Serious business. But yeah, the art of the mixtape is a life changer.
Selected songs from the mix tape in question:
Side 1, Track 1:
Side 2, Track 1:
Track 4:
Track 6:
Track 9 (last full song):
* - Not entirely true. This is the first tape I got to keep, but that's a story for another time.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-27 04:32 pm (UTC)SHE HADN'T EVEN LISTENED WHILE MAKING THE TAPE!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-27 04:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-27 04:44 pm (UTC)By the time I was ready to make mix tapes again, it was a moot point; MP3 had already arrived :( WHat can you do now, give people a Play List? *siiiiigh*
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 12:32 pm (UTC)Agreed on the obsessive listening, which is why I may or may not have tracklistings scribbled on notes, all tucked away somewhere 'safe.' So safe that I only find them when I'm not looking for them, of course.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-28 01:38 am (UTC)I, too, did the mix tape thing back in the day. (Oh, man, how I loved having music nerd penpals!!) The first few were shitty, but I gradually got better at it. The last two mixes I made were in college; one for a guy who was a senior when I was a freshman (I had the worst crush on him, hehe), and the other as a Valentine's mix. That one was the first time I managed to tell a story with just music, and I think I love it to this day for that reason.
Memories, memories... ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 12:38 pm (UTC)I do know that I did at least a few where I had people ask me to replace their copies when moves and changing cars did the tape in, so that was nice. But I lost my gift for making them when I made one for the ex and he requested it to bounce around a lot. Like every other song a lot. At the time the trade off seemed fair, but possibly less so in retrospect.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-29 07:48 pm (UTC)Unless you're making a dance mix, isn't that missing the point spectacularly??
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-30 08:58 am (UTC)