The (lost) art of the mix tape

I’ve been wanting to make a mix tape, but I’m starting to think the form is disappearing and maybe I’m dating myself in the attempt, or maybe having some mini midlife crisis. Am I twenty-nine or twenty-one? Can I be both? Does it matter? Fuck it, I’m making it.

Everyone has a jukebox in their computer. (My computer is this combination home stereo, newspaper, mailbox, notepad.) You give a name to someone, like “Karen Dalton”, or “Sufjan Stevens”, like it’s a juicy secret, a gift, and they’re off digging into the infinite library the internet affords. Or maybe you’ll just rip a cd onto a friend’s computer while they’ve slipped off to the bathroom. So no one needs a mixtape anymore. No one wants to spend the time, unless there’s love involved. I imagine that auditory seduction still takes place. Does it still happen at 29? I hope it does. If a man can’t dance, he should make a mixtape.

I miss the pastime. I miss sticking my finger into the little cassette sprocket and winding it by hand, until the clear space, the white noise, is passed. There was a rhythm to making a tape, a slow, pensive rhythm. I’d play a track, think about it, play another, and rewind, just to hear the two songs next to each other, if they’re good together. Then I’d open up a bottle of wine to enhance the mood, and listen to the bird perched on my shoulder, telling me what song might be just right, next. What would build, surprise, thrill. What would please the particular person. I think about it. Then I think about it too much. I get nine songs in a line, and play it in the car, play it while I’m making spaghetti. I make notes. I change the whole thing. It’s like a scientific experiment/ artistic process. I suppose you could make a case that they’re somewhat the same thing, a combination of emotion, subjectivity, objective evaluation, and technique.

They’re delicate things, mix tapes. Somehow three songs together can depress or bore, or elate you. How do you make that happen? And is it okay if it doesn’t? How do you get from the first to the second song? Somehow the rest of the tape hangs on that balance. It tells you how far you’re willing to leap. Can you get from the Flaming Lips to Cesaria Evora and make it work? And a certain amount of momentum to the thing would be nice. Some kind of emotional arc. The songs should flow into each other, but excite you at the same time.

Anyway, I’m in the midst of one. Not for anyone in particular, no hidden messages, it’s just for me. Music I’ve been listening to since my big breakup in February. Not all sad, definitely not. It’s a way of looking at how I’ve changed, perhaps. Or a way of putting all the sadness in a box. A nice box. A fun box. I’ll let you know how it goes.