The Complication of a Compilation

"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules." Rob Gordon in High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.

There are some wonders that the tide of time cannot eek away at and a well crafted and lovingly, obsessively, created cassette mix tape is just one of those things.

The most powerful means of communication in the hands of the music fan it can be a means of showing your interest in a potential date, a joke between friends, a lasting memory or a dream playlist. It's always a love letter to the music and however innocent it seems there is no escape from the geek posturing and underlying current of music knowledge / taste competition.

I've created no end of mix tapes in my time. I've used them to forge friendships, I've used them as coy admissions of attraction, I've used them as overt gestures of love and yes, I've used them to show off. In one case I've even used them to cement a friendship with someone I'd never met in Australia - a sort of aural pen pal system we called the Envoy tapes.

Whatever the purpose each compilation becomes a little capsule of influences or music-matched-to-thoughts at any given moment in time. Listening back now I can hear there are songs I often use as shorthand for the same sentiment. The tapes I've made for my now husband over the years have overlaps of songs, because they are 'our' songs or contain the message I want him to hear.

There is also something about the mix tape (as opposed to compilation cd or playlist) that can't be replicated by the later technologies and yet cassettes don't get the romantic nostalgia that vinyl receives now.

Maybe it's because they're clunky, a little bit chunky, take up loads of room and are somehow forever stuck in the '80s. Those are things I like about them though. That and the fact they're usually finate - no matter how much love goes into making a tape at some point it's going to twist or unravel into a hopeless mess in the player. In fact, the more successful your mix is and the more it is loved and listened to, the faster it's going to reach the point of destruction.

And aside from the chosen tracks there is a lot of love wrapped up in the act of making a tape. Playlists can be banged together in minutes and burned to disc over and over. A tape is an altogether more solitary creature of social music sharing. Firstly they take a lot of time to make.

You need to consider your tracklisting very carefully to make sure it tells the right story and has impact as well as fits the two 45 minute sides exactly. Then you need to gather your source material without getting distracted into listening to other jewels in your collection. Only now moving onto the recording, a consuming activity as you need to be on stand-by to pause the committal to tape after each song, cue up the next and set it off again. Once all tracks are on the tape you need to do a listen through and write up your sleeve notes. Finally there is the artwork - the photocopied inlay, the creative collage lovingly Pritt-sticked down to reflect the nature of the tape. There is an art to it and it's a labour of love.

I miss making and receiving mixtapes (not that I got as many as I gave). A cd or a shared playlist is all well and good but primarily is just that - sharing, not speaking with music. I admit my heart has beat a little faster since discovering a stack of blank C90s while hunting out old tapes. I'm already making notes and thinking of the clunkclickhiss of filling up that cassette.

This post, a Twitter conversation, a presentation about a (so far) imaginary night school course in the art of making mix tapes and a few other blogs (including a great piece by Dan Slee) were sparked by a piece on Radcliffe and Maconie (Radio 2)...you can listen again until Thursday 8 April 2010. Starts at 1:17.50 in.

You might also Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture edited by Thurston Moore.

IMPORTANT: Have I ever made you a mix tape? Do you still have it? Was it any good? Had I bothered with sleeve notes and art work? Dig it out and let me hear about it please...would love to make a little catalogue of tapes I have compiled! Or, if you ask really really nicely I might even use one of my remaining blank C90s to mix it up on tape for you.