The humble art of the mixtape…

I’m sure that calling it a “mixtape” is some type of American colloquialism, therefore I feel slightly dirty using it on my blog, but sod it, that’s what I’m going to call it. Those of you around my age will remember these, and the joy they used to bring you.

You give a friend a C90, it returns several days later, filled with questionable music. It was like the Napster of the Nineties. Or the eMule of the Eighties. And possibly the WinMX of the Sev… wait, that one doesn’t really work.

Andy the Iridium Fan is someone who still embraces the analogue era, and likes nothing more than to slap on his walkman, and ride around the streets of Hartlepool listening to his compilations of C120s, entitled “Music for the Weekend”.

You may know that I’m currently borrowing it a tape recorder of his, in the vain hope of getting the majority of my decaying tapes onto some type of digital media. This is a job not for the faint hearted. In payback for the loan of the tape deck, he thrust a C120 tape into my hand and DEMANDED I fill it with shit. OK, a little bit of artistic license there, I just had to fill it. Now, for obvious reasons, such as I don’t particularly want to be sued, I can’t divulge the contents of the afore-mentioned tape (Dear Lawyers, for all you know, it’s actually 120 minutes of me gargling in the bath), but choosing the tracks to go on there was extremely difficult.

I started the tape about 6 weeks ago, and only finished it two days ago. What was odd, is the complicated procedure that some of the songs…. no, sorry, sounds of me gargling in the bath, went through… it would have started life on record, recorded via USB turntable, compressed to MP3, written to CDR, played on CD player, recorded onto tape…. in fact, this tape…

It did drive one thing home, how much I missed the whole “mixtape” idea. With archives of entire music catalogues at our disposal at the click of a mouse, it seems that a once fine art is dying out, replaced with faceless playlists, on third-party websites. I still have tapes recorded for me by Chad, and I’m sure I’ve blogged about them in the past. As much as I hate to say it, these were my greatest influence when it comes to music I listen to 20 years later. In 2nd place, are the tapes Daddykins used to get from the petrol station. In fact, I’m listening to “No Regrets” by The Walker Brothers, which I first heard on one of those tapes.

And, for those of you of a nosey disposition, here’s a little behind-the-scenes look of me taking the above photo, courtesy of ATIF…

Resting my camera on a mug half-full of tea. Quinticenstally British. For those who have been following, I named my tape “Music For the Weak End 1”. I have no idea if there’ll be a follow-up.

UPDATE: March 2022… there was never a follow-up.

Published by

MercuryVapour

I'm a man of few words. Any questions?

7 thoughts on “The humble art of the mixtape…”

  1. I think Sony just put out it’s last ever cassette Walkman recently.

    I can’t believe people still use tapes. My CD/MD collection looks positively modern in comparison. I think the “mixtape” hasn’t died yet, I often burn a cd of songs I like for friends. Same idea, limited space and still a nice, cheap gift.

  2. Wow, somebody still uses MD? Now *that’s* a surprise! I haven’t seen a minidisk for… oooh, 10 years?

    For me, at least, the greatest revolution in music has to be the MP3. I can carry the vast majority of my CD collection with me on my phone, on a 16Gb card smaller than my thumb nail…

    It does take the personality out of it though, and I don’t think many people would be too impressed with a 16gb memory card filled with some of the shite I listen to…!

  3. Heh, you’re right. I remember that’s where i got ‘Dominic The Italian Christmas Donkey’ from… what a tune

  4. have not used a music tape in years! the last time i used a music tape was about 3 years ago. i’ll have to look for my old music tapes. i’ll have to see if they work in my car.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.