Friday, May 2, 2008

Mix Tape

Some people buy gifts, I compile music.
This past week I had a project burning in my head, screaming to get out, but my laptop burner was busted. It was like writers block for me... it was horrible. I needed to get something out and couldn't, I felt tremendous frustration. I happen to think you either "get" or "don't get" mixtapes... or in todays vernacular "Playlists."
It's ok if you don't... kind of like people who don't like pets (i.e. me). Politely people who do like pets find us pathetic, but we just don't talk about it. It's the same in the "mix tape" culture. Some of you think I'm kidding... Some of you know I'm not.

This guy gets it...
To me, making a tape is like writing a letter — there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with "Got to Get You Off My Mind", but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules.- High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

Enter new technology... My friend Jay introduced me to playlist.com and I am in love. That's what you hear playing during your browsing of this blog. If you don't like the music or are playing your own when you arrive, or worse yet thinking your own thoughts... you can hit pause on the player.

1 comment:

Jenni Clayville said...

I'm still trying to figure out what you're trying to tell me from your Christmas CD you made me this year.