Thoughts on the Mix Tape

For as long as I can remember, I have loved music. I can remember getting ‘Elton John’s Greatest Hits’ and ‘Neil Diamond’s Greatest Hits’ when I was just a little guy. And I can remember constantly going to the record store to get new music. When I first started, it was all vinyl. Soon after that, there was a big change to cassette tapes. The record store looked a lot different than before. Tapes didn’t take up much room, so the layouts of our music shops changed. And then came CDs. I can remember the first CD sections were tiny, usually shoved in a corner. The first CD I ever bought was ‘Huey Lewis and the News: Sports,’ not because this was the CD I was looking for, but because there wasn’t much of a selection and that was all I could find.

Kids today wouldn’t know what to do with a cassette tape. I’m sure they’d look at it like it was an alien relic. And when they discovered the tape itself could be pulled out, there’d be loose tape strewn about like toilet paper. They definitely were rudimentary means for listening to music. I can’t recall just how bad the sound quality was, but I remember it sucked. But they were cheap. And they did the trick. When we tell the kids of today how to use one of these alien relics, I’m sure they’d look at us like we were crazy. “You mean you had to press a button to get the tape to spin to whatever song you wanted to hear? And this spinning wasn’t exact, so you’d miss your song more times than not? And the spinning took a long time, so you’d have to sit there and wait just to hear the song you wanted to hear?” All that seems ridiculous these days. But back then, I didn’t even think twice.

When I first got into music, girls were still gross. I was a pre-teen. Music at that time didn’t have a message and songs didn’t have a meaning. They just had a good beat. Then came the teenage years and all of the sudden girls weren’t gross. Quite the opposite, actually. And while they were all I could think about, they were also scary as hell. “I can’t talk to them! And I sure as hell can’t call them on a phone!” But I can make them a tape with carefully selected songs put in an exact order that would do the talking for me. That’s brilliant. It’s go time!

When I began making mix tapes, it was cassette to cassette. No matter how good you were, these mixes were almost amateur at best. No matter how precisely you tried to hit record and play on the two different decks, there was always a lag somewhere and the end was result was always spotty with long gaps between songs or the cutting off of the beginning of the song you were trying to record. When we started recording from CD to tape, things got much more professional. You could cue up your song on the CD, hit pause, then the second you hit record, you could hit play on the cd and ‘boom!'

I wish I still had some of my mixes. I’d love to see how I built them, what songs I used, and what message or theme I was trying to convey. In many ways, building a great mix tape is similar to writing a set list for a concert. What order do you play the songs? When do you pull out the hits and when do you play the B-sides? What do you end the first set with? What song do you end the show with? And the encore? The way you build your setlist can greatly change the outcome of the show and make or break of fan’s experience. The way you build your mix tape is the same. If you screw up the order, the meaning you’re going for could be completely lost.

Throughout the years, I had a bunch of genres of mix tape that I’d use. Some mixes were car ride mixes, full of hits and in no real order. Some mixes were sad songs, meant to make you for melancholy. These didn’t have much of an order either. And then there were mixes of a particular band. Again, order was optional. The one genre that relied on critical thinking and planning was the mix for the girl. Those had to be precise. Sometimes it was for a crush who didn’t know she was your crush. With the right songs, in just the right order, you could open her eyes, show her your true feelings, and ideally make her fall in love. Other mixes were for the girlfriend and the songs chosen would be graded and analyzed and questioned and critiqued. The wrong song could end in a fight or even worse- a break up.

Kids today also have no idea how long a cassette tape was. Us old-timers know the answer is 90 minutes. You also had the 100 and 120 minute tape. But he go-to was the 90 minute cassette tape. 45 minutes each side. Choose wisely. You only have 45 minutes to make that point or achieve that mood. With time constraints in mind, I would sit down with the songs I had in mind. On a legal pad or notebook, I’d make a master list with all the songs and their time length. Next came the build. This was a trial-and-error process. For one, you needed the right order. But you also needed that order to fit in the 45 minutes you had for each side. This often meant substitutions, re-writes, more re-writes, and then finally settling on the chosen order. And the final step was the actual recording of the mix, which took the entire 90 minutes, plus the extra time needed to get everything cued up.

All my other friends were good mix makers as well. And it was fun to get mixes from them to see what kind of music they liked and what kind of style they had. Some didn’t to take it seriously at all, didn’t see what all the fuss was about, and just recorded whatever they hell they could get their hands on at the moment. Others showed potential. Some were damn right good. But none were as good as mine. None were crafted with the amount of skill, thought and preparation as mine. The mixes I made were cherished. They were prized. And they were in high demand. It was bragging rights to say you had a ‘Phil Harmonics Productions’ mix tape.

There was also another very distinct, very unique difference in my mix tapes. A calling card, if you will. And once you knew what that calling card was, you’d would always know that you were listening to one of my mixes. No one else thought to do something unique. No one else had a calling card. I always thought that was strange. Everyone was making mixes, yet everyone’s sounded like everyone else’s. Not mine. On every single mix tape I ever made, regardless of the genre, regardless of the recipient, every single mixed tape I ever made ended with Led Zeppelin’s ‘Bron-yr-aur.’ The last song on side B, no matter what the other songs before it were, was ALWAYS ‘Bron-yr-aur.’ And I’m not talking about the B-side song on Zeppelin 3. I’m talking about the amazing guitar instrumental on ‘Physical Graffiti.’ The same song that was playing on their movie The Song Remains The Same as they get in their limo and drive through New York City. It’s an incredible song. It’s been one of my favorites for over 40 years. And if it was a mix tape I made, it would always be there at the end of side B.

Mix tapes are a thing of the past these days. Nowadays I sit down on Spotify and drag songs I like into a playlist. Then that playlist is put on shuffle. No rhyme. No reason. Nowadays it’s just about getting all the music I like into the same playlist so that I can put it on shuffle and go about my business. And some of these playlists can get obnoxiously long. 35 days of continuous listening. What the hell? Or the shuffle gets so convoluted that you feel like you’re constantly listening to the same 40 songs. I was actually yelling at Spotify in my work truck today because her shuffle was weak and I was tired of the same songs. Gone is the thought and the meaning behind listening to music. Or at least it’s gone for me. I’m lazy and I’m old. I just go day to day listening to the same mix, the same songs, day after day. This isn’t a complaint, mind you. I have the best musical taste of anyone I know, I listen to the best songs, so I’m always enjoying myself. I just miss how special a mix tape was to make, to give away, and to listen to...