When I heard that cassettes are making a comeback my first thought was, Talkin’ ‘bout my generation! And then I thought there are so many reasons that makes sense. Cassette tapes are, like vinyl, or, for that matter, CDs or even the much maligned 8-track, a way to have the songs you love without worrying they’ll disappear due to copyright or other issues. Back when I had my first iPod songs would disappear from my iTunes library, or would still be listed but would be unplayable for reasons no one in Apple’s customer service could explain. With cassettes as long as you’ve got a player—and there’s a new generation of cassette players which are fueling the comeback—you can listen to your songs and you also don’t have to worry about an outside company collecting your listening and feeding it into an algorithm to spit targeted advertising at you right in the middle of a song.
The thing that made cassettes even better than vinyl, CDs, or those much maligned 8-tracks, though, was that you could record your own at home, and usually for not much money. I had a portable cassette player/recorder from when I was a kid, and as a teen got a two-deck boom box which meant I could copy songs from one cassette to another.
Here’s a question I wish I’d thought to put on social media somewhere and probably still will: what was your first mixtape? What was special about it?
I still have several mixtapes friends made for me even though I don’t have a cassette player anymore. I keep them partly for sentimental reasons but also for the playlists. The first mixtape I ever got, which, unfortunately, I’ve lost, wasn’t even given to me by a friend. A guy in my high school history class overheard me say I’d never heard Stairway To Heaven. A couple of days later he came in with a mixtape. He was also the first person I knew who had a CD player which made building mixtapes a breeze for him. In addition to Stairway it had a good dollop of other Zeppelin songs, some Pink Floyd, and The Who.
Every song on it was older than I was but still new to me. Mixtapes were a great way to find new music. I discovered Lou Reed, The Cocteau Twins, and Bauhaus through mixtapes friends gave me. I was listening to Tracy Chapman before Fast Car exploded all over the airwaves because someone gave me a mixtape with a couple of her songs. More recently the first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie well ahead of the comeback with its Awesome Mix Vol. 1 which sold about eleven thousand cassettes.
Friendships, and romantic relationships, were formed, or strengthened, over mixtapes. Even adults I knew made mixtapes for each other. An older woman I knew went through a really awful divorce. A few months later she made a mixtape for her ex-husband and mailed it to him. It was songs they’d loved together. It was a heartfelt way of saying goodbye to their marriage and to him.
Among the mixtapes I I still have was given to me by one of my oldest friends. He titled Hey! Nice Hat! That’s an inside joke, as are the liner notes he wrote. Like our friendship it’s an eclectic mix: Beethoven’s Ode To Joy from the 9th symphony, Monty Python’s Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life, the original theme from M*A*S*H, Falco’s Rock Me Amadeus, R.E.M.’s Orange Crush, and about twenty seconds of MC Hammer’s She’s Soft And Wet. That’s another inside joke.
Yes, cassettes are also limited—mostly to an hour, but that just made the selection of songs on a mixtape even more special. Cassettes are coming back. I hope mixtapes are too. And I’d still like to know: what was
I loved everything you mixed into this post, Chris. Curiously, I didn’t make or exchange mixtapes but I did the same thing with CDs. One of the mix-CDs I still have is one for my son’s 10th birthday party, with his favorite songs including “Love Shack” and “Come Go With Me.” Also, after a patient committed suicide decades ago, I compiled a CD called “Blue” with songs to help me get through that difficult time, including Todd Rundgren’s “Love is the Answer.” Thanks for mixing it up here so lyrically, as you always do.
Ann Koplow recently posted…Day 4345: Musicals
CDs are just as good, if not better, for mixes, than tapes. I learned, the hard way, that if you overplay a cassette tape it will break. Most of the cassettes we used for mixes were cheap ones and the cheap ones were really easy to overplay.
I agree wholeheartedly. Having music in ‘hard copy’ is so much better. I had the same experience once when I tried to sync my iPod and almost 1000 songs got deleted. Apple told me there was nothing they could do. I actually cried.
mydangblog recently posted…I’m Not The Problem
Losing almost a thousand songs is a terrible thing. I never had anything close to that but I had enough frustrations with Apple Music. Early on they had a customer service number you could call. Then they made it so you could only reach them via email. I got into an unbelievable chain of emails with them when the first reply I got to an issue I had was “Please provide more information.” My reply apparently went to a different person who wrote back “Please provide more information.” I won’t tell you how long this went on.