I know, I know… they call it making a playlist now.  You grab a few tracks from Spotify and gather them together and call it done.  Where it used to take a good couple of hours to make one on a 90-minute cassette, now it only takes an hour, if that.

As I’ve explained before, my current mixtape creation process is by way of copying mp3s into a new folder, shuffling them into some semblance of order, and retagging them accordingly.  I’m keeping it old-school by having a sort-of-physical end result instead of a playlist.

I’ve noticed over the past few years that one thing hasn’t changed:  the urge to make a mixtape usually comes from hearing a specific song that I truly love.  For instance, my current obsession with Bob Moses’ “Heaven Only Knows” has inspired me to throw the next Listen in Silence mix together.  From there I’ll think a bit about what other songs caught my attention over the last few months.  They’ll just as often be tracks I’ve been hearing on Indie617 or SiriusXM as they’ll be deep cuts from newer albums I’ve downloaded.  The rest of the process is still the same, asking the same questions: what’s the best opening track?  Closing track?  Which songs segue the best?  Which ones sound awkward?  The only thing really missing is writing out the tracks on the c-card.

Do I listen to these after I’ve made them?  Sure!  I listen to them a lot, actually, just as I always have.  I listen to them during writing sessions, during the Day Job, or when I’m at the gym.  And they’re great to listen to on long flights as well.  I’ll even listen to older ones I’d made a few years previous.

I don’t share them as much as I used to, though.  Back in high school I’d give my buddy Chris the track list or make a copy of it for him.  I used to make the occasional mixtape for my then girlfriends of course, but for the most part I made them for my own enjoyment.  And that’s cool too.  Come to think of it, I should probably start posting some of them here.  I haven’t used my Spotify account in ages, so perhaps it’s time to dust it off and create some of my mixtapes for your enjoyment!

Yes, I know I’ve gone on about making mixtapes how many times here?  Bear with me, I’m about to go on just a bit more.

Every now and again I return to my catalog of mixtapes — that is, the mp3 recreations — and give them another listen.  By now I can tell which ones worked for me and which could probably have used a bit more planning.  Not that I’m going to change any of them, though…they’re a specific part of my past, and changing them now would only turn them into something different.  [Case in point, when I remade a few of them in 1999 and 2000, I was missing a few songs on each and replaced them with different tracks from the same era.  The mix worked just as well, but it didn’t feel like a true recreation…it felt like a ‘remastered reissue’ instead.]

As I’ve mentioned before, around 2014 I chose to reinstate the mixtape rules when making new mp3 mixes: double batches of roughly 45 minutes each, just as I would on one of those Memorix DBS I 90s you see above.  This forces me to think further about the flow of the music and the balance of the mix.  The upside to this is that the end result is a pretty solid and well-flowing mix.

The downside?  Well, I seem to still be throwing songs that don’t quite fit into the context of the rest of the mix.  They’re good songs, they just don’t quite work with the rest.  I’m thinking the main reason for this is that I’m no longer building the mixtape the true old-fashioned way, dubbing from tape or cd or vinyl, listening all the way through the song before adding the next one.  I’m just that little bit distanced from the mix, just enough where I don’t always catch when it doesn’t sound right.

I’m making up for it with these last few mixes by taking that extra time to select the music I think will work best, and listen to a rough set list so I can get the songs in the right order.

Why do this in this digital age, you ask?  Who makes mixtapes anymore?  Well, these are for my own enjoyment.  I listen to them at the gym, on long plane rides, during my writing sessions, and during Day Job hours.  I’ve only ever shared my mixtapes with a few others, and in truth I’ve only made maybe four or five tops specifically for other people.  I’m merely continuing the art of mixtape making as I know it.