If you follow me on Facebook (and you SHOULD!) you may have noticed a few recent posts about mix tapes.
First, I have to say, I feel bad for the youngin’s out there who will never fully appreciate this lost art. John Cusak in High Fidelity has a great speech about mix tapes that well-encapsulates their essence, magic, and, I daresay, necessity in figuring out one’s own pet angst.
Take this lovely doozy as a for-instance: The title of the mix is APOLOGLIES. (Read that carefully. Neat little word trick there, no?) Some of the song titles include Don’t Come Around Here No More; Sell Out; Bang and Blame; Beat on the Brat; Broken Circles; Indifference…
Cripes, who was I so mad at in December of 1994?
Then there’s the apparently bleak, oppressive, thoroughly hopeless Christmas of ’92. Mix title: Can I Have Some Time Alone? (cribbed, of course, from R.E.M.’s backing vocals on It’s The End of the World As We Know It). This lil beauty includes such Christmas gems as The God That Failed; Losing My Religion; Born to Lose; Sorrow; Am I Evil; and, yes, It’s The End of the World.
You’ll be happy to learn, I hope, that I feel much better now. Merry Christmas!
As I mentioned on Facebook, I’m sort of appalled at how many of these songs I’m just flat-out missing. Some I have no idea who the band is. I don’t have the tapes anymore; these are just the paper sleeves that went into the cassette cases. Something else Today’s Youth won’t ever understand: New Tape Smell. Who’s with me?! Man, I haven’t smelled a new cassette tape in forever. Geez. Now I need to go make a mix tape.
Anyhow, it seems appropriate that I should be sorting through these paper sleeves just as R.E.M. is disbanding, because they feature so prominently on these mix tapes. I was one of the world’s biggest R.E.M. fans for a long time. That time passed awhile back, but I still appreciate them, and still enjoy the music. Just not on quite the rotation as in years past. Thanks, fellas.
Bring back the mix tape! There’s far too much consolation to be had in their creation. Making a “playlist” is a poor substitute for decorating a sleeve. Where’s the art? Where’s the painstaking wait as you listen to each song as it records? None of this drag-and-drop crap; I want a dual-tape deck, man. I want to be alone in my room and tell my posters that no one understands!
Okay, I still do that, so, happily, some things don’t ever change.
If you haven’t heard, there’s a third novel of mine coming out in 2013, and I’m right in the middle of my first round of revisions. And, as I do for all my novels, I’ve created a playlist for it…but it’s not the same. Still! Always good to back and mine the insanity of high school for plot fodder. (Plot Fodder, also a good name for a band.)
In other news: Toby is cute. That is all. ZERO comes out in less than six months!
