The Lost Art of Mixtapes

5/23/11

Lost in the era of CDs and MP3s are cassette mix tapes.  These vintage gems required hours of careful song selection followed by the task of dubbing the songs onto a cassette tape in real time.  The biggest hurdle was always the task of making that final song fit on Side B of the 90 minute cassette without clipping off the end of the song.  Once everything was finished—some two-plus hours later—it was now ready for its fancy title.  Typically, these tapes were made to woo a lady.  So the key was to come up with a title that was cool enough, but didn’t sound too desperate.  Something like “Sarah’s Slow Jamz” or “Meredith’s Chillout Mix” usually sufficed.  What ultimately happened next was a testament to the technology of the era: your ladyfriend popped the mix tape into her cassette player only to watch helplessly as the player ate the tape and destroyed your masterpiece.