BY DESIREE DEMOLINA
Developed in the 1970’s with the advent of recordable cassettes, homemade mixtapes compile and showcase the musical tastes of the person making it. Simply showcasing favorite songs or displaying a theme through the selections, a mixtape is a personal creation. However, with new playlist technology, like those of Pandora or your very own iPod, mixtapes are now evolving into the digital world.
Although songs are certainly wonderful individually, it is not until they are heard collectively that we can come to understand their deeper meaning. Utilizing shuffle or skip options does not allow us to integrate a narrative into our listening experience. If portions of the story are missing or skewed, it doesn’t communicate the full experience. When it comes to mixtapes, the compiler attempts to unify a sequence of songs around a theme, be it a personal account or a mood.
In this day and age, musical storage and playback has never been more convenient. With new technology making the crafting of stories and personal portraits through song easier than ever. Websites like 8tracks.com and last.fm are keeping the art of making mixtapes alive. Allowing the user to amass and share specific songs out of millions, these websites are redefining the expediency and artistry of mixtapes. Like most things in this modern age, the spread of stories is often no further away than a click.
Within the electronic world, a sequential playlist has become no different than that of a mixtape. Spotify, a music streaming service launched in 2008, is one outlet that attempts to preserve the sacred skill of compiling by permitting users to generate a custom playlist. Once assembled, the user can share and distribute their work and connect with other social networking sites. Youtube, a video sharing website, grants members the ability to collect and build playlists of music videos. Mixtapes are not fading away, they are becoming more universal and all-embracing, just like music itself.
While the ease and sleekness of a digital playlist has the concept right, nothing compares to a tangible treasure. What could be as poignant as a gift that has been listened to, thought out, and harmoniously judged? A physical mixtape combines creative mediums that would have been otherwise been lost in the empire of digital music. Mixtapes define a sentiment and mark a specific moment in time. Like a snapshot for our memories, they remind us of what we felt and where we felt it.
Music is based on imagination. Mixtapes are simply a smaller, more personal division of that imagination. The creator must make their exclusive world of understanding and imagery into a public one. In this realm of artistry, however, the listener must be as talented and meticulous as the creator. Within the mixtape, the listener should not inhale the same judgment, but instead exhale their own. Interpretation and imagination are incorporated to deliver a notion far deeper than the idea of a few tracks thrown together. Be it digital or physical, mixtapes are a souvenir in the moments and emotions we hope to remember.
