My Eighties-made "Rock Sampler" Mixtape: -
How would you do it now?
29/06/2015
About 1985, I was working as a Telephone Exchange Technician for a Government Department, then called the Post Office (Telecommunications since split off and sold). For a week or two I had a young woman of Indian extraction accompanying me on work experience while she studied for an Engineering Degree in Telecommunications; this would have been on a Post Office Bursary.
In the course of our conversations while driving around, I inevitably mentioned my interest in music. I asked her what her musical interests were. I was astounded when she said her whole musical experience was in the classical world, and she knew hardly anything of Rock, just a bit of radio pop.
I was filled with pity for her having missed out on "Rock's Rich Tapestry", and resolved to rectify this sad lack of experience. Back then with no Internet, and CDs not recordable; the mixtape was the only way to go, so I made this cassette mixtape for her, which Wikipedia informs me belongs to the Didactic genre of mixtapes.
In the course of our conversations while driving around, I inevitably mentioned my interest in music. I asked her what her musical interests were. I was astounded when she said her whole musical experience was in the classical world, and she knew hardly anything of Rock, just a bit of radio pop.
I was filled with pity for her having missed out on "Rock's Rich Tapestry", and resolved to rectify this sad lack of experience. Back then with no Internet, and CDs not recordable; the mixtape was the only way to go, so I made this cassette mixtape for her, which Wikipedia informs me belongs to the Didactic genre of mixtapes.
I tried to be fairly broad, within the confines of what I owned on LP. I note now I wasn't being very straight "Rock"y, no Led Zep, Stones or Clapton, and I never had any American stadium rock like Aerosmith & Springsteen or stuff like Tom Petty, Allmans etc. I included a track-list sheet with categories and some short comments. (See Left) Looking back I can see the similarities in nerdy list-making to my even earlier geeky self of 1966! However, at the time I was just earnestly and selflessly keen to show off the wonders of popular non-classical music. I wanted the music to impress, and stimulate thought; I was conscious of creating something for someone known to have a few brains, which I thought I also had. I guess I also had in the back of my mind a desire to show off my own intellect. It can't have been a giant success, or she would still have it, I suppose. I have kept it because I thought it was a sort of time capsule of my tastes at the time. |
I would still offer it to anyone else if an appropriate occasion presented itself, except it has now been technologically outmoded.
Even music CD's, or discs of .mp3 files are facing the same fate; you could still do a disc with printed insert, or include a text or spreadsheet file on the disc, but many people have abandoned the disc format now as well.
These days I could give someone a USB memory stick with a thousand recordings on it, but this substitute loses the intellectual involvement; I could never hope to give the same individual thought and attention to all those. I guess you could limit it to 20 or so numbers and a commentary and/or picture file, but it would seem a waste of memory. (See below for solution to that problem!)
Thanks to the modern wonder that is YouTube, I can now now direct someone to a playlist such as the one below instead, and no data need change hands at all; but there is no facility for any commentary. You could send or publish a link to a playlist page at your YouTube account, which would show a list with comments fields, but the text is limited to 150 characters, and you can't embed the page as you can the public view of the YouTube playlist. I couldn't find anyone's playlist page that used the comment text, except my own!
(12/11/23 Update: - By 05/04/2020 YouTube had removed visibility of the text comments for other than the account holder. By 09/03/23 the function was discontinued and all your txts were entirely removed and erased by YT.)
Even music CD's, or discs of .mp3 files are facing the same fate; you could still do a disc with printed insert, or include a text or spreadsheet file on the disc, but many people have abandoned the disc format now as well.
These days I could give someone a USB memory stick with a thousand recordings on it, but this substitute loses the intellectual involvement; I could never hope to give the same individual thought and attention to all those. I guess you could limit it to 20 or so numbers and a commentary and/or picture file, but it would seem a waste of memory. (See below for solution to that problem!)
Thanks to the modern wonder that is YouTube, I can now now direct someone to a playlist such as the one below instead, and no data need change hands at all; but there is no facility for any commentary. You could send or publish a link to a playlist page at your YouTube account, which would show a list with comments fields, but the text is limited to 150 characters, and you can't embed the page as you can the public view of the YouTube playlist. I couldn't find anyone's playlist page that used the comment text, except my own!
(12/11/23 Update: - By 05/04/2020 YouTube had removed visibility of the text comments for other than the account holder. By 09/03/23 the function was discontinued and all your txts were entirely removed and erased by YT.)
I had a quick search on the net for "modern version of the mix tape". It would appear that the mixtape concept is beyond some of today's computer "users", judging by this comedic litany of blundering ignorance and stupidity I found at the first result.
Making a Mixtape with iTunes February 11, 2015
These people have no idea what the technology is or does, I fear for the future of mankind!
How can people this ignorant even earn enough money to buy a computer?
Making a Mixtape with iTunes February 11, 2015
These people have no idea what the technology is or does, I fear for the future of mankind!
How can people this ignorant even earn enough money to buy a computer?