Fast-Forward Rewind: The Mixtape Project

It is impossible to have survived the 80s and 90s as a music fan without developing an intimate knowledge and understanding of the Mixtape. In the age of Playlists and online streaming, it is easy to forget the time and effort that went into perfectly developing a feel or theme - while also dealing with the logistical constraints of time and making everything fit onto your selected cassette.

With a nostalgic eye on all aspects of this process, we have delved, willingly, back into this world and have shared the fruit of our labors.

We hope you enjoy and, perhaps, relive a bit of this time with us.

To try and bring as much authenticity as is possible in a digital age to the process, we set some ground rules for ourselves:

The Mixtape Project Rules

RULES
1. Mixes should be either for a 60 minute cassette, or a 90 minute cassette. (Longer cassettes for special mixes can be allowed)
2. Each mixtape will have an equal amount of time that each of us has to fill:
60 Minute Mixtape: 20 minutes each.
90 Minute Mixtape: 30 minutes each.
3. All songs added to the mixtape must have a release date prior to 2000. (Unless the mixtape originator decides otherwise.)

Now, of course, we can be flexible and modify these rules at will. Nothing is written in stone. It's all in good fun.

PROCEDURE
1. The person whose turn it is to pick the cassette will select one of the 60 or 90 minute cassette tapes available at tapedeck.org.
2. The person whose turn it is will either give the mixtape a name, or ask that we all come up with a name together.
3. The person whose turn it is will pick a general "theme" for the mixtape, if they wish. Examples: "Van Halen's best rockers", "Best ballads of the early 80s". "Songs by hot chicks" "My favorite songs, period"... whatever. As creative and original as we want to be.
4. We submit our songs, and we discuss about the placement, flow, etc. of where the songs should go, etc. We have a simple shared google spreadsheet where we add the song list to, calculate lengths, etc.
5. Once we have settled on a final order of songs and have created our awesome mixtape, the individual MP3 files are assembled into a new mixtape album, with proper ID3 tags and the custom cassette artwork that has been created for the mixtape is added.
6. The completed mixtape is then available for us to add to our music collections, shared with special loved ones, and the final results are posted to this blog for posterity and public consumption.
7. Since we cannot legally distribute our finished mixtape albums, a link to a YouTube playlist is provided for each mixtape.

(Originally Posted on December 20, 2016)

Mixtape 8 - Poetry With Song Titles

CASSETTE: BASF LH Super SM Cassette 90
MIXMASTER: Manuel
THEME: Poetry With Song Titles
The lyrics of each track will tell a cohesive, chronological story.

That's right, I want to be able to read down the lyrics from the first track to the last one and I want it to tell me a story.

*  We will each submit one song to start us off and begin a story or a poem.  We may each have a different starting point, so to make it more fun, I am going to select one of the three at random (names on a piece of paper, etc).  That will be the first line in our story/poem.
*  Depending on who starts out by winning the 'first song sweepstakes', we will then follow an alphabetical order.
*  When it's your turn to pick the next line of the story, you will submit two options each time and the next person will pick which one of those songs makes the mix.  Almost like a 'pick your own adventure book' from the 80s.
* Equal time is important (or as close as possible), so I will keep a tally and will be enforcing time restrictions based on how it's rolling along and will be alerting those via the mixtape thread.  With that in mind, do not eat the mix with anything over 6 minutes.

I don't want it to get too abstract, even for a poem, so anything that gets too non-nonsensical as mixmaster, I get the power to veto it and make you re-select new songs with titles that better fit a narrative unless you can clearly explain what is being meant with the title.

Those are the only rules.  There is no debating the order or the mix, the song title tell a story in poetry form.  It's up to you what the mood of the songs based on what you offer and what you pick from the next person.

SIDE A
Welcome to Paradise (Green Day)
She Said, She Said (The Beatles)
All I Want Is Everything (Jellyfish)
I Don't Owe You Anything (The Smiths)

If You Were The Woman And I Was The Man (Cowboy Junkies)
Ain't That Enough (Teenage Fanclub)
To Forgive (Smashing Pumpkins)
What I Am (Edie Brickell)

Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears)
One Day at a Time (Elton John)
There's Too Much Love (Belle&Sebastian)
So I Fall Again (Phantom Planet)

SIDE B
When You Were Mine (The Replacements)
I Looked At You (The Doors)
But the Regrets Are Killing Me (American Football)
Forever and a Bit (Prince)

This Is The Night (The The)
The More You Live, The More You Love (Flock of Seagulls)
The Trick is to Keep Breathing (Garbage)
Just A Touch Away (Echo Bunnymen)

People Like Us (Talking Heads)
These are The Days of Our Lives (Queen)
We Are All Made Of Stars (Moby)

FINISHED POEM/STORY
Welcome to Paradise
She Said, She Said
All I Want Is Everything
I Don't Owe You Anything

If You Were The Woman And I Was The Man
Ain't That Enough
To Forgive
What I Am

Everybody Wants to Rule the World
One Day at a Time
There's Too Much Love
So I Fall Again

When You Were Mine
I Looked At You
But the Regrets Are Killing Me
Forever and a Bit

This Is The Night
The More You Live, The More You Love
The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Just A Touch Away

People Like Us
These are The Days of Our Lives
We Are All Made Of Stars


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Mixtape 7 - Melancholy and Mellow

CASSETTE: BASF Chrome Maxima II 90
MIXMASTER: Jorge
THEME: Melancholy and Mellow
I remember creating some mixtapes when I was younger that appealed to my need to wallow in misery, or allow me to sit in a dark room with nothing but a candle (or the flicker of the LEDs on the stereo) and mellow out in a very relaxed minor-key melancholia.  So, not necessarily a "break-up"  tape, as the songs don't need to have anything to do with unrequited love or heartbreak (they could, it is just not a requirement), I do want our choices to be slow, melancholy affairs that zap the energy out of you, or make you feel incredibly sad, and really, end up making you feel even worse than when you started! (Misery loves company, right? And listening to depressing, beautiful, melancholy music is sometimes the only recipe for feeling depressed and melancholy). No year limits, besides our agreed-upon restriction of it has to be before the year 2000.

SIDE A
Torn (Toad The Wet Sprocket)
Kid Fears (Indigo Girls)
Raining in Baltimore (Counting Crows)
Luv (Travis)
Pontiac (Lyle Lovett)
To Wish Impossible Things (The Cure)
Asleep (The Smiths)
Holocaust (This Mortal Coil)
Exile (Enya)
Exit Music (For a Film) (Radiohead)
Love is Blindness (U2)

SIDE B
When No One Cares (Frank Sinatra)
Whispers (Fairground Attraction)
She’s Always A Woman To Me (Billy Joel)
Little Green (Joni Mitchell)
It Hurts to Lose You (The Prayer Boat)
Easily Undone (Magnet)
Tears (Rush)
Here With Me (Dido)
Alaskan Pipeline (James)
Sometimes It Snows In April (Prince)
With This Love (Peter Gabriel)

Mixtape 7 YouTube Link

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Mixtape 6 - Favorite Progressive Rock

CASSETTE: TDK / SA-X (Limited) / 100 minutes
MixMaster: Robert
THEME: Favorite Progressive Rock
Though The Beatles & The Doors - along with their 60s contemporaries - were my particular gateway drug when I really began to develop a deeper connection to music in 1980, it was the progressive rock of the 70s that became my heroin.

The long songs with time changes, the musical virtuosity - even the often cliche lyrics sounded like literary genius to my teenage years. I was hooked - absolutely obsessed.
My charge for this mix is to delve into our favorite progressive rock.

Note I didn't specify "Best Of" - intentionally so. Now, I get that this can create a bit of a blur. "Roundabout" happens to be one of Yes' best known songs and how could anyone argue if one of us selected that for this mix? I just don't want us too lost on creating a Progressive Rock 101 mix. These songs should be our favorite - the finest of the genre. Only slight caveat would be to avoid songs that we have already used on a previous mix.

As far as other logistics - I'm opening this up to a pretty wide range surrounding the definition of "progressive". You think "The End" or "A Day In The Life" qualifies - go ahead and throw it out. I know the discussions on that would be interesting.

And I'll keep the years open to our complete scope. I've always considered In The Court Of The Crimson King to be the definitive and original blueprint but I appreciate that a case could be made for Days Of Future Passed or even, perhaps, Sgt Peppers. I'll entertain all comers - just be prepared to defend your nominations.

In the end, what I'll be looking for is a solid and diverse mix that would serve well as a go-to for any fan of this particular style.


SIDE A
Knights of Cydonia (Muse)
Machine Messiah (Yes)
The Good Don’t Last (Spock’s Beard)
I.   Introduction
II.  The Good Don’t Last
III.  The Radiant Is
Duke Suite (Genesis)
I.   Behind The Lines
II.  Duchess
III. Guide Vocal
Natural Science (Rush)
I.   Tide Pools
II.  Hyperspace
III. Permanent Waves

SIDE B
Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of A New Day (Jethro Tull)
Trilogy (ELP)
Beneath The Brine (The Family Crest)
Missa Atropos (Gazpacho)
Pigs (Three Different Ones) - (Pink Floyd)
The Court of the Crimson King (King Crimson)

Mixtape 6 YouTube Link

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Mixtape 5 - The Colors of Music

CASSETTE: Memorex 90 dBS Clear
MixMaster: Manuel
THEME: The Colors of Music
We're going to call this tape, 'The Colors of Music'.  You will submit songs that have colors in the title. My idea is to try to have equal number of songs by color.

As to how the songs will come together, I will loosely follow an emotional motif based on colors and the actual tracks (minor, major, slow, fast, etc).  I'm partial to that because it gives me more freedom.

SIDE A
ACT I
What's your Favorite Color? (Living Colour)
Purple Stain (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Black the Sun (Alex Lloyd)
Fields Of Gold (Eva Cassidy)
Yellow (Coldplay)
The Light is Always Green (The Housemartins)
Silver (Echo & The Bunnymen)
Green (Love Spit Love)
ACT II
Bullet the Blue Sky (U2)
Red Rain (Peter Gabriel)

SIDE B
Pink Orange Red (Cocteau Twins)
Pink Ego Box (Muse)
Pink Turns To Blue (Husker Du)
Dark Blue (No Doubt)
Yellow Light (Remy Zero)
ACT III
A Whiter Shade of Pale (Annie Lennox)
From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea (The Cure)
Scarlet (Lush)
Black Star (Radiohead)
Blue Blue Sky (Alan Parsons Project)

Mixtape 5 YouTube Link

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Mixtape 4 - The Years of Our Lives

CASSETTE: Memorex dB series / 90 minute
MixMaster: Jorge
THEME: The Years of Our Lives
1. We will each be submitting 30 minutes of music, finalized. There will be no shared picking of the songs for this mixtape. Each of us will bring our 30 minute package to the table done and finalized.

2. The songs for your 30 minutes will be limited to ONE year of your choosing. This year should be a significant year in your lifetime. Examples: The year you were born, the year you first kissed a girl, the year you got married, the year you made a significant life change, the year you graduated from high school, etc. You pick the year and why it is important to you and you select thirty minutes of music from that year.

3. Final assembly of the mixtape: Our individual thirty minutes are run sequentially one after the other chronologically. With one of us having to split our thirty minutes over both sides.

Year Choices:
Jorge - 1976
The year my parents and I moved to the USA and I began to be exposed to rock and pop. Many memories and new experiences.

Robert - 1980
I was a sports kid growing up. Life in Miami revolved around the Dolphins and getting outside to play the sport of the season with my neighborhood friends. Music was completely peripheral. That isn't to say music wasn't played in my house - it was.  Both of my parents were theater people so we always had lots of musical cast recordings playing and my mom, a left-over beat/hippy had an impressive folk collection on vinyl. I distinctly remember listening to AM radio in my room at night - hits from the 70s but, without an older sibling or hip parents, no proper rock education.

That all changed in December of 1980. In the wake of John Lennon's assassination every news outlet had a feature on him and The Beatles and it was in watching one of those that I heard "A Day In The Life" for the first time. That Christmas, at my insistence, my mom bought me their greatest hits "blue album" and there was no turning back. I forgot sports and music became my obsession. Though my musical journey started in discovering The Beatles and other 60s music initially, I'll pay tribute to that year with selections from it.

Manuel - 1991
I'm going to go with 1991, which is the year I graduated from High School and the music of the day had a HUGE influence in my overall taste.  Of course, i was lucky enough to have Jorge as an uncle, so I was listening to all kinds of stuff dating as far back as the early 80s when I was 9-12 years old.  However, I resisted certain types of genres and stuff until 1991.  To top it off, that was quite the year in rock and alternative rock.

SIDE A
1976 - Jorge
Carry on Wayward Son (Kansas)
Don't Fear the Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult)
More Than A Feeling (Boston)
Magic Man (Heart)
Say Goodbye To Hollywood (Billy Joel)
Fernando (ABBA)

1980 Part 1 - Robert
Ace Of Spades (Motorhead)
Dragon Attack (Queen)
Ashes To Ashes (David Bowie)
Stolen Car (Bruce Springsteen)

SIDE B
1980 Part 2
News At Ten (The Vapors)
Freedom Of Choice (Devo)
Family Snapshot (Peter Gabriel)
Watching The Wheels (John Lennon)

1991 - Manuel
Live and Let Die (Guns & Roses)
Lithium (Nirvana)
Half a World Away (R.E.M.)
The Struggle Within (Metallica)
Breaking the Girl (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Acrobat (U2)
Nightingale Song (Toad the Wet Sprocket)
Bring Tha Noize (Public Enemy w/Anthrax)

Mixtape 4 YouTube Link

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Mixtape 3 - TMA Soundtrack ONE

CASSETTE: FUJI FX-I / 60 minutes
MixMaster: Robert
THEME: Soundtrack Mix

I made plenty of "Best of..." mixes but, my favorite collections were way more involved.
These other mixes were divided into two basic categories - moods and soundtracks.
The mood mixes are easy enough to explain - a mix for rainy days, a mix for driving with the windows down, etc.
The soundtrack mixes are a little trickier to put a clear finger on. What I would do is imagine a movie with the perfect soundtrack - a collection of songs that somehow told a story and were loosely connected (sometimes by sound, sometimes by texture) even though they don't actually have a visual image to correspond to. The only rule I ever posed to myself was that I tried to avoid songs that were already specifically known for their connection to an existing film.

With that in mind, I pose the following two challenges:
1. The "theme" for this mix tape is the soundtrack for a moving modern drama surrounding the cross-country road trip of a dude in the midst of several life-effecting challenges. Like any good movie there will be humor, tense moments, evenings scenes of reflection, possibly a bar fight thrown in. Why is he driving cross country instead of flying? How old is he? Is he married, divorced, a widow - does he have kids? All questions you will answer as you select songs.
I suggest you each go over your allotted 20 minutes as I will have to work to craft our varied selections into a flow that makes some sort of sense - with you both chipping in as we go.

2. To make things even more complicated, I am going to request that, to the best of your abilities, you each try to submit as many 3 minute or less songs as possible (even shorter if you find the right choices). That is, I'm looking for a super tight mix of short, sharp musical punctuation's - fast or slow, doesn't matter - we'll work to make it come together.

SIDE A
Lucretia McEvil (Blood,Sweat&Tears)
John,I’m Only Dancing (David Bowie)
Work To Do (America)
Rendezvous (Bruce Springsteen)
Got A Lot On My Head (The Cars)
Back Of Car (Big Star)
It’s Still Rock&Roll To Me (Billy Joel)
I Hear The Rain (Violent Femmes)
In My Own Time (Three O’Clock)
In God’s Country (U2)
Butterfly (Weezer)

SIDE B
For All We Know (The Carpenters)
Out Of My Head (Fastball)
I Feel Sanctified (Commodores)
Stay Hungry (Twisted Sister)
Train of Love (Johnny Cash)
Have You Ever Seen The Rain (CCR)
A Well Respected Man (The Kinks)
Dear Madam Barnum (XTC)
Girl U Want (Devo)
Car Radio (Spoon)
Long,Long Way From Home (Foreigner)

Mixtape 3 YouTube Link

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Mixtape 2 - R.E.M. The IRS Years

CASSETTE: Maxell XLII / 60 minutes
MixMaster: Manuel
THEME: REM - The IRS Years

1.  Only studio albums.  No EP's, b-sides, deluxe releases with more songs, etc.  Choices are:  Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Life's Rich Pageant and Document.
2.  I don't want it to be a 'best of...'.  Pick your favorite songs, no matter how popular (like 'Fall on Me') or deep cut.
3.  Though I want us to nominate our favorite stuff, the final cut will be (as close as possible) about as equal a selection of the 5 albums.  In other words, I don't want 8 songs from 'Life's Rich Pageant' and 2 from 'Reckoning', for example.

SIDE A
Sitting Still
Shaking Through
Talk About the Passion
Perfect Circle
(Don't Go) Back to Rockville
So. Central Rain
Pretty Persuasion
Harborboat

SIDE B
Can't Get There From Here
Driver 8
Wendell Gee
Begin the Begin
Fall on Me
I Believe
Superman
The One I Love
It's the End of the World

Mixtape 2 YouTube Link

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Mixtape 1 - RUSH in 60 Minutes

CASSETTE: Compact Cassette C60 / 60 minutes
MixMaster: Jorge
THEME:  60 Minutes of Rush

No restrictions, anything from their catalog.

SIDE A
Fly By Night
Anthem
Closer to the Heart
Cinderella Man
The Trees
Freewill
The Spirit of Radio

SIDE B
Tom Sawyer
YYZ
Limelight
Subdivisions
The Analog Kid
Red Sector A

Mixtape 1 YouTube Link

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