Mixtape
2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Musical Recordings and compositions
A mixtape is a compilation of songs and or tracks (typically copyrighted music taken from other sources) recorded in a specific order, traditionally onto a compact audio cassette. The songs can be sequential; by the 1980s, seamless mixtapes made by beatmatching the songs and creating overlaps and fades between the end of one song and the beginning of another became more popular.
The most common early mixtapes were bootleg 8 track tapes that were sold at flea markets and truck stops in the late 60's through the early 80's, with names like "Super 73", "Country Chart Toppers" or "Top Pops 1977". The tapes with the year in the title usually were released before Christmas or early the following year, and were very big sellers.
With the advent of affordable, consumer-level digital audio, creating and distributing mixes in the form of a compact disc or MP3 playlist has become the contemporary method of choice, but the term mixtape is still commonly used, and will be used throughout this article to refer to mixes in different media (CD, MP3, MiniDisc, audio cassette 8 track, etc.).
A mixtape, which usually reflects the musical tastes of its compiler, can range from a casually selected list of favorite songs, to a conceptual mix of songs linked by a theme or mood, to a highly personal statement tailored to the tape's intended recipient. Essayist Geoffrey O'Brien has called the personal mixtape "the most widely practiced American art form," and many mixtape enthusiasts believe that by carefully selecting and ordering the tracks in a mix, an artistic statement can be created that is greater than the sum of its individual songs, much as an album of pop music in the post-Beatles era can be considered as something more than a collection of singles.
History
Homemade mixtapes became common in the 1980's. Although the compact audio cassette by Philips appeared at the 1963 Berlin radio show, the sound quality of cassettes was not good enough to be seriously considered for music recording until further advances in tape formulations, including the advent of chrome and metal tape. Before the introduction of the audio cassette, the creation of a pop music compilation required specialized or cumbersome equipment, such as a reel-to-reel or 8 track recorder, that was often inaccessible to the casual music fan. As cassette tapes and recorders grew in popularity and portability, these technological hurdles were lowered to the point where the only resources required to create a mix were a handful of cassettes and a cassette recorder connected to a source of prerecorded music, such as a radio or LP player. The 8-track tape cartridge was more popular for music recording during much of the 1960's, as the cassette was originally only mono and intended for vocal recordings only, such as in office dictation machines. But improvements in fidelity finally allowed the cassette to become a major player. The ready availability of the cassette and higher quality home recording decks to serve the home casual user allowed the cassette to become the dominant tape format, to the point that the 8 track tape nearly disappeared shortly after the turn of the 1980's. The growth of the mixtape was also encouraged by improved quality and increased popularity of audio cassette players in car entertainment systems, and by the introduction of the Sony Walkman around 1979.
A distinction should be drawn between a private mixtape, which is usually intended for a specific listener or private social event, and a public mixtape, or "party tape," usually consisting of a recording of a club performance by a DJ and intended to be sold to multiple individuals. In the 1970s, such DJs as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force, Kool Herc and the Herculoids, DJ Breakout, the Funky Four, and DJ Hollywood would often distribute recordings of their club performances via audio cassette, as well as customized recordings (often prepared at exorbitant prices) for individual tape purchasers. One 12 October 1974 article in Billboard Magazine reported, "Tapes were originally dubbed by jockeys to serve as standbys for times when they did not have disco turntables to hand. The tapes represent each jockey's concept of programming, placing, and sequencing of record sides. The music is heard without interruption. One- to three-hour programs bring anywhere from $30 to $75 per tape, mostly reel-to-reel, but increasingly on cartridge and cassette." Club proprietors, as well as DJs, would often prepare such tapes for sale.
Throughout the 1980s, mixtapes were a highly visible element of youth culture. However, the increased availability of CD burners and MP3 players and the gradual disappearance of cassette players in cars and households have led to a decline in the popularity of the compact audio cassette as a medium for homemade mixes. The high point of traditional mixtape culture was arguably the publication of Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity in 1995. Since then, mixtapes have largely been replaced by mix CDs and shared MP3 playlists, which are more durable, can hold more songs, and require minutes (rather than hours) to prepare. While some mix tape enthusiasts bemoan the obsolescence of the cassette tape, others concede that the greater convenience offered by the mix CD has expanded the possibilities and accessibility of the medium, as indicated by the recent resurgence of mix-swapping clubs that trade mix CDs by regular mail. Some mix enthusiasts also appreciate the potential of the mix CD for extended, continuous mixes and creative album art.
Today, websites particularly concerned with electronic music provide mixes in a digital format. These usually consist of recorded DJ sets of live, beat-matched mixes of songs, which are used by DJs seeking to demonstrate their mixing skills to an online audience. Some radio shows worldwide specialize in mix series, including The Breezeblock and The Solid Steel Show on BBC Radio 1 and The BTTB Show.
Additionally, DJs like DJ Spooky, DJ Z-Trip or DJ Shadow, The Avalanches, and RJD2 have gained fame for creating new songs by combining fragments of existing songs (which need not necessarily belong to the same genre). The resulting remix or mash-up can be seen as an evolution of the mixtape, in that it appropriates existing songs to give them new meanings through their juxtaposition, but does so in a quicker, more integrated style. This practice is heavily derived from the use of song loops as musical backdrops for an MC's rhymes in hip hop music, which is also related to turntablism.
Mix tapes vs. compilations
Many commercially available compilations of pop music, such as those in the consistently best-selling Now That's What I Call Music! series, initially seem to share certain important characteristics with mix tapes. Like many private mixes, a significant number of the earliest pop LPs were essentially collections of popular singles, and such compilation albums have often taken cues from underground mixes of the same era. One example is Disco Par-r-r-ty, the first nonstop dancing LP record, which was released by Spring Records in October 1974. Consisting of a continuous mix of songs by such artists as James Brown, Mandrill, and Barry White, it was clearly inspired by the bootleg DJ mixes that were becoming popular at the same time. However, the relative anonymity of the compilers of such albums is arguably inconsistent with the rationale behind most mix CDs, which typically reflect the musical tastes of a single compiler. While the editors of such compilations do exercise a certain amount of discretion over song order and selection, the term mix tape or mix CD is generally restricted to a compilation where the identity of the compiler is clearly associated with the album itself. For example, Starbucks, the coffee chain, sells a compilation CD series called Artist's Choice, which consists of mixes based on selections by such artists as Johnny Cash, Tony Bennett, and Sheryl Crow. Similarly, Apple Computer's iTunes Store features Celebrity Playlists, downloadable mix tapes in AAC-compatible form, selected by such artists as Moby, Barry Manilow, and Andrew W.K. The Late Night Tales series has seen artists such as Four Tet and Turin Brakes make their own compliations that are distributed in mainstream record shops such as HMV.
The presence of a readily identifiable compiler whose tastes are reflected in song selection and arrangement allow retail mix CDs to be distinguished from other types of compilations. The distinction can be rather subtle. For example, while most "greatest hits" compilations of individual recording artists consist of a collection of singles in chronological order, others include album tracks, new songs, or obscure selections in addition to established hits, and sometimes reorder the songs for optimal listening. As such, these compilations can be seen as "artist-specific" mixes selected and arranged by the artists themselves. One recent example, among many, is R.E.M.'s In Time, the song selections and track listing of which inspired a certain amount of heated discussion within R.E.M.'s online fan base.
One could also argue that the modern movie soundtrack, which often consists of selected pop music tracks (rather than the traditional orchestral score) is a mix tape with songs selected by the film's director or music supervisor. Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets is often cited as one of the first movie soundtracks to consist entirely of existing pop songs. Other movies with landmark compilation soundtracks include American Graffiti, Singles, " Footloose" and Pulp Fiction. A film's compilation soundtrack can sometimes surpass the movie itself in popularity: one notable example is the multiplatinum-selling country soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Legal issues in the U.S.
One important distinction between homemade mixes and retail compilations of pop music is that the latter generally obtain permissions for the use of copyrighted songs, while the former do not. As a result, mix tapes such as those produced and sold by club DJs in the 1970s are illegal (although rarely, if ever, prosecuted) under the definition of fair use expressed in the Copyright Act of 1976. Most mix tape enthusiasts assume that private mix tapes are inoffensive from a fair use standpoint, but this is far from clear. An article in the New York Times cites Frank Creighton, a director of anti-copyright infringement efforts for the Recording Industry Association of America, as saying that "money did not have to be involved for copying to be illegal." While mixes on cassette tapes may not have inspired the wrath of the record industry in the past, Mr. Creighton said, "digital mixes have better sound quality." And given the proliferation of CD burning for friends and relatives, "it would be naive of us to say that we should allow that type of activity," he said. Others have argued that the Audio Home Recording Act protects the noncommercial use of home recording devices. (In general, it seems reasonable to conclude that individuals creating mix tapes for private use or one-off gifts are unlikely to be prosecuted under existing copyright laws.)
Aesthetics
While the process of recording a mix onto an audio cassette from LPs or compact discs is technically straightforward, many music fans who create more than one mix tape are eventually compelled to confront some of the practical and aesthetic challenges involved in the mix tape format. From a practical standpoint, such issues as avoiding an excessive amount of blank tape at the end of one side (which requires careful planning of the length of each side of the mix) and reducing the audible click between songs (which requires mastery of the pause button on the cassette recorder) have been identified as part of the shared experience of mix tape aficionados. From an aesthetic point of view, many enthusiasts believe that because a tape player, unlike a CD player, lacks the ability to skip from song to song, the mix tape needs to be considered in its entirety. This requires the mix tape creator to consider the transitions between songs, the effects caused by juxtaposing a soft song with a loud song, and the overall " narrative arc" of the entire tape. One notable listing of such aesthetic "rules" can be found in a paragraph from High Fidelity:
| To me, making a tape is like writing a letter — there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with "Got to Get You Off My Mind," but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules. |
Many enthusiasts also devote substantial attention to the packaging of a mix tape intended as a gift, sometimes going so far as to create cover art and customized liner notes. The cover of the original McSweeney's edition of Songbook, a 2003 essay collection by Nick Hornby, was intended to suggest the packaging of a homemade mix CD. It also came with an actual CD featuring ten of the songs discussed in the text. Indeed, the look of mix tapes, featuring hand-written notes on the recording medium manufacturer's supplied labels, has become one of the aesthetic conventions of modern design, a distinct style that designers may attempt to copy or cite.
From an artistic point of view, many creators of mix tapes seem to regard them as a form of emotional self-expression, although whether a mix tape retains the same web of emotional associations when passed from its creator to the recipient is, at best, debatable. Some argue that in selecting, juxtaposing, or even editing originally unrelated tracks of pop music into a new work of art, the "author" of a mix tape moves from passive listener to archivist, editor, and finally active participant in the process of musical creation. (Some legitimacy for this viewpoint was provided by Cassette Stories, a 2003 exhibition at the Museum of Communication in Hamburg, Germany, which featured stories and submissions from eighty mix tape enthusiasts.) However, this perception of the mix tape as a work of art has been criticized as resulting in a sort of elitism, with creators becoming more concerned with finding arcane and surprising combinations of tracks than with creating a tape that is listenable, enjoyable, or appropriate to its intended recipient. (In High Fidelity, for example, the narrator's girlfriend complains that his mix tapes are too didactic.) On a very basic level, the creation of a mix tape can be seen as an expression of the individual compiler's taste in music, often put forward for the implicit approval of the tape's recipient, and in many cases as a tentative step towards building the compiler's personal canon of pop music.
Types of mix tapes
Although a "comprehensive" list of the different genres or categories of mix tapes could be extended indefinitely, and probably to no useful end, creating a taxonomy of mix tapes is a project that many mix tape enthusiasts have intuitively attempted. The different types of mix tapes identified on such community sites as Art of the Mix (which lists over two hundred genres, sometimes tongue-in-cheek) suggest the variety of potential categories. Beyond such basic genres as the simple taping of an entire album, the collection of favorite songs, and the "snapshot" mix of recent favorites, some of the more commonly cited categories (most of which are self-explanatory) include the driving mix, the workout mix, the party mix, the krazy mix (eclectic selections of obscure, rare or otherwise unconventional tracks), the didactic mix (intended to educate the recipient as to the essential works of a particular artist or genre), the concept / theme mix (a mix of Christmas songs, songs about cars, or covers of songs by a particular artist or similar), and the mood mix (simply a mix of songs intended to sustain a specific mood, stated or unstated - notable sub genres include the romantic mix and the break-up mix).
Mix tapes in hip hop
The mixtape format is becoming increasingly popular as a way of generating hype for hip hop artists. Often each track on a promotional hip hop mixtape will feature the same artist, thus making it more difficult to differentiate from the definition of a standard album. However, these mixtapes will usually have much lower production values than a studio album, and contain numerous collaborations, remixes, freestyles and voice-overs, often not arranged in a specific fashion.
Hip hop mixtapes are usually sold on the street or through independent record dealers or mail order, mainly relying on word of mouth to increase the artist's street credibility. An unsigned artist might release several mixtapes to generate buzz, leading to interest from record labels, while a signed artist may release a mixtape to promote a future studio album.
Mix tapes in global culture
All of the references to mix tapes cited above come from media sources in the United States, the United Kingdom, or continental Europe. The use of mix tapes in other countries is less documented. However, it seems reasonable to believe that mixes exist wherever access to popular music is combined with a convenient means of recording homemade compilations (although mix tapes may not have been a significant element of the youth culture in such countries). For example, Sarah Erdman's 2003 book Nine Hills to Nambonkaha includes a description of the tape collection of a middle-class African in Côte d'Ivoire:
| I click through his box of tapes, finding African musicians I've never heard of, old Phil Collins, Rod Stewart with a long earring before his "Some Guys Have All the Luck" days. But I also discover Van Morrison, a Rolling Stones bootleg, Peter Tosh, Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, Tracy Chapman, Sting. His mixed tapes flit from Donna Summer to Joe Cocker to Bonnie Raitt. |
One should also note that in Africa, India, and parts of the Middle East, audio cassettes currently remain the most popular medium for prerecorded music. This suggests that the compact audio cassette may still be the preferred medium for mixes in at least some parts of the world.