The new mix-tape

"The real beauty behind the making and the receiving of a compilation tape is far beyond that of the songs itself. A good mixtape facilitates a wonderfully diverse type of communication, where each selected song sings its poetry within the context of a greater meaning."

"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules." High Fidelity (great review of the movie)

I think any of us who love music also love sharing it with others. Unfortunately, in recent years, the amazing technological advances, which seemed to promise greater ease and freedom for sharing music and ideas, have been squashed, shut down, or restricted. Yet, the original art form of creating a mix-tape has carried on in essence, even if not in reality.  I doubt there are many cassette tapes being used or made these days, but a mix CD is easier to make than ever.  And beyond that, there are ways to share playlists online, allowing for immediate sharing as well as a limitless number of tracks.

So, since I love music and the way it moves me and inspires me at seemingly just the right moment, I wanted to share that with family and friends.  Do I burn countless mix CDs?  Maybe... I am still willing to do that, but this time I thought I would try the newest mix-tape evolution, the iTunes iMix.  This allows you to publish your playlist to the iTunes store for others to view, listen to previews, and download the songs.

It's definitely not the same as a mix-tape or CD, because really, it ends up being just the track listing of your musical poetry collection, coming with only 30 second preview clips.  You don't get the satisfaction of giving another person a piece of yourself and the soundtrack to your life.  All that time invested into planning and deciding which tracks go in what order, when to "take it up a notch" and when to cool it down, seems wasted because your audience doesn't get to listen to the whole song and go from one track to the next, the aura of the previous still hanging in the air.  So, just to be clear, the iMix does not replace the mix CD, nor does it really capture the mix-tape art in its presentation, but during the creation process it is still there.

But, since I don't have a girlfriend to share my thoughts and feelings with through the musical poetry of a hand-made mix CD, and since I want to share my favorite songs with everyone immediately without having to burn CDs and mail them... I'm gonna give the iMix a try and see if it can communicate a fraction of what I'm feeling.

January Song-a-Day | And we're off to the races...

This iMix is a collection of the songs that have recently hit me and moved me, whether because of how I was feeling at the time or a particular lyric seemed to echo throughout me or as I drove, it matched the scenery perfectly.  For whatever reason, these are some of my current favorites.  I decided to pick 31 tracks, one for each day of January, kicking off 2008 in style.

Like I said, I would much rather be handing you a CD of these songs (well, it would have to be more than one CD) and letting you experience and explore the music.  Who knows, maybe I still will.  But for now I wanted to get this up, maybe whet your palate for the whole thing.  Lemme know if you're interested...