I watched this movie the other night, a pretty recent one, but set in 1985. And the main character was so excited when his friend gave him a mixed tape. And I just thought...."awww...I remember making my own!"
There's just something that seems to make the mix tapes a little more...personal. I don't know, maybe it's just me. But I wonder if it's also maybe because of the time it took to make one. With CDs now, we know exactly how much time is left and the program will usually tell you if the final song will go over the allotted time.
But with tapes, it took time to make them. There was the first five seconds of silence to go through, and then trying to calculate how many songs, at what length, would fit on one side of the tape without stopping one song in the middle. And if you did...well, who hasn't had a tape with songs that cut off right in the middle?
Now it's so simple to create playlists for iTunes and other mp3 players, and it's great when you can easily create multiple ones the moment you think about it. You don't have to stop and think about which songs and how long they are. But...it's not as much work. It doesn't seem to have to the care and effort that tapes had.
Just a random thought.
There's just something that seems to make the mix tapes a little more...personal. I don't know, maybe it's just me. But I wonder if it's also maybe because of the time it took to make one. With CDs now, we know exactly how much time is left and the program will usually tell you if the final song will go over the allotted time.
But with tapes, it took time to make them. There was the first five seconds of silence to go through, and then trying to calculate how many songs, at what length, would fit on one side of the tape without stopping one song in the middle. And if you did...well, who hasn't had a tape with songs that cut off right in the middle?
Now it's so simple to create playlists for iTunes and other mp3 players, and it's great when you can easily create multiple ones the moment you think about it. You don't have to stop and think about which songs and how long they are. But...it's not as much work. It doesn't seem to have to the care and effort that tapes had.
Just a random thought.
2 comments:
What's a tape? You are so showing your age now.
There's a song from the musical Avenue Q called "Mixed Tape."
What? I cannot be showing my age with mixed tapes. We had them....at least until the '90s. Right?
Ok, maybe early '90s, but still!
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