Write to: Editor CA&E, 2400 E. Katella Ave, Ste. 1100, Anaheim, CA 92806
When I was younger I used to spend a lot of time putting together a mixtape of favorite songs so that I could listen to them in a certain order. Frankly I'm surprised I didn't become a DJ - they know all about the joys of making a mixtape. But somewhere along the way I discovered the guitar and realized I'd rather write some tunes than figure out what order to put them on a cassette. Not to diminish their value... I still enjoy making mixes, only now I'm putting together digital files of my favorite artists and burning CDs.
There's definitely a kind of art to making a great mixtape. And there's also a practical or utilitarian aspect to it. In the movie High Fidelity, actor John Cusack's character talks about the significance of a guy giving a girl a tape. It's an aphrodisiac of sorts. It's a love poem for guys who aren't poets. It's an expression of emotion, using other people's voices as a way to woo Roxane, to use a literary allusion. Be careful who you give a personalized mix to, lest it be misinterpreted as a sign of your affection.
That's just one use of the mixtape. I've also created some mixes for specific purposes, not unlike the guy in the flick As Good As It Gets who has a disc for every possible mood that might develop on a road trip. I've a mix called "Sunday Blues" with borderline morose music, some melancholy jazz standards and weepy string stuff. And if you have one for Sunday, of course you have to have one for Monday. "Monday Blues" is slightly less depressing and has more acoustic guitar tunes - that is, if you consider Nick Drake not so depressing. I have another one for a road trip that's meant to keep you awake on long drives (think Sigur Ros, Rage Against the Machine and Caf Tacuba), so it has more upbeat rock and high-energy electronica. And the list goes on.
DJs spend a lot of hours figuring out what works well in a club to keep the crowd amped. Drugs do half the work for them, but without the right mix of songs you can kill the momentum of the partygoers. It's hard to define, but an effective mix should be like a person you want to meet - start off with a good impression, be entertaining, then show some depth, get into the substance of the personality, then provide some room to breathe - that is, so you can find yourself in the other person; that way it's not all about him or her. Of course, like in any great work of art, you need the climax, some high point that makes you feel as though the whole journey was worth it. You don't need excess tracks. That's for hacks. The preceding is the most generic way I can explain the mixtape.
Beyond all this, though, for the car audio enthusiast the mixtape is about raising the level of enjoyment of your system and allowing you to hear new things. One of the engineers for Harman Becker told me that when someone gets out of one of the cars for which they've designed a sound system he wants to hear that person say what a great song he just heard, not what a great audio system it is. That's exactly the point. When you get a mix just right for that twilight Sunday drive, from Stan Getz's "Her" to "Nuages" by Bireli LaGrene to Miles Davis' "Here Come De Honey Man" and move on to Coltrane and Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood," and so forth, you'll hear your system the way it should sound. And if it doesn't sound the way it should, then you know it's time to get the right gear. Which is a good segue to the conclusion...