Making mix tapes/CDs for boyfriends/girlfriends: Sweet or pathetic?
I’d be flattered (I’m a dude)
Incidentally, every mix tape ought to include “mix tape song” by the Ataris.
My ex husband used to make them for me all the time. Really great compilations; I credit him for introducing me to so many new artists. After our separation we happened to bump into each other and he gave me one last tape. At the end of the second side. he had added Culture Clubs “Do you really want to hurt me” Today I think about it with bittersweet memories, but back then I felt violated because he knew how I felt about that song.
I used to make mix tapes for people all the time when I live in the dorms. I didn’t make them just for girls I liked, but to try to introduce anyone to new music that I was into, and especially bands most people wouldn’t be exposed to through normal channels.
Now I do the same thing with mix CDs.
Hey, I’m going even farther into scary/pathetic loser-land…
I’m getting my own radio show. On a community radio station, no less.
It’s like making mix tapes for the three people who are up and listening at 2am, instead of people you actually care about.
Fun!
I think the OP’s question is the same as mine - is it cool and groovy and will you be loved, or will they think you’re a pathetic loser lifted from High Fidelty, think it’s full of inpenetrable Japanese hardcore, through it in the bin and think you forever creepy?
I have the track listing for my mate Jane filled with songs with Jane in the title (Hazey Jane II, Jane’s Addiction, Queen Jane Approximatly etc etc) but have kept off making a tape because I figure she’ll think I’m a creepy bloke with alterior motives.
My name is Jane and I’ve made my own “all Jane” CD. I think you should make the tape and give it to her. Just avoid songs with Tarzan in them. It’s surprising how many songs have the name Jane or Janie in the title or hidden in the song. I had a list of about 60 of them once.
To answer the OP: If it’s a mix of general purpose songs you happen to like it’s cool. If it’s a bunch of love songs it’s pathetic. That’s my opinion anyway.
I hope it’s sweet as opposed to pathetic.
I always make one for a 1st date, and have never heard anything negative.
As long as it’s about them (not a compilation of your favorite songs) it’s a sweet & thoughtful gesture.
Last 3:
For a Friday’s employee (who didn’t like their job):
TOM WAITS Eggs And Sausage (Introduction)
TOM WAITS Eggs And Sausage (In A Cadillac With Susan Michelson)
SUPERTRAMP Breakfast In America
FRANK ZAPPA St Alphonzo’s Pancake Breakfast
DEEP BLUE SOMETHING Breakfast At Tiffany’s
DEAD KENNEDYS A Growing Boy Needs His Lunch
FRANK ZAPPA & THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION Cruising For Burgers
JIMMY BUFFET Cheeseburger In Paradise
SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS Fried Chicken And Gasoline
N R B Q RC Cola And A Moonpie
LARRY GROCE Junk Food Junkie
GEORGIA SATELLITES Hippy Hippy Shake
DON HENLEY Sunset Grill
CROWDED HOUSE Chocolate Cake
PETER GABRIEL Moribund The Burgermeister
FATS DOMINO The Fat Man
IGGY POP Dog Food
THE SILHOUETTES Get A Job
GIN BLOSSOMS Day Job
MERYN CADELL Job Application
For A New-Age Yoga Enthusiast
Part One : Natural Elements - The Sun, Fire, Water, Flora, Sky And Moon
JAH WOBBLE The Sun Does Rise
RENAISSANCE Carpet Of The Sun
THE STRANGLERS Golden Brown
ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA Fire On High
ENYA Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)
JONI MITCHELL River
DEEP FOREST Sweet Lullaby
TANGERINE DREAM Zen Garden (Myoonj, Temple Kyoto)
JETHRO TULL Velvet Green
PAUL WINTER CONSORT Icarus
THE WATERBOYS The Whole Of The Moon
THE NEVILLE BROTHERS Yellow Moon
Part Two : Human Elements - Love, Hope, Lust Sandeness & Happiness
ENYA Only Time
MIKE OLDFIELD Magic Touch
MILLA Gentlemen Who Fell
SIMON & GARFUNKEL For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her
LOVE Alone Again Or
ENIGMA Principles of Lust (Sadeness / Lust / Reprise)
For a Jazz fiend who said contemporary music sucked
US3 Cantaloop (Radio Edit)
DREAM WARRIORS My Definition Of A Boombastic Jazz Style
JOE JACKSON I’m The Man
MADNESS One Step Beyond
GERRY RAFFERTY Baker Street
STEELY DAN Aja
AVERAGE WHITE BAND Pick Up The Pieces
MARK-ALMOND BAND The City (Grass And Concrete/Taxi To Brooklyn/ Speak Easy It’s A Whiskey Scene)
THE ROLLING STONES Bitch
TRAFFIC Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys
VAN MORRISON Blue Money
BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS Spinning Wheel
CHICAGO 25 Or 6 To 4
TEN YEARS AFTER At The Woodchoppers’ Ball
I think its a nice jesture. My girlfriend of 6 months made me one and I loved it. She had aparently taken mental notes of any songs i had talked favorably about and threw a few that had meaning between us. I loved it…
Well, it really depends on the recipient, the relationship between the two people, and the content. I would certainly find it cool and groovy in most cases, assuming it came from someone I didn’t loathe and who had some inkling about my tastes. A compilation containing nu-metal, schlager, smug political folkies, and noodly hippie jams, for example, would almost certainly be a deal-breaker, no matter how much love and labour was invested in its making. But then, I suppose my highly refined music snobbery can only be blamed on my own pathetic, obsessive geek tendencies.
Having made both, for lovers and friends…it was fun to do, and seemed to be appreciated, mostly. I gotta say that I wish a few of those mix tapes/discs weren’t still out there, though…like those grand declarations of love you make when you’re 18 and hormonally deluded.
Going somewhat off-topic here:
When I worked at a convenience store and needed to hear something good (as radio wasn’t really cutting it at the time), I made a lot more of them for myself. That actually helped me work out a few themes, try out combinations of songs and create my own event-oriented best-ofs…for example, I created a tape intended for use while making wine, with passing alcohol references in title or lyric (including Captain Beefheart’s “Ant Man Bee” because we making mead, f’rinstance).
I’ve GOT to remember to dig up one of my old tapes and list the contents for you next time I’m in…but if you want an idea of how much working out those ideas on mix tapes helped, that was fundamentally the smartest thing I did to help me get my own radio show going. (You can see this week’s playlist at wttsfm.com…scroll down to “WTTS OverEasy” and click on the link.)
Doing those mixes, especially on MiniDisc (because I could delete, add and resequence tracks), gave me the tools I needed to create collages and soundtracks of my own…and if they sounded like they made sense to me, they generally did for somebody else.
Since I’m now doing this once a week on the air, in real time, I haven’t recorded a mix tape/disc in a while, but I’m always in the mindset…and if you consider that bodypoet hears the show when she delivers papers on Sunday morning, I guess I’m not as far off-topic as I thought. 
She says she likes it, anyway…
The sig seems a little more appropriate this time, so I believe I’ll include it:
I’ve done both. For me, music is a deeply personal thing, and I do totally do the John Cusack thing. I once made an epic 6 CD MegaMix for a friend of mine. I called it “All The Music You’ll Ever Need” because I got sick of hearing “Oooh, who’s that?”
I plan which song goes where. “Hmm, this one’s too fast, we need kind of a slow section in the center.”
Having gotten them, you know, even the cheesy music sounds very cool when it’s given to you with affection.
I’ll say that this only goes for people who like music and understand the whole mix tape thing, though. It would be creepy if you didn’t know about it.
If you give someone a mix CD (or tape), you ought to at least write down the song titles, artists, original album the song came from, and perhaps the composer.
Example:
Al Green, “For the Good Times”, from I’m Still in Love With You. Written by Kris Kristofferson.
If you don’t do at least this much, it is pathetic. Don’t give someone a CD labeled “Mix: Romantic” in a blank case. Pathetic. If you are not into music enough to do the research, give the person a real CD with liner notes and everything.
If you bring the mix CD to a party, you should be familiar with all the music and be able to talk about it, or be able to refer to your liner notes and answer “who sings this, who wrote it, what album,” etc. But don’t talk through the entire song.
p.s. Include that Al Green track on your next Mix: Romantic CD. Trust me.
My SO made me a mix cd a couple of months ago. I was really touched when I listened to it because I knew that he picked out these songs just for me. He put a lot of effort into the cd, and I loved it. I thought it was very sweet.
Holy shit. Someone else is familiar with the band that changed my life. I was listening to Liquored up and laquered down this morning.
She’s liquored up and laquered down.
She’s got the biggest hair in town!.
sorry. [/hijack]
If you don’t at least try to make elaborate liner notes, you’re not doing it right. Heck, for my own, personal Rawkin 80s Mix Tape, I made an elaborate fold out thingie with the songs on it and what albums they came from, along with the band that did the song. And any interesting comments I had.
I just downloaded… er, bought “walk like a camel”… its, well, its horrible, and yet, somehow, crap.
Still, I can’t stop listening to it… perhaps it works the same way as my Waffle House obsession…