All Awesome Mixtapes Go to Heaven

My first mixtape was made of 100% cheese. The low-hanging, gummish bubble stuff of the pop airwaves, some 25 years ago. School bus soundtrack, first cassettes I ever owned. Best enjoyed in countdown form, namely Jay Beau Jones’ Top 9 Tonight. (TNT!)

The Sony SoundRider Cassette-Corder had two decks, and two buttons highlighted in red: REC, and DUBBING. What else for, but to collect, and reassemble? And so I trained my trigger finger to fire at first sign of a target. Vigilantly listening, willing the DJ to telegraph what was coming, but not run his mouth over the intro, I filled hours of ribbon with tune trophies. A near-regurgitation of the hits of the day, though I did pluck some obscure gems from Katrina & the Waves, and Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers. And at year’s end, I crafted it into a glorious Top 100 set. Glorious for a short time, anyway.

Of all the things I’ve made and destroyed, and later wished I could have back, my first awesome mix is right up there. But my tastes had to evolve, and I took victims with me.

My earliest compilation first revealed itself as cringe-worthy schlock upon my entry through the secret door to “modern rock” with its harder edge, Shrieks of the Week, and world-weary detachment.

 … Which I in turn jettisoned for roots rock: Earnest, homegrown, soul nourishment, served up by freeform programmers who segued from song to song to create a greater whole, the true artists of the mix, but ultimately doomed to banishment by the wheels of corporate radio.

… Which led me to seek solace in the advent of MP3’s and music blogs, the musical world at my cherry-picking fingertips. Expunging radio from the equation, I found my favorite artists and digested their whole catalogs. Personalization reached its height, even as the choices grew exponentially and bred decision fatigue.

… Which induced me to flee the modern soundscape, in favor of music of the ancients, museum pieces, revered and academic. Pure escape, gone was the need to collect, to differentiate one piece from another, or even to learn titles or composers. The momentary in and out flow sufficed, afterward it was disposable.

Somewhere along this musical evolution, my first awesome mix became a drag on my claim to musical integrity, most of its content long banished to the cultural trash heap. If I couldn’t wipe my memory, at least I could destroy the evidence. I pared down those 100 cheesy tracks to one cassette. Excised it of all punch lines. Neutered it of all cheese. But that was a phony retcon.

From time to time, those 80's relics reared their heads, and they cut through clear and true, lyrics still imprinted on my memory, the first notes begging the question, “Where’ve ya been?” A guilty pleasure. But why feel guilty?

Nostalgia lends a feel-good factor like none other. Of all the things music can make you feel, isn’t fist-pumpin’ joy the best? I know I’m not alone in that, because those exiled tunes turn up more and more, in “stunt programming” like a “Worst Of” weekend, or stations devoted to an “old school” format. Whitney, Paula, Def Leppard, it’s good to hear you again. Batdance – now there’s some cheese that can’t be denied! At the end of the day, I don’t want to enjoy my music ironically, or assert my hipster cred with it, or spout historical trivia about it. I want it to launch me into orbit. “Across the nation, around the world, everybody have fun tonight!” in the immortal words of Wang Chung.

My musical tastes have a split personality, and I’m content to keep them locked in perpetual battle for supremacy. There’s a time and a place for everything in that fight, even watered-down pop confections. To those musical elitists who would look down their noses in disparagement, I say, get over yourself. A once-awesome tune never dies, it just waits to be rediscovered. As for my long-lost first mixtape, I’ve taken up the challenge of reconstructing it from memory.

Star-Lord had it right. Hold on to your awesome mix and carry it with you. You might just find, someday, it’s your secret weapon.

Special Interests: The Top 40 Countdown

I came to music geekdom by a different path than most. The typical kid in the summer of ’88 listened to the screaming of Steven Tyler, the shredding of Slash, the rhymes of a teenage Will Smith, and a light bulb went off in their head – “Hey, I wanna to learn to do that!” or, “I need to start dressing like that!”

Not this Aspie. For me, it was all about the numbers. Specifically, the Top 40. At 13 years old, the music charts fascinated me to no end. The seemingly random programming of commercial radio revealed itself as, in fact, a very orderly system. Popularity could be quantified! Rankings! Peaks! Notches! Eagle 106 carried the weekly Billboard Top 40 countdown with Shadoe Stevens, and I would listen to the whole four hours. Once I even brought my radio with me to the dinner table, so I wouldn’t miss anything.

Yes, there was such a thing as The #1 Song In The Country, and we could track its changes from week to week! There was something fantastic about that. Only a select few made it to the top, and were rewarded with a place in history. Immortality. Was there a magic formula to a #1 hit? The right combination of lyrics, melody, and image that added up to near-universal appeal? I wondered.

Yet there was a dark side also. The music charts were ephemeral. No sooner would a song reach its peak, to be branded for all time as “a #3 hit,” or “a top ten smash,” than it would begin falling down the charts again. Even a #1 would last, at most, a few weeks. Today, we love you, and tomorrow, we’ve moved on. Each song’s journey was its own mini-narrative, that I felt compelled to witness from cradle to grave.

As my obsession grew, I found I would disagree with the countdown. So, I started my own. I kept my weekly Top 10 list in an AppleWorks database. (Now entering special interest territory, in case you hadn’t noticed.) “The Promise” by When in Rome a mere #11? No way, America! A multi-week #1! I made it so. New Kids on the Block? They don’t even chart. Suck it, teeny bopper girls!

But the best part was, because my database was sortable, I could do the ultimate extravaganza: The Year-End Top 100 According to Me! And boy, did I do it up right. All year long I recorded songs off the radio. In December, I tabulated, and I recorded them to tape, from 100 down to #1. It took 5 or 6 cassettes in all, and several days' work.

This was my #1 of the year 1989, Roxette’s “The Look.” (Super-cool Head Drum Remix version that Q102 used to play!)


And for the year 1990, “The Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground was my #1. What are you laughing at? You know you liked it, too!



I even stuck in some comedy bits from the morning zoo programs in between the songs. The B-52’s “Love Shack” spawned many - “Radio Shack,” and “Butt Crack,” just to name a few. Yes, it was a labor of love to assemble these elaborate tape creations. Of course, I didn’t share them with anyone. It seemed, somehow, too obsessive and personal, as if the only appropriate response would be, “Wow, someone has way too much time on his hands!” But I had fun.

After those two years, I lost interest in the music charts, both real-world, and my own. But I kept making my year-end mix tape compilations for another 8 years. My tastes evolved, and quickly turned far outside the mainstream and commercial radio. Nowadays, I have no need to rank what I like - I buy CD’s, or I download, and my favorites have a lot more staying power than a few weeks.

But sometimes I still miss the old days, glued to the radio, listening to the singles battle it out like gladiators, jockeying for position, and a big booming voice conferring the honor, over the opening notes of some omnipresent ditty. “The Num…ber One…. Song… In America….” Victorious at the top. For the moment.