The art of curating a quality playlist took a serious hit when CDRs were replaced by streaming/digital. Even in the early days of MP3 players you were at least limited to the amount of physical space on your iPod or Zune or whatever other device replaced your CD player. I’m as guilty of it as anyone. Back in the day we had to carefully consider the content of our mixtapes/CDs because there was a finite amount of space to work with. My personal Prince playlist on Apple Music currently contains 215 songs and clocks in at just under 18 hours (It’s about to expand, too, with the super deluxe edition of Diamonds and Pearls). If I wanted to take that in my car with me 20 years ago I would’ve needed a pack of CDRs, a lot of time to burn, and a 20 disc changer in the trunk. If I wanted to do that 30 years ago I would’ve needed a dual tape deck, a suitcase full of blank cassettes, and a few weeks. You needed Rockefeller money to do that shit. Now I pay Apple a few bucks every month and I can listen to whatever I want whenever I want. Streaming is amazing, but it’s sucking the soul out of music in countless ways.
I miss the brainstorming and painstaking decisions that went into burning music onto a CD. You only had an 80-minute canvas. As if that wasn’t enough pressure, CDRs cost money, and once you burned something onto them that was it. You had to live with it. There were consequences. You better pick the right songs and put them in the order that you liked or you just wasted a lot of time and effort and a little bit of money. One mix CD decision could make or break a house party or road trip. My wife and I made mix CDs for the guests at our wedding. Not a unique custom CD for every individual there…I’m not that insane. One CD that we gave out to everyone who came to the reception*. Stakes was high. That was over 18 years ago and I still have regrets about choices on that disc. Too much trying to satisfy our guests and not enough of our own personality on that one.
Making a cassette was a different story – those were the original mixtapes. If you were recording from another cassette you had to make sure they were both in the right spot using the counter. You had to make sure you started and stopped both at the same time. No matter what you did, going from tape to tape was going to degrade the quality. If you were recording from the radio you had to worry about loquacious disc jockeys talking over the song or accidentally getting too much overlap from the songs that played before and after. At least with cassettes you could record over them, but every time you did that you were messing with the sound quality. It was a shitshow. But once again, you had to be strategic about it. If someone gave you a mixtape or mix CD it was a gesture of love. They poured their time, effort, and heart into it. Any sucker can take 200 Prince songs, drag them to a playlist, then send a link, but where’s the soul in that?
I’m not done with you yet, playlists. Here’s another problem I have with you (although this criticism applies to every medium): You’re rarely creative or provocative. I’ll bring Prince into the conversation again. Prince has more compilations than I can keep track of. There was The Hits collection from the early-90s. There was The Very Best of Prince. There’s Ultimate Prince. There’s 4Ever. Adding to it, every streaming service has their own Prince Essentials playlist. They’re all great. I love every song on them…but every single one has the same songs. We all adore “Little Red Corvette” and “When Doves Cry”. We’ve all heard them a million times before with good reason, and I’ll gladly listen to them another million times. Where’s “The Beautiful Ones”? Where’s “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker”? “Partyup”? Those are my favorite Prince tracks and I haven’t seen them on anyone’s lists. I don’t just want to hear the same old hits. I want to take the person that’s heard “Raspberry Beret” and “Kiss” a hundred times and say, “You liked those? Now try these?” Or, if you like the song “7” you might like this obscure, stripped down remix even more. Seriously, this version of “7” is better than the original. That’s what personalizes a mixtape. I would never say, “Here, beloved reader. You trust me enough to read my silly blog. I claim to know more about Prince than most. These are the songs I believe you should listen to,” and then play the same 16 tracks from everyone else’s compilation. I love you and the music too much to waste our time like that.
Also, I struggle to find topics about which to write unless there’s a gimmick.
Here’s what I’m doing about it: I’m bringing soul back to playlists. I’m going to create mix CDs and share them with you. I’ll tell you why some songs made the cut and some didn’t. Yes, you’ll get the hits, but we will go deeper. I do still have an external CD burner for my Mac, but my spindle of CDRs is empty so these will not be physical CDs. I’ll be making these playlists using Apple Music instead, but they’ll all have an 80 minute time limit just like a CD. I’m also going to employ guest writers who are at least as passionate about music as I am as often as possible. We’ll make playlists independently, then come together to compare and contrast. It will be fun and hopefully we’ll all find some new music to love.
Creation of the first mookiefantana mix CD is already underway and it’s going to set the bar high. Joining me for this first mix CD are Andy Brawner (my brother) and Andy Brawner (my son). The artist is Tame Impala. While I consider myself an avid Tame Impala fan, my brother and son are next level. You’ll be treated to each of our Tame Impala mix CDs and the stories behind them.
Where this idea goes from here I do not know. I have some other artists/topics and guest writers in mind, but if you’re reading this and care to participate I would love that. Message me. I hope to look back at this spot a year from now and see at least a dozen mix CDs for readers to choose from. For now, prepare yourself for Tame Impala. Coming soon.
*We still have a box with at least 20 of those wedding CDs in our basement, so if you want to know what kind of (mostly) happy love music Chelsee and I wanted to share with our family and friends in 2005 and you weren’t invited to the wedding let me know and I can get you one. Or maybe I’ll just revisit that mix CD for one of these posts.
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