"The lost art of the mixtape" Did anyone else do this with mixtapes they've made?

[Dennis Donovan]

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History Lovers Club @historylvrsclub

The lost art of the mixtape.



7:14 AM - Mar 28, 2020

I used to adorn my Maxell XLII 90 mixtape cases with artwork, etc.

If I had to venture a guess, the tapes in the photo were put together in the early-to-mid 80's.

[roscoeroscoe]

1. I used to make mine

With a cheap Peavy DJ mixer, made a bunch of mixes each Christmas.

DJ'ed up in Northern California back in the 80's. Good times!

[Shermann]

2. I printed out mixtape covers on my Atari 800 in the 80's

I wish I still had those to share. I had a system I tell ya.

[targetpractice]

7. WHAT?!? Marry me! I did the same!

With an Epson dot matrix printer... I used Deluxe Paint... and some kind of software that made the Epson print really tiny print for the track list.

[Sloumeau]

3. Your guess about the timeline is probably accurate.

Since most people did not really know about the group "Simple Minds", listed on the tapes as "The Simpleminds", until The Breakfast Club came out in 1985, I would guess that at least some of these tapes were made in 1985 or later.

[Generic Brad]

4. I used to have a lot of fun naming mix tapes

Just a sample of some of the ones I recall I used to have:

A collection of Rolling Stones favorites labelled "How Is Keith Not Dead?"
A collection of disco songs called "Dance Your Pants Off"
Songs that were heavy on bass called "Rumblers"
A compilation of the most over the top depressing songs I could find called "You Can't Make This Shit Up"

Mixtapes held a finite number of songs. I just can't bring myself to do that with playlists that I can add to indefinitely.

[Tikki]

5. In the mid 90's when I was at Uni, I would listen to a mixed tape before exams...

Always:
Talking Heads
DEVO
and some L.A. and S. F. Bands like...Social D or DK's

I thought it made me feel smarter..probably just helped ground me a bit.

Tikki

[hunter]

6. My wife and I still have the box of mix tapes we took with us...

... driving across the U.S.A. several times.

Now I'm thinking I could scan the labels and recreate the tapes as files in my digital scrapbooks.

After all these years, and all the time they spent on the floor of cars parked in the sun, I'll bet the sound quality of the actual tapes is horrible! It was pretty bad to begin with, since a lot of them were originally copied from other cassettes.

[targetpractice]

8. The best gift ever...

... was the first mix-tape from someone you just started dating. That's when things became serious.

[BigmanPigman]

9. I HATE that they don't have cassette players in cars anymore.

I paid for one to be installed in the late 90s when I got a new car but than it became impossible to do in 2010 when I had to get my next a new car. They couldn't even do it anymore they told me. I don't drive nearly as well without my mixed tapes. It is a fact!

Right now I have a mixed tape in my stereo cassette and it's turned up to 11:
The Small Faces...Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, Pink Floyd...Animals, Nirvana...Unplugged and "Assorted Good Stuff".

[pansypoo53219]

10. i just tapped my CDs for my walkman. and library CDs. slowly going thru my old tapes.

only purging 7 so far.

[TomVilmer]

11. I had one drawing shared on all my old tapes...

... cut in stripes, so it was easy to see where they fitted in line.

[GoneOffShore]

12. And now there are playlists on Spotify.

Much easier to share -
I posted this the other day but I think it's worth doing it again.

The Apocalypse Now Spotify playlist
A good friend in Philadelphia has put together a playlist.

I think you'll all enjoy it!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4CL7fFeTcpvHyxfuwbpFbG?si=VH8WDCJfQkekZU6vy-V8qQ

[Ellen Forradalom]

13. Yes! and I made very thoughtful artwork for them

As did my boyfriend at the time.