Album of the week -- the mixed tape
I temporarily shelved my 'Album of the Week' feature after the Katrina chaos. I briefly lost my inspiration for a month or so and became bogged down with wondering if any business or institution, like the government, is ever managed effenciently, but now I'm back to what really matters -- pop culture.
To get back on track, 'Album of the Week' has a special fall edition this week with the mixed tape. Yes, it is a lost art form although the iPod and similar mp3 shufflers massively memic the concept. Mixed tapes were religious experiences in high school and college for me. CDs were out way before CD burners so the mixed tape lived on past the album on tape because that, for many years, was the only way to create a compilation. In high school, my favorite mixed tapes were the ones I created at home with my double cassette boom box (four words you don't hear much anymore in sequence). I liked my homegrown tapes the best, even the ones created from songs off Auburn's college station WEGL.
In college, my tastes expanded and a couple of great compilations were created for my best girl friend and room mate Clare called "Selections from the Golden Pallet". She still has both volumes and we are terrified they are going to get eaten by whatever existing tape player we currently have. Through much experimenting, I was able to put messages from our answering maching between songs including Clare's mother, Barbara, calling and saying, "What a rude rude message," in reference to some random greeting we had probably recorded off a Rudy Ray Moore movie.
Yeah, those were the days -- no mortage payments, no student loan payments and a lot of free time.
To celebrate the concept of the mixed tape I made a compilation for my sister two years ago called "Auburn High School's Greatest Hits". We both graduated from AHS and that is place where our musical tastes were shaped. Auburn is a small town, but has a great college radio station and many kids that were hip to all kinds of great music at a young age. With WEGL's Thursday night show "91 Request" and MTV's Sunday night show "120 minutes" we definitely discovered what was below the Mariah Carey and George Michael surface of commercial music. The lines were more definitively drawn back in the late 1980s and what was alternative music, truly was an alternative to heaps of glossy commercial trash pop and obnoxiously wrong metal (a la Warrant's "Cherry Pie").
I still appreciate the concept of a mixed tape, even the the modern form is digital. The mixed CD is the closest relative to the tape and I have recently been reminded of the joy they bring by my friend and work buddy Chris who has recently given me two excellent and widely varying mixed CDs. Unlike the iPod, you have a certain number of tracks here. It has a beginning and an end and can create a mood whether it be one you can pull a work all-nighter with or one that helps you get off your butt to clean the house. They have their own personalities and punctuate moments in life unlike any other musical medium I have known.
If I were to create the ultimate mixed tape from high school heydays here's probably how they playlist would read:
Side one
The Sugarcubes -- Birthday
The Cure -- 10:15 Saturday night
R.E.M. -- Flowers of Guatemala
10,000 Maniacs -- Don't Talk
Guatalcanal Diary -- Litany (Life Goes On)
Love and Rockets -- Youth
The Pixies -- Wave of Mutilation
U2 -- Seconds
The Primitives -- Crash
The Church -- Under the Milky Way
Wire -- Kidney Bingoes
Husker Du -- Too Far Down
Side two
fIREHOSE -- In Memory of Elizabeth Cotton
The Balancing Act -- Wonderful World Tonight
U2 -- The Unforgettable Fire
Midnight Oil -- Dream World
The B-52's -- Give Me Back My Man
Pylon -- Stop It
Let's Active -- Night Train
R.E.M. -- Dream
Robyn Hitchcock -- Globe of Frogs
XTC -- Sacrificial Bonfire
The Smiths -- Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before
Stone Roses -- Elephant Stone
Jane's Addiction -- I Would For You
Okay, there is my version. What's yours? What were the songs your high school soundtrack? I know Jamie and I will share many artists. I am interested in hearing what Mojo was jamming to during the seventies as well as Beckeye and Lee Ann's verions of rock and roll high school. Bring 'em!
(For further reading on the subject, NPR did an excellent piece with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth on called "The Mix Tape: Art and Artifact" on June 14 of this year. I think I listened to it two or three times. The end of the interview features listeners calling in and describing their favorite mix tapes -- one led to a couple getting married thus proving their importance.)
Comments
I remember my daughter went through stages, for awhile she went through the I want to dye my hair purple and heavy metal thing. lol I have to laugh when I think about this one heavy metal song that she would play over and over. I can't remember who it was but it had the words "bang your head" in it. Oh God, I listened to it so much, it was contagous, I want to gang her head so badly. lol
sangrocito the celebrity dirt cat is officially out of the bag. so who did you go to school with? anthony kiedis of the red hot chili peppers? robert downey jr. DISH IT you brazilian birthday stud!
By the way, The Unforgettable Fire is, was and always will be my favorite U2 song.
LOVE your tape mix.. hahah. I am a proud graduate of the class of 1986, or, as we liked to say, eighty-six, eighty-six, eighty eighty eighty eighty eighty-six.
hahaha.
our mascot? the Ironman (don't ask). so at hte beginning of every football game, they would play that "I am Ironman" song by Black Sabbath. Memories, light the corners of my mind.. hahahah.
TMI, I"m sure.. ha.
My Sunday afternoon was spent listening to Casey Kasem's Billboard top 40.
Unlike my contemporaries, I did not fall into generation gap. My friends and associates could not progress past the 70's rock/hard rock genre. Even some of the rocker bands had to migrate to pop in order to survive. I progressed and adapted into the Break dance music of the early 80's and tried to adapt into the Hip Hop scene of Rap. But failed there so I stayed with the mainstream pop instead. The music of the new millenium in my opinion is in a downward spiral of garbage.
My interests now lie in Heavy Percussion Instrumentals of the likes of the Chemical Brothers, etc.
diamond and mojo i worshipped at the casey kasem shrine during Sunday day and then at the Rick Dees shrine late at night with the radio safely tucked under my pillow. Casey was pretty good about not talking over songs like Diamond described. I hate that -- so I recorded that. Rick was a little more raunchy and out there with his humor. Someone on his show did a great impression of Cher.
alison welcome! glad to know there is someone else out there that can relate to this play list. i have seen your comments on angela's blog. that is cool that you worked with the pylon drummer. i bought a single of theirs in penscacola that had a glossy autographed 8 x 10 of the band. i always like their minimal weirdness. my sister went to UGA and had an English class taught by one of the guys from Guadalcanal Diary. I was majorly star struck from a side angle on that one. They used to come to Auburn on a pretty regular basis to play big frat parties and we high school kids always figured a way to get in. those were good years for music. its interesting to see the sounds of the cure come back into play with bands like the killers, who are obviously heavily influenced by them.