About

I love my iPod. I do. And iTunes. But they’ve changed the way people listen to music. Mostly this is for the better. If anything, people actually do listen to music these days. Or at least more music. The volume of options and level of access is staggering.

But it’s not all good. Sharing music is, in my opinion, at an all-time low. Even with things like Ping and MOG and iLike and Spotify and Rdio, sharing music with your friends in the internet age lacks the personal touch, grace and devotion of previous media.

Enter, or rather re-enter, the mix tape.

I made literally hundreds of these in high school and university. And each one was special, if only to me. As a medium, the cassette offered something no format that came after could. That was main because of its limits. The mix CD and Muxtape were close, but different in that it was too easy to bounce around track-to-track. Skipping songs on a tape was a giant pain in the ass, which helped make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

The mix tape is a collection of songs that eschew genre and era (except when they don’t — totally an option!), but somehow still provide a cohesive listening experience. The best mix tapes can actually change the way you understand certain songs, giving them an entirely new context.

When 2010 ended and I compiled my favorite songs, I did it using a set of rules similar to those imposed by the mix tape. It sort of worked and I wanted to see what else could be done using a similar process.

So, here’s 52 Mix Tapes. Every Friday I’ll post a new mix tape (albeit in MP3 format) created with a firm set of rules:

1. Give it a name.
2. Two sides, 30 minutes per.
3. Create cover art.
4. Include liner notes.