Mix tape nostalgia (Signifying Nothing: how does saying nothing at all become so loud?)

Tuesday, 19 October 2004

Mix tape nostalgia

My wife found an eleven-year-old mix tape that I made for her when we were first dating.

Side A:
The Beatles, Revolution
The Rolling Stones, Ruby Tuesday
David Bowie, Candidate
King Crimson, Matte Kudasai
The Who, Odorono
John Lennon, Imagine
Bob Mould, Sunspots/Wishing Well
Ween, Don’t Laugh (I Love You)
Pixies, Here Comes Your Man
The Who, Bargain
Frank Zappa, Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance
David Bowie, All Saints

Side B:
Peter Gabriel, The Feeling Begins
The Who, Squeeze Box
The Rolling Stones, Brown Sugar
David Bowie, Big Brother
Butthole Surfers, Hurdy Gurdy Man
Brian Eno and John Cale, Spinning Away
Velvet Underground, Sweet Jane
Ween, Marble Tulip Juicy Tree
The Who, Behind Blue Eyes
Frank Zappa, In France
King Crimson, The Sheltering Sky

Looking back, I’d say my musical tastes have remained fairly consistent. I don’t listen to music as much as I used to, but The Beatles, The Who, Bowie, and Zappa are still frequently in my CD player. And I still think that the Eno/Cale album, Wrong Way Up, is the best album of the 90s.

The only group on the list that really didn’t age well for me is Ween. I threw in The Pod about a month ago, and all I could think was "I used to listen to this noise?"

Do kids these days, with their MP3s and their iPods, still make mix tapes for their girlfriends/boyfriends?

4 comments:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.

1. Steven Taylor wrote @ Tue, 19 Oct 2004, 7:16 pm CDT:

What is this strange “Side A” and “Side B” of which you speak?

2. Robert Prather wrote @ Tue, 19 Oct 2004, 7:32 pm CDT:

Do kids these days, with their MP3s and their iPods, still make mix tapes for their girlfriends/boyfriends?

Yep, except these days they’re called CDs rather than tapes. I haven’t bought a cassette myself since 1987 and haven’t had a tape since 1993.

3. joy wrote @ Tue, 19 Oct 2004, 9:27 pm CDT:

CDs? That’s so 90s. Nowadays the kids share the iPod playlists.

4. Robert Prather wrote @ Tue, 19 Oct 2004, 10:09 pm CDT:

Well, even though I own an iPod—and have for more than two years—I still use CDs when I’m driving. I hate the FM modulators, or whatever they’re called, because they suck in metro areas and aren’t very good in the country when there are very few frequencies in use. If cars just included an audio input jack I would probably abandon CDs as well.

For the record, when I buy a CD it gets ripped onto the Mac and goes in a box. Most music I buy through iTunes.

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