I’m bummed out that mixtapes aren’t a thing anymore. That we no longer exchange tangible, personalized music in tiny plastic packaging. My mom told me about growing up in the 80s and patiently waiting at the radio for her favorite songs to play. Once they did, she would pounce, pressing record so she could savor the music later. The scarcity of song made these tapes into treasures, into something harvested and earned.
Today, there are obvious advantages to having massive archives of music at one’s disposal. I’ve been able to expand my library immensely through Spotify’s “Similar Artists” feature and shuffle ability. Yet, I’m reminiscent for the days when I would plug in a boom box and listen to CDs I checked out from the library as I got ready for elementary school. I feel an odd nostalgia for what was in actuality the end of an era – rarely do we listen to physical music anymore. Rarely are our discographies made of those tangible treasures.
One of my best friends shares this displaced nostalgia, but more specifically mourns for mixtapes, those little cassettes friends and lovers would exchange to say what they couldn’t. Together, we spent months mulling over music, a classic practice of guess-and-check, to cultivate our mixtape… or rather a playlist.
“Chill for Vaughn” wasn’t a riveting title, but it’s what we were going for. I would add songs to the playlist and wait as he spent the coming days listening and revising. He would come back with suggestions of songs to drop and ordering to adjust. Every song would engage with its predecessor: the foggy piano outro of “Asleep” by The Smiths would seamlessly fade into Death Cab for Cutie’s melancholic waltz in “What Sarah Said.” We crafted our playlist to exist in pseudo-singularity, a fluid listening experience that valued each of its pieces, each hand-picked song.
The playlist has become a sort of relic in our relationship. It’s an audible time capsule of two sixteen-year-olds vying to impress one another as they grew closer. Hearing one of the songs existing on it’s own always brings me back to the context of our friendship. If I’m loitering in a supermarket and hear Iron and Wine over tired speakers, I’m suddenly sitting on his back deck under an itchy blanket and staring up at night. If I’m relaxing in my own apartment and hear Cat Power shuffle in my kitchen, I’m relocated to a Kansas back-road and the backseat of his Honda Element. And he’s always there. These songs are stray reminders of my friend states away.
There is a subtle intimacy in sharing a playlist with someone. Despite no longer existing tangibly on a cassette tape, the gesture still signals these are songs that made me think of you or at least these are songs that I love and I hope you will too. The sentiment is charming and a little shy, relying on the passivity of sound to communicate on your behalf. Still, hearing these songs offer a little reminder to me: somebody out there likes you.
HAVOC MUSIC 