I was old enough to start getting into exploring my own tastes in music right about the time that cassettes were being replaced by CDs, so I had both. However, the only way to make your own "mix" was to make a "mix-tape" by recording songs off the radio onto a cassette. Mix-tapes were really big. It was the prehistoric ancestor of having your own playlist on an iPod.
Besides arranging the songs, the real trick was to make sure that you timed the start of the recording and the ending of the recording properly. If you started to early, you would get the DJ talking or the previous song - stop too late, and you get the same problem at the end. Also, you had to be really quick on starting the recording when the song you wanted came on the radio. Usually, I would miss the first couple seconds of the song unless I was just hovering over the tapedeck.
One of the first songs that I put onto a good mix-tape was Two Princes from the Spin Doctors. I still like that one.
I need to dig up some of my old mix-tapes. I'm sure I have them around somewhere.
Great stuff! Is it Walkmans or Walkmen? Either way, it was a must have device - especially for family and school road trips. The mix-tape was certainly an artform. Finding the right songs for a road trip or to give to a girl required a plenty of delicate thought.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of The Spin Doctors, they were the headliners at my first concert with Soul Assylum and The Screaming Trees as openers. It was great and it started my concert addiction.