Mix Tapes and Playlists - Art or Science?

I can remember the first mix tape I made.  Cassette in the boom box that I had spent a summer saving for, sitting, hunched over, waiting for a specific song to play over the radio so I could push "record".  Untold hours waiting for the songs I wanted, to be spun over the air waves by a heathen disk jockey.  I grew up in a house where Rock-n-Roll was the devils music.  Even if it had a christian label on it.  Until I had a car, and could get my own tapes, I had to use the headphones at night to hear what satan had to say.  Our town had only classic rock and pop stations. Not quality art for the most part, but there was ZZ top on that first tape.  Led Zeppelin, George Thorogood, Boston, Tears for Fears, and of course Jimi Hendrix.  Not much but it was a start.

Of course, once I got the '73 Challenger it all changed.  The world opened up and it looked and sounded good.  And now it turned around girls.  I  didn't make mix tapes for myself so much anymore, I made them for girlfriends, girls who were just friends and girls I wanted to be friends with.  Then the time was spent putting together just the right mix in just the right order.  I guess I have always been a little obsessed with communication and I wanted those songs to communicate just what I wanted to say.  This was probably the driest time artistically.  The music sucked and I couldn't find the good stuff I knew had to be out there. This being exemplified by one humiliating moment in time. This was the moment of my greatest musical shame. I turn red when I think of it now even after all these years.  Once I .. oh god,... I had a friend turn off this new song that had just come out called 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' so I could put in the new White Snake album.  I have gone to the grotto at Notre Dame to beg God's forgiveness, now all I have to do is forgive myself.

As a young single guy traveling around this country and others, the world turned on discovery and adventure.  Then I finally found it.  "For him who has ears to hear..." was my Scripture to live by.  One blog wouldn't hold the list of bands I discovered from new friends and in wonderfully crummy music shops all over our great land.  Suffice it to say, it was indie and underground.  

My mix tapes were carelessly thrown together at this point.  There was so much good music, even christian music was creative, dirty and punk.  Going to K.C. to catch Hot Pink Turtles, Dig Hey Zuess, Scattered Few and the Seventy Sevens.  If you were in St. louis at the time, you could go see Uncle Tupelo play at the Landing, Austin had Edie Brickell, Chicago had Smashing Pumpkins, D.C. had Henry Rollins and the real punk scene California could never touch, but California had the Minutemen and Mazzy Star and that was something special too.   Seattle had, well, early Seattle was the holy land. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Mother Love Bone, Mudhoney, etc...  Too much, too much. 

Oddly enough, the day I bought Pearl Jam's "Ten", I went to see Blue Oyster Cult.  My buddy from college and I went as a joke but I was blown away.  My next mix tape had "Jeremy" and "Godzilla" next to each other. I think that sums up those years well as anything.

When I got engaged and married the world turned around her.  My mix tapes changed again to reflect the romance and excitement of my first real love.   The mix tapes weren't for just me or just to say something to her, they were for us.  For ten hour road trips to see the family or three day road trips cause we wanted to see the mountains.  They were the sum total of our merged musical taste.  The two became one.  I went from the Police to Sting's "Soul Cages".  She grew to like The Choir.  We mixed some classical (she was a pianist) with some Peter Gabriel.  They Might Be Giants on a mix tape with the Presidents (edited of course) for our new daughter.  Mix tapes were a family affair.  

The divorce changed my mix tapes again.  They were mix CDs at this point, before the advent of the mp3. Everything was darker.  My faith had reached it's lowest point in a life of historic highs and lows.  The mix tape was the soundtrack as my marriage was sliding off the cliff in slow motion, with me pushing on the brakes frantically but not stopping it.  It never stopped until it crashed into the bottom of the canyon with the mix tape providing the soundtrack.  The soundtrack included the end of the band Soundgarden with "Down On The Upside", U2's "Pop", Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Clutch, and The Cure among others.  I rediscovered Dylan and Marley at this time. No coincidence there.  Two of the greatest artist in the history of music in any genre.  They expressed my despair when I couldn't find the words.

So I find myself  making a mix tape/playlists today.  Nothing much, A friend had commented at band practice that she didn't have any good new music.  Ever the music evangelist (if only Jesus and the disciples had put together a groovin band...) I volunteered to get her some new stuff I have been listening to.  Putting it together I realized again how much I love music and how good we have it today.  Pretty soon I had fifty or so songs from almost as many artist.  The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Pinback, Midlake, Imogene Heap, Aqualung, Death Cab, T.V. On The Radio, Snow Patrol, Tegan and Sarah, I even put Mazzy Star's "Into Dust" on it just for old times sake.  It's still out there, you just have to have ears to hear...

Francis Shaeffer said we don't have to fear art.  Art does not corrupt a society, art is merely the reflection of whatever that society is.  I was never corrupted by the "devils music" it wasn't his in the first place.  It was just art and it reflected who I was and am.  Over the years and in every situation what I am listening to or writing and playing is merely a reflection of what I am at that moment.  My final verdict is that, while there is a science to a good playlist in content, key and tempo, in the end it's art...   Art imitating life.