I am an avowed, High Fidelity-esque music geek. I make top-five lists in my head, I think of the top-five soundtracks opening songs. Hell, I used to challenge my friends; give me a situation, I’ll give you the perfect song. They constantly rose to the occasion, I, I am somewhat disappointed to announce, didn’t always. Then there is the mix tape. As John Cusack so eloquently explained in the previously mentioned movie, the mix tape is and was the summation of all my years at any given moment.

As a kid and teenager I would spend hours pouring over my father’s and my own vinyl collection looking for that perfect combination of songs to fit into 60, 90 or 120 minutes. What I was going for was key to the length. Road trip? Had to be 120. Something to work out to? Go for the 60 and we’ll make a 90 once we get a little better at the gym, and of course, my secret weapon to woo the women who made my world wonky: 90 minutes. Enough to make an impact but short enough to leave them wanting more, wanting me or at least I thought.

I mean how any teenage girls in the world could resist me once they heard my wonderful arraignment of melodies spotlighting my suave sophistication is beyond me. Alas, it seems chubby and pimple face isn’t overcome by Procol Harum or Moby Grape alone, but boy howdy did I try.

So years passed, vinyl LPs gave way to compact discs but still the mix tape continued as a staple in my life, only now somewhat easier to create. No worrying about bumping the needle or not queuing the record to just the right place: Track four – record! Then MP3s, burnable CDs, and music editing software really got big and mix tapes, though now a misnomer, took on a whole new dimension for me.

Instead of song one, song two in a disjointed stop and start with seconds of silence in between, I began taking my high-quality MP3s, legally ripped from CDs I bought (for all you RIAA spys), loading them into my copy of programs like Sound Forge and melded my tracks, one continuous flow of music perfectly conveying whatever emotional state I was after.

Article Author: Benjamin Cossel

A working journalist, Benjamin currently serves as a combat photojournalist and is the managing editor of a weekly newspaper in southeastern Wyoming. He’s worked as a reporter in Ohio, Arizona and done several deployments in the military crossing the globe. …

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