Interpretations of a mix.

While we are all familiar with the difficulties in making a mix tape/cd (I'm old school, I still shudder at saying "mix cd"), there are also the difficulties of interpreting the mix tape, urgh, cd. While many have written about the art of making the mix (see Hornby quote below), I'm wondering about the countless hours that the recipient spends in analyzing the content of the received mix. Certainly, some mixes are not intended for a purpose, while others are created with the intention of communication.

Then there is the case where you receive a mix that you haven't a clue about. Last weekend, through a series of happenstance decisions, I ended up (at a very late hour) in a neighbor's home that I had only briefly met. Okay, I'll level with you. I ran into her in the local bar (though, I also have decided today that it sounds much better to refer to them as pubs--thanks, Art!). She invited me and my next door neighbor back to her house for a night cap.

Upon arrival, we discovered our new friend is a DJ. She proceeded to play us music while we ruminated on life, love, and work. I should also mention we spent an inordinate amount of time on a letter her doctor wrote her excusing her from work, but I digress.

Toward the end of the evening, our lovely host decided that both my neighbor and I deserved a mix cd of her making. She set out to make a mix for my neighbor, Ashley, first. In what seemed like an extremely long process of selection, she finally burned a cd for Ashley. I thought we were in the clear- in that I assumed she would quickly burn the same copy for me. But no, I would be wrong.

She informed me that I needed a different mix and a different order. In what felt like another hour, she re-ordered the cd and proceeded to burn it. I feel ashamed to admit, but I didn't actually listen to this cd until this week. And while I appreciate the genuine time and energy that went into this project...I'm just captivated by the song choice and the order.

Here is the song listing-

Track 1- A song by Playboy Tre (I still can't figure out the song title, but the theme is "you can't break my heart.")

Track 2- Time of the Season- The Zombies

Track 3- Pressure- Playgroup

Track 4- Mailman- Soundgarden

Track 5- Get Even- Kelis

Track 6- She wants to move- N.E.R.D.

Track 7- Bad Girl- Usher

Track 8- Epiphany- Chrisette Michele

Wait, Soundgarden? The Zombies? Were these put in a strategic place simply because she thought it might communicate something I needed to know? Or did these two songs simply find a placement based on what she thought she knew about my musical taste? And Soundgarden? Really? I hope I don't communicate that to people.

All of that being said, I love the mix. It serves as a relic of an evening. And I actually enjoy many of the songs, well, except the Soundgarden song.


"To me, making a tape is like writing a letter- there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again, and I wanted it to be a good one...A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with "Got to Get you off My Mind," but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs, and...oh, there are loads of rules." -Nick Hornby