At the beginning of last year I started compiling a monthly public playlist on Spotify. My interest in new music and artists has been renewed in the first half of this decade and I felt inspired to share the songs that have been soundtracking my life, much like I did over two decades ago. All that’s really changed is the format.
I call the playlist a mixtape, in truth these compilations haven’t been cassette based since I was gifted an LG CD-R drive one Christmas in the early 2000s (thank you parents). Nor is there any mega-mixing involved between tracks, akin to Jive Bunny or any of his contemporaries. Still, for whatever reason (and it’s likely just the warmth of nostalgia) the mixtape term has endured.
I was surprised when a mixtape I once made resurfaced 11 years later. The friend I made it for sent me this photo above as proof she’d kept it. It should be noted though that what you see here is the original tracklisting insert, in a replacement case. When I presented it to her in May 2005, it was packaged in a clear plastic sleeve, full of multicoloured foil stars. – Yep. Just when I’d about lived that particularly soppy move down, I choose to document it here. She put one of the stars in a heart shaped locket necklace. I thought better than to enquire whether that had survived.
A big part of the collector life is curation. I believe this to be a transferable skill when it comes to the art of compiling a playlist. A mixtape should be more than just a handful of songs you like. This is a presentation, a piece of art shared as a form of communicating, with no words of your own, though probably containing many words you either want to say or wish you’d wrote.
In the late 2000s, before the convenience of streaming was an option, I attempted a public playlist by combining mp3s into one downloadable file. I’ve found a couple of these and they’re a real time capsule. Take a listen below.
MIXTAPE 2008 1
The first starts with a song by The Ataris featuring the opening line “today I made you a mixtape and decorated it with lots of stars, it had all my favourite songs…”. – a familiar story.
MIXTAPE 2008 2
You’ll hear I even added more words between the tracks in the form of audio clips. I don’t think I was trying to say anything with the choices here, it was more than likely just what I had access to.
And words are far from the only consideration when it comes to compiling a playlist. Above all else, a mixtape a feeling. And to achieve said feeling, sequencing is everything.
Sequencing can make or break an album for me. I love this part of curating a mixtape, taking the time to consider the order in which the tracks roll out, sometimes in intricate detail, sometimes on a total whim. I used to think I was good at it, now I think I’m a lot better.
Here’s some art detailing the tracklisting for one of the mp3 playlists above, which I went to the effort to make back when spare time was in abundance, clearly.
When I was much younger, I think I often approached sequencing more like a DJ set, only picking songs that flowed from one to the next. This is still a factor, but somewhere along the way I grew to appreciate the value of dynamic on the listening experience.
As I go through the month listening to new music, I get inspiration for the next edition of the monthly mixtape. Sometimes I hear a definite opener or closer, occasionally I’ll hear a strong contender for, say, track 4.
When I first heard the opener I chose for a recent edition, it floored me. The song was Charly Bliss – Nineteen, It really wasn’t what I was expecting from them when I hit play. A huge, swelling, heartfelt track. A dead cert closer? Nah, it deserved to be isolated and heard stand-alone as my first listen was.
I decided this within 10 minutes of hearing the song, including “how on earth do you follow it up?”. My call on this was to go to the total opposite extreme, Sum 41 – Waiting on a Twist of Fate, a lightning-fast burst of pop punk, delivered with an equal amount of passion, providing the through-line between tracks 1 and 2 and making this one of my favourite pairings to begin the playlist so far.
While I’m currently contemplating a long overdue move to Apple Music as my streaming platform of choice (better quality, better royalties..) I can’t deny that Spotify and its concerningly good algorithm has served me well in recent times.
Sometimes it can feel like most of the negative aspects of life stem back to coding somewhere that’s making decisions on how things play out for us. Other times it as if we’ve lost an ability to make choices, having become so dependant on the decisions being made on our behalf. How far gone are you on living by algorithm? Is it even possible to measure now?
If there’s a clear example of an algorithm having a positive influence in my life over the past couple of years, Spotify’s weekly ‘Release Radar’ would be it. It’s introduced me to countless new favourite bands.
To be clear, were I to leave it at that, a handful of artists to add to my ‘library’, I’m not sure how positive I could claim the influence to be. Passive may be the more appropriate word. Instead I’ve been determined to get out and see some of these bands.
Live music is my comfort zone, taking a chance on new acts, or acts that are new to me, has caused me to take a step outside of that. Lo and behold, gigs are starting to feel like they did when I first started going to them in 2003.
The artificial becomes human again in these rooms. In some cases the shows have been small enough for me to meet and speak to the people the algorithm has led me to, and here’s what I’ve learnt; we’re a good match. Polite, gracious, intelligent folk. The perfect antidote to an online world of trolls and grifters.
Coach Party are an example of a band I discovered thanks to the algorithm. The first song of theirs it served up was Shit TV from their 2022 EP Nothing Is Real. The photo above is me meeting the band at release show for their debut album KILLJOY last September. Coincidentally, the t-shirt I’m wearing is the band Fickle Friends, another Spotify discovery.
These adventures only serve to strengthen the relationship with the artists and while it may have been Spotify that unknowingly introduced them to me, you guarantee that I’ll still be championing them to you in two or three albums time.
Mixtapes were exchanging hands in the early days of so many friendships I’ve had over the years. I have another friend who has kept multiple editions of mixtapes I made, including the acoustic specific one below.
I’ll confess to having lost the majority I received in return. I do have an exception though and it’s an actual cassette from 2006. The A side is a mix of emo and indie of the time, the B side is all McFly songs. 11 of them. Tucked inside the case was a train ticket from the day my friend gave me this because apparently, when I do choose to keep something, I’m a completist.
Interesting that the cassette has been paused in time for 18 years near the halfway mark on Side A. Looking at the tracklisting I can reveal the song is probably Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager (Part 2) by Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.
The artists featured on long lost copies, particularly those that went on became favourites, will always retain a layer of attachment to the friends who introduced them to me. Just last weekend (at the time of writing) I went to see two fine examples, Death Cab For Cutie and The Postal Service, play a huge festival show in London. Both were on the tracklisting of the disc I was given in response to my star-laden debacle. As was the band I’ve chosen to open this month’s mixtape, Motion City Soundtrack. It’s criminal that I no longer have the original disc when I consider the legacy it’s had.
I hope you find new favourites on one of my playlists and that I can haunt you with every time you hear them for decades to come. Better me than a Spotify powered AI ghost, right?
When I started Saint November Records, it kicked off with a compilation, which was standard fare for labels, but I approached putting it together in the exact way I would a mixtape. I even went so far as to give, what was a digital only release, a ‘Side A’ and ‘B’ (see below). I would refer to this, and subsequent similar releases in our promo as being a mixtape. The only difference with the label edition being that I had permission from all the artists featured.
It’s wild to me that one of the tracks on that first edition was from a little known Glaswegian band (at the time) called The Cinnamons. They were fronted by Gerry Cinnamon who recently headlined Reading and Leeds festivals. Alas, we didn’t keep in touch.
Alongside these publicly available playlists (circa 2011-2013), I would make my partner, Sam a mixtape as a personal addition to other birthday presents for the first few years of our relationship. There are songs I play now, 15 years later, that I’m surprised to be reminded she knows all the words to. They all featured on these discs.
What was I trying to ‘say’ to Sam in those early days with this series? I think perhaps a disclaimer for how big a part music and collecting would play in our life together.
For me, all creativity works within guard rails. Here are some of the loose rules for my monthly playlist.
- 11 tracks maximum. Why 11? It’s an homage to our label and 11 tracks might just be the perfect album length.
- The same artist can’t appear twice on the same edition, or the next month in the interest of ensuring variety. I might make an exception if it’s a guest feature on another artist’s track.
- Again, on variety, I’ll never feature more than two tracks from the same album.
Thank you to everyone who has joined me on this new mixtape journey so far over the first 20 editions. I’m especially grateful to Rachel Extance and Jon Jenkins for featuring the playlist in a recent article and newsletter, respectively.
You can list this month’s 20th edition now on Spotify and Apple Music. You can also browse the archive of all 20 playlists here.
The above artwork is from a mixtape I made a friend for a house party. I’d say there’s a good chance you’ll still hear some of these artists appear on future editions of my monthly playlist. One already has this year and you can read my recent article on Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly here.
Liam Toms 