A really long post on a really unimportant topic.

Back in the day, I was really good at making mix tapes. Well, if I kept the music to the genres that my friends liked (read: alternative only), I got high praise for my ability to select and record songs on lengths of magnetic tape. I could even eliminate the clicking noise that you got between songs. I'll admit, if I had a tape deck that worked in my car, I'd still rock out to all that crap I listened to in high school.

You see, it's all about flow. You can't just put random songs in there, even if they are the Best Songs Ever. Metallica can't come immediately before They Might Be Giants (in most cases) just like you should never have Nine Inch Nails anywhere near a Counting Crows song. Flow is key if the mix has no overlying theme. That's not to say that TMBG can't be on the same album as "One" you just have to transition from one to the other. Consider going from One to Ozzy's "Iron Man" to AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" to Reel Big Fish's "Rock and Roll is Bitchin'" to TMBG's "Robot Parade." Given the electronica plus guitar nature of Robot Parade, you could easily transition into some techno if you felt like. Or, staying with the pop/quirky nature of TMBG's stuff, consider some Presidents of the USA, Dead Milkmen, or "Weird Al" Yankovic to follow up.

Now, if the mix you're making has a general theme to all the songs (love tends to be a popular one, although the break-up mix is one of my personal faves) flow can be set on the back burner. It still helps if the songs can fit together, but it's not essential. Also, hopping between musical genres is also easier, as long as the theme stays constant. R&B and hip hop can be side by side with country and death metal, as long as the feeling produced by said songs is similar.

Now of course, with the death of the tape deck and rise of burnable CDs, a shift in perspective is needed. You see, with tapes, there's this lovely pause you get when one side runs out and you have to flip the tape over. This pause is a nice transitional device, as you can switch genres, themes, even types of media from one side to the other. A tape could have 30 minutes of love songs on one side, and 30 minutes of Bill Cosby's stand up routine on the other. Problem with CD's is that nice little pause disappears. So, roll up your sleeves and get ready to crank out another 50 minutes of material that can flow.

Something I found that helps is to have an "intermission" in where one track smack dab in the middle is something completely different than everything else on the CD. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of The Jerky Boy's "Little Elves" in this position. It's funny, and you've erased any previous feeling that was emitted from the CD. Although, using this trick to go from a mix containing stuff like God Lives Underwater, Type O Negative, and Perfect Circle to a mix mostly made up of show tunes ("Ooooklahoma!") is not recommended.

Now, of course, new (well, not so new) technology has spelled the end of the mix tape/cd. Once we finally start plugging multi-gig hard drives up to our stereo systems that are loaded with our stellar mp3 collections, forget mixing, forget flow. Punch up a playlist if you feel in a certain mood, but there's no reason to alter media to get your sonic poetry in motion if there's no restriction on space. Sure, there is a restriction to how may thousands of files you can fit on one of those, but if you need more music than that, I'll wonder about you.

Sad, really. I'm not good at a lot of stuff, and I was really proud of my abilities with a tape deck, a line in cord, and my brother's CD player.

-D out.