Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture
Product ID: 74999351
Desertcart purchases this item on your behalf and handles shipping, customs, and support to Senegal.
Stop. Fast-forward. Pause. Rewind. It has become part of our vocabulary when talking about the momentum of our lives . . . . Over forty years ago Phillips launched the compact audio cassette at the 1963 Berlin Radio Show and our relationship with music has never been the same. Durable, inexpensive, and portable, the new format was an instant success. By the 1970s, we were voraciously recording music onto blank cassettes. It allowed us to listen to, and, in effect, curate music in a new way. Privately. Mix tapes let us become our own DJs, creating mixes for friends, lovers, and family, for parties and road trips. Artist and musician Thurston Moore looks back at the plastic gadget that first let us make our own compilations. Over eighty home tapers, including artists, musicians, actors, writers, directors, comediennes, talk show hosts, and, of course, record store employees were invited to tell the stories behind their mixes. From the Romantic Tape, to the Break-up Tape, the Road Trip Tape, to the "Indoctrination" Tape-the art and text that emerged was of the mix cassette as a new way of re-sequencing music to make sense of our most stubbornly inexpressible feelings-a way of explaining ourselves to someone else, or to ourselves. Stop. Fast-forward. Pause. Rewind. It has become part of our vocabulary when talking about the momentum of our lives . . . . Over forty years ago Phillips launched the compact audio cassette at the 1963 Berlin Radio Show and our relationship with music has never been the same. Durable, inexpensive, and portable, the new format was an instant success. By the 1970s, we were voraciously recording music onto blank cassettes. It allowed us to listen to, and, in effect, curate music in a new way. Privately. Mix tapes let us become our own DJs, creating mixes for friends, lovers, and family, for parties and road trips. Artist and musician Thurston Moore looks back at the plastic gadget that first let us make our own compilations. Over eighty home tapers, including artists, musicians, actors, writers, directors, comediennes, talk show hosts, and, of course, record store employees were invited to tell the stories behind their mixes. From the Romantic Tape, to the Break-up Tape, the Road Trip Tape, to the "Indoctrination" Tape-the art and text that emerged was of the mix cassette as a new way of re-sequencing music to make sense of our most stubbornly inexpressible feelings-a way of explaining ourselves to someone else, or to ourselves.
| Dimensions | 23.93 x 1.45 x 17.2 cm |
| Edition | 1st |
| Isbn 10 | 0789311992 |
| Isbn 13 | 978-0789311993 |
| Item Weight | 431 g |
| Language | English |
| Print Length | 40 pages |
| Publication Date | 3 May 2005 |
| Publisher | Universe Publishing |
User
Good buy.
Exactly as described in the blurb. Husband enjoyed his gift. Arrived quickly, would be happy to make this purchase again.
User
Lost in the Mix?
If you have ever hovered over the pause button on a rainy saturday afternoon you need this book. A bittersweet and intelligent memoir/art book about the art of mixing tapes for friends and lovers. tHE SHEER JOY IN SCOURING THE BOOK FOR YOUR FAVOURITE TRACKS/ARTISTS. I found my guys Nick Cave, Tindersticks, leonard Cohen and Belle & Sebastian but missed Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.What is missing? The ettiquette of mixing. Never double tracks, always start with a drum intro etc...I read it in a sitting and then went off to make a mix tape.
User
a limited mix
Like the editor of this book, I grew of age in the thick of the mix-tape era, and to a certain extent, mourn its passing. And like many of the contributors to this celebration of "cassette culture," I spent hundreds of hours obsessing over track selection, sequencing, fade-ins, the overt and subtextual messages embedded in each mix, liner notes, cover art, etc. So, I tend to gravitate toward books that invoke that lost world (sorry folks, the mix CD is similar, and I do make 'em, but it's not the same) -- books like Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and Songbook, or Rob Sheffield's memoir of grief, Love is a Mix Tape.This book is a kind of interesting and frustrating document of the mix tape, limited in many ways by the relatively insular world from which its contributors are drawn. Moore is a legendary underground musician (with Sonic Youth) and for this book, he seems to have fired off emails to all his hipsterati friends in the art and music world, asking for contributions. The resulting hodgepodge of stuff is nicely packaged in a book mimicking the dimensions of a cassette tape, but it's all pretty insular. Page after page of random track listings, homemade covers, etc. from people you're unlikely to have heard of, featuring music you're unlikely to have heard. A few bits and pieces capture the possibility of the mixtape, such as Allison Anders explanation of one made for her, since returned in anger, and forever mourned.What gets lost in all this is that for every obscurity-laden, collage-covered, mix-tape-as-art piece, the bedrooms of the Western world spawned 1,000 more mainstream "hits of 1983" type mix tapes. There's zero evidence of the prevalence of the pop mix tape here, with probably the most mainstream example being Kate Spade's (yes, that Kate Spade) wonderfully banal mix of the usual Dylan/Beatles/Van Morrison/Elton John tracks. It's important to remember that DIY culture can encompass a wide range of participants, and not just the cool kids, and that's something that gets lost in this particular "celebration."Still, if you were ever into making mix tapes, this is a book that will bring back the memories and make you want to dig into that box of tapes in the basement and find a tape deck.
User
Five Stars
good good
User
MIX TAPE!
Interesting. I love the front graphics (i HAD Compact Cassette tapes, they were cheep!) and the inside is great. His viewpoint on the subject is right-on. I stil do mix tapes and have a player in my vehicle and all over my house. Tapes will never go OUT w/me.
User
Five Stars
otstanding
Trustpilot
2 weeks ago
1 month ago