This can't be happening to me. I have the opportunity to sit here at work this morning, steal music, and make myself a new disc to listen to in my car on the way home, and I can't think of anything to download, that I don't already have. Well, there is one song, but for some odd reason, I just can't find it.
Now, I know I don't own everything, so why can't I think of anything? I'd love to hear something new, but I'm so out of the loop, I don't even know what's new anymore.
Maybe, just maybe, this whole ability to steal whatever music I want, when I want, has taken the thrill out of making mixes. It's too easy.
I remember making mix tapes back in the day. Our family hadn't yet purchased a dual cassette player, thus, we spent many a Saturday afternoon, trying to convince the entire universe to just shut up for a couple hours, so we could place two different cassette players speaker to speaker (and sometimes the 8-track or record player against the cassette player), just to record the original music onto the blank cassette. Of course, it was always inevitable that mother would start to vacuum, the dog would bark, or someone would call to chat, as soon as you had it set up and started recording...thus ruining the 'high quality' sound you had worked so hard for.
Even when we did come into the eighties, and there was a dual cassette player in the house, the making of the mix tape was an incredible process. We were very lucky, and all of us kids were members of the Columbia Record and Tape Club, so we had alot of music to choose from, due to our massive tape collections. I was also lucky enough to have friends who liked to trade tapes, so when a new album came out, there was most likely someone who had it, and would lend it to you to record.
Anyways, back to my point.
Unlike now, when I can just burn 20 songs, in no particular order, onto a disc in 2 minutes flat, the making of the mix tape had to be done just so. A list of potential songs would be written down first, so I could sit and ponder about the order in which they were to be recorded. Should it start off with a bang, or soft and slow? Should Side A and Side B be completely different, for example, one side hair metal, and the other love songs and ballads? Ah, the choices I had to make! And of course, there was always the question of all of my songs fitting on the tape, and the fear that the last song on each side could be cut off 30 seconds in? Inevitably, even after all the careful planning, I would get to the end of Side A, and the next song on the list wouldn't fit, and another, shorter song, would be hunted down like prey, just to get the project done.
You see? It was alot of work. However, here I am today, with all the technology and free music I could ask for right at my fingertips, and I can't put one stinking disc together. The challenge of the Saturday afternoon mix tape is gone, and with it, a little bit of my creativity as well.
Anyhoo, have a good weekend everyone, I should get back to the mentally challenged folk, and make them some brunch.
