Old School Mixtapes
I was a 90’s teen. You remember us… We were awesome. Ok, we were kinda lame cause we couldn’t figure out our place in the world after the big hair of the 80’s had just trampled everything, leaving us in a haze of Aqua Net and bobbie pins. We went the opposite… Some who wanted to embrace all cultures went over to wearing cross colors and flip up glasses, others went the moody, grungy, Kurt Cobain loving, “I only shop in second hand stores” look. I was the later.
Ok, so calm down, it’s not like I had thread wraps in my hair, or hemp necklaces, or book bags with patches and song lyrics written all over them… Never mind the corderoy pants I didn’t have that were held together on the seam with a million bead decorated safty pins. Wait…OK, so I had all those things, but I thought I was cool! Where are those pants they were amazing…
Anyway, so what’s the point of this blog? Oh yeah. One of my FAVORITE things from being a 90’s teenager, was mixtapes. OH did I love my mixtapes!!! Do you remember making them? You would sit by the radio for HOURS waiting for that one song to come on, the one you have been dying to hear, that you MUST record, because buying the entire cassette tape was WAY to expensive and you didn’t like the other songs on there anyway. Sometimes me and my brother would request the songs on the radio, so we knew when they were coming on, so we would actually record a little of the LAST song, and not miss a second of our precious gem!
I was always highly disappointed when you were recording the beautiful lyrics from Smashing Pumpkins or Toad the Wet Sprocket and the tape would end in the middle of the song, leaving you crushed… with eye liner (any REM fans?)
But my absolute favorite thing about mixtapes was the gift of a mixtape. Oh nothing made my heart pitter patter louder than when a boy at school would make me a mixtape! You made sure to look for meaning in every single song. And I loved when you were given a mixtape as a gift, and the person wrote out ever song on the little sleeve that tenderly held that little box with all those beautiful songs on it. I even had a pen pal who used to send them to me all the time and really school me in music! I think his mixtapes were the best ever.
As yes… I miss the good old days of working to save your passion! Technology has made us pretty lazy with that. Here are some of the songs that bring me right back to my mixtape days: Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins, Tell Her by Delamitri, Ironic by Alanis Morrisette, and You Say by Lisa Lobe. How about you? Do you remember?