Muxin’ it up

The mix tape is getting a lot of play this year, it seems. With good reason. We’ve become so used to single-serving songs that we’ve begun to miss the organization that we once had. We’ve lost the full album as art; the idea that each song leads into the next, like the chapters of a book, furthering the cause and complementing each other.

Now, albums are more like anthologies than novels – each song playing on its own like a solitary short story. You’ll find three or four great songs and eight or nine filler songs. The album could be shuffled and nothing would change. And that’s sad.

Regardless of the status of the album, we’ve all longed to create our own perfect track lists – hence, the mix tape was born. It’s nearly ironic – something that with the word “mix” in it often tends to be a carefully constructed, organized flow of music. Mix the songs and the effect isn’t the same.

So it’s only natural that mix tapes would garner some nostalgic support. It seems like ten or more “mix tape” Web sites have sprouted up as music lovers search their inner Rob Gordon and develop the Web 2.1 version of the plastic cased Maxell cassette tape.

I’ve found one that’s easy to use and fun to listen to: Muxtape. Upload up to 12 songs, organize and release.

I’ve got 55 minutes of well-considered mix-tape magic there – what I’d choose if people actually cared about the mix CDs (and their natural predecessors, the mix tapes) I used to make. Check it out: The Black Marks on Wood Pulp Muxtape.

(Credit: Charisma18, the Rick Roll’n cad.)