Music Feature: "Why I think mix-taping is an art form" by Lori Daly

Author: Lori Daly

I remember making my first one, I must have been 11 years old finishing up primary school and a girl called Annie started talking to me about Belly and Menswear and Britpop in general, using my I'm-a-glastonbury-brat credentials I made her a tape containing (if I remember rightly) St Etienne, Pulp, Blur, Urge Overkill, Kenickie, and Drugstore.

I don't remember doing it, I just remember getting feedback about it and glowing with pride, that I'd put these specific songs together for someone else in a specific order to show someone what I liked and why I liked it and why I thought they should like it too.

6 years later I met her in her the street of the town I'd long since moved away from and she came up and talked about the mix-tape.

After the first one I was hooked, I'd spent hours kneeling in front of my dads CD collection, with my meagre pile carried downstairs - I started by pulling out what albums I wanted and lying them out on the floor and then I'd put them in order of this would sound good next to that, invisible links, and I'd stop and stumble and stutter through making them.

At first they'd all sound the same - no variation in the genre and then there was that awful period where there would end being six or seven Manic Street Preachers songs on each tape I made.

I made them for new friends and boyfriends and friends who liked Boyzone, I made them as presents because I was selfish and wanted to give them something I enjoyed doing.

As I got older I made more and more tapes for myself - ones with themes and genre variation...

(70s 7's, Fey England, You ain't no rock n roll fun, Pull yourself together, This is Pop?, I don't want you - get out my head!!!) And with names. For parties and for new friends all over again. And suddenly for people halfway across the world.

It's all engulfing, though I no longer kneel in front of the CD collection, sit with scraps of paper and scribble down the odd song to stick on, pick one to start and let myself go from there.

I have no idea how other people make mix tapes or why or if they find it all engulfing but there is something of a thrill in finding the right song to go after the one before, making something that flows and has a collection of oddly connected brilliant sounding music.

Something you've spent hours and hours over to make just right for a friend - to tell them you give a f*ck, to tell them you love them, to tell them that your taste in music is better than theirs.

Mix-tapes are beautiful things, mix CDs are for losers - they don't take the time or the patience and care. They aren't as fragile nor as interesting.

So go and make one - tell someone your taste in music is better than theirs.