My Mixtape

http://sharemyplaylists.com/project-mixtape

I feel that this project is a bit worthless if I don’t explain the influences and inspirtation behind My own mixtape. this has been mentioned in previous posts but I feel i should give it it’s own post. first here is the final tracklist.

Track	Artist
Finally Moving	Pretty Lights
I Gotta Feeling	The Black Eyed Peas
Wavin’ Flag – Coca-Cola® Celebration Mix	K’NAAN
Fast Car	Tracy Chapman
Fairground	Simply Red
How	John Lennon
Hey Jude	The Beatles
SIDE B
Crystal Clear	Mike Oldfield
Northern Lights	Atli Örvarsson
Letters To You	Finch
Helena – So Long & Goodnight Album Version	My Chemical Romance
Someone’s Watching Over Me	Hilary Duff
Nothing Compares To You	Sinead O’ Connor
St. Christopher Is Coming Home	Frank Turner

All but one of the songs are from other people suggesting ideas for this project and each have their own reasons which can be found by searching through the blog (contributers bar those in the video shall remain anonymous) but all the people who contributed I know personally. I decided to split the tape into two parts. Side A on the cassette is the ‘happier’ songs in my opinion or at least to begin with, but all the messages on the tape are fairly positive ones and bring joy to people or get them thinking. Side B mainly has songs that either helped people through a bad event or are of a different feel to those on the 1st side (e.g finch)

I decided to end the playlist with Frank Turner. This was my personal choice, I chose this song as it reminds me of my friends back home and how I don’t get to see them as often as I would like but that they are never far from my mind, I decided to end the playlist with this song for two reasons. 1. It’s a happier song to build up from the slower songs before hand and 2. it’s my playlist, I felt it had added summed up the mix best if I left my personal touch till the end.

There are many songs I could have chosen but for this example that was the song that came to mind, if I were to do this again, no doubt I would choose differently, but at that time that was the message that spoke loudest.

I hope this example inspires a few of you reading to make your own mixtapes and/or playlists.

How Can YOU get involved?

It’s pretty easy to get involved in Project: Mixtape. Although I decided to use Cassette Tapes and Spotify, you could use any physical format you like and also any online method of sharing you like. To make a mixtape to fit with this project, you can either create a playlist which sums up your feelings about one person (yourself or a significant other) or about a group of people (as I have done). beyond that there are no rules but here are some things that would be nice to see as a theme.

1. Make the songs personal, don’t just choose the latest chart song you like, choose a song that has a strong emotional attachment to you, or one that you feel helps describe the message you are trying to send out.
2. Make your own cover art. In these days of iTunes downloads it’s really easy to forget about album artwork, for these playlists I think it’s really important for the creator of these artifacts to make their own personal cover designs. You can hand draw them or use programs such as photoshop to achieve your cover designs.
3. Preferably i’d like to see all the physical collections on cassette tape as I feel this format is the best for this project due to the restrictions this format brings up, however CD is perfectly acceptable especially as not many people can listen to tapes in this day and age. just keep to the suggestions mentioned above and throughtout the blog if at all possible, You can place the mix online aswell but please be sure to pass a physical copy along (particularly if you are making the playlist for one person) I used spotify for my inital group playlist but you can use your own legal sources
4. Have Fun with it. Make your music choices be something that will bring people together (be it just the one or a group)
5. Pass it along, If you do have fun with this project, encourage your friends to do the same. If you’d like to make your own videos similar to how I have made mine below then please do (and link them to here if possible)

Film

Above is a video shot with three of the lovely contributors to this project any feedback is welcome.

THE MIXTAPE

For those of you that couldn’t get a physical version of the cassette tapes, I have put all of the songs in order on Spotify. Imagine the 4:33 track to be the end of side A/ Start of Side B. Enjoy and leave any feedback you like on the idea or music. A video around some of the stories behind this playlist will be available on here soon  project mixtape

My Thought Process – Project Mixtape

The following is my thoughts and ideas for my ‘memory’ project, but first I’d like to talk about my initial idea that kind of just fell apart and that was filming for Britain in a day.

I found out about the project a while ago but wished to decide whether I wanted to do it or not until after I had watched ‘Life In A Day’. After really enjoying the documentary I really wanted to get involved in this project. The 12th was also the date I had planned to meet up with a friend I hadn’t seen for a while anyways so I felt the two could compliment each other quite well and after discussing the idea with my friend I decided i’d go for our day/night out as we were anyways (with maybe a couple extra stops at places we wouldn’t have gone to) and use that for the project.

When it came to that on the day though, I realised a few things almost immediately when i went to film. I arrived at the train station to go to birmingham alone, One thing I seemed to struggle with was getting good shots on the train, I know I wouldn’t have this problem if I wasn’t on my own. When I actually arrived in birmingham I met up with my friend and we began filming, the idea was that we’d just go have a look around and film that for a bit, so that involved us going in a few shops (i didn’t film in the shops for various potential permission problems) but I realised quite quickly that whenever I took the camera out and pressed record I was taking myself out or changing the experience. After about an hour and a half I had in my mind at least pretty much given up on filming for this because I realised I wouldn’t be able to capture this day without dramatically altering the day itself. I found this in itself quite interesting, I can honestly say I had a great day on 12.11.11 but this was in spite of filming any of it. I felt this could be a great inspiration for a project as I found myself linking this idea of the best memories being uncaptured to a number of things in my life. For example when I first started going music concerts I always made sure to capture a good portion of it on camera, now I realise that actually the experience is much better if the camera is away for the gig (although i still occasionally get the odd photo) or how the best nights out with mates or even your best mates you will have no pictures of (my best friends from back home and me probably have about 6 maybe 7 pictures with each other over the course of 5 or so years.)

Are the best memories we have, the ones that we didn’t stop to capture?

So I had a few ideas for this personal idea of the best memories being uncaptured but couldn’t decide on the best way to portray this idea, I had an idea about using a load of out of focus or faded photos and videos or by litteraly having a screen of black and maybe recording a soundscape of a number of potential backdrops to potential locations for great memories (was thinking of loud chatter and glassed clashing to symbolise a pub for example or the sound of a guitar tuning up to symbolise gig memories etc)

But I decided against both of these this afternoon when a discussion was brought up about old formats (in this case it was the change from film in amateur filmmaking to digital recording.) I’m not 100% sure but it brought me an idea almost instantly (a proper lightbulb moment) I had the idea to use an old fashioned technology in the modern age to show what people are ‘missing’ out on.

My idea is to create a collaborative mixtape and I mean it in the old fashioned way, I aim to record it onto cassette tape, I have asked people to choose one song and one song alone that they feel is relevant to themselves or how they have or currently do experience the world. below is the full statement I have posted on various forums.

“Okay i’ve got a idea for a short project but it really needs some input If you’d like to help me out, all I want at the moment is a message telling me ONE song that’s either important to you or you feel relates to you in some way and a short explanation as to why. (could be an experience, a memory or how you view yourself, whatever so long as it’s personal to you) I will then be creating a mixtape the old fashioned way with the songs I get (or a selection if i have too many) I may ask you to appear in the film for a few mins if you are in the area and will hopefully have a listening party if i get this done on time cheers to anyone that can/will help”

I was hoping to get original CD’s of peoples songs that they wished to use but due to time restraints i’ll probably cheat in terms of getting these songs

Mentioned in the workshops and lectures was this idea of nostalgia and how our memories of a certian time always seem much better looking back than when you actually lived it. I certianly feel like this for my idea, there is no way I would continue to listen to cassette tape in this day and age as it’s just not practical at all, I honestly hated cassette tapes when I was younger in general because of how often they seemed to get tangled in my old tape player but also genuienly believe that digital music consumption is missing something that the cassette could offer that even vinyl and CD couldn’t do for the prosumer and that was make creating a playlist a craft and therefore making the finalised product mean that much more. I used to make mixtapes when I was younger and I realised recently how we are really missing things like this in the modern age. A spotify playlist is just too easy, there’s no real effort involved, A cassette mixtape requires the creator to actually listen to the music, if they want to get the most out of it they must plan the mix around the limitations of the medium itself, for example for this project I’ve already got an idea of splitting different moods for Side. A and B. but most importantly the tape is physical, if you give this to someone it represents work and says that you actually thought about what you are doing.

For this project, I aim to make this a social event, I’m hoping a good few of my answers will be from cov students because I wish to film 2 things if this mixtape is done on time. I plan to film a listening ‘premier’ and get people discussing the different songs (maybe guessing reasons behind the songs or leaving the person behind it to explain it.) I also feel this makes the art of listening to music more of a social event ‘like the good old days?’ so could be interesting to film from that POV aswell. and also I’m aiming to get people to design their own ‘cover art’ for the tape with their own personal message forming part of the design (i’m not expecting great art) I managed to get myself some cassette tapes today (I know i was amazed places still sell them too) and will book the radio studio to record this mixtape on friday. I aim to play a cheap tape deck for the listening party which will hopefully take place on sunday. Thoughts would be greatly appreciated on this project and if you read this soon after the posted date, I’d love your own song and reason. I’m glad to say I have a lot of variety so far in both music types and personal reasons.

Behind The Idea. Project Mixtape

While looking into my mixtape idea I looked into ways of physically creating the tape and also looked into getting primary research so the tape had the context that I wanted it to have. Here is the message I posted on Facebook and Twitter.

“Okay i’ve got a idea for a short project but it really needs some input  If you’d like to help me out, all I want at the moment is a message telling me ONE song that’s either important to you or you feel relates to you in some way and a short explanation as to why. (could be an experience, a memory or how you view yourself, whatever so long as it’s personal to you) I will then be creating a mixtape the old fashioned way with the songs I get (or a selection if i have too many)  I may ask you to appear in the film for a few mins if you are in the area and will hopefully have a listening party if i get this done on time  cheers to anyone that can/will help”

I was extremely happy with the responses I got to this post, although not all were from people on the course or even in the local area or even country, I got a lot of responses that I could put onto the mixtape (and later online playlist) and each gave their own reasons for why they chose their songs. I split the tape into two sides showing more positive and ‘negative’ songs or reasons to help with the flow, this is signalled on the online playlist by john cage’s 4:33 as an online alternative to turn tape over. I will post a good number of these songs and responses. All persons involved shall remain anonymous unless they appear in the final video.

• “Helena by mcr” “listened to it a lot after my grandad died so just became really important”
• “Someone’s watching over me – by hilary duff <– not the greatest of singers, but the lyrics meant alot to me when my mum passed away last year. So much that i decided to recite the words as part of a speech at her funeral .. The title of the song itself says alot – Someones watching over me – it allowed me to believe that even though she’s no longer physically here anymore, she’ll always be looking out for me  The song gave me strength and helped me during my grieving process and even to this day, whenever i am missing my mum, listening to this song gives me hope  xxx”
• “The song that means the most to me is Fade To Black by Metallica. It’s the song that was playing when I first kissed my girlfriend, it’s the song that I’d like to be played at my funeral/service/whatever, its the song that made me realize my best friend is as good as my brother.”
• “Northern lights by Atli órvarsson Its from an original score from a film and in the film this womans daughter is kidnapped my reason why i love it so much It makes me appreciate having people in my life that care about me its been played like 161 times on my itunes”
• “A song that means a lot to me is by pretty lights – finally moving remix It reminds me of some really good memories from over the year and reminds me of some people who mean a lot to me… Whenever I hear this song it automatically makes me smile and takes me back to some awesome times I shared with people!! Especially when the vocals kick in…”
• “Robert Plant and Jimmy Page – Wonderful one reminds me of the first time i visited london and when i fell in love there”
• “[John Lennon-How?] reason because i feel it describes feeling i have quite often word for for word. Like it could have been written about me, or its me singing it”
• “fairground by simply red is one of my alltime favourite songs, it reminds me of being a young child because my mum used to always play it, i guess it makes me think how much my mum means to me in a way, we didnt really have much growing up, but she always used to play the best music!”
• “It’s two songs for me really. One is ‘Hey Jude’ by The Beatles.
  It is the song my father’s friends played on his grave soon after he died (almost 5 years ago). He used to be a sound technician, so music meant a lot to him, and of course to me. So soon after his death, his friends contacted us to ask if they can bring a cassette player to the cemetery and play the song. Apparently, they had been talking a few years back, and my dad had said he wanted this song on his grave. It was a very emotional, very sad, but at the same time, very beautiful moment. Especially the last part of the song – the never ending ‘Na-na-na-nananana, nananana, hey Jude…”
  It made me think: which song do I want people to listen to when I die? Turns out, it’s ‘Crystal Clear’ from Mike Oldfield’s album ‘The Songs of Distant Earth‘. It is pretty much my favourite album in the world, and this track has the deepest meaning to me. I have been listening to Mike Oldfield since I was 4-5 years old (I’m 23 now), and this album has been with me through happiness and sadness, through good and bad moments… I still listen to it at least once every month, it always takes me to a relaxed and beautiful place where everything is nice and balanced. It really has a healing power to me.
  I guess death is my biggest motivation to live. Not because I’m afraid of death – I’m past that already. I just want to feel like my life is ‘worth living’ – so when I grow old I can happily turn back and think ‘Yes, I had a good and meaningful life’. And so when the people around me celebrate my life after I die, they can be happy I was part of their lives.”

There are further examples but you will see those in the final piece which you can expect to see and read about in the next couple of days. I also decided to look into whether this idea would have a decent audience, the primary research so far had certinanly suggested their was an interest in this product, however there is the argument that becuase it was just my friends, they may have been showing interest to keep me happy, I found this to be a valid criticism so looked further into similar ideas be it, my idealistic standpoint on musical formats, and the actual product/video itself.

As a user of twitter I often find the trending topics list to be an interesting (and honestly often depressing) look into what people are thinking about and what is popular. the last few days I have seen a number of TT’s relating to memory including amemoryyoucantforget, #themwasthedays, #backintheday, #MusicMemories and the number one trending topic ever according to Whatthetrend.com #nowplaying, #np. All of these topics contained people giving away information that I could have very easily used for this mixtape, I didn’t because I feel it would have taken away the personal touch of this product (at the very least in my own eyes even if no-one else would notice the difference) but what they did help me with was my idea that maybe this idea could go beyond my video,

Memory and music are always heavily disscused topics on twitter

I spoke to Ross about my idea last week and he mentioned about Moonpig.com he mentioned that that site had taken an old fashioned item in the form of the greeting card and brought it into the 21st century by using the power of the internet. it’s interesting that the greetings card is still very popular when facebook (especially with it’s easy reminders) and email are so popular in this day and age. Now people may say that it’s obvious as to why that is, it’s because a greetings card is much more personal and shows care and importance to people, but my argument is that I could say the same about physical music collection, I could go on a long time about arguments between the download culture and those that choose to buy CD or Vinyl. but i’ll ignore those for this piece as I could go on for days. The argument for this piece was that the cassette mixtape shown a level of dedication to make, going beyond the actual process though the tapes limits also brought out better thoughts as you are limited to what you can have on a tape because of it’s limited storage.

I had an idea that this sort of  process of making a physical mixtape COULD have a role in the 21st century, Services like Sharemyplaylist.com show that there is still the market of sharing playlists online but I think making this into a ‘gift’ could work in the modern age. I could imagine a service where people make their own ‘mixtape’ for a small cost similar to making a compliation on iTunes and then gift it up for someone else as a birthday presnet or a valentines gift for example, the recipient would then get a physical cassette which could be played if the recipent desired and an online version to download and play on their computer or iPod. This tape and online playlist’s covers would also be desgined by the original user. I feel that this is a way to bring tech from the old into the present day by making it a personal gift for others. This mixtape I created was made by getting in a number of different sources so could be seen as a massive sampler for this idea and the final video will show my idea around the cover designs.

Here is the link to the spotify playlist with all of the songs on, although this does not have the reasons mentioned inside of the playlist i’d appreciate any feelings and feedback you have. project mixtape

http://yearinreview.whatthetrend.com/

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