The Art of the Mixtape

Back in the day, when cassette tapes ruled the Earth, I was a maker of mixtapes, and my skills were out of control. I taped everything; albums so that I could listen to them at work and in the car, and mixtapes gave me the chance to hear all the remixes and singles I was buying as well. With so much music flowing through my life, it was natural that my love of art and music would bang into one another. The covers of my mixtapes was where that collision took place.
I have bankers boxes in the basement of these things; in fact, last count showed I was over 750 decorated cassette cases, which begs the question “When the Hell did I find the time to do all this crap?” Answer: I had lousy luck with dating women, so I always seemed to have plenty of time for this kind of activity.
So, prompted by a Warren Ellis thread, I dug around and found my “Cream of the Crop” for cassette designs. Very telling of the design influences around me, and a good visual time capsule for the era. The ones shown here range from as early as 1985 through the mid 90’s.
The mixtape was a unique beast, and it’s different from a CD or an MP3 playlist. The listener had to be more involved, and there was less customization on their part, which meant they had to deal with what you were giving them, be it a mix of cool, weird new music, or a mix to say something you were too chicken to say out loud. I hope this never vanishes, it was a really cool medium.