Anyone else remember the cassette tape? I sure do. I was rockin them up until like 97 or 98. Don’t get it twisted, i wasn’t technologically deficient, i had me a cd player. But still, this was back in the day, pre CDRs and MP3 players. The only way to amass all your favorite tunes (up to 90 minutes) as a collection was in the form of a mixtape. Mixtapes were great and ‘authentic’ because we’d take great effort in putting them together, first borrowing friend’s CDs to record individual tracks OR record tracks straight from the radio; in real-time no less. I personally took extra care to arrange the track order to provide for maximum dopeness. Remember there weren’t any ’shuffle’ or ’skip track’ features y’all, we talking straight linear baby. Creating a good mixtape was an art! You know how sometimes when your listening to a song and as it nears completion your anticipating the next track from the album? Well when I hear some classic tracks from the 90’s I anticipate the next track from my mixtape. Yeah! you could say I made a few good mixtapes.
I feel that technology has ruined this art form. We walk around with entire music collections in our pockets. We create playlists with hundreds of songs that we just skip and shuffle our way through. And now we let ‘Genius’ create playlists for us. Well in an effort to regain “authenticity” and to honor the Mixtape. I present to you… The DiligentDance Mixtapes. I’ll do this once a month. 10 Tracks, no more no less! I’ll take my time with this in an effort to achieve ultimate dopeness. Please leave a comment and let me know if I’m successful.
DiligentDance is powered by OpenTape an open source web app inspired by the now defunct Muxtape.
