i love making mixes for people. this week i made a mix for my best friend that is 32 songs and 3.5 hours long (definitely the most ambitious mix i've ever made). most of the mixes i've made in the last 20 years have been for her, but i've also made them for plenty of other people. i've rarely made a mix specifically for myself, but i always like listening to the ones i've made for others.

i miss making actual tapes. for years i made CDs where i'd actually import the AIFF files from CDs so i could make the highest quality mix possible, but then i got lazy and started using mp3s. these days, i mostly just make playlists on spotify, but i still put the same time and care into the process, spending hours selecting songs, choosing an order, and trimming the fat.

“The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.” - High Fidelity

my biggest rules for making a mix (which i very occasionally bend)

• the rule about how to start a good mix from the high fidelity quote is something i did before seeing that movie, and i still stick to it
• you don't have to pick a theme before you start (sometimes it will emerge as you're combing through your library and picking songs), but sticking to a theme is a really helpful way to sculpt the mix, whether it's an emotional or sonic theme
• if you're going to use more than one song by the same artist, they either need to be sequential as they are on the album, or they need to be separated by at least two songs by other artists (i broke that rule with the mix i just made by putting two Dead Can Dance songs from different albums right in a row...but it worked really well somehow)
• it has to flow well; if you can't make a song work transitionally, it's not right for the mix (this includes volume differentials)
• DON'T EVER PUT A MIX SOMEONE MADE YOU ON SHUFFLE; i spent an entire week working on a two-volume NIN mix for a friend and he fucking put it on shuffle and i was just like what the fuck?
• artwork is important; sometimes just as important as the title, if not more important. i used to use urban outfitters and anthropologie catalogs to make liner notes; these days i use pictures i've posted on instagram haha