I Made This Tape For Your
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Music
I Made This Tape For You
By Laura A. Stuart

Modern technology has improved the music mix. Instead of spending hours on a mix tape that will probably warp after a while, you can simply click a few buttons, wait a few minutes, and have a CD with crystal clear sound. With the Internet, you can find just about any song you want to add to your compilation (whether or not it's legal is another story). You can make a quick and easy gift for a friend, lover (or potential lover), or yourself.

Although burning a CD is a whole lot easier and way more convenient, I am definitely more of a mix tape fan. I know that mix tapes are becoming an endangered species, and it kind of makes me sad. They're such wonderful things, and it's especially heartwarming to receive a mix tape as a gift.

Yes, it does take quite a long time to make a mix tape. You can spend hours digging through a CD collection, or waiting for that perfect song to come on the radio. I think it's worth the wait, though. The thing that makes mix tapes so special is the work and the emotion that goes into it.

It's so nice to get a mix tape as a gift, especially knowing all the work that went into it. A mix tape says, "I love you" much better than a mix CD could.
Think about how much different books like The Perks of Being a Wallflower or High Fidelity would've been if instead of mix tapes, the characters had been burning CDs. I honestly don't think they would've been as great as they are.

And CD burning isn't as perfect as it seems. CDs skip. Record companies, musicians, and other music industry folk have figured out how add glitches to songs to deter free downloading. In some cases, trying to download a song could result in a nasty computer virus.

Making a mix tape is a little less risky. I've never heard of anyone getting a stereo virus. It's harder to find someone who's been "stealing" music with a tape player. If you don't like a particular song on your tape, it's easy to go back and tape over it.

I don't think CD burning is completely horrible, though. I love having a CD burner on my computer. Sometimes, it's nice to have a simple mix to jam to. However, I will always have a special place in my heart for that perfect mix tape.