Making a mix tape (or CD) is a very tough, trying process. First off, the point is to choose bands that the reciever has not heard of. This alone can be quite a challenging task, but is certainly doable. There are thousands, tens of thousand, maybe even hundreds of thousands of artists out there. The next step is choosing songs. Seeing as most bands have produced at least, say, 10 songs, you have at least a million to choose from. If each song takes as little as 3 minutes, you're gonna be listening for 3,000,000 minutes to all of that, or 50,000 hours, or about 2,083 days, and about 5.7 years. Of course, most bands have produced at least 30 songs, some over 100, and then there are countless remixes and mash-ups and concert performances and oh my. I highly doubt you could fit all that into the standard 80-year lifespan of a person (well, a first-world person).
Choosing a song to put into a mix CD can be quite as hard. It needs to represent the overall sound of a band, it needs to sound good, and in most cases (well, by my ideal here), it can't be a single in order to show that you actually listen to said band extensively. Singles are singles for a reason, in the fact that they often represent the most accessable, often favorite songs from an artist. Luckily, there are still many other songs that are equally as enticing and nice. With these guidelines, you need to kind of pay attention to what the reciever of the CD already listens to. If you're trying to introduce a band with a wide variety of sound, and your friend likes soft rock, you're better off not putting the techno-infused sludge jam recorded for shits and giggles or to make some sort of chaotic end in an album. If I wanted to tell a friend about, hell, even Nine Inch Nails, and my friend liked some metal, I'd much rather put 'Last' on there than 'Corona Radiata'. The rest is up for them to discover. In that way, you can't put a song that runs completely contrary to a band's general sound. If your friend or whoever enjoyrs the song, they'll be expecting more. If I heard a song that sounded like Lady Gaga, but found that for the most part the band sounds more like Anal Cunt, I'd be slightly turned off. I mean, it works out if I enjoy Anal Cunt (I do not), but still.
Next thing, you can't just dump songs on the CD once you pick a few. Well, I wouldn't in any case. A mix CD should still be a listenable experience, and for that reason it needs to flow like an album. The first song should sound like a first song, perhaps starting with only one instrument and building up. The CD should flow from some heavier songs to lighter ones and back, for example, and do so smoothly. If you can manage songs that seem to flow right into each other, such as of Montreal's 'Gallery Piece' and NIN's 'Ringfinger', perfect. The last song should sound like a last song, and should sum up the general feel of the CD. I mean, if the whole thing is full of rather cheerful, summer songs like The Diarrhetards' 'Suck My Dick' and anything by Sublime, you wouldn't want to end it on Radiohead's 'Karma Police', which doesn't serve as a good album-ending song anyway, but certainly wouldn't fit after The Offspring's 'The Kids Are Alright'. Actually, obviously, in the right mood, it would. But perhaps not in general.
I was planning on writing more, but planning is the wrong word. I had hoped to write more, but I can't really imagine what else to write here. It's a post about mix CDs, and being a non-expert on mix CDs (I've made maybe 3 in my life), I don't have much else to say about them. In fact, the whole reason this post came to fruitation is because as I was writing it, my Internet was completely gone. I was also in the process of choosing songs for a friend's mix CD, some songs which I hadn't really heard yet, but I did love and respect the bands who made them. Perhaps one day when I'm more famous than that band and everyone reads my blog from start to finish, they'll want to know what amazing things I listen to. So here's a shout-out to some of the greatest music-makers I've recently or ever heard (and my friend is going to hear): Manchester Orchestra, Manu Chao, of Montreal, Them Crooked Vultures, The Dead Weather, Does It Offend You Yeah?, Phantogram, Street Sweeper Social Club, and Peter Bjorn and John.
I'm still thinking of what else to put on there. I'ma see if I can listen to some local Chicago bands from a local newspaper called RedEye, such as Rabbit Children. I haven't heard them as of yet so no idea as to the awesome-levels associated. But I am low on ideas so what else will I do? Oh, I guess I can also check out Q101's Local 101 for some unheard of local bands. Sweet. Not to mention all these CDs I have that I've never ever listened to, by artists such as 4 Non Blondes, Paleface, and 10,000 Maniacs. Alright, toodles.
Except my Internet isn't dead yet and I need to kill time as I listen to Manchester Orchestra's Mean Everything To Nothing, so I guess I'll write this paragraph too. With no excess to the Internet, you might assume I'm writing this on Microsoft Word if I have a PC and whatever Macs use if I have one of those (hint: judging by my lack of Apple knowledge, I'm PROBABLY using a PC. With Windows. Since I am not cool enough/don't care enough/can't be bothered to learn about things like Ubuntu and Linux). Well, that would be wrong, because I am in fact using the amazing Notepad. I've always liked the clean, plain look of it (being nothing but words after all), and those fonts where all the characters take up the same amount of space (I forgot the proper term, and I have no Internet to check Wikipedia's 'Font' entry), and just. I dunno. Notepad. Makes me feel much more like I'm actually writing this like an old-fashioned, educated person. Not that I'm not educated. Although I might be expelled from my school due to cutting too many classes.
I don't like that last part tainting the above paragraph, so instead I'll write one about it here. This also gives me an idea to write a "OMG SUMMER IS HERE I JUST CAME" entry next. But anyhow, due to cutting too many classes (over 30 by my estimate), my attendance director lady told my mother that I should start looking for other schools. This did not flow well with me at all, since (WARNING! Apparantly this comes as a surprise to some people) I really enjoy going to my current school, despite cutting classes. I don't think that people realize that cutting a class has different contexts, such as I did not want to go because I felt like hanging out with friends, or I couldn't risk it because there's big assignments due today that I didn't do. Of course, there are more than that, but those are two very very different circumstances. Even the former doesn't mean I don't like going to school or would rather hang out with friends. It's just one of those days. And since most of my cuts were in the last week of school before finals, when we did not do anything in class, I think I should immediately be forgiven.
Oddly, I might mention, adults seem to think that cutting class means going into the most grimy bathroom stall available, and lonesomely masturbating and smoking joints. I draw this conclusion from the fact that my attendance director lady and father both inquired if my friends are even still my friends. This is a silly proposition since a) my school has over 2,000 students and 100 staff members, is next to a police academy, and is one of the finer in the state and nation, and so smoking a joint would not go unnoticed or uncared for. b) most times when I am cutting class I am hanging out with friends, who in many cases are also cutting class. And this doesn't mean I have stupid, ghetto, irresponsible friends, just that they, like some teachers, have common sense and realize that one missed class in high school isn't the end of the world. Neither is over 30, spaced out over 9 months, in 6 different classes.
I made a petition, with the exact words "I agree that if [[full name here]] is expelled/asked to leave/any other wording for 'expulsion' from [[school name here]], I will be severely depressed and at least 20% more likely to use heroine and crystal methamphetamine." In one day I got 181 people to sign, including 1 teacher (who I don't believe read the full statement). Many people believed that this petition was actually how I was supposed to not get expelled. This is wrong, as no one told me to make one and it was purely for shits and giggles (I think I've used that phrase twice in this post now). I just wanted to see how many people would sign. In the end, having 3 front/back pages full of signatures supporting me is quite cool. 3 other teachers said they'd write letters to my principal or stand in as character witnesses if I needed them to. This is great, and will probably help 100 times more than this petition. 1 teacher who I had only met a few times but was extremely cool said he'd take his angry mood out on some important guy in my school, who I agree is important but not sure as to what he actually does. The teacher mouthed "fuck you" and we laughed about it. I really love the teachers here.
Anyway, today I was planning to go to my principal and appeal my exuplsion, but I was then informed by another important guy who's job remains a mystery to me that I need to appeal in August, after getting my expulsion letter from the school. I think this is really stupid and I should just save them the trouble of writing a letter by appearing today, but whatever. It's their choice.
Also, I feel like I should mention my attendance director lady's reaction to the petition. She first asked if these people are going to attend class for me. This is a valid point, but still rather stupid. Hold on, let me tell you about my attendance director lady. She is an old woman who always looks angry and is quite, QUITE skilled at sounding angry at all times of day. She's blond and short, and, did I mention angry? Anyhow, she then went on to tell me that all these people had no idea how many classes I've cut and that I've had several parent-teacher-attendancedirectorlady meetings. This is a very stupid argument, because it assumes that all my peers are rule-following fanatics who respect the time that my attendance director lady and whichever teachers give me. They are not and do not, by the way. The next thing she did was accuse me of not being in class when I was on my lunch period. She caught me here, except for the fact that it was my lunch period, so she could go suck a chode. She then felt the necessity to tell me that I am misrepresenting the school. This was the one argument of hers that I could not possibly understand. No one has my attendance records except for the school, and unless they result in an Out Of School Suspension (and only very few have, and those occured much much much earlier than her telling my mom (and curiously, not me. In fact, I wouldn't even know I was expelled if it weren't for my mom calling me angrily. I did not get any sort of formal letter or phone call, and even my Division Teacher (on of the teachers promising to write letters and the like) was not aware that I was until I told her)), aren't given to colleges or other high schools or the public or any such thing. In fact, since during my cuts I stayed inside the school, even a passing stranger wouldn't get a singly HINT that my school
is not full of rule-abiding champions. Not only all of that, but I am on the math team for my school, and I kick so much ass with that. Then I also scored a 35 on the ACT as a Freshman, and probably something equally high on the SAT (I have before, after all). The average for my school is 26, most seniors would shit themselves to get as high as 31, and to get into basic colleges one needs such impressive scores in different sections as 19 and 22. I got a 36 (perfect) in science and 34s in everything else. Now these scores and math competition winners ARE seen by colleges, other high schools, and the public, so in fact I think I'm representing my school VERY FUCKING WELL.
But clearly not. Man, fuck this situation. I want some Orange Cream Soda.
P.S. So since I wrote this all in Notepad, the longest paragraph took up maybe 2.3 lines there. I did not realize until copy/pasting my text into this here blog-posting box of wonders that these paragraphs are fucking gigantic and unseemly. Now I don't feel like editing them though. Maybe one day. But until then, enjoy having your eyes raped by wordy behemoths. Maybe some pictures would fix things, but I don't feel like putting those either. And yay, I have Internet again (as evident by the ability to post)!
P.P.S. I put in one shitty picture and seperated a short paragraph into shorter ones! My job here is DONE.
