Love is a mix tape

There's that stereotype of white, male twenty/thirty-something rock critics: they are assholes. Not meathead jock assholes, but the kind of persistent, high-pitched-annoying-guy-that-likes-to-tell-you-why-they-are-right asshole. Sometimes it can be squeezed into something charming, but this is usually in monthly magazine column format. An entire book can be trying. Music writing is so hard, I think, because it's so easy for it to sound too cool or too cheesy or too sloppy. But sometimes it's good because of those things. Rob Sheffield's Love Is A Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song At A Time is probably a bit sloppy at parts, and there are equal doses of cheesiness and coolness, but it is also sincere, which matters most. Maybe you've already read this book - apparently it was New York Times bestseller - but I picked it up for the first time this weekend. It's about the progression of Sheffield's relationship with his wife Renee Crist, from the first time they met to the afternoon she died suddenly of a pulmanory embollism after having been married for almost 6 years. Their relationship was studded with mix tapes, each chapter of the book starting off with a track listing. They fell in love to Big Star's "Thirteen", fell asleep to "Angel" by Aerosmith, got marriage tips from James Brown. There is a heart-breaking description of Sleater-Kinney's "One More Hour" after Renee's death that made me consider that perhaps it is the saddest SK song ever, and not "A Quarter to Three".

I read the book while in Toronto, in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by all my old tapes. Unlike Sheffield, the casette tape is my least favourite audio medium - I had too many tapes wear out from overplay or get chewed up in my tape player. But it's true that the making of a mix tape implies a certain level of commitment that doesn't exist with mix CDs. (The first mix Andrew ever made for me was on cassette, and I have it in a box somewhere, but no casette player to listen to it on. It was a good mix. I remember it had "Car" by Built to Spill, and R.E.M. singing "First We Take Manhattan", a gorgeous version of Kim Deal and Robert Pollard singing "Love Hurts" and the worst Red House Painters song, "Summer Dress", which is also the best Red House Painters song to put on a tape for a girl you have a crush on, so all was forgiven.)

And so maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic in general, but it's been ages since I've even made a mix CD for anyone. It almost seems unnecessary now that you can fit albums onto one CD in MP3 format, now that you can just download the songs you want for free or, if you're too lazy to look for it, for 99 cents on Itunes. But I miss thinking about song listings and coverwork and if anyone wants to do a real mix CD trade, i.e. one with thought put into it, please let me know. I also came home with a stack of 7"s, so it's back to the basics for me these days.

Anyway, no MP3s in this entry, but I do recommend the book.

A warning: parts of the book might make your face screw up all funny, and your significant other might look over at you and ask "what's wrong?" or maybe an even more delicate "what's your problem?" and you might do something like burst into tears and say "please don't die!!!" and they might think you're a little off your rocker, but it's okay, it's a normal reaction. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything.