Before Spotify: The Lost Art of Making the Perfect Mixtape

Putting together a playlist on Spotify is about as easy as it gets. The kids don’t remember what it was like to put together the perfect mixtape back in the day, years before the onset of streaming music platforms or even digital music sharing. 

Let’s get nostalgic and take a look at the process of putting together a physical mixtape to woo that super cool person next door that you have a huge crush on. You’ll need a few supplies, though.

1. Find a Dual Cassette Radio

Back in the late 1980s through the early 2000s, finding a dual cassette radio was extremely easy. Your local thrift store probably had dozens of them lying around in different states of disrepair for a dollar a pop. 

Nowadays, though, a dual cassette radio (which is exactly what it sounds like: two cassette tape players and a radio antenna) will be a rare thing to find anywhere. Good luck!

2. Master the Art of Patience, Listening, and Recording on the Dot

You might be thinking, “This dual cassette radio is so handy! I can just buy the cassette versions of albums that feature songs that I want to put on this playlist!”

No. 

I mean, you can try. But just about every cassette tape version of albums from years ago have since been destroyed or played to death, so good luck finding anything.

Instead, you’ll need to tune into radio stations that play the types of songs you want to include in your perfect mixtape. Then, you’ll have to listen to those stations for hours on end to get a feel for when they play the exact songs you want to record. 

Then, you’ll have to be one step ahead of the radio DJ. Once they start talking before a song kicks in, you’ll have to press record and wait with bated breath.

Will it be the right song? When DJ Wears-Sunglasses-In-His-Radio-Booth-Even-Though-He-Doesn’t-Need-Them quits yapping about the song that just finished playing, will “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper finally start playing? No! It’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston, you idiot! Now you have to stop recording, rewind, and wait for your intuition to tell you to hit “record” again.

3. Get Artistic (But Not Too Artistic That You Create a Fire Hazard)

Once you’ve spent countless hours curating and recording the right playlist of songs onto your cassette tape, you’ll need to get creative with the case. If you’re trying to woo someone, scrawling “Seduction Playlist” or “Tunes For Totally Hot Babes” onto the plastic case with a Sharpie might not be the most genius idea. 

Splattering it with primary-colored stickers will definitely fit the late 1980s/early 1990s aesthetic, though. Just don’t layer on too much glitter glue, as it will definitely melt inside the apple of your eye’s Walkman, destroying your hard work and causing a scene and possibly creating a fire hazard.

Sometimes, the evolution of music is a good thing. If the above steps to creating an old-school perfect mixtape seem daunting, that’s because they are. I’ll stick to dragging and dropping songs on Spotify, thank you very much.

Photo via Getty Images

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