By Joanie Cox-Henry
The year was 1991. The grunge look of Seattle rockers was starting to seep onto the formerly preppy-clad teens of Boca Raton. Flannel was always an impractical look for South Florida kids but we were sweating our butts off trying to look like Eddie Vedder. Blood Sugar Sex Magik had just come out at record stores. A bootleg copy of it with a few bonus songs was steadily circulating around my sixth-grade class. The original copy of the cassette allegedly belonged to an older sibling of someone in the class but it didn’t matter much about where it originated from. All that mattered was that my middle school class had successfully procured a copy of this Red Hot Chilli Peppers tape that everyone was talking about.
There were a few simple rules. Listen to it for a week and pass it on. Most importantly, don’t get caught with it and have a parent destroy it.
I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it even though I knew I wasn’t technically allowed to listen to it at the time. Track after track, my then preteen ears fell deeper and deeper in infatuation with Flea’s bass beats. The enigmatic pull of Anthony Kiedis singing “Breaking The Girl” lured me to a place of wonder as I listened to this pirated tape on my Walkman in the dark, hidden safely under my New Kids On The Block bedsheets.
As I got a little older, I began to make my own mixtapes for friends. It would take hours and often days to assemble the perfect mix to convey what you wanted to express through song. Then there was the cassette cover art. Would you draw something of your own? Would you write the song titles in a Sharpie? Maybe you’d include a few stickers. The bottom line is, that I loved giving and receiving mixtapes. Then we moved to the technology of burning CDs and as technology further evolved, CDs became digital playlists. While it's much easier to search and add songs now, these sacred vessels are still the soundtracks of our souls. Let’s never stop making mixtapes and spreading the joy of meaningful music. After all, sharing is caring. Now go make a mixtape!
Comments