Track listing for 111145-2:

1. Abba: I Do (x 5)
2. Neil Diamond: Cherry (x 2)
3. Andrea True Connection: More (x 3)
4. Ohio Express: Yummy (x 3)
5. Cher: Bang (x 2)
6. Tommy James and the Shondells: Mony (x 2)
7. The Hollies: Stop (x 3)
8. Hank Ballard and the Midnighters: Let’s Go (x 3)
9. The Byrds: Turn (x 3)
10. The Sandpipers: Louie (x 2)
11. The Castaways: Liar (x 2)
12. Miriam Makeba: Pata (x 2)
13. The Beau Brummels: Laugh (x 2)
14. The Beach Boys: Fun (x 3)
15. Don Covay and the Goodtimers: Mercy (x 2)
16. The Buckinghams: Mercy (x 3)
17. Gene McDaniels: Chip (x 2)
18. The Dixie Cups: Iko (x 2)
19. The Music Machine: Talk (x 2)
20. Alive & Kicking: Tighter (x 2)
21. The Magic Lanterns: Shame (x 2)
22. The Playmates: Beep (x 2)
23. The Rolling Stones: Doo (x 5) *
24. The Third Rail: Run (x 3)
25. The Supremes: Run (x 3)
26. Jo Jo Gunne: Run (x 3)
27. The Archies: Sugar (x 2)
28. The Jamies: Summertime (x 2)
29. Major Lance: Um (x 6)

* Also known as “Heartbreaker.”

Or you might not:

limiting any collection to 12 or 14 or even 18 songs when you can easily fit 3-400 on a CD-R just as easily can often be viewed as a waste of time. and that’s the problem. the limitations are what lift the act of throwing some tracks together to creating a perfect and timeless mix that can resonate for decades. skeptical that a mixtape can have such a profound impact? i shit you not: books have been written on the subject. the fact is that i’ve received several mix tapes and a few mix cds and i value all of them as highly, if not higher than my favorite albums of all time.

a well-executed mix is like a book: it has an introduction, a middle, an end. it tells a story (even if that story is: here’s a cool band i like), has a rise and fall and usually has some twists and turns you don’t expect.

And how much of a story can you tell if you throw in three hundred tracks? This is Proustian overkill when you need Hemingway’s conciseness.

The art — and make no mistake about it, it is an art — of making a mix tape is one lost on a generation that only has to drag and drop to complete a mix. There’s no love or passion involved in moving digital songs from one folder to another. Those “mixes” are just playlists held prison inside an iPod. There’s no blood, sweat and tears involved in making them.

There would be albums strewn about the room. There would be painful minutes spent starting and stopping and restarting a song in an attempt to hit the record button at just the right time so as to eliminate the clunks and hisses. But even if you didn’t time it so perfectly as to not have even a millisecond of space between “Don’t Cry” and “Jamie’s Crying” it was ok. That hiss became part of the mix. Upon the third listen, that sound would no longer be a piece of imperfection, but part of the flow of the tape; the two seconds of dead air was a metaphor for the silence in your relationship.

This latter is important: we cherish the imperfections.

The Troggs’ immortal “Wild Thing,” issued by two labels in the States (Atco and Fontana) because no one was quite sure who actually owned the US rights to it at the time, contains a very noticeable board click right before the beginning of the last section. Reg Presley croons “You moooove me,” and the sound fades away: you can count your way into the next guitar blast, but before you get there, somebody hits a switch, and it’s easily audible. Admittedly, “Wild Thing” is pretty noisy on its own, but if that board click is missing, you’ll know it.

Clip from “Wild Thing” [mp3]

At least one reissue producer took pains to “clean up” that record, and he excised the board click entirely. The results were Not Good.

Still, good transitions are worth trying for. The greatest segue ever, I have believed for some time, would be from Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” into Badfinger’s “Day After Day,” and it has to be timed just right. Modern-day DJs can hit this beat without even breathing hard, but it takes a little longer for us old Luddites, even with spiffy software at our disposal.

Track listing for 111144-2:

1. The Fixx: Saved by Zero
2. Len Barry: 1-2-3
3. Prince: I Would Die 4 U
4. The Byrds: 5 D (Fifth Dimension)
5. Dave Dudley: Six Days on the Road
6. Rosanne Cash: Seven Year Ache
7. Herman’s Hermits: I’m Henry VIII, I Am
8. The Temptations: Cloud Nine
9. The Yardbirds: Happenings Ten Years Time Ago
10. Neil Sedaka: Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen
11. Alice Cooper: I’m Eighteen
12. Paul Hardcastle: 19
13. King Crimson: 21st Century Schizoid Man
14. The Brothers Johnson: Strawberry Letter 23
15. Edwin Starr: Twenty-Five Miles
16. Toni Basil: I’m 28
17. The Showmen: 39-21-40 Shape*
18. Little Carl Carlton: 46 Drums 1 Guitar
19. Paul Simon: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
20. Sammy Hagar: I Can’t Drive 55
21. Candy and the Kisses: The 81
22. Nena: 99 Luftballons
23. Wilson Pickett: Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do)

* Occasionally shown as “39-21-46.”

Well, yes, we did, but that really was different:

[M]any of those analog mix tapes were covered by the safe harbor established in the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (“AHRA”), which barred infringement actions for private, noncommercial musical recordings. When it comes to digital mix tapes however, your computer isn’t an audio recording device covered by AHRA. [See RIAA v. Diamond, 180 F.3d 1072, 1078 (9th Cir. 1999).] More importantly, when a mix tape is posted on a blog for any and all to access and download, it isn’t a private use anymore, but a distribution to the public.

(Seen at Planet Kaua’i.)

And if I wanted the highest possible hi-fi, I’d have to do it again the same way, albeit with some pricey sound tools. But I can come rather a lot closer than I thought with a $34.95 package called Spin It Again from Acoustica. It’s intended as a full-fledged recording package for people who want to convert vinyl and cassettes to digital form, but so far I’ve used it solely as a cleanup tool for existing digital files that weren’t quite clean enough.

That cleanup, you’ll want to know, is absurdly simple: the software comes with several preset filters tuned specifically for the sorts of noises you’ll get from analog sources. They range in severity from fairly light to industrial strength; inevitably, filters like this introduce some artifacts or distortion, but the lighter ones pass almost completely unnoticed. The heaviest is labeled “Clean Everything.” One I was happy to see compensates for what happens when you play a record using a magnetic cartridge but don’t have a preamp to correct for the usual RIAA curve. You can also create custom filters if you know what you’re doing.

The trial version is not crippled, but it permits you to do only three cleanup jobs. I was ready to buy after two, one of which was an obscure Buchanan and Goodman cut-in record that sounded utterly horrid beforehand and downright acceptable afterward. I can recommend Spin It Again to anyone who wants a relatively-painless way to clean up those oldies but goodies — and who has a recent version of Windows, since there’s no Mac or Unix version to be had.

Track listing for 111143-2:

1. The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter
2. Supertramp: Give a Little Bit
3. Abba: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
4. Spencer Davis Group: Gimme Some Lovin’
5. George Benson: Give Me the Night
6. Crazy Elephant: Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’
7. Jessica James and the Outlaws: Give Her Up (Baby)
8. The All-American Rejects: Gives You Hell
9. Rick Astley: Never Gonna Give You Up
10. Spanky and Our Gang: Give a Damn
11. James Brown: I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing
12. The Chairmen of the Board: Give Me Just a Little More Time
13. Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush: Don’t Give Up
14. 1910 Fruitgum Co.: Indian Giver
15. Jerry Butler: Never Give You Up
16. Brenton Wood: Gimme Little Sign
17. Parliament: (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker) Give Up the Funk
18. Pretenders: Brass in Pocket (I’m Special)
19. The J. Geils Band: Give It to Me

It occurs to me that no one (well, hardly anyone) puts out a song that short anymore. In contrast, there were three 2:42 tracks on the Beatles’ White Album.

I wrote about this phenomenon at greater length last year on another site, but I figured it was, um, time to bring it up again.

Of course, we’ve already made an attempt at such here.

Prog Rock! Just the word makes some people nervous. Long haired nerds with lots of instruments and money, making music for themself down in some dark basement. But on the other hand, whats wrong with that picture! Prog Rock have always been the ugly stepbrother of Rock, but some of the biggest selling album in the world have been pure prog-rock. Dark Side of the Moon to just namedrop one.

They suggest six tracks, which in prog rock ought to run at least an hour total, and so they do. The closer is indeed from Pink Floyd, but not from DSOTM.

Track listing for 111142-2:

1. Bazuka featuring Tony Camillo: Dynomite
2. She & Him: I Was Made for You
3. Deftones: Hole in the Earth
4. Daft Punk: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
5. Joan Baez: Time Rag
6. The White Stripes: Icky Thump
7. Plain White T’s: 1, 2, 3, 4
8. Alison Krauss + Union Station: New Favorite
9. Weezer: Pork and Beans
10. Leo Kottke: Up Tempo
11. Death Cab for Cutie: I Will Possess Your Heart
12. Stone Temple Pilots: Sour Girl
13. Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
14. The Replacements: Waitress in the Sky
15. Gorod 312: Nevidimka
16. R. E. M.: Losing My Religion
17. The Explorer Club: Do You Love Me
18. Susan Fassbinder: Twilight Cafe
19. Modest Mouse: Float On
20. Jimmy Webb: If You See Me Getting Smaller I’m Leaving