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.