Abstract
This chapter compares the experience of creating and listening to digital playlists with the experience of making and sharing mixtapes. Grounded in theories of nostalgia and emotionally durable design, the chapter offers a unique perspective on music listening habits, and argues that nostalgic accounts and contemporary references to the mixtape can enhance our understanding of digital music listening and contemporary listening practices. Through a theoretical and critical exploration of the affordances and limitations of digital music platforms in relation to the mixtape, the chapter provides a provocation to the music industry (and to those studying popular music practices and music consumption) to consider the importance of the listening experience, arguing that it should be thought of as creative, haptic, performative, immersive and embodied.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Ahmed, M. (2010, April 27). Internet music service spots gap in the market for next generation of mixtapes. The Times. Print: 18.
Apple Inc. (2015, April 16). Digital mixed tapes. United States Patent Application 14/688,673. Retrieved September 5, 2015, from http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov
Ball, J. (2011). I mix what i like: A mixtape Manifesto. Oakland: AK Press.
Bartmanski, D., & Woodward, I. (2015). Vinyl: The analogue record in the digital age. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Bausells, M. (2014, November 20). Your mixtape stories: Share your memories and pictures. Guardian Witness. Retrieved September 5, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/nov/20/your-mixtape-stories-share-your-memories-and-pictures
Biggs, J. (2011, October 27). The mixtape is back! New York Times. Retrieved September 5, 2015, fromhttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/magazine/25fob-consumed-t.html?_r=0
Bitner, J. (2009). Cassette for My Ex. New York: St Martin’s Griffin.
Boym, S. (2001). The future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books.
Bull, M. (2007). Sound moves: ipod culture and urban experience. Abingdon: Routledge.
Catalano, M. (2012, December 23). The lost art of the mixtape. Forbes. Retrieved September 5, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/michelecatalano/2012/12/23/the-lost-art-of-the-mixtape
Chapman, J. (2005). Emotionally durable design: objects, experiences and empathy. London: Earthscan.
Csathy, P. (2014, July 11). The lost art of the mix tape. The Huffington Post. Retrieved September 5, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-csathy/the-lost-art-of-the-mix-t_b_6121716.html
Dredge, S. (2015, July 20). Spotify bites back at Apple Music with weekly ‘mixtape’ playlist for each user. Guardian. Retrieved September 5, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/20/spotify-apple-music-weekly-mixtape-playlist
Gauntlett, D. (2011). Making is connecting: The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hogan, M. (2014, October 24). The mixtape will always have a place in my music collection. The Telegraph. Retrieved September 5, 2015, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/11184929/The-mixtape-will-always-have-a-place-in-my-music-collection.html
Hornby, N. (1996). High fidelity. London: Indigo Press.
Jansen, B. (2009). Tape cassettes and former selves: How mix tapes mediate memories. In K. Bijsterveld & J. van Dijck (Eds.), Sound souvenirs: Audio technologies, memory and cultural practices (pp. 43–54). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Jones, D. (2006). iPod, therefore I am. London: Phoenix.
Khomani, N. (2014, November 3). Kurt Cobain’s previously unheard 1986 mixtape unearthed—Listen. New Musical Express. Retrieved September 5, 2015, from http://www.nme.com/news/kurt-cobain/80818#1xzbvd2JRP2gjPQX.99NME
Livingstone, S. (2012). Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: tennagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy, and self expression. In L. Chouliaraki (Ed), Self-mediation: New media, citizenship and civil selves (pp. 39–54). London: Routledge.
Manual, P. (2001). Cassette culture: Popular music and technology in North India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
‘Mixtapes I’ll Never Make You’. (2015, March 12). Cornell daily sun. Retrieved September 5, 2015, from http://cornellsun.com/blog/2015/03/12/goldfine-mixtapes-ill-never-make-you
Moore, T. (2004). Mix tape: The art of cassette culture. Universe Publishing.
Reynolds, S. (2011). Retromania. London: Faber and Faber.
Schrey, D. (2014). Analogue Nostalgia and the Aesthetics of digital remediation. In Media and Nostalgia: Yearning for the past, present and future (pp. 27–38). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
The Disappearing Art of the Mixtape. (2015, January 6). [radio] BBC4 Extra. 0230. Summary description available from the BBC website: Retrieved September 5, 2015, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cj8d8
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fenby-Hulse, K. (2016). Rethinking the Digital Playlist: Mixtapes, Nostalgia and Emotionally Durable Design. In: Nowak, R., Whelan, A. (eds) Networked Music Cultures. Pop Music, Culture and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58290-4_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58290-4_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-58289-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-58290-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)