jesus
I've kept a lot of the listings of my mixtapes over the years, and the modern equivalent seems to have now manifested as a compulsion to create iTunes playlists. I now pretty much create them for me rather than anyone else, being 33 and all that.

Reviewing old mix tape listings thought, I noticed a worrying trend on pretty much all of them. I would usually start out by thinking of one song I know she'd have liked and would start off all sensitive - "What do I think she'll like that will make her think I'm in touch with the modern woman" etc. Most of these were stolen from the Woman To Woman complilation album, circa 1994.

I would play the track and make sure the lyrics were suitable and basically said "I respect you as a woman" rather than "I would like to fuck you in every orifice". Then choose the second song as the one that pops into my head on completion of playback of the 1st. This would continue for a while and then slowly but inexorably, decline. At somepoint I would lose all interest in making the tape for someone else and it just turned in to a load of songs i liked listening to at the time. This is why Clare at University who I fancied for years got this tape:

1. Neneh Cherry - Womans World
2. Sophie b Hawkins - Damn I Wish I was your lover
3. Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellite
4. Joan Armatrading - Love and Affection
5. Cyndi lauper - Time After Time
6. Motley Crue - Dr Feelgood
7. Suzanne Vega - Marlene on the Wall
8. Shakespear's Sister - Stay
TURN OVER
9. Cathy Dennis - Waterloo Sunset
10. Metallica - Nothing Else Matters
11. Metallica - Through The Never
12. Metallica - Wherever you may Roam
13. Metallica - Dont Tread on Me
14. Metallica - Sad But True
15. Metallica - Ride The Lightning
16. Slayer - Reign In Blood
17. Sade - Smooth Operator
18. Ozzy Ozbourne - No More Tears (big finish)
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:31, 2 replies)

I once made a tape for Legless.
It had The Macc Lads on it. And a local talent called Biff who wrote funny and rude songs. I did it coz Legless likes The Macc Lads. And he likes Biff. Only Biff is dead now but we still like him. I also did it coz Legless is a mate and I do nice things for mates coz I like them. People wot I do not like are not mates therefore I don't do nice things for them. I like Legless coz he likes things that are funny and rude. And I like things that are funny and rude. That's why me and my mate Legless are mates and why we like The Macc Lads because they are funny and rude. When Legless first introduced me to b3ta he showed me the Buffy Swearing keyboard. I liked this. It made me laugh coz it was funny and rude.

And I like my own pants coz they fit my bottom and somebody elses pants might not fit me if they have a different sized bottom to me. I like cotton pants or at least pants with a cotton GUSSET. (eeeoughk to that word)

If a T-shirt looks like the letter T, and Y-fronts have the letter Y on the front, then what does the G stand for in G-string?
Is it for "God, these pants are stuck up my arse!!" ?

That is my story this week the end.

*edit* p.s. the other reason that I like Legless and he's my mate is coz he's *special* and so am I and I like willies coz they are rude and funny and Legless has a willy coz he's a boy but I have never seen it coz he is a mate and it would be rude to look at a mate's willy even though I like them because they are rude and saying the word "willy" makes me laugh because I am rude that's why my mate Legless calls me Tourettes because I SWEAR ALOT because swearing is rude and funny :o)
( Tourette's ( . )( . ) has a monkey hair in her fried egg, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:29, 25 replies)

I have a very good mixtape.
All the songs have titles like:
"Let's talk about poo"
"Drunken injuries"
"Foot-in-Mouth Moments"

and (my favorite):

"Please please please can we have a new QOTW instead of this one? Pretty please with a cherry on top?"*





*This mixtape might not actually exist. But it should.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:28, Reply)

Yes
Just remembered a good one... how can I forget.

In the days before car stereos were MP3 capable, and good chunks of your music collection could be chucked on to a tiny SD card... the only way of listening to what you wanted to in the car was to burn a CD full of tracks you liked. This was definitely the kind of regime I would care out every 1-2 months... depending on how long it took me to get sick of certain songs, and chuck said CD out of the car window at 70mph.

Anyway, I digress...

One evening, me and a mate were in the car, and thought we'd go pester some charva's with various rock music and amusing ditty's of the annoying variety... which is all well an good when your young and stupid.

Following day comes, and I have my first date with my now-girlfriend. I pick her up from her's, but didn't even notice the music that was playing on the stereo as it was low volumed.

Anyways, driving off to where we are going for our meal, and she asks "do you mind if I have a skip through the CD", to which I, not taking much notice, says "Aye, gan on."

So, she turns up the stereo to which I remark "I don't think you'll find anything you'll like though". After she skips a couple of tracks, I hear quite loudly around me the words "I WISH I WAS A GIRL..."

At this point, I mutter the immortal words "Oh... fuck". That's right, she stumbled upon the song I Wish I Was A Girl by Violent Delight.

But, it doesn't stop there... with such lyrics as:

"I don't care about the blood, I don't care about the pain
Cos being a girl's the only thing that's on my brain"

and, of course, the chorus...

"Some people think I might be gay
But I don't swing the other way
I just wanna be a girl so damn much
To fell my clit as it gets....."

Through the entire of the song, just continued driving, feeling myself getting redder, and redder until getting to place we needed to be.

Thankfully, I managed to get to the restaurant before the screaming part of "Why wasn't I a girl".

Never felt so embarassed about something in my life before. But after a quiet 5 minutes, we had a good laugh about it, and we're still together now.


Length? About 2minutes 40seconds of pure embarassment.
(ShaunyBoi has been surviving fires since, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:27, 3 replies)

In retrospect....
....mixtapes are supposed to be a trying to find common ground rite of passage thing, at least they were in the 80s when I was a teenager.

So what was I doing making up mixtapes for a beautiful girl at school who I fancied and who sort of fancied me - and filling them to the brim with the likes of Megadeth, Anthrax and Metallica? Being fucking stupid, that's what. Never did get in there. Bah.
( Fathter Puddytat Kill Kill dat widdle boid is mine on, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:27, Reply)

While I Have Your Attention
.
Well, I'm not going to be detracting from any interesting stories..

I'm looking for volunteers for a project I want to do.

I want to produce a series of podcasts of the best stories from QOTW and I need people who are willing to record themselves telling the best tales from here.

Anyone who wants to help, comment here or Gaz me.

I'll provide all technical know-how and hosting space, produce all the RSS feeds and other whizzy stuff - I just need decent voices.

All you need is a PC and a mic.


I'm off to bed now as my beloved has been called out to fix some dizzy bint who's just jumped out of a window while drunk and won't be back for ages...



Cheers.
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:26, 10 replies)

iTunes 1987
True story of a geeky poly student way back when.

Tune into the Annie Nightingale Show R1 late on a Sunday night. Press Record and hit the pause button. First tune comes on, release pause button. Wait for song to finish and repeat. If necessary rewind to cover any jingles etc.

Repeat this for as many weeks as it takes to fill up a C90 both sides. Usually a term or so. Mark it with an obscure title but make sure your name is on it.

End of term house party, stick on tape plugged into 100 watt guitar amp as soon as the pubs kick out.

Sit back and bask in swooning admiration when all agree that you have created quite possibly the best party mix tape that anyone has every heard (despite not knowing the titles of at least half of the tracks). Use this gain in popularity to great advantage for rest of night/term.

Repeat every term for a couple of years.

(Don't what ever you do let on that the only records you actually own are the "White Album", "Rainbow Bridge" and "Champions Again" by The Black Dyke Mills band)
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:26, Reply)

I once made a tape of all of my favourite songs
so that I could listen to them. That was the reason.
(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:23, Reply)

Crap tape deck.
I only ever had one tape desk so had to wait hours for a song to come on the radio so i could record it. making any kind of mix tape took days of work and always had steve wright talking over the start of the song. but now I have MP3 and DVD audio 5.1 DTS ABS PhD. I get all the birds. *dreams*
( NoobMaster was sure I change my sig the other week., Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:23, Reply)

Does anyone else remember Minidisks?
I used to have a portable minidisk recorder/player, in that short space of time after recorders became available for a decent price, but before they started coming armed with USB.

I had to start the tracks playing on my PC and wait for them to record in real time onto the minidisks. God, it was boring. How everyone managed to have the patience to do it with tapes, I'll never know.

It's no work at all now with MP3 players and drag-n-drop CD burning. Do you think that's killed the art of the mix tape?
(Musuko, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:22, Reply)

A few years back...
I designed some curtains, one side red, one side blue. No-one liked them.

That's what happens when you make mixed drapes.
(irv made you eat your parents in a chilli on, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:18, 1 reply)

When I was tiny.
I had a tape recorder and used to make made-up news reports.

The only thing I can remember was my Mum laughing at my masterfully-crafted weather report, warning of rain "in the North South of England." I'd picked up words such as South East and South West, but hadn't quite grasped the concept.

I also seem to recall being very disappointed that putting the tapes into the tape drive of our old late-eighties computer didn't do anything dramatic.
(Musuko, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:14, Reply)

saturday job
I was working at Dixons back in the 80s when I was given the job of sorting a load of new cassettes into different categories. Unfortunately, I slipped and they tumbled into a confused pile. I had mixed the tapes.

Is it Thursday yet? Shit - it's only Thursday.
(frankspencer, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:12, Reply)

Doom
I was always making my own obsessively-indexed mix tapes. I started off by taping the Top 40 off the radio, becoming highly skilled with the pause button, enabling me to cut out any trace of Tony Blackburn from the finished product

Soon, I started making them for friends.

Presently, I found myself so hopelessly in love with a certain young lady from college, and it was only a matter of time before I would offer her my services with a C-90.

"Tell you what," I said on a chaperoned visit to a local public house where she drunk me to poverty on diet coke, "I'll make you a mix tape so we can see what kind of music we both like."

This - an offer to the girl who obsessed over Stevie Wonder's 'I just called to say I love you' - was doomed from the start.

Overtaken by hormones and the fiery desires of my loins, I decided to put in a short - and, in retrospect, decidedly sad spoken interlude halfway through side two.

The gist of it was "Debbie, I want to see you with very few clothes on."

I gave her a few days to let the message - mixed together with my irresistible choice of 80s New Rom standards - sink in, before giving her a call:

"Hey Debbie, did you listen to that tape I made you?"

"I didn't have time. I gave it to my brother."

DOOM!

"He's joining the RAF Regiment. I thought it would be nice to give him something to listen to in his barrack room."

DOUBLE DOOM!

I was so scared I spent the weekend mulching into my trousers like Monty Don on an acid trip.

The full 12" remix version of this tale of woe can be found HERE. That is all.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:12, 3 replies)

Sony C90s.
Royal blue cassettes in a royal blue box.
How much of my childhood was spent dedicated to those things.
Anyways, I made one for my friend when I was around 12/13, who at the time (and up until I was about 17, although I still would) I had a mahusive crush on.
It sickens me what I thought would woo him back then;

1. Santana ft. Rob Thomas - Smooth [Admittedly, still a very sexy song]
2. Madonna - Music
3. Zombie Nation - Kernkraft 400
4. Baha Men - Who Let The Dogs Out?
5. Steps - Say You'll Be Mine
6. Bran Van 3000 - Drinking In L.A
7. Savage Garden - To The Moon And Back
8. S Club 7 - S Club Party
9. ATB - 9pm
10. Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy Hey Girl
11. Mel B - Word Up
12. Vengaboys - Sha La La La La
13. 5ive - Don't Wanna Let You Go
14. Eiffel 65 - Blue
15. Baz Luhrmann - Sunscreen
16. Wiseguys - Ooh La La
17. Britney - Lucky
18. Lolly - Mickey
19. Geri Halliwell - Look At Me
20. Backstreet Boys - Larger Than Life
21. Adam Rickitt - I Breathe Again [if that didn't give him the message...]
22. Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat
23. Basement Jaxx - Red Alert

Not particularly incriminating music tastes for someone of my age. Indeed some of these songs creep into my iTunes/DJ sets from time to time now (for nostalgic purposes mostly, but there are one or two quintessential GOOD TUNES in there).
However I sometimes wonder if it had all been different had I just put Savage Garden's 'I Want You' on repeat for 90 minutes.
If only...

P.S I'm not a bad person.
P.P.S Showing first real signs of length and girth. A talent for the future.
(I R Tomsk pyromaniacs will only inflame the situation, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:09, 4 replies)

Mix tapes
ha ha well there was this one time,

um...

Oh fuck it nothing funny has ever happened to me in relation to a mix tape.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:08, Reply)

Not in the least bit funny I fear
I used to be a hip hop DJ.

That's kind of what you do in that game....
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:05, Reply)

Anyone notice...
Mix tapes sounds a lot like mistakes. Strange that!
( girlinthehole, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 15:00, Reply)

Are they
starting up b3ta radio again and sneakily looking for track compilation lists?
( Trollman, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:57, Reply)

crap qotw
admittedly i have already posted about this but this question is really rather crap. I'm heading off to the read the old qotw's as im still relatively new i haven't read em all! roll on next week
(drew pea great minds like a think!, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:56, 1 reply)

mix tapes??? wtf
when i was a young pyromaniac (about 12 and certainly old enough to know better), myself and a few friends were out on our bikes looking for things to burn, this would often lead us miles from home to some abandoned house/garage etc.

on one of these trips we had peddled for about 4 miles to a nearby woods. i sadly didnt make it there. i shat my self speeding at what seemed like 100mph on the way home.


yeah i know its a rubbish story but surely its better that this weeks QOTW!
(meh! bored since, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:54, Reply)

My friend Michael
is an engineer, and has to measure things to great accuracy. Various objects require different measurement devices and...

Actually, fuck it, I can't be bothered to put together some sort of story. You know what the shit punchline is already anyway.

Yes, Legless has already done this, but I thought of it before I noticed.
(Bearded Whumpus In chav Britain, schoolgirl offers sweets to YOU!, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:49, Reply)

Mood Enhancing
I once made (and will probably get round to making again) a mood tape

in one job i had i used to have very bad days i used to come home very angry, sometimes boiling with rage and almost heart stopping adenaline kicks as i considered what i would like to do to some people that i worked with etc.. the reasons i shall save for another week

my poor partner would sometimes jump outta the way as i came through the door and this couldnt continue so i made a 'calm-down' CD for my journey home the running order went something like

- limp bisket - break stuff "everythings fucked everybody sucks, you just want to justify ripping someones head off"

- rage against - killing in the name "fuck you i wont do what you tell me"

- eminem - kill you

- eminem - stan

then some sort of midrange "what a shit life" songs

ending with

- enya - the celts

and then some of that relaxing rainfall/seashore music

it was designed to firstly let me scream out my rage (thumping steering wheel, overtaking, undertaking, under cutting, over cutting, double clutching, roaring engine)
then sit and reflect on life and how it will get better
then chill me out completely so i walk in the door looking like im a little fatigued from a long day

it did work very well, and now i have a much better job, however there are occasional days when i wish i had that old cd with me

length ? 47 minutes or 487.21 MB of digital audio data on a shiny disk
(maxumus HEY!.... diddly dee, de de de de de de, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:44, Reply)

QOTW
.
OK. Last time I did something similar to this I got banned. I never learn.

It was the "Teenage Poetry" question and I objected quite strenuously about it.

Fine. It's your site and what the mods says goes - but it's us that have to write the sodding answers.

Think about it this way. If you're down the pub and if you're slightly pissed and chatting about your life and amusing anecdotes you have. If everyone around the table is saying:

"Come on - who has a story about:
My First Love
The Police
Take My Mother In Law
Wanking Disasters
etc"

Then the conversations flow, the stories come thick and fast, each one sparked by one a mate has told and then, the spotty little turd in the corner pipes up with:

"How about Teenage poetry? That was a laugh eh? Or "Mix Tapes" - someone must remember the fun you used to have, in your bedroom, making "Mix Tapes".

Why bother having a suggestion page for QOTW when you come up with this?

I'll leave you with a quick preview on next weeks QOTW.

It's about "Losing Your Socks In The Washing Machine."

Can't wait.

Cheers

Edit: It's early in the QOTW and it's never been done, but any chance of a different question....?
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:42, 17 replies)

A modern day mix tape!
I didn't really understand the concept as a 16 year old, so I burnt a DVD with a load of MP3s on it so I could introduce my girlfriend to different music. Hardly a heart-felt collection, but she did quite like the entire Rammstein discography so that was alright.

Fast forward some indeterminable amount of time. It's late at night, we've returned from a party somewhere and it's about time for teenage, drunken, inept fumblings. (If you're reading this, I'm really sorry. Although that's probably going to make it worse, isn't it?) What would probably be atmospheric at this point would be some music! Stumble over to her PC, put iTunes on, hit shuffle, done.

Top tip: If neither of you can understand German, Rammstein is really good music to listen to. It's powerful, has a good solid rhythm and energetic. The effect is spoiled once both of you know you're dry-humping each other to a song about a guy eating his own penis shortly before his death.

Instead of Mien Teil we get Seeman, which is relatively lovely! Things are heating up, I'm really impressed by my one handed bra removal technique, she draws me in closer and the music is building up such a sense of tension. And there's a funky brass intro. "EVERYBODY! (doo doo) EVERYBODY!" The anticlimax sent me into a fit of giggles and the Blues Brothers firmly ensured that nothing was going to happen that night.

Her dad had probably bribed the shuffle algorithm.
(Toucan - http://www.titmonday.com, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:41, 2 replies)

Bollocks...
My friend "B" had just moved house into what could be called a "doer upper"...

an ex-smokers house the walls were a nice shade of yellow and the ceiling had a hint of tangerine.

I'd been roped into helping decorate the place with the promise of some beers and a takeaway, which from what i understand is the usual payment method for DIY.

We stripped and sanded the walls, coving and skirting boards and "B" decided that wallpaper was the way forwards, no messy paint and easy enough to replace if damaged...

After the walls were papered, we started on painting the coving and skirting boards, using tape to stop the paint from marking the walls...

Only to later realise that gaffer tape is no replacement for masking tape, and promptly ripped off all the wallpaper we had spent the last three hours putting up...

So there, that's my story about mixing tapes, it's not funny, and it's not clever, but is it just me or is this QOTW going to be lame?

Length, girth, etc...

God i'm bored...
(Nuclear Ninja like a radioactive Chuck Norris..., Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:38, 2 replies)

what?
I use rohypnol to get in someone else's pants, not mix tapes.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:33, 13 replies)

I make mix cd's for everyone
and I'm old enough to have made mix tapes in the past too. It's probably really creepy as I'm 30, and all my work mates (who are on the receiving end of these gifts) are in their early 20s.

They SEEM grateful (it's never out of the blue, usually a birthday present) but I have no idea how they'd feel if they found out how much time I spend picking the right songs for them, and putting them in the right order.

I enjoy doing it though, I wish I had my own radio station.

Apologies for lack of interesting or entertaining content. Chest cleared.
(Newton Crosby, Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:33, Reply)

Love cats? We have the Cure...*
An ex girlfriend (the one I jumped out of a window from a couple of QOTWs back) was a huge fan of The Cure in her younger days. So much so that she filled a whole C90 with the Lovecats. Over and over again.

Strangely, she’d gone off the song by the time we met. Wonder why?

*Did you see what I did there? Fucking clever or what?

This is going to be a long week. Think I’d rather have the stalkers question back.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 7 Feb 2008, 14:32, 1 reply)