The Life and Death of the Mix CD

I’ve gone through at least 5 copies of Soulslinger’s United DJs of America CD. Simply amazing. It was one of the first times that I actually “got” the difference between jungle and d&b (I was never really a jungle fan to begin with). Other pure gold CDs I rocked hard were Digweed’s first Bedrock disc and Danny Tenaglia’s first Global Underground joint. No one where I lived was playing that type of stuff. Adam X had a minimal techno disc I couldn’t get enough of either. I spent a lot of money on batteries back then. Mix CDs made up the majority of my casual music collection at one point.

I still think the format is relevant, just not the medium. I read the article and they mention podcasts and internet prevalence as the main reason for the “death” of the mix CD. In strictest terms they’re correct, but it hasn’t really killed off the mix as a method of discovery…perhaps the main culprit here isn’t the internet and podcasts but the fact that no one really rocks CD players anymore anyways. Chicken/egg.

The thing that gets me most is when I meet someone who is not a DJ screening tunes that has a bunch of electronic tracks on their iPod or whatever. I can’t imagine wanting to listen to this type of stuff on it’s own. Without a DJ playing it, it’s kind of a lame sound. I’ve been harrowed with argument from people over this opinion many times, but I just don’t think it is a viable form of casual listening, just to have a bunch of unmixed house tracks for example, and listen to them without them being used properly.

Most people I get into the argument with, especially the young and MOST especially the young DJs, really don’t like hearing me tell them that on its own it isn’t actually very good music. “Then why do you play it?” I get asked. “For the same reason you don’t live in a pile of rough lumber, loose nails, and random tools; you live in a finished house.”

To each their own. No accounting for taste. I don’t even try to explain it anymore.

So let me show the color of my roots here for a second; as long as we’re talking about mix CDs from back in the dayo…remember tpe packs? Oh man I had a serious collection of tape packs from UK d&b shows. It was the only way to see what was going on over there. Until WE started throwing them there just weren’t shows like that where I was at at the time. So not only were mix CDs essential to discovering new music, they were a way to discover whole new vibes, whole new kinds of energy, whole new cultures we didn’t know existed.

<wipes nostalgic tear from eye, thinks about mountain of white labels in the storage room>

I still love mixes, which is a reason why I still make them. I love putting in the effort of picking the right tunes, and blending them together smoothly. I still like to take the listener on a journey as opposed to just slapping together stuff.

Even the art I make for my mixes is mainly a remembrance of when I’d see mixes attached to copies of Mixmag, Muzik, etc. I know my stuff doesn’t get massive amounts of listeners, but I mainly enjoy them for myself. I just couldn’t listen to these tunes unless it was in a DJ set.

I also love mixes that were recorded live at events, where you hear the crowds. I’ve even went looking on stock audio sites for crowd noises I could one day put into a mix.

Journeys By DJ was incredibly influential in it’s time. Jay Chappel’s After Hours 1 still stands up and gets a play regularly. His Beach Party mix was also a perfect snapshot of the glory days of the time when house and prog seemed to compliment each other.
The first proper mix CD I bought was Renaissance 1, by Sasha and Diggers.
I own tons of mix CDs, I suppose the main difference now without CDs is the length of mixes. I’ve got no problem with DJs turning out two or even three hour mixes, but too many clock out after 60 minutes, which I always thought was a bit short…