Geoffrey O'Brien once called the personal mixtape "the most widely practiced American art form," and this seems undeniably true. \nFor 30 years, sensitive American men have been fixing 60 minutes of copyrighted ballads to Maxell IIs in attempts to sleep with sensitive American women. This practice became increasingly more common with the advent of CD burners. Microcosms of personal expression such as "Workout Mix," "Sarah's Mix" and "Supersweet Party Mix" could all be easily created with a little time and a few clicks of a mouse. \nAnalog dinosaurs such as Chuck Klosterman and John Cusack think that the digital mixtape is fundamentally inferior to the cassette tape. There was supposedly more emotion involved in sitting in front of a tape deck all day, slowly stacking one song on top of the next, deleting and overdubbing as necessary. \nNaturally, we at WIUX think this point of view is total garbage. We are living in nothing short of the golden age of mixtapes. Mixes are becoming much more than a way to get laid. Promotional mixes and podcasts come free with most music magazines, while Zach Braff's celebrity mixtape (the "Garden State" soundtrack) introduced America to some band that will change our lives. And, of course, while the rap community has been using tapes for years to build hype, Spank Rock's "Viola" tape can now make heads bounce around the globe via broadband. \nTo show our love for the art of the mix, WIUX is introducing a weekly mixtape series available on our Web site. The mixes will range from simple cross-faded to elaborate DJ sets, and we hope to have some celebrity tapes mixed in too. So jump to www.wiux.org/new/media and help us thumb our noses at Nick Hornby by downloading this week's WIUX mixtape.
by Dan Goshorn, \nWIUX Business Operations
