As news emerged that Lou Ottens, the Dutch inventor of the cassette tape died aged 94, many felt a hint of nostalgia. For me, there was nothing better than making or receiving a homemade mixtape.
In the days before streaming music, mixtapes were the jam. We spent hours putting songs on a cassette painstakingly, decorating the label with descriptions, notes and jokes. There was an element of fun, personality, intimacy, and care to it.
We think back to having a Walkman as something cool, but in reality the Walkman would often run out of juice, hilariously your tracks would slow down until the tape would pitch to a stop. You couldn’t skip songs, the tape would sometimes get all tangled up, it was well-nigh time consuming to fix (a pencil to rewind helped things), and often times recording errors left random bleeps in tracks. There was little wonder that people moved quickly to CDs, then MiniDisc and finally digital music.
The mixtape stands the test of time as a method of curation (it would often feature the best of the best from a genre); as the hottest transmitter of new tracks ripped off the radio; and as a bond between friends and lovers. As important as the music, was the artwork, stickers and scribbles that would adorn the insert. Much like vinyl, there is a visual culture – you look at enough mixtapes and you can tell what is on them without listening.
Owning a mixtape of say, the latest punk music from your neighbourhood, made you part of a tribe, it was often a badge of honour. Passing a mixtape to a crush, with all its hidden messages throughout the songs recorded therein, was the ultimate “I love you”. You could tell someone deep secrets without having to tell them in person; and if they didn’t like you back, it was still simply a tape with awesome music on it.
The world now is oversaturated with music, lost on platforms owned by corporations. Digital music has no soul. The mixtape, pressed and passed across neighbourhoods and communities, built genres, artists, movements. The humble cassette was the medium for everything from hip hop mixtapes, punk bootlegs, to pirate radio techno sets – a time capsule of culture, place, and feeling.
Thanks for the memories Lou.
懷緬mixtape
發明卡式錄音帶的荷蘭工程師奧滕斯（Lou Ottens）日前離世，享年94歲。消息一出，不少人在惋惜之中亦感到一絲懷緬之情。而對我而言，沒有任何事比錄製mixtape同收到mixtape更開心。
串流平台面世之前，mixtape大受追捧。由收製歌曲、貼上貼紙，再花盡心思寫上介紹、註釋，或者爛gag，每一餅錄音帶都是無數個鐘頭的心血結晶，是集歡樂、個性、情感、關懷的藝術品。
當年每個人都覺得帶住部Walkman好型，不過缺點是Walkman耗電速度快，聽着聽着歌曲會搞笑地越播越慢，最後走音到無電。Walkman沒有「跳歌」功能，而且時不時會「食帶」，每次都要花上好幾個鐘頭用支鉛筆慢慢手動回帶，錄歌過程亦不時出現雜訊和其他瑕疵。人們逐漸追捧CD，再轉移到MD，最後踏入數碼音樂年代亦不無道理。
Mixtape是鑑賞音樂的途徑（通常只有經典作品先有人願意錄製成mixtape），是將最新派台歌「dup落嚟」最潮的媒介，亦是朋友和戀人之間維繫的橋樑，這些原因都令mixtape 經得起時代洗禮，成為大家的集體回憶。除了收錄的歌曲，錄音帶上的畫作、貼紙、字句等裝飾，同樣是反映品味的細節。它跟黑膠碟一樣是一種視覺文化，基本上只要你見得多mixtape，就可以憑外觀知道它收錄了甚麼樣的歌曲。
Mixtape 亦是「埋堆」的門檻，擁有一餅有齊最新龐克歌曲的mixtape自然令你成為圈子中的一員，是身份的象徵。向心儀的對象贈送一盒隱含各種訊息的mixtape，憑歌寄意訴說心底話，簡直是告白的殺手鐧，即使對方只想跟你做朋友，mixtape仍然是充滿着首首好歌的禮物。
如今世界充斥着多得差點讓人吃不消的音樂，迷失於被企業壟斷的音樂平台中。數碼音樂缺乏靈魂，相反，曾經流傳於大街小巷的mixtape造就了音樂派別，塑造了藝術家，推動了社會；而不起眼的卡式錄音帶則成為了hip hop mixtape、「老翻」punk歌，以至地下電台techno音樂不可或缺的傳播媒介——是一個埋藏着文化、地方和情感的時間囊。
Lou ，感謝你為大家帶來美好的回憶。
Drunken master 