Make your friends a modern-life mixtape
I used to adore trading mixtapes with my friends. Scoring a deal on a 5-pack of Maxell or TDK 90-minute blank cassette tapes gave me the same thrill as cracking open a blank sketchbook or unboxing a new pack of graphite pencils.
(mixtape photo by steve vistaunet)
It wasn't just about curating a perfect tracklist for my buddies — the fun also came from playfully decorating the cover that would show through the cassette's clear case (and later on, the clear CD case lol).
A while back, I decided to make my friends a couple of playlists the way I do now, on Spotify — but to "deliver" the mixtape to my friends, I sent them the tracklist via a postcard containing a Spotify QR code that they could scan to open the playlist on their phone. (Way more fun than trying to transcribe the playlists’s longass URL!)
If you like this idea, feel free to borrow it, or remix it, and share some music love with your friends and acquaintances this week. All the steps are below.
Make your buddy a mixtape
(And you’re doing this modern-life style since we don’t use cassettes anymore)
Step 1: Think about your friend and the kind of music they love and might love to be introduced to. Think about the content of the lyrics and what they say, as well as the overall mood of the music and the emotions it conjures up.
Step 2: Drop those songs into a Spotify playlist!
Step 3: Very important, labor-of-love step: Listen to the songs in order to make sure that they flow mellodiously from one to the next without any harsh jarring transitions.
This curation and sequencing step is what makes a friend-made mixtape better than the random-ass playlists that Spotify spits out without any personalizing care and love from an actual human.
The opening of your mixtape, the flow from one song to another, and the perfect ending song are what will give your mixtape that magical feeling and personal touch.
Step 4: Hand-write the tracklist and pick a cool cover image.
It doesn’t matter if you think your handwriting sucks, write out those track names (titles and artist) line by line.
And if you wanna be extra cute, put it on a piece of paper or a postcard that looks like an old-school cassette tracklist layout.
Here’s a blank template so you can see what it looks like.
(photo of mixtape cover art by etienne girardet)
Yep, dig out your ruler and start drawing those cute little lines. Don’t forget to use some fun colors and funky lettering on the “spine” for your mixtape’s title because you’re dang sure gonna give this mixtape a fun-of-cheeky personalized title, aren’t you?!
Then choose a cool image for the “cover art”… bonus points if you literally cut out of a magazine like we did in the old days.
Step 5: The important Spotify steps:
(image of example tracklists that kat made)
Make sure that the playlists’s settings are set to Public so your friend can access it
Get the Spotify QR code by tapping on the playlists’ settings (the three dots •••), tapping on Share, and then tap on Copy Link To Playlist
Paste your playlist’s link (the one you copied from inside Spotify) into the field and click Get Spotify Code. (They might make you also click Continue on the terms and conditions lower down the page.) On the next page, you can customize your custom code’s colors and size. Click Download. You’ll get an image that looks like this one: the spotify logo followed by something that looks like an audio waveform, which is a pretty clever design.
Print out your code at the right size to stick onto your mixtape’s tracklist. Make sure it’s not too tiny; about 1-1.5 inches wide is good. Paste that code on the tracklist you’re giving to your buddy! A good spot for it is in the area of the template above that’s saved for “a sweet friendly message” — put this code there with a nice signoff from you. Here’s a couple examples of how mine looked after I made them.
Step 6: Give the mixtape to your friend! You can give them the tracklist-n-cover art the next time you hang out or snail-mail it to them if they live far away. ALL THE BONUS POINTS if you literally find a clear cassette case and snail mail it like a care package.
How your friend “opens” the mixtape: They’ll open Spotify, tap on Search, tap the camera icon in the top corner of the screen, tap Scan, then point their camera at the Spotify code you pasted onto their tracklist. Bada bing bada boom! The playlist will pop open in their Spotify app and they can enjoy it for the rest of their lives.
Are you serious, lady?!
Is this process a shitton more time-consuming than just texting your friend the link to the playlist? You’re damn right it is!! But that’s part of the magic of mixtapes, pal.
The reason we loved and cherished our mixtapes was because they literally took WORK to produce.
Adding a song to an old-school mixtape wasn’t just a drag-n-drop affair. You had to actually listen to every song, from beginning to end, to get it onto the tape. (And don’t get me started on the race to the boombox if you were trying to record a song off the radio… not to mention how annoying it was when the DJ would come on and talk over the end of the *&^%ing song. I digress nostalgically.)
This new option is a helluva lot faster, so going through the effort to download, print, and glue that magic Spotify code onto your tracklist is a low-bar type of effort. Don’t wimp out. Mixtapes are for REAL FRIENDS.
Go forth and make me proud.
Warmly,
Kat Vellos
Author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships
p.s. If you like this idea, you’ll love the idea of a Listening Party (which is great for introverts!)
How it works: Invite over a friend or group of friends. Each person needs to come with a list of 5-10 songs they love.
Hang out, taking turns selecting a song to share from your list of faves.
Before turning on each song, you get to say why you chose the song and what you love about it.
While the song is playing, there is NO TALKING. Everyone listens fully to the song. Feel free to close your eyes and sway back and forth, feel that music!
Keep going around taking turns playing songs until you run out of songs or get too tired lol. Then you can call it a night!
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