A gallery of mix tapes. Perhaps this is a failed concept.  One thing about the Thurston Moore book Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture that really struck me was that mix tapes were so important to me, but it was hard to care about the mix tapes from his book. I was so excited about that book. “At last!” I thought. “Thurston Moore, no less!” I thought. I leafed through the pages, stopped on tapes that caught my eye or names that were familiar to me. It was novel. But I was not held there.

The underlying philosophy of this website is that the friendships behind the mix tapes are the heroes of the day. It is the love for another person and/or for other people’s music that inspired mix tape making. And the tapes are nothing without the memories, the shared experiences, the connective tissue of one set of ears, thoughts, feelings, good days, bad days passed to another.

Do I want to see pictures of your mix tapes? Heck yes! Please send them to me at sarah@madeyouatape.com. But please tell me all the reasons, the real reasons, the tapes are important to you. Let’s pay tribute to this beautiful phenomena and the people who made it happen.