Congratulations on receiving one of Barry's mix tapes. This tape contains 90 minutes of music but with proper storage, care and handling, will provide a lifetime of listening enjoyment.
Instructions: insert tape into any standard tape player. Play tape. Enjoy.
Caution: this tape may have been intended for use in specific conditions. It may be best enjoyed at night, in a car, with headphones, or played very loudly. Such information would appear with the liner notes. For maximum listening effect, reading the liner notes before playing the tape is strongly suggested.
Warning: the songs on the tape are non-negotiable. Exchanges are impossible. Requests will not be honoured. There was a plan involved in making this tape. Therefore, changes in the playlist and/or song order are not feasible without completely altering the mood and pacing of the tape.
Background: Barry has extensive experience in the art of mix tape recording, taping from a variety of formats and sources for over a dozen years. Therefore, he has spent nearly half of his life in this business! Each tape is personally compiled and manufactured by Barry himself. However, the music industry has evolved over the years, and Barry's style has evolved with it. He honed his craft by making tapes for himself, hour after hour in his bedroom. These tapes compiled the newest alternative and cutting-edge dance hits of the day, interspersed with classic songs for added variety and historical weight. In the early to mid 1990's, he shifted his focus toward producing tapes for others. Early mix tapes featured a minimum of artists, often with large sections of their albums. As Barry's music collections grew rapidly, there was a pressing need to feature more and more artists. Eventually, each artist was limited to one or two songs per tape, with very few exceptions. In order to fit in so many differing styles of music, the tracklistings were meticulously planned in advance. With only 45 minutes per side to work with, this ensured that songs were not cut off and more importantly, the songs flowed readily into each other. This was Barry's preferred method of working for many years, and many feel that his best work was done during that time period.
However, the era of detailed planning ended around 1998. Perhaps as a reaction to the rigidity of those working conditions, Barry shifted to a freer, more improvisational style. This shift occurred over many months. From this time onward, Barry's tapes were recorded with almost no premeditation. He would begin with a rudimentary idea, i.e. decide on the first song and the last, but nothing else; or start soft and build to something loud; and let instinct and emotion fill in the details. Like with a virtuoso who grows to understand his instrument better after years and years of performing, Barry had developed a prodigious familiarity with his prestigious music collection which no longer required his fatherly grooming as part of the mixing process. In the last year, he has taken this idea even further by experimenting with continuous mixes of ambient and techno music, although these are still in the development stage. Which brings us to the present: therefore, the tape which you hold in your hands was born out of one, improvised take. There are no overdubs. It is truly one of a kind.
Motivations: since you are in possession of this mix tape, you must be a very special person indeed. Each tape is personalized and made "ready to order". In other words, it was made specifically for YOU. Some examples include, but are not limited to, the following. You may be someone who adores and appreciates music similar to Barry's tastes, and the tape is designed to introduce you to music that you ordinarily would not get the chance to hear, or music that you would get the chance to hear but have not yet had the opportunity to do so. You may be a music lover with tastes different from Barry, and this tape will introduce you to music which is unfamiliar, so that Barry can communicate a little bit of what his musical tastes are all about. If you are female, there is a chance that you and Barry are romantically involved, if this is the case, the tape is likely a token of Barry's affection (a gift similar to the flowers or chocolates you may be accustomed to receiving from normal guys) and should be rewarded with a hug and a kiss at the very least. But in all cases, the tape will contain no music that you currently have, except for the rare case in which a particular song is needed to fulfill an exact purpose.
Suggestions: as previously mentioned, this tape is best heard under the recommended conditions. For example, if the liner notes recommend that the tape should be heard at high volume, it is strongly suggested that you do so. Low volume will still be pleasing to the ear, but like substituting margarine for butter, it will be missing an easily detectable nuance. In such a case, if high volume listening conditions are not available, you may want to hold off listening to the tape until such conditions do become available.
Enjoy your tape, and have a wonderful day (unless the tape is meant to be sad, in which case, have a miserable day. If you are unsure as to the proper course of action, consult the liner notes, or Barry himself). Again, enjoy! (-: (or not!) )-:
