Thu, July 14, 2005
Mixing Greatest Hits—11:20 AM
My new car features a CD changer (my first). It's great to have more options at my fingertips, but I think it causes me to leave the same CDs in a lot longer than I would otherwise. I'm still searching for that perfect mix of CDs that span a few genres and feature enough surprises that nothing is ever boring.
At first, I thought I should pack it full of mix CDs, for the ultimate in variety. However, that has proved somewhat unsuccessful, because a) left in the changer too long, even a six-disc bundle of surprises becomes routine, and b) a lot of my mixes are time sensitive – I listen to those songs heavily for a few weeks, but then most don't "have legs" so I end up hitting "skip" during half of them.
My new idea which is working very nicely so far: mix CDs by artist. (I'm not saying it's the perfect solution – it's early yet.) A fair amount of CDs I own are "best of" compilations, so I have augmented those by burning "best of" CDs for artists whose discography I own more or less in toto. I burned a (controversial) Billy Joel disc years ago, so I threw that in the car along with my Tina Turner, Tom Jones, and Bobby Darin greatest hits discs. Then, I burned a Lyle Lovett and an Alanis Morissette, as well as a new Jimmy Buffett disc because my older version left off some crucial songs. It's a completely different process than assembling a regular mix CD, and in many ways just as difficult. I was forced to realize that I wasn't as familiar with Alanis's work as I thought, and it was heartbreaking cutting certain songs from Lyle's disc. (I consoled myself by remembering that I can still listen to them anytime, on other CDs.) I knew better than to try to condense my TMBG favorites into an 80-minute disc.
It's very interesting work, sorting through an artist's entire repertoire, considering my reactions to each song (and how they've changed over time) and trying to fit them into a collection (and a sequence) that accurately represents my view of the artists as a whole. Hopefully, listening to these on changer-shuffle will yield variety with some continuity. And, since there's more than six highlight discs, I'll be able to swap the rotation and stay fresh.
LilSis — Tue, 7/26/05 10:29am
I also enjoy putting in 6 CDs from the same artist to get a mix from their different genres so to speak (for me it's DMB but it may solve your TMBG, or even Lyle, problem).