Take a photo of a barcode or cover
hoovera 's review for:
Love Is a Mix Tape
by Rob Sheffield
I think if I knew more of the music he references, this book would have meant more to me. I'm a huge music fan, but not of 80s indie rock in particular, so I felt a little out of my depth. I care more about music than perhaps the average person, but I am by no means as well versed as some of my friends. Reading this sort of felt like a long conversation with one of them about all the music they assume I know. On the other hand, it also makes me want to look up a lot of it. I wish I had read it with some of the songs playing in the background.
I also was just on the tail end of mixtapes. I recorded songs off the radio as a kid, but when it came to making mixes for friends and moments, it was all about the mix CD. But I understand him holding on to the cassette for so long. I do love cassettes. I also still use CDs and make new mixes all the time even if it has fallen out of fashion.
Even not knowing the songs themselves, being someone who loves music means you can relate to the ideas.
Overall an enjoyable journey for any music fan, though obviously a sad one as it is chronicling his relationship with his late wife through music.
The lines that sum it all up the best:
“What is love? Great minds have been grappling with this
question through the ages, and in the modern era, they have
come up with many different answers. According to the Western
philosopher Pat Benatar, love is a battlefield. Her paisan Frank
Sinatra would add the corollary that love is a tender trap. The
stoner kids who spent the summer of 1978 looking cool on the
hoods of their Trans Ams in the Pierce Elementary School
parking lot used to scare us little kids by blasting the Sweet hit
“Love Is Like Oxygen”—you get too much, you get too high,
not enough and you’re gonna die. Love hurts. Love stinks. Love
bites, love bleeds, love is the drug. The troubadours of our times
all agree: They want to know what love is, and they want you to
show them.
But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”
I also was just on the tail end of mixtapes. I recorded songs off the radio as a kid, but when it came to making mixes for friends and moments, it was all about the mix CD. But I understand him holding on to the cassette for so long. I do love cassettes. I also still use CDs and make new mixes all the time even if it has fallen out of fashion.
Even not knowing the songs themselves, being someone who loves music means you can relate to the ideas.
Overall an enjoyable journey for any music fan, though obviously a sad one as it is chronicling his relationship with his late wife through music.
The lines that sum it all up the best:
“What is love? Great minds have been grappling with this
question through the ages, and in the modern era, they have
come up with many different answers. According to the Western
philosopher Pat Benatar, love is a battlefield. Her paisan Frank
Sinatra would add the corollary that love is a tender trap. The
stoner kids who spent the summer of 1978 looking cool on the
hoods of their Trans Ams in the Pierce Elementary School
parking lot used to scare us little kids by blasting the Sweet hit
“Love Is Like Oxygen”—you get too much, you get too high,
not enough and you’re gonna die. Love hurts. Love stinks. Love
bites, love bleeds, love is the drug. The troubadours of our times
all agree: They want to know what love is, and they want you to
show them.
But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”