If somebody handed you one of these it meant that they wanted to hold your hand on the way home from school. It was the teenage version of an engagement ring. Also, the time and effort that went into one of these makes it quite a romantic gesture.

My hand writing is ugly but on those cassettes I wrote slowly and methodically like a calligraphy master

We didn't just make mix tapes for juvenile romantic reasons, these were how I and many of my friends discovered music. I would never have heard the Dead Kennedys, Violent Femmes, Psychedelic Furs, XTC, The Cure, Pixies, B******e Surfers, Sonic Youth... frankly, too many others to name... if it weren't for the network of sharing mix tapes in my high school. EDIT - Seriously BP, censoring bu++h0l3?

Making these was an art form, you really really really had to like someone to make one for them.

Lovely handwriting!

Omg, look at these songs, some 12 year old had a crush on someone...(me, it was me)

Mine was a burnt CD with trying to fit all the song titles/groups/bands/singers names on it

I actually found a sealed tape the other day. They were like gold when I was a teenager.

I got some of mine from the radio and there would be the DJ talking at the end of the song on some of them!! Sitting there with my finger's on the tape recorder so as soon as the song started press it!! Press it!!

I screenshot this just so I can make sure my playlist is complete. Ty OP!!

Yes and because I printed well (like this person) I was always commissioned to do it all.

Smash Hits FTW 👍🎶

I just last year throw away all my old both my home made mixed and those I bought, but not before I had looked every tune I wanted on Spotify and put them safe and sound (🤪) in the library. To be honest fellow 80:th/90:th people, how many of the tunes both on bought tape and vinyl was really good. You bought it for ONE tune, maybe two, but the rest…

definitely an art when taken to the next level, I still have some of my faves though I doubt they would even play at this point

1991 hits and Nirvana isn't on the tape? What's the point?

Naughty by nature and then CELINE?! I'm seeing things. That cannot be real.

That was the good thing about the old reel tape recorders. The boxes were much bigger. More room to write in

True artifact.

And sometimes you had to tape the songs as they came on the radio, so the first few seconds of the song were always missing.

Too bad this particular mix is Garbage! Everyone knows these songs, but that doesn't make them good. 😜

I have about 20 of these. Some I made, some an old beau made for me. I still have a double tape deck. Would never part with any of it.

This brings me back!

is nobody gonna talk about how effortless the handwriting is???? mine looks like a man dies while trying to write chinese :')

I just labelled mine for the mood I set them up for: Driving to school mix, Vacation mix, Annoy the neighbors mix, etc

Wanna know what the stars were for, but mostly, now I have to listen to rush rush!

I want this so bad!!!!

Me too! Mixtape on cassette, then burned onto CD, THEN converted to digital music. Just trying to keep up with the times, cause they are changing!!!

Anyone else sit there with a calculator and paper figure the times to see which ones could fit together on the same side?

OMG! I so remember doing this and the time it took argh lol

Amazing times. We did it all, with big efforts. And then, we took care of them, and rewound, and used the pencil to wind it in place, and used masking tape to fix it when.

Lol listening to the radio hoping your favorite songs come on pointer finger at the ready to hit record

Love the genre assortment.

I have 102 of these, complied from 1980 to about 1992. They'd probably still play if I had something to play them with. None of them have some of the appalling examples shown on this one, thankfully.

That handwriting though.... :o)

The ultimate token of devotion - the mixed tape

I'm down with OPP yeah you know me...

Handwriting and organisation of the text. 💯

I still have mine. :)

Mine were Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt, Linda Ronstadt, Tom Rush and Tom Paxton. Oh those old folkie days driving to the shore in my rusted out MGB with a rag roof and the radio blasting.

Oh my god! Sooooo many memories...I had a pen pal who I would make mixed tapes for!!!

I had a classmate, a real music buff who knew every band, who made mixtapes, but each song was put on it in the length of 1 minute. He claimed that every song is the same after 60 seconds. He also told us that one day computers would be connected worldwide. We laughed about him and thought that he was crazy. Later he went to New York and became a leading person in the 9/11 conspiracy. Now he is back in our hometown and I plan to write a novel about him.

This reminds me that there are parts of the 90ties I have repressed. "Oh oh oh, or are you just having fun?" Aaaaarrrggghh!

Mixtape? Someone who likes Naughty by Nature and Prince also like Michael Bolton and Cher? Looks more like a complete pirate of a NOW style album to me.