Why?
Basically I have, for as long as I can remember, had an immense passion for music - (mainly influenced by my older brother’s Ska and Punk record collections rather than my mother’s Cliff and Dr. Hook collections). I launched into my teenage years mainly devoted to Rock and learning guitar in a very bad, crass, punk out-of-tune way, (which has now developed and evolved into very bad, crass, punk, acoustic style that I would not wish upon anyone’s ears but very close loved ones). Having all my family and friends equally as passionate about music as myself, has exposed me to a massive eclectic and wonderful array of genres (in my opinion anyway), but I know there is room for more.
Since I was about 7 or 8 years old, I have created compilation tapes inspired by my older brothers. Having so much music that I wanted friends to hear, meant creating regular editions of edited favourites. As I was rock obsessed in the earlier years, these compilations were known as things like “Metal Mickies”, “Sounds of the Underworld” and “Nevertapeoverbecausethisisthebestmusicever”. Of course, my tastes started to expand from rock to Grunge, to Iindie, to Dance, Trance, Ambient, a little Hipty Hop, Folk, Blues, Dub, and Soul. So my taste basically started regressing from mainstream and popular music to instead focus on the new and underground sounds. This meant I could not pigeon hole certain genres easily into compilations and therefore, almost like a movie soundtrack, I decided to give my friends a musical diary roughly every couple of months or so. My tastes to this day, are constantly in a state of flux and yoyo from bizarre back to mainstream.
I started volumes known as Secret Soundtracks in the early 90’s. These personal soundtracks started life as new-stuff, snippets of John Peel Sessions off the radio and cassette-to-cassette mixing of my favourite classics. Sadly, they fazed out after an upgrade to CD format at around volume 20-something I think. This was due to getting my hands on a CD burner around 2000. Secret Soundtracks then became compilations and volumes known as Mixin-me-Toasties. However, there was only a dozen or so of these irregular releases from myself to my mates because of the increasing availability of mp3s and my mates’ ability to whack hundreds of tracks onto their hard drives and players with no real need to filter the best tracks.
Old soundtrack news, have you read High Fidelity?
Of course, you may be thinking that I nicked this idea from the NME Melody Maker Select Uncut and all the other music mags that put out free comp tapes and CDs on their covers………. well you are wrong and right. They were different because they had a massive agenda to sell and market bands of the day. My compilations were always about recording the atmosphere and fun and thoughts me and my mates experienced through the seasons. However free CDs are the only reason I will buy a music magazine.
You may well be reading thinking ‘Matt you tit, everybody makes compilations’, or ‘your compilations thing is not a new or innovative thing to do - what makes yours so special?’ Well, to that I say ‘absolutely’ and bless all who make em, everybody should because it’s the best way to hear quality stuff that may well not be from the mainstream or popular. There is a satisfaction that you get from the compiling process and when you hand it out to a willing listener you don’t really care if they like all the tunes - or even any of them at all. It’s just the fact that the tunes they will hear have been selected in that order and arrangement, a bit like the preparation and selection of ingredients when you are cooking your favourite dish - you know its good and that is the main thing. If they don’t like it at least they tried it.
I have not of course - or ever will I think, create the one, ultimate, almighty soundtrack, but I will share here at the end of every month a list of songs that I think are worth pointing out to anybody how cares or fancies taking a listen. More to the point I encourage you all to join in and post up playlists to share.
To sum up
Compilations are special and personal snippets of your acquired tastes at that moment you make them. Even though someone else wrote and created the tunes the choice and shortlist is usually varied. Unconformity and selfishness are in my opinion what make compilations so special, especially to those who make them.
Also if you are creating one for someone else then that is a factor that will influence the end result. For this reason I am aware that I will on my first playlist post for May 2007, there will be have been many factors affecting what I will of listened to in that month, but I will inform you of this in the Mini Soundtrack review.
