If You Love Music, ‘Love is a Mix Tape’ Is A Must Read
Samantha Colleran, May 2020
*Slight spoilers ahead, be warned!*
Rob Sheffield, a writer for Rolling Stone (and one of my personal favorite journalists), wrote a book called Love is a Mixtape. It documents the chain of events that led to him meeting his wife, Renée (“a cool hell-raising Appalachian punk-rock girl”, “my hero”, as described by Sheffield throughout the book), their life together, and how their time was cut short due to her sudden death after seven short years of being together.
Every chapter begins with the title of a mixtape, as well as the tracklist of said mixtape. The music in the chapters play an important role in Rob and Renée’s relationship in one way or another. In the first chapter titled “rumblefish”, Sheffield sets up the story for us. He’s sitting in his apartment in Brooklyn listening to a mixtape made by Renée, “It’s a date. Just me and Renée and some tunes she picked out.” He tells us that he does this sometimes, he’ll find an old box with Renée’s stuff and gets lost in it, reliving old memories he shared with her. It’s painful yet oddly beautiful.
The thing that made reading Sheffield’s book so interesting was the way he talked about the music. He didn’t simply say “Here’s why every song on this playlist is important to my relationship with Renée,” he instead chose to focus on certain moments and explain what certain songs did to enhance those moments. As someone who is always internally matching a song to the moment I’m living or trying to find an emotional connection to the music I listen to, it struck a chord to read the way he wrote about the music that shaped his relationship. Chapter 2 titled “hey jude” talks about the many different types of mixtapes, which I completely obsessed over when I read it since I have well over 50 playlists on Spotify for every specific type of mood, event, or feeling you can possibly think of. Some of the tapes include ‘The Party Tape’, ‘You Like Music, I Like Music, I Can Tell We’re Going to Be Friends’, ‘You Broke My Heart and Made Me Cry, and Here Are Twenty or Thirty Songs About It’, among others.
Rob and Renée grew up during the time of cassettes (something I’m extremely jealous of) and they were around to hear some of the best music when it first came out (another thing I am extremely jealous of). The Smiths and Morrissey, Led Zeppelin, Boston, Michael Jackson, Cheap Trick, The Rolling Stones, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, The Cars, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin… those are just the artists mentioned within the first 50 pages. Rob is such an excellent writer, I found it hard to put down the book at times because the way he talks about music is just so relatable and fascinating.
Love is a Mix Tape is a must read for anyone who’s ever heard a song. You can purchase it on Amazon here. If you’ve read it before, I’d love to know what you thought of it, and if this has inspired you to read it feel free to come back to this post when you finish it and let me know your thoughts!
Mix tapes rule! I feel sad that kids today do not know the struggle/joy of attempting to catch a favorite song playing on the radio and then recording it smoothly or spending hours recording songs from different albums to create the perfect mix for the person or event you were creating it for. I read the book, based on your recommendation and loved it. I especially loved (even though it was sad)how Rob was able to keep Renee’s memory alive and eventually found comfort in the songs they shared love for.