I’ve adapted Zappa’s quote for fun there, but I agree with Poshlost’s assertion that playlists do not mean ‘the death of a mixtape’ – they’re two different things.

"Time and time again people bemoan (or perhaps celebrate) technology breaking down old systems of editing and gatekeeping, but ultimately I think we all acknowledge the continued need of something to provide a filter. A mix-tape is a filter that usually has a carefully constructed purpose, and the more and more unmanageable our playlists get, the more we’ll appreciate mixes, maybe even appreciate them in a way we never thought of before."

This link via Ben Magnetbox, who has something brewing in this area. Also like Tom’s allusion to mixtapes as precursors of the kind of behaviour now enabled by the likes of the increasingly impressive Kinja – "user-friendly throw-aroundable clumps of groupness." It’s all the same stuff – it’s all about data and metadata, threads of meaning, meaning constructed by juxtaposition and narrative, granularity, a shareable format, meaning constructed by sharing, and so on and so forth.

Poshlost on mixtapes