Thursday, February 22, 2007

Love Is a Mix Tape

Rolling Stone columnist Rob Sheffield's book Love is a Mix Tape will appeal to the cassette tape generation, those of us who communicated to each other via the perfect mix. Sheffield does a great job of capturing a generation of music fans, although he's a little to into Pavement when I was more of a Sebadoh guy, and explores the process of making and listening to a mix tape in this quick read. However, let me caution you that this book isn't a throwaway look at a bygone musical phenomenon. Nope, it's a wonderful love story, or rather a dedication to Sheffield's deceased wife Renee who died suddenly at the age of 31.

Rob and Renee are the typical indie rock couple from my memories of college. (For those who knew me then, I picture a Tim Murray and Theresa Madden type of union.) Renee is a wild child, Rob is more of a music nerd and they both DJ at a local Charlottesville college station. In great nostalgic detail, Sheffield recounts who they met, fell in love and does it all cleverly through chapters dedicated to various mix tapes he is revisiting that his dead wife made him. The passion behind Sheffield's writing about not only his love of music, but his grief over becoming a widow at a young age is very touching. I would suggest this book to you specifically if you ever had a love that you shared mix tapes with or if you were a music fan between 1981-1995. A sweet ode to music, a dead artform and a woman who sounds like an amazing person.

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