Författare: Glenn Fosbraey Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Scien

There’s something about tangible music that the digital world simply can’t touch. Whether that’s putting a new record on the turntable, popping a shiny CD out of its jewel case or clicking a tape into place on a cassette deck.

I still remember a time when cassette was king – when the ultimate Christmas present was a pack of blank tapes, and recording your favourite songs from the radio without the interference of the DJ’s voice was a skill to be proud of.

Then, of course, there was the mixtape. Lovingly compiled over weeks, dubbed from CDs, other cassettes, the radio or LPs, the track listings would be written on the back in your neatest handwriting. When the time was right, you passed it on to that special someone.

The process wasn’t without risk, of course. Critic Christopher Partridge has noted that, for many of us, popular music is central to the construction of our identities and sense of self. That means that creating something so personal often felt like giving up a section of our diaries.

A practical guide to making a physical mixtape.

Handing it over to the wrong person and having your taste ridiculed was a surefire way to spend the next few days wallowing in self-pity, eating multipacks of crisps and listening to The Smiths. Handing it over to the right person, though, and seeing them share your love for those most precious of songs was a certain way to take a relationship to the next level.

Cassette tapes and players are having a second lease on life. They can be bought online for as little as £30, or even cheaper if you get lucky in a charity shop.

So, this Valentine’s Day, why not do something that really shows how much you care, and go old school instead of just sending over another Spotify link? Here are five top tips from a seasoned mixtape maker.

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1. Be honest

Romantic mixtapes are supposed to be an opportunity for you to share the tracks that you love; a chance to say “this is a piece of me – what do you think?” If you’re choosing tracks simply because you think they’ll make you look current, deep or edgy, therefore, you’re not being true to the process. Pick the songs that mean something to you and don’t overthink how they may look to someone else.

2. Be considerate

Writing on your CD or cassette can add an extra personal touch.
Isabela Donô Peixoto/Dupe

If you know the recipient of your mixtape quite well, chances are you might also know a little something about their music tastes.

Tip one still applies in such an instance, but that’s not to say you should force-feed them Metallica, for example, if they’ve previously said they hate heavy metal. Doing so would either show you to be someone who doesn’t listen (bad), or someone who listens, but doesn’t care (worse).

So, be considerate, but don’t spend the whole time thinking “Oh God: will they hate this?” They might do, of course, but if they haven’t given you a clue either way, it’s a risk you’ll have to take.

3. Don’t be cringey

Mixtapes, especially Valentine’s mixtapes, are not about vicariously displaying your feelings for someone through the voice and lyrics of others. Instead, they are about showing that you trust someone enough to share the songs that are important to you.

If you own vinyl records, try playing them while recording with a blank cassette.
Cora Pursley/Dupe

To that end, please, no Let’s Get It On or J’taime… Moi Non Plus. Not least because it may make the object of your affection cringe, which (hopefully) won’t be your desired reaction.

Also, try to avoid cringey behaviours when presenting the mixtape, whether that’s saying, “oh, you’re going to LOVE this,” followed by winks and elbow nudges, or, on the flipside, being almost apologetic: “You’re probably going to hate it … but here it is anyway.”

Instead, just go with something like, “I made you this,” hand it over, and let the music do the rest of the talking.

4. Sequencing

When it comes to deciding the running order of your mixtape, it can be looked upon like the sequencing of an album.

Joy Division and New Order’s Peter Hook says that a tracklist should “build up … slow down” and then have a “big finish”. Taylor Swift says she never likes to put two happy songs in a row or two of the same kind of sadness in a row. Adele swears by leaving the biggest and boldest track to the end. And Elbow’s Guy Garvey likes to include a short post-script of song after the record sounds like it’s ended, which feels like extra kisses at the bottom of a letter.

Unfortunately, our modern attention spans may also need to be taken into consideration. Radio expert Kelli Fannon admits that she can only get through the first three or four songs of an album (or mixtape) before the phone rings, someone asks a question, or she has a meeting to run to. And she’s not alone.

So, if there are a few songs you really want your lover to hear, ignore the sequencing advice of the stars, and make sure you put those tracks first.

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5. Variety is the spice of life

I’ll never forget my wife’s face when she came to the end of Satan Rejected My Soul by Morrissey, which I’d inexplicably and inadvisably put on the mixtape I’d made for her a few weeks after we’d met.

Sure, I sulked for a bit (how could she not like it?) but we moved past it, and 20 years on I just know not to play Morrissey within her earshot. It’s unlikely the recipient of your tape is going to love every track and, so long as they let you down respectfully, all is well.

With hindsight, I can’t think of an instance where Satan Rejected My Soul should ever be on a mixtape. So do yourself (and your love interest) a favour and leave that one off. Läs mer…

There has been a sharp intake of breath among Taylor Swift fans following reports that 1975 frontman and songwriter Matty Healy is soon to release a song addressing their public romance from 2023.

The song in question, God Has Entered My Body, is reportedly the title track of an upcoming 1975 album. According to a report in the Sun, the song includes the lyric “Keep your head up princess, your tiara is falling”. It is reported to be Healy’s response to Swift’s 2024 song The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, which many fans believe was about their relationship.

The 1975 frontman has responded to the rumours in typical Healy style, commenting “huge if true” under a post about the story on social media site Reddit.

This lyrical back and forth is just the latest entry in a rich history of public beefs between pop stars that have been committed to record. Here are some of the most notable examples.

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1. Lennon v McCartney (1971)

The first mainstream pop “diss track” exchange took place long before the term was even coined. It occurred in 1971 through Paul and Linda McCartney’s Too Many People and John Lennon’s How Do You Sleep?

Lennon was incensed by the McCartney lyrics “too many people going underground” and “too many people preaching practices”, which he took as attacks on his and Yoko Ono’s avant garde albums and bed-in escapades. In response, he launched a stinging tirade that accused (Paul) McCartney of creating “Muzak”, being only a “pretty face”, and hanging around with sycophants who fed his ego.

How Do You Sleep? by John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band.

The on-record beef ended there, perhaps because McCartney was too busy to focus on his new band Wings, or simply because he didn’t want to risk another lashing from Lennon’s famously sharp tongue.

Either way, to the relief of Beatles fans everywhere, the two made amends before Lennon’s death in 1980, and Paul finally concluded their lyrical back and forth two years later with the touching Here Today.

2. Buckingham v Nicks (1977)

Recorded amid a backdrop of romantic tension and heavy drug use, it’s a wonder that Fleetwood Mac were even able to complete their 12th studio album Rumours, let alone create something that would go on to sell 40 million copies and spend more than a 1,000 weeks in the UK album charts.

It’d be unfair to say the massive success of the album is due to the lyrical exchanges between the by then estranged couple Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.

Buckingham lit the fuse with Go Your Own Way, which accused Nicks of “packing up and shacking up” with different men. It caused Nicks to write Dreams, where she encouraged him to “listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness, like a heartbeat, drives you mad, in the stillness of remembering what you had”.

Decades later, one of the bitterest feuds in pop music continues to rumble on, with Buckingham currently sidelined from the group after being fired in 2018. It won’t come as a surprise that their version of events differs, with Buckingham claiming Nicks was behind his sacking, and Nicks accusing him of revisionism. No Lennon and McCartney thawing of the ice here, then. Yet.

3. Perry v Swift (2014-18)

Swift was involved in another public spat back in the 2010s. If reports are to be believed, the two pop icons Katy Perry and Swift became close friends in 2009, but by 2013, things seemed to have soured.

A rift over some backup dancers, some thinly veiled interview comments and a mutual ex-boyfriend have all been the subject of fan theories about the shift in mood.

Bad Blood by Taylor Swift ft. Kendrick Lamar.

In terms of diss tracks, Swift struck first, and relatively mildly, with Bad Blood in 2014, stating in an interview shortly after its release that it was about “a female musical artist”. Although she refused to name names, internet sleuths soon believed they’d figured out it was Perry.

A Twitter spat between Swift and rapper Nicki Minaj then broke out. Minaj complained that her song Anaconda wasn’t nominated for the video-of-the-year award when Swift’s Bad Blood was (stay with me – this will become relevant soon).

If the near-journalistic speed of those Lennon and McCartney tracks were indicative of the music industry in the early 1970s, Perry’s delayed response to Swift’s (perceived) barb is indicative of modern times, where her releases were kept to a strict three- or four-year cycle.

Three years on, then, comes Swish Swish, which included lyrics like “you’re a joke / And I’m a court-side killer queen” and “Your game is tired / You should retire”. It featured Nicki Minaj in the music video to further fan the flames (told you it’d become relevant).

Swish Swish by Katy Perry ft. Nicki Minaj.

The only problem was that, in the years between their falling out, Swift had transitioned from mere pop musician to word-dominating superstar, so Perry’s insults carried little weight.

When it comes to diss tracks, then, the old adage of striking while the iron is hot is definitely applicable. The pair have since made up, with Perry sending Swift an actual olive branch in 2018.

The pair are pictured embracing during the closing scene of Swift’s 2019 music video for You Need To Calm down. Even the Bad Blood controversy seems to be water under the proverbial bridge now, with Perry videoed singing along to the track by fans earlier this year during one of Swift’s Eras tour concerts. Läs mer…