During the pandemic, when every day felt the same and time lost all meaning, my boyfriend and I got weirdly nostalgic. We couldn’t go anywhere, we had already rewatched all our favorite movies, and we needed something fun, something different.
That’s when we had the best idea ever—cassette mixtapes. Not a Spotify playlist, not a YouTube link. Real, old-school, rewind-with-a-pencil cassette tapes.
Step 1: Finding a Cassette Player (Not as Easy as You’d Think)
This all started after I thrifted a cassette player—one of those chunky, battery-powered ones with a built-in speaker and a handle. I wasn’t even sure if it worked, but after some cleaning (and a lot of banging it against my hand), it came to life.
So naturally, we decided to go full 1990s romance movie and make each other mixtapes.
Step 2: The Song Choices – A Personal Time Capsule
The rule was simple: fill a whole tape with songs that reminded us of each other, our childhood, or just random bangers from the 90s and 2000s.
His tape for me had:
🎶 Goo Goo Dolls – Iris (Obviously.)
🎶 No Doubt – Don’t Speak (Dramatic. Love it.)
🎶 OutKast – Hey Ya! (Because duh.)
🎶 Michelle Branch – Everywhere (Iconic.)🎶 Nelly – Ride Wit Me (I screamed when I heard this one.)
And my tape for him?
🎶 Green Day – Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) (Because I’m cheesy.)
🎶 Britney Spears – Lucky (Because I am that girl.)
🎶 Eminem – Lose Yourself (Because I have range.)
🎶 Dashboard Confessional – Hands Down (My emo phase was real.)
🎶 Mariah Carey – Always Be My Baby (No explanation needed.)
We even recorded our own voices between tracks, leaving little messages like, “If you don’t sing along to this, do we even know each other?”
Step 3: Actually Playing Them – The Moment of Truth
When we finally sat down and listened, it was magical. There’s something about hearing music on a cassette that makes it feel warmer, more special. Maybe it was the tiny sound of static in the background, maybe it was just the effort we put into it. Either way, it felt like a memory in the making.
After that, we kept making tapes, filling them with random playlists, inside jokes, and even some songs we wrote ourselves (don’t ask, they were bad). It was such a simple thing, but honestly? It made that weird, slow time feel a little more special.
Final Thoughts: Mixtapes > Playlists (Sorry, Not Sorry)
I know Spotify is easier. I know you can send someone a playlist in seconds. But there’s something about physically making a mixtape that feels different. More personal, more effort, more real.
Even now, when I see those tapes sitting on our shelf, I remember those long, slow days and the way we turned them into something fun, something meaningful.
And if cassette tapes ever make a full comeback? You already know I’m ahead of the trend. 🎶💕
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