I Wish I Knew You in the ’90s: The Mixtape as Time Capsule

It’s Boxing Day in Canada, and I just unearthed a musical relic. I think I recognize the person who created this long lost mixtape, but I’m not sure.

“No way. I can’t believe I found this,” I tell her, greedily scanning the track list. “You were adorable.”

“Let me see that.” She snaps the Maxell UR 90 insert away from me. “I don’t even remember this one. I used to make mixtapes for myself all the time.”

I can tell. The clear purple penmanship belongs to an experienced hand. Song titles precede band names with near-perfect uniformity. When they do not -as is the case with REM’s 1993 duet with Natalie Merchant “Photograph”- a dainty arrow indicates the necessary information swap.

I find the collection’s title immensely endearing: Tank Girl + Not So Righteous Babe-less Mixtape. The Ani Di Franco reference is concrete confirmation of what I already presume: My wife had a life before me, and in that life she too was a post-grunge music obsessive.

No stranger to the mixtape format, I can recall a particularly angsty specimen of my own from late in high school. That collection of songs was designed to profess amorous feelings for an older barista I knew, and who I (correctly) assumed felt none of the same for me. The only song I remember from the collection is Big Star’s “13,” as unabashedly romantic a tune as I could include while retaining my retro-cool pose.

Compared to that misguided wooing effort, Tank Girl + Not So Righteous Babe-less Mixtape is completely devoid of self-consciousness. And unlike my self-censoring musical taste back then, this collection was designed to delight only her. The treasure trove sat boxed for two decades in her parents’ British Columbia home before I happened upon it. There, it cohabited with other orphaned tapes, some containing 4-track demos of early songwriting efforts. Using instantaneous research inconceivable before the internet, I date the collection as circa 1995. In addition to being an incredible ’90s time capsule, Tank Girl + Others is a glimpse into the unknown world of my wife’s Canadian post-collegiate years.

“What era was this?” I inquire. “Was this an eyeliner and parted down the middle phase?”

I imagine the creator wearing combat boots as part of a quasi-riot grrrl inspired ensemble. There are cassettes scattered across the floor of her apartment. She allows a song to finish before pausing the dual deck tape player’s recording side. Stop. Eject. Insert. Close. Play. Pause. Repeat. It takes time, this process of careful curation. The mastermind allows herself a small laugh as she carefully writes out the inside joke of a title. Folky female singer-songwriters are her jam, so their absence is the throughline.

Side one kicks off with five tunes in a row from the titular film. I am smitten. What a windfall of Clinton-era rock. Belly and Veruca Salt set the tone; this is no coffee shop. Then comes the unlikely pairing of Paul Westerberg and Joan Jett on an amped up cover of Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It”. Next is a jangly number called, “Mockingbird Girl” by The Magnificent Bastards, a supergroup fronted by the late Scott Weiland. I note that some of the Bastards are Los Angeles players I know personally.

Weiland appears more than once; Stone Temple Pilots’ irresistible ’90s country-grunge mashup “Interstate Love Song” also makes the cut. I consider the recent death of the troubled lead singer. Who else on this compilation is no longer with us? Side two opens with “Heart-Shaped Box” by Nirvana. My fact check confirms that Kurt died a year prior. Lou Reed, the alt-rock elder statesman here, has also shuffled off this mortal coil. But in ’95, he was still resolutely in the game.

Canada, my wife’s home and native land (and birthplace of so many of my adolescent musical obsessions), is represented by only one act: The Tea Party. These guys were a moody bunch, fronted by a singer with a model’s looks and a penchant for Morrisonesque rock poetry. “The Majestic Song” has a nice raga-light feel. Dig it. They are one of many bands she is surprised I don’t recognize from Canadian rock radio. Chilliwack, Blue Rodeo, and The Tragically Hip are ubiquitous as the Eagles up north.

The closing tunes feel like a secret message from the past. Far away from damp Vancouver, I too listened to Americana pioneers The Jayhawks and loved Dire Straits. Twenty years in the future Knopfler and co. will be a (not so) guilty pleasure around our home.

At first glance, I can’t remember who David Baerwald is despite the nagging familiarity of his name. A quick Google search reveals he was half of David and David of “Boomtown” fame. A brilliant songwriter, David has the distinction of being the only artist on this tape with whom I am friends on Facebook.

I find other welcome surprises. Frank Black’s oddball “Fu Manchu” shows up unexpectedly to close side one. Then it’s neat to see power popper Matthew Sweet’s “Girlfriend” alongside Pearl Jam and The Violent Femmes. Shockingly, “Smashing Young Man” by Collective Soul, is a hooky little slice of radio rock. And isn’t it so freaking cute that she included not one, but two Green Day songs as well as Radiohead’s seminal “Creep”?

We’re riding a cultural wave of nostalgia for the decade of heroin chic and Reality Bites. I mean, Portlandia put it right in the opening episode. I get it. Didn’t music seem to matter a bit more in those dark ages, before iTunes was a twinkle in Jobs’ eye? OK, I’ll go first. It did to me. I think it mattered a hell of a lot to the person who painstakingly created this tape. Sadly, though I frequently hang out with her doppelganger, I will never know the woman who compiled this artifact. She remains in 1995, forever searching for just the right song.

The meditative aspect of mixtape creation separates it from our modern equivalent, the playlist. While some ambitious ’70s music fans chose tracks from vinyl or radio and recorded them onto 1/4 reel to reel tapes, the dual cassette player brought this power into the living room of most families. Home Taping Is Killing Music, the slogan proclaimed. Actually, it did something very different. It allowed us to create -perhaps for the first time- personalized immersive listening experiences.