Music collections need to have meaning
The album was the first music collection. In the last 10 or 12 years, I have become a bit of a poo-pooer of albums as contrived vehicles for songs that could not stand alone on their own. I was not always that way. I used to think of albums as complete experience offered to me by my favourite bands. Concept albums like The Dark Side of the Moon, provide fans with a cohesive music experience crafted by the artists. We don't need a concept album to provide a cohesive experience. Although, this is obviously subjective, I would put London Calling and The Joshua Tree in the album category as well, while others may not. Although there may be debate I think it could be generally agreed that "some bands should produce albums while other bands (the vast majority) should stick to producing singles."

The brief rise and fall of the DJ
I used to own singles as a kid and teen, but 45s were a complete pain in the butt. Getting up to go to the stereo to put on a new 45 every 3-4 minutes. Some preferred K-tel music LPs, but I preferred the radio for all the good singles and radio delivered them in a cohesive music experience with commentary. That was the classic DJ. He cared about the music he played. He was our filter and we valued his opinion. As such he became the most important taste maker in music. We bought what he played. Unfortunately, this power led to his demise. The DJ - or often more accurately the station could be bought or programmed for advertising dollars. The classic radio DJ is now extinct and we no longer trust radio.

The rise of the mixed tape - the home DJ
I remember the vibrant days of mixed tapes. A few friends and I would make them and bring to them to all the parties. Mixed tapes took time to create. We selected music carefully. We imagined the party in our heads and we chose songs for tempo, style, mood. Quality was important; I had a two deck, 3-head TEAC just for making mixed tapes.

My mixes were generally played near the start of a party - they were generally upbeat mixes that were punctuated with unusual songs. Songs that most of my friends had never heard before like the The Hell of It or songs that were rarely, if ever, played on the FM radio like To Sir, With Love, or songs that were simply not "cool" for teens in the 1980s to be listening to like It's Not Unusual. I would get a lot of "Hey, what's that. I love it" with an equal smattering of "Hey, what's that? It's crap! Fast forward."

My girlfriend would introduce new "import" music from the UK that no one had heard in Canada yet. Don brought mixes with Bob Dylon and James Tayor which would close the night. Friends would ask us to make copies of our tapes, and someone at the party would inevitably steal some of our mixes. We were even asked to make up tapes for special events. Friends would go out and buy songs that we would introduce them to. We were the taste makers for our friends. We didn't just make these tapes for parties. We made, played and listened to them every day to suit our moods.

Rip. Mix. Burn.
The mixed tape format took off with CD burning and Napster. Holy crap! I never heard so much music. There were mixed CDs at every party, in every car, and in every home - no more CD shuffle mode! It was the same people making mixed CDs that were making mixed tapes. We could just make more. It took way less time to produce. 1999 was the best year in my music life EVER.

iPod kills the taste makers
By 2004 it was all over. We all had iPods with music collections of 20,000+ songs. Previously to this only serious FANS would take the time to make a mixed tape or CD. Now everyone had days worth of music at their disposal on their iPod. All this music without context. Sure I could look at any iPod music listing, and it would tell me something about the owner. But that's not the point. I want a music experience - I want to be shown something new - I want to be taken somewhere. My friends' iPods didn't provide that. They were a mess. The fact that the evil "shuffle mode" is the most common way of listening to one's iPod just reaffirms to me that our friend the iPod has all but killed any meaning in a music mix.

Playlists to the rescue. Or not.
Until recently, I have been a big advocate of playlists. We could group our music collections into themes and experiences called playlists. To me, even classic albums like Sergeant Pepper's could be considered a type of playlist. I thought playlists would be the "New Mixed Tape", even the rebirth of the DJ - our taste maker. It hasn't turned out that way. With a possible exception of "celebrity playlists" as popularized by iTunes, it has become absolutely clear to me that a playlist is simply a listing of a near random collection of songs with a title attached. Nothing more. They really are almost completely devoid of meaning.

We create playlist on the fly without purpose. We create playlist so we can burn them to a CD without thought. We create playlist based on our previous listening habits. We create playlists based on the blog buzz of a song. We create playlists which last 6 hours or more which makes them indistinguishable from a random radio stream. We create playlist from a five star rating system - "Give me all the 3 star songs from my library, please". (Don't get me started on how stupid that is. A 5 star rating on my iTunes. Why? Who keeps 1,2,3, or even 4 star songs on their computer or iPod? If I don't love it, why the hell should I keep it with me for on demand listening?)

We don't need playlists. We need taste makers. We need a mechanism or technology to bring back the taste maker, which BTW is a person, not some computer algorithm.