Rob Sheffield writes for Rolling Stone and has a few other books out that are pop culture and music driven. I remembered him as one of the talking heads for those I Love the 80’s and I Love the 90’s!! shows because I rarely (if ever) agreed with his taste in music and he reminded me of those guys who stand around the record store arguing about the most obscure bands on the planet. I can see him walking into the record store in Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity, going head to head with Rob, Dick and Barry, because that movie is pretty much a documentary on life in an independent record store. But I digress. What I am trying to say is that I’m not sure why I picked up this book in the first place.
Rob is a music obsessed grad student in Charlottesville, working as a DJ at the college radio station when he meets the beautiful and vibrant Renee. Though he is a an introvert and consummate record geek who would rather stay at home with his music, he soon finds himself falling in love with her. Then he does what those of his ilk are compelled to do: he makes her a mix tape. I’m not bagging on the dude, because my husband and I were big mix tape makers back in the day. And we still have those cassettes, even though there have been times when we no longer had the equipment to play them.
I believe when you are making a mix, you’re making history. You ransack the vaults, you haul off all the junk you can carry, and you rewire all your ill-gotten loot into something new. You go through the as artist’s entire career, zero in on that one moment that makes you want to jump up and dance and smoke bats and bite the heads off drugs. And then you play that one moment over and over.
Each chapter begins with the track listing of a particular mix tape that illustrates life and relationship with Renee and it’s a pretty good jumping off point for his musings. Sure, there were some ramblings that I didn’t care about (the entire Jackie Kennedy chapter had me yawning) and the incessant pop culture references could tiptoe to the very edge of tiresome. What saves this book is the raw emotion of love and loss. Rob and Renee have only been together for five years when she stands up from her sewing machine and falls down dead, from what he later learns was a pulmonary embolism. Using the music that they shared and that he encounters once she is gone, he’s got to figure out how to be in a world without her, because love is a mix tape.
