Last night, the shuffle function on my music program decided to follow Nina Nastasia's "Afterwards" with "Love's in Need of Love Today" by Stevie Wonder.

That segue works way better than I would have thought it would. What combinations surprise you?

My ex-wife and I would exchange mixtapes when we first met in 1992.

One of the ones she made had Only Shallow followed by Outshined and it worked weirdly well. Might be the basslines, although listening to the two songs again just now, the little seque wash at the end of Only Shallow helps, too.

My friend and I used to make cassette compilations back in those days. On his last mix-tape (this was probably 1995) he had trouble sequencing and tried many different arrangements to no avail. I suggested he come over to my house cuz I had a tape deck and an old tuner with a dial and he could try throwing the dial on the tuner as a segue between tracks to get the sound of changing radio stations between tracks. It worked and he was very pleased.

Sequencing mix tapes was so fun back in the day. Jumping up to hit pause on the cassette machine at the right time, cabling up the cd player to work with the cassette player....I have tons of those lying around, but I don't remember any really good transitions.

Many a mixtape was exchanged between friends and girlfriends. I wish I still had some of them, but I think I threw them all out.

One of the tapes I had given to a girlfriend had Big Black's "Pavement Saw" followed by The Beta Band's "Needles in My Eyes", two very different songs. I was smitten with this girl - both body and brain. For various reasons I felt the lyrics to the two songs, particularly the "crept in and stole your mind" line, applied to this girl. Whatever, I'm pretty sure she didn't listen to the lyrics.

enframed wrote: Tue Nov 04, 2025 12:07 pm My friend and I used to make cassette compilations back in those days. On his last mix-tape (this was probably 1995) he had trouble sequencing and tried many different arrangements to no avail. I suggested he come over to my house cuz I had a tape deck and an old tuner with a dial and he could try throwing the dial on the tuner as a segue between tracks to get the sound of changing radio stations between tracks. It worked and he was very pleased.

A friend of mine used to do this too - still got one of those tapes somewhere…

When I was big into hardcore in my youth an old girlfriend of mine would make tapes with hidden abba tracks between songs… so you would lurch from My War into Dancing Queen - then back to minor threat (or whatever) - managed to keep my narrowed musical taste slightly open and cultivate a taste for pop at the same time

A friend of mine once segued a Dog Faced Hermans and a J Church song with the theme to The Facts Of Life on a tape she gave me, and it worked really well.

Today my platform startled me with "Godzilla Flick" by the Lips into "The Fountain of Lamenth" by Rush. At first I couldn't figure out the Rush tune thinking instead it was Chris Bell. Imagine my surprise.