Month: January 2004

Mak­ing a Com­pi­la­tion CD [c‑CD] is quite an affair. The process is described in detail in sev­er­al places, some shal­low­er than oth­ers.

I nev­er make c‑CDs for myself. The discs I burn that are com­pos­ites of artists, aren’t com­pi­la­tions. I just put them on a CD so I can lis­ten to them else­where. A c‑CD must be made for some­one else, and with spe­cif­ic intent. That is the over­rid­ing rule. Here are some oth­ers.

a] Each song on the c‑CD must have bear­ing on the per­son it is being giv­en to. If this bear­ing is pro­ject­ed through your own doors of per­cep­tion, thats just dandy.

b] Each song must have bear­ing on how you see your­self or want to see your­self in rela­tion to the per­son the c‑CD is being giv­en to. If this per­son is a love inter­est, lim­it the sap songs to one or none.

c] You may not have mul­ti­ple songs by the same artist, even if the artist is a mem­ber of anoth­er band.

d] You may not put a song on the c‑CD that refers to the per­son you are giv­ing the CD to.

e] Do not, under any cir­cum­stances, put on a song that you think is fun­ny.

f] Do not, put on too many songs that sound the same. Vari­ety is nec­es­sary.

g] Break these rules at your own per­il.

That is what I try to go by. I might add some once I think of them.

h] Each song on the CD must relate to each oth­er song on the CD. This rela­tion­ship can­not be tak­en to a high­er order such as, ‘all the songs relate to me or the per­son I am giv­ing the c‑CD to.’ see a] or b] above. This way, if the c‑CD wash­es up on shore of a desert island and some­one with a func­tion­ing CD play­er finds it on the beach, upon lis­ten­ing to the disc they will sense the theme of the CD, even if they are famil­iar with none of the songs. This is also pro­vid­ed that the disc itself is not too sand-etched to be read by a CD play­er.