Mixtape: Stories and essays about the 1980s

by Simon Castles

In the 1980s there was a kind of magic to the mixtape. They could be anything its creator wanted. The mixtape was like a letter, but it was also a personal soundtrack. You wanted it to say something about you - to express in some abstract way how you felt about the world, life, hopes, dreams and love. This book is like a mixtape because it is a mixture of things, all of them touching in one way or another on life in the 1980s and music. Through a series of funny, heart-warming and incisive memoir pieces, stories and essays, the 1980s are brought back to life - the last decade before personal computers, the internet and mobile phones came along and changed everything. So hit rewind and then press play...

94 pages, Paperback

Published April 12, 2023

Reviews

[Rich Castles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, it’s slender but it holds together well, which I think is better than those collections that start to bore you out. It manages to come from one voice, and it somehow covers a lot even it it’s contained in its themes, which indicates depth over girth. Most importantly, highly readable and entertaining. Great writers make it seem easy. The part about the choir trying different ways to fit the words to Toto’s Africa into the music is pure Clive James. And backed by apt sources and cultural references - movies, songs, writers. Smarty Anus. Lots of astute insights about music and technology. Always almost word perfect in my view, the last story possibly more than almost. Beautiful, touching, sweet and funny. And for me, of course, very relatable. It deserves to be read more than it probably will be, which I would still say if it sold 100,000 copies. Thought provoking even if he ain’t heavy.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely Sunday read. Left me nostalgic for the ordinary days of growing up in suburban Australia in the 70s and 80s, in all its enviable glory.