Mixtape Nostalgia: Culture, Memory, and Representation

Contact me at:  mixtapenostalgiabook@gmail.com

Paperback Book Release!

I will be doing a free paperback release book signing and book talk at the Government Center in Pittsburgh on June 21. If you are around that evening, feel free to stop by at 7pm. 

"At the end of the 2000 movie "High Fidelity," John Cusack's character resolves to make a mixtape for his girlfriend, 'full of stuff she likes.'

The custom cassette is a vessel for his feelings, just like the tape that plays Peter Gabriel's 'In Your Eyes' as Cusack's character hoists a boombox into the air in 1989's "Say Anything." 

'He doesn't know how to use the words, he can't express it, but music does it for him,' said Jehnie Burns, Ph.D., associate professor of history. 'With mixtapes, you can put all the different emotions in whatever order you want, and that's part of the appeal of them.'

The mixtape as a form of expression is one of the concepts Burns explores in her new book, "Mixtape Nostalgia: Culture, Memory, and Representation,' ..."

Popular Music Books in Progress 

Presentation May 25, 2021

David Arditi, Kyle Barnett, and Jehnie Burns

In a world of digital streaming, nostalgia for physical media, and a current dearth of live music, how do individuals and corporations tackle access to music? While distribution of music has changed, the desire to hear the recorded music commodity remains the same. This conversation will focus on the recording industry and different ways audiences have tackled access to music through a discussion about David Arditi’s Getting Signed: Record Contracts, Musicians, and Power in Society, Kyle Barnett’s Record Cultures: The Transformation of the U.S. Recording Industry, and Jehnie Burns’ Mixtape Nostalgia: Culture, Memory, and Representation.  

As discussed in Mixtape Nostalgia