Customer Reviews

Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

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You either made mix tapes as a kid or you didn't, and this book speaks to those of us who, though we may have moved on to iPods and ripped CDs, appreciate the emotive power and nostalgia-inducing ability of a customized cassette. [In many cases, we still have those cassettes though lack the means to play them.] Sheffield, a music writer since at least the early 90s (still with Rolling Stone), knows his stuff, and fills this autobiographical account of his love affair with wife Renee with as many pop references as the pages can handle. A beautiful story is woven about the geeky Massachusetts boy's instant and soulful connection with a loud and extroverted Southerner, originating with their shared interest in music and continuing in that melodic vein until Renee's timely 1997 death in Rob's arms (from a pulmonary embolism that hit her in their kitchen while Rob made French toast).

Sheffield is as deft writing about love as he is about music, which is saying an awful lot; he expertly captures the thrill and helplessness of falling in love, and his worship of Renee is heart-achingly poignant. Anyone who reads this and doesn't identify with Sheffield's powerful descriptions of fully giving his heart to another, and of loving someone to the point of fear (of losing oneself, of not being able to keep the other safe enough, of recognizing the other will be on hand to witness your inevitable worst), should leave his current relationship and immediately begin searching for the true "right one."

It's all about the music, though, descriptions of which are shored up by Sheffield's encyclopedic knowledge of songs and the artists who make them. Mix tapes are described in general (the Break Up tape, the Fall In Love tape, etc.), and the playlists that narrate Rob's life begin each chapter. On the one hand, the constant assault of artists, tunes, and especially lyrics can be overwhelming, to the point where there occasionally ceases to be prose (and song lines are instead grafted together to make a point). On the other, the songs are so artfully chosen, and the mix tapes do such a good job of capturing the Zeitgeist of when they were assembled, that you'd best keep a pen handy to catch all the obscure gems (and some ice, for writer's cramp).

There will come a point where each reader sees a favorite obscure song referenced in Love Is A Mixtape. It's kind of cool and personal, in a dorky way, recognizing someone who shares at least some of your tastes and knows some of your secrets. For me, it was reading that Big Star's "Thirteen" was a favorite of Rob and Renee, and that they in fact met while Big Star played on the jukebox at a local bar. Thirteen is just so sparse and beautiful, and somehow transcends even greater heights in covers by Elliott Smith and Evan Dando. Seeing it in print was a nice touch to an even nicer read.

Started the book somewhat resistantly, because I am grieving my sister's recent death, and was not sure that I was ready to become involved with a sad subject. Only reason that I went ahead is because I heard that he recently married again (I don't know if this is true, it's just what I heard) so at least I felt that no matter how tragic the story was, there was a someday things can be ok out there. Read it cover to cover, stayed up all night to finish it, fell in love with Rob, Renee, and rediscovered my own mix tapes and added lots of new stuff to my iPod. Really great book about dealing with bereavement and it is helping me cope with my own tragedy around my dear sis. I will recommend this book to everyone that I know who loves music.

I knew I was in trouble when page 2 of this book was soiled by tears. Especially because they were fresh and mine. This book had it's way with me for the next several hours. By the end I had experianced a wild ride of emotional peaks and valleys. Belly-aching laughter & woeful sobbing. The Sturm und Drang. The stuff of life.

Rob Sheffield & Renee Crist were contributers to the SPIN ALTERNATIVE RECORD GUIDE. A book I've kept close at hand for years and referenced time and time again. It's led me to bands like The Wipers & The Only Ones. For which I'm eternally grateful. I haven't always agreed with Rob. In fact, once upon a time, I sent a spiteful diatribe to him because he used the word "miasma" to describe the sound of a Jane's Addiction song in a Rolling Stone review. I was too young then to freely admit that sometimes I like a little noxious foreboding in my Zeppelin spawns. Rob, I take it all back.

I was unaware that Rob & Renee were married, or that Renee had passed in a sad & sudden manner. This book is their story told through the hiss & crackle of mix tapes. It's also about the journey from adolescence to adulthood and the music that gets you there. It is so gut-wrenching and, by turns, hysterical you devour it in one sitting and if you (like me)have any of your old mix-tapes around, you'll dig them up immediately. You'll play them and they will caress and maim you...or at the very least show you how much you've grown.

It's hard for me to imagine anyone reading this book not being extremely moved. However, I know people for whom music is just background noise. They don't listen to it. They just consume it. These people have never made a mix-tape for anyone. These people are not my friends. These people have no soul.

If music is how you enter this mortal coil...if it's how you love...how you hurt...how you cope...if music has ever been the only place you've found solace...if it's been your bridge to the next unfathomable day, then I'm bettin' you've made a mix tape. Probably dozens. You've courted people with them. You've crushed people with them. You've had fights about them. Maybe your spouse has thrown them out and with them the story of your life. You need to read this book.

I purchased this book, after little more than a cursory glance at the dust cover info, because of the title. Sheffield shares the essence of his love, loss and journey of healing through a series of mix tapes. The alt music of the 90s isn't my music, but mix tapes have a universality that transcends time and genre. As someone who has made and received mix tapes, I relate to the careful thought and ordering process behind them, and appreciate their importance. I took great delight in the revelation of Rob and Renee's relationship through the music that brought them together.

Sheffield's writing is crisp and edgy enough to hold your attention. He is never maudlin, yet his despair over his wife's death is evident. Even though I knew from the beginning of the book that Renee died, I was still stunned when I actually read that chapter. Sheffield evokes such a tangible energy and vibrant personality that I found it incomprehensible that Renee could be dead.

Love is a Mix Tape serves as much more than a memorial; it is an explosive celebration of life and an affirmation of the power of music to bind people together.

I sat in Lulu's Beehive this morning with my coffee and banana bundt amongst a sea of laptops, a painting of ducks that looked suspiciously like a picture in my own flickr photostream, and a friend's ex-boyfriend with another girl I knew but couldn't place. While I wasn't the only one with white buds in my ears, I was the only person cracking the spine of a book. The women that kept walking into the cafe were all cleavage and caffeine and cigarettes and a welcome distraction from the chapters about grief in this love letter to music and marriage and life. I kept catching myself staring too long at these ladies and thought, either I need to get laid or get loved.

Probably both.

I kind of hate Rob Sheffield for making me feel like all the relationships I've had in the past have been inadequate. I have never loved anyone like he loved his Renee. He doesn't even hide the feelings he had for her in ebullient metaphor or shlocky hyperbole. He just tells it like it is and it is wonderful and amazing and way shorter than it had any right to be. While I did blow through the chapters focused on his loss and his dealing (or not dealing) because I don't quite have the emotional armor right now to handle more mourning, it's a beautiful love story all explained in terms I totally get--song lyrics and beats and all the feelings and emotions that we associate with music.

There's probably a mix tape of my own that will come out of this that includes "Symptom Finger" by the Faint, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" by The Arcade Fire, "Mushaboom (Postal Service Remix)" by Feist, "One More Hour" by Sleater-Kinney, "Keeping You Alive" by The Gossip, "Misread" by Kings of Convenience, and "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" by Beck, almost all of which acted as my soundtrack this morning. Somehow, I don't own nor don't think I have ever even heard "One More Hour" by Sleater-Kinney and it is the one song he goes into detail about in the book that I want to know everything about. I can imagine the track in my head by his description. I can hear Carrie and Corin going back and forth. I've already attached an emotional response to it. I will love it. Even if I was deaf, I would love it.

Sheffield goes into great detail about the significance of Nirvana on his life and, in particular, "Heart-Shaped Box". I decided while reading that I'd add Joe Hill's (Stephen King's son) recent debut novel of the same name to my queue. While reading, I aped a line of his that he stole from some outfit a member of Pavement was wearing for a twitter message. I took down quotes, one for me that's a truth I'm going to keep for myself about love and loss and fear and the real agreement that people make to each other when they go into a commitment like marriage and one for you:

"Most mix tapes are CDs now, yet people still call them mix tapes."

There's a reason for that. I leave it to you to figure out why.

I don't know what jerks the heartstrings more, the loss he describes or the love he still has. Beautifully rendered and made more poignant by the informal writing style he uses...he sounds like "one of us". He does have a tendency to get self-conscious in some of his pop-referential stuff, but overall touching in a very genuine way. There have definitely been times in my life during which I could not have handled reading this book because it would have been too close to the bone. This is the book you read wishing someone would love you enough, and miss you enough, to write it about you. One of the best books on loss I have read.

I find it sad to imagine my own 8th grade students will never have the joy/pain/sadness/unanswered questions that come from digging out their own mix tape collection 20 years after they were made. Sheffield writes a heart breaking book that takes you on a journey through your own life as you think about your own memories behind songs he chooses for mix tapes, begging you to dig them out and give them a listen.

He is able to make the reader feel the excitement and aching of new love and the sorrow and emptiness it leaves in its wake. I haven't cried while reading a book in many years, however this one brought me to the weepies. Cheers to Rob Sheffield for writing a book that puts in to words how people who love music create their own life soundtrack, and how that soundtrack doesn't always keep the same meaning regardless of how much we want it to.

If I can make a very weird comparison, this writer seems to be channeling Milan Kundera by exploring music as a thread running through the lives of two individuals, and building this breathtaking tapestry out of the most simple, primitive elements. Pop songs. The characters could be your next door neighbors, except that through his writing, thier relationship and thier lives are lifted out of mundacity and made huge, and incredibly meaningful. You will fall in love with the both of them, and yes, you will probably have your heart broken. It may sound hokey, but don't think you're immune. We're talking about a guy who can make a case for the song MMMBop, and by the end of the conversation, have you convinced. Fair warning - you'll never hear Pavement the same way, ever again. But you won't regret it, either. Buy this book!

Sheffield expertly combines his pop-culture chops with a moving account of his grief over his wife's death. Not too sappy, not too snarky, but very real and down-to-earth. Music fans will love the chapters-as-mix-tape structure.

I love Rob Sheffield's columns in Rolling Stone magazine, and was eager to pick up a copy of this book. I was hoping it would be along the lines of some of Chuck Klostermann's pop culture musings, and was (initially)disapointed to discover that it wasn't going to be all fun and games, that this was a serious tome concerning his wife's death...and how enjoyable, how much "fun" could that possibly be?
Having read it (and I thoroughly "enjoyed" reading it, subject matter be darned), I have come to a great conclusion. Rob and I have extremely different tastes in music and mixed tape composition. However, I still enjoyed the book, as heartbreaking in places as it was.
I recommend this book to anyone who has ever loved and lost due to the inexplicable forces of the fates, due to the mysteries of the ether, due to the other side. It will bring a smile to your face when you don't think there is one to be found. It is a love story without syrup, without cringe inducing moments (unless Rob wanted to make you cringe, as he relates adolescent moments that we can all cringe to together), and without a storybook ending.
It will make you appreciate whom you have standing next to you in life.