Popular Culture Review Vol. 3, No. 2, August 1992 | Page 74

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The Popular Culture Review

One infonnant, a former heavy metal guitarist from a cover
band said, "Most of the songs you showed me are beer bash songs.
When I have friends over nowadays I put jazz or new age music on my
stereo so we can talk and kick ba<^." When asked to supply examples
of the kinds of music he might play for friends for this quieter kind of
party, he supplied me with five tapes. He identified two as tapes for
playing when friends come over to talk and spend time. The other
three tapes he had made in high school and college and had been
played at big parties where lots of beer was served. He called both
kinds of tapes "mixed tapes" though he claimed it was more correct to
call tapes to be played at bigger parties "party tapes" although they
were still often "mixed" in styles and performers.
Party Tape Characteristics. It is not insignificant to recognize
that people who live in mass culture environments are always
interacting with mass culture, consciously or unconsciously. When
they consciously make tapes for parties they are in essence making
their own album or performing the function of a disc jockey or station
manager who deternunes the playlist of music. Party tapes have
redundant characteristics: 1) the predominant musical style on the
tape and 2) the order of music on the tape. These two characteristics
in turn suggest the domains of party tapes' cultural uses.
Predominant Musical Style. Tapes I studied either included
the kinds