What is Muxtape? And why you’re about to fall in love

Think of the hours you spent hunched over your double-deck stereo, playing, pausing, recording, over and over again, late into the night when you should have been fast asleep. You were creating! You were compiling a mixtape; a mash of your favorite songs and clips, everything you loved at that moment. You could pull from the radio, from the odd CD you nabbed from your parents and from other mixtapes you’d made last week. You were in charge, and this was for your best friend (and duh, you made a copy for yourself).

You can find this now, sometimes, with friends who make mix CDs for each other–but who has the time anymore? The era of the mixtape died with CDs, with internet radio, with iTunes and iPods and MP3 players. Or did it?

Enter Muxtape. Since March 2008, Muxtape has been slowly growing, gaining word of mouth via link-sharing sites like Tumblr and Digg. This is what Muxtape has to say about itself:

“Muxtape is a living music platform in its early stages. Our goal is to redefine the mixtape on the internet as a model for music discovery and social interaction, and to do so in the most elegant way technology allows. We believe that music is better when it’s presented to you by a person with care.”

I agree. Let’s get back to that–carefully picked out songs and tracks, something special that someone has meant for you to hear. Muxtape’s homepage is a table of mixes created for you by someone who thinks you’ll love them. You can play particular songs by clicking on the tracklist, listen to the whole mix by starting at the top, become a fan of a mix and even add it as a feed. If you adore the song, there is a quick link under the title that will lead you to buy the MP3. They couldn’t make it more simple and indeed elegant.

Check out Muxtape and start sharing your favorites and finding some new ones. Right now I’m listening to a mix called “Boys who can hit the high notes”. Go, join, create.

[Edit: Catch up on Muxtape news here!]