Tiny Mix Tapes is an online music and filmwebzine that focuses primarily on new music and related news. In addition to its reviews, it is noted for its subversive, political, and sometimes surreal news, as well as its mixtape generator.
History
Originally called Tiny Mixtapes Gone to Heaven and hosted on GeoCities, the webzine moved to its current domain in 2001. Tiny Mix Tapes is a featured reviewer on Metacritic. The writing staff is composed of volunteers who often use pen names. Some contributors, like Rebecca Armendariz and Alex Brown, go by their real names. Its cofounder and editor-in-chief is Minneapolis-resident Marvin Lin. The music reviews, features, news, film, comics, and the DeLorean, Cerberus, and Automatic Mix Tapes columns are edited by "Jay," "Gumshoe," "Dan Smart," Benjamin Pearson, "Keith Kawaii," "JSpicer," "Trillian," and "Pliny the Elder," respectively. They have been cited by The Guardian, among other publications.
Content
Tiny Mix Tapes offers news, music reviews, movie reviews, and columns. The "DeLorean" section reviews music released before Tiny Mix Tapes began that may no longer be popular, albums that the writer believes are "classic" or influential, or older music that is significant to the writer. Similarly, "Eureka" consists of reviews highlighted by the site as particularly noteworthy or exciting. There is also a features section devoted to interviews, articles, festival reviews, as well as a "Live Blog," in which writers review live music shows. In 2009, Tiny Mix Tapes added a "columns" section. As of 2008, Tiny Mix Tapes started reviewing films and now has a section devoted to it. This section also includes features on filmmakers and other numerous subjects within the medium.
The Automatic Mix Tape Generator, or AMG, was created to offer two-way communication with the website. Started in 2002, readers may submit a title or the theme for a mixtape, and a group of volunteers will compile a track list. Due to the large volume of requests as well as request redundancy, not all requests are filled. The "Mix Robots" produce and submit track lists fulfilling the request as they interpret it. Mixtape track lists are then available on the website. Most of the songs on the mix tapescome from indie or underground bands/musicians. In 2008, Trillian, the AMG editor, was on Talk of the Nation talk radio program to discuss Valentine's Day mixes.
Chocolate Grinder
At the beginning of 2009, Tiny Mix Tapes began a feature podcast called Chocolate Grinder. Published approximately twice a month, each installment sees a writer collecting ten brand new tracks they want to shed light on and mix it as a continuous stream or download. The tracks are posted for stream or download in a single continuous file with a unique name. Currently, Chocolate Grinder remains a staple of Tiny Mix Tapes' daily media content, which includes videos, music streams, Internet premieres, interactive websites, and the like.
Benefit Compilation
In April 2009, the site began selling a benefit compilation CD/LP to benefit the victims of the War in Darfur. It featured 11 exclusive songs.
Humor and politics
On March 30, 2007, Tiny Mix Tapes announced it was hosting a festival in Minnesota. At this festival, long-since dissolved indie bandNeutral Milk Hotel were billed to be "reuniting all over your Cheerios" as the headlining act. Amidst a blog flurry, and articles disputing the legitimacy of the event in Billboard and Prefix, the festival was revealed as an early April Fool's Day joke later the same day.
