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

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

by Rob Sheffield

3.78 · rating details · 8,654 ratings · 1,526 reviews

Mix tapes: We all have our favorites. Stick one into a deck, press play, and you're instantly transported to another time in your life. For Rob Sheffield, that time was one of miraculous love and unbearable grief. A time that spanned seven years, it started when he met the girl of his dreams and ended when he watched her die in his arms. Using the listings of fifteen of hi...more

Paperback, 219 pages

Published January 2nd 2007 by Three Rivers Press (first published January 1st 2007)

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Jan 26, 2011

Kim rated it

Shelves: contemporary, mmxi, maurice, for-realz, rubbernecking

This review’s content may be confusing, annoying, trite or downright laughable to persons not born between 1965 and 1978. Hell, it may be all of that and more to just about anyone. Consider yourself warned.

Put your thinking caps on ‘cuz I’ve got some trippin’ down memory lane for you:
Where were you when you first heard ‘A Day in the Life’? What about ‘Wild World’? What did you think when you finally understood the meaning of ‘She Bop’? What does ‘My Heart Will Go On’ mean t...more

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Nov 09, 2007

Heather rated it

· review of another edition

Love Is A Mix Tape just absolutely knocked my socks off.

I devoured this book in one weekend and enjoyed every single page, heartily. This is ostensibly a book about mix tapes, and looking back at a life spent seeing the world in a series of 45-minute vignettes (then, of course, you flip the tape over). Rob Sheffield has penned an honest (yet wildly entertaining) book that affected me more deeply than any book I've read in recent memory, woven throughout with a genuine and bleeding lo...moreLove Is A Mix Tape just absolutely knocked my socks off.

I devoured this book in one weekend and enjoyed every single page, heartily. This is ostensibly a book about mix tapes, and looking back at a life spent seeing the world in a series of 45-minute vignettes (then, of course, you flip the tape over). Rob Sheffield has penned an honest (yet wildly entertaining) book that affected me more deeply than any book I've read in recent memory, woven throughout with a genuine and bleeding love for music. It's electric.

The meta-theme of the book is great love, great loss, and the soundtrack: his relationship and marriage to Renee, a girl who he says was "in the middle of everything, living her big, messy, epic life, and none of us who loved her will ever catch up with her." Rob loved Renee, and chronicles that here beautifully from their first meeting to her sudden death at 31.

Parts of the book are evisceratingly intimate. Sometimes I felt almost too close to his darkest and most intimate moments, and it's hard to phrase this right but -- because I knew so much of the music that weaves throughout their stories, I almost felt like I had a personal stake. I kept thinking that it was surprising to find a story so real and honest and intimate when I initially picked this up because, duh, it's about mix tapes.

If you don't like reading about other people's love stories, you should still 100% read this book. Renee was his muse, but his passion (and hers) is thoroughly and unabashedly music -- and there is some absolutely fantastic stuff in here. He writes of their relationship, "We had nothing in common, except we both loved music. It was the first connection we had, and we depended on it to keep us together. We did a lot of work to meet in the middle. Music brought us together." They were both music writers and radio DJs, they fell in love hard and married young. They made lots and lots of fabulous mix tapes, and each chapter begins with a reprinted tracklist from one cassette from that era in their lives.

This is a man after my own heart. How could I do anything but love a man who starts chapter 14 with: "Every time I have a crush on a woman, I have the same fantasy: I imagine the two of us as a synth-pop duo." He goes on to elaborate how she is in the front ("tossing her hair, a saucy little firecracker"), stealing the show and he is hidden in the back behind his Roland JP8000 keyboard, "lavishing all my computer blue love on her."He even lists all the best band names he's come up with for their synth-pop duo: Metropolitan Floors, Indulgence, Angela Dust.

And you should hear him wax poetic about mix tapes. Be still my heart. Rob writes, "There are all kinds of mix tapes. There is always a reason to make one." He then gives his examples:
The Party Tape
I Want You
We're Doing It? Awesome!
You Like Music, I Like Music, I Can Tell We're Going To Be Friends
You Broke My Heart And Made Me Cry and Here Are Twenty or Thirty Songs About It
The Road Trip
Good Songs From Bad Albums I Never Want To Play Again

. . . and many more. "There are millions of songs in the world," he writes, "and millions of ways to connect them into mixes. Making the connections is part of the fun of being a fan." The book starts with Sheffield pulling out a box of old tapes and all throughout the book --from his childhood school dance recollections, to the first mixes he can remember making for Renee, to the ones that accompanied him in the dark days and months following her death-- the mix tapes and the songs are as much characters in this story as the actual people are.

Since each of us have our own completely sovereign and self-focused memories surrounding our favorite bands and favorite songs (the unique feelings, smells, companions, activities associated with them), there is something that I just find so ebullient about "seeing" all these bands and songs through the unique rubric of their lives. A MUST-READ.(less)

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Jul 08, 2009

Emilia P rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: just the really cool kids

Shelves: real-books, to-re-read

Oh man, shucks.
I loved this book.
I could say that the story arc could have been stronger or that he could have talked about mixtapes more (even though he talked about them a lot, I never get sick of it). But I won't. I don't care about those things.

I care that I basically love this book way too much. There are many reasons.

1) I am a sucker for exercises in love and grief, which a lot of this book is--his wife died suddenly after they were married for like 5 ...more

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Feb 04, 2010

JSou rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: biographies-memoirs, owned

I didn't really know what this book was about until I started flipping through it last night. I bought it as a last minute, bargain priced add-on from Barnes & Noble, pretty much just to bump up my total to $25 so I could get free shipping. The title caught my eye since making mixtapes took up a lot of time during my teenage years. Seriously, when the iPod was first introduced, I thought it was the greatest invention since the automobile.

Anyway, I was expecting this to be a humoro...more

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Jul 09, 2011

Buggy rated it

Shelves: shelf-09, bio-memoir, love-story, not-so-hea

Opening line:"The playback:late night, Brooklyn, a pot of coffee, and a chair by the window. I'm listening to a mix tape from 1993."

Before I-pods and ripped CDs we all made mix tapes. I'm sure most of us over a certain age still have them safely hidden away somewhere, never quite having had the nerve to throw them out (broken cases and all) We named these tapes, gave them away to friends or lovers and assigned them different purposes. Remember the break-up tape, the I'm so ...moreOpening line:"The playback:late night, Brooklyn, a pot of coffee, and a chair by the window. I'm listening to a mix tape from 1993."

Before I-pods and ripped CDs we all made mix tapes. I'm sure most of us over a certain age still have them safely hidden away somewhere, never quite having had the nerve to throw them out (broken cases and all) We named these tapes, gave them away to friends or lovers and assigned them different purposes. Remember the break-up tape, the I'm so infatuated with you tape, the party tape, workout tape, road trip tape, stolen off the radio tape etc, etc. It took hours to create a mix tape, attempting to get the songs in perfect order without cutting off the last one. Now imagine, nearly 20 years later having the courage to scour through and listen to all those tapes again. The joy of rediscovery, the nostalgia, the OMG I forgot all about that song which reminds me of that party,girl,boy,car moment. You might also experience pain or sadness over that long lost love. Well this is what LOVE IS A MIX TAPE is all about.

I absolutely adored this book. Rob Sheffield style of writing is so honest, natural and funny that you'll feel like your talking with an old friend. He manages too capture the spirit of the 90's perfectly too as he tells a moving autobiographical account of his years spent with wife Renee. Anyone who lived through that time and is into pop culture will find something relatable here.

This is also a tragic love story and on the very first page we learn that Renee has died, we just don't know how or why. We then flash back to the time to before they met as Rob experiences an awkward adolescence and discovers his love of Indie rock. One night Rob meets the sweet Southern girl of his dreams and although only 25 they soon marry. It's not a perfect marriage however; they're broke most of the time, they fight, they get a dog, they drink Zima (remember Zima?) but they always listen to music as one. Rob and Renee ultimately get 7 years together and even though I knew that Renee was going to die when it actually happened I was left stunned. Sheffield depicts the ache of new love and utter helplessness of losing it beautifully and following Rob through the next grief stricken chapters was at times hard to take.

Throughout this story it is always about the music and each chapter begins with a dated mix tape complete with side A/B track listings. Some of the tapes were made by Renee others by Rob but you're sure to have a lot of moments remembering your own life's soundtrack as you journey along with the music. You might even find a couple of new favourites. Cheers. (less)

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Jan 27, 2011

Malbadeen rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: sentimental sappy headed sappy suckers

If you've lost someone that you cared deeply for you know the frustration in not being able to express who that person was to others. The on going loss that comes from meeting new people and knowing they will never know this person (this HUGE part of your life) can seem crippling at times. In some ways this book appears to be Sheffields attempt to make his wife known to us after her very early death. Personally, I don't think he succeeded. His short lived marriage to her seemed sweet in a teen a...more

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Aug 14, 2010

Shawn Sorensen rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: graphies-auto-or-bio, humor

Now I know someone likes making mix tapes (and by extension mix cds) as much as I do. I also know someone's as crazy about the corniness and desperation of 90s music as I am about 80s music. When I embrace some of mainstream music's most desperate attempts to throw something profound into our pop culture - take Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" or Spandeau Ballet's "True" - I know author Rob Sheffield will join me in my heartfelt applause. And, like Sheffield, I think my...moreNow I know someone likes making mix tapes (and by extension mix cds) as much as I do. I also know someone's as crazy about the corniness and desperation of 90s music as I am about 80s music. When I embrace some of mainstream music's most desperate attempts to throw something profound into our pop culture - take Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" or Spandeau Ballet's "True" - I know author Rob Sheffield will join me in my heartfelt applause. And, like Sheffield, I think my generation of music - the color and creativity, the upbeat rhythms, the high-road empathy, THE FUN - is better than any other generation, especially the whiny-ness and muffled emptiness of a lot of 90s fare. We all knew life sucked. That's why we spent so much time walking like Egyptians.

The writing here is open, conversational, too-the-point and surprisingly funny. Sheffield doesn't let us get to know his wife, Renee, too well, as if he needs to keep a lot of the details to himself. Fair enough. His enthusiasm for music is not quite as limited:

"Every time I have a crush on a woman, I have the same fantasy: I imagine the two of us as a synth-pop duo. No matter who she is, or how we meet, the synth-pop duo fantasy has to work, or the crush fizzles out. I have loads of other musical fantasies about my crushes--I picture us as a Gram-and-Emmylou country harmony duo, or as guitarists in a rock band, trading off vocals like Mick and Keith. But for me, it always comes back to the synth-pop duo. The girl is up front, swishing her skirt, tossing her hair, a saucy little firecracker. I'm the boy in the back, hidden behind my Roland JP8000 keyboard."

Sheffield works literary wonders in describing the depth of his love for Renee, which gives the book a aching, vulnerable depth while he describes his appreciation for what is sometimes lighter and funnier musical choices, like Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You" or Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina". On the other hand, Renee is a lighter, funnier person, someone who frequently celebrates life or makes those around her feel more comfortable.

In the end, I think of this as a brave book. Brave in how Sheffield remembers Renee, brave for being so unabashedly enthusiastic about the music we hear on our radios. I didn't know most of the songs, and I want a more detailed, chronological description of their relationship. In short, I wanted to get into this book more. The author had me at "Hello". (less)

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Jan 16, 2008

Rory rated it

Shelves: memoirs-and-bios

I didn't like this as much as others have seemed to. And what I liked most was probably what others discarded--I liked hearing about the signifcance of all the songs and mixes and bands. But the love story? Sap-tastic and hit-me-over-the-head-repetitive.

Every tenth line of the first long chapter is heavy foreshadowing mixed with hipster melodrama--you know, "That music changed my life. But Renee was my life. And then my life went away." Then something like "Love isn't...more

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Jul 16, 2008

jess rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. spoiler: she dies

i'm feeling a lot of love, life & loss right now, so i thought, "What The Hell, Give It A Shot." and, well, this could be the hipster love story of the year... possibly that of the decade. littered with gratuitous references to the music of the 1990s, the uncensored grief of a sensitive hetero dude, the life of a quirky, curvy girl tragically cut short by an unexpected pulmonary embolism, all delivered straight from the keyboard of a Rolling Stone editor -...morespoiler: she dies

i'm feeling a lot of love, life & loss right now, so i thought, "What The Hell, Give It A Shot." and, well, this could be the hipster love story of the year... possibly that of the decade. littered with gratuitous references to the music of the 1990s, the uncensored grief of a sensitive hetero dude, the life of a quirky, curvy girl tragically cut short by an unexpected pulmonary embolism, all delivered straight from the keyboard of a Rolling Stone editor -- this book tallies up enough points to keep it on the "fave books" list for many socialite myspace pages for years to come.

okay! okay! i admit it! i boo-hooed, sobbed, snorted snot, and positively wept through entire chapters of this book! i read it out-loud to my sweetheart, choking every few words and probably providing a nearly unintelligible listening experience (she did not complain). however, this was not much of an accomplishment cause im a big ol tittybaby who loves to cry all day! i cry when puppies wrestle because it is so sweet, okay?! i read the whole damn thing aloud! it was so hard to read it out loud while i was crying! so, anyway, enough about my emotional shortcomings. it was contrived mostly, but i enjoyed the 90s nostalgia and the tragic saccharine tone. i was always been a sucker for the ill-fated romance, wasn't i?

the book did freak me out A LOT because rob & renee met one day before krista and i did (september 17 and september 18, respectively) and they got married the same day we did (july 13 --- by the way! i got gay-married!). also, renee was the same age (26) that i was when we got married. does this mean, uhm, that i'm going to die in five years of a pulmonary embolism at my sewing machine? not that long ago, i would have said HERE'S HOPING, FOLKS ! but actually, i guess only time will tell, and frankly, i hope not because i have a lot of shit to do. fortunately the book doesnt take itself so seriously so i dont think it has to stand as an foreshadowing omen of my death.

recommended: if you are bored and looking for an indie rock hetero love story set in the 1990s; if you cant get enuff romance from the pages of rolling stone but you love their style; if you wish you had found and lost the greatest love of your lifetime; warning: if you think you already HAVE found and lost the greatest love of your lifetime, this might just hit you *right there* maybe not in a good way. xoxxx(less)

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Mar 22, 2008

Kevin rated it

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Anybody who grew up in the 80s and 90s remembers making mix tapes. You made them for yourself, you made them for friends, you made them for her (or him, as the case may be). You took songs from records, cassettes, CDs, and the radio and mixed them into the order you wanted and, sometimes, you even had running commentary in the form of your own voice during the gaps or the DJ from the radio station from which you recorded the track.

But have you ever defined your life based on these re...more

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Mar 12, 2008

Bryan rated it

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I really wanted to like this book, despite my mild dislike for Sheffield's writing in Rolling Stone magazine. While the story is heartbreaking -- he becomes a widower earlier than anyone should be allowed to -- I was expecting much more insight than what's provided in this slim tome (I read it in one sitting.)

The story boils down to this -- music nerd from Boston meets awesome Appalachian girl who is everything he isn't. You know where the story is heading after he is instantly smitt...moreI really wanted to like this book, despite my mild dislike for Sheffield's writing in Rolling Stone magazine. While the story is heartbreaking -- he becomes a widower earlier than anyone should be allowed to -- I was expecting much more insight than what's provided in this slim tome (I read it in one sitting.)

The story boils down to this -- music nerd from Boston meets awesome Appalachian girl who is everything he isn't. You know where the story is heading after he is instantly smitten when she is the only other person in a University of Virginia bar to recognize that Big Star's second album is playing.

They make a connection and later, much to his surprise, they fall in love and get married. After his wife is tragically taken away from him he spends the final half of the book telling the reader over and over to the point of irritation how awesome his wife was.

While each chapter begins with a playlist of a mix tape he or his wife had made, Sheffield doesn't write enough about the songs on the tapes. Why did he select certain songs over others? What makes a good tape. For a man who made tapes for such mundane chores as washing the dishes and walking the dogs, it's a cop-out not to write about the music itself. Of course, that may not be a bad thing. You would think that someone who writes for Rolling Stone would have high standards for determining what makes a good song. Not Sheffield. To him, all music is great, from the Replacements to Journey to the J. Geils Band. Makes you wonder how he wound up writing for a national magazine. Unfortunately we never learn because Sheffield is too busy telling how awesome his wife was. I wanted at least some idea of how he climbed out of his grief to become a columnist for one of the most storied music magazines in the country.

Sheffield likes to liberally sprinkle his writing with pop culture references as a way to show cool and ironic he is, and this book is no exception. While sometimes the references make you smile, most of the time they come off like the junior high social outcast who tries to show how hip he is by making jokes about the Dukes of Hazzard or Star Trek.

(less)

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Feb 18, 2008

Matt rated it

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This is the kind of memoir I'd like to have written (albeit without the deceased wife). The only reason I didn't give it another star is that Sheffield and I don't really have the same musical tastes. Still, the premise and writing are great.

I've had a few conversations with friends in the last year or so about the long-lost art of the mix tape, which has been delivered a death-blow by the digital age. Burning a CD mix just isn't the same; for one, it doesn't take nearly as long to ...more

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Jan 25, 2012

Jennie rated it

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I’m having a really hard time reviewing Love is a Mix Tape and I can’t figure out why. Maybe it’s because this book was as near to perfect as I could ever hope. Or maybe it’s because, as anyone who is familiar with the late 90s tour de force Playing by Heart (all 10 of you) knows, talking about love is like dancing about architecture. I don’t know if that’s true or not, because Rob Sheffield talks about love just fine. Maybe he has a dance about The Sears Tower, too, and that’s what his next boo...moreI’m having a really hard time reviewing Love is a Mix Tape and I can’t figure out why. Maybe it’s because this book was as near to perfect as I could ever hope. Or maybe it’s because, as anyone who is familiar with the late 90s tour de force Playing by Heart (all 10 of you) knows, talking about love is like dancing about architecture. I don’t know if that’s true or not, because Rob Sheffield talks about love just fine. Maybe he has a dance about The Sears Tower, too, and that’s what his next book is about. Fingers crossed.

When I “met” my husband on Match.com, we spent a week emailing each other before meeting in person. We spent most of our first date talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, David Sedaris, and Rushmore. It’s how we bonded, how we got to know each other and I think that’s true of so many of our generation, especially now that the Internet, home to All Pop Culture Knowledge Ever, exists in such a way that we can access any aspect of pop culture at ANY TIME. Did you forget how Alex Mack got her superpowers? Wikipedia has the answer. Want to know how many companions The Doctor has had? Easy. Well, sort of. My point is (if I have to have one), it’s all pop culture all the time in our house. My husband and I are still finding random bits of pop culture (POP POP) to bond over. It’s why we recently purchased Hey, Dude and honestly, it’s akin to a secret language at this point, our ability to converse in movie and TV quotes, quotes that have mated with other quotes and given birth to brand-new-baby quotes at this point, leading to inside jokes that even we don’t really understand anymore and yet still never fail to make us laugh.

This was true of Rob and Renee in Love is a Mix Tape, only replace movies with music. I had no idea what Love is a Mix Tape was about when I picked it up, which is weird because someone bought it for me BECAUSE IT WAS ON MY WISHLIST. Most likely I’d heard good things about it (for good reason) and put it on my wishlist, or I was drunk online-window shopping again. The world may never know. Anyway, I didn’t even know this was a memoir until I started reading it and thought, “Hey, the main character’s name is Rob, just like the author’s! Oh, and the cover says memoir on it.” Duh-DOY.

Rob Sheffield is a writer for Rolling Stone and knows more about music than anyone in the world (I’m assuming). Love is a Mix Tape was published in 2007, which means, as usual, that I am super late to the party, a party that probably had the most epic mix tape imaginable. The story begins with Rob, freshly widowed, sitting in his apartment, listening to a mix tape, and missing the hell out of his wife, Renee. Objects that remind him of her litter the apartment. He doesn’t actually say outright that she’s died, not right away. In fact, at first, I thought he was reminiscing about an ex-girlfriend. And while it’s true that I’m not very observant, I think the reveal is spectacularly done.

Each chapter of Rob’s memoir begins with a mix tape that leads the way into the narrative. Stories throughout the book flash back to before Renee died, how the two met and came to be married, to her death and the days and years afterward. It’s heartbreaking and funny and I was not only in awe that a person could make it through something so terrible with such wit and humor intact, but it made me wish I’d known Renee. One of her favorite movies, after all, was The Cutting Edge and I think I’ve already made it obvious that I have a soft spot for wonderawful 90s movies.

Having read this, I’m adding Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut to my Wishlist immediately. Five stars all around!(less)

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Sep 02, 2008

K Nolfi rated it

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The early stuff about Renee was so good and I like the '90s love. Everything else is boring and self indulgent.
I like looking at the playlists on the mix tapes.

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Jan 03, 2012

Madeleine rated it

Shelves: head-in-the-clouds-nose-in-a-book, soothing-the-savage-breast, let-us-now-speak-of-great-men, mmxii

I started reading this book during the two-day buffer between the beginnings of both 2012 proper and the working year, thinking that I’d have to look no farther than the other end of the couch if the story really destroyed me to the point of needing my myriad mostly-under-control-but-always-threatening-to-surface spousal fears allayed by husbandly hugs. Turns out, catching up on laundry and tidying up our soon-to-be-vacated first home ate into my reading time and I wound up finishing this about ...moreI started reading this book during the two-day buffer between the beginnings of both 2012 proper and the working year, thinking that I’d have to look no farther than the other end of the couch if the story really destroyed me to the point of needing my myriad mostly-under-control-but-always-threatening-to-surface spousal fears allayed by husbandly hugs. Turns out, catching up on laundry and tidying up our soon-to-be-vacated first home ate into my reading time and I wound up finishing this about an hour after hubs left for work. (Luckily, this book wasn't the sob-fest I was fearing, which is a huge point for the "pro" column.)

But you know what? That lost solitary reading time was put to good use. Hubs and I giggled our way through the brutal minute-long walk to the laundry room, encountered a comedy of errors while corralling our smallclothes and turned vacuuming into a contact sport. And I think that, more than actually sitting down with “Love is a Mix Tape,” helped drive home the unspoken point of the book, which is that you never know how much time you'll have with someone so you'd better make the most of the present.

Every time I’ve seen Rob Scheffield waxing eloquent about music on television, he always seems to have this goofy grin and be a generally amiable person, an image which I’m sure is aided by how not pretentious he is about the music he loves (that's admittedly foreign territory to me). We can all agree that a personable demeanor is unusual for a rock critic and an avid connoisseur of music, right? Because you should believe everything you see on TV, I assumed he was a happy-go-lucky dude who just truly loves and is animated by music. So imagine my surprise when I realized there’s a heart-rending tale under all of that.

This isn’t a prettied-up-for-mass-consumption account of an individual's personal tragedy that is just, like, so super unique and deserving of publication because the author said so, thank God. It’s about Rob. It’s about other things, too, of course – music being chief among them – but mostly how they’ve left distinct and indelible marks on Rob’s persona. Renee gets a lot of mention, but she’s a living, thriving presence for most of the book. The reader wouldn’t get the full extent of the things that made Renee so magnetic if this was another pity-party strutting its stuff for affirmations of the author’s suffering. Instead, Rob displays enough of his late wife’s traits and habits to make us understand her without betraying all of her secrets. We see Renee through Rob’s eyes: She’s flawed but good-hearted, quirky but grounded, an individual who’s bubbling over with life.

It is so obvious that Rob is still smitten with Renee and probably has been since their first encounter. And it’s obvious that his love is motivated by who she is as a whole rather than what she represents to him. For someone with so little relationship experience, like Rob, that kind of selflessness is nigh impossible to either understand or execute. But you can tell that this boy is just wild about his girl by the way she’s framed within the book.

A memoir like this should be more of a tribute and less of a fishbowl therapy session, and it should exist to deliver a message rather than parade the author's personal tragedies in morbid self-congratulation; thankfully, this one rises above the usual credibility-killing narcissistic pitfalls. There are no excessive displays of grief and Rob doesn't rely on his wife's death as the storytelling vehicle, as either would be disrespectful to Rob and Renee’s short-lived union. Rob mourns his wife, of course, accepts that he’ll never be rewarded for dealing with his widow status by getting to have Renee back, and spends an appropriate amount of time in the fetal position, but he does so with dignity. He doesn’t want to wallow in self pity or spend night after lonely night in a cemetery because to do so would be to succumb to a dismissal of Renee’s joie de vivre, which was clearly one of her defining attributes.

There were definite divisions marking life before, during and after Renee, which certainly helped the story find a universally applicable element, but it’s Rob’s love of music that gives this books its strongest framework. Just like there was life with and without Renee, there’s music before and after Renee, too. For every milestone, be it as a child or a grieving adult, there’s a song or album or band to serve as the soundtrack. What is music’s greatest purpose if not to act as a personalized landscape for each individual, after all?

As someone who went through a rabidly elitist phase of music consumption (a phase that has, fortunately, waned over the years but still needs to assert its lingering presence at the least appropriate times) and is drawn to those who’ve traveled a similar path, I feel pretty confident in saying that the least musically talented music aficionados aren’t the most accepting folks. It’s easy to scoff at pop music and the bands who create it but Rob doesn’t fall victim to this. He admits to secretly loving some disco ditties as a teenager and accepts his phases of enjoying some truly craptastic tunes. The mix tapes’ track listings that open each chapter illustrate that he never really let go of that open-mindedness, which make his honesty and vulnerability regarding other facets of his life that much more credible. He doesn’t limit himself to the music that’s peripherally cool or only listen to what the radio spoon-feeds him, which, to me, demonstrated an unabashed affinity for all music, much to his credit.

One of the points that Rob subtly made was that when two people are just as sick about music as they are about each other, music gradually becomes a third entity in the relationship. Having that life raft of shared music (and, later, music he wishes he could share with Renee) is what kept the intimacy of his late wife close and, as I saw it, kept Rob from totally coming unglued. It always seemed like he knew he’d soldier on without his other half, but music seemed to be what kept propelling him forward, however stumblingly or reluctantly.

Music does emerge as the real hero and great unifier when it comes to the crux of the story, though the quiet messages of human kindness and self-discovery serve as its moral. I held myself together through Rob’s accounts of Renee’s death and funeral and his mourning period; what finally pierced my groggy heart was Rob’s awe over complete strangers’ acts of kindness toward him. I’m a sucker for the moment the veil of cynicism is lifted (probably because I’m pretty certain humanity comprises a bunch of selfish jerks and, therefore, get all warm and gooey when someone can convince me otherwise for a little while), and Rob’s realization that he can’t go back to his former skepticism over the goodness of people was a defining moment of the story. Yes, there is some goodness in the world: It just took a world-shattering tragedy for Rob to gain some firsthand knowledge of it. Human kindness helped him to move on while pointing out the places where some silver lining is peeking through.

It is hard to write about a loved one’s sudden death without summoning every cheaply sentimental cop-out to prey on the audience’s emotions, so Rob gets all kinds of kudos for offering up a good read rather than a cloying trick. This is a beautiful remembrance of a well-loved someone while doubling as a love letter to the music that will always be there through the highest highs, lowest lows and every small moment or long car ride between. (less)

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Aug 14, 2008

Cami rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: music lovers

Recommended to Cami by: the great title

Shelves: biography-autobiography-memoir, favorites

I loved this book. If you know me well, you know I am obsessed with music and the old mix-tape was the medium that introduced me to most of the stuff that I love.
This isn't really a spoiler as the book cover makes no effort to hide that Rob Sheffield will become a widow over the course of this memoir. Rob tells us about a girl named Renee and all of the wonderful idiosyncratic things about her and how music and mix-tapes were the glue that held them together, until her untimely passing and...more

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Jun 20, 2007

Shanna rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: music dorks, mixtape lovers, young widows

Shelves: music, biosmemoirs

One of my friends told me to read it and said I would enjoy it.
I liked parts of it a lot: the discussion of the nature of mix tapes v. other mediums and the way that music can define relationships, the fun new songs I found for the first time/remembered, and the really poignant description of his wife's death. This was in some ways more unsettling for me than The Year of Magical Thinking, mainly because they were both so young. They didn't get a chance to live their lives together. It was ...more

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Mar 01, 2009

Stephanie rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Leah

Shelves: read-in-2009, i-own-read, loaned-out, biographies-and-memoirs, nonfiction

I dare you to try and not like this book. I guarantee you'll fail. This book is a beautifully crafted mix of everything. It's about music, yeah. There's talk of some pretty sweet tunes in there and anyone who grew up in the 80's and 90's knows the significance of the mix tape. The book is also one of the greatest unconventional love stories I've ever read.

Reading Love Is a Mix Tape is like listening in on the soundtrack to Rob Sheffield's life. He takes you through the music of his y...more

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Apr 08, 2008

Frank rated it

Any book that describes the summer of '94 as a series of drunken southern barbecues populated by mod-girls and indie rock dudes who always ended the party with the girls singing along to the entirety of Liz Phair's 'Exile In Guyville' on the back porch (word for word) while all the guys listened intrigued and obsessed and befuddled in the kitchen is A+ in my book. See also, the tragic passage inspired by Sleater-Kinney's 'One More Hour', the eulogy to the '90s, and the author's recipe for the pe...more

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May 15, 2008

Phyllis rated it

· review of another edition

Holy Smokes . . . if you've never had a heartbreak where a CD / tape / or album didn't get you through, then this book isn't your calling . . .

Yet, have you ever lost one you've loved and that damn tune makes you shutter when you believe you've escaped the loss, but to have it be relived with recall . . .

This book made me think so much of my college roommate / & high school friend, Amber . . . we swore the only reason we got such crappy grades in college is that we had...more

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Feb 17, 2009

Wesley rated it

· review of another edition

I think music junkies would appreciate this book much more than I did. It felt like an inside joke, as such I couldn't connect to the storyline and characters.

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Jun 13, 2008

Chelsea rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Chelsea by: Hillary

Shelves: memoir, own, recced, othermedia, non-fiction, 2008

A touching book about Sheffield's all too brief marriage and the music that helped define it. I liked the idea of framing his life - and, specifically, his relationship with Renee - around mix tapes, and I think it was a great touch to include the track listings at the beginning of each chapter. He did a good job of making Renee come alive to readers who have never met her, and I think he did nearly as good a job trying to convey just how broken he was after losing her.

It was an in...more

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Aug 02, 2008

Autumn Joyce rated it

· review of another edition

loved this book. It mentions a lot of bands from the 90s but I don't think that you need to have a lot of background regarding this music to appreciate the book. It is a human story about falling in love, losing it and how music played an important part in the journey. Anyone that relates specific music to a memory, whether a good or bad memory, would enjoy this book. I feel like I could say so much more about this subject...but it is a review not a blog entry. SO READ IT and discover its grea...more

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Dec 27, 2011

Christina (Reading Thru The Night) rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, memoir-esque

The Short of It

Music narrates moments in our life.

The Long of It

Rob Sheffield is a mix tape aficionado. In fact, at one point in his memoir he mentions filling shelves upon shelves with mix tapes and still have boxes left unpacked filled. Unlike other memoris out there, Rob shares roughly eight years of his life through music. What makes these eight years so important, give or take? Rob processes the experience of his first true love and her death. All before th...moreThe Short of It

Music narrates moments in our life.

The Long of It

Rob Sheffield is a mix tape aficionado. In fact, at one point in his memoir he mentions filling shelves upon shelves with mix tapes and still have boxes left unpacked filled. Unlike other memoris out there, Rob shares roughly eight years of his life through music. What makes these eight years so important, give or take? Rob processes the experience of his first true love and her death. All before the age of thirty.

The Thoughts about It

What appealed to me is what will appeal to anyone else who immediately picks up this book. The music. I LOVED making mix tapes. (And this is buggin’ me, but I’ve always spelt it as mixed tapes am I wrong here?) I believe that my last mix tape that I officially made was back when I was an undergrad more than ten years ago. Leading up to my mix tape hiatus (I refuse to say extinction) I had made mix tapes for EVERY occasion. In fact, I even remember making a mix tape for a long-term boyfriend, a “break up” tape that sorta went through our whole relationship. In hindsight it wasn’t the best move. We listened to the tape together and then I was all like, “yeah this isn’t working out so much”. Live and learn.

S’okay, I grabbed this book because of the music. I only glance-read the back. I figured it was a romance book with an edge. I DID NOT realize it was a memoir NOR did I realize that it would be a devastating one at that.

Soulful. Isn’t that such a pretentious word? But man is it the only accurate one that I can consider when it comes to reading this. And really, I rather devoured it; I read it in one night. It only seems obvious that Sheffield’s story would be harrowing than expected because music is a core piece. C’mon, it’s why movies have soundtracks. Given enough time and energy, I’m sure there is a song that can reflect any moment in one’s life. Even the ones that we think aren’t so memorable.

I especially enjoyed how seamless the chapters were. The past was interwoven with the present: we already knew walking into the story that there would be great loss. It was a nice reminder that sometimes the best things in books are nothing more than the process.

And also, this book kinda makes me want to spend a day in my room making mix cds.(less)

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Mar 10, 2009

kthread rated it

· review of another edition

I spent Saturday afternoon reading in the sun in Charlottesville, Virginia, the way I spent many weekends when I lived in this little town.

Dar Williams refrains filled the cul-de-sac, and the wireless networks were named "TJistheman", "PabstBlueNetwork", and "moonbaker" (the last, perhaps belonging to a baker at Mellow Mushroom pizza near campus).

I thought about how hard it is to leave this place, and the first time I heard the author's nam...more

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Feb 14, 2009

Julia rated it

· review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 05, 2012

Christina Marie Rau rated it

· review of another edition

Not only was Love Is A Mix Tape a brilliantly-written book, it also brought back great affection for the mix tape. Or is it mixed tape? Whichever. You know what I'm talking about. Rob Sheffield hit it dead on when he describes the tape as an amalgam of music and ideas. The best kind of mix tape was the one left in the stereo to record songs from the radio. A bit of DJ here. A radio ad there. Hissing. Squealing. Tape malfunctioning. Ah, the joys of the cassette.

Putting together a tape...more

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Dec 28, 2011

Folami Islam rated it

First thought: This book has a great title should be an interesting read. It wasn’t until ¾ of the way in that this statement proved true. I love how much the music plays a role in sharing his story. The relationship he had with his former wife reminds me a lot of what I had with Lucien. His expression of losing such a great love mirrors my own sentiments of the loss I too have faced. One of my favorite lines in the book comes at a time where the author moves to new city and continues to live a...more

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Dec 19, 2011

Julia Saboya rated it

In Love Is a Mix Tape, the longtime Rolling Stone critic explains his heartbreaking tale of love through a different mix tape each chapter. A passionate and ultimately devastating romance shares great music from the 70's-90's while telling the story behind the meaningful tunes. When I started this book I wasn't expecting it to make me emotional, I was thinking it would be another one of those music journalists describing various amazing shows. However, instead Rob Sheffield used his talent a...more

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Dec 08, 2011

Alyx Strouse added it · review of another edition

Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield is a love story type of book telling how he met his wife, Renee, and he tells his life with her. Right in the beginning of the book, he comes right out and says when him and Renee met, when they had gotten married, how long they have been married, and right to the date that Renee died. Sheffield even includes the exact location of where Renee is buried. He includes much about how he made mix tapes ...more

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About Rob Sheffield

Rob Sheffield is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine. In addition to writing music reviews and profile stories, Sheffield also writes the Pop Life column in the Mixed Media section of the magazine. His work has also been featured in The Village Voice and Spin. A native of Boston, Sheffield attended Yale and the University of Virginia, and is six foot five.

His first book, Lo...more

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Books by Rob Sheffield

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Quotes from Love is a Mix Tape

“When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.” — 258 people liked it

“It’s the same with people who say, ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Even people who say this must realize that the exact opposite is true. What doesn’t kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you incredibly annoying.” — 227 people liked it

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