Mixtape Culture: Is it a dying art form?

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What was once an underground phenomenon between hardcore music lovers has become a commonplace practice among the mainstream. This subculture has come to redefine how we receive and listen to music. Suddenly, everyone became their own DJ and started making mixes for all their friends, family, lovers, and anyone else in their social circle. Parties and road trips were the perfect time to whip out that brand new mix that you slaved over for hours to perfection (indeed, original recording analog technology used to put songs onto blank cassettes required a daunting amount of time). Any event or occasion could be perfectly complemented by a mixtape. Mixtapes are a way of revealing your personal tastes and explaining them to others, More than anything, mixtapes are a viable form of self-expression, and allow people to articulate their feelings through their choice of song and audio samples. Nick Hornby's book, High Fidelity, explores that idea rather thoroughly. The protagonist, Rob Gordon, explores his past romantic episodes through the context of pop music. Creating mixtapes play a prominent role throughout the novel. Personally, I heavily identified the character of Rob Gordon. With half-embarrassment and half-wistful remembrance, I think back at the number of times I tried to impress girls with perfect mix-tape (with my pseudo-intellectual savvy, I would put my fav Britpop band that would be featured a year later on the season finalies of half the shows on TV). To me, a good mix would feature eclecticism and put emphasis on the placement of the songs. Like the pacing of a movie, there has to be sections where you put a slower-paced song and a faster-paced song to affect a stronger emotional crescendo. Zach Braff put this into account when crafting his film, Garden State. He made a mix of the soundtrack when showing his script and kept a lot of the selections when producing the actual soundtrack (Braff later won a Grammy for Best Soundtrack for his efforts). Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth released a whole book on mixtapes. Now the technology to create a mixtape makes it far easier than imagined. What was once a tedious task is now a few drags and clicks on iTunes. In this age of technological excess, it could be argued that iPods are killing mixtape culture (and no, personalized playlists are not the same). With an abundance of songs ready to be listened at any given moment, people's patience for listening to a whole album is slowly being systematically wiped out. I don't want to give in to Susan Sontag-like proclamations, saying "Mixtapes are dead!" Where there's a passion for music and a need to impress potential lovers, there will always be mixtapes. SO I'm wondering, anyone out there still make mixtapes? If so, what are some of your selections?