Making a mixtape was a love language.

A blank cassette was full of possibility. A favourite song, something borrowed from a friend, a track caught on the radio: gradually, side A became a little portrait of your taste.

Making a tape demanded decisions. The running order mattered. The first song had to get things going, and the last one had to fit. There was always the possibility that a brilliant ending would be cut short by a very ordinary click.

Recording from the radio added another challenge. You waited with a finger ready, hoping the presenter would let the introduction play. Sometimes their voice became so familiar on your recording that the proper version sounded strange without it.

A playlist offers almost limitless room and none of that mechanical fuss. You can discover a song and share it in seconds. That is a wonderful change, especially compared with trying to describe a tune to somebody behind a record-shop counter.

But a mixtape made the effort visible. The handwritten track list, the crossed-out title, the order you had thought about: it all said that someone had spent time on this.

The technology has moved on. The idea still works. Pick a few songs for someone, put them in a proper order and tell them why. That is the part the cassette was carrying all along.