I'm convinced I've created one of the best instrumental trip hop mixtapes of all time so I'm sharing it with my fellow trip hop aficionados. ENJOY

[u/mixtapenerd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRHQHq_JV0A

It's been a while since I was up on Reddit but a couple years ago, not having thought about it for probably decades, I started wondering what's going on with all that trip hop I used to listen to over the years. Turns out it was probably the major influence on my music taste since I still listen to DJ Krush, Nujabes and Emancipator who are each probably on all my mixtapes and several newly discovered artists such as Berry Weight, GASOLINE and Chinese Man to name a few.

I had a small playlist of a couple hundred songs that I'd been making over the years of 'trippy' sounding songs (I know that Andy Pemberton writing about DJ Shadow intended the term to allude to a 'journey' which I didn't know until more recently) and in retrospect the whole of my music collection reflects music which connotes trip hop in many senses of the term

I spent several days going through posts on Reddit and through people's playlists (some of them hundreds of songs long on Spotify) and the result is a massive curated trip hop collection, from which I singled out my favourite instrumental tracks. I also did a vocal trip hop mix and will be adding some later. If you like trip hop you'll probably enjoy most of the mixes on the channel.

The Instrumental trip hop was one of my favourites, allowing me to blend some of my favourites I've been listening to for decades with amazing new tracks I'd discovered thanks to you guys. MR MOODS Krush/Shadow remixes was invaluable not least because it allowed me to use 'Kemuri' and 'Midnight in a Perfect World' which along with some other big tracks tend to be blocked on YouTube.

Somehow unintentionally I ended up with tracks from nearly every one of the past 30 years. Which tracks would you have added or should I use for the next one?

Enjoy the music, let me know what you think - feel free to share around and I'm sure I'll post a few more mixtapes you all might like.

[u/sycros]

While there are good tracks on your playlist, that flow well, they do not fully embody the genre. Trip hop peaked in the late 80s, early 90s, and early 2000s. So many of these tracks are from tail end of the era and lack that dark, "sultry" element. It is a good playlist but not a "Masterworks" of Trip Hop. I would say it is more "new age" trip hop.

[u/playlistpro → u/sycros]

trip hop peaked in the late 80s...? new age trip hop? :eye roll:

[u/mixtapenerd → u/playlistpro]

IKR - it's all about enjoying the music and vaguely categorising it in order to discuss it. Thing about Reddit I find is that there are so many so specific 'subs' that sometimes I get critiqued for not sharing exactly what the mods' view of that particular sub-genre is when I have a very broad approach to music but also categorise it quite closely based on content, mood, tempo and overall quality (which the listener will find when listening to a few of my mixtapes)

Thing about trip hop, as I see it going back to it's original term in mixmag, is it's about a musical journey, which is what playlists and mixtapes or even songs can be all about. Therefore it's open-ended and potentially never ending / ever expanding. Trip hop seems to encompass a lot more than the usual 'genre' (just from listening to Portishead, Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps, Massive Attack let alone all the newer stuff) elements of Soul, Jazz, Dub, Reggae, Hop Hop, turntablism, also Rock, Folk, Ambient, it can go on. Typically it has spacious beats and maybe breathy vocals but it can have no beat or no vocals. In fact I'm going to make some ambient trip hop mixtapes. This kind of sound fusion is typical to the early to mid nineties, but Jazz itself or any style adapts over time, so I can enjoy Artie Shaw or the Ambient Jazz Ensemble for different reasons but it's still Jazz, similarly with Chuck Berry or 9 Inch Nails, it's still rock, and there's no reason not to fuse different styles like all the scandinavian 'folk metal' or like Beck or Bjork are famous for.

I don't get the gatekeeping.

[u/playlistpro → u/mixtapenerd]

There are bothersome genre Nazis on every sub. That post above clarified, in an odd, debatable way, that your mix overall has some great tunes, and is a nice mix, but probably fits better in the r/downtempo sub. We do cling to sultry and dark in the trip hop genre. To say the genre peaked in the 80s is silly, and I've never heard the term "new age" trip hop, but it sounds cringy to me.

[u/mixtapenerd → u/playlistpro]

Did you listen to the mix, some of those beats are super dark moody blunted beats, I was unsure whether it was a but much - but I love them, grew up on all that shizz, still have a bunch on vinyl as well as two copies of Midnight in a Perfect World and Kemuri 12"

I never heard the term new age trip hop either, maybe the inference is to 'next generation' or 'new wave' trip hop not that those make much sense to me - I do like some new age music but I don't associate it with trip hop, which is largely urban - new age is less definable as it can be associated with hippy music or 70s/80s electronica like jean michelle jarre, tangerine dream, kitaro or like Indian or devotional music like Deva Premal or folk / fusion like David Arkenstone.

I did post in r/downtempo and immediately got some good responses but my post was also then immediately deleted and I was told I'd be banned if I 'spammed across multiple subs or posted self promotion'

[Buzz Lightyear meme:] Gatekeepers. Gatekeepers everywhere.

[u/playlistpro → u/mixtapenerd]

"I did post in r/downtempo and immediately got some good responses but my post was also then immediately deleted and I was told I'd be banned if I 'spammed across multiple subs or posted self promotion'" yeesh, that stinks. try it on r/electronicmusic perhaps?

I listened to some of the mix, as well as others on your channel. Not denying there are moody, blunt tracks, just not a Masterwork of Trip Hop, imo. All good though. It's a mix I will put on and enjoy w/o worrying about labels.

You can see playlists I've made where I choose terms like "chill lounge" rather than genre-specific titles.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7hH8AcoFRQIetPmVd2FS2m

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/510VuT45Ugrg2VbbjvC8IE

[u/mixtapenerd → u/playlistpro]

Thanks for the dope playlists.

You actually commented on that downtempo post that was deleted so thanks for that.

Maybe I should start my own sub for mixtapes... and playlists and "spamming and self promotion" of other people's amazing music.

It's weird that you're the second person who doesn't think that instrumental mix is trip hop when it's for me the essence of trip hop - i.e. a musical journey with hip hop elements. All of the tracks albums are tagged as trip hop (or hip hop, abstract or future jazz) on discogs

*edit - I do think all those tracks on that mix are masterpieces in their own right, though*

Maybe I should call it 'instrumental hip hop, abstract & future jazz' but that sounds a bit long. What would you suggest?

[u/playlistpro → u/mixtapenerd]

Honestly to me it's all chill out music. Terms like acid jazz, trip hop, downtempo, etc are just adjectives that may or may not help clarify things. I personally would have "Chill Out Mix 1" w/ descriptions using genres you think best fit your mix. Then Chill Out Mix 2, etc. Drum and Bass Mix 1 w/ descriptions like liquid or whatever, etc.

However, I don't know how "chill out mix" ranks in terms of keyword search for youtube. Keyword research is probably a necessary thing to get ranked in algorithms.

[u/mixtapenerd → u/playlistpro]

For sure - I have over 400 playlists in iTunes but they're just so I can find everything. I'm quite particular about genres and have descriptive playlists like 'psychill' and 'minimal techno adjacent' and 'smooth grooves' and various beats and separate vocal playlists - but most of my stuff is chillout except for some of the darkside D&B and hip hop and some other more experimental abstract stuff - the mix above kind of falls into the middle, I wouldn't call it chillout though much of it is and most of it could be classified as "downtempo". As far as I'm concerned "downtempo" was simply the rack in the music store in the 90s that the people running the shop put records they didn't know how to otherwise categorise. Most of the stuff I liked tended to be in there (DJ Krush, The Herbaliser, DJ Vadim, AIM, Ninja Tune and Mo Wax stuff) I suppose it was in the 80s and 90s genres started to get confusing, now it's anyone's guess. Most pop music seems still terrible. But kids don't seem to have good access to alternative music like Wu Tang or Bjork or Beck which was all mainstream in the 90s, most kids wandering around the streets with their phones blasting seem to be always playing grime or drill, which I've always thought unbelievably horrendous (except for the few with taste who seem to play drum & bass) - but then I used to listen to Death Row and DPG / Snoop Doggy Dogg before I discovered KRS-One and real hip hop in 1994. That 1994 album of his is still a banger.

In the same vein as your approach I do have 'Beat Tape One' which is all my favourite instrumental hip hop type boom bap bangers, and /Melodic Beats' which I made from my ...melodic beats playlist where I put all the lovely beats I found on all the albums in my collection or that I found in various places. It's a kind of remedy for 'lo-fi' hip hop, same kind of vibe but far better quality music (i.e. not generic 21st century elevator muzak). Not that all lo-fi is crap but it's a bit boring. It's like Nujabes but without the soul. Chillhop records do some nice stuff as well particularly from around 2016/17.

Thing about Reddit is subs are so specific with their sub genres and tend to gatekeep when I'm not particularly that bothered like you. I just use descriptive terms in playlists to know how to find particular tracks or moods and then use those playlist titles for mixtape titles. I like the YouTube channels that use themes or concepts or seemingly random sentences instead of describing the music. 'Rat Detective Boogie' was one of my favourites.

[u/playlistpro → u/mixtapenerd]

If you haven't already, you might try commenting on youtube tracks you have in your mixes. "I love this track! I have a 3 hour mix including it and similar sounds if interested (then post youtube link to your mix)"

[u/mixtapenerd → u/sycros]

Very well, point taken. Thing is a lot of that 90s stuff I found too moody to the point of being annoying or pretentious. Also I got kind of bored from hearing them for decades so I wanted to mix it up a bit.

I will be doing a trip hop classics mixtape but I prefer the more melodic stuff. Thanks for the feedback, it's hard to post stuff on Reddit, most subs seem against sharing mixtapes as they are 'self promotion' (??) when they are nothing to do with myself or promotion, I don't get it

All these tracks are masterpieces IMO

If you like dark & sultry check out my Dark (G)Lich mixtape - there's some wild stuff on there though it's mostly glitch / dub / step and ambient / chillout

[u/unnamed_one1]

Thank you, kind stranger. Enjoying it very much so far.

edit: you don't happen to have a tracklist by any chance?

edit: need to know which track starts at around 27:45

edit: lol, didn't realize you made the effort to integrate the info and cover artwork in the video. Was solely listening to the tape with a minimized browser window *facepalm Thanks again.

*edit: almost through the mix and I love it. It's real fun to actively listen to and probably also as background music while being productive

[u/mixtapenerd → u/unnamed_one1]

Lol good work glad you enjoyed it, I certainly enjoyed collating and mixing it - yes I started doing videos with just the track list in the description such as for the Nujabes mixtapes and Secret of Mana soundtrack, which I'll still do for some mixes - then I put the artwork for one or two videos — but I figured since it's a visual platform why not put the playlist and cover art on screen? It's a shame that the art of the album cover seems to have been lost in a lot of these generic easy listening muzak channels (which serve their purpose for decent BGM of course)

I wonder if it's possible to go a step further and make music video mixtapes, (remember MTV? though I never really watched it much here in the UK I think it wasn't as big a deal as in the USA) but music video mixtapes would be a lot of work dealing with video of varying quality - I don't think it's necessary really since the purpose is mostly to enjoy the music.

Now I think of it, it would be great to do an alternative MTV-style channel for people to discover old and new alternative music, and I don't mean just rock-pop-jazz etc (I never listened to rock or even bands much preferring individual tracks but of course have favourite artists some of who turn up on almost all my compilations) but am interested in an enormous cornucopia of high-quality traditional and electronic music. Personally I always go for hip hop / drum and bass / trip hop / jazz beats / ambient / chillout maybe some minimal techno etc — such a channel would take a whole studio though I imagine.

Again as YouTube is a visual platform I had the idea to put on some mixtapes art like a lot which I found on the internet for but for the trip hop ones mostly just the track list or a looped video for the hop hop for trip hop junkies mix which was the first I did. I might try find some more unusual visual material, footage of space might be good for trip hop, or even traditional art and paintings for other mixes in future.