After all, this is currently a world where doom-and-gloom rules the airwaves. Recession this, public sector cuts that. Is there anything to be cheery about any more?

Now, I do have a penchant for a more cynical outlook in life and this doesn’t do myself any favours when it comes to being optimistic, add to that my liking for the more satirical opinions on TV and in print and one could be excused for thinking that the world is just one big bloody mess.

Failure to have a little optimism can be a dangerous position though; I’m currently seeking employment. An incredibly stressful, energy sapping and sleep depriving ‘job’ itself. However, one thing that I can’t allow to enter my mind is even the smallest drop of pessimism.

This is easier said than done. With time comes more stress, with stress more worries, with more worries… well you get the idea. I’m not getting caught up in it all though, I know it’s going to work out. I know this because I’m totally in control of my own destiny.

It’s a healthy thing to be optimistic, we are surrounded by negativity on an almost daily basis.

It seems that brands are also aware of this. For instance, Paul Smith have a brand new fragrance – Optimistic. Their Facebook page is running a couple of nice little competitions at the moment, spreading the love by means of a photography competition where you need to submit an “optimistic photo” and receive as many likes as possible.

We are turning a corner. After all the global woes of the last few years, it seems that people are starting to realise that there is plenty that they can do to change circumstance and situation.

None of this would be possible without having the mindset, that no matter how bad things are now, you can always change it for the better.

For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

Winston Churchill

With the advent of Mp3 players, iPods and more recently online streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora, the mixtape has been overtaken by the playlist. Bleaugh.

Why bleaugh? Well it’s just not as nice a word for a start. It has a certain clinical undertone to it that just doesn’t give you the same kind of pride when you say it. Try it.

“I’ve made you a playlist” Vs “I’ve made you a mixtape” – Mixtape wins with a knockout in the first round.

So what is it that sets these two things apart? The playlist is, after all, still a collection of songs in an order of your liking, called whatever you want it to be. A mixtape is nothing more is it? Well yes and no. Returning back to the good old days again – you would be recording from one tape tape to another (or from a CD if you were posh), recording in real time. This would mean you needed to really plan the songs out, in some cases ensuring that you didn’t run out of tape halfway through a song. Once you have your completed mix and you were happy with it, the satisfaction you got was something that you very rarely get these days with your new fangled playlists (bleaugh). Some would even go to the extent of designing a nice cover for your tape, good for indexing but great for showing off when you lend said tape to your friends. After all, that was the whole point for most people. These mixtapes weren’t just something that you would make and then store away for posterity, they were for sharing.

If you like music, you should like sharing and discovering music. Mixtapes/playlists are by far one of the best ways to find out about artists and tracks that may have slipped your attention. Last.fm does this in a totally different way, matching you with like-minded users of the community and exposing the rest of their listening habits to you. It works, I’ve found umpteen new artists and bands this way. But it lacks that personal touch.

8tracks on the other hand really encapsulates the mixtape spirit. It’s a site I only came across recently after picking up the iPhone app on a whim, but it’s one I’m really going to stick with for a long time I feel.

Each mix consists of at least 8 tracks, carefully picked by the user and uploaded to the site. You can tag mixes with whatever genre that is most fitting and even select artwork and give a description if you so wish. Nice.

The thought that goes into the mixes by its members really shows, it’s what sets it apart from the competition.

Browsing around the 240,000 or so mixes, I’ve discovered some absolutely brilliant music. It’s really refreshing to know that there are people out there who, like me, still hold on to the days of the mixtape.

Add me on 8tracks.com

It was four years ago that Radiohead did what most people brushed aside as “just a publicity stunt”, when they called upon fans and music lovers alike to just name their price for their seventh studio album, In Rainbows.

A bold move – but one that did far more for them than any multimillion pound advertising campaign. We would never expect to see a Radiohead tour to be sponsored by Pepsi, or for that matter for them to be filling out the O2, so was this master-stroke or just a massive band having a massive laugh?

Within hours of this radical new payment model being announced, the Intenet was awash with conversations about this crazy, new fangled idea; that giving the consumer the power to pay what they wanted would never work and that it was just a way of getting coloumn inches for free.

Well they were half-right, it did get people talking, it was one of the most redefining moments of the last decade for the music industry. In a world where consumers want things yesterday, this was ultimately giving the fan exactly what they wanted. The world is getting more inpatient with what it feels it needs and someone realised it. But what may seem on the face of things as a lovely gesture, was also viral marketing at its most shrewdest.

We will probably not see a major artist ‘do a Radiohead’ for quite a long time, not because artists can’t afford to, they often make more money from the tours and merchandise than from album sales; it’s just that in a world where celebrity endorsements and advertising has reached almost epidemic proportions, doing something different is more often the best way of getting noticed.