My career making mix CDs dates back to the heyday of LimeWire popularity—remember the dark times before iTunes and streaming services—and continues to live on in 2018 because dammit, it’s an art form I believe in.

Before you start, yes, I know playlists exist, and yes, I am aware that playlists are the iPod and post-iPod era answers to the mix CD, much like the mix CD was the post-cassette tape era’s answer to the mix tape. I love a good playlist. I lived through Windows Media Player hell; don’t think I don’t appreciate the ease and simplicity of a playlist, or the fact that any mix CD I make now starts first in that format and then usually ends up back in that same format in someone’s iTunes library or Spotify account.

But mix CDs have something that playlists don’t: constraints.

And while that is a beautiful thing—who wants to be limited to 80 minutes of music—the loss of constraint in many ways has meant a loss of the craft.

Think about it! Think about the way you make a playlist versus the way you slaved over a mix CD. You don’t have to be as particular when you’re making a playlist—you’ve got all the space in the world, and you can always add more songs or delete them. Order doesn’t matter, either, because you’re probably going to throw it on shuffle and call it a day.

The mix CD is finite. You only had room for 18 or 19 songs, 20 max. You had to pick and choose, keep a specific mood or theme or occasion in mind. 8th Grade Dance Mix. Last Mix of ’05. Travel Mix 2007. Totally Kick Ass Mix. 18th Birthday Mix. Camp Pickle Mix.* Order mattered when half the time you couldn’t figure out to work the shuffle function on your discman anyway, and you had to be sure about it: Once burned, it was burned forever.

I’ll concede that technically you can make a playlist while operating under the mix CD mindset, but even so, you’re missing one other thing: the time capsule effect.

It’s true that a playlist can transport you to a time gone by just like an old mix CD can. After all, it’s the music that brings forth the nostalgia more than anything else. But a time capsule doesn’t just make us think of the past, it is the past, unknown contents unearthed in the present. A playlist, on the other hand, is just that: a list. You know what’s on it before you listen.

But mix CDs? With unhelpful titles like Uber Hawt Mix scrawled across them in our 13-year-old, 17-year-old, 21-year-old handwriting? The magic of the mix CD is that they are relics, antiquated technology that somehow survived into the digital age, and a complete mystery, a total surprise, until you load them up and press play.

*All real, actual titles of mix CDs currently in my possession.