For music fans of David Cameron's age, a mix tape was traditionally a cassette-based assemblage, painstakingly compiled to persuade a love interest of your innate good taste and quietly sensitive romantic compatibility.
Traditionalists will thus be aghast at the prime minister's adaptation of the medium: a slightly soulless, industry-compiled rundown of popular British acts, presented as a gift to world leaders at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland last month. If that wasn't enough, the means of storage was a USB stick.
The lucky recipients – Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel among them – were presented with a 10-song compilation, put together for Cameron by the BPI, which represents the recorded music industry. The collection was described by the BPI as "a bespoke creation for the leaders" that was not "available for reproduction". However, a freedom of information request has revealed the full selection, which is now available as a Spotify playlist.
World leaders bold enough to insert the USB in a laptop will gain the impression – and a not entirely inaccurate one – that British popular music is currently dominated by well-scrubbed young men and woman peddling polished but largely derivative takes on folk and soul, with a sideline in tastefully bleeping electronica.
Among the acts featured are the Mercury prize-winning Alt-J, teenage Bob Dylan-botherer Jake Bugg, and Birmingham retro-soulster Laura Mvula. The youngest of a generally youthful crop is Birdy, the Anglo-Belgian 17-year-old whose lounge pianist rendition of Bon Iver's Skinny Love has been played on YouTube nearly 50m times.
As a collection it is unlikely to scare the horses, let alone prompt a fellow G8 leader to look at Cameron in a different, more interested way. The one note of possible controversy is the inclusion of an expletive in the offering from Tom Odell, Another Love.
This is, however, likely to be good news for the prime minister, even if the collection is some way from his own tastes, as revealed on Desert Island Discs, which stretches more towards early REM, Radiohead and The Smiths.
Revelation of his love for the latter group brought trouble for Cameron after estranged Smiths songwriters and lynchpins Morrissey and Johnny Marr managed a rare moment of agreement to tell the prime minister that he was forbidden to be a fan.
The full playlist:
Alt-J – Tessellate
Jake Bugg – Lightning Bolt
Laura Mvula – Green Garden
Lianne La Havas – Is Your Love Big Enough?
Ben Howard – Only Love
Gabrielle Aplin – Home
Tom Odell – Another Love
Rudimental ft John Newman – Feel the Love
Birdy – Skinny Love
Conor Maynard – Can't Say No
