What is Rock or Pop?
Rock or Pop turns YouTube playlists into virtual cassette tapes. Paste a playlist URL, customise the look of your tape, and share it with a link. The recipient sees your cassette — complete with animated reels, your custom label, and full playback controls.
Try it at rockorpop.com.
Creating a Tape
- Find a YouTube playlist you want to turn into a mixtape
- Paste the URL into Rock or Pop — it accepts standard playlist URLs, video-with-playlist URLs, and short URLs
- Customise the look — choose a cover design, shell colour, background pattern, and write a label
- Hit play — the cassette reels spin, tracks advance, and the tape spools move with playback progress
If you land on the site without a URL, a random preset tape loads automatically.
Customisation
Every tape has four things you can change:
Cover design
Five cassette cover designs with different visual aesthetics. Pick the one that fits the mood of your playlist.
Shell colour
Ten cassette body colours: blue, orange, dark grey, light grey, green, yellow, red, purple, pink, and cream.
Background
24 background styles ranging from clean gradients to retro patterns, animated synthwave grids, and textured surfaces like wood grain and denim.
Label
Free-text label for your tape. This appears on the cassette and in social media previews when you share it.
Playback
Controls are straightforward: play/pause, previous track, next track. The cassette reels animate during playback — the left spool shrinks as tape plays out while the right spool grows. Track title and progress (e.g. “3 of 12”) are shown below the cassette.
Preset Tapes
Rock or Pop includes curated preset tapes to get started:
Curated collections — Campfire Classics, Back to School, BOC, 80s German Synth, 80s All The Way, An Afternoon’s Electronica, Somewhere in Northern Italy 1983
Hotlists — Pop Hotlist 2025, Hip-Hop Hotlist, Country Hotlist, Latin Hotlist 2025
Sharing
Every tape is encoded in the URL. When you share a link, the recipient sees your exact cassette — same cover, shell, background, label, and playlist.
Copy link — copies the current tape URL to your clipboard.
Social sharing — share directly to Facebook, X, or LinkedIn. Social media previews show the actual cassette design as a card image with your label and current track.
URL Parameters
The full state lives in the URL:
rockorpop.com/?cover=1&shell=10&bg=6&label=Campfire%20Classics&playlist=RDCLAK5uy_...| Parameter | Values | Description |
|---|---|---|
cover | 1–5 | Cassette cover design |
shell | 1–10 | Cassette body colour |
bg | 1–24 | Background pattern |
label | text | Tape label (URL-encoded) |
playlist | ID | YouTube playlist ID |
video | ID | Start at a specific video (optional) |
Default values (1) are omitted to keep URLs short.