Mix Tape Time
When grandma went to choir practice, grandpa would tell callers that she couldn't come to the phone because she was "down at the church screaming."
Well, hello, everyone! I'm pleasantly surprised at how many subscribers I already have here. I'm really feeling loved. Thank you.
Many of you know that I've been on a music playlist kick for a few weeks. Making playlists is so much more fun now that some music services allow you to collaborate on them directly. We're going to make one together here, but I'll get to that in a minute.
I've recently roped a few of my (very tolerant) friends into making playlists with me that feel more mix tape than algorithm. It's been REALLY fun. I don't have a lot of rules. Generally, I aim to keep the playlists to a CD's length of time, which is about 74 minutes). If you want to try this with your friends, here are my other rules:
- No LLM "AI" song-picking - the fun is in the hunt!
- You CAN use LLM at the end to create a smooth flow from song to song, if you want to
- Each person picks 50% of the songs
- Each person can veto a song choice by the other
This activity has brought me so. much. joy.
It's been really insightful to go over my favorites and assign them to friends. My friends are all so different from each other. My favorite artists are, too.
Some artists have had so much spin time with me recently that it's become a running joke. In my teens, though, I used to think of myself as a sort of girl version of the absolute legendary Matt Pinfield with how much I knew about the music business. Everything from Selena to Korn was in my skip-proof CD player at any given moment.
And while I don't enjoy rehashing old memories and generally avoid it unless I'm trying to problem-solve for Next Time™, I have really enjoyed the chance to dig into mutual musical history with friends. I'd legit forgotten how good some of my friends' favorite songs used to be.
Music has really changed the course of my life - I still get amazed that my best and longest friendship was forged in heated discussion on an old John Mayer message board.
I'm always playing music. I've always been playing music. I was born into a musical family. My father was one of the lead singers in an oldies band and my grandmother would sing and yodel at the church shows*. No matter where I went, someone was always singing, playing an instrument, or blasting an album.
*Junk Note - When grandma went to choir practice, grandpa would tell callers that she couldn't come to the phone because she was "down at the church screaming." My grandfather was an ass most of the time- but he was really funny.
The stars didn't align for me to be a professional singer, sadly. I actually used to sing decently when I was young, but then a Thyroglossal Duct Cyst (you don't actually want to click on that) and a longer-than-expected surgery ended up scarring my vocal cords. That hasn't stopped me from singing nonstop, though. It's just not pleasant for most* people (or animals) to be within 10-15 feet of me singing.
*Junk Note - all
Anyway - the whole purpose of this post is really to invite you to make a mix tape with me here. I hope that you will! Here's a link to the Apple Music playlist, which is currently unmoderated. (Don't make me have to moderate, please.) If you can't access it via that link, send me a note with your song choices and I'll add them for you.
Let's have some fun here! I'll give an update in a few days to see how it goes.
-MJ
