This mixtape is called Hard Drive Melt Down

Last week my computer died. It was quite unexpected yet only marginally inconvenient. Luckily I was in hyperbolic spitting distance of two Apple stores. However, after getting my work life back on track I discovered that the external hard drive that I use for music storage had died as well. This kickstarted several emotional stages. I knew that I had redundancies of all the files across multiple hard drives but what I had lost was the curation. Funnily enough just two months prior I had wiped my entire music library and began rebuilding it from scratch. Who does that in 2021? This fucking guy.

Here's where the emotions got more complicated. I didn't exactly know how best to re-build. How do I recreate my previous two months of work? How do I make sure everything lines back up? The night before my computer died I had just begun a new mix that I was stoked on and excited to finish. How do I get those vibes back?

These questions paralyzed me from moving forward and in turn brought on the eventual self doubt and questioning.

Why the fuck are you even doing this?

While I was in the midst of this tailspin Spotify Wrapped lists started showing up in my social feed. One of my absolute favorite things in this world is discovering new music. I am also a data nerd and have made a career of dorking around with 1s and 0s. That being said, when I looked at multiple Wrappeds I felt nothing. The music/data lover in me wants to enjoy the concept but the more troublesome part of my brain goes down a dark k-hole of how data ruins everything.

Oddly this helped smooth out my emotional roller coaster. After a few false starts of trying to perfectly recreate my curated library I wiped the whole thing and started over. I also was re-inspired to make a new mix (an emotional roller coaster unto itself which I'll touch on another day).

Around my house I am regularly accused (with good reason) of being a robot. As an introvert of Scandinavian heritage I am not surprised that I am perceived as emotionally cold and withholding. So perhaps if it wasn't due to my relationship with music I too would consider myself a robot. Music helps remind me that I am nothing but an emotional wreck like everyone else.

quick soapbox - One thing that "Wrapped szn" (to quote the great Hanif Abdurraqib) points out is just how important music is to all of our lives. Please make sure that however you consume music that you go out of your way to ensure that your favorite artists are compensated. Buy a shirt, buy the album on vinyl, go to a show (safely), join and use Bandcamp. I am not going to debate one cent vs half a cent or number of streams and user base. I'll let you wrestle with all that.

This mix came really close to not happening. It is also is my favorite so far. I am really proud of this one and it's exactly what I wanted for this moment right now. Also it DEFINITELY has swear words.