Year-End Poll! & An Update on the Future
Boy howdy!
It wasn’t easy, but we, you and me, have reached the end of 2021. It was a weird year in many respects, and though it certainly had its blessings, but I’m glad to have it done. I wouldn’t be surprised if you are, too.
I have two things I’d like to share with you.
Year-End Poll
First, considering it is the end of the year and despite the fact that the Mixtape was not exactly present this year (more on that in a minute), I wanted to share the annual poll with you all. At this point you’ve received your Spotify Wrappeds and perhaps even read some publication’s assessment of the year in music, so I’d image you’re as ready as your ever be to think about what the past year was in your personal tastes and trends and what the future might hold.
You can click the link below to complete the survey. It should only take a few minutes. The deadline is one week from today, Friday, January 7th. As allows, feel free to share with anyone else who may have interest in completing something like this.
Update on the Future
The Mixtape is typically shared on its titular day, but today it's coming on a Friday, mostly because I want to give friends and readers an update on what's to come. Don't worry, it's not dramatic!
Evidently, the Mixtape did not happen this fall after an initial post or two that went out in early September. (You read that right, I didn’t just exclude you from the email list like some disapproving sphinx.) That sucks, and I’ve felt a fair amount of guilt about it, especially considering a number of you have expressed your encouragement throughout the past months. That is undoubtedly meaningful to me, and while I created the Mixtape without much of an explicit demand for it (i.e. per my own enthusiasm), the kindness of others is the kind of thing that pushes you along when it’s 4 AM on Monday and you’ve been writing all night.
The development of the Mixtape, particularly the written portion, is effortful (and resultantly rewarding). So, as much as I looked forward to the discovering-for and creating-of the Mixtape throughout the year, there was a part of me which feared the burnout of my own inefficient processes - I’m a procrastinator by nature and rarely write with brevity in mind, obviously.
The weekly rotation of the Mixtape, even for just a few short months, is a lot. It’s no bullshit that the music included on the mixes is newly discovered - I avoid dipping back into something I’ve already shared a first spark with, even if it would make something better on the whole. I want the Mixtapes to be good, but I’ve always found the conceptual purity and specificity of its contents are what makes it special to me. Tight turnarounds don’t always make that easy. Sometimes you just don’t find great songs you’re excited about in the span of six days.
This is all to say that I am altering my system to hopefully make it a bit more sustainable for myself and more enjoyable for whatever readers who have made it this far. My intention is to release the Mixtape twice a month (on Mondays, of course), likely on the second and fourth weeks, though I’ll claim my flexibility when necessary. I’m imagining it running through the end of May and then figuring out how things are going from there.
As such, the first post should go out on on January 10th, so mark your calendars! I’m excited to do this and do it right. I made mention of it in my preliminary post earlier this year, but 2021 was such a year of consumption, of musical inhalation for me, that I feel as though I have so much listening to do of things that I’ve collected in past nine months. (For example, when I began writing this I was sitting in LAX with two dozen records and a handful of CDs sitting in my carry-on.) I think there is a lot to look forward to.
Have a happy and safe new year! I’m excited to get this going and can’t wait to hear what you’ve been listening to this past year. More to come in the coming weeks!
Peace,
TG