Welcome to the Mixtape Corner

 
 

This is a cozy little section of the site dedicated to playlists.

While I’m still critical of Spotify and all that the streaming model entails, I am not immune to a good playlist. I guess when you spend all day listening to music (regardless of platform), your brain just automatically starts to categorize and sequence things in a way that makes sense.

I have around 600 playlists on Spotify, and if that sounds like a lot, you’re right! I don’t use them all, but they have each served a different role in my music fandom at one point or another. Some playlists are decade-spanning compendiums of an artist’s work organized chronologically; others are goofy jokes based on some superficial connective tissue. Some of these I listen to every week, others are an attempt to capture a specific time and place in my life. The point is that my Spotify sidebar is long and full of playlists, so I created this as a place where I can share some of my favorites and discuss them in short form.

 
 
 

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Mixtape #11 - It's Always Emo in Philadelphia
Mixtape #11 - It's Always Emo in Philadelphia

Emo bands love a few things: weed, guitar tapping, and (apparently) the FX sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Fittingly, the first time I noticed this trend came from one of Philly's strongest warriors, The Wonder Years, when the pop-punk band named a song on their second album “It’s Never Sunny in South Philadelphia.” The first time I actually heard the show name-dropped in a song was Macseal’s tap-happy early hit “Cats,” then “Pepe Silvia” from the now-defunct Perspective, A Lovely Hand To Hold. By the time I heard “Fight Milk” by Riley! I realized this was a real trend unfolding right before my ears. While normies have an inexplicable draw to The Office, it seems that Midwest Emo bands can’t get enough of the Paddy’s Pub gang. I decided to do the only logical thing and throw all these songs in a playlist that continues to grow to this day, up to and including the closer from this year’s Home Is Where album. 

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