creative zen's 'zenternet browsing' mix, and MTV2 reminiscing

Long time no see, friends. Hope you're all doing well! Since releasing the follow up to creative zen's touch entitled micro (which you can find here), I'd been thinking about doing a fun mix of y2k, frutiger-related tracks I've found in the last year, and I made it happen. I guess this counts as a brief commercial break "exclusive", LOL 

creative zen - zenternet browsing

"songs i've scrobbled in the last few months"

1. ax14 - Morning dew
2. 486 Paradise - MediaCenter
3. Dreaming Diary - JPEG Flowers
4. General Translator - 歓迎Plasma Lounge
5. chlorophyll - escalator dreams
6. HANAWARI YUMEKO - 世界間のつながり
7. TCR-4 - pay-per-view menu
8. post dive - Dreamcore
9. Brickmason - s e t . a l a r m . 0 6 : 3 0
10. alyzea - dream OS
11. enterprises - lukes birthday party.jpg
12. frutiger pm - frutiger pm
13. Aero Corp - ! ! motivating forces ! !
14. STAQQ OVERFLO - natural logon (3)
15. Agnar - MP3 for Humanity
16. Satin Sheets - OPUS
17. 世纪重塑 - 数字花园Digital Garden
18. climbing waterfalls - condensation room
19. Ghost Enterprise - Deep Web Dance Club
20. Your Bestest Friend -) - FOREVER CONNECTED
21. INTERNET CLUB - MAPMAKER
22. Mr. Roy G Biv - Goodnight

Click here to download the mix.

Kind of related, but I've been thinking back to 2001-2002, the days when my high school bestie's mom would pet sit for a friend of hers who was pretty well off. Their house blew my mind as a person who lived in a pretty dilapidated house as a child. Three floors, a beautiful backyard, and most significantly, a fully furnished basement with a TV, two couches, and a fancy office with two Compaq computers. That basement became our palace. I watched as my bestie, J, flirted with randos in Yahoo Messenger chat rooms who would send her bouquet emotes, and we searched through the family's folders for photos we could edit on Paint Shop Pro; thankfully they were mostly family photos and stock images, nothing too crazy. We watched Homestar Runner videos and went to random flash sites, hoping that we wouldn't infect the family's computers and get ourselves banned from using their PCs ever again. I have a specific memory of watching the banned version of Incubus' Wish You Were Here (in a freshly post-9/11 world, the visual of the members jumping off of a bridge could evoke memories of people jumping out of the towers, so Incubus redid the video with footage from the Morning View house instead), an .rm file that was pixelated to all hell, my stan flag flying with pride. But that's not the point of this tangent. 

This family could afford to have satellite TV.

This family had MTV2. 

I'd heard about MTV2, but us poors with normal cable (saying this tongue-in-cheek, of course) didn't get MTV2 until, like...2004, 2005ish? When more TV shows were taking over the channel, and it wasn't as focused on music as I saw it in 2001. 2001 MTV2 blew my fucking mind, and we basically kept it on in the background at all times, but I most of all cherished sitting on the couch, glued to the screen, watching MTV2's Control Freak. Looking back, why did we never use the computer to vote for our favorites? Maybe I was too mesmerized? Maybe J didn't want to use her email? I know I didn't have an email at that time, this was just before I got a computer of my own. Maybe we were too young to register an account and were too goody goody to lie? (Well, idk about that, I feel like J lied about her age for lols in those Yahoo Messenger chats) But the main reason why I fell in love with that channel was because MTV2 was digging deeper than main MTV was. They were showing videos by more underground artists, videos of various genres beyond what was popular at the time. It was truly my exposure to electronic music. The excitement I felt is something I'll never forget.

VHS rips of that show seem to be few and far between, possibly because of copyright, possibly because the tapes got tossed into a dump before somebody could preserve them 10-20 years later. I did find a brief rip of a Control Freak recording, courtesy of a private VHS-related torrent site that I'm thankful still exists (sadly, they closed off invites around the time I disappeared in 2016). I hope one day, somebody comes through with the ultimate jackpot so I can fully go down the rabbit hole, explore what I wish I could have witnessed for longer than a few hours every few weeks or months. 

Anywho, videos I fondly remember from my brief love affair with MTV2:
Nikka Costa - Like A Feather
Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood
The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
Daft Punk - One More Time
Alicia Keys - Fallin'
Lil' Mo - Superwoman (feat. Fabolous)
Basement Jaxx - Where's Your Head At
Moby - Natural Blues
Cake - Short Skirt/Long Jacket
The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be

Glad I got to experience that time while I could.

Hopefully another post soon with things I've liked lately. For now, take care!

Rest in peace, 회사AUTO.

 

Two days ago, I thought about Sensory Overload, a track Zach and I collaborated on twelve years ago. I'd felt inspired by Afoot by Gang Gang Dance and Lizzi's spoken word style over that song. She had quoted parts of an article that I remember stumbling upon years ago, one that I can't find presently. When Zach sent me Sensory Overload, I was surprised to hear something so outside of his usual output, frenetic and panicked, and I had no fucking clue what to do with it. But then I thought of Afoot and decided I wanted to borrow the concept, choosing to have RoboLux (the voice of my online radio show) quote an article I'd stumbled upon about muzak. I remember the response to the song was polarizing, soooo many confused Soundcloud comments! But I felt proud of it, and thrilled to have stepped outside of the box for a moment. 

I had no idea why I thought of Sensory Overload out of the blue, but now I feel like there may have been good reason. 

I'm thankful for the memories I had with him, laughing and dancing with him and the SPF420 homies in our private Tinychat room, the first time I heard Ηδω (video linked above) and knowing I was hearing a classic, countless park walks listening to his Fortune 500 releases, seeing his FlamingoFest 2 set and meeting his very sweet father. I'm so sorry we didn't talk more that day, Zach. I wish I could have given you one more hug goodbye. 

I feel like the most appropriate way to close this out is with a song you'd submitted for The Music of the Now Age III compilation, a song you called "stardust [in the end, we all die]". I can only hope that, wherever you've traveled off to, that the journey there was as peaceful as this song makes it sound. Goodbye, friend. 

Project Iced In, and more cool albums. Another megapost? Probably!

Long time, no see, homies. Hope you're all doing well. Like millions of other U.S. folks, I've been holed up in my house, experiencing a gnarly winter storm. In my neck of the woods, people prepared for a foot of snow, only to get a kindasorta surprise ice storm instead. Thankfully, we've not lost power over here, and knock on wood we continue to have power as we get significantly colder for the next week!

I've been spending my time reading more of Room to Dream by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna. I started this book in early December, and between a busier work schedule and silly home distractions, I've been really slow at reading this one, slower than I'd like considering IT'S DAVID LYNCH, LIKE HELLOOOOO. At the time I'm writing this, I'm on the chapter centered around Wild at Heart, groaning audibly because I actually really hate the second half of the movie, enjoying reading David's commentary about it. I challenged myself to listen to the 3483678478 albums that have been sitting in my Foobar queue while reading, a project I've chosen to call "Project Iced In". Here's what I've listened to, and I will be editing this and adding more albums. As always, links will open in a new window:

midnight frequency - こんばんは!
y o u r d i s c o v e r y - P E R I S H
VCRNOT - Networks
swiftswitch - neverending passage
魚魚 - nautical
transparent bones - recovered data mix
PC_GIRL限定 - ＭＡＣ ＩＩ
opal東京 - U.S. Mail
Brickmason - Liquid Mall
生活LIFE - new age
STAQQ OVERFLO - abort, retry, ignore
Mom and Dad's Computer - Deep Seasons
QUIE7QUI77ERS - permatourism
Xenon Masters - THE ROYAL HOTEL
ｗｉｎｄｏｗｓ - ｔｈｅ ｑｕｉｅｔ ｓｔｏｒｍ
celadonDREAM Suite - Ces Nuits Glamour
known artiste + undersaken - Deathclocks
Agnar - MP3 for Humanity
開花ｏｒｃｈｉｄｓ - ░コンピュータアニメーションの未来!░
ロフト tapes - Trackpack カセット 2
I cannot disclose what this is, it's a homie's recent demos, and AAAAA
Your Bestest Friend :) - I <3 MY CELLPHONE
clust.r - autumn break down (unreleased as of right now!)
christtt - soft rock
Various Artists - WEB / そ　の　意　味　で
CLV - Нᴀ ʙᴏᴧнᴀх циᴋᴧᴏɸᴩᴇнии
Dreamcastle™ - t i m e t w i s t e r s (hidden album!)
bootlegbby - ONE NIGHT ONLY
Vektroid & New Dreams Ltd. - Fuji Grid TV II: EMX
ｙｏｕ　ｓｔｉｌｌ　ｆｅｅｌ　ｔｈｅｍ　ｏｕｔ　ｔｈｅｒｅ，　ｄｏｎ＇ｔ　ｙｏｕ - 幻 の そ の 他
Immaculate Emancipation - 無原罪の解放 + Introduction to Riddles of The Revered Lady
Amherst - Like New
victory over death - 画面 temptation
Replicating Patterns - Beyond the Realms
WINDMILL - VHS MOSAIC
AMBASSADOR CLASS - Leaving Micronesia™
ako - All Watched Over by Algorithms of Loving Grace
PeoplePC - Life
Crownplaza - Exile
vcr-classique - dream line
GLYPHICS - TV Theme / The Undoing
鮮烈な思い出 - 月光メランコリア

It's been wonderful listening to albums on my computer again. I used to work second shift so I'd listen to music as I showered and got ready for work, but moving to first shift and not wanting to wake Isaac up has thrown that off, and I'm usually super fucking bad with listening to albums after work for some reason. Doing Project Iced In is making me feel eager to change that, and it's also making me a bit nostalgic for the high school days where I was constantly listening to music, ejecting one CD from my computer and playing another. I miss you, Winamp (and Windows Media Player to an extent, bring back the weird green head skin)!

My reading breaks have been spent watching ridiculous YouTube commentary videos and extracting the embarrassing amount of zipped albums I've amassed since August. At one point, I can't recall if it was in the middle of being in extraction zone or when I started, but I definitely had 260-something zips to extract. I have 50 left. My Foobar queue has only gotten larger, filled to the brim with 2025 albums I'm overdue in listening to, with some of the newer stuff ready to listen to on my Dodocool. 

Since I've taken 5ever on making a new post, here are a few more cool albums I've listened to and enjoyed in the last few months:

SkyTwoHigh & Lindsheaven Virtual Plaza - Imaginary Pathways - It'd been a few years since I heard this album, and it still chokes me up as it did during my first listen. I vividly remember the listening party for this, sobbing my eyes out and wishing that Cesar could have been there to experience the love his split with SkyTwoHigh was receiving. It's a truly gorgeous release. God, I miss him.
Various Artists - 永遠の (Eternal) - This comp came on right after I finished Imaginary Pathways and I continued to be emotionally destroyed. Asutenki's track in particular really fucking got me. I'm unsure what happens after death, but I hope somewhere, Cesar was able to check out this touching compilation made in his honor. 
Seductive Gateways - Magic WAVs - It's time that this album gets the attention it deserves. This collab between P A T H S パス and Digital Sex/Dreaming Diary went way under the radar in my opinion. I listened to this years ago on a flight, and it didn't grab me for some reason. I'm quite thankful that I chose to revisit it because I've now seen the light. All I Can See FUCKING RULES
intra - I'll Survive For You - I'm usually not the biggest breakcore girly, usually Isaac's the one blaring it from his office, but intra's debut album was a very pleasant surprise!
climbing waterfalls - Next gen engine - It breaks my heart that climbing waterfalls deleted their earlier releases from their Bandcamp, I liked their y2k-adjacent releases quite a bit. Thank goodness this one's been preserved through YouTube! 
Hotel Pools - Evenings 夕暮れ Vol. 1 - Admittedly, chillsynth is extremely hit or miss for me. There's a lot of it I wish I liked more. That said, listening to this album on a chilly drive to work one morning felt like I was drinking some sort of lavender coffee. Does that even exist? It made me feel energized for my work day but also extremely relaxed, calm, optimistic! It's such a pretty release, and I highly recommend you check this out. 
SKINDANCE - CREEP TAPES: 炎 - Another pleasant surprise! I feel like I am insulting this album by describing it as a darker barber beats album because I feel like it's more than that? It feels like it goes into weirder realms like b e g o t t e n 自杀 or 아버지. I don't know, listen for yourself and see if you agree here.
Brickmason - r i n g t o n e . d r e a m s - Hi, Brick, I know you're reading this, and I think I even told you this privately, but may I say again that THESE NEED TO BE LONGER! I know, they're ringtones, but they're begging to be extended. It's like I'm listening to crt paralysis' "Slideshow" all over again!
Ahero - Stay Lifted - In my opinion, his best album. His other albums are fab, but THIS ONE. THIIIIIIS ONE. So fucking good! 

There are tons more that could be added in here, but this post is very long already. Sorry that I can't tag all of the artists mentioned in this post! 

Since typing this post out yesterday, I've finally completed my mission of extracting all of those zips that were collecting dust in my Downloads folder, and I'm flying through Room to Dream. I'm starting the Lost Highway chapter shortly! Update: I finished the book. :) 

p.s. I've been quietly watching the horrific brutality shoved upon us by Arrogant Dictator in Office and his ICEstapo, and shit has been bleak. For those of you who are unsure of what to do or how to help, here's a post from r/minnesota with a very in-depth list of links to support: click here, and feel free to forward that link to other friends.

Megamegamegamega cool album links post for October 5, 2025

 "I should make another blog post" is something I've said to myself for the past month now, countless times, but I never got around to it. I either totally got distracted and forgot all about it again, or it was thought about when I needed to focus on another project, or I was just too damn lazy and pushed it off. But here I am, finally, with lots of links to share. Instead of my usual little writeups, I've told myself to leave it at one sentence, and that's it! This is going to be super long anyway, it doesn't need to be longer! As always, links will open in a new window. 

alyzea - dream OS - Do not sleep on this beautiful album!!!!

am spritzer - Studies in fluidity: Act I - LISTEN TO THIS COMPILATION BECAUSE IT RULES.

Apollo Monday - AmigaOS:// - An interesting blend of chillsynth and frutiger. 

ARTIST: UNKNOWN - FLUID - In my opinion, an instant classic. 
ax14 - Promised land - Frutiger inspired but infused with different electronic genres.

bentoboy - DEPTHS-OF-MY-MIND - bentoboy KILLED IT with this one.

chlorophyll - oculus - Every track on this is a gem.

Cool Maritime - Big Earth Energy - Peak Scholastic vibes with this beautiful album!

Corporate Vibes - Vol. 1 - Introducing you all to a release that should have gotten a following ten years ago.

Dan Mason - Late Nite - Full of super dreamy jazz sampled bops!

☾☾♞DR⨊▲♏︎₡R△₷H♞☽☽ - DREAMCRASH EP - MFW THIS WITCH HOUSE PROJECT WAS DONE BY DESIGNER JEANS, WHAT THE FUCK
enterprises - photos (:E) - One of my favorite albums of the year.

General Translator - Amorotica - This goes in plenty of different directions sonically, and it all souns so good.

Faint Waves - The Big Dream - Tribute - A touching ode to David Lynch and Twin Peaks.
私の部屋で♡ - 私​の​心​か​ら​あ​な​た​へ - Truly gorgeous release, this is.
INTERNET CLUB - FORMAT BLUE - This is now my second favorite IC record after UNDERWATER MIRAGE!

JPEGSTRIPES - foreign transmission - Another favorite of this year! 

LAST CEREMONY - Pools & Palm Trees - Brings me back to my chillwave Turntable.fm days.
limerence - love, limmy - Hands down, I'd say this is Limmy's best album.

Lindsheaven Virtual Plaza - NTSC Memories - CESAR FOREVER.

midnight surfing - midnight surfing - A cool 2000s flashback.

Mitch Murder - Salary Man Simulator - This is SO SO SO CUTE. 

Niveum - Dream Pool - An (imo) underrated gem of an album in the future funk scene. 
Notorious Secret & Lost Traveler ロスト - A fun split/collab that goes into some sexy territories.

Penthouse Suite - Working Title - Nonstop bop emojis with this one.

post dive - e-lounge - GODDAMN THIS ALBUM IS FAB

セーブ画面 - Save Rooms + Cutscenes - Soothing music for a place you'll never be able to leave.

𝙎𝙆𝙔 𝙎𝙋𝙊𝙍𝙏𝙎 - 𝘀𝗸𝘆𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀.𝗰𝗼.𝘂𝗸 - It's like I am channel surfing in 2008 all over again.

Ｓｐｏｒｔ３０００ - ＶＨＳ Ｓｔａｒｄｕｓｔ - Soothing sign-off music. 
ｔｅｐｈ　ｃｏ. 愛 & Mom and Dad's Computer - InvestmentSim閲歴 - A very lovely and super cohesive release. 
The Signalwave Community - TELETEXT: The International Signalwave Compilation - Loads of great tracks on this release.

u v . e x e - 卒業 - Loving the incorporation of drum and bass in this particular slushwave release.

Various Artists - COMBOCHAMP VOL. 1 - A hella cool idea I wish I would have been able to do 13 years ago. 

waterfront dining - Diners Club - Part 1 - This album is definitely my favorite, the collaborations worked fantastically here.

ZX Spectrogram - Digital Crack - A truly, truly fantastic album. 

I believe I got everything? I feel like I am probably forgetting some albums that deserve some praise here. Maybe it'll just be an excuse to make another post sooner instead of later. Have a good night! 

chillwave hot 100, part one

 

As I created this mix for Roge Corp, I decided to add little comments to each track, stating which album the song came from (or if it was a single) along with the year it was released. One of the included tracks, Girlfriends' Over Me (1989 Tape Version), is a song that vanished from Soundcloud long, long ago. Thankfully I ripped it ages ago and saved it on my external harddrive, preserving it and including it on multiple mixes, even uploading it again to YouTube. However, the artwork associated with it was something I could never recover. Hell, I couldn't even figure out how I found the track for the longest, or where it originated...until tonight. The Girlfriends track originated from a label called Young Girls Tapes, which...terrible to try to Google, please make sure you put the label name in quotes and add Bandcamp or something to it for the LOVE OF GOD. Their Tumblr doesn't pull up through Archive, and the Facebook page didn't seem to get cached anywhere. The Soundcloud page, however, is still wonderfully preserved (though nothing plays), and I FINALLY FOUND THE ARTWORK AGAIN, which I have now chosen to use for the cover of this mix, and all future mixes in this series I call chillwave hot 100. 

These mixes will contain my favorite chillwave and adjacent songs found between 2011 and 2014, songs that appeared on my radar via What.CD's chillwave/balearic/synthwave tags I followed, or posted by Mr. Nonsense of Chillwave/Glo-Fi/Hypnagogic Pop Facebook page fame (miss you, homie, xoxo Lux), or through blogs like Dayvan Zombear and Stolen Lynx (not their original URL, sadly the first one was taken down). For some of you, this may be an introduction to things you've never heard before. For some, this may be a trip down memory lane. Some of these are quite obscure, so much so that I can't really find information on them at all anymore (see: first paragraph). Maybe this will be the reveal of otherwise lost media. Here's the tracklist for part one:

1. Seahawks - Tramadol Beach

2. Jeans Wilder - International Waters

3. Seziki Tetrasheaf - Clops

4. BEWILDERBEAST - Slow It Down

5. Valotihkuu - Bedroom Pop

6. Dreams - 4Runner

7. BILLY COMFORT - WONDER OF WE feat. STEFFALOO

8. Dreams West - Saturn Valley

9. Hype Williams - Blue Dream

10. Sand Circles - Stellar Waves

11. Eleventeen Eston - Panulirus Cygnus

12. Monster Rally - The Birds (Pts. 1-2)

13. Outlands - Com Ocean
14. Le Tropical - Sea Dreams
15. Girlfriends - Over Me (1989 Tape Version)
16. I Va & Jakeel - La XIX Ra
17. Ssaliva - Moth To The Flame
18. Ferrari Jackson - Miami Breeze

Click here to download the mix, and let me know what your favorite track is. I'd love to hear your input. May this summer be the summer of the chillwave revival! 

Cool Albums for May 28, 2025

Look at me, accidentally typing April instead of May. Where has the time gone? Before I know it, it'll be another month gone, and I will have stories to tell about seeing (and hopefully meeting) DEVO.

As I promised in my last post, I'm here sooner versus later to link to some cool albums. Admittedly, secretly working on creative zen affected how often I was listening to anything, so my list may be a bit lackluster, BUT goddamnit, I'm going to try my best here. As always, links will open in a new window. Click away!

Slushwave Social Club - SSCC Volume 5: Brief Glimpses of Quicksilver Dreams; or, Slush in a Rush - I gave this compilation a shoutout in the Hot Takes Super Retrospective episode, and I'm shocked I failed to mention it here. Slushwave can be an intimidating listen for some; each track varies in length from five minutes to 30, and it can be a lot to take in at one time. However, on this compilation, these artists were challenged to create tracks that were a maximum length of four minutes. It's a lovely introduction to artists with whom I hadn't been familiarized, and each track brings something different to the table to boot. There are some extremely gorgeous tracks on here that I enjoyed tremendously.
Ghost Enterprise - Vistas - I am so obsessed with how fantastic this album is, and obsessed with the fact that, for how genuinely sampled it sounds, it's not fucking sampled at all. So much of this brought back really wild flashbacks from my late 90s/early 2000s tweenhood/teen hood in ways that I really didn't anticipate. Listen to Teen Zone, and watch the accompanying Zoog Disney looped commercial, and tell me this doesn't work perfectly. I actually fully had a "Love Blooms in a Chat Room" moment with somebody I met through an Incubus AOL chat room in 2002! (Fun fact: we're still cordial to this day.) These songs sounded like things intentionally compressed for shitty dialup connections like mine to play without too many issues, and I already crave a sequel. Long live 96kbps!
Tommy Martini - Cosmic Dawn - There was an online radio station I would listen to at an old job called Smooth Grooves, which played the best of modern smooth jazz, and this album would fit in so well. It's beautiful, it's relaxing, is it sampled? I don't know that answer. I feel like answers are pointing to no here as well, but I feel awkward approaching this guy I've never met to be like "oh this is beautiful, is this sampled?" He may find that to be insulting! But yeah, I love this album. Give it a listen.
Enraile - Delete Yourself - This album is loud and honestly...sounds like the homie channeled a lot of anger into this. Some tracks get quite abstract and experimental in a way that I wouldn't quite expect from Enraile, but combined with his trademark use of 90s and 2000s R&B, it works really well. Prepare for a lot of distortion, and if you're not headbanging to at least one track, I'll be a. shocked b. sad. (p.s. Have a bonus album recommendation from an Enraile project with the artist Xcellents: Millennium Edition - コネ Software)
定常 w a n d e r e r - a f t e r h o u r s [WIP] - Who knew that a slushy house album would work so well? I'm surprised it's a work in progress, because to me, it feels quite finalized. I bet this would go off during a night drive after a fun time with friends. The only flaw, a very minor flaw: some of these tracks could be a liiiiiiittle bit shortened. Outside of that, the vibe is great. 
Cityman Productions - Enter the Metaverse, A Solarpunk Experience - A similar sound to the beautiful S​​​Ξ​​​CR​​​Ξ​​​+ ΞXPLOR​​​Λ​​​+​​​ION PROGR​​​Λ​​​M [Vol. 1] , a compilation I covered in this post. A gorgeous comp created to provide relief to Ukraine, all of these artists really brought their A-game. I regret how late I was to checking this one out. 

I guess this post wasn't too lackluster. I'm starving, and it's almost time to watch Twin Peaks in the Hot Takes Discord server, so I am going to be like Ben Horne and eat a brie and butter sandwich. Until next time! 

creative zen - touch

 

A loving tribute to mp3 players, which is exactly right up my alley. As many of you know (or maybe have noticed some in my previous blog posts), I have been in full blown mp3 player nostalgia mode for the last few months, reminiscing on how mp3 players have been such an essential part of my music listening history. The same mp3 player I referenced in my Video 2000 post was the same player I was using to fall in love with Vektroid's Telnet Erotika back in early 2011, my go-to album when I was doing everybody's dishes (well, I should revise this: it was either Telnet Erotika or some sort of kindasorta jangly shoegaze album playing), and that same mp3 player was used a year later during my daily walks around the park near my house, listening to things like Seahawks' Tramadol Beach, Outlands' Com Ocean, Whitewoods' Beach Walk, and some of the early pre-coined vaporwave albums. It eventually became flooded with future Fortune 500 releases, and that park was where I first thought of The Music of the Now Age, and I wondered "Will artists even actually send me tracks? I hope so."

But with this album being based in 2005, the year the Creative Zen Touch was brought into the world, let's really go back in time here to my first mp3 player which looked a lot like this (but navy). It was given to me by my bestie's cousin after he'd stolen it from a Big Lots. He had very large Tripp pants, and he had a history of seeing just how much he could successfully smuggle into those pants in one go. My friends and I watched him leave with 50 manga titles from a Books-A-Million once, seeing if he could actually pull it off (still insane that he did, as the bulky pockets of his pants made it stupidly obvious), and we were keeled over laughing in the corner of a cookbook aisle. 

One night, we met a new group of friends at Books-A-Million, and after the store closed, we chose to drive over to the park that was about five or so minutes away. It was a small car, and there were nine of us. The mp3 player-stealing cousin voluntarily chose the trunk, where he and another trunk friend loudly sang Gorillaz' Clint Eastwood to the rest of us up front who were crammed in and sitting in each others' laps, giggling like a bunch of hyenas. One of my friends fell in love with a girl from the group we'd met that night, and they later had a child or two. I always thought that was cute, looking back. 

I'm getting way way way into tangent mode, whoops. All of that to say: the mp3 player that my bestie's cousin grabbed for me has also been linked to many fond memories of my later high school years, finally getting through a very rough depression, developing friendships, and finally ungluing myself from my computer and going out for a change. Cherry Cola by Eagles of Death Metal is forever affiliated with swinging on a swing set behind a Salvation Army gym my class had gone to on a field trip. Alala by Cansei de Ser Sexy will always be linked to me flipping through music trivia books and biographies at Books-A-Million, hoping that music wasn't leaking out through my headphones too badly. Cowbell by Tapes 'n Tapes was never taken out of mp3 player rotation, as that was my go-to cheering up anthem. That will forever be tied to dancing in my bestie's kitchen, the song blaring on her mom's computer. 

Other songs on my mp3 player:

Beck - Scarecrow

Tom Vek - If You Want

Deftones - Knife Prty

The Zutons - Valerie

People in Planes - If You Talk Too Much (My Head Will Explode)

The Thermals - A Stare Like Yours

With only 128MB of storage space on it, I made it work. I think I had 16-18 tracks at most on that thing. It felt like a mixtape I could always have on me, something that didn't require some sort of accompanying player, something I could just immediately fire up and have playing when I needed it. Now, I look at it as a fond time capsule. A 20 year old time capsule. What the fuck.

Enjoy an ode to the impact of mp3 players on many of us in the mid-2000s, and how mp3 players always had an assortment of random songs preloaded upon booting it up for the first time, and think about how these ringtone-y songs have a way of sending someone back in time. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going into my Razr's ringtone settings to make cost of comfort my alarm. 

Download the album at the link below:

https://creative-zen.bandcamp.com/album/touch

Also, new post coming sooner versus later with some cool albums to check out. Talk again soon!