I think I'm goin' back to the things I learned so well in my youth
Traktor screenshot for 363 - well it has already changed from this!
So a big challenge has been getting inspired again about the podcast...I knew it would happen if I just did a time-out, and I think I worked out what the problem was.
In October 2020 I split the podcast into two, as a response to new mashup people who had NO idea about the old guard. In a huff about the lack of knowledge I did special mashup podcasts, kind of back to where I started, alternating with non-mashup podcasts.
I quickly found that people were waiting for me to 'go back to mashups' but that the audience was very fickle - people would support the podcasts they were featured on, and then never be seen for dust for the rest.
I got quite depressed about the whole thing, because it was obvious that it was tumbleweed for the other podcasts, and bursty - but not really a long term audience - for the others. So I stopped doing them in January - that podcast as sitting on my hard drive for 2 WEEKS before I edited it, that's how excited I was to get it out. Never happened before. Warning Klaxon!
So finally there are some songs and things I want to play, including mashups. I am now intending to reunify the two parts of the podcast...
Playing around with the playlists in Traktor I've realised a) how unmixable with non-mashups a lot of the mashups I was selecting for the other shows are, bit like the community it doesn't really play well with others...and b) that you can get away with meh-ups as a friend calls them, stuff that isn't so great if it's surrounded by other mashups. As soon as you plop it next to a good non-mashup, all of it's problems come out of the woodwork like little bugs.
So yes, I think I was settling for lesser just to pack those episodes with mashups, that's what the nagging feeling was, that I felt I was doing it 'for the audience' and not me, that I felt like a mashup jukebox, and that I was playing stuff that worked but tbh some of it probably isn't the best given the frequency.
It's exactly why I stopped doing nearly 100% mashup podcasts back in 2006...because there are some GREAT mashups, now over 20 years of them, and more if you include what came before as I do....but it's rather too 'rich' and 'sickly sweet' to have them all in regularly, and a 2 hour podcast you soon run out of the best ones. New good interesting mashups are out there, but they are not arriving every day.
So back to mashups all mixed in, more this time, not the odd one or two I did for years, but I'm finding this process doesn't let the mashups off the hook, and insists they are friendly with other tracks AND are at that level.
It really has filtered down a lot of them, but I think it's for the best.
And yes, little clumps of them work too - and like all tracks that don't Make Up And Be Friendly I can put the best ones at the start or end....but it really does put a magnifying glass onto them in harsh sunshine.
I'd rather play the best music including some mashups than try to include everyone and it be a bit shit, and have a smaller audience that gets what I do vs a larger one that really doesn't care about the wider picture. Because I have to stay inspired and interested too - and I can't just do that as it was.
It'll probably be called 'Highs and Blows (Puppet Show)' or just bluntly 'You Don't Get Me High Anymore' after this cover/song which will feature.
Every podcast there is 1-2 'key songs' and it's all about the lyrics usually, a message to you, Rudy. I sneak several layers and levels in, even the names have double meanings, I like things hidden in plain sight like that, like secret public codes. That said, I think this one in places is going to be direct, too direct I worry....
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