Halloween Pumpkin Smash!

My graveyard smash “mix-tape” as I prefer to call it with some nostalgia, will be the one to listen with your friends and family. Either by sharing it now or when it’s safe enough to get together. Here’s to hope we can all get on the same page so that that feeling we call safe will be here sooner. So, I’d like to think I chose mostly timeless songs mixed in with a bit of modern edge. My choices were based on whether or not I thought they had staying power. You cannot please everyone but I most certainly tried. In my head I had imagined people getting together, and in Manitoba where I am from, we have something called Socials. It’s like the familiar school dance but mostly with adults and you can consume alcohol beverages plus there’s food and silent auction prizes. They are a lot of fun! Halloween can take on a different meaning for everyone, but for me it feels like tradition and socials are a tradition here, a fun one at that.

Our house is always filled with song, something me and my daughter love. I am not committed to one single genre; I love it all. I like to mix it up so I create playlists often and share with my family. My methods vary to creating each playlist and can be a little unconventional, I put in a lot of work. The first thing I do is start by adding any and every song I can hear playing or that others I know would like to hear. When I think I may be done adding, that’s when I get to working on organizing the sounds. It’s essentially like dumping a box of puzzle pieces and then making them mesh together. Like a harmony sort of. Trying to achieve a flow from each song to the next. Once I‘ve listened to it a dozen times or so I then work on the little details to blend, it's like an art. I set the crossfade to about four seconds and use the gapless playback option, this all helps the transition from one song to the next. I usually ask for suggestive input before or after doing this, sometimes my family gives awesome suggestions on songs I can add in that I may have forgot about. My taste is so diverse that sometimes it can be hard to remember. Lastly, changing the cover art also offers an aesthetic appeal, makes it easy to look for in a sea of playlists.

The songs are put in an order to manipulate a crowd's mood, deciding from ascending to descending how I could picture the crowd of people. That means I usually start off strong to get people pumped up. I think to myself is this a song you could strut into a crowded room of people with sunglasses on regardless if its nighttime and look really awesome? If the answer is yes then I have got my start. Also, my playlist I chose to keep it around 4hrs long to accommodate the listener(s) with little to no risk of a replay. There's old and new, plus you've got the novelty of the classic go to. However, that being said I put in songs that are fun and will get people singing along or even dancing. A lot of the songs I put in I’ve heard before at a party or social and I wasn’t the only one in the crowd that was singing along. That is the whole point of Halloween. Having fun, finding common ground, dressing up as whatever you want, and maybe even getting a little spooked too!