I think the PAC is basically done. I did the whole thing in Spotify this year, which was not intentional and is far from ideal, but i guess on the plus side everything's available on Spotify for maybe the first time ever? I've got a placeholder in for the last track though. I'm planning to record a cover. Haven't decided if i'm doing that solo, or with Cats on Leashes, or damidol if we do in fact reform, or if i'll put together a new band.
Not that it isn't always personal, but this year is very heavy for me. Almost every song is there this year because, for me, it's either about Amanda's death, or leaving LA (because of Amanda's death), or figuring out who i am without her and moving on. There are only two exceptions.
I also paid very close attention to the lyrics this year, which you will be shocked to learn, i haven't always. I was listening to the remastered versions that i started putting out a couple years ago and got to one track from PAC 2017 and caught a lyric i'd never noticed that's so jarringly hateful that i skip that song now. I'm actively considering re-remastering it so that i can rewrite history and remove that song. I wonder what else i've put out in this series, which i've long referred to as "my autobiography as a mixtape," which i would not want associated with me. It's not even that it's aged badly, if i'd bothered to fucking look up the lyrics in 2017 i probably would've dropped that one right there and then. It's not lost on me that that's the same volume that i delayed because i had to remove a song written by someone who'd just been outed as a pedophile and sexual predator.
So this year i've read all of the lyrics. Partially to avoid that kerfuffle again, but mostly to search for deeper, more personal meanings. Artists always have their own ideas when they write these things, but what you truly get out of any piece of art is dependent on what you bring into it. That axiom is striking hard this year.
I haven't even begun to think about the packaging, but i'm gonna go ahead and get started on the liner notes. The track listing may still change, but probably not much.
