OMG NEW REWARD PATREON HAPPY FUN TIME THING (Patreon)

We're starting a new monthly feature here at the Mad Fiction Laboratory!

Wha? Why? did we meet a new goal?

Nope.

Is it my birthday?

Maybe? Statistically, it's probably one of your birthdays. Three more weeks til mine though.

No, I just really wanted to. I've wanted to do this one for a long time, but work and child and EMOTIONS have sapped all my energy til now. Well, I still have no energy, but this morning a tiny sparrow of motivation barely brushed by my window on its way to ruin someone's freshly-washed car, so here we are.

You see, back in the time known as "the day," we weren't all on Twitter and Facebook and Patreon and whathaveyou, we were all on Livejournal. It's true! Ask your grandparents! 

And on Livejournal, there was a community called Audiography. And it was so fucking good. I got a huge proportion of my all-time favorite music from that community. It completely refreshed my love of pop music and made me aware of new bands and old that I'd never have come in contact with otherwise. I miss it SO BAD.

You probably know where this is going.

The way Audiography worked was that each week, the mods would post a theme, which could be anything from very abstract (The Color Blue) to emotional (Why Daddy Left Us) to artistic (I genuinely remember two weeks back to back where Jacques Derrida and Mark Rothko were the themes). The key was that they were never anything genre or music related like Swing Bands or Dubstep or that sort of thing. The themes were ideas, which made people dig into their libraries for something that fit, regardless of era, genre, beat, artist, or any other consideration.

Which meant you got songs you might never, ever listen to otherwise, just because they had the word "blue" in the title--or even just made some beautiful synesthete feel blue.

It was the BEST.

But like all good things, Livejournal died in a fireball of DDOS attacks, mobile incompatibility, and the times simply moving on. Which sucks, and sucks every day.

But we can still get some of the good things back! Thus, I introduce to you, the Audiography Reboot.

This is how it'll work.

I'll post a theme every month (every week is a lot, but if we're all having enough fun, I'll consider it!) and you guys post your songs that match it in the comments. More than one is fine, but let's keep it to three for manageability. When the thread seems to have settled, I'll pull together a playlist on Spotify for us all to share! 

A couple of notes:

I'm using Spotify for ease but a lot of great artists aren't on there. If they're not, please provide a link to where the song can be found, Bandcamp, etc

Please feel free to explain your thoughts on your songs, your history with them (audiography, it's in the name) and why you chose them! The discussion is the best part. 

PM me if you want to suggest themes, I'm totally open to requests. 

This will be open to everyone at every tier. It's not about making higher tiers more attractive, it's just something I want to do, so I'm keeping it super casual. 

Using the tags, you'll be able to go back and look at old themes and songs as we progress and find even more awesome music there!

BUT WHAT'S THE FIRST THEME, CAT?

This month's theme is super simple while we all get used to the game: HAPPINESS.

Things aren't spectacular for anyone so I'm bucking the trend. The song can have any form of the word "happiness" in the title or lyrics (happy, happier, unhappy, etc), or it can just be a song that makes you feel happy, or indeed one that makes you feel like happiness is impossible. It can simply remind you of a happy time in your life with no obvious other connection, or from a movie with happiness as a theme or title or dialogue or whatever. It just has to authentically connect to this word, no matter how many degrees of separation that takes. Explaining why this song is half the fun.

Post up to three songs in the comments, discuss each others' choices, and I'll pull the playlist together by the end of the month!

I AM SO EXCITED! GET IN, WE HEADING TO 2008 AND AUDIOGRAPHY IS BACK.