And the music plays forever…

These days, I have reason to be thankful for a lot of things, but at the moment, I’m inordinately grateful for what seems, at least for now, like the greatest thing I’ve ever seen on the Internet: The Infinite Jukebox by Paul Lamere, which has provided the soundtrack for my writing life for most of the past week. Basically, it’s a web app that creates an infinite loop of any song you upload in MP3 format, remixed in real time to move from one point to another by matching beats from throughout the track. You can read more about it here, but there’s no substitute for trying it out for yourself. Before long, I suspect that you’ll be as addicted as I am—it’s really that elegant, ingenious, and hypnotic.

Of course, it takes a little practice to find songs that lend themselves to the form. The ideal track, I’ve found, is long, varied, and self-similar, with enough regularity to afford a large number of possible pathways. A song like “How Soon is Now?” is just about perfect, with its obsessive return to the same lyrics and reverberating chords—although it might be psychologically unhealthy to play it for more than an hour or so. I’ve also had great luck with tracks from Introspective by the Pet Shop Boys and New Order’s “Thieves Like Us” (which allows me to endlessly relive my favorite montage from Pretty in Pink). It’s particularly good for writing: I’m often attempting to capture the mood of a certain piece of music, and this way, I can play it forever. If you’ve got a laptop in the kitchen, give it a try while you’re cooking today. You’ll thank me.