My wife and I have been friends for close to 30 years. Married for 5. When we we're moving in together we found 2 artifacts that make this hit home.
She had a CD Binder with a WinXP CD and THE key written on it in my handwriting from 20 years ago and
I had a Portisehead CD with her writing on it. That CD / Album (Dummy) always made me think of her. And is likely one of the reasons I crushed so hard for all these years.
There is something to be said for the burned CD being my generations mixtape ala High Fidelity.
Portishead is sex. It makes sex, out of thin air. If you're in a room with a potential partner and you put on Portishead, you will soon be having sex. If you play Portishead when you're alone in a room, a partner will appear to have sex with you. If you play Portishead in an empty room and come back in a half hour, there will be people in the room having sex.
I remember making mix CDs. I still have some blank CDs somewhere, including probably a few of those Verbatim ones with the vinyl-like ridge pattern on the printed side.
What do young people do in place of mix CDs these days? Send each other a sequence of Spotify/Youtube links in real time?