‘To Unpack My Music’: Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Mixtape Aesthetics

Abstract

ABSTRACT Elizabeth Wurtzel’s early career as a music journalist not only gave her a foothold in publishing but also informed her work as a memoirist and cultural critic. Like past music writers, particularly Ellen Willis, Wurtzel broke away from ‘objective’ critical orthodoxy and found musical touchstones to complement and amplify her most introspective writing. Often dispensing with linear narrative (or strict veracity), Wurtzel assembles episodes from her life (in the case of autobiography) or history as one would arrange songs on a mixtape, with subjective impressions and reference points channelled through music. As a medium for young-adult communication, the mixtape thrives on idiosyncrasy and both a deflection and absorption of inchoate emotion. Commiseration and a plea for empathy embed themselves within a mix’s ‘code,’ along with elements of gift-exchange; a similar urge to pack subjectivity into existing discourse distinguishes Wurtzel’s writings. Re-evaluating Wurtzel’s body of work as an outgrowth of her ‘mixtape aesthetics,’ we encounter a bold alternative method for the collection and transmission of knowledge in life writing and cultural criticism.