“It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times” is how I believe A Tale of Two Cities would have begun if the plot had taken place in the cursed year of 2020. Each day comes with news catastrophic enough to commemorate the entire year alone, but then we are somehow hit again the next day...and the day after that. Time, as a concept, is even harder to grasp these days, as each day is as monotonous as the last, and it feels like we are eternally stuck in March. 

 

Although it can be hard to find a silver lining these days, I do believe that if you squint your eyes tight enough -and maybe tilt your head a little while doing some burpees- it may reveal itself. It is hardly easy (and maybe even physically exhausting) to feel optimistic about the future when all forms of normalcy have quickly slipped out of our fingers, but we have somehow persevered. I was initially concerned about Vinyl Tap this semester because I quite honestly had no clue how new students would find us. In regular years, we were already pretty hidden off! I learned that I had no reason to worry, though, because they did find us somehow! 

 

This semester, our staff wrote about concepts that are hard to digest, and I am extremely proud of them for that. Alongside our wonderful artist interviews, performance analyses, album reviews, and haiku reviews lie more serious pieces touching on the protests and political turmoil in our country, how to cope with the unending COVID-19 stress, and what to do when your favorite music no longer cheers you up. I believe this is a special issue of Vinyl Tap because it serves as an artifact of the times, a mini time capsule if you will. Hopefully, someday soon, we can look back at newspapers, magazines, and articles of this time and remember how much we were able to overcome and how we became more resilient, thoughtful, and empathetic people in the process. 

 

This issue’s theme strongly resonates with the adjectives “unidentifiable, unknown, and unclassified.” Protesters and police officers attempt to obscure their identities with very different intentions in mind, the vaccine remains unidentifiable (at least to an extent), and the future is largely up-in-the-air. Our photoshoot also alludes to this theme because we took the photos at an abandoned amphitheater that cannot be found on maps, we wore all black, and we concealed our appearances. 

 

Our staff hopes that this issue resonates with you, the reader, in one way or another. Writing pieces, creating art, and taking photographs are several of the ways we have coped with the circumstances. Hopefully our pieces will reassure both us and you that our feelings are the same. 

 

Here’s to better days ahead.

 

Emma Shahin

Editor-in-Chief