The question’s simple; the answers, not so much. Five of mine after the jump.
Pull out my dusty seven-inch collection and try to re-listen to every one over the course of the year. I will probably need to get a Swiffer before I do this, though.
Buy more albums without hearing them first. Because we’re all too fucking jaded by the Internet era.
More dedicated listening. Lucas and I were talking yesterday about how, for the first time in a long time, he just laid on his couch and listened to albums. No typing to friends on IM, no reading a book, no cooking a big, hearty meal—he just listened. I kind of miss doing that!
Try and make a music video of my own with that iMovie program, if only to see how I interact with music when I’m trying to sync it to images and concepts. Eh, it’s worth a shot, right? At the very least it’s fun on a budget (as long as I don’t upload it to YouTube and get sued)!
Listen to the Animal Collective album… eventually. Even though friends of mine have said that they’re haunted by “brothersportbrothersportbrothersport” being endlessly repeated in their dreams. Hey, wait a second, maybe that’s how they make all the kids crazy!
I guess they’re all about discovery and going outside my comfort zone, eh? That’s so… pre-Internet era of me. Anyway, post yours!
Pull out my dusty seven-inch collection and try to re-listen to every one over the course of the year.
This was similiar to my 2007 goal/resoluation, which was to listen to every song on my iPod at least once during the year. Given that I had like over 40 days of music on 1/1/08, and picked up a lot of stuff throughout the year, it took a long, long time. Thankfully, I have my own office so I can listen to music all day long. Let me tell you, sometimes it felt like a chore more than anything else. I finished in the middle of December. I will not be repeating this task anytime soon.
I’d like to get around to checking out some of the African music reissues that have garnered a lot of praise lately. I know my music tastes run way to Anglocentric.
I also really need to get a new vinyl player. I know I avoid listening to my vinyl records because I don’t think the dinky little machine I have now does their sound justice.
Right now I’m trying to have the patience to finish out “Christmas on Mars” on my TIVO. Yeeps, this is quite bad. The fast forward button is beckoning…
1. Listen to one album every day.
2. Buy a bit more, pirate a bit less
3. MORE CONCERTS!!!
@How do I say this … THROWDINI!: I meant my 2008 goal/resolution. The year just finished.
As for this year, my resolution is more live music. I somehow only made it to about 10 concerts last year. Which is less than 1/2 as many I’d been attending the last few years. That is a trend that shall not continue.
Wow, those are all so good!
I definitely want to listen to my 7″s more, I get lazy and don’t like to flip them. That’s so pathetic.
I would like to keep a better list of things I’m looking for/want to replace/disappeared for some reason.
Buy more things out of my comfort zone. As in not 60s/70s rock and not girl dance music. *This does not prevent me from getting the new Annie when it is released.*
Keep up with eMusic downloads better, and not wait until the last minute to decide which of my 75 saved for later things I want.
1) Revisit a lot of things I wasn’t into when I was younger: jazz, Pink Floyd, ’70s prog-rock. Everything but the Doors. My hatred for them is evergreen, and no resolution will change that.
2) Make more music, don’t just talk about it.
3) Avoid pop radio as much as possible.
4) I second @JZ13: Need to fix the turntable! I have a copy of Randy California’s Kapt. Kopter & the (Fabulous) Twirly Birds coming in the mail and it’s not going to play itself.
My regular New Year’s Resolution was a musical one.
I want to meet Joe Perry.
oh fuck it, why not: Join the Slow Listening Movement, everyone! [slowlisteningmovement.blogspot.com]
listen to albums all the way through, even if they initially turn me off…
Good ones suggested so far. My big one is a practical one that I’ve been moving towards for a while, namely figuring out how best to let go of this collection of music that I’ve built up over the moons and which, for the most part, does nothing but gather dust. And I’ve made a big initial decision already, so for now a lot of ripping of CDs is going on — the side effect has been to reencounter a lot of the gathering dust music with very fresh ears, so that’s nice.
I sympathize with the dedicated listening resolution but it’s all down to the person — I pretty much always read a book when listening to something when I was growing up, and it almost become mutually reinforcing over time. Some albums I listen to while doing nothing else but it’s honestly very rare and would feel forced on my part.
@Michaelangelo Matos: That’s actually a damn good idea…and probably easier said than done.
1. More DJ gigs!
2. Create custom remixes/edits for said DJ gigs. I didn’t get that copy of Ableton for nothing!
3. Echoing Maura, spending more time with albums. This whole skimming an LP and calling yourself informed business (and I’m as guilty as anyone) has got to stop.
4. While I try to be as open to all sorts of music as possible, I want to be a better editor this year–just because I have a big hard drive doesn’t mean I have to fill it with stuff I don’t need/listen to anymore. I did a huge iTunes purge last year and it felt so good! More room for the new, you know?
5. And this might sound sort of pie in the sky, but I plan on simply ENJOYING music more this year. Amidst all of the debates, diatribes, etc regarding music, I want to spend more time just indulging in stuff that I like, regardless of what it is (like my current obsession with the Alan Parsons Project, which has been divine–”I Robot” is slaying me right now).
More
METAL
\m/ \m/
more quality, less quantity, at least as far as my dollar is concerned. i used to happily waste 20 bucks on 20 crappy dollar bin lps but never ever pay more than 5 bucks on a single record. and yet, the one 20 dollar record i bought last year has spent more time on my turntable than any other.
@T’Challa: dj shadow approved.
i plan on listening to a lot more 80’s rock. i’ve had a lot of phases in my life (underground rap, krautrock, psychedelic, chess blues era, 90’s alternative, etc.) but never gave 80’s rock a fair shake. i just downloaded three GNR albums, the first three Van Halen albums, Back in Black, the only Metallica albums that matter, Reign in Blood, and the classic Warrant record. broad spectrum, but figured i’d start with what i know will rule. and don’t knock that warrant record.
1. I want to listen to every album I have starting from A through Z by the end of the year.
2. More summer festivals and concerts for sure!!!
@doublewhiskycokenoice: Good call. Those first three Van Halen album are eternally amazing. You should also toss in album #4, “Fair Warning.” The band went in this trippy, kind of obtuse direction (for them anyway), and came up with some killer tunes, like “Unchained” and the poppy “So This is Love”. But check for deep cuts like “Push Comes to Shove,” Where Eddie truly shines. He gets all moody in the solo, and it’s incredible. Happy rocking!
This year I will:
- Download more leaked albums before anyone else.
- Jump to hyperbolic conclusions based on a single listen.
- Claim to like all the artists that your new favorite bands rip off.
- Use the word “polyrhythmic” a lot.
- Take lots of cell phone photos at shows.
- Blog about how great those shows were as soon as I get home from them.
- Blog about how annoying all those 18 year olds were at the show. Because they’re not real fans.
- Compare Daniel Johnston to John Lennon.
- Complain about Pitchfork.
- Claim that Dylan’s 80’s work is really underrated.
- Tell someone that they’re missing out unless they’re hearing it on vinyl.
- Argue with someone about whether they like Supertramp, or ironically like Supertramp.
- Probably end up being disappointed with the new Neko Case album.
(That last one is true).
Thanks to my wee’un, the last few years have made me quite open my mind to stuff I would have totally spat on in the past. I am pleased with the results of that…but now I need to try to get over the deep-seated disdain I have developed for anything that reminds me of my former hipster music snobbery. *shudder* Maybe.
More shows, random shows…more travelling for music.
And hope that John Fogerty does some shows we can get to, because my 5yo just became obsessed with him over holiday break. That was more of a promise to her than a resolution. *crossed fingers*
-Get my DJing license and hang out in bars for free
-Get disciplined and translate my musical postulations from frantic vocal babble to pretentious written babble
-become Bryan Ferry, Jr.
45 hint: Have a 45 party! Invite a couple music snobs over and dance about the living room playing 45’s.
Maura, if you do make a video, i defy you to make an artistic expression even remotely as sweeping in grandeur as T-Baby did in her magnum opus, “It’s So Cold In The D.”
Learn to play the guitar.
1. Buy more albums without listening to a leak first.
2. Fall asleep with my headphones on again.
3. Download and listen to a discography of a band I thoroughly dislike.
4. Add a few pieces to my music blog.
5. Stop giving a damn about what Pitchfork recommends or labels “Best New Music.”
6. Listen to Portishead’s Third again to see if I am just jaded or if it really was a good album.
7. Visit an independent record store.
@doublewhiskycokenoice: That video slays me. I had it on at work today and the secretary poked her head in to find out what all the “bwahahahahahaha!!” was about.
My musical resolution is to finally figure out how to do something with Garage Band. And going to more shows would be really nice, too.
Record a rap or two.
-Download the entire ICP discography (lossless) from some private invite-only bittorrent tracker and listen to it all in one sitting on a pair of Grados, and then attempt to write a 3,000-word essay on how their work has effectively converted more people to Christianity than DC Talk, Third Day, Switchfoot, etc. combined.
And then walk around acting like I have a Black Belt in pain.
But for reals:
-constantly check Camera Obscura’s blog for news of the new album dropping (and obsessively ordering any new 7″s direct from Spain [oh, Elefant..])
-naively hope that MBV tour again, this time at better/closer venues than the Roseland Ballroom and perhaps playing some pre-You-Made-Me-Realise songs. also, the new album/Loveless remaster.
-also naively hope that Information Society puts out another, less sucky album, this time with the original frontman that they’ve been touring with lately.
-perhaps stop hating the Killers so much.
-listen to more Lil Wayne.
-try to be a bit less pretentious in general.
No one really talks about how to let music go. Thanks to ned for brining this up. Logically, if I’m someone who enjoys both music history and keeping up on new music…. i have to admit i own albums i will literally never listen to again. Every time i buy a good album, the worst records in my collection should get shoved out, yet i’ve never really heard anyone talk about how this should happen. My resoultion is to unload more crap i’ll never listen to again. I’ll start with…*takes a second*… Kenickie’s album “At The Club”
Thanks to this site’s expose on BLENDER’s “list” articles as lazy fake-content placeholders, I’m able to recognize this post for what it is: a quota-filler on a slow music news day. I agree both that your millionaire internet guy boss is paying you way too much and not nearly enough. Regardless, I’ve submitted to Human Resources a list of intern candidates who are even slangy-er and hungrier than the current staff: in fact, my step-nephew is offering to review the next Lou Reed album for a sandwich.
Speaking of five-dollar not-quite-foot-longs, I’m also resolved to pulling out my dusky seven-inch . . .
1. Cherish the fact that my local alternative formatted station actually plays alternative rock instead of, y’know Slipknot or Guns ‘n’ Roses. Or even Staind for that matter.
2. Finally write that letter to Blender to tell them that they counted “Where’s Your Head At?” by Basement Jaxx twice in that “500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born” list they did a few years ago.
3. Don’t cry about the death of the first magazine I ever subscribed to. Although not music related, my beloved “Electronic Gaming Monthly”, a video game magazine i’ve subscribed to for eleven years shut down production due to Ziff Davis selling off their 1UP subsidiary to Hearst who then killed off the magazine. I believe i’m getting a refund for the rest of the year. Oh well, at least i’ll still see Dan Hsu occasionally on G4.
4. Delete “Counting Blue Cars” by Dishwalla from my computer. Seriously, why the fuck do I have that? Or “When Worlds Collide” by Powerman 5000 for that matter?
5. Give up on the belief that a Roxy Music reunion record will ever come out
6. Find a way to fly to London and see Blur at Hyde Park and secretly hope that - possibly - they play Graham Coxon’s “Standing On My Own Again” (which sounds more like Blur than anything off of “Think Tank”)
7. At the end of the year, pitch that 33 1/3 book on Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s 1997 masterpiece “Barafundle” in a way to make it seem that more than 50 people will buy it.
8. Somehow get my blog ([www.indiepoint.blogspot.com]) up to several thousand readers and have people not connected to MIA rival Delon commenting on posts.
I’m going to get into more non-English speaking music. Swedish indie rock seems like a devine place to start.
Practice more. Play more. Figure out better ways of dealing with stage fright when I do perform.
As for listening to music, actually listen to everything I pay for. Which, like others above have mentioned, probably means buying less.
And maybe think a little harder about how I can turn this “I like music!” thing into something I can do and get paid for after college.
Just two:
- Stop acquiring music faster than I can digest it. When albums are sitting in my ‘to buy’ list, it seems like I can’t get them all fast enough, but once I get them I always realize that I don’t have time to give them the attention they deserve.
- Listen more on my actual stereo, rather than just getting lazy and playing things on my computer.
-Play and write music more often and get some things on tape.
-Purge some of the old stuff. (Do I really new that Roni Size Reprazent record from high school?)
-Listen to Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s Primary Colours once a week for the rest of the year.
@Marth: I love you.
@Luke N Atmaguchi: Yeah, it’s not like I’ve had open threads every Friday for months now or anything.
[idolator.com]
Cough.
@DocStrange: Blur are probably going to play at Coachella. I have the opposite dilemma, although I love all the Graham Coxon era Blur stuff, I also really love “Think Tank”. I’m thinking they’re probably not going to play “Think Tank” songs though. Although, I’ll take anything as long as Graham’s there. If they play “Oily Water” I’ll be a happy camper.
As for my resolution? Hmm I might try to learn how to correctly pronounce Bon Iver. Or then again…I might continue to not care how I say things.
Also try to cajole Working For A Nuclear Free City to come back to the US this year through flattery.
@Marth: Dude!! Have you been spying on me again? Except I’d replace “Supertramp” with “The Alan Parsons Project.” Awesome list.
@doublewhiskycokenoice: T-Baby is the TRUTH. I mean, how you ‘apposed’ to keep the peace?!?!
* Further weeding of my CD & vinyl collections. I cut them in half in ‘08 and will continue in ‘09. 11 years in commercial radio and a semi-unhealthy obsession with collecting leads to a lot of shit.
* Echoing others: more quality, less quantity. Finances and space are becoming issues.
* Revisit some genres I was into 4-5 years ago to see how they’ve evolved, if at all.
Maura what you’re really saying with that “make a music video of my own” resolution is that you want to get into trib vids. Am I reading that correctly?
I’m gonna sue Coldplay and Joe Satriani.
Not sure if this counts as a resolution but I’m trying to make the perfect birth mix. I’m somehow convinced that whatever the first song my kid hears when he/she is born in June will somehow profoundly effect her/his life.
@NeverEnough: “So mom, who was it again who was calling on their way back from the fire?”
@17Vargas17: No one really talks about how to let music go. Thanks to ned for brining this up.
Too kind. Right now I’m thinking of donating it to a spot I used to work at that could make use of it all…
@Ned Raggett: Ahahahahahaha!
@Michaelangelo Matos: HOLY CRAP SOMEONE TOOK MY IDEA, DOWN TO THE … NAME AND EVERYTHING.
Maura can vouch that I thought of this sometime in like, early/mid 2007, but never did anything with the idea. Crap!
As for me? I think I want to try and pare down/digitize my CD collection, put the discs in a box in the closet and start using my CD rack as a … shoe rack.
Additionally, this post reminded me that I’d already forgotten a resolution — which is to find some way to start performing again. (Yes, it’s true — your friend Cindy Hotpoint is a classically-trained singer.) I’ve been sidelined too long.