Musical Resolutions: 2023

The musical habit/compulsion I hope to break in 2023: listening to Humble Pie. They were not a good band! Steve Marriott is an *awful* singer, the most blackface-y dude in all British blooze-rawk! And yet I keep coming back... well, NO MORE. 2023 is the year I stop listening to Humble Pie.

What about you? Who or what are you going to give up on? What genre or style are you going to embrace/explore this year?

Don't bail on the Pie until you've listened to Town And Country.

I resolve to listen to the Pie again in ’23 (I used to be into them, and it’s been a while!)

my resolution is to re-record several hundred LPs that I ripped with a low level ground hum on the turntable

big sigh, sleeve. you have my sympathies.

as for me, i dunno... loud guitars again?

my resolution is to re-record several hundred LPs that I ripped with a low level ground hum on the turntable

Oof. It would be churlish of me to reiterate my belief that vinyl is sucker bait, so just pretend I didn't.

lol no that's fair, but in my defense I have owned many of these for decades, pre-bubble (remember when records were cheap?)

my resolution is to do the same things in 2023 because my musical taste is amazing and I will continue to be perfect in 2023

oh but I will increase the number of hours listening to Styles P

To listen to unplayed vinyl while cooking, and get through the ~200 albums that have just been sitting there for anywhere from two to five years.

sounds great!

I wish I could figure out what was wrong with my turntable, which stopped working randomly. I have 100+ relatively newly purchased (last two years) vinyl sitting unplayable in my closet.

really helped me through the first part of 2020, just having the listening ritual w/ the turntable.

like, it stopped moving? if so, look into a belt replacement

yeah - that. i'll have to take it in. I think i damaged it in transit when I moved too :(

remember when records were cheap?

I ran into this woman today who had her dog enrolled in training sessions with me last year. Turns out she's been working in this Stratford record store (close to where we bumped into each other) for a couple of years. When I mentioned I was a record collector, she was surprised I'd never been in the store. I half-heartedly explained how impossible it is for someone like me, who spent my teenage years up to about the age of 35 voraciously buying albums for anywhere from one or two dollars to seven or eight (and, very rarely, splurging for a $10 dollar LP), to adjust to $15-$40. Relative inflation doesn't matter to me; it's just an uncrossable bridge. I told her I'd come in one Sunday, but I'm 99% sure I won't find anything I want for a price I'd be willing to pay.

(I was enrolled too...I'm not a dog trainer.)

lol I was wondering

(I was enrolled too...I'm not a dog trainer.)

Have you learned to shake hands?

Need to listen to more classical, huge gaps in my knowledge which need filled.

To actually listen to the CDs i bought last year

To listen to unplayed vinyl while cooking, and get through the ~200 albums that have just been sitting there for anywhere from two to five years.

I'm pretty sure you'll already be fully cooked before you hear all those LPs!

the same as every year - to buy less music.

Same procedure as every year.

I've decided to keep a listening diary. We'll see how long it lasts, but here's today, so far:

Jason Moran, From The Dancehall To The Battlefield
Kali Malone, Living Torch
Kali Malone, The Sacrificial Code
Humble Pie, Smokin' [hence this thread]
Various Artists, The Bakersfield Sound - Country Music Capital Of The West 1940-1974
Anton Dvorak, Symphony No. 3
Slayer, Seasons In The Abyss
Cavalera Conspiracy, Inflikted

Obviously, I didn't listen to all of these in full — the Bakersfield thing is a 10CD set.

thought that said Karl Malone

To make a start on playing through the 1000+ albums I own that I've probably only played once or twice. Not very likely to finish the project off this year, or the next. Or the next etc

To continue familiarising myself with music I am only partially familiar with.
& reading about it.

May try learning drums if i can get myself together to assemble the kit I picked up. & find a place for it.

I'm going to build genre and decade playlists on Spotify
Keep relistening
I also have a listening diary (in paper form) to help me focus
Vague ideas to maybe finally explore classical, but I'm probably kidding myself
Maybe buy CDs again, but ditto

Keep relistening

I am gonna introduce musician friends to each other and encourage them to collaborate. And generally offer support and encouragement to friends who make music that i like.

vinyl is sucker bait,

otm

remember when records were cheap?)

yep, solid defense

I think I'm resolving to stop buying box sets, deluxe archival things, and pricey reissues of albums by legacy acts, especially when I already own a version of the album being reissued / remastered. It kinda sucks that new bands are competing in the marketplace against Bowie and Coltrane and the Beach Boys, and I think I'm part of the problem. Did I need to buy the deluxe Check Your Head box set instead of like six or seven new albums by great new or younger artists relying on Bandcamp sales to make the rent? Also, I rarely return to these box sets after a spin or two, and in some cases, I never even get all the way through them. And they take up too much space.

I can get with that, people do seem to be souring on box sets (based on the completely anecdotal buyer comments I heard at the last record show I sold at)

i like the idea of just putting everything on streaming for archival sets. all those vinyl reissues are from digital masters anyway, so who cares. i'm a fan of catalogue music and i still want to hear that stuff, but paul p otm- just doesn't seem worth it anymore to buy the physical media.

yeah just gimme Bandcamp FLACs plz tyvm (but also include booklets/art as pdfs)

This year I go hard on tapes

Keep organizing my CD shelves. Sell another batch of 500+ older, unwanted CDs on Discogs. Keep new acquisitions to a minimum (probably a few dozen new 2023 releases) while continuing to shrink down the rest. (My personal CD collection is still bordering on 5,000 discs, which is down from a high of 15,000+ about a decade ago.)

1. Rip the remaining 100 or so CDs in my library that remain unripped
2. Sell a bunch of CDs for the first time in a few years
3. Finish reviewing all the artists in my library and sign up for their Bandcamp sites (if they exist) - I wish there was an automated way of doing this!
4. Dig into Motown, an area that I have only surface knowledge of and know just the biggest hits

I'm feeling a need to get away from metal. It's been most of my new listening for probably ten years now. I might dive more into classical, I'm not sure.

Try harder to detach listening to music from being on the computer/internet.

Spend more of my time drawing and listening to music.

4. Dig into Motown, an area that I have only surface knowledge of and know just the biggest hits

this actually became a thing for me in the last few months of 2022.
went to a car boot sale at the end of summmer, and picked up a massive boxset of later era motown cds for 50p.
totally opened my ears to a whole new side to the label i had no idea about.

https://www.discogs.com/release/4846167-Various-Motown-Chartbusters-Volumes-7-12

I need to part with some of my record collection this year…I’ve needed to do this for at least four years now, but there’s something deep inside of me that can’t bring myself to get started for whatever reason. Starting back in 2017 or so I went in a big jazz/Indian classical/experimental and/or improv kick that I figured would just be another passing phase, but it never went away and to this day that’s really all I listen to…I have at least a thousand rock/punk/garage LPs and I should honestly get rid of at least half of them because they never get any play whatsoever.

I think it’s just the fact that all of them bring a memory of a specific time in my life (even if it’s just the moment I bought them) which is a garbage reason to hold onto something…the other thing being that I’ll probably never actually take the time to wait around for these to sell on discogs so my other option is to drop them off at a record shop and get pennies on the dollar of their true “value”.

Thanks for the tip, Mark! We don't need a resolution, but I'm sure we'll both spin plenty of Cab Volt this year as well. ;-)

I am going to listen to all 259 albums in my Bandcamp collection at least once this year.

Although the number will be higher before I get there.

This year I go hard on tapes

Yeah! I got an old Walkman working at the end of last year and just loved the sound* of tape thru headphones and the feel of the mechanism. I’ve had a component taps deck for ages which rarely gets used, but the Walkman is making tapes super fun!

I have been snaffling up old prerecorded tapes when I see them, and this has been cheap and cheerful collecting in the way that vinyl used to be - with the same opportunity for punting on new discoveries and weirdo finds.

It has also activated a lot of the local punk/noise/experimental purchases that I bought at gigs or on Bandcamp, generally just as a way of supporting the band.

Now I am experimenting with recording Bandcamp downloads onto cassette and having a good time with this as a holiday project.

Definitely somewhat informed by vinyl fatigue - not just the dopey prices and variable quality - but also the fiddliness, having to be scrupulous about cleaning LPs, monitoring stylus health etc etc.

*not claiming said sound is in any way audiophile or superior to CD or anything daft - but the smudgy tape sound is strangely comforting, and often different aspects of a recording pop out in surprising ways - there is a real intimacy to vocals in particular for some reason

I need to part with some of my record collection this year…

don't
seriously.
i did this when i moved.
have regretted it ever since.

anyway re 2023 :

given the way things have gone in the last few days,
then it's clear that 2023 is the year i will listen to the cramps more than i have ever done so before.
oh, and as per the suggestion on the other thread,
the recent(ish) zonophone reissues are perfectly good re sonics : i am not so sure that there is much more that can be done re sonic quality re their releases.