- Personal Reflection -
It's been a very refreshing year for me, both in music and general life. I've always had a profound appreciation for music, but this year I found myself able to dive in deep both as a listener and as a lowly practitioner of music (particularly having picked up guitar and starting to understand music writing at a basic level). Starting this, as well as surprisingly managing to keep up with the rate I so daringly set at the start of the year, has been a small but pertinent point of pride for me.
I'm honestly quite happy with how it's been going. I never intended this project to be made for people to see, in a way it's personal and just for myself, and so far I don't think anyone has found it, so that's a good thing I guess. This regular schedule of writing about music has been an avenue for me to 1. discover music that I otherwise would not have had reason/motivation to look into 2. go out of my way to learn certain concepts and ideas in music, however small, to be able to converse about music better 3. in general, discover more about the music world, whether it be genres, artists or history.
Having something to keep up regularly like this has given me a sort of renewed focus in life. I did start this partially because I was at a loss on how to spend my time, and also because I had so much creative energy with not many avenues of output. I should mention that Auditory Appreciation was started alongside many other personal long-running projects, and the collection of them as a whole served as an anchor for my loose cannon of a sense of purpose. Several of these projects are more direct forms of creative endeavours, and in comparison, this is a more derivative one, writing about music. It has been ultimately very refreshing though, to have somewhere to write about all the love I have for music that I listen to.
My music taste has broadened a lot this year. When I first started developing a ear for modern metal music nearing the end of 2020, that resulted in me having only ears for metal the entirety of 2021. I barely listened to any other genre, and to an extent couldn't appreciate any other genre for what it was. For what it's worth, I loved my music journey in 2021, it was extremely important to me and getting into metal has been one of the best choices I've ever made. Despite that all, I'm glad I was able to step back a bit and loosen my gears, regaining a bit of my musical taste in other genres like soft rock and pop. Having a newfound diversity of sounds that I could appreciate made listening to music that much more exciting and rewarding, diving back into pop as well as the multitude of other genres in rock and alternative music.
I invested a lot more time this year specifically to discover music. Following releases and listening to them the day they drop, researching the genres' communities to comb out significant bands and artists and dip my toes in as many as I could, as well as diving into the back catalogues of artists that I loved but only listened to one or two records of. Artists like Every Time I Die, Knocked Loose and The Devil Wears Prada were names I've heard so many times and finally listened to this year, and have since become some of my favourites. Diving deeper into the discographies of artists like Fall Out Boy, Loathe, Sleep Token, My Chemical Romance and Pierce The Veil have been extremely rewarding, finding some absolute gold in their older records that I now love to death. Discovering some completely new and amazing artists like glass beach, Vildhjarta, Archspire, Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows, Tallah and MOTHICA has been some of the most blissful things about the year for me.
I'm looking forward to next year, yet a bit apprehensive. There's a lot of amazing artists that I'm excited for and anticipating a lot of records from, and I have high hopes that 2023 will yet again have a lot of brilliant music for me to consume. Yet, I know that next year I have to step up my game in consuming new music, and I'm not sure how intense of a rate I'll have to push myself to listen to new stuff at. I'm also starting to pick up more instruments, and I'm sure my understanding and appreciation of music and songwriting will only deepen with time. Learning about and loving music is a journey that never ends, and this blog is a great place for me to, in a way, document my journey.
I don't really want to set any goals or hopes for 2023, I'd much rather let things happen as and when they do. Still though, a broad direction can always be beneficial. Other than listening to as much new music as possible, I want to try to delve more into EDM and its many subgenres, and possibly reconnect with my older roots. I used to love EDM when I was younger, especially dubstep, inspired by artists like Skrillex and edIT and proliferated by performers such as Poreotics/Miniotics, Fik-Shun, Les Twins, SoNevable and Shawn Wasabi. Beyond that, I'll let the musical winds blow however it wishes and let myself be taken on another year of musical discovery. When it comes to quantity though, I'm aiming to listen to at least one new record a day. I have no idea how that'll go, but I guess we'll find out as the year goes on, won't we?
- Spotify Wrapped tl;dr -
Top Genre: Metalcore
Top Artist: Sleep Token
Top Song: Sleep Token - Telomeres
- Favourite artist discoveries -
- Favourite record discovery (that isn’t from 2022) -
- Favourite artwork -
- Most ridiculously heavy song -
- Best song title -
- Top 10 lyrics -
- Top 10 guitar riffs -
- Top 10 collaborations -
- Top 10 choruses -
9. Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows - What’s the Code for Heaven’s Gate?
8. Slipknot - Yen
7. EDEN - Balling
6. Dance Gavin Dance - Pray To God For Your Mother
5. The Devil Wears Prada - Salt
4. Dance Gavin Dance - Back On Deck
3. Bad Omens - Just Pretend
2. I Prevail - Closure
1. Holding Absence - Coffin
- Top 10 breakdowns -
- Top 10 moments -
