December 2022 Overview
Writer's Check-In
Well, in less than 7 hours, we'll be out of 2022! Overall, I can't really complain much at all because it was a very good year for me. It definitely felt quite long, but I got more well-adjusted to college and made a lot of fun memories along the way. Anyways, compared to how turbulent 2021 was for me, this year was a nice breath of fresh air! 2022 was also great for me music-wise: I've been more productive this year in terms of music writing than ever before, and I garnered over 2k hours of music listening (yes, I'm a crazy music nut, but I'm proud!).
Though, I am quite sad about the song of the day reviews falling apart. A lot of it is because of how hectic this month was for me: falling sick during finals season, having a monster article to write, and moving houses made churning out a review every day pretty much impossible. A bigger problem was that the series felt a bit too disjointed. It's great that I can talk about Muddy Waters and Neil Young on a whim like that, but the reviews seriously lacked a sense of purpose I needed to keep me motivated to write.
As a replacement, I'll revive an old series I tried (and failed) to launch on my Instagram: reviewing the top songs of each year from 1950 to 1999! I'll try to incorporate both the RYM charts and the Billboard charts and go through and give my thoughts on each of the songs. This brings the best of both worlds: it's a serious reviewing project, but it also is easy to do in bite-sized chunks so I can keep up throughout the year. I might randomly stop for a while or write a bunch of reviews in a text-generating flurry, but it will be a fun series I hope my few (but loyal, thank you guys whoever you are) readers will enjoy! I'll be kicking off the series quite soon once I get the reviewing order in place!
Anyways, that's enough for today. I hope everyone has a great New Year's Eve, and let's celebrate the beginning of 2023!
Music Stats for the Month
Total Listening Time: 138 hours. Significantly less than last month, but honestly with how busy I was, I'm surprised it was still that high.
Top Artist: Mothers Of Invention. Freak Out, Absolutely Free, and We're Only In It For The Money never get old, do they?
Top Album: 1928 Sessions - Mississippi John Hurt. Only discovered this man's sublime recordings a week ago and have been listening to his beautiful songs over and over. Words are not enough to describe the deep level of humane warmth of his pre-war output. If there is a collection of music that can make you feel thankful for being alive, it's this set of 13 songs.
Articles
My Neil Young article is getting edited at the moment, so stay tuned! Will post it once it's out!
Monthly Playlist
Here's the link to this month's playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4E3S1uNXHzkmoVH1N0E9xu?si=6b3e2ea299b64eee
I think this is a pretty kickass playlist, but I do warn you that it is over 50% blues/folk. There is hopefully a decent amount of diversity to keep things interesting, but don't even touch the playlist if you dislike blues-based music in general. Sadly, I could not include THREE Neil Young songs ("Love In Mind," "Sugar Mountain," "After The Gold Rush"), so I posted whatever Neil Young recordings I could find as substitutes. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the playlist!
I'll post the list of the songs here and links to the ones that got reviews:
- Dust My Broom - Elmore James
- Love In Mind - Neil Young
- Rock Island Line - Lead Belly
- Only A Fool Would Say That - Steely Dan
- It Hurts Me Too - Elmore James
- Just Like Heaven - The Cure
- Got My Mojo Working - Muddy Waters
- Hand In Glove - The Smiths
- Wang Dang Doodle - Howlin' Wolf
- Fattening Frogs For Snakes - Sonny Boy Williamson II
- Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards) - Tom Waits
- Love, Hate, Love - Alice In Chains
- Sugar Mountain - Neil Young
- Rumble - Link Wray & The Wrayman
- Bring It On Home - Sonny Boy Williamson II
- Violent Love - Otis Rush
- Pick a Bale of Cotton - Lead Belly
- Your One and Only Man - Otis Redding
- Fell On Black Days - Soundgarden
- After The Gold Rush - Neil Young
- Highway Star - Deep Purple
- Where Did You Sleep Last Night? - Lead Belly
- Still A Fool - Muddy Waters
- My Babe - Little Walter
- Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
- Nobody's Dirty Business - Mississippi John Hurt
- Louis Collins - Mississippi John Hurt
- Down Hearted Blues - Bessie Smith
- Ain't No Tellin' - Mississippi John Hurt
- She's A Good 'Un - Otis Rush
- For Tomorrow - Blur
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