2019 Music Goals Update

I tend to organize my life into six week segments. At least when I have some sort of goal in place, I look at a six week period, regardless of how the actual execution goes.

Looking at going for a while without reviewing any bands, I figure that will probably be for about six weeks, a bit longer than the do-over Black History month.

During that time period I am focusing on listening to the bands I wanted to listen to more after reading Nothing Feels Good. There were fewer bands than the last list I was going through, but because it is listening to the entire catalog - not just the top ten or so songs - it is taking longer. (Mogwai is taking forever!)

Some of these bands will be marked for eventual review, and some won't but will get a song of the day. That's okay. Other goals of going back through my reviewed bands, recording a week's worth of songs myself, and studying more about Christmas carols will still happen eventually.

Typically, I have thought of other things I want to do, but there is a theme to it that interests me.

For example, the daily songs from Martin Luther King Day through Valentine's Day were a Stevie Wonder tribute . That was great, but I could only do it because of the notes I'd taken. Otherwise there was too much to keep in memory. When I played each song again I realized why I liked it, and kind of remembered, but I could not bring them to mind before, and for the most part I still can't.

I want to go through his catalog again and create a playlist of my favorites. Then I can play it sometimes and remember. There's not a rush, but it needs to be done.

In addition, I realize that I want to return to two of my larger listening projects, and probably pull out some more bands for review.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/08/greatest-guitar-songs-trouble-with.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/07/musical-black-girls.html

It is especially important with the listening from the comments on the Greatest Guitar songs list, because I wasn't reviewing yet then. There were a lot of artists and I don't remember them all. That isn't always bad, but maybe there are ones that I want to remember and don't. 

If I think now off the top of my head about whom I would want to go back to, I can think of maybe Gang of Four and Magazine... that's two out of what was roughly 179.

(Just for the record, without having gotten there yet on the Nothing Feels Good listening, I know I will want to do a full review of Social Distortion and Anti-Flag. Does that mean I can skip this review and just put them down on the review list? Maybe, if I didn't have so many hangups.)

With the list of Black women artists, well, I did pull a few of them out for review already: Melba Liston, Noname, Ledisi, Joan Armatrading, Sharon Jones, Leona Lewis, and Fefe Dobson. However, I did not realize from going through once how much I loved Mary J. Blige, and that first time around I completely missed Stephanie Mills. 

Those all have the same point, and it relates to wanting to go back through all of the previous musicians reviewed too (Emi Meyer was #628). I have previously written about feeling like I am in transition; the question becomes what will I take with me? I have learned and discovered a lot over these past few years; what am I keeping?

There is so much I don't know about what is coming. Remembering may also have a more desperate importance to me now. Maybe I will end up being a writer who writes nothing but different metaphors for dementia. There are potentially many.

For now I can only see a few steps ahead, but I will take them.