All is not so quiet, it’s also not New Year’s Day anymore, Blue Monday is behind us so for many of us most new year’s resolutions are dead and buried, waiting to be resuscitated next year. Still, I have a couple of my own, not the most obvious ones I hope, but important enough to share, to at least keep me on the right (or righteous) path. So, I swear and promise to do the following this year:

1. Understand Rap. I understand abstract electronic music much better than Rap. Hell, I understand conceptual music like Lucier’s ‘I’m sitting in a room’ much better than Rap. Rap is what Heavy Metal or Punk is to some other people; noise at best. I don’t understand the poetry, I don’t understand the flow of words, I don’t understand the music when all I seem to hear is (random) beats and samples. I feel like an old man, I feel like shouting, ‘where are the instruments, this is not music’. I never had this with electronic music, I never had this with atonal classical music. This year I’m going to inundate myself so that at least I dentify which Rap Music I like because there cannot be such a thing as completely disliking a genre.
2. Migrate my collection from Streaming to Vinyl (or any other format I can own…). Before it really dawned upon me that Streaming Platforms do not exist out of love for music, and that AI-generated slop is the ultimate goal of streaming, I already started to realise that being completely dependent on Streaming is risky for a music lover. Something you don’t own can be taken away, and this means that one day to the next I can suddenly lose 10 years of music. Virtual is dangerous. So this year I will create categories (best artist, best per decade, best per genre) and start collecting in physical format.
3. Black Sabbath-ing. The death of Ozzy made me realise that there are many bands I love but don’t know. In that context, I remember first listening to Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti and not liking it at all. Of course I was still a teenager back then, and the only music I really enjoyed was Punk and New Wave, but still, such an iconic album that I completely failed to appreciate. Back to Black sabbath, I know the song Black Sabbath from their self-titled debut album, and War Pigs (but ony as a sample in ‘Oh No’ by Girl Talk), but not much more. Same for AC/DC, Queen, Depeche Mode, Motörhead, Bryan Ferry, Hüsker Dü, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris and a bunch of others. In 2026 I will correct that omission. 
4. Bring the love back to Playlists. What made us create Playlists or, for an older generation, Cassette Tapes? Love in all its forms, love in combination with a healthy dose of arrogance. Sending (subliminal) messages in the form of music. Carefully crafted selections focusing on song titles, lyrics, combinations of artists, similarity and contrast, ultimately meant to educate and show off in a loving way. Last couple of years that gradually came to and end. Not enough love, or wrong attitude? I think the latter; I began to view Playlists as demonstrations of…what? Taste? Knowledge? In short, a form of mental masturbation. This year I will create Playlists again, and go back to the love that should drive it.
5. Quality rules. A relentless focus on quality is what turns good into excellent. To be excellent is to prioritise quality over quantity. To translate that into music; I’m collecting too much, I have more than I can listen to, the majority of what i formally collect goes directly into stoarge. Enough! Quality over quantity! Less please, but better! In a time of universally accepted greed we have to scale back and focus on what really matters to us.