For a couple years now (2010 and 2012) I have made a resolution to only listen to music released in that year. That is, I only listened to music that was new and had been released in that year. This does not include re-masters or re-releases. I even avoided compilations.
The first year I stuck to the rule pretty closely. But my wife, annoyed at having to YET AGAIN listen to Four Tet for the 100th time in 2010, asked that on the weekends and when I was at home to play something we both liked on the speakers. So in 2012 I did that a few times.
But every Tuesday when new music is released, I would make a giant playlist of albums and burn through them. My week was spent filtering out the best from that week and then adding them on Rdio (or outright buying them).
The project does exactly what I want it to do, it keeps me from wallowing in the old standbys (Bad Brains, Pixies, Ramones, Pavement, The Misfits, The Thermals, Jawbreaker, 70’s Reggae…) and get put a little off-balance by new music. I still find myself gravitating towards the heavier punk-like guitar driven stuff, but I try to listen to most genres (I did go through phases of top 40, rap and hip-hop, ska, and alternative/indie in the 80’s and 90’s after all, so I have a bit of knowledge there).
This year I want to do something different. This year I want to pick a year from the last 30 years of music and only listen to music from that year.
And I thought it’d be fun if you picked it for me. As usual you can follow along on my Last.fm profile: Last.fm/user/torrez.
So please help me choose the year I should restrict my music listening to.