New Year's Resolutions

So, we are nearly one week into the new year and I was wondering if any of the MA members have made any resolutions this time around and if you have made any, have you still stuck to them?

I am far too bipolar to be able to stick to resolutions myself, but this year I am looking to expand my musical horizons beyond my usual fare. I particularly want to look to great releases from outside the anglosphere, so if anyone has any recs of the kind, then fire them my way.

This year I'm going to try not to sleep on new releases and aim to do 52 new releases this year. It's a drop in the bucket of course, but at least it's a drop compared to the very little I've had the past few years.

I really don't need to worry about the things most people do resolutions for since, well, I already do most of them. One could always do better on them, but something like getting fitter or learning a new language don't really have concrete endgoals. I guess get better at guitar, but that's something I've been slowly working on for a few months. I guess sticking to these things requires you not just do them because it's a new year...

Continuing this for 2026:

Inspired by several members' allusions to their own spreadsheet lists, particularly Ben and Daniel, since new year I have been transferring all my ratings into spreadsheet form. I am about halfway through my 6500 or so RYM ratings and it has only now hit me exactly how much I listen to that I either actively dislike or which I find mediocre at best. So another new year resolution is to try to actively seek out better music to listen to and stop wasting my time on crap.

Ten years or so ago, I had a couple of subscriptions on Bandcamp to specialist stoner labels and I had forgotten exactly how much sub-standard stoner rock shit I had been listening to at that time. I think stoner rock may actually be one of the laziest sub-genres in all of music (I know that is the desired aesthetic, but a lot of the music is so derivative and tedious that it galls me now how much time I wasted on it - and that is from a fan of well done stoner music). It isn't as easy as just smoking a couple of joints and listening to some obscure early 70's albums before plugging your guitars in guys.

Probably going to ease back on the new releases this year and be a bit freer in my listening habits (says the man who has three lists built of albums to check out across black metal in 2000 and doom/sludge/funeral doom/death doom over 2010 and 2011already).  Oh and a death metal 2015 list too.

My New Year's resolutions involve both this site and the outside world. Now that I'm getting back in touch with the heavy/power/symphonic metal that was strong within me 10 years ago, along with other melodic genres, thanks to the Guardians playlists I've assembled, I'm really deep into my exploration journey of those genres and finding different bands, whether I haven't heard of them before or I had but somehow missed out on them 10 years ago. And I'm also focusing less on the genres that really don't appeal to me now as it did a few years ago, like alt-metal. I still enjoy a few of the Gateway releases I found recently, but my interest in that metal genre is fading for me and even my alt-rock-loving brother, whom one of the bands we both distanced from is what got him into rock/metal all those years ago in the first place which would lead to me getting into metal.

As for my outside-world resolution, I'll be focusing on becoming independent. Yeah I still live with my parents and have some steps to fulfill before I can be ready to move out on my own. And with me turning 27 soon and having completely finished the book series that I write, there's no better time than this year. This won't affect my time here in Metal Academy...for now. Chances are I'll be busy with a lot of things sometime in the future like college and work and will have to cut down on some of the site features I'm participating in (like the playlists and feature releases), similarly to 3 years ago when I had that college course and internship, or step down from Metal Academy altogether. But we haven't gotten that far ahead yet. I'm still here, so let's enjoy my time in this site while we still can. If there are any significant changes, I'll let you all know.