holiday 2025 - a small batch of vinyl records and a box set laying on my futon. We got some Eater, Henry Cow, Albert King, Patti Smith, Art Blakey with Thelonius Monk, and Fugees

Holiday Pickups, Sonic Addictions, & Looking Ahead

Happy New Year. I started writing this yesterday, but that’s indicative of how 2025 went, generally. It’s been a year, in other words, one I’d rather forget. Except for the music, that is. Pretty soon I’ll kick off all the various end-of-year lists, but before fully shoving 2025’s ass out the door I wanted to take a few minutes and look back over some of my discoveries, addictions, and other music-related highlights of the year. It’s also been a hot minute since I did one of those “What I got over the holiday/break/vacation” deals, so we’ll start with the incoming holiday music (pictured in the header) and move on to my other predilections and penchants when it came to music in 2025.

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(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 57: My Voyage to Italy, Pt. 1

50,607 songs. That’s the current total in my online music library. And that doesn’t count the hundreds of albums I bought off of Bandcamp and haven’t downloaded yet, or the physical albums, CDs, and cassettes I have yet to add. This is what happens when you hit “Shuffle” and take an hour’s worth of music for the playlist. Enjoy.

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52 Reasons Why

Wanted to do something different today. It’s my birthday, and I already built a playlist last week celebrating a bunch of great music that came out during the year of my birth. But the music of 1973 isn’t what made me into who I am now – that’s an ever-growing, ever-evolving store of musical moments and memories. And so I wanted to make another playlist, of the songs that inspired me, moved, me, marked significant moments of my life.

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genesis - getting in tune

Genesis: Getting In Tune (1976)

Live Month continues with Bootleg Week, which is admittedly odd considering my penchant for clear, immersive production when it comes to live music, something typically not the case with bootlegs. But for certain artists, getting to hear specific albums or eras, hearing bands really work and stretch out their tunes is an irresistible draw. This goes double for progressive rock, and Genesis specifically. Getting In Tune (terrible title, I know) showcases the band supporting A Trick Of The Tail, their first with Phil Collins taking over vocals from Peter Gabriel and with the legendary Bill Bruford taking the drum seat (ignore the inaccurate cover art – Chester Thompson would join in ’77). The recording, from their second night at London’s Hammersmith and broadcast for radio is solid, showing a band still fearlessly charging forth unabated by the lost of so prominent a front man.

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steve hackett - the circus and the nightwhale

Steve Hackett: The Circus And The Nightwhale (2024)

In a year where I doubled-down on my love for Genesis, it was refreshing to see two of the band’s former members (I guess they’re all former members now) put out incredibly strong solo work. I’m still trying to wend my way through Peter Gabriel’s I/O with its dozen different mixes, but there was so such hesitation with The Circus And The Nighwhale, the latest studio effort and first concept album from Steve Hackett. Immediately ear-catching and stuffed to the gills with incredible guitar playing, Hackett sounds like he took all those years keeping the prog-version of Genesis alive and distilled it all into an album that could have sat side by side with their best work while maintaining a modern, rock edge.

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