(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 31: Best of 2024: The Metal List

Last First playlist of the year is all metal. On Thursday Friday I released my Nine Circles Honorable Mentions Best Of List, and it’s a beast: 25 albums that moved and rocked me in some way. So similar to last week’s (Un)Focused Definition this is going to focus on those albums with the final, “official” best of metal list coming in the first year of January, and then my “all-in” playlist accompanying the year-end round up post here, sometime in mid-January. Okay, enough strikethroughs: even though we all know the tune by now about rankings as I listened back to this year’s playlist I was really, really happy. I love these albums. We’re already back to the 70s and prog/rock in the main albums reviews, but for one more week, let’s get heavy. Grab that denim vest, don those spikes, and let’s listen to some killer metal that came out in 2024.

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2024 digital spins

Goodbye, 2024: Embracing the Digital

It’s been an interesting year, to say the least. And since this isn’t really a personal blog, I won’t get into all the details of my life: there were a lot of challenges, primarily with my health and with my family, but in all honesty if I step outside of myself and look, I can see the good: I was able to make some significant lifestyle changes, my son was accepted to his first-choice college (and killed me in his SATs), and my wife remains 33 years later my best friend, my biggest champion, and the love of my life. And since April of this year I’ve become surprisingly consistent writing about the music I love here, even going so far as to (briefly) get back to a post a day in December highlighting my favorite music of 2024. Since there’s one day left, we’re going to wrap up with another summary, a brief listing of those albums I love that – for one reason or another – I don’t have a physical copy of. I love consuming the tangible, but sometimes you just have to embrace the digital.

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