Tag: metallica

Playlists

(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 81: Sanity Check

I’m burning myself out. I think the stress of work, my only child being away in college and the attendant stress with that, along with the self-imposed commitment to get a 2025 review in every day was just too much this time, and I found myself not enjoying the process like I did last year. These next few days the plan is just to relax and let the music just be music, not a box to check off or a pile in my office to shrink. So I’m going to move a little slower, a little more deliberately. I don’t want to one of those people who want to write but all they ever write about is the fact that they’re not writing; I’m doing this for myself, and I find the best way through is just to keep writing. Which hey: I just did.

This week is a very random suite of stuff that’s ben keeping my head and heart afloat this week.

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Playlists

(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 77: Dumb Fun

Sometimes you want to fall into the depths of a great song or album, stretching your senses around and in between the notes, feeling the rhythm shifts and tempo changes. Sometimes you want to dig into the marrow of lyrics, searching for analogues to your life and experiences. Sometimes, though, you just want some DUMB FUN. That’s this playlist: dumb, mindless fun for my soul. Note that my definition of DUMB FUN may differ from yours…and that’s perfectly okay. Let’s get it.

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Playlists

(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 65: Missing Sun

It’s official: on Thursday we unpacked our son in his dorm room, said our goodbyes, and became empty nesters. One of the biggest gifts I could give him (besides paying for college) was letting him pick the tunes on the trip up, and so a portion of the playlist this week are the tunes he asked for to calm his nerves. The other songs are the ones I used to calm my nerves, and to help get through the emotional rollercoaster of missing his presence. Which means not a lot of commentary this week, hopefully things will get back to some semblance of normality for the next one.

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metallica - load
Vinyl

Metallica: Load (1996)

Here’s my dirty secret: until a few days ago not only did I not own a physical copy of Load, the sixth album from arguably my favorite heavy metal band of all time Metallica, but…I had never even listened to the album in its entirety. I knew the singles, wasn’t overly impressed, but that’s only part of the reason. By 1996 I had shifted into other genres and tastes, and both Load and Reload were albums I assumed I would get to in time, but never did (I still haven’t listened to all of Reload). On the event of the band getting their remastered deluxe set ready for next week, I decided now was the time and grabbed the vinyl, just as I did every other remaster the band have released to date. It was the perfect way to grab these on vinyl for the first time, and so far the remasters have all been superb. Since my copy of Load arrived a week early, I finally sat down and listened to the entire album.

Guess what? I’ve got thoughts (long post ahead).

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Miscellany, Playlists

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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Playlists

(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 24: Anniversary

As in “my” anniversary. Like, wedding anniversary. I debated just cancelling the playlist this week, but I had a few minutes this morning so in the interest of consistency here’s a slightly random playlist that – if there’s a theme at all – contains music my wife enjoys. She doesn’t really consume music, though there are rare instances where she will ask if we have a specific album, which is my cue to go buy it if we don’t. Really she just puts up with what I like, occasionally pushing back with a gentle” this sucks” which is my cue again to change it up.

No commentary again this week, we’ll be back to regular programming next week assuming this anniversary goes okay.

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