2022 Is Dead

So that's a wrap on 2022. And what an interesting year it was. Over here in the UK we enjoyed 3 different Prime Ministers (with one being the shortest serving and shittest of all time) and 'The Queen Is Dead' finally became more than a song. It was a weird year for me personally as I only spent the last two weeks of the year working - the rest of the year I was unemployed. But at no point was I bored as I had a lot of things to keep me busy. I sold a friend's record collection (well, most of it), went on 3 holidays overseas, visited 2 record pressing plants, watched 4 Spiderman films and painted 2 garden walls. With all this going on the year absolutely flew by and made me wonder how I ever had time to have a job in the past.

THE YEAR'S RECORD HAUL

The year in music was an interesting one for me. I'm pretty sure that I added more records to my collection in 2022 than in any other year of my life. I mean, I haven't counted every year, but I cannot recall a year where I could possibly have acquired as many as in 2022. Things kicked off in January with me visiting a friend and driving away with his whole collection of 700 records. I sold the majority for him but ended up keeping nearly 50 of them for myself, which sent me on a nostalgic trip back to the early 90s. For about the first 3 months of the year I was listening exclusively to pop punk bands from the late 80s or early 90s, and I loved it. Anything remotely hardcore just didn't do it for me during that time, and things only changed when I took a short trip to the California in April. I stayed with Dave from Indecision Records and hung out at RevHQ for a few days, and this got me listening to a lot of new hardcore. I ended up coming home with over 30 Indecision releases from the past 4 years or so that I had missed or ignored, and I discovered some great bands and music as a result. I also decided on this trip to try to pick up more new records and be a little less picky about which versions I bought. All in all I ended up bringing home around 60 records from that trip. I also received a couple of parcels from my good friend in the States filled with stuff I bought last year, and then at the end of the year I went back to the States and came back with 95 more records. I think it all stemmed from not having a job and viewing buying records as a passtime and source of entertainment. Sure it was fun, but not the best move to make my savings last.

Given that I probably won't ever have a year like this again, I decided to take a couple of photos of all the records I acquired over the past twelve months. This was pretty easy to do as I haven't filed them away in the collection yet. If I had done that then there is no way on earth I would have been able to pull them out for these photos. This first photo gathers together all of the 7" records I picked up this year, except for the Dischord 200 boxset that I still haven't opened yet for some reason.

In case you're wondering, There are 160 7"s pictured above. The next photo shows all of the 12" records I acquired. There are 226 of these bloody things here, which fill 3.5 cubes that I thought would take about 4 years to fill.

There were also 4 x 10" records that I picked up but didn't see the point of including. So in total that's 390 records that I welcomed into my house, which anyone can work out averages out at more than one per day... which is insane and made me wonder - what the hell am I doing? It's almost as if my name is Mike and it's 2012 all over again.

So yeah... with the large number of records I added to my collection and all the extra time I had available, I listened to a hell of a lot of music in 2022, which made putting together this post a lot more fun (and work) than most other years.

THE YEAR IN BLOGGING

The combination of no job and lots of records coming in meant that I managed to keep this blog pretty active. In fact, this year has ended with my highest post count since I started back in 2008. Here's a graph that serves as proof (and definitely isn't here just because I was looking for an excuse to do a graph):

Every year my target is 120 posts (10 per month) and I easily surpassed that in 2022. Even after banging out 151 posts, I have ended the year with a huge backlog of records I haven't had the time to post about or properly listen to yet, especially as 95 of them only entered the house two weeks ago. Ah well. At least that means that I have some material in reserve for 2023.

MY FAVOURITE 2022 RELEASES

For once I felt ike I bought quite a few new releases this year. I pulled out my favourites and laid them out for this photo... although the photo is so boring that I probably could have just used stock images of the covers rather than pull records off the shelf and lay them out on the bed.

Pictured above (from top left, moving across then down) and in no particular order are:

High Vis 'Blending' LP
Ignite 'S/T LP
Bitter Branches 'Your Neighbors Are Failures' LP
Skullcrack 'Addicted To The Underground' LP
Be Well 'Hello Sun' 12"
Beach Rats 'Rat Beat' LP
Praise 'All In A Dream' LP
Sumerlands 'Dreamkiller' LP
Speedway 'Paradise' 7"
The Flex 'Chewing Gum For The Ears' LP
Cave In 'Heavy Pendulum' LP
Sweat 'Gotta Give It Up' LP

I've not attempted to put them into any kind of order of preference, because past history shows that the order generally changes over time (I mean, in 2010 I had the Get The Most LP at number 2 and I probably listened to it once since then, but the records I had it ahead of still get semi regular play). Obviously the future is uncertain, but I think that the ones that will get most play in future years are likely to be the Cave In and Ignite albums - two bands that I have loved for 25+ years and still listen to regularly. Does that make those two the best? I'm not sure. But time will tell.

Also, an honourable mention to a record I have been listening to a lot for the past 3 months or so but don't have the vinyl for: Silent Drive 'Fairhaven' LP.

I downloaded this out of curiosity as their last record was 18 years ago and at first I didn't like it, but within days I was addicted and listening to it twice a day. Without doubt one of the best records of the year for me, and hopefully I will bag a physical copy next year.

OTHER (NON 2022) RECORDS I ENJOYED A LOT

I started adding this section to this summary a few years ago to record things I listened to a lot that weren't released in the year, or that I didn't buy a physical copy of. This section could also be aptly titled 'late to the party'. Usually this section is full of stuff I downloaded on a whim and quickly fell in love with, but this year I got so many records that I didn't really need to go searching for much else. So this photo shows more of the great records I discovered and played a lot this year that came out prior to 2022:

Shown in the photo are these (or records that represent these):

NOFX 1st 5 LPs
Lagwagon 'Trashed' LP
Sweet Baby 'It's A Girl' LP
Pegboy 'Earwig' & 'Chacha Da More' LPs
Senseless Things 1st 3 LPs
School Drugs 'Modern Medicine' LP
Lungfish - all
Power Alone 'Rather Be Alone' LP
The Mr. T Experience LPs
Mega City Four 'Who Cares Wins' LP
Retaliate 'IV' LP
Fiddlehead 'Between The Richness' LP

I also enjoyed 4 other records a lot that I downloaded and (as yet) do not own the vinyl for. These are:

Nomeansno LPs ('Wrong' & 'Dance Of The Headless Bourgeoisie') - I never fancied listening to this band in the past, but this year it came on youtube after something else and I was instantly hooked. Shame the records are so damn expensive these days.

Soulblind 'Greatest Hits Vol.1' - a new band who sound like they are fresh out of the 1991 grunge scene. I am excited to check out their new album.

Teenage Fanclub 'Bandwagonesque' LP - another one that my friends used to listen to when I was about 16 and I thougth was weak. I was wrong.

My iTunes tells me that I added 150 records this year which is an average of nearly 3 per week. I guess that really does show how much time I spent listening to music. But the one sad thing about this is that it feels that music makes less of an impact these days than it used to. When I was younger I would probably spend more time with each record, and some I would play over and over and over and learn every word and every note. That rarely happens these days. I listen to something a few times and then, if I really like it, I probably play it for a few weeks at best before I'm bored of it and moving on to something else. I'm not sure why this is the case, but I kinda miss the days of experiencing real lasting love for a record for months on end. The most I seem to get out of something that I really love these days is about 3 weeks. Is this just me?

MY FAVOURITE PICKUPS

It's always fun for me to go back through my posts and feel excited at all the cool, rare items I picked up, but this year I didn't actually pick up too many big items. It was mainly a year of picking up lots of new music rather than collecting rare 'pieces' for the sake of the collection. That said, I did still manage to get hold of some really great items that I am super happy to now own. Unsurprisingly, nearly all of them are test pressings as that is firmly where my interest lies these days.

The items shown above are as follows:

Farside 'Rochambeau' LP Test press - the result of a trade that took about 2 years to get around to. One of my all time favourite records.

Farside 'Scrap' LP Test press. I was surprised to find this one on eBay and knew from the second I saw it that I would win it. I love this band so much.

Judge 'Bringin' It Down' LP Test press - I still cannot fucking believe that I own this.

Down By Law 'Blue' LP Test press - I love the first 4 DBL albums, and this one is probably my favourite. I couldn't not buy this when I saw it for sale.

Shift 'Pathos' 12" Test press - another trade, and this one completed the holy trinity of Shift 12" test pressings for me.

Gameface 'Cupcakes' 7" Test press - I probably overpaid for thsi one, but it was worth it as this was a big hole in my Gameface test press collection.

Bloodline 'The Waiting Game' 7" Red vinyl - this one had been on my want list for 20 years+ and is incredibly hard to find. I was stoked to finally get one, and for only $10 too.

Inch 7" Red vinyl - this one had me so happy. I never knew it existed on colour vinyl despite owning it for close to 30 years.

THE FINAL WORD

As ever, thanks to the people who continue to read this, and especially to those who comment. I started this thing to engage with other like minded people and share information and stories, so it's nice when other people chip in. If you read and don't comment then I'd like to encourage you to do so in future. I love getting comments, but it happens much less frequently these days. Come on people!

I'm not sure 2023 will bring, but I'm pretty sure it will bring fewer records into my house. I'm aiming for a smaller yet higher quality haul for next year. I already have my sights on a couple of items that have me excited and I just hope that they come off.

See you all next year!