0.49.0 - I've been taken over by the Fear
Write.
This has presented a problem over the last two weeks. Without doubt, things have been busy and stressful - it was Catherine's birthday, which required a lot of prep and is celebrated over basically a three week period, there was an annual multi-hour quiz which required a lot of my mental writing energy and physical time, and my work is a disaster zone which has been leaving me an anxiety-and-frustration-riddled nervous wreck. But that hasn't been the problem - short and more often was the goal, surely I could carve out an hour every few days to keep the momentum up?
Probably.
But I looked at my listening stats as we approached December and I started to feel The Fear creep over me. Despite the ridiculousness of the fact I'd already covered some 930 albums, I my brain fixated on "Oh God, you still have so many albums to listen to and only a month to do it in.". The Fear told me that each hour I spent writing was time I was not spending reaching my goal, and every post I dash off rather than taking the time to craft and get my thoughts in order serves no-one. So that time, that precious time over the past two weeks where I've had the spoons and the time to myself and not being dragged around to meetings and work crisis after work crisis, or more pleasantly, have found myself engaged in social activities with the friends around me whom I love dearly, has been spent listening to music rather than writing about it.
My commitment when I started this was to listen to more than 1000 albums in a year, beat Ian Wong, and write about every album I listened to. It doesn't say anywhere that the writing about those albums also has to happen this year. But somehow, despite knowing that 30 people tops will read this, I didn't want to leave dead air on this blog for too long, and I'll try to keep something ticking over, as well as something more significant when (and if) I reach album number one thousand.
In the meantime, I thought you might want to know where I am at and some fun stats.
As of about 20 minutes ago when I finished Taylor Swift by Taylor Swift*, I now have 31 albums remaining until I hit 1,000. I made a long list of albums to listen to back in October but honestly I've abandoned, edited, and thrown most of it out. Instead, I'm listening to whatever strikes me right at that moment, which means my listening has been weirdly disjointed thematically but all of the albums I've listened to in the last fourteeen days have been inspired by something, however mundane.
Since I felt The Fear a couple of weeks ago, I've listened to 55 albums, for an average rate of about 3.9 per day. With 31 albums left to clear, that means I should be on pace to hit album 1000 around next Saturday or Sunday (the 13th/14th of December) which will coincide nicely with me putting up our Christmas decorations that weekend. I've got currently around 140 albums which I've listened to but not yet written about for this blog - I stand by my commitment, every single one of them will get some text written about them on here before I consider this project done, even if that might take me until March of 2026.
So, I apologise for giving in to The Fear. With the finish line so close, but time so short, for my own peace of mind (and Catherine's holiday period not being consumed by me locked in a room listening to albums for 8 hours a day), I'd rather push to the end and then pick up the writing once the main goal has been met.
If you want to track my listening in realtime, you can use the spreadsheet link at the top of this post, or my ongoing Bluesky thread here of everything I listen to as I scale the last few rungs to 1000. I'll be sure to make you all VERY aware when the task is completed though.
While I remember, I want to wish my transatlantic friend Andrew Keane a happy birthday; he's been incredibly supportive and encouraging as I've been doing this all year, and I'm almost certain his birthday is around here somewhere. Here's to you, bud.
See you all in, at the very latest, ten days or so I guess. Stay safe.
*This album did what I assumed would eventually happen, and put Taylor at the top of my 'Most Listened (songs)' artist for the entire year by just a single song over Tori Amos; However, I haven't even listened to Evermore yet. Here's my most listened artists from this year (and there's very little danger of these shifting now).
