I happen to love January, with this fresh start to forgive the past and start anew. It's also my birthday month, so there's plenty of offers in the mail with coupons to celebrate the day. Inspirational emails have been flooding my inbox with calls to "Start the Year on a Clean Slate" (Crate & Barrel), "Out with the Old, In with the New" (Bloomies), and even "New Year, New You" (Museum of Modern Art!) Even magazines change over to streamlined graphics with tips for organizing or cleaning and purging the excesses of the holiday season.It's not a bad idea to organize your music collection while you're at it, culling any duplicates and filling in any missing identifiers. I must add that if you're in a relationship, be sure to have your own cache at all times (to quote my grandmother, you should also have your own stash of cash!) I'm always surprised to hear of those without their own music represented in a household, which unfortunately seems especially prevalent among women. Just because the media system might be set up and plugged in by a guy, doesn't mean you can't claim any ownership to it. Beef things up with albums and songs that rock your world, and of course I'm happy to suggest anything new on the scene.
And why not resolve to hear at least one new song a day? This is a simple task thanks to podcasts from two of my fave online radio stations. KCRW has a "Today's Top Tune" podcast and KEXP presents a "Song of the Day" podcast with free downloads daily. Click on the icons below to sign up for the KCRW and KEXP podcasts through iTunes if that's your portal. Plus FYI iTunes has hidden their "Essentials" collection to a page found here, which I've always found handy when doing playlists or licensing research. Beyond collections of individual bands, there are plenty of compilations with themes from Thanksgiving Dinner to Graduations Songs as well as various genres. Now no more excuses, get to it!
