I never got around to creating an end of year mixtape for 2023 — or a best-of list, come to think of it — and to be honest, I had good reason for it. While it was a good year for the most part, there were other personal things going on that took precedence, and it just fell by the wayside. I just didn’t have the spoons for it. It is what it is, though. It’s not the end of the world.

Now that we’re a month and a half away from the end of 2024, I’m pretty sure I’ll have something to go in the last week of December. I caught up on mixtape-making this year by reviving the Re:Defined series that I’d created back in the early 00s for similar reasons: changes in music tastes, changes in personal life, changes in outlook.

And there’s definitely been a lot of good stuff out there this year. I don’t always get to listen to it as frequently as I’d like (and I’d like to change that habit in the new year), but on the other hand there were quite a few albums I’ve been returning to on a consistent basis. Songs that get stuck in my head for days at a time.

We’ll see where this all leads in the coming weeks!