Good intentions are always made at the beginning of the year: e when a new decade opens, radical choices are needed. But no, rest assured, we will not start selling strings and straps.

Music accompanies our days and our lives: when we enter a shop and there is absolute silence, we feel a feeling of emptiness, of discomfort. We are still amazed today when some of you tell us that there are musical instrument shops that don't even put Radio Maria on!

Until a few years ago it was our habit to publish daily listening on social networks, always citing the drummer of the band of the day and, often, triggering those discussions that are typical of any context that is not real: a bit like online communities, which are born always with the best of intentions and unfortunately soon after they implode suffocated by discussions that no one would ever dare to start in the physical world. Or at least, not so vehemently.

Then we got tired of always mentioning the drummers and we started to favor MUSIC. That's not just battery. And it has happened a thousand times to listen to records where the drummer was not even there. And it was wonderful music at times.

And then in 2019 we got tired of listening to everything we had heard until 2019. So we decided to take off our Linus blankets, to get out of our comfort zone and we made a radical choice: from January 1, 2020 we would listen in the store only and exclusively music released in the last two years. Possibly music towards which we were also a little "closed" or that in any case we would never have thought to listen.

Then…

Just Stevie Wonder even if we would marry him, just David Bowie to feel sophisticated but not too much, just Led Zeppelin to make everyone agree, absolutely everyone, just Miles Davis to hope someone will pop up somewhere and say "hey, he's still alive!" just James Brown to make us want to dance and remind us that muscle distraction is around the corner, just Rush even if it is a pain not to listen to the late Neil Peart but you have to deprive yourself of some pleasure now to enjoy it later, just Pink Floyd to dream even without the use of drugs, just Motörhead to headbang and immediately feel dirty, just Red Hot Chili Peppers to feel young even if those are now 60, enough Pantera to vent the frustration for yet another customer who does not buy a snare drum because "it is exactly the sound I was looking for, but I wanted it in another wood" (sic!), just U2 to remember adolescent lemons, just Michael Jackson because it is another that everyone likes, just Earth Wind & Fire because they make us feel unworthy and unable even to think of playing an instrument, just Toto because that's enough, everything is enough!

We have always been musically open and omnivorous but never like now: there is so much music that we would have liked to listen to on working days but that we have never put on because it is too violent, too depressing, too whispered, too complex, too perfect or on the contrary too much. raw and very badly recorded, and we have always adapted to customers, a bit like djs in their spare time who, when they saw the little family enter in search of the first drumset, removed the Marduk to replace them with the most reassuring (for them!) Amedeo Minghi. And on the notes of "My life", all happy.

So, first new rule: nothing prior to 2018.
2018-2019 were musically interesting years. The Grammys finally hit the spot with the talent of Billie Eilish that only those who live on Mars and are still styled as a Stasi official may never have listened to, the very young Joey Alexander that at 16 he flies on that piano while we at his age flew on the asphalt playing bad football, Jazzmeia Horn exuding passion and elegance in every note, the highly anticipated return of the Tool with an interlocutory record in our opinion, Lizzo with his funkish rap or rapping funk that brings joy and moves the ass, the overflowing Kamasi Washington which alone is the whole Sun Ra Orchestra, the third album of Michael Kiwanuka that makes you want to drink and smoke, the last of the Opeth that we no longer know what they have become but at least they have not become a parody of themselves and we will continue to listen "Still Life" in great secrecy, the Steve Gadd Band who also won a Grammy and which we were honored to sponsor for the Milan date of his 2018 tour, Tyler The Creator which is at the top of all year-end rankings, Raphael Saadiq that some would define neo soul or urban but that we define simply as good: this is not even the tip, but the slightly mainstream sliver of an iceberg called NEW MUSIC. Finally!

We are not barred from anything or anyone: even if some great old publish something new, we would listen to it with enthusiasm because we are not snobs. There is also listening to the new album by Rolling Stones, should they come up with one shortly, so as not to fall into the temptation of a millionth listening to the magnificent "Exile on Main St.".

There is also a lot of beautiful music played by you, periodically we ask you to report your exits, to send us the Spotify and Bandcamp links, or to bring us your album when you come to the store: not for free, we buy it for you because it is right, even more so for those who do our job, to make an economic contribution to musical growth.

In recent weeks it has often happened that some of you, after wandering around the shop, asked us a good question: “Who are these? Cool! ". And for once in a while there are new words, we talk about emerging or returning artists, without getting bogged down on Dave Weckl, Steve Gadd or Vinnie Colaiuta. We love, but also enough to talk about their amazing performances at the Buddy Rich Memorial. Bastaaaaaaaa!

The only exception of the year was for the very big ones Timoria: with their "2020 Speedball" we opened the year and it could not have been otherwise.

But we have decided to listen ahead. You?