Listening Now
By Antonio Topete
A blog about the music in my life.
Like so many people, music is extremely important to me. I can hear music playing in so many of my memories throughout my life, and memories about music, hearing my dad playing the guitar as a kid, my first concert, joining my first band, listening to music with friends, collecting records; these memories are especially present to me.
Listening Now is my space to talk about music. I can’t claim to be an expert by any measure, nor will I try to convince you that I’m someone who “enjoys all music”, but I love music, and I’m trying to love as much music as I can. If you’re reading this now, or if you read anything else in this space, I thank you, because writing about the things you love is hard, or at least it’s hard for me. But if you take anything from here, I hope it’s that loving music is easy, you just have to listen.
Keeping Time, Changing Rhythm
I love music. Anyone who knows me, or certainly anyone who has spent time reading this blog, probably does not need to be told this. But I love music in a way that few things end up being loved in this life. Music as an artform is transcendent in a way that no other medium…
Top 25 Tracks 2025
I always see my list of tracks as an opportunity to cast a wider snapshot of my year in music, as well as a chance to try and capture smaller musical moments in more abstract ways. These two halves combined make for a very fun writing experience, especially in a year with so many great…
Top 10 Albums 2025
This year was a strange one, to put it lightly. The rapidly changing political landscape full of threats, pain, and fear, made it a difficult year to focus as much energy on music; it certainly felt as though there were more “important” things to discuss. Music itself faced threats too, with the continuing malpractice of…
Top 25 Tracks 2024
Writing about individual songs is a rewarding and sometimes exhausting challenge. Capturing what makes them tick can be difficult even for something you’ve heard dozens of times, but I always enjoy forcing myself to dig deeper, and often walk away with more profound appreciation for my favorite tracks. I hope you can appreciate some of…
Top 10 Albums 2024
It’s pretty surreal to think this is my 5th end of year list on this blog. To all the people who have taken the time to check my lists and (extremely infrequent) opinion pieces out, I deeply appreciate you. Halfway through the decade, there’s been an abundance of amazing music, always more than I am…
Top 25 Tracks 2023
There’s something a bit liberating about listing my favorite tracks of the year. Even if a song is not part of the most consistent album, it can simply stand on its own merits. Standout moments that I heard over the course of the year can be focused on completely, as much as it may be…
Top 10 Albums 2023
More than most years, I found 2023 to be rewarding as a passionate music fan. Artists I know and love delivered wonderful new material, and more than any other year, artists I am not well acquainted with are showing up in my list of favorites. Also more than before, my favorites of the year span…
Top 25 Tracks 2022
If my list of favorite albums is difficult to put together and rank, my favorite songs of the year are virtually impossible. So many incredible tracks were delivered this year, some off of incredible albums, some as a diamond in the rough. In an attempt to highlight as much of it as I can, I’ve…
Top 10 Albums 2022
Every year I think that making my lists will get easier. Every year I am terribly wrong, as I painfully cut my shortlist of contenders down to a mere ten. With the ability to tour back as an option, it would be safe to say that many artists wished to withhold their projects as the…
I Feel Like Dancing (In My Mind)
I’ve never been much of a dancer. Frankly, if you know me well, you’re probably aware that I’m actually quite averse to it. It’s always been hard for me exactly to put my finger on, but there’s something about parties and clubs and otherwise dance-focused events that never clicked with me. When forced into such…
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Listening Now 