So I hardly ever make New Year’s resolutions and that sort of thing. I perpetually make promises to myself that I often break; I don’t need another day on the calender to do that.

But lately I’ve been thinking about something big. Really big. If you’ve been following along, you may have heard that I’ve been coping with a fairly serious bout of depression this year, one far deeper and serious than any I’ve felt before in my life: it’s destroyed my ability to cope in social situations, riddled my creative life with self-doubt and hampered any sense of motivation for excellence at work.

Now, a big part of this has been multiple “environmental” factors (that’s a fancy term I learned in CBT) that went down this year: the shocking loss of a family member, the long and stressful illness of my partner, and other mounting frustrations elsewhere. It’s not necessarily that I need “cheering up;” if anything, social situations seem to bring me down even further.

In the work I’ve been doing to try and correct this downward spiral, I’ve done a lot of deep thinking about identity and what that means: I’ve been pushing myself to challenge what I’ve allowed my identity to become, and find out what I’m willing to do in order to shatter it. After all, my current identity of being “depressed” has lead me down a lone, narrowing path that I can’t say I’m thrilled to find myself in.

So with that said, one of the things I’m going to challenge myself with is to try and change my own “auditory” landscape: right now it’s littered with downright-depressing music that I absolutely adore. Pedro the Lion. Low. Mountain Goats. Red House Painters. Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Magnetic Fields. Cold War Kids.  Michael Knott. Xiu Xiu. Modest Mouse. The Dears. The Smiths. The Cure. Neutral Milk Hotel. Godspeed You Black Emperor! The National. Hayden. I could go on and on and on. What I want to attempt to do is try and fill my music-life with an exclusively positive influence… music that is exuberant, vibrant, joyful and uplifting. (Yeah, I know, that sounds pretty weird to me to).

There’s many “environmental” factors in my life that I can’t control: but one of the things I can control is the music surrounding me (most of the time). If I can make this musical landscape more positive, I hope that tiny change may have an overall effect on my mood/disposition/state.

That’s where you come in: I need your help, and I’m looking for suggestions. I’m going to start with a list of music that I have now that I consider permissible, and if you have anything I could add, please do so. I’m looking for anything: funk, jazz, classical,  folk, indie-rock, electro or electro-acoustic.

After a quick glance at my record collection, here’s what I’ve got so far:

• Andrew WK
• Beatles (early)
• By Divine Right
• Canaille
• David Crowder Band
• Do Make Say Think
• Dragonforce
• Glissandro 70
• Graven
• Jason Anderson
• Jim Campilongo Electric Trio
• Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros
• John Coltrane
• Matt Maher
• Miles Davis (early)
• Reverend Charlie Jackson
• Schomberg Fair
• Traffic
• Vampire Weekend
• Wilson Pickett
• Woodhands
• 100 Portaits/Waterdeep

You can keep my accountable by keeping up with my listening habits on Last.FM.