19 New Year’s Resolutions Kerrang! Is Making For 2019

2018 felt a little bit like a crazy night out – one minute, we were marching towards the bar full of promise and excitement, and the next we’re scrambling to find our shoes in an apartment we don’t recognize and staring at our empty wallets in wide-eyed horror. That said, for all the rampant insanity of this year, 2018 still managed to give us plenty to work with, including a few modern classics, some great conversations with rock music’s finest, and at least one warning about the use of actual animal blood. So it wasn’t all bad.

But tonight is New Year’s Eve, a night of champagne, reckless abandon, and above all, making big year-spanning promises you most likely won’t keep. And as much as everyone here at Kerrang! believes we and our fine publication are pretty perfect, there are a few changes that we’d like to aspire to in the coming year.

Here are 19 New Year’s resolutions we’re making in 2019:

1. Do A United States Map For Every Band And Genre, Ever

Metal, punk, hardcore, Metallica, and Motörhead were just the beginning. By the time we get to the United States Of Technical Post-Death and The United States Of The Black Dahlia Murder, you’ll be sending us money to stop.

2. Put On A Bunch More Awesome Events In The U.S.

Our Brooklyn showcases (featuring Hopesfall, Pallbearer, and Mutoid Man to name a few) and office-warming party kicked so much ass, we want to keep the ball rolling. Expect more awesome Kerrang! events coming your way; for now, make sure to put our upcoming tour with Rivers Of Nihil, Conjurer, Enthos, and Wolf King on your calendars.

3. Find And Interview The Model For Every Album From The ’90s

After the girl from Godmack’s debut, the girl from Around The Fur, and the kid from Evil Empire, we’ve decided to go all-out and interview everyone who's ever been on an album cover from the ’90s. If a person or their likeness ever appeared on the sleeve of an album that came out after hair metal, you’re going to hear about it.

4. Take All Our Spiritual Advice From Nergal From Behemoth

Time to enter the dapper Satanist dog food producer period of our lives.

5. Attend Every Major U.S. Festival

Oh man, where to begin? You’ve got Sonic Temple, Epicenter, Welcome To Rockville, and Camp Anarchy coming up, and that’s just what’s been announced so far. Do Greyhound Buses have showers on them?

6. See Slayer Again

We caught Slayer’s final tour in both the U.S. and the UK… only to discover there are even more shows coming our way. Never say never, we guess. Time to break back out the bullet belt!

7. Blast Slayer During A Hurricane

As Satan is our witness, WE WILL BE THIS GUY IN 2019.

8. Get A Selfie With Every Hardcore Singer Who Obviously Hates Selfies

If there’s a hardcore frontman whose very ethos screams, “I do not want to take a selfie with you”, we’re going to find him and get a selfie with him. Side note, “get punched in the face” might also be on this list…

9. Announce Our Band’s Break-Up In Spectacular Fashion

If only we can ever match this:

10. Build An 18-String Guitar

Seventeen strings? HA! Step aside, Jared, a real man plays with, uh, one more string than that?

11. Keep Our Hors D’Oeuvres Away From Marilyn Manson

Apparently Manson had a habit of regularly pissing on Korn’s catering back in the day, so we’re going to keep a watchful eye on our deli platter, lest we bite into a particularly pungent baby carrot.

12. Only Listen To Music Created With Corn, Sex Toys, Or Clowns

Drum sticks? Guitar picks? Actual band members? Bah! 2019 is the year of the totally unnecessary extra, and we’re at the forefront. Let’s see how Rats sounds when performed with flaming Ghost dildos.

13. Hear Every Panic! At The Disco Song Redone As A Metal Track

This one’s on you, Brendon Urie. You gave us the first metal P!ATD song this year. Now, we expect the whole catalog!

14. Put An Umlaut On Everything

Because, in the immortal words of the late Lemmy Kilmister: it looks cooler that way.

15. Get A Black Eye At A K! Pit

During our previous shows as part of our series where bands play to 50 fans in a cramped space, we’ve hung back by the bar and watched… but no more. This year, we’re getting in there, throwing the bows, and taking a haymaker to the face.

16. Listen To Metal With Post Malone

2018 was a big year for Post Malone’s relationship with the metal community, from getting his roots mapped out to hanging with Metallica, and we’re here for it. Now, one of primary goals for the coming year is to hang out in our uncle’s basement with him, listening to thrash EPs and yelling about who the best Big Four band was. Hey, it could happen.

17. Write A Review As Good As Our First-Ever Slipknot Review

Will we ever top our original Slipknot review from 20 years ago? That’s what we aim to do now – write anything as good as this.

18. Get A Pair Of General Surgery-Themed Air Max Sneakers

Your favorite albums as Air Max sneakers were all pretty great, but we don’t think we went hard enough in them. Thrash and NWOBHM albums? Let’s get some latter-day grindcore Carcass worship Airmaxes up in this.

19. Hear The New Tool Album

Hey, it could happen.

From all of us at Kerrang!, happy New Year, and don't name it after us!