The yearly tradition of recapping the year ends with me as usual. I can confidently say that this year was much better than the last, both personally and concerning this site. With that in mind, it’s time to get into the details of what went down in 2019. As usual, this will be kind of long so take a bathroom break, have a snack and then come back to reading this.
Selective Hearing in 2019
2019 was year 13 of Selective Hearing, which was an interesting one. Much of our focus this year has been on covering events and creating content for our podcast. That may have created some sacrifices with written content, but we did our best to at least get one article a month per contributing staff member.
I expect this trend to continue until we either get more active contributors or we can ramp up production with the existing staff.
Like last year the staff have been given free rein over the type of things they want to write about. I stuck with what I knew, mainly in the music space with reviews, DJ Mixes and event coverage. I have also been dipping back into music production, dropping three remixes (m-flo, IZ*ONE and AB6IX) on the site this year.
Events
My year again started in Japan with the tail end of my yearly winter trip for Wrestle Kingdom and New Year Premium Party. So January 2nd and 3rd saw me at the familiar grounds of the Odaiba area trekking between the two Zepp venues to see idols.
Since many of the acts I was familiar with had departed to the lands of disbandment, my schedule was wide open. I took the opportunity to see a bunch of idols I had heard of in passing but never really invested any time in seeing before. I left the 2-day event with a few new groups on my radar.
After that, it was back to the Tokyo Dome on January 4th for Wrestle Kingdom 13 to watch what would be one of the final appearances of the members of The Elite before they returned to America to form All Elite Wrestling.
The final show I attended in Tokyo was for a wrestling promotion called Fight Club Pro. I didn’t know much about them, but they had Meiko Satomura and Akira Tozawa on the card. Little did I know that I would also be seeing some folks, such as Jimmy Havoc and Strong Hearts, who would be showing up in AEW a few months later.
Fast forward to August and the annual KCON convention. I did not intend to attend this as I have been out of the active K-Pop fandom for quite a while until then. But the lure of IZ*ONE had me signing up to go as soon as they were announced.
I went to the Los Angeles KCON with fellow staff member Allen as members of the press. You can listen to our podcasts about the event below:
https://selective-hearing.com/selective-hearing-roundtable-ep-44-kcon-los-angeles-2019-convention-recap/
https://selective-hearing.com/selective-hearing-roundtable-ep-44-kcon-los-angeles-2019-concert-recap/
