Publishing a print magazine in this day and time—a website, the Weekly Beat newsletter, social media, videos… well, it’s a lot of work for a small company. It is definitely a labor of love.

Every year I take this opportunity to thank the OffBeat team: Joseph Irrera, Amanda Mester, Noé Cugny, Camille Ramsey, Katie Walenter, Eric Gernhauser, Theo Schell-Lambert and of course, our unparalleled crew of writers and photographers, and our distribution team, for the many hours they put into making OffBeat possible. And, of course, there are the musicians and music businesses and last but certainly not least, our subscribers and advertisers who are the people who support our mission of promoting and celebrating our music, cuisine and culture.

One can listen to our musicians in various ways—by streaming, downloads, physical product like CDs and on the radio. But there are stories behind the music that are threads woven into an intricate tapestry that’s forever growing bigger, more colorful and richer as years go on. That’s where OffBeat comes in.

It’s up to us to keep that tapestry fresh and add to it on a daily basis. You may love listening to our musicians, but dig a little deeper and find out what has influenced and changed our music throughout our city’s 300-year history.

What OffBeat “records” isn’t just about the music—music is an ever-evolving, ever-fascinating art form and it’s crucial to learn about who makes the music and why they create it. Humans are complicated beings, and music is ultimately a manifestation of human intellect, skill, emotion, art and love.

In this issue of OffBeat, we present a compendium of the artists who we feel have made the best music this year; we also present nominations for the musicians and artists who we have determined are worthy of accolades this year. Our nominations for the Best of the Beat Awards take months to prepare, getting opinions from musicians, readers, local music aficionados, club owners, talent bookers and many more. Now it’s your turn to choose the winners of the 2018 awards.

We’ll put the nominations online just after Christmas. Voting will conclude on January 15, 2019, and will culminate in our annual Best of the Beat Music Awards on January 31, 2019 at Generations Hall (see the back cover of this month’s magazine for more information).

We will also present the Lifetime Achievement Awards as well as the Music Business Awards on January 24, 2019 at a special event at Loyola’s Roussel Hall. This event is intended only for the musician and music business community, by invitation only.

Congratulations to our Lifetime Achievement recipients. Thank you!