Best Album of 2007?

I could easily find 100 good candidates for Song of the Year, but Album of the Year is much different. I tend to listen to singles or will just download 2-3 songs from an artist rather than the whole album, so I don't have many candidates to choose from.

My favorite album, which I'm surprised isn't even on most people's Top 10 lists, is All Hour Cymbals by Yeasayer. "2080" is crazy good and the rest of the album is repeat-worthy as well. I've listened to the entire album a few dozen times and am still enjoying it.

The rest of my list will be unsurprising to people who likes indie pop \ rock. I was hesitant to make a "Best of the Year" list at all because there's not much here that's interesting if you keep up with this type of music.

All Hour Cymbals / Yeasayer
The Flying Club Cup / Beirut
Andorra / Caribou
Night Falls Over Kortedala / Jens Lekman
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga / Spoon
Ghettoblaster / Socalled
Mice Parade / Mice Parade

From the “Wish I Heard About in 2006″ club:
Night Ripper / Girl Talk
The Dusty Foot Philosopher / K’Naan

Other stuff: I like a lot of songs on Arcade Fire's "Neon Bible", but I haven't listened to the entire album enough to stand by it. I just downloaded "In Rainbows" by Radiohead and am enjoying it so far, which is something because I'm not a big Radiohead fan (sacrilege!)

I also finally listened to M.I.A.'s "Kala", an alum that seems to appear on every Top 10 list out there. It's good, especially "Jimmy" and "Paper Planes", but at the same time I don't quite get why so many people are in love with it.

Okay, your turn. Jim, Meghan, other fans of music: what are your Best Albums of 2007?

Music Bridge

My first modern MP3 was a first-generation IPod shuffle that I got free after signing up for a credit card. I used ITunes and mostly downloaded podcasts, but got annoyed that it didn't remove dead links from my library. For example, if you move a directory with mp3s on your hard drive, ITunes will then list the title twice, one with the broken link that doesn't work and one with the working link (after you manually re-add it to your library).

The Mac version of ITunes automatically deletes links. The whole enterprise is a giant F U to Microsoft Windows.

That is why when I got cheap non-Apple MP3 player #2, I switched over to Windows Media Player. WMP automatically deletes old links, has a nicer user interface, and is better at monitoring for new content. It does everything! Except support podcasts, which over 50% of MP3 player owners listen to (source: like I have to tell you. It's obviously made up.)

Okay. I'll open ITunes to download podcasts, and then open WMP to transfer them to my MP3 player. That worked fine until I bought MP3 player #3, a first-generation Microsoft Zune on sale for $105. It's great...except it doesn't work with ITunes or WMP. In a giant F U to Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Zune doesn't work with the company's own flagship media player. It only works with Zune Player!, which looks exactly like WMP except it is black and a little more difficult to use.

Why am I telling you this? For your own benefit! I finally broke down and searched for some third-party programs to handle this mess.

Music Bridge This program copies metadata such as playlists and ratings between ITunes and WMP. You can rate a song in either program and have the rating show up in both libraries. It doesn't work yet with Zune Player! metadata though.

ITunes Library Updates If you run the Windows version of ITunes, this program will comb your entire library and remove the dead links in it.

Am I missing any neat programs out there?

Sum2007Mix

The J-Wal 2007 Summer Mix CD playlist.

Song	Artist \ Album
Charlotte Gainsbourg	The Songs That We Sing
Apache	Michael Viner \ Bongo Rock
Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, and Wives	Voxtrot \ Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, and Wives
For The Widowers In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypisilan	Sufjan Stevens \ Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State
The Night Stars Here	Stars \ In Our Bedroom After the War
Sticks and Stones	The Pierces \ Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge
You Are Never Alone	Socalled \ Ghettoblaster
Robert Onion	Frank Black \ Dog in the Sand
Fingerbib	Alarm Will Sound \ Acoustica
The Way We Get By	Spoon \ Kill the Moonlight
People In Love	Art Brut \ It's A Bit Complicated
Heart It Races (DJ Rupture remix)	Architecture In Helsinki \ Heart It Races
Your Ex-Lover Is Dead (Final Fantasy remix)	Stars (Original) \ Do You Trust Your Friends?
Danger! High Voltage	Electric Six \ Fire
To Build a Home	Cinematic Orchestra
Wipe That Sound	Mouse on Mars \ Radical Connector
Satchelaise	Mice Parade \ Mice Parade
En Casa Del Trompo No Bailes	Orquesta Riverside
Shame	Avett Brothers \ Emotionalism
Fly	Nick Drake

'You Are Never Alone" --Socalled

I got this song from Salon.com's Song of the Day podcast. It's the best song I've heard in a few weeks, although obviously that doesn't mean you will even like it. It's at least worth a listen though.

Is it me, or is there zero correlation between one's taste in music and personality? I wouldn't say that about books, television shows, or movies. There seems to be at least a faint connection between one's pop culture interests and world view. I haven't seen a connection between personality and taste in music though. Maybe that's because music is less language-centric than books, TV shows, and movies. Music may engage people on a simpler, more primal level, and our enjoyments of melodies may have to do more with our genetics than the sum experiences of our lives.

The Pancake City Guide To Indie Music

If "Even Jesus Hates Creed" T-shirts make you laugh, but you would feel uncomfortable talking to the music-hipster wearing the shirt, this guide is for you.

There are literally hundreds of wonderful bands that are under the mass media radar. These bands are on independent labels who can afford small promotional campaigns for them at best.

Most of these groups make their livings playing small- to mid-sized venues and catering to devoted groups of fans. It used to be difficult to hear about these bands. For me, it was a mix of not knowing where to start and my (mostly false) perception that people who liked obscure bands were music snobs, clones of Jack Black's character in High Fidelity. I was already a comedy snob and movie snob at the time, and didn't want to waste my third snobbery on music. (We all get three snobs. Dem's the rules. If you have any complaints, send them to LOL CATZ)

What if I wanted to become a cheese snob? Or a robot snob? I didn't want to waste my last snob. The future is a mysterious place, even if you are from the future, because then you wonder where the glee-glerp is your time machine and why do these people keep showing your photo on tabloids shaking the hand of Elvis?

Tangent. Sorry. My worries of succumbing to music snobbery were over-rated. Contrary to what I expected, one doesn't have to throw the Baby Got Back out with the bathwater. More important, the maturing of podcasts and the Internet has made it a lot easier to stick one's toe into a different music world and hear songs that, and here I guess I am being a music snob, are better than 95% of what you could hope to hear on the radio.

It helps to know where to look though. Without further ado, here are some good places to start.


Pancake City Guide To Indie Music

1. Internet Radio

a. Pandora--The best place to start for anyone first exploring the world of indie label music. At Pandora, you type in the name of a band you currently like, and it streams full-length songs from bands with similar music qualities. You can further refine the music you hear by voting "Yay/Nay" for each song, save your stations, and listen to stations from other members.

b. MPR: Online Radio--If you have half-an-hour free, load MPR's stream and let it play as you work. Their song selection is excellent, and while you may not like every song, you won't have to wait long to find a gem.

c. NPR's All Songs Considered--Bob Bollen does a good job sorting through the hundreds of CDs he gets a week and presenting some of the more interesting choices to listeners. You can subscribe to the podcast or listen online. Sometimes the show can't get full play rights on the podcast and you can only listen to whole versions of the song online.


2. Songs of the Day
MP3s for free. You can subscribe to these podcasts on ITunes or directly from the website. I recommend all of these highly.

a. Salon.com: Song of the Day. Many good selections with only a rare dud.

b. MPR: The Current Song of the Day. This newish podcast is slightly less mainstream than Salon.com's, but I like it as much.

c. KCRW's Today's Top Tune.

d. KEXP Song of the Day.


3. Free downloads hubs
I haven't explored this area much as I get enough new music from the above sources and EMusic. Let me know if you have other recommendations.

a. Music.download.com--CNET's music download site has grown greatly in the past year. They have good relationships with most major and independent labels, offer a large catalog of songs to stream for free and have a growing number of free downloads to boot.

Unfortunately, their music is mostly indexed by category and thus more difficult to find music you'll like than sites like Netflix, Emusic, and Amazon that use social networking software to filter the near-overwhelming amount of songs to choose from.


4. Pay sites
Obviously, the reason bands release MP3s for free is to get new fans who may want to buy more of their work. I won't repeat my whole rave for EMusic, but it's the only pay-site I use. It's cheap, DRM-free, and has a wide selection of independent label music.

Subscription sites like Rhapsody may be a good deal, where you have to stay subscribed to continue to access the music but can download all you want, but I can't personally vouch for the site. (Click for 50 free Emusic downloads)


5. Twelve Bands To Look Into
Andrew Bird, Beirut, Camera Obscura, Cloud Cult, Interpol, Joanna Newsom, Lambchop, The National, Peter Bjorn and John, Stars, Sufjan Stevens, Voxtrot. You can copy n' paste these bands into Pandora's search box, and likely hear one or more of their songs.


Let me know if you like the guide or have anything to add. Good luck.

Someone Build a Dam--I'm Gushing About Emusic

If you have already been thinking about subscribing to EMusic, there is a link at the end for 50 free downloads. If you haven't heard about EMusic, keep reading. It's my favorite online music source.

Emusic is the 2nd biggest online music store, behind ITunes. I've been a subscriber to Emusic for several months now, and I absolutely love it. The songs are high-quality, DRM-free, and best of all, cheap. You pay a certain amount of money a month ($10-$20) and get to download 30-75 songs, depending on the subscription to choose. It will ruin ITunes for you. I don't think I can ever buy a song from ITunes for .99c after paying the equivalent of .25c per song.

I should mention first that the reason they can offer songs for 25c-33c is that almost all of the music they have is from independent labels. You are not going to find anything played on commercial radio here. I hate commercial radio, so this isn't an issue for me, but major-label bands like REM, Nine Inch Nails, and Britney Spears won't be found on the site.

If you are interested in discovering new music though, there is no better web site than EMusic. Their business model of cheap, high-volume downloads meshes perfectly with their efforts to tell customers about great bands. They have a "Most Downloaded" section, a 'New and Noteworthy" section, and suggestions for bands you may like based on past downloads. You can listen to 30-second samples of all songs, which gives you a good idea of whether you'll like the song or not.

I discover about 1/3 of the songs I download from EMusic's recommendations. Another 1/3 from shows like NPR's All Songs Considered and various "Song of the Day" podcasts. The last 1/3 is from friends and other EMusic members. The site keeps track of what you download and gives you the option to make various lists like "Songs I Love" or "Future Downloads" and let other users view them. I've found a many good bands I never would have heard of otherwise by browsing through people's download lists. Also, I have to give a shout-out to my roommate, Meghan, who has excellent music taste (among other things).

EMusic has convinced me that the high-price/low-volume revenue model of ITunes and major record labels is screwed up. I listen to so much more music now than I used to, happily pay for it, and it's almost solely because I can download a song for a quarter. It's much easier to take a chance on a new band when downloading a few singles costs less than a dollar and you can download the whole album for $2-3.

Not only that, I would download more if I could. I get 70 downloads per month on the plan I am on. I already used them up and I have two more weeks to go until they will be renewed. I have 40 albums saved that I'm considering downloading later. My love of music has slowly grown over my life, but it definitely shot up once I joined EMusic and was able to try out new bands at whim and for relatively cheap. Perhaps I'm atypical, but I think if ITunes offered a similar bulk rate discount, the increased volume would more than make up the lost revenue.

Okay, I'm done gushing. If you are interested in trying the site out, click on the link below. It's a trial offer where you can get 50 free downloads. I get 50 free downloads if you end up subscribing, so that's part of my motivation. Although if the fact that I want to download 50 more songs on top of the 70 I already downloaded this month isn't a good testimonial, I don't know what is.

If you want any recommendations on stuff to try out, leave a comment or shoot me an email. Or if you have some bands to recommend, please do. I enjoy sharing music and getting recommendations too.

50 free Emusic downloads.

No, Really

"Nerdcore hip hop, or geeksta rap, is a subgenre of hip hop music that is performed by nerds or geeks, and is characterized by themes and subject matter considered to be of general interest to nerds."

The above quote is both why I love and hate Wikipedia.

Very Precious

Barry White teams up with Gollum and Smeagol.

This Original Gansta/Gandalf mash-up is pretty good too. (Explicit language. Both links from BoingBoing).

Link-Tastic

NPR's Talk of the Nation played a few songs by solo artist Andrew Bird. His song, 'Skin Is, My' is one of the best I've heard this year.

Top Ten Science Pictures

"Hope There's Someone" or Why I Subscribe to Salon.com

I have a subscription to Salon.com for two reasons.

One, to read Tom the Dancing Bug a day earlier than the peons who buy The Washington Post.

Two, because someone there has really good taste in music. You may have to watch a short ad to download this song,"Hope There's Someone" by Antony and the Johnsons, but it's worth the time. It's a stirring song that holds up to repeated listenings.

And if you're looking for a good indie rock radio station, give the IndiePop channel at Somafm.com a try. It's my favorite station on the web.

The Grey Video

Last February, DJ Dangermouse mixed music from the Beatles' White album with beats and lyrics of Jay-Z's Black album. The resulting Grey album was a brilliant meld of their two styles. It also drew the ire of the company that owns the Beatles music and was forced to be distributed on file-sharing networks and a few brave web site owners.

The video for one of Dangermouse's songs, Encore, was just released. It's well done and fun to watch. Catch it before it gets taken down.

I Have a Sneaking Suspicion...

...that there is quite a bit of crossover between these two audiences.

For The Children

This song brought back a lot of painful memories (from Boing Boing).

Okay...

That guy still hasn't taken down the pants song. I'm taking applications for guest mp3s. Application is too formal of a word--record yourself, email it to me, and if it meets my high standards (i.e. no fart jokes) I'll put it up. Maybe if enough people do this, I'll put out a CD.

Z-Beats

Like Elvis making a peanut butter and banana sandwich, a DJ mixed Jay-Z's Black album with the Beatles White album to create a tasty, heart-clogging concoction called the Grey album. If you have a modicum of interest in either band, then the songs are worth hearing. It's mixed so well that it is hard to imagine Jay-Z's songs performed in another way.

You can download the songs at this site or from Kazaa. (link from BoingBoing)

Minibosses

I suspect the band Minibosses provoke one of two reactions: "Huh?" and "That's totally awesome." Put me down for the second one. The band almost solely performs music from old Nintendo games. Electric guitars and drums give life to the poppy beats of Mega Man, the infectious theme of Zelda, and even unusual choices like a tune from Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. Remember how pressing Select made Doc rub Little Mac's shoulder faster and restored his life? And if you hit the old man in Zelda the fire would shoot an energy ball at you? And…

That's why I like their music. A combination of spending much of my childhood playing video games and the emotions of these memories strong from the lack of exploitation of advertisers makes this a band for me.

You'll have the best luck finding their tunes on a file-sharing service like Kazaa. Wired has an article on them in its February issue (not online yet).

"Why Do Pants Fall Down?" and Other Great Hits

Those crazy Swedes. They've written a program that converts what you type into a song. The program maps each word to a sound clip of the word being sung by a musician and stitches the clips together.

Contest Winner / Photo

The winner of the latest "Name the Song" contest is Ralph with "Dr. Dre Rolls Through Smurf Village." I'll upload the song and a few others soon.

Here is a photo I was going to put on the Austerely-Titled Photos page, until I opened that page in Dreamweaver and was reminded of my amateurish attempt to make my amateurish photos pop up in a professional-looking window. Let us ignore the question of why I can type "javascript window popup tutorial" much easier here than in Google.

Hey, Everybody But Chad

This SASS'N BOP song needs a name. *Best title wins. Default title: Peacocky Peayocky.

* I have no idea what best means for this contest.

The only way I'm watching the third Star Wars movie...

...is if George Lucas makes this the theme song.
(Fett's Vette by MC Chris)