iDespise iTunes*
*(the application, on windows)
I listen to a well above average amount of music while sitting at a computer, both at home and at the office. I have a very large collection of music, but I don't think my musical needs and computer music quirks are all that outrageous. It very well may be a symptom of my inaction or seeming inability to migrate away from Windows as a primary operating system, but iTunes causes me an inordinate amount of aggravation.
Why do I use it you say? Well, until recently I lived a blissful musical existence without it even installed- until I bought an iPod. Since it was a new fangled revision, all the third party iPod syncing software was useless. So, I installed iTunes for the first time on my new desktop, and I was pleased that it didn't seem as molasses slow on Windows as it was the last time I tried to use it. However, I continued to use my personal favorite music player, the open source musikcube.
Then the last.fm plugin for musikcube stopped working reliably.
This presented a problem, because I happen to like last.fm quite a bit, it's a great tool for finding new artists and music to listen to, as well as a provider of cool analytics based on what you're actually listening to. Without a steady stream of data, it's not nearly as effective, so even though I soldiered on for a while, I became annoyed enough to seek out an alternate music player solution. Preferably one that integrated with last.fm's official application so I could easily integrate the radio.
While I was initially impressed with the iTunes speed improvement at a glance, heavy usage made it feel like a molasses bath coming from the snappy musikcube with its native ui and blazing fast sqlite database for music metadata. Then there's the library management. One thing I am pretty finicky about is my music collection's organization, and there's no way I was going to give up my intimate knowledge of my sizable music collection to a different format. But, I still hated having to manually add every new album I ripped or got online. Musikcube does this out of the box, and iTunes and I entered into a shaky truce when I discovered the iTunes Library Updater, which was somewhat of a MacGuyver solution to do this that I could set up a scheduled task for. But, recent iTunes updates seem to have turned my MacGuyver utility into a MacGruber, detonating my e-truce.
So here I am, installing the most extensible and powerful music player out there, (for Windows anyway, I've really liked amarok when I've used it in the past) foobar. Of course, it's also the player that requires by far the most tinkering and configuration out of the box, which is what I've been trying to avoid. However it is supported by the official last.fm application, is lightning fast, and it is possible to do some pretty incredible stuff with its interface. It just requires putting a lot of time and effort in getting it just right and making sure all the plugins I want are installed- time that I could be spending on other projects, but since my hand is now forced it's time to queue up a bunch of music (on iTunes) and commence to configuring.
For all the flak I give iTunes though, I will say I prefer it to Windows Media Player since I really never did like the way they organize their library, and when I think of Winamp, I think back to the days of a big long list of 1500 songs I downloaded off of napster and audiogalaxy. So I guess I will award a little something extra to the apple developers besides the parks & rec standard 'participant' trophy.
As for the iTunes music store, I have no problems with it. When I've bought an album from there aside from the annoyance of getting aac files to play outside of iTunes and iPods it has been a pleasant experience, but if given the choice I'll never again buy an album from there, given that #1) I like to own the cd and rip it myself in variable bitrate mp3, and #2) Amazon's music store provides all their music without drm and in high bitrate mp3, I really have no reason to ever look at the iTunes store again except for media that it sells exclusively.
For many nerds I know, how they choose to listen to their music is a deeply personal choice. Am I missing some grand solution?
this counts as calling three years out
One of my favorite little things about music is certain songs or albums seem intertwined with certain events or time periods in the past. I tend to listen to music in full album form rather than individual songs so for me this makes certain albums seem much better than they are, and other really great albums get tainted (although a couple albums I really liked have risen above this).
For the most part when this happens, various albums just evoke certain memories without affecting my thoughts on the music. Every time I hear any track off of Led Zeppelin IV I get a very vivid mental image of riding a school bus to a cross country meet. Maybe the fact that this record singlehandedly spurred my 'good music' awakening implanted that experience into my brain.
The White Stripes' Elephant and Queens of the Stone Age's Rated R transplant me into the mostly empty apartment Justin and I lived in off campus over the summer at Purdue. Blind Melon's first record and the first Hootie cd take me to the balcony of that same apartment earlier in the year sitting and bullshitting with Cole and Justin Karr, but there doesn't seem to be a real pattern into what ties a specific piece of music in with any specific memory or timeframe.
Oddly enough, my favorite instance of this involves an album that I listened to incessantly during one of the most emotional and depressing times of my life. I was mostly lonely with most of my friends having moved away, and smack in the middle of a transition phase of my life- deciding where I was going post college and consumed with job interviews and final projects. I was in the process of dealing with a genuine heartbreak and in complete denial that I was suffering from any such thing, and maybe that's what helped The Wrens' The Meadowlands become the album that evokes the fall of 2005 more vividly than most other musical memories.
The Meadowlands is a slightly noisy indie rock record made up mainly of retrospectives on many topics, but like most of the very best and worst music, relationships are the main subject. I listened to the first two tracks of this album on my shower cd player nearly every day for a couple of months, and given the subject matter puts me in probably one of my all time great emo states of mind. She Sends Kisses is a track that could probably compete to be in my top five favorite songs. The Boy is Exhausted and Faster Gun are great upbeat tracks, and Ex-Girl Collection and Everyone Chooses Sides have titles that can tell you exactly what they're about- but the lyrics are brilliant.
13 months in 6 minutes is also pretty self explanatory, but it tells a completely non unique story that is so vivid it brings to mind every relationship that started hot and flared out, or even had the possibility to do so. The last track is short, but sends such a piercing and emotional yelling note up your spine it's one of my favorite 5 seconds in rock music, and definitely among the most bitter and sad.
The Meadowlands may have been written in the garden state and about a collection of experiences that occurred there, but every time I hear it I'm sitting in a threadbare apartment on Yeager Road feeling sorry for myself- and I always keep listening.
What it means to rock -OR- Reflections on guitar hero
Someone at Harmonix is/was a goddamn genius. It was Newton who said "If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants," but whoever came up with the idea of Guitar Hero by standing on the shoulders of Dance Dance Revolution deserves the highest entrepreneurial accolades possible.
Rhythm games themselves are not new, and Dance Dance Revolution (henceforth referred to as DDR) was the most popular. I remember when I was living in the dorms at Purdue seeing random people in the floor lounges and at the arcade in the union / in the bowling alley wildly convulsing over floor sensors, and having an absolutely fantastic time doing it. However, in order to participate in DDR, you either have to be unaware of how silly you look, or just not care (the recommended choice).
All great ideas seem so simple after they're implemented- basically Guitar hero is the fusion of the fun gameplay of DDR, combined with the common fantasy of being a rock and roll star by way of the mechanics of playing the air guitar, and it is a great time. It still takes a pretty large amount of self confidence to not feel silly playing it while other people are around, but nobody can say it's not a good time.
Every year a staggering number of people take up playing the guitar. Why? Because playing the guitar is effing awesome. It rocks. I loved music when I picked up the guitar at 14, and I love listening to and playing music even more now, but honestly one of the big motivating factors for sitting and shredding my fingers and absolutely sucking for years was to play guitar, rock out, and be cool. Now I play guitar because I love to make music, but it is a nice side benefit to look sort of cool in the process- but this video game taps into that base dream and makes it easily accessible to everyone.
With guitar hero, you don't have to shred your fingers and practice for hours a night for years to be able to rock out. Just plug in the guitar controller, set it on easy and play until you're capable of e-shredding on expert, it's an instant rock star fantasy camp, and it's even more fun when you're among a group of people who can enjoy it too. It's so simple, and they have got to be printing money with the concept even though the game and the controllers cost so much. The original guitar hero developers seem to be releasing a game soon that will incorporate singing and drums along with the dual guitars, so you and your friends can form your own little plastic rock band.
Originally I basically scorned this game because it allows people to tap into an experience that I spent a lot of time and work to get. I may not be the most talented guitarist in the world, but I worked pretty hard to get decent, so why should anyone else get to feel like a fancy pants guitaring person without building up the callouses first? Of course, this is a completely silly reaction as the two activities are wildly different, but it didn't help that I completely and totally sucked at the game the first time I tried it (hint: pretty much everyone does no matter their skill level, although I would like to have somebody like Clapton try it just to see).
In the end, when enjoying the game for what it is, an incredibly fun virtual fantasy camp style experience, there's nothing quite like it. Playing with a group of people who enjoy it makes it an even better experience. *BLATANT PLUG: In fact, if you live in Indianapolis come play with us at halftime of Monday Night Football games, details at IndyMojo.com.
However, even with my small time band that plays covers most of the time because it's the easiest way to get people to listen to our originals (and also because it's fun to play songs that you like from bands people know), the feeling of playing to a crowd of people who are enjoying the music and responding to what's going on up on stage is a million times more of a rush than hitting the star power or getting achievements. That's why guitar hero is insanely fun, but it absolutely, positively does not rock.
I wish I could save her in some sort of time machine
Jeff Mangum is one of the most bizarre individuals this world has ever seen, and while there are many truly great songwriters out there who have made and continue to make great music, something clicked between him and his band Neutral Milk Hotel sometime in 1997-98 that produced what I think is the greatest single musical album ever made.
Sometime around 2003ish, I was in the car with my friend Jeff and he told me I had to hear this cd- that the guy had the best voice he had ever heard and the album was incredible. Having gotten the benefit of some good musical advice from the guy in the past I was listening with an open mind, and upon first listen it seemed to be just some guy who definitely did not have that great a voice singing over an acoustic guitar and some random mess of a horn section. Frankly, I thought it sucked, and so In The Aeroplane Over The Sea got mentally shelved in the 'too out there for me' musical category.
About a year or so later, I had joined an online music community full of people who take their music very seriously, and when people posted their favorite albums, Aeroplane was near the top of a lot of people's lists. Somewhat surprised by this, I put the headphones on and decided to give it another shot, and this time something really clicked.
Jeff's relatively simplistic, sometimes layered acoustic guitar playing is the base of almost every song on the album, but his hauntingly beautiful lyrics and imagery are what really drive every song, backed up by the eerie sounds of his band which seems almost like some deranged 5 piece marching band. Jeff by himself does not have that great a voice, and it definitely takes some getting used to, but he sings with so much emotion if you're really listening it's hard not to feel some of that emotion vicariously.
Obviously the guy is a little out there, as someone who claims to have vivid and meaningful visions frequently, and who claimed that the closet he slept in for a year at the Pet Sounds studio was haunted, but I'm almost inclined to believe him as a result of his ability to translate the bizarre contents of his brain so well into song. Either way the (even minor) spotlight was not his thing, as since this album he has all but disappeared completely from making music other than a collection of Bulgarian folk music a few years back.
If the record itself has a theme at all, it seems to be mostly obsessed with the idea of the spirit of Anne Frank, and that sort of innocence, love, and hope in the face of incredible tragedy and horror. All of the songs seem to be inspired by bizarre visions, and from the shorter simple songs like the opening track The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 to the 8 minute epic Oh, Comely Mangum seems to be speaking some other language in plain english, but somehow I understand some of it and fill in the blanks myself. Sigur Ros produces a similar effect, mainly because they actually are speaking another language (and on one album a language they just made up). But, nothing quite measures up to this 40 minutes for me, or even comes that close.
Every time I try to describe this record to people I usually just get edgewise stares, so I think even if I win no one over, at least maybe I can get some people to listen to a song I think is the most accessible, and possibly one of the best songs ever written. It also happens to share the title of the album- if you can't find it to listen to it, I'll find a way to play it for you.
Ok fine, but keep those stupid white headphones away from me
I feel dirty. Not necessarily the ironically dirty feeling I respond with whenever the internet asks me what my mood is, but the kind of feeling you get when you finally give in to a phenomenon you somewhat despise.
I bought an iPod.
Yes, I now own a pair of the iconic white headphones, and they quickly found a place in my trash can. One vestige of my technology snobbery I won't be letting go along with my taste in mp3 players is my taste in better headphones. However, I do have to admit that I am begrudgingly beginning to accept and own up to the fact that this device is just about perfect for what I intend to use it for.
For a few years I've owned an iRiver H320 'multi codec jukebox' and it has been adequate for my mp3 player needs, in that I haven't really needed one. It stored 20 gigabytes worth of music, had a color screen, and half-passable navigation. However, the battery on it has recently become less than reliable, and I realized recently that it is literally 3 times thicker than a new hard drive based iPod.
Also, I recently purchased a new car. It didn't come loaded to the brim with options, but it did come with a decent stereo, and I didn't pay more for the super fancy stereo because the base one comes with an auxiliary input jack right there on the front. Hooray! Welcome to choose my own musical entertainment device shopping.
As I did the research and various web buzz started swirling around, I realized two key points-
1) pretty much everybody besides apple has given up on producing a high capacity hard drive based music player
2) probably because there really aren't too many people who require more than a few gigabytes of storage space for their music.
Not me- if I'm driving more than 10 minutes, I want to have every album I own on hand to pick from. This mp3 player will be automobile based only, and not really used for video watching outside of a random few occurrences. Therefore, the new iPod Classic was pretty much the only choice, and with 80 gigs of storage for 250 bucks, I decided to give it a shot.
For my purposes using it in the car is great, scrolling is fast and easy- worlds better than the 4 directional navigation on my iRiver, and the audible clicking you get when using the scroll wheel is helpful, sound quality is more than good enough just out of the headphone jack into the aux input, so long as you don't crank the volume all the way up. Once I get to cleaning up all my tags on my music files, it should be a snap to pick whatever album suits my fancy.
I may not like you Steve Jobs, but damn it I respect your product.
4.5 out of 5 fountain cokes
this cat is a landmine
I'm not really sure what "Post-Rock" means as a musical genre. According to Wikipedia as of tonight, it's:
a music genre characterized by the use of musical instruments commonly associated with rock music (typically a line-up of two electric guitars, an electric bass guitar and a drum set), but utilizing rhythms, harmonies, melodies and chord progressions that are unorthodox in rock and roll.
65daysofstatic evidently fits into this genre, but labels like this always seem a little silly. Really, compared with other Post-Rock bands I've listened to they seem to be almost a part of their own genre. I've also heard them described as "Math Rock" which is even more bizarre, and seems to be a clever term for "uses atypical musical time signatures."
When I first happened upon this band almost completely by accident, I was thrown off by the first noisy track of their first album The Fall of Math, but I left it playing based on really strong word of mouth from my favorite music forum, and from the second track on I was completely hooked.
I don't listen to a whole lot of instrumental stuff, and before Kid A I really never listened to anything that was driven significantly by electronic music other than the occasional Prodigy song and the token soundtrack to The Matrix, both mostly when I was in high school. It may be because they're conveniently located alphabetically speaking on my playlist, or because it's great music to put on and get a lot of work done, but I listen to a significant amount of this band and get a surprising emotional pull out of it for instrumental music.
The off beat electronic drums have diminished slightly since their first album, but they're still there and used to fantastic effect along with a lot of spooky / awesome atmospheric sounds. I've just now gotten around to listening to their new album that was released this year and it's a fitting addition to the collection.
Despite the great music, probably my favorite thing about this band is the collection of wonderfully bizarre song titles that show up on their albums, like the one I used for the title of this blog, or "I swallowed hard, like I understood" (check it out on the linked myspace page), "drove through ghosts to get here", and "the conspiracy of seeds".
This is a lot of words basically saying "Hey, check this band out!" I'll even help, here's an unofficial video for "radio protector" off their second album:
Melonhead
Blind Melon has a new singer and is releasing a new album and I'm not really sure how to feel about it.
The lead singer of my favorite band died when I was 13, well before I was aware of them in any capacity beyond the band with the catchy bee girl video, which is probably how most people continue to remember them now. It wasn't until I got to college that I rediscovered the band and really listened to the first album and got completely hooked, and then discovered their other two albums, with Soup probably making my top 5 favorite albums of all time.
I can only imagine how good Nico could have been had Shannon not pushed his drug use too far, but then again his apparent excess in just about all areas of his life may have been what drove his songwriting and lyrics. The other musicians in the band are very talented guys, and a lot of what attracted me to the music was the guitar work inspired by a lot of classic rock bands that I was very into at the time- but it was also very unique, and a pretty stark contrast to the grunge and then 'alternative' sound popular at the time their albums were being released. But, having tried to find music from the other band members after the breakup, it was always missing the element that Shannon brought.
Now, the band has gotten back together with the addition of Travis Warren, a guy with a similar vocal vibe to Shannon, and the guy is pretty good, from sampling tunes they've been posting on their myspace page, I get a vibe very similar to the first album, which is good, but living up to the second two is a really tall order.
I'm not sure whether they decided to revive the name for easier promotion, or because the music has the same vibe or what, but I feel like it's even more egregious than say, Alice in Chains reuniting without Layne Staley. If they can put out an album that is on par with the old releases then I'll be happy to accept it. In the meantime the purist in me is feeling a little uneasy.