Tag: ‘ipod’ · TangleBones
Top 25 Most Played
I was looking around my iPod today and decided to check out my “Top 25 Most Played” playlist. I’ve only had this iPod for about 8 months or so, and I’ve only really been listening to it in the car. I was pretty surprised by what I found, presented here in the order they were listed on the screen:
- Sniff by The Kleptones
- Change Clothes by DJ Danger Mouse
- Whatsername (Susanna Hoffs) by Dean Gray
- American Jesus by Dean Gray
- Badd To Me by King of Pants
- Love Me Or Hate Me by Lady Sovereign
- La La Her Madly by Ruff Muff
- Black Beatles by Loo & Placido
- Yeah in the Sun by Jay-Zeezer
- Since U Been Gahan by Earwork
- Brand New Colony by The Postal Service
- Boulevard of Broken Songs by Dean Gray
- Take Your Carriage Clock And Shove It by Belle & Sebastian
- Re: Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton
- Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton
- I’m Waking Up To Us by Belle & Sebastian
- Women’s Realm by Belle & Sebastian
- I’m a Cuckoo by Belle & Sebastian
- You Can’t Get Stuck by Yosha Bourgea
- Every Day I Write The Book by Elvis Costello
- Absolutely Cuckoo by The Magnetic Fields
- A Pretty Girl Is Like… by The Magnetic Fields
- Storytelling by Belle & Sebastian
- Stay Loose by Belle & Sebastian
- Watching The Detectives by Elvis Costello
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by Since some of those are kind of a bit obscure, here’s a breakdown of the ones you might not have heard:
Belle & Sebastian
Introduced to me by my friend the genius Kevin, B&S are a great Glaswegian indie band that will remind you of The Smiths with more melody and artistry. The hidden punch behind the beautiful music is the lyrical twists that you weren’t expecting.
Dean Gray
His mashup album, American Edit, brings together music and lyrics from Green Day’s American Idiot rock opera with everything from Oasis and The Bangles to the themes from Doctor Who and Mission Impossible. Strange and excellent.
The Postal Service
The Death Cab for Cutie side project that is better than the original band. The most amazing thing ever produced on what sound like broken Casio keyboards.
Jonathan Coulton
The geek troubadour, he rose to internet fame with his Thing A Week project that produced a new song each week. An early hit was his acoustic cover of Baby Got Back, but Code Monkey and Re: Your Brains are internet classics.
The Magnetic Fields
I have no idea what to say about them, but Kevin’s recommendation comes through again.
Yosha Bourgea
This song, written especially for Jared cured him of his “I’m stuck” phase and has delighted him ever since. Amazing.
Assorted Mashups
Best of Bootie 2005, The Grey Album and The Black and Blue Album are pretty much the only way I listen to pop music: ripped form its original context and mixed seamlessly with music I can stand to listen to.
What’s in your top 25?
Radiohead is serious music, this is serious thread
Macworld UK is reporting that:
At issue is Apple’s insistence that artists allow fans to buy individual tracks unbundled. Radiohead object to this, as the band wants to sell its albums as they were meant to be heard – complete.
In accordance with their wishes, I hope you will join me in my solemn oath to uphold Radiohead’s wishes that their songs be allowed the artistic integrity that they deserve:
1. I pledge to boycott listening to Radiohead’s music on the radio or purchasing singles, since it is so important to listen to their songs in the appropriate context. To help others enjoy this music, I will call in and request radio stations not to play Radiohead’s singles.
2. I also pledge to only ever listen to the album in one sitting, without pausing, rewinding or skipping from track to track, as the artists intended. Otherwise, I’d just be ruining this amazing music, none of which any of us have heard.
3. I will write to Radiohead to ask them to please release the CD as one single track to encourage this kind of behavior. If they could rig it so that it won’t allow pausing, rewinding or fast-forwarding, that would be great as well.
4. Since allowing people to rip the album will give them even more control, I will ask them to include software on the disk to prevent that sort of whole-sale destruction of the integrity of their album. If they could make said software install itself into a hidden area on any computer that it is inserted into, that would be ideal.
5. I will also ask Radiohead if they would never play any songs off of their albums live unless they intend to play them in the order that they are on the album, and with the same exact transitions.
This is, after all, serious music.
Or these jumped-up nitwits could get over themselves and stop trying to control how people enjoy their music and just appreciate the fact that they have a huge following of rabid fans who will buy any damn fool thing they produce, no matter how indulgent or pretentious. Also, they should realize that allowing people to purchase a sample song off of their album without purchasing the entire album will generate them more sales, not less.
What’s wrong with technology pundits?
[Note: I'd answer the question "What's wrong with pundits?" but who has that kind of time?]
Responding to an article by David Borlind, the Macalope writes:
…but one of the biggest problems with the current state of punditry is to confuse what the public wants with what the pundit wants. The two are not necessarily the same.
What bothers me is that tech pundits all seem to be feature obsessed. I guess the progression is something like:
- I have no idea how to compare these two products.
- Oh wait, I can just make one of those cool tables that check off the features.
- Ipso facto, Product A is better than Product B.
But they go farther than that, because this check-box obsession colors all of their perceptions, and you end up with market predictions based on feature lists. It’s all well and good to say, “I think you should buy Product A because it includes extra dongles,” or whatever, but when you say, “Nobody will buy Product B because it lacks extra dongles,” you’re treading on thin ice.
Especially when Product B is made by Apple.
Haven’t these people gotten the memo? Apple isn’t famous for all the features they add to computers, they’re famous for leaving things out. Sure, they were among the first manufacturers to ship all of their computers with USB ports, but everybody remembers the fact that they left floppy drives out of iMacs. Yes, they added video to iPods, but what’s more remarkable are the things they’ve never added: FM receivers, WMA support, subscription services, displays of meta-data, removable batteries, removable storage and plain old USB ports.
And they probably never will.
What these people are forgetting is that most consumers don’t shop with feature lists. Why do you think there are so many 480i TVs for sale? No sane person would buy one if they knew better, but that’s not how consumers shop. The justifications I hear for buying consumer electronics sound like:
- “I like the way this feels.”
- “I like the way this works.”
- “I like how much this costs.”
Any pundit that doesn’t understand these things needs to be fired. Aren’t there minimum requirements for these jobs?