pres.umptuo.us

Time to do some year-end lists. I’m gonna start off with music this time, and by using the magic of iTunes it pretty much makes these lists for me. These lists are for music I found in the year 2005, not music that was released in 2005.

Update: Favorite song chosen below. Right, these are all just stats gathered by a computer program, so scroll down to see my pick for favorite song of the year.

Most Played Songs

Pretty self-explanatory. Unfortunately it tends to favor songs I found earlier in the year.

1. Death Cab for Cutie - Brothers on a Hotel Bed (88 plays)
   My favorite track on my first listen through their album Plans, although I think What Sarah Said is just as good, if not a better track.

2. Howie Day - Collide (63 plays)
   Very radio-friendly and Top 40, but can’t deny it’s a great song.

3. Elefant - Tonight Let’s Dance (61 plays)
   Love the beat on this track.

4. Stereophonics - Dakota (55 plays)
   Probably a lot higher than it should be, but it did come out early in the year, helping it get more plays.

5. Jem - Finally Woken (54 plays)
   I always bob my head when I hear this song.

Honorable Mention: Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone; New Order - Age of Consent; Badly Drawn Boy - The Shining; Ben Folds - In Between Days; French Kicks - The Trial of the Century; DeVotchKa - How It Ends; Rilo Kiley - Patiently; The Human League - Human.

Continue reading “2005 Year-End: Music”

They played The Frug!

I didn’t think I’d like this album this much, but it’s way bueno. This is like what Coldplay’s album X & Y should’ve been like.

Plans is not revolutionary in any way. It’s exactly what one would expect from Death Cab for Cutie, so if you weren’t a fan before you probably won’t be one now, and if you were a fan before then you’ll still be a fan. It’s just great to have new music from them.

Stand out tracks: Brothers on a Hotel Bed (I hit rewind three times on this track my first time through) and I Will Follow You Into the Dark (Acoustic Ben Gibbard is always good). I’m sure I’ll come to love a lot of the other tracks in time. Their first single, Soul Meets Body, is just a little on the cheesy side for me though.

Plans will be released on August 30th.

I just listened to Coldplay’s new album twice through, and it’s really rather dull. A few of the tracks barely stood out, and the rest all blended together. It could be that I’ve just grown old of Coldplay, but A Rush Of Blood To The Head is playing in my headphones right now and it’s definitely a superior album.

I’m not so much disappointed since I heard “Speed of Sound” only once on the radio and it didn’t grab me, and neither does this album.

I’m very meticulous about my music collection and how it’s organized. For anyone who uses iTunes, they’ll know that tags are the key, and I’m sure everyone is aware of how certain songs in their collections are louder or quieter than others, like their volume is inconsistent.

After downloading songs, I drag and drop them into MusicBrainz, which is about 90% effective in tagging my songs for me and doing so in a very consistent manner. Then I pop them into MP3Gain to normalize their volumes (This does not degrade the quality), and then finally load them into my collection.

I’ve found Audioscrobbler to be excellent at tracking my music listening habits as well. They recently added a few new features, such as a Weekly Artist Chart and a Weekly Track Chart. Here’s my page for anyone interested, and anyone using iTunes on a PC with their iPod will notice that Audioscrobbler does not track songs listened to on the iPod, but there’s a plugin to do that.

I never thought I’d listen to another Kelly Clarkson song after hearing the dreadful “Breakaway”, but “Since U Been Gone” is ridiculously good. The Ted Leo cover of it is great as well. Totally ripped and stolen from kottke.

I’m still not a big fan after seeing Ted Leo and the Pharmacists perform live. The good is that he sounds exactly like he does on his albums, just not my cup of tea. A little too…hard, I guess would be the word. I need my mellow stuff. He did a great set though and had a lot of fun with the audience.

Opening Band USE was fun and their music was very dancy, but the electronic-synthesizer voice got boring after being used in every song. Let’s not discuss The Joggers that played after them; Somebody forgot to tell them that good singing is a requirement for being a band.

The Galaxy is a cozy little venue. We arrived early and snagged a booth so we wouldn’t have to stand during the whole show. The food sucks though, and don’t listen to what they say about a two drink minimum or the $10 food per person - they didn’t bother to check. I’m hoping that more good bands play there in the future.

Following up on my previous gripe about efficient ways to share music, Abdul keyed me in to the idea of using Gmail as a shared repository. With the 1 gig of space that is offered, it seemed like a pretty good way to go.

I noticed today that I had 50 free accounts to give out (Um…does anyone still need one?), so what the heck. It’ll be as simple as giving out the username and password to people who are trustworthy and won’t randomly give it out/delete existing songs/change the password, and just uploading music at will.

There’s two issues to tackle: First - a way to alert people when new music has been put up. Two - a way to sort and archive the music and choose which ones are deleted. In the meantime, I’ll fiddle with gmail to see if any of this can be easily achieved.

I was strongly opposed to using iTunes at first because I didn’t like the way it managed my music, as back then I just threw all of my mp3s into a folder and double clicked a song I wanted to listen to. I rarely used playlists, and relied on the filename to contain all of the pertinent information for a track.

Things changed when I got my iPod, and I realized that I would have to switch to take full advantage of everything the iPod offered. I’ve never gone back since, and can’t even imagine how I lived without it.

What follows are the methods I use to organize and sort my music with iTunes, and perhaps this article will contain some tips that others can find useful.

I’ve always been very big on singles. Full albums are great, but it’s rare that I’ll find an album where I want to listen to all the tracks on it. My first problem arose while looking for a way to distinguish the singles from my albums. The very easy solution came by just adding the comment “Single” to those tracks, and then creating a smart playlist with all my singles. Problem done and solved, and now I can listen to to those songs without coming across album tracks that I’m not familiar with.

But when I do want to listen to my full albums, the quickest way is just to choose “Browse”, and then “Albums” on my playlists. To stop incomplete albums from being listed here, the album tag is completely stripped from songs that are not with their albums. A minor drawback is that I’m now missing this info on a good 60% of my tracks, but I really didn’t see any other way of doing this besides creating a playlist for every single album.

Now, here’s something neat that I’m rather fond of. I get a lot of music recommendations from friends, and I figured it’d be fun to keep track of who gave me what. When I get a rec from a friend, I’ll add their initials to the comment field of the song. This allows me to create a smart playlist with all the songs they ever recommended, and it’s rather interesting to see their different musical tastes. Great for nostalgia with ex-girlfriends too, I’d imagine.

My music collection is massive, totalling over 14 gigs, and I wanted a way to listen to my newest songs as well as songs that I just really felt like listening to. The natural way is to create a smart playlist with the x-newest tracks (25, 50, 100, your choice depending on how often you get new music), however I like digging through and throwing some old classics in from time to time as well. The other problem is when there’s a song I really like and don’t want to see it taken off the playlist because it’s been on too long. Thus, I created a “Current Favorites” playlist for these songs. This playlist is pretty much the only one I listen to, certainly a drawback because I can burn myself out on some of the songs quite quickly, but it’s a good way to find out which songs are the really good ones.

You’ll notice that I name my playlists with some odd characters in front. These are used to sort and group my playlists, because they don’t show up on the iPod, and now my genres are grouped together, friends are grouped together, and the Current Favorites playlist is always listed as the first one. A clever hack.

Last is my ratings scale. Songs with a rating from 3-5 are fairly common and should be self-explanatory. 2 stars means it’s fairly craptacular and forgettable, and if the time comes I might as well toss it from my collection. 1’s I’m not even sure how I got them in the first place, but more importantly they’re used if I notice something wrong with the track, ie incorrect song title or scratches heard, and they’re not “flagged” and I know to take care of them.

I believe that’s about it. If anyone’s got any tips or methods they use I’d love to hear them.

I’m gonna go ahead and jack Ken’s link to this Postal Service video that he posted over on his Displaced Designer blog. It’s a 40-minute long appearance by the Postal Service on KCRW. Very cool to see them do the stuff live, and watch as Ben runs back and forth between the drums and his guitar.

Indie 103 has been playing a very cool mash-up of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and Oasis’ “Wonderwall”. I’m not usually a fan of remixes, but this one is really well done. I managed to snag a copy online, but it looks like the link I got it from has exceeded its bandwidth limit. If you’re nice enough I’m willing enough to pass the mp3 out, or do a search for yourself. According to MusicBrainz, it is called “Boulevard of Broken Songs” and done by Party Ben.

I’ve become very big on music sharing. Not the whole p2p Napster/Kazaa thing, but on sharing good music with friends and getting recommendations for new music to listen to. I even add the initials of the person who recommended the song to me in the comments field of my mp3s, allowing me to create a smart playlist of a particular person’s tastes in music.

I never did get around to discussing how I organize my mp3s and my strong penchant for using a taxonomy to sort them. However, that I’ll save for another entry. My original point is that I’d love to find a way to setup a repository of music, where I can throw up the latest stuff I’ve been listening to and would love for everyone else to listen to and see what they thought, and others can similarly share their music.

Maybe I’ll run across something or figure a system out.

Last note. I need to write more. Which I’m doing now. So expect more lengthy entries, unless I get lazy again, which isn’t entirely unlikely.

I got a chance to try out Karaoke Revolution Vol. 3 this weekend, which features the ability to duet with a friend on songs. Now, I really have no right to be griping about this since I have no singing capabilities at all, and honestly I don’t think I should ever attempt to karaoke again, but I’ve got an issue with this supposed “duet” feature.

First off, there isn’t a single song by Peter Cetera, Lionel Richie, or Peabo Bryson. How the heck can you have a karaoke game with duets without them in it? Instead, it’s just normal songs that are usually sung by one singer, with the verses split up to allow two people to duet. Hoobastank’s “The Reason”, Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds”, Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me”, none of these songs are meant as duets.

Where is “Tonight I Celebrate My Love” by Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack? I can’t play Peter Cetera to Cher on “After All”? And I know I’m really hoping here, but where is “Nothing Better” with Ben Gibbard and Jen Wood?

I know that the game is intended to be played by only one person as well, but a second set of songs for duets would’ve been really nice. Other than that, the duet feature is just lacking in the song choice, which would have made it far more enjoyable.

A belated happy 23rd birthday wish to Brad “My Audi Is A Wonderland” Vassar, with who I attended the Saturday, December 11th show of Kroq’s “Almost Acoustic Christmas”. All eleven bands that played, aside from a couple of exceptions, played an excellent show. Six and a half hours of music with 40 minute sets from each artist = muy awesome.

We showed up a little late, so only caught the end of The Music, but it didn’t sound like we had missed much. Snow Patrol gave an excellent set next, and were my favorite if only because I love their album Final Straw and they sounded just as good live.

Keane is one of the many bands where I was only familiar with their hit song, but they were a pleasant surprise. The band is only drums and keyboard and a goofy singer that dressed like he was in the 70’s and dances around the stage with a lot of enthusiasm. They had a really good sound and sold me on checking out more of their music.

Shins came up next, and I still think they’re overrated. From what I gather, they’re considered one of the best indie bands, and their popularity grew after being featured in Garden State. Their singing voice is on the verge of annoying, but they did give a great performance of “New Slang”, which I shall forever call the “Natalie Portman Song” after the way it was used in Garden State. I believe this was the only acoustic performance of the whole night, shame the show didn’t follow the namesake.

Nothing to say about Taking Back Sunday since they sucked and I didn’t stick around to watch their performance, nor did most of the audience that walked out to stretch right after the Shins finished up. Now would be a good time to discuss the venue though. The stage was this sweet revolving setup, so that while one band was playing, on the other side the next band up was prepping to go on. Not sure if this is some Universal Amphitheatre specific dealie, but a very smart idea.

Muse is a musical genius. The guy’s guitar and keyboard playing are on the verge of virtuoso, although can’t say much for the vocals or lyrics since I couldn’t make them out. Modest Mouse was disappointing just cause their performance got boring after a while. Franz Ferdinand’s music was okay, but had the most fun of any of the bands. The Killers apparently were very good, but I’d gone near deaf by that time and couldn’t make out jack crap. And I still don’t see what all the hype about Interpol is.

Jimmy Eat World - awesome. They played “Last Christmas” and that just sealed the deal for the night, although the acoustic version is far better than the way it was played live.

And finally, to bring up the lowest of the lows: The special, unannounced guest that came on after Modest Mouse was none other than Gwen Stefani. Note to Gwen: You’re not Japanese and you need to go back to making music with your band.

The Ashlee Simpson blunder on last night’s episode of SNL hit the internet ridiculously fast. There’s not a whole lot to say that can’t be explained here or with this video clip of what happened.

But then she finally came on stage to do her song and we could hear her singing before she even put the microphone up to her mouth! Then the singing went away. Ashlee looked soooo confused, then she broke into some kind of weird Riverdance jig, laughed the way people laugh when they find out that one of their parents just died–you know, like “Nice joke!,” before it really hits them–and then wandered off stage.

I can hear everyone out there laughing at the same time, but what I can’t believe are people who feel sorry for her. Sorry for what? She can’t sing! Does anyone see something wrong with that picture?

Norah Jones was just as good as I remembered a year ago. She played about 21 songs through the whole night, throwing in variations on songs like “Don’t Know Why” and “I’ve Got To See You Again”, and even doing a couple of cover songs where she got to rock out.

Getting to the show was an adventure in itself, where I managed to get ourselves lost while trying to get to the LA Zoo so we could take the shuttle to the Hollywood Bowl instead of being stack parked. Getting back was even more fun, when they almost turned Brad away because they didn’t believe he was part of our group (All asians except for him). Yeah bitch, see how you like being discriminated against now.

Big thanks to Julie, Erin, and Brad for coming along, even though the whole night we kept arguing over who was responsible for bringing Brad. I wrote down the setlist for anyone interested, available in the full entry

1. What Am I To You?
2. Nightingale
3. Those Sweet Words
4. The Prettiest Thing
5. I’ve Got To See You Again
6. Painter Song
7. She (Gram Parsons Cover)
8. In The Morning
9. Carnival Town
10. The Nearness Of You
11. Humble Me
12. The Long Way Home
13. Don’t Know Why
14. Creepin’ In
15. Above Ground
16. Sunrise
17. Come Away With Me
18. (Cover song, forgot to write down)
19. Turn Me On
20. Lonestar
21. (Cover song, forgot to write down)

I am obsessed with organizing things in my life. I pride myself on my management of iTunes, which I promise to get into another time, but recently I’ve discovered a wonderful plugin called Audioscrobbler that works for iTunes as well as Winamp and a myriad of other mp3 players.

The premise is simple. Create account. Install plugin. Play music. Now watch as Audioscrobbler collects statistics on what you’re listening to, who your favorite artists are, and then recommends music to you based on your favorites and even connect you with other people who share similar tastes in music.

For anyone interested, here is my Audioscrobbler page. Damn that Iron & Wine, I don’t even listen to it that much, I think it just happened to come up in my playlist. Feel free to add me as a friend.

Next up is del.icio.us, dubbed a “social bookmarks” manager. Create an account, and then go bookmarking away. The latest bookmarked pages are shown on the main del.icio.us page, but the revolutionary feature is the ability to add “tags” to bookmarks.

Rather than the hierarchical structure that is more commonly used where bookmarks are sorted into folders in an attempt to categorize them, tags allows you to apply as many tags are needed to describe an item. Tags are separated by spaces, so for example, tags for my site might like look “blog babes wasteoftime”, or something similar. Definitely something so simple yet ingenius that it’s amazing nobody had thought of it earlier.

Again, for anyone interested, here is my del.iciou.us page.

Phantom Planet really knows how to put on a show. I’m not exactly the biggest fan of their music, but I was a fan of their earlier stuff and enjoyed the emphasis they placed on vocals over music. Most people are familiar with their “California” song used as the theme for The OC. I didn’t even recognize most of the songs they played at the show, but I still enjoyed it.

The live show was full of energy, as lead Alex Greenwald was in total control of the club. It’s pretty neat the way he acts out the lyrics too, using hand gestures to play out the words. Lots of banter with the crowd, having us choose songs and sing along as part of a song.

I’m surprised they didn’t play “California”, and yells of “Do the Panic” by me and Mr. Vassar went unanswered. Still, a very fun show by a very fun band. They closed up when Greenwald and the bassist moved the drums from the back of the stage to the front, and then Greenwald climbed up the rigging to the top of the club where he sang the end of the song “Stiffs”. That man is a nut.

Troubadour’s a sweet venue too, good sound and not too packed. I wasn’t too familiar with the songs played, but still an excellent show. Thanks to Brad for the late birthday present.

Postal Service Album Keeps On Delivering. I hadn’t really thought about “Give Up” being released almost two years ago, and here I’ve still got four of their tracks on my “Current Favorites” playlist. Their cover of Phil Colins’ “Against All Odds” didn’t seem as spectacular to me as it did to everyone else, but maybe it’ll grow on me. I’m excited to hear that their next video will be for “We Will Become Silhouettes”, that’s one of my favorite tracks on the album, but then again, the whole album is great.

After “Against All Odds,” the group’s next video will be for Give Up’s “Silhouettes,” which will be helmed by “Napoleon Dynamite” writer/director Jared Hess.

“He talks exactly like all the characters in the movie,” Gibbard said. “He’s like, ‘Dude, I’ve got a sweet concept for the video.’ “

1. Don’t Stop Believing
2. Any Way You Want It
3. Faithfully
4. Open Arms (tie)
5. Separate Ways

I got to a point with my music where all my favorites were starting to get a bit stale, so I went on a download spree lately and got a lot of recommendations for new music from friends. That explains why there’s a grip of songs in “listening to…” now.

Does anybody even bother looking for the music I have up in “listening to…” ? Thought so.

I’ve also taken to adding the initials of whoever recommended a song to me in the mp3 file’s comments. Then I use the nifty smart playlist feature of iTunes and voila, makes me playlists of music that certain people have suggested to me. Kinda cool, don’t ya think? You don’t? Bastards.