Desperate But Not Serious

Can I ask you a personal question? Don’t be shy. Everyone in this room has a little secret that they don’t want other people to know about. Me? I listen to Adam Ant.

Looking back, it might have been a phase. The guy is a freak, right? But the music was cool. Desperate But Not Serious is an 80s classic! (Not to be confused with an atrocious movie.) Sure he was recently arrested for attacking someone with a firearm and later admitted to a psychiatric hospital but again, did you hear the music? Adam and the Ants had more makup than KISS, but their songs were inventive and catchy.

So when you look back on your old CD collection, do you try to hide that Dead of Alive CD? Kajagoogoo? What about The Fixx?

See? We’ve all been there.

Bono In Charge

Look, I love U2 as much as the next guy, well, maybe not as much as The Sports Guy, but to think that Bono would be a good World Bank President is like saying Arnold Schwarzenegger would be a good governor, uh… you mean, he is?!?

Music Marketing Through Vids

Is MTV a thing of the past? (I think a lot of us have been saying this for years, but that’s another story.) So where do kids learn about new music? Check this:

Recent surveys show that more than 40 per cent of game players have bought a CD from an artist featured in a game, 40 per cent have learned of a new band from a game, and 27 percent have gone out and bought the CD.
[story]

That’s right! Next time you play NHL Hitz or another video game pay close attention to what’s blaring in the background. With as much as kids are playing games nowadays, it makes good marketing sense.

Music Archive

Here’s where I’ll put all the albums I’ve been listening to recently. Albums? How dated is that word?

Got a favorite, must-have CD? Email me (modify the address first) and let me know. Cheers!

Kid A by Radiohead
They are just just so unique and bizarre but in a cool way. Definitely my favorite Radiohead album.

Lovers, Lead The Way! by
Viva Voce
Big in Indy circles this husband and wife team have some seriously infectious grooves to go along with their alternative style ballads. Great stuff!

Woven and Spun by Nichole Nordeman
Nordeman is one of the strongest song writers of our era. Powerful, moving and musically varied. I highly recommend her music.

Garden State (Soundtrack)
This album is a gem. An eccentric collection of various “can’t forget” songs. Especially haunting is New Slang by The Shins. I could listen to it every day.

Hot Fuss by The Killers
The band of the year in some circles, this album rocks. Distinctive but similar to those “do what you like” Brit bands of old. I highly recommend.

Electric Version by New Pornographers
A most addictively pleasing record. Tough to categorize though it’s clearly alternative. Maybe a mix between the B-52s, Inspiral Carpets and early Cars. Just can’t get enough, great stuff.

Vapor Trails by Rush
Rush is one of my all-time favorite bands and Ceiling Unlimited is one of my favorite tunes. It just jams, that’s all I can say. It’s one of those songs that I can’t help but sign along with Geddy, bang the dashboard along with Neil and play air-guitar with Alex. And yes, I am almost 40.

The Battle For Everything by Five For Fighting
Reminds me of a mix between Elton John, Dave Matthews and John Mayer. A few songs are sensational, while others easily forgotten. Overall, it’s pretty good though.

The Shore by The Shore
Melodic and moody but still memorable. I’m an alliteration junkie. Good stuff a la The Delays.

Brave by Nichole Nordeman
Nordeman is a master but this falls a bit short of Woven and Spun, one of the best-written albums ever. Still a quality piece of work that I expect will grow on me over the years.

v.3 by Zebra
Ahhh… memory lane. These guys were pretty unique in that you thought they were an 80s hair band but once you listened to the whole album you realize they just looked the part. It’s really a well put together series of songs. The only thing that sticks out, is the lead singer’s high-pitched scream-singing. I’ve actually grown to love it.

New Way to Be Human by Switchfoot
Very strong set of songs fit to the new alt-rock that’s so popular with the kiddies today. Good stuff.

Lost and Gone Forever by Guster
One of the greatest party CDs ever. Quite addictive. Guster sounds like a college band with a heavy emphasis on percussion and harmonizing vocals.

Hopes and Fears by Keane
Good stuff in a genre that I’m becoming more infatuated with.

Welcome Home by Til Tuesday
One of my favorite CDs of all time. Moody and brilliant Aimee Mann is unique. I give it my highest praise.

Reset by Mute Math
Only an EP but shows signs of greatest. Runs the gamut of musical tastes, infused with quality throughout. Looking forward to their next release.

Faded Seaside Glamour by The Delays
Eery at first but mind-numbingly beautiful. Nearer Than Heaven is one of my favorite songs right now.

Anthems for the Imperfect by Everyday Sunday
Everyday Sunday hits the pop-rock scene with a fresh approach. Some of these songs are addictive.

iPod Be Damned

Not toeing the company line, Blog.Outside.The.Box outlines his two big complaints with the iPod; a phenomenon that seems to have single-handedly saved Apple’s yearly numbers. Lileks disagrees.

Today’s KITT

Ok, this may not be as cool as KITT, but we’re getting closer to the day when cars will understand us. Gracenote is working on voice recognition system where your favorite tunes are just a request away. In the voice of Mr. Dynamite, “Sah-weet!”

The One Thing

You know how certain songs really “take you back”? It’s amazing how our brains work with scents and sounds. It’s like they’re hard-coded to specific memories. Words and pictures can get you there, but often they’ll take the scenic route. What got me thinking:

Well you know just what you do to me
The way you move soft and slippery
Cut the night just like a razor
Rarely talk and that’s the danger

Can you hear it?

You know your voice is a love song
It’s a cat call from the past
There’s no ice in your lovers walk
You don’t look twice cause you move so fast

And suddenly I’m back in 1985.

Enjoy the Silence

I posted this before (in a previous life) but felt compelled to do so again. It’s rare for a video to so tell the story of a song, that this remake of Enjoy the Silence (.mov) belongs in MTV’s Hall of Fame… that is, if MTV were truly about music. [via John Little]

Play That Data

Give geeks a hot tub and some beer and the next thing you know they’ve figured out how to distribute music in an image. Very, very cool. [via kottke]

Punk Isn’t Anti-Everything

Despite your preconceptions, the punk lifestyle isn’t anti-everything. It’s anti-”something-very-specific.” But even within, there is a recent divide, with punk-on-punk violence sure to be looming. Interesting read. [via Thunderstruck]

New Ideas in a Record Label

“Magnatune. We are not evil.”

How’s that tagline grab ya? Here’s a snippet. Quite revolutionary, no?

If you like what you hear, download an album for as little as $5 (you pick the price), or buy a real CD, or license our music for commercial use.

Artists keep half of every purchase. And unlike most record labels, our artists keep all the rights to their music.

The Delays Are Freaky but Fun

My crazy brother found The Delays. Imagine a groovey pop-alt Stevie Nicks with a splash of Abba. Others see it similarly:

In spring 2004 came the release of Faded Seaside Glamour, which sounded rather like the Hollies meeting The La’s for a rainy Sunday drive while picking up the Cocteau Twin’s Elizabeth Fraser for tea.

Giving Back

Speaking of music, how about Marcus Pimpleton. Despite being brought into the world by parents unready to care for him, through the kindness of strangers and his own hard work is a success story in Seattle. Now he’s a music teacher giving it back to the school that gave him so much. I love stories like these.

Voluntary Collective Licensing

With all the controvery swirling around digitalized music, it takes a sharp mind to come up with a reasonable solution. It seems to me that the folks over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have found one. They call it Voluntary Collective Licensing (VCL) of Music File Sharing. Now, I’m no expert on this complex topic so I could be completely off-base endorsing it, but I do know the record labels have brought us to a place where 1) our choices are limited; 2) the artists we do get are overpaid, while the others go unnoticed; 3) we don’t have the proper rights to what we do buy. VCL sounds like a good thing to these ears.

Music to Sooth the Savage Beast

A topic for some time has been, “Does music benefit developing babies?” Studies indicate that it does. Not just newborns, but pre-borns too. Everyone knows that teenagers love it, but some forget that the message of the music affects us too, whether the kids recognize it or not. What kind of world would this be without music? So pop in your Mozart, or Miles Davis, or Macy Gray but I don’t know how healthy it would be for your toddler to hear the latest Outkast CD.