Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. 💞
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
kottke.org posts about music
Olympic snowboarders competed while listening to their
Olympic snowboarders competed while listening to their iPods. The goal? Effortless concentration. “It enables you to focus on what you’re doing without actually focusing, if that makes any sense. You’re not over-thinking, and that’s the best way to perform the harder tricks and maneuvers.”
Unknown (relatively speaking) indie rock bands are
Unknown (relatively speaking) indie rock bands are turning down large sums of money from GM for licensing their music for Hummer ads. “It had to be the worst product you could give a song to. It was a really easy decision. How could we go on after soundtracking Hummer? It’s just so evil.” (via rw)
The fashion industry doesn’t try to control
The fashion industry doesn’t try to control its creativity the way that the music and film industries do. “The fashion world recognizes that creativity cannot be bridled and controlled and that obsessive quests to do so will only diminish its vitality. Other content industries would do well to heed this wisdom.”
Presenting the Bible’s Book of Genesis in
Presenting the Bible’s Book of Genesis in rap songs. For instance, the song for Genesis 21 — which tells the story of Isaac and Ishmael — is Big Poppa by Notorious B.I.G.
The Song Tapper: “search for music by
The Song Tapper: “search for music by tapping the rhythm of the song’s melody”. This works amazingly well.
Neat counter and waterfall of purchased albums
Neat counter and waterfall of purchased albums as Apple counts down to 1 billion songs purchased on the iTunes Music Store. (thx, scott)
Dorian Lynskey “[charted] the branches and connections
Dorian Lynskey “[charted] the branches and connections of 100 years of music using the London Underground map”, much like Simon Patterson’s The Great Bear. (gs)
Some of the worst selling DVDs on
Some of the worst selling DVDs on Amazon. Looks like the Hammy the Hamster DVD series isn’t doing so well. See also books and music. (thx, josh)
Andreas Pavel was the inventor of the
Andreas Pavel was the inventor of the portable music player (aka Walkman). “I was in the woods in St. Moritz, in the mountains. The snow was falling down. I pressed the button, and suddenly we were floating. It was an incredible feeling, to realize that I now had the means to multiply the aesthetic potential of any situation.”
Scratch the World with cars as records
Scratch the World with cars as records and pedestrians as crossfaders.
On the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth,
On the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, a fun essay about Mozart as a hacker.
Fan-produced video for William Shatner’s cover of
Fan-produced video for William Shatner’s cover of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. (thx, renee)
iTunes Jukebox is “a cartridge-based physical interface
iTunes Jukebox is “a cartridge-based physical interface to iTunes”. “Electronically enhanced” jewelcases can be arranged in a small tower that interfaces with iTunes to play music off of whatever CD case you put into the tower.
“Fans are fascinated by the drugs-and-drink-fuelled excesses
“Fans are fascinated by the drugs-and-drink-fuelled excesses of rock stars such as Pete Doherty - but they don’t see the heavy personal toll it takes, writes Caroline Butler, who spent years with an alcoholic star”. (via tmn)
2005 favorites
If you’re like me, you’re waiting patiently for that day in early January when you can go more than 10 minutes without seeing a reference to some best of 2005 list. If you’re also like me, you love lists so much that you can’t get enough of them. So, with apologies to that first part of me, here’s a final 2005 lists from me: a few movies, weblogs, books, and musical selections that I enjoyed this past year (in no particular order).
Music (not necessarily released in 2005)
Ladytron, Witching Hour. This one grew on me a lot.
Kelly Clarkson, Since U Been Gone.
Fischerspooner, Odyssey.
Bloc Party, Silent Alarm.
Royksopp, The Understanding.
Diplo, Megatroid Mix. (download)
Boards of Canada, Campfire Headphase.
Mark Mothersbaugh (and others), The Life Aquatic soundtrack.
Stars, Set Yourself on Fire.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
Kanye West, Gold Digger.
Sigur Ros, Takk.
BBC Philharmonic, Beethoven’s Symphonies.
Two disappointments: Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have It So Much Better and Broken Social Scene by the band of the same name. I enjoyed Franz’s debut album and You Forgot It in People so much, but the follow-ups fell flat for me. Still trying though…
Movies (not necessarily released in 2005)
Primer.
Garden State.
Crash.
Revenge of the Sith.
Sideways.
Million Dollar Baby.
Deliverance.
Cinderella Man.
King Kong.
Didn’t see a lot of movies this year, unfortunately.
Books
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami.
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen.
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson.
Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke.
The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan.
Pieces for the Left Hand, J. Robert Lennon.
Freakonomics, Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner.
I read a ton of non-fiction but always enjoy the small amount of fiction I do read more.
Favorite weblogs. Compare with last year’s list.
Waxy. Despite a year-end Yahoo! slowdown/hangover, still one of the absolute best.
Collision Detection. Enthusiasm about technology without the irrational exuberance or Web 2.0ness of other tech/tech culture blogs.
del.icio.us inbox. Not technically a blog, but I love this ever-fresh flow of my friends’ favorites.
Robotwisdom. The original weblog was back this year after a 1.5 year hiatus. Jorn still has it.
The Morning News. Also not technically a blog, but TMN has been delivering high quality content on a daily basis for a long time now.
Flickr friends. Still the most fun on the web.
Cynical-C. Can’t remember where or when I found this one, but almost every single thing on there is something I’m interested in.
Scripting News. I skim most of his opinion stuff, disagree with 90% of the rest of what I do read, but Dave has his finger on the pulse of the part of the web I care most about. He gets links so quickly sometimes that I think he’s actually part RSS aggregator. “He’s more machine than man now.” “No, there is still good in him…”
Boing Boing. There’s stuff I don’t care about here, but the best of BB is really good.
3 Quarks Daily. The most accessible smart weblog out there.
Marginal Revolution. Quirky economics. Interesting everyday.
Goldenfiddle. I dislike celebrity gossip, but gf makes it seem interesting somehow. Damn you!
Youngna. Rationally exuberant.
You may notice that there are few “pro” blogs on this list. The best stuff out there is still being generated by interested, enthusiastic amateurs. When you’re producing media for a profit, there’s a certain vitality that’s lost, I think…a loss I’ve been struggling with on kottke.org for the past few months. kottke.org was on last year’s list but doesn’t appear this year…here’s hoping for a better year for the site in 2006.
A seemingly exhaustive list of the best
A seemingly exhaustive list of the best music of 2005. I think I strained my scrolling muscle.
Explore the sounds of NYC’s Lower East
Explore the sounds of NYC’s Lower East Side on the Folks Songs for the Five Points site. (thx, david)
Stylus Magazine’s top 50 (music) singles of 2005, including
Stylus Magazine’s top 50 (music) singles of 2005, including the top 20 lists of each of the contributors. If you can’t find something catchy to listen to here, you’ve given up. (thx, marco)
The social networks of the rap music
The social networks of the rap music world “differ from all other human networks”. By and large, successful rap artists don’t collaborate/hang out with one another, as usually happens in other human social groups. (via cd)
iTunes Signature Maker analyzes your iTunes collection (
iTunes Signature Maker analyzes your iTunes collection (in the browser via a Java applet) and creates a short sound collage of the music that you listen to most frequently or have rated highly. Here’s the signatute it created for me. (thx, paul)
How to make your best-of-the-year music list
How to make your best-of-the-year music list as hip as it can be. “Make sure to include an album that just came out. This will lead people to believe that you got an advanced copy months ago and had plenty of time to get into it.”
A “song quilt” for Boards of Canada’s
A “song quilt” for Boards of Canada’s The Campfire Headphase album. “Listening to the recording, I ignored song titles; creating images that represent the intangible connection between what I was hearing and what I was ‘seeing’ in my head”. There was a design site that did something like this several years ago…one of the Swanky sites, I think. Ring a bell?
For The Life Aquatic soundtrack, Seu Jorge
For The Life Aquatic soundtrack, Seu Jorge covered a few David Bowie songs in Portuguese. Now he’s released an entire album of them.
The top 40 bands in America (in 2005) according
The top 40 bands in America (in 2005) according to a small group of music bloggers. Indie rock-heavy, if you like that sort of thing. Off to check out The National.
DMC, the latter half of Run-DMC, has
DMC, the latter half of Run-DMC, has abandoned his trademark (my) Adidas for Le Coq Sportif.
Stay Connected