Goin’ Dot Com! - The Musical
Goin’ Dot Com! - The Musical. Back in the day, some friends of mine and I used to joke about doing “Dot Com, the Musical”. I believe someone even wrote a song.
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kottke.org posts about music
Sasha Frere-Jones on Diplo and Fernando Luis
Sasha Frere-Jones on Diplo and Fernando Luis Mattos da Matta, who is a Brazilian funk DJ.
The Hyperreal home page has lots of
The Hyperreal home page has lots of information about rave music, rave culture, and drugs.
Announcing the world’s smallest mp3 player: the iPod Flea
Announcing the world’s smallest mp3 player: the iPod Flea. Love the Flea collar.
Video Games Live is presenting a series
Video Games Live is presenting a series of concerts featuring music from video games. Last week, the Los Angeles Philharmonic played in front of around 10,000 people.
Icelandic band Sigur Ros has a Flickr
Icelandic band Sigur Ros has a Flickr account that they’re updating while on tour.
Have you ever wondered how actors seem
Have you ever wondered how actors seem to play the piano so well in movies?.
Thirteen favorite albums of the last twenty years
Spin magazine’s recent list of the best albums from the last twenty years (as well as MSNBC’s alternate list) got me thinking about what my favorites list from that era might look like. Since I’m not Spin and my musical opinion doesn’t carry any weight, I felt free to list what I like, influenced me, continue to find enjoyable, and will still listen to in the future instead of what’s actually good…whatever good means.
In rough chronological order and briefly annotated:
- Nevermind, Nirvana - As I’ve mentioned before, I was a late bloomer musically. Nothing outside of Casey Kasem and his Top 40 countdown existed for me when I was a kid. And when you’re listening to music like that, it’s hard to get excited about music in general…I was pretty much apathetic about the whole thing. My freshman year in college, a guy on my floor got a nice stereo system for Christmas and when he threw on Smells Like Teen Spirit, that was it. I’m sure the bands and songs that opened your mind to the possibilities of music and life were a lot better, but you can’t really choose how/why/when/where that happens.
- Rave ‘Til Dawn, Various - This is the worst album on the list but may be the most influential in terms of my future listening habits. For a kid who grew up in the country and went to college in a small Iowa city, hearing rave music for the first time was a complete revelation for me. I had no idea people were making music like this, so fast, so joyous, so unlike anything that anyone I knew would enjoy listening to. I loved it immediately and have been a huge fan of electronica ever since.
- The Chronic, Dr. Dre - Introducing Snoop Doggy Dogg, probably my favorite rapper. So smooth. And Dre’s beats are among the best in the business.
- Siamese Dream, Smashing Pumpkins - College junior, couldn’t get laid…isn’t this what I was supposed to be listening to?
- The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails - I still tell anyone who will listen that Closer is one of the best pop songs ever made. Pretty Hate Machine was probably the better album, but I fell in like with this one first.
- Entroducing…, DJ Shadow - One of the most solid debut albums in the past 20 years.
- Orblivion, The Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds is my favorite song from The Orb, but Orblivion is the album I’ll never get tired of. Saw them spin/play live in Minneapolis once and when Toxygene came on, it was almost religion.
- Homework, Daft Punk - Around the World is my answer to the question, “if you were stranded on a desert island and could only take one song with you, what would it be?” I’ve probably listened to it about a thousand times in the past 8 years and I’m still not sick of it.
- OK Computer, Radiohead - Somehow it wasn’t until mid-2000 that I heard this album (old habits die hard), but it didn’t take long to become a favorite. Still their best…although I haven’t given their earlier stuff the attention everyone I know says it deserves. Radiohead = favorite band.
- Bedrock, John Digweed - Cheesy trance music, but I love it. This album reminds me of my (then) new Jetta and fine times in Minneapolis.
- Agaetis Byrjun, Sigur Ros - I found Sigur Ros while poking around on Napster looking for an advanced copy of Radiohead’s Amnesiac. Boy, I thought, this Amnesiac album is going to be fantastic, but what happened to the vocals? Oh, heh.
- Boards of Canada, Geogaddi - I can’t remember how I found out about Boards of Canada. Online somewhere probably, downloading mp3s off of Limewire or something. After hearing a few songs, I immediately procured Geogaddi and Music Has The Right To Children from my nearest CD shop. Fantastic stuff…they make me wish I could make music.
- Give Up, The Postal Service - Might be too early to tell, but I think this is a classic.
Conclusions: I seem to like all sorts of music, but the common thread is the mainstream-ness of these albums; they’re typically the most popular examples of a particular genre, style, or time period. Gangsta rap wasn’t that mainstream at the time, but The Chronic went multi-platinum. Nevermind was grunge for the mainstream, and The Downward Spiral was one of the few industrial albums to make it big. The same for Rave ‘Til Dawn, Daft Punk, DJ Shadow, Smashing Pumpkins, and Sigur Ros, if to a lesser extent.
The illegality of “Rio funk” music has
The illegality of “Rio funk” music has driven it deep into the slums of Rio De Janeiro, controlled by the drug lords. “Funk songs used to pay homage to those who had died, but now it is fashionable to name-check those still alive. Juca is often asked by drug soldiers to write lyrics that include their names.”
Podcast subscriptions through iTunes top 1 million in the first 48 hours
Podcast subscriptions through iTunes top 1 million in the first 48 hours. Also, “podcasting is like cappuccino”…read on for the punchline.
All of Franz Ferdinand’s albums will not
All of Franz Ferdinand’s albums will not have names and will only be differentiated by color. Their second album — the black, red, and green one — will be out in September.
Apple has merged their iPod and iPod Photo lines
Apple has merged their iPod and iPod Photo lines. All iPods will now have color screens.
Final four Beethoven symphonies in mp3 format
Final four Beethoven symphonies in mp3 format available for download on the BBC site this week.
iTunes 4.9 now supports podcasting
iTunes 4.9 now supports podcasting. Boy, podcasting went from zero to corporate in no time flat. Will that pace stunt the growth of indie podcasting before it even has a chance to get started?
Depressing article on how much hassle it
Depressing article on how much hassle it was for the makers of Mad Hot Ballroom to clear all copyrighted music in the film. “If I had known all that I had to go through, I’m not sure I would have done it.”
Spin names Radiohead’s OK Computer the best
Spin names Radiohead’s OK Computer the best album from the last 20 years.
The scoring of movies and the -atsi
The scoring of movies and the -atsi movies scored by Philip Glass.
Stats on the BBC’s Beethoven downloads
Stats on the BBC’s Beethoven downloads. “Live performances of Beethoven’s first five symphonies, broadcast as part of The Beethoven Experience on BBC Radio 3, have amassed an incredible 657,399 download requests during a week long trial.”
A man’s letter to the music industry
A man’s letter to the music industry detailing what he’s stolen from them and why. “I refuse to pay you to play these pointless games with arbitrary dates and obsolete borders.”
Drawing Restraint 9 is the first collaboration by
Drawing Restraint 9 is the first collaboration by super-couple Matthew Barney and Bjork.
A visual history of sampling; who’s been
A visual history of sampling; who’s been sampled and who’s doing the sampling.
The first five mp3s of Beethoven’s
The first five mp3s of Beethoven’s symphonies are available for download on the BBC site. The site is really slow though…does anyone have a mirror or a BitTorrent available?
BBC Radio will be offering mp3s
BBC Radio will be offering mp3s of all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies. “All the symphonies are performed by BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.”
“The problem with mash-ups is that once
“The problem with mash-ups is that once you get past both ‘oh, that’s unexpected’ and ‘that must have been difficult’, what you’re left with is a dj with really fucking terrible taste in music”. IMO, few mash-ups have gone beyond the novelty stage.
Improv Everywhere played a fake U2 concert
Improv Everywhere played a fake U2 concert near Madison Square Garden last week. The Edge was played by an Asian guy and the “band” got arrested during their final song.
Someone made an unsolicited mix tape for
Someone made an unsolicited mix tape for me: “Songs to Hyperlink To: Kottke Mix #1”.
50 Things to Do with Your iPod
50 Things to Do with Your iPod. Besides listen to music with those white earbuds.
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