20,000 Songs

So I hit 20,000 songs scrobbed last night on LastFM. It took just a little over a year to get there. My charts are not entirely accurate though. My last two iPods have not been supported. That isn't a big deal with my shuffle but I've listened to an awful lot of music on my iPhone since I got it, both in Kansas and on my daily commute now that I'm working again on Union Street. Still it is fairly good picture of the evolution of my musical tastes over the last year. Most revealing to me is the number of artists that I discovered over this last year and how high some of them ranked. Three of my top ten I had almost never listened to before in my life, Brian Eno, Tom Waits and the Decemberists. KT Tunstall, I Am Kloot, Rilo Kiley, Doves, of Montreal, Midlake (getting some good airplay this morning), Klaus Schultze, Andrew Bird, Eels, and  Iron & Wine were all new additions to my playlists that made the top 100. The most important musical discovery of the year (maybe my life) was of course Neutral Milk Hotel's, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. This is not to diminish the impact of Tom Waits', Closing Time or I Am Kloot's, I Am Kloot or Leslie Feist's, Remainder. Those last two albums along with In the Aeroplane and Midlake's, The Trials of Van Occupanther are the most under reported because of the iPhone thing. All in all it was a banner year musically and Last FM had a lot to do with it. Similar Artists led to numerous musical discoveries throughout the year. I'm curious and excited for the new year. I got my ear back this year. Thanks Last FM.

Astral Weeks

I was looking at my LastFm charts the other night and thought just how much "writing music" dominates the top of the charts. For years and years my favorite album to put on in the morning when I write has been Victorialand by the Cocteau Twins. For a couple of months it was Brian Eno's Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks. The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions was combined with Victorialand most of last year to kind of nudge me into consciousness in the morning. This week it has all been about Van the Man. I bought my first copy of Astral Weeks on vinyl over twenty years ago. It has remained one of my all time favorite albums through that entire time. If I had to pick a single desert island album it would probably be this one. It just seems to operate outside of time. I like that. I like it when music transports me and this one brings me to places that nothing else does.

New Music

All of Mp3.com may be unable to take my money any more but the Russians haven't given up yet. I managed to get a twenty to Mp3City a couple of nights ago and was rewarded with some great new (for me) music. I have long suspected that Tom Waits was my man but finally getting my hands on Closing Time has cemented the deal for me. Other gems include The Arcade Fire's Funeral (which I'm listening to right now) and KT Tunstall's Eye to the Telescope (which I played all night long last night). I still haven't listened to everything I picked up so you will have to wait for a later update. I will say that I couldn't make my way through Maroon 5's new album. I was through after four songs.

My lastFM widget hasn't been updating correctly this morning but I think that's because it's Sunday and that's when all the charts get updated for the week. Do check out the new lacadaz radio button that I added for your own listening enjoyment.

Venus and Mars Are All Right Tonight

Every once in awhile I find myself missing my vinyl. My mother had passed down the first albums that I had truly loved when I was still quite young. Highway 61 Revisited had already changed my personality for good by my tenth birthday. But it wasn't until high school that I started collecting albums seriously for myself. At that point I was more of a Paul person than a John person. I loved Wings. It brought back the AM radio days of being a child in the seventies.

I don't actually remember when and where I bought Venus and Mars. I know I bought it used and as it would have been over ten years old so the stickers and poster were long gone. I probably bought it as a cheap single for "Listen to What the Man Said" a song that had spent some time on the radio and still got some soft rock airplay in the eighties. But there were all kinds of gems I had never heard before: "Venus and Mars", "Rock Show", "Magneto and Titanium Man" and my favorite "Spirits of Ancient Egypt".

A couple of months ago I started missing this album. I gave my records to a friend for safekeeping years ago. She is notoriously hard to pin down so I haven't actually seen any of them for over a decade. Now Venus and Mars is just obscure enough to make finding tracks on a P2P difficult which is usually my cue to check on itunes for the odd tracks. Of course I ran into the Internet Beatle Wall as none of their music existed in a purchasable electronic format. I found a couple of the songs on a share site but not all of my favorates let alone the whole album which plays well as a single piece.

Cut to this morning when after prolonged negations the iTunes started selling unprotected, high quality music files including much of the Wings catalog. I shy away from buying music. Until the music industry stops suing their fans for the sake of "starving artists". I want very little to do with them. They could stop peer to peer tomorrow and it still wouldn't make me give them any of my music. I'll listen to what I've got till they change the business model. But when one of them makes a move in the right direction I willing to send a little love their way.

It wasn't easy though. Apple's servers are getting hammered right now. I've never had a more difficult time downloading from Apple. Not even last February when everyone was jockeying to be the billionth iTunes download. If that is any indication it would seem that Apple and EMI have made the right choice to stop making it difficult for people to enjoy the music that they pay for. The wonder of it all, baby.