My favorite music of the first half of 2011:
Drowning in new music, there’s much from the first half of the year I’ve still to absorb, but the following are nine albums (no specific order), I particularly have enjoyed:
Diana Jones: “High Atmosphere”
The Antlers: “Burst Apart”
My Morning Jacket: “Circuital”
PJ Harvey: “Let England Shake”
The Rural Alberta Advantage: “Departing”
Nicolas Jaar: “Space is Only Noise”
One Hundred Dollars: “Songs of Man”
Woods: “Sun and Shade”
James Blake: “James Blake”
More “Best of 2011 so far”:
Stereogum: Top 20 Albums of 2011 So Far
SPIN: The 25 Best Albums of 2011 So Far
Toronto Star: The Best Albums of 2011
Drowned in Sound: 11 Favorite Albums of the First Half of 2011
Quietus: 40 Albums of the Year So Far
Bleep: Best of 2011 So Far
My favorite music of 2010:
Song:
“The Dreamer” by The Tallest Man on Earth
Album:
“Lisbon by The Walkmen
A few other favorites of 2010 (no order):
“Learning” by Perfume Genius
“Joe Hill’s Ashes” by Otis Gibbs
“Halcyon Digest” by Deerhunter
“Teen Dream” by Beach House
“Orkanen närmar sig by Pascal
“Epic” by Sharon Van Etten
“Meet Me at the Muster Station” by PS I Love You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9qE-qXI11I
Music for the World Cup: Botswana guitar picking.
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
My favorite music of the first half of 2010:
(No particular order)
Cults: 7” single: available here for free.
Dum Dum Girls: I will be
Beach House: Teen Dream
Woods (nu folk): At Echo Lake
The New Pornographers: Together
Otis Gibbs (alt country): Joe Hill’s Ashes
Pascal (swedish rock): Orkanen närmar sig
The National: High Violet
Fang Island: Fang Island
Techcrunch: How “Dirty” MP3 Files Are A Back Door Into Cloud DRM
Techcrunch: How “Dirty” MP3 Files Are A Back Door Into Cloud DRM
According to Techcrunch, a number of online mp3 sellers (Apple, LaLa (owned by Apple) and Walmart) watermark the mp3’s they are selling by embedding personal information of the buyer (e.g., name). Techcrunch’s source says music labels, which are negotiating cloud music services with certain parties, “are demanding that a user can only stream music that is watermarked to their username. Change the username, or try to stream music that you’ve ripped from a CD, and those songs won’t play.”
10 Ways to be a Kick-Ass Drummer: By Janet Weiss of Quasi, Sleater-Kinney, and the Jicks
The Music Alliance Pact: March 2010
The Music Alliance Pact: March 2010
Every month, each member of a group of international music bloggers publishes a song from an artist in his or her country as part of MAP – the Music Alliance Pact. Here’s the March 2010 list from UK music blogger The Daily Growl
YACHT: The Afterlife
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Twones: a new music search tool
Twones: a new music search tool
As described by Peter Kafka at All Things Digital, Twones is likely designed to be a legal Hype Machine, but according to Kafka it is not as convenient or usable as the Hype Machine. The Hype Machine, because it caches songs for listening, is in at best a legal grey area (which has deterred investors in the service). Twones apparently works as a Firefox browser plug-in that takes one directly to mp3 blogs to listen to songs.