Ok, I'll do it it too: My Ipod.

I know, I know! I’m really behind on blog posts. So this week, I decided to ease into writing by talking about last week’s topic: the ipod. I figured it’s a straight forward place to start, and it’s relatively easy to write about. Hopefully, I’ll be caught up by the end of the week (or is that just wishful thinking?).

An ipod can be one of the most telling devices you can carry. For one, it’s a very private item. Can you remember that last time you loaned your ipod to a friend? Me neither. Instead, we share individual CDs and pieces with our friends. And the music we share tends to be the more respectable elements of our collection, pieces we think people will enjoy but will also make them think “My friend has great taste”. We don’t share the catchy albeit sometimes embarrassing tunes that we use to get psyched up for the day or belt in the shower. Even writing this I’m tempted to forgo what I really listen to and just give you the most obscure and challenging artists I can think of. But you can see my facebook page for that.

When I get home at the end of the day. I don’t want to listen to art music. I feel like I’ve been surrounded by it al day. Even if I haven’t been listening to it, I’ve been talking about it, analyzing it, practicing it, worrying about it. Blah! Enough! I am a pop listener. I am a pop listener who hates the radio, who hates mtv. Maybe hate is too strong a word. What ever word I choose, the point is these venues don’t appeal to me. I love me some NPR, but I won’t touch that radio during Sunday Baroque. I’ll pass on the three hours of Quantz flute duets.

I’m going to share four websites that changed the way I look for and listen to popular music. More avant garde (is that the term I’m looking for?) popular music is hard to find, and it seems that there is a certain air of pretention when it comes to more obscure but ground breaking bands. I think many people would like to find edgier music that aren’t part of the same top 40 radio rotation, but just don’t know where to look. The sheer amount of music out there can be overwhelming

1. metacritic.com- a music review aggregator extraordinaire. It compiles nearly every music review released about an album, and based on these reviews give an album some sort of score from 0-100. Sorry, no art music here unless you count Brian Eno’s new album with David Byrne-received a 75.

2. pitchforkmedia- This was my first exposure to pop music blogs. I don’t always agree with the critics, but it’s one of the more accessible sites I’ve come across. It has reviews, interviews, tour dates, and video. It’s very easy to navigate.

3. The hype machine at hypem.com: it streams many new releases and remixes of new releases, but I find this blog especially helpful because it indicates which artists currently have the most blog posts and which blogs are the most widely read at that moment. This is great for newly emerging artists who are starting to gain momentum and “hype”.

4. Largeheartedboy.com- I don’t really care for this blog simply because it’s so disorganized. Music reviews are interspersed with random book reviews and just a long list of random. . .stuff. I don’t even know what to call it. However, I enjoy it for a section called This Week’s Interesting releases. You’ll find 10-40 albums that you won’t find in almost any other source. On the left side of the screen, the author has new artists added to his personal ipod.

My music. Or at least the music I play over and over. I put artists in bold that I really think you should take a listen to if you’ve never heard of them. I’m assuming you’ve listened to the classical ones, so I won’t highlight any of them.

Andrew Jackson Jihad, antony and the johnsons, animal collective, Stravinsky, artie shaw, battles, the beatles, Beirut, bob dylan, brahms, caetano veloso, deerhoof, the dodos, elliot smith, elgar, girl talk, joanna newsom: van dyke parks did the orchestration on the album Ys, and it’s worth a listen; john adams, bach, k’naan, laura veirs, lauryn hill, man man, the mountain goats; neutral milk hotel; the new pornographers; panda bear; the tallest man on earth; jose gonzales; tv on the radio; mahler; ooioo; page france, the national; jenny lewis (but not rilo kiley, I don’t know why I don’t like that band); Beethoven, Moazrt, okkervil river; justice; maria taylor, sufjan stevens (he’s an interlochen alum) of montreal; islands; and Andrew bird.

YouTube is a wonderful innovation for musicians. It allows us to explore innumerable new worlds. And for free? That’s ridiculous. So be curious, and listen to everything you can get your hands on. I think your life will be richer for it.