Category: Music (Page 3 of 6)

So it has come to this: in our UX-obsessed moment, the new rock radio station in New York is WRXP, “The Rock Experience.” That can’t last.
Neither, I bet, can RXP’s playlist, because it’s so damn good.
For the first time in years, if not decades, New York’s overly segmented, overly conservative FM dial has a station that’s willing to mix it up. WRXP is the only commercial station I know that says, “Yeah, that rocks,” and puts on an artist regardless of subgenre or popularity.
It’s more or less a modern rock station, but to RXP, that doesn’t mean Nirvana and the Pixies, full stop. To quote the launch press release, the playlist is “not determined by era, but rather by the acoustic quality of each song, as determined directly by on-air personalities and staff.”
The results are nothing short of astounding (again, in New York radio terms). The artist roster I’ve heard this weekend ranged from Dave Matthews to the Jam (the Jam!) to ancient Aerosmith cuts to Death Cab for Cutie to the Alarm (the motherfucking Alarm!) to Sheryl Crow. All on one station.
Few radio stations exist that would play Sheryl Crow’s new single and the Velvet Underground in the same sequence, but somehow, miraculously, this station landed in New York.
In short: phenomenal.
This broad-minded rock fan hopes and prays that incoming morning man Matt Pinfield–who, I’m guessing, has also been hired as music director–keeps it interesting. Scott Muni would be proud.

Updates on my music notes from last week:
1. Jon Pareles agrees with my Madonna observation in this weekend’s New York Times Arts section, although he takes it more positively than me: “It’s the kind of album a record company longs for in the current embattled market: a set of catchy, easily digestible, mass-appeal songs by a star who’s not taking chances…. Her grand statement on ‘Hard Candy’ is nothing more than that she’s still around and can still deliver neat, calculated pop songs.”
2. When I tell other “AI” watchers David Cook is dweeby, they look at me in shock. Which tells me two things. One, that a Simon Cowell-anointed series of appearances on national television, coupled with some honest to goodness talent, does wonders for one’s public impression. And two, that his combover is really good.
3. Seriously: new music from the Odds! Go listen!

1. I figured out this morning my disappointment in Madonna’s 4 minutes: she’s running with the pack. Timbaland and Justin Timberlake are ringers, sure shots, contemporary 2007-2008 American pop.
Yawn. I loves me the Timbalake output, but not in this context. This is not the Madonna who brought Eurodisco and gay culture to pop, who helped define music video, who discovered or promoted talent ranging from William Orbit to Alanis Morissette to Ali G. Madonna’s new track suggests that, for the first time, she isn’t ahead of the game. Which, as a near-50-year-old mother of three, perhaps she doesn’t have to be. But it’s a game-changer for her, and not in a positive way.
2. I’m watching “American Idol” this season for the first time (Amy’s fault), and I have two observances. First, that it truly is a popularity contest–Carly Smithson was by far more deserving than the pretty-boy and flaxen-haired competition that remains.
Second, and more importantly, David Cook is my hero. If that guy wins, man, it’s like a dream come true for a million dweeby high school guitar god wannabes. Gotta love a guy who name-checks Big Wreck and Patrick Swayze on his national profile.
3. Seriously, have you listened to the New Odds yet? Brendan Benson could learn a thing or two from Craig Northey, I tell you what.

Six-Word Reviews of 763 SXSW Mp3s on The Morning News proves that Paul Ford is an insane, overcommitted, inspired genius.
It is as it says: as many music files as Paul could drum up from this year’s South by Southwest festival, reviewed in exactly six words. (The six-word write-up, if you hadn’t heard, is a hot trend right now.)
The writeups are the genuis part.
“Rocks like a dad-bought Camaro.”
“Soft pink vagina frosted jazz cupcakes.”
“The pinnacle of cock-rock horseshit.”
“You can love Neko Case too much.”
The insane, inspired, and overcommitted part is, well, the rest of it. Every band he could find, alphabetized, chronicled, linked to two places, reviewed and rated on a 5-star scale. Then, because it’s Paul, there are the pull-outs: more than a dozen charts, graphs, summaries and observations. Which makes the chart more palatable and, no doubt, kept the research interesting, too.
I have much work ahead of me just digesting the page. Can barely fathom the work–by one man–that went into it. But then this is the same guy who more or less singlehandedly scanned 150 years of Harper’s magazine and cleaned up the OCR for a web archive, so I’m not surprised. Just blinking a lot. Great, great stuff.

I have XM Radio in my office at work, which is a delightful place to have a satellite radio signal. At home: great idea, not all that much use. At work? All day, every day. Jazz in the morning, singer-songwriter stuff over lunch, harder music in the afternoon (or when no one’s looking) and the occasional diversion when the mood strikes.

Lately I’ve been keeping an eye on the display in the hopes of discovering new music. I’m learning as I go, too, combining my ears and my memory, things like

Henry Thomas, “Bull Doze Blues” = Canned Heat, “Goin’ up the Country”

and so on.

The diversity is great. I’ve been listening to nothing but blues for the past two days. I have found that Starbucks, which programs the Hear Music channel, really does know a thing or two about quality background noise.

But most of all, I’m starting to rekindle my passion for music. I spent a long while battling my ears (which is well chronicled elsewhere on this site, and which is rearing its ugly head again, but that’s a story for another time), and its aggravations—no more live shows, no more loud radios, and for a while everything sounded funny—dampened my interest in listening to anything. But with a diverse and multiplicitous feed, and some decent speakers to go with it, music has re-entered my life, and my entire day is better.

What I’m also noticing is the newly transitive quality of my music awareness. Time was, I’d hunt down music, with the passion of a true collector. Now, I’m becoming happy to just tune into a station that suits my mood, and leave it at that. I’m not buying as many albums or learning as many band names. That has me a little sad, though, and it’s why I’ve been peeking at the radio’s display more often. It’s one thing to love music, but regaining the passion will be another level entirely. I hope I get there.

Funniest thing I’ve heard all year, and perhaps my favorite download ever: People, Let Me Get This Off My Chest, 70 tracks of Paul Stanley’s onstage banter from assorted Kiss concerts.

Now, I’ve been a Kiss fan for a long time, and I still love the songs I grew up listening to. But a big turning point for me was paying attention to Paul’s chatter on “Alive III,” where I realized just how much he reminded me of Kevin Cronin. It’s been downhill from there. This is the final, glorious, undeniably terrific nail in the coffin. (Tremble.com has a few tracks posted.)

Pete Townshend has warned iPod users to watch their volume. This is of monumental importance, and I’m glad Townshend is speaking out. His was the first case of tinnitus I knew of, and ten years into my own case, I can testify to the value—and necessity—of monitoring the volume knob. Note to all: please heed this advice.

Great news from Apple this week regarding iPod sales. Following the note on Daring Fireball that Apple is making its money on the unit and not the songs within the iTunes Music Store, I’m offering to Jobs and Co. their next smart move:

Let iTMS buyers select high-bitrate downloads at additional cost.

Think about it: to many people, 128Kbps AAC files sound “fine.” But they don’t sound good. Many people, particularly a subset of devoted music fans, would rather listen to a circa-1985 boombox than suffer the ignominy of lossy 128-bit encoding. I, for example, rip CDs at 192K or better, and I’m debating a switch to Apple Lossless encoding, even though I’ll be able to cart less music around.

Loyalty to quality audio has mostly kept me out of shopping in iTunes. My wife has bought a few albums, mostly pop, where sonic quality matters less; my purchases have largely been dance tunes and single-song impulse buys. I’d rather spend $13.99 on a better-sounding audio CD than $11.99 within iTMS, convenience be damned. (I also retain an affinity for tangible ownership, but that’s another issue entirely.)

Imagine, then, if iTunes offered me two choices: the usual 128-bit download for 99 cents and, say, a 256-bit “high quality” version for $1.49 instead. The cost difference would be minor enough to encourage select consumers to “upgrade”; full albums would still clock in at around $14.99—the same as a disc at retail—with similar audio performance. And the price differential would likely offset any increased server and bandwidth requirements on Apple’s part.

With such an option, I’d be shopping iTMS a lot more often, and Apple could conceivably make even more money while increasing my purchasing loyalty.