Beret

Chauvinism week has been extended due to previous laziness.

The Podington Bear Box Set ($23!!) looks beautiful.
Just put on some of the slow songs and walk around in a This American Life episode.

Oh, and merry christmas.

Played 7 times [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Hummingbird - The Best Of B.B. King

The first track of the album. My only complaint is that it’s a tiny bit too stereo when you listen to it with headphones. But that’s not an issue if you use speakers. It sounds great, and is mastered well. The rest of the album isn’t consistently as good, but it’s still nice, albeit a bit short. (I will ignore the avant-garde portion of the last track)

ps: It’s available on amazon for really cheap; ignore all the reviews, they were written in the 90’s by old people.

edit: Turn it up, seriously. It won’t sound good at furtively-internetting-without-letting-anyone-know volume.

B.B. King - The Best Of B.B. King (1973) [MCAD-31040 1987 CD Release]

Why this rocks:

1. It has a bad-ass picture of B.B. King.

This Compact Disc contains program transferred from analog tape and therefore may contain some tape hiss and other anomalies that exist with analog recordings.

2. Tape hiss means it’s a direct direct analog transfer and the tracks weren’t run over with a de-noising steamroller that kills the rest of the recording.

This album was assembled and remastered at The Village Recorder, Los Angeles, by Ed Michel and Baker Bigsby, with the assistance of Kathryn King, Dominic Lumetta, Rob Fraboni, Ken Klinger, and Gil Fortis. Throughout, the tracks were recorded and mixed to have their most profound effect at maximum.

3. “Most profound effect at maximum” means they fully used the dynamic range of a CD to more accurately reproduce the loud and quiet parts. It’s not a victim of the loudness war.

This is someone’s Christmas gift.

Owl City

Just say no.

Say no to auto-tuned, high-pitched voice tracks “sung” by people who appear unsure of their sexual orientation.
Say no to bands named after popular hipster motifs.
Say no to angsty pop that makes baby jesus cry.

Played 12 times [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Insomnia by Faithless on Reverence

Go ahead, have a one person dance party.

Simon Cowell blasts Beatles

If The Beatles came on the show we would have said, ‘We’ll take those three - Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison - but probably lose the drummer.’

In which Simon Cowell demonstrates (once again) how terribly useless reality tv is at choosing good talent.

Played 7 times [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Too Much Love by LCD Soundsystem on LCD Soundsystem (Disc 1)

If you want to troll me just say that a song that I like would make a great workout song. Guaranteed rage, every time.

Things to do on a roof on a windy night

Listen to The Beatles, Cat Stevens and Theivery Corporation using open-back headphones (so you can hear the night)

Sing, dance and jump.

Lie down and look at the sky.

Optional: pee off the side of the roof (nobody’s watching)

Played 7 times [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Count Souvenirs by Junior Boys on So This Is Goodbye

Doggy sighs blend with the intro perfectly :)

“[Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab] entered the CD market with its line of aluminum CDs. The CD line continued into 1987, when the Ultradisc was first released. The Ultradisc was a gold plated disc. MFSL claims that the surface is more reflective and that Ultradisc titles sound superior[citation needed] to their standard release counterparts. MFSL located the master tape for each title, and the tape was transferred directly to the CD master.”

-Wikipedia

Digital, it sounds better in gold.

re: Music Organisation

nostrich:

Quick sidenote regarding music organisation. I always found players like Foobar to be far superior to iTunes and its ilk, because it doesn’t insist on creating a library out of your music — if you’re smart, your filesystem is your library — instead, you just dip into your collection, drag what you want into Foobar, and go. It’s as close as you can get to going up to your massive, boner-inducing wall of CDs and vinyl, and putting what you want in the player as you can get, which, if we’re honest, is what we’d all prefer to be doing.

That’s why my room has a real cd player & turntable, they are sadly neglected though.

ps: Audacious and Amarok 1.4 are great linux alternatives for digital boner-wall style listening as well.

Why Conductors Have Great Sex

No comment.

The Real Value of a CD

I bought LCD Soundsystem’s Sound Of Silver a while back, forgetting that one of my friends was sending it to me as a gift. I then had 2 copies. But I’m not the kind of cheap bastard to sell a nice gift just because I was being stupid. I wanted to give it to someone else who would appreciate it.

I went to a party today and a guy there really liked LCD soundsystem, so I offered him the cd. A friend nearby remarked “yeah, you can rip the mp3’s.” LCD dude said “no thanks, I know how to use the pirate bay” I clarified that he could just have the cd, to keep and enjoy; which changed his mood completely. Something similar to “really, I can have it? thanks!”

The value is not in the music as much as the experience, the crinkling plastic, the annoying stickers, the sensation of dropping a cd in the tray.