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Don't let the bells end!

For the past couple of years, I've made mix albums for my family [1]. But they've always just basically been collections of my favorite songs of the year. Which, while fine, always left something wanting: it is, after all, the holiday season, and what could better speak to the twisted & tangled emotions of said season than a holiday mix, full of songs about the holidays?

So, this year, that's what I've made. 10 songs, all about the holidays (or reminding me of them—you'll see, when we get there).

Charlie Brown christmas tree, as very obvious symbol of generally disenfranchised individual.

& because I'm a very lazy bastard, I'm going to write about them on this blog, and I'm going to spread them out into 10 separate posts. What better way to fill up 10 (+1) posts in December? After all, I've got a 4-month-old tradition of posting regularly to this blog, and I've got to keep that up!

I'm also going to be experimenting with posting MP3s of each of these songs. Based on my own experience—I read a ton of MP3 blogs, and the more I read, the more music I buy at proper music stores—this will only lead more people to buy these songs, rather than simply stealing them. [2] That said, I have a fairly conflicted internal relationship with posting music online, mainly because I don't know whether I'm a very representative sample w/r/t my music purchasing habits.

So, in other words: make me proud, people.

I'll start tomorrow, and I'll also keep this post updated with links to each of the tracks. Which are:

1. Sparks, "Thank God It's Not Christmas"
2. Orange Juice, "Holiday Hymn"
3. Sufjan Stevens, "That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!"
4. The Darkness, "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)"
5. Pixies, "Holiday Song"
6. De La Soul, "Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa"
7. Prince, "Another Lonely Christmas"
8. Low, "Blue Christmas"
9. The Pogues, "Fairytale of New York"
10. Take That, "Back For Good"

[1] last year's, along with ruminations on same.

[2] I'll also be downsampling them to 96Kbps, which still generally gives a good-enough representation of the song, but without being CD quality. And maybe I'll delete them 10 minutes after posting them, just for fun.

Congratulations to U2 for another wholly unexpected GRAMMY nomination!

Krissy dissects this year's GRAMMY nominations, which are, frankly, as depressing as ever.

Not only are the albums & bands nominated as ridiculously boring & obvious as ever—it's almost as if they have a list of artists who they'll give GRAMMYs too, and they go down that list, saying "did he release anything this year? Nope. Did she release anything? Yep, she's nominated!"—but it's just all so fucking soulless.

It's as if they've taken music, squeezed all the life out of it, & then judged it on a set of computerized rules. Note that I'm not anti-computer, obviously. But music awards in general have always struck me as particularly useless—in fact, their only use for me is in finding things I may have missed during the year. For example, Stylus Magazine's Top 50 Singles of 2005 list, which contains a lot of stuff I've already got, and a lot I don't and would probably like. So that's interesting to me.

But when you take a set of awards like the GRAMMYs, which are geared at essentially making music recommendations for the most boring people in the world, that's just so very dull.

I mean, it's apparent just in their published criteria for the individual categories. For example, this note for a bunch of their "Best Album" awards:

(For albums containing 51% or more playing time of VOCAL tracks.)

Do they actually measure it, do you think?

"She asked me if we could be friends..."

So, I recorded Sign o' the Times on our TiVo this past weekend, and ever since I've been trying to figure out how to get it off of the TiVo. As in, off of the TiVo, and onto a DVD or my (Mac) laptop.

But so BTW, before I delve into the tech stuff, a brief aside that's worthy of the main post, as opposed to a footnote: Sign o' the Times is so fucking awesome. And it's not really easily available on DVD, which is just totally lame.

Favorite things about Sign o' the Times:

• When, during "Hot Thing," Prince slides across the stage under Cat Glover's legs, and rips off her skirt with his teeth. (Or, I guess, almost—he actually appears to grab it with his hand, then transfer it to between his teeth. Yes, I've now watched this part too many times in the writing of this post.) But still: how awesome is Prince!


• This movie is just so brilliantly directed. The cuts & closeups are as good as a music video, which is pretty incredible with what appears to be concert footage. [1]


• This is a really great mini-review of the movie. Of course, it would be, as the author wrote a book on the subject.
  


• "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man". Best. Song. EVAR.

So, all of that said: We only have Macs around the house (around 6 of them now that we've amassed, but quantity doesn't help, in this case), so we can't use TiVoToGo. And really, what I most want is just to be able to burn this to a DVD, so I can watch it over & over again. It seems so simple: it's a file, made of bits, on a hard drive on (what is basically) a Linux box, that is on our fucking network. Why can't I just mount the box and copy the file to my laptop, then play it? [2]

So finally, from a comment on this post, I figured out part of the answer:

Open up a web browser and go to https://(the ip address of your tivo)/nowplaying/index.html and login as tivo with a password of your media access code (from the Tivo view settings screen) It will let you access a website where you can download the *.tivo files of your shows.

Yay! Now I have the .tivo file, though I can't actually do anything with it without a PC with TiVo ToGo.

And yet somehow, just the idea of having this file on my own hard drive makes me feel so much more secure!

Prince: you're safe now.

[1] Of course, it's not actually concert footage, which is the reason it looks so good. It turns out it's a lot easier when you reshoot the entire movie at your own studio!

[2] This is a rhetorical question.

"And I love what you've done with your hair... oh yeah!"

I love it when music makes me happy! & tonight, it's been doing just that.

I heard The Ark's "Echo Chamber" when it was posted on Fluxblog a year and a half ago, totally loved it, & I've been looking for We Are the Ark at record stores ever since (unsuccessfully) [1].

So anyway, I was thrilled to read tonight on The Tofu Hut that The Ark have a new album, "State of the Ark" [2], which is streamable on The Ark's official website.

And also, & on a related note, I picked up the new Darkness album yesterday, and it's just brilliant—they're embracing their inner Queen even more than before. [3] This post does a better job than I could of describing how awesomely rawk the Darkness are (& also raves quite a bit about The Ark).

[1] I could've just bought it off of Amazon, but I hate paying import prices for music that should rightly have been released in the US. It just doesn't seem fair!

[2] Which has been out in Europe for awhile, and which may (?) be released in the US in 2006.

[3] I had only heard snippets of "One Way Ticket," the first single, before buying the album—and I seriously thought I'd accidentally bought the wrong CD when it started with a fucking panflute. But it's all part of the fun!

You broke my heart.

SPOILER ALERT. Or something. It's in bullet number one, if you actually care about Top Model.

• Wow, Lisa [1]. I'm actually surprised, but not so much, because she was really starting to bug me lots in recent weeks. And frankly, I considered myself a pretty big supporter of Lisa. But then it just stopped mattering, because she was so annoying.


• I've been listening a lot to the Dios (Malos) album, which is unexpectedly one of my favorite albums of this year. Going in, I didn't have any reference points or comparisons for it [3], which lack of baggage may be part of the reason why I'm enjoying it so much. But it's this great fun pop music, sort of sad, sort of relaxing in a druggy way, but at the same time—maybe even inexplicably—happiness-creating.


• I am, admittedly, a little bit obsessed with The Godfather: Part II. It's a fucking long movie, and usually, even a 90-minute movie is too much of a commitment for me. And not only that, but it's a really, really depressing movie. I mean, you know this, I'm sure, having watched it (right?), but it's really depressing! That look on Michael's face at the end? It kills me, every time, but I just can't stop watching it.

[1] Who, I think, I liked better with dark hair. But that's just me.

[2] This is a total exaggeration.

[3] Except for the really obvious ones, which don't really affect me that much, because I'm not a big fan of either the Beach Boys or Neil Young.

"And then things get a little more interesting..."

Since this blog is basically a chronicle of the (presumably) embarrassing thoughts that go through my head, here's the latest:

R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet (Chapters 1-12) is the best album [1] of 2005.

I remember, a couple of months ago, watching R. Kelly perform one of the tracks in a one-man show on the VMAs, and just being completely mesmerized, watching him act out all of the parts on stage. It was incredible. That's the feeling that the music induces in you—it's really hypnotic, and yet at the same time it's really, really fucking funny. "Rufus!" "Kathy!" etc. And it's so smooth.

So tonight, after listening to the album all day on repeat, I put it on at Foo Bar [2], and I've got to say, I received some pretty negative comments! Maybe I should've expected it: putting on 12 R. Kelly songs in a row might overwhelm a casual listener. Or maybe people at the office just don't like R. Kelly. And yeah, it's not like we have the ultimate sound system for playing music at Foo Bar, and so it all turned out rather bass-heavy.

But seriously, these are some awesomely good jams. And the story is just so ridiculous, and just keeps getting more ridiculous as it goes on, and you just want to laugh. But it gives me the chills, all the same, for some reason.

[1] Well, "album," since I guess it's actually a DVD. R. Kelly makes things so confusing!

[2] Our weekly office social, basically, where we sit around, talk, gossip, etc, and relax. It's fun.

"I want the truth so bad that I'll believe it all..."

The new Neil Diamond album is seriously fantastic.

Granted, that might not sound like the first sentence of a blog post you'd read in 2005. [1]

And I confess, I've never been a really big Neil Diamond fan, but his new album, "12 Songs," is just amazing stuff. It's very stripped down & acoustic—just a guitar, a piano, some light strings, and that simultaneously smooth & rough Neil Diamond voice—though not to the point of being reduced to a requisite "unplugged" record, happily. But just to the point where it sounds like it makes sense, as if these are, somehow, the ideal arrangements for these songs.

And so it's much less melodramatic than the version of Neil Diamond that I have in my head, and all the better for it (it's no "America," in other words). And the first song, "Oh Mary"? This is some seriously haunting stuff.

It's apparently streamable on MySpace, but the Flash thing won't load for me. It also happens to be available on file sharing networks, but don't let that stop you from buying it when it's released on Tuesday.

[1] Well, yes, maybe it would on this blog, where talk of Clay Aiken and Selena is the norm. So there, I preempted your planned putdown!

I've got Pavarottis following me, too!

This sample from K-Fed's upcoming album is so. Fucking. Funny. (transcription of the lyrics)

As is this:

Update: According to the Hollertronix boards, K-Fed actually is saying "Pavarotti": "I've been informed that's just K-Fed slang for papparazzi, he calls them Pavarottis in real life. that's his style..."

What I love most about this is imagining the first time K-Fed said "pavarotti" instead of "papparazzi". I'll bet his friends/entourage/hangers-on were like, "um, WTF's he mean?" And then they'd be all quietly embarrassed for him, but not want to say anything that might make him upset. So they didn't say anything, and then just kind of got stuck being quiet, and voting their implicit agreement on his "slang."

That's my version of the story, at least.

But anyway, the only bad thing about the sample is that it's so short (52 seconds), so I keep playing it over & over, and now it's basically the only thing listed under "Recent tracks" in my last.fm profile.

And that's a little embarrassing.

Formula #51: Complaints, leading into a list

Another in an unfortunate series [1].

Muni was slow again today (shocking!). And plus, I didn't realize that they'd raised their rates again (to $1.50), which, if the service actually worked, wouldn't bother me so much. So I was upset, at the slowness and all. And it was really hot out, and after being in New York for the weekend, that kind of annoyed me, too, because I'd kind of like a proper fall, where the sky is perfectly clear and bright, but the air is warm-coat cold.

And plus, so my Shuffle broke a couple of weeks ago, and completely refuses to mount on my computer. And it's also out of power.

So I've been using my trusty 3-year-old first generation iPod, which still manages to do a very good job of shuffling. Witness, from this morning:

1. Gang of Four, "At Home He's a Tourist"


2. Jackson and his Computer Band, "Fast Life"


3. Selena, "Como la Flor"


4. MC Solaar, "Matière Grasse Contre Matière Grise"


5. Scott Walker, "Rosemary"


6. Franz Ferdinand, "What You Meant"


7. The Clientele, "My Own Face Inside the Trees"


8. Dios Malos, "EPK"

[1] Well, unfortunate for you, but quite fortunate for me, because it's something for me to write.

Cognoscens me AHA Cognoscens te

All roads lead to Alan Partridge:

• Today, I was listening to the Happy Mondays' Pills, Thrills & Bellyaches...
• When Jason IM'ed me about 24 Hour Party People, which I love...
• Only to get home tonight, and find our brilliant TiVo recording "Knowing Me, Knowing You" on BBC America [1].

Aha! [2]

So anyway, I've been watching the first 2 episodes of "Knowing Me, Knowing You" again tonight, and wow, what a fucking brilliant show. Or rather, set of shows, because "I'm Alan Partridge" (both series)—which takes place after Alan has accidentally shot one of his guests on the chat show, and is doing a (very early) morning radio show in Norwich, trying to get back said chat show—are actually even better, IMHO, than "KMKY".

Favorite things that I can remember from both shows [3]:

• Alan's Sports Casual line (wherein Alan shows off his fashion line, "demonstrating a trade that [he's] an Alan of"). Watch it.
• Alan's biggest fan, who has a room in his house with pictures of Alan up all over, and an Alan mask that he puts on.
• The ABBA medley, which has to be the most brilliantly funny thing ever. I'm quite serious: if you follow one link from this post, follow that one, & watch the video. My favorite parts are the "Voulez Vous... AHA!" bits. The link, again: Watch it.
• The Victorian Dogs: Alan mishears one of his guests saying that she liked "Victorian Dolls," so he dresses up some dogs in Victorian costumes.

[1] Granted, "brilliant" may be a bit of an overstatement, since we have a TiVo wishlist item for anything including "Steve Coogan". But still.

[2] The Happy Mondays featured heavily in 24 Hour Party People as one of Tony Wilson's bands at Factory Records (who fared better than A Certain Ratio, happily for them). And they're awesome.

But so besides the fact that Steve Coogan played Tony Wilson in 24hPP & Alan Partridge in "Knowing Me, Knowing You," the character of Alan Partridge & the chat show itself was partially based on Tony Wilson. Which is what brings it all round, and makes it so ironic, meta, etc.

[3] I was quite tempted to make a marathon Steve Coogan/Alan Partridge/Tony Wilson night of it tonight, watching "KMKY", "IAP", and 24hPP all in succession. But our "IAP" DVDs are Region 2, and it's just so much work, so I gave up rather quickly.

So the above list is, truly, mostly from memory, or from the 2 episodes I saw tonight. I haven't watched any "IAP" episodes in a couple of years, which explains the skew.