9/10/2010 Playlist

Eli "Paperboy" Reed & the True Loves - Come & Get It (Come & Get It)
Westbound Train - Ain't Gonna Be Easy (Come & Get It)

Westbound Train - Come & Get It (Come & Get It)

Maroon 5 - Misery*
HelloGoodbye - Here In My Arms*

Passion Pit - Little Secrets (Manners)
Portugal. The Man - When The World Ends (American Ghetto)

Wavves - King of the Beach (King of the Beach)
Maps & Atlases - Banished Be Cavalier (Perch Patchwork)

Dirty Projectors + Bjork - Beautiful Mother (Mount Wittenberg Orca)
Dirty Projectors + Bjork - When The World Comes to An End (Mount Wittenberg Orca)

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - Window Shopping (I Learned The Hard Way)

*=Requests

9/3/2010 Playlist

My first show of the year! Thanks for listening and the requests. Its gonna be a good year.

Fang Island - Daisy (Fang Island)
Sigur Ros - Inní mér syngur vitleysingur (Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust)

Maps & Atlases - Pigeon (Perch Patchwork)

Dirty Projectors + Bjork - Ocean (Mount Wittenberg Orca)
Dirty Projectors + Bjork - On And Ever Onward (Mount Witeenberg Orca)

Dr Dog -I Only Wear Blue (Shame, Shame)

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots)
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt 2 (Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots)

The J.B.'s - Pass The Peas
The J.B.'s - Gimme Some More (live)

Good Old War - Thats Some Dream (Good Old War)
The Beatles - Blackbird (The White Album)

The Black Keys - Everlasting Light (Brothers)
The Clash - London Calling (London Calling)

Bright Eyes - At The Bottom of Everything (I'm Wide Awake, Its Morning)

Review: Dirty Projectors + Bjork - Mount Wittenberg Orca

Sometimes I loose my way, and I think we all do. We forget where we come from, we we're going and what things mean to us. I fell like I'm in a constant battle sometimes with remembering why I do the things I do. I listen to music so often and rely on it so heavily that I forget about the magic it can bring. But every once in a while, when I need it most, I hear something that makes me inspired to live. Many albums recently have made me feel this way, including the new Maps & Atlases album, and I hope many will continue to make me feel this way. Currently I just can't help but feel genuinely happy, when I hear the relentless harmonies and aahs radiating from the new Dirty Projectors & Bjork collaboration EP Mount Wittenberg Orca. It is a little weird, especially on first listen, but its the unique qualities that get stuck in my head and make me come back for more. "What was that?" followed by "I need to hear that again" has been my general response.

All this said, I think if you are just getting into the Projectors definitely start with Bitte Orca as its their most accessible. This along with Rise Above make for excellent second steps. All I can hope is that whether its from music, family, friends or another source, I can find the same type of joy and wonderment I get while listening to this EP.

Recommendation: Maps & Atlases - Perch Patchwork

Take a listen, give it a few days, and when youre ready, come back here. We'll discuss.

This is why Rx Bandits are the best

New Tera Melos Video. Prepare yourself

How do you find your music?

Ah Middle School. I remember counting down the days with anticipation to see the premiere of the new Sum 41 Video on TRL, waiting in my parent’s parked Volvo to finish listening to a Brand New song on the radio, and of course eating up every second of Blink 182 closing out the MTV Video Music Awards by jumping around with fireworks and little-people on trampolines. Now it may just be that I’ve gotten older, or possibly that I want to feel hipper, but to me these more traditional outlets I used to look at for music seem to have faded. MTV has canceled TRL and the New York rock radio station K-ROCK switched to an all talk format for over a year. Does this scary trend where reality shows and talk radio replace music point to something more significant? Are people really listening and demanding less music than they were just a couple years ago? No. But one thing that has changed that is the way that people are discovering new music.

What are the typical ways that someone has found music in the past 60 years? The dominant force has been radio which is a format that has had a rather tumultuous history. The payola scandals, where DJs were paid to play certain songs, have been on-going since the 50s. In an interview with Alternative Press, legendary DJ John Gorman said in the 1980s, in order to get a song on a major market radio station, the labels would have to pay an average of $5,000 per song. For Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” to be played, each station had to be paid $10,000. New forms of payola took place in the 1990s where labels could buy blocks of radio time to play their own music. With new laws and pressure from the government, the scrutiny has cooled down a bit in recent years. Still, radio now looks to another force on what to play. MTV.

In the past 29 years, MTV has become a powerful force in youth culture, and a considerable source for new music. While the network began as a hot bed for new emerging artists and sounds, it quickly turned into something different. The current MTV playlist is hardly based on creative videos or great songs, but rather what will attract viewers and advertisers. Atlantic Records video commissioner and owner of Refused TV Cathy Pellow said in an interview with Paste Magazine, “Everything is based on numerics and statistics, and that’s what has ruined both commercial radio and MTV; you used to have DJs and VJs who could pick music to play—now it is all playlists made by the corporation. There is no room for soul, or intuition or instinct.”

While these companies are playing what they think will attract viewers, quite the opposite is happening. According to kingsofar.com, radio just had it’s worst year since 1954. 2009 also marks radio’s 9th consecutive struggling year. MTV is not fairing too well either. According to Variety, MTV’s ratings dropped 23% in the fourth quarter of 2008 with their key demographic, 12-34 year olds, and as a result they unveiled 16 new unscripted reality shows in 2009. This is in addition to hundreds of layoffs at the network and the recent announcement that they will be dropping “music television” from their logo.

So what does this all mean? It seems to show that rather than discovering music through commercial radio or MTV, people are discovering it through each other. With the advent of file sharing, streaming sites and cd-rs, people can trade music they enjoy freely and discover it more organically. Less people are hearing what they’re “supposed” to hear and are instead embarking on their own aural journeys.

This isn’t to say that people aren’t looking to sources about what to listen to. Services like Pandora and Last.FM are popular and for good reason. They give music recommendations based off music qualities and what people with your tastes are listening to. Sites like Pitchfork and Stereogum are also thriving, and podcasts as well as blogs continue to take off. And although these services are still functioning as businesses, they aren’t aiming to please the masses. Since they aren’t yet part of large-scale corporations, they can focus on the niches and quality content in order to profit.

For me it is nice to think that music listeners aren’t just quantifiable numbers and an age group that some man behind a desk can try to manipulate into buying something. It’s kind of cool to be able to think of listeners again as art appreciators and not just consumers.