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Jedit, that's awesome. I need to make some time to go through your recommendations, looks fantastic. I like how people keep dropping in, missing the point completely, and saying "Don't do it OP". It's entertaining. It kinda balances all the people who crawl out of the woodwork in every "Recommend me a car / camera / computer / other expensive thing" thread to suggest "stretching your budget" (by recommending spending at least twice as much). Are you trying to save me some money? Why? Sorry for not posting last week, my wife and I decided to extend our planned camping trip in both directions and my Wednesday was swalliowed by packing and driving. It will be a new Wednesday here in a few hours and I'm tired so I'll just do a giant 4-part quadruple post tomorrow. The how-we-listen-to-music aspect of this project is the most fascinating part to me. There's a widespread assumption that MP3 are as obsolete as 8-tracks, and that an algorithm designed by an eccentric (to put it mildly) Swedish billionaire is the best way to find and enjoy music. In case it's not clear, I disagree strongly with both points.
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Feb 8, 2022 11:19
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ExecuDork posted:and that an algorithm designed by an eccentric (to put it mildly) Swedish billionaire is the best way to find and enjoy music. What is the best way?
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Feb 8, 2022 13:00
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BigFactory posted:What is the best way? Put it in your ears and see what happens. I found a ton of obscure stuff on Epitonic (RIP) many years ago that took me down strange paths I would never have found by myself. A few years ago I made a New Year's resolution to buy one album a month by an artist I had never heard before; they weren't all hits, of course, but I found several really good listens and I did it again the next two years. Basically, just keep your mind open and don't be afraid to experiment. It's all out there, you just need to look for it.
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Feb 8, 2022 14:49
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Jedit posted:Put it in your ears and see what happens. I found a ton of obscure stuff on Epitonic (RIP) many years ago that took me down strange paths I would never have found by myself. A few years ago I made a New Year's resolution to buy one album a month by an artist I had never heard before; they weren't all hits, of course, but I found several really good listens and I did it again the next two years. I was wondering about the OP’s opinion
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Feb 8, 2022 15:13
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BigFactory posted:I was wondering about the OP’s opinion Post a thread on SA where you list albums you'll intend to give your nephew and goons respond and offer their own comments/recs, clearly.
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Feb 8, 2022 17:46
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BigFactory posted:I was wondering about the OP’s opinion Oh, for sure - I don't want to sound like I was trying to supplant ExecuDork, and I'd like to know myself how he gathers his music for this project - but I feel it's a worthy subject for a side discussion. Every service out there tries to curate your listening, pushing you towards more of the same stuff you already like and listen to. It can be hard to find something that is new or different.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:21
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I find new music in a very unstructured way. There's no one answer here, I don't have a go-to answer for the question (a very good and interesting question!) but here are the main things I've done for the past while. This project has massively increased my interest in finding new-to-me music and my efforts to do so. Before, it was very much accidental, I'd hear something, somewhere, and track it down. I stopped listening to broadcast radio when I no longer owned a car, in late 2006. When I bought a car again in 2009 it had an aftermarket stereo with USB input, something I'd never had before, and I had already ripped all of my CDs to MP3 on my computer. That permanently closed the door on broadcast radio for me, it's just too insipid and stupid and boring if I have any alternative at all. My early experiences with streaming services - particularly, Songza - were not good experiences. You ever just let Youtube autoplay go for a few hours? Yeah, I don't like wandering into weird, toxic shittiness either, and Songza added the insult to my intelligence of strictly limiting the number of times I could just hit "skip" on anything I didn't like. Not that Spotify does that (to my knowledge), I just don't want to find new music in that way. Before I moved to Australia I had started getting into seeing live music. Before about 2010 I was more or less allergic to live music due to a mixture of unfortunate experiences (most prominently, a performance in a small, basement bar by The Headstones when I was about 20 - the singer likes to spit on the audience and throw the occasional beer bottle into the mosh pit) and disappointment listening to recorded-live versions of songs I liked as polished studio productions. I was taken to a music festival - Ness Creek, I've posted a bunch about it here - by my girlfriend (now my wife) and I had a great time. Later I moved to another city and found myself about 1 km away from a really excellent live music venue, Maxwell's Waterloo (again, I know I've mentioned that place here at least once). Both sets of experiences exposed me to plenty of new-to-me music; even when I was already familiar with the main performer at Maxwell's, for example I own most of what Matt Good Band* has produced but the intro act is always new to me. * No photos from the MGB show because he (it's all about Matt himself, he's a bit of an egoist but I still like his music) has a No Cameras policy at his shows. Oh well, it was still a great show, and the bouncer enforcing that rule was very polite and professional and even nice to me when I had to put my camera in the coat-check. I moved to Australia in January 2019. In that first year I did not find much live music though of course things were happening, I just didn't find out in time to go see any shows. We all know what happened to live music in 2020, though I did manage to see a bit at The Big Chill, a local mini-festival this small city snuck in during the lull between the original COVID strain and Delta arriving in Australia. In the year before I started this project I didn't hear much new-to-me music at all. I was only listening to music at all a little, when I was alone in the car (when I'm with my wife we tend to listen to podcasts or nothing at all) or sometimes at work (boring repetitive tasks). I already had a Bandcamp account to get some of the music from those live shows in Canada, and every once in a while I'd browse through there but rarely bought anything. When I came up with the idea for this project I went straight to Bandcamp to start - the first "album" I bought for my nephew was the complete collection to that date (early 2020) by The Arrogant Worms (see the beginning of this thread). I had some other ideas on Bandcamp but I also wanted to stay open to suggestions from anywhere. I spent a bit of time in the "Where do I start with... X?" thread here, which is an interesting place to see people asking questions I hadn't yet though to put into words. I also bugged some friends here, asking difficult questions like "What is your favourite Australian musician? What music is really, really, essential listening for Australia? What are the bands that every Australian would know?" which led me to the Hoodoo Gurus and a few others. Because my nephew's 8th birthday, the start of this project, was on a Wednesday, I decided to link some of the music choices to special Wednesdays as they occur. Many holidays are linked to specific days of the week rather than a numbered day of a month, so none of those "second Tuesday" or "last Friday" type holidays will appear here. But Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day, my birthday, my wife's birthday, and lots of other days will end up on a Wednesday at some point in this 10-year project. I go looking for something I think is appropriate for the day - like Midnight Oil's Armistice Day live concert double-album to coincide with 11 November. Sometimes I get a weird idea and assemble my own "album" from singles on iTunes, like Sorry Day and the Hotel theme for Las Posadas. Other ideas: - A musician dies, and I read an obituary or notice in the news. This is how I decided to buy Kraftwork, John Prine, and UB40. - Other newsworthy, music-related events. Like Britney Spears' ongoing legal drama. - A band or album is mentioned in a news story I read. Radiohead's In Rainbows was mentioned in passing in an article in The Economist, as the first digital-only release by a major band. - A general sense of "this is prominent in popular culture". The only song I know for sure (at this point) my nephew knows in this way is Sweet Home Alabama. The albums by The Rolling Stones, The Ramones, and the giant dump of Queen all fit into this category. - Haphazardously encountered compilation albums, like Fire Fight. - Any new or surprising or weird way that people today purchase and listen to music, including gas-station CDs, thrift shops, and even (coming up in a few weeks) a couple of finds at the junkyard. - I'm a goddam magpie picking up any shiny thing I see, sometimes it's music and it ends up here. I try to suppress this, most of the time, to avoid just dumping my own narrow tastes on my nephew. I often think about how music I like from the 90's is equivalent for my nephew of my uncle giving my 10-year-old self music from the 60's - I'd probably hate most of it (though I am a big fan of Black Sabbath and a bunch of other "classic" rock and popular music). And of course: Suggestions from this thread! Please, keep it up, I want to see more of what other people like. Recommendations are very welcome.
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Feb 9, 2022 04:31
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097 The Strokes - Is This It 220105 https://home.thestrokes.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQRJvZBH1gw The title song from the album, Is This It. It's phrased (and sung) like a question, but no ? in the title. I'd been considering The Strokes for a while, and this album fits here for a couple of reasons. Mainly, the first week of 2022 was my last week of work in my 3-year contract. I got another, part-time contract just before the pre-christmas deadlines but I generally keep this music project running about two months ahead. Back in November, when everything was uncertain for me, it occured to me that I might wake up on the last day, or the day after the end of my contract and ask that question. I bought the album from JB HiFi during a 3-for-the-price-of-2 sale on some albums. I saw a lot of good stuff but I successfully stopped myself from buying 9 or 12 albums at once. The Strokes, and this album, are considered highly influential to many people, which is one reason I'd been looking for a place to put this album for a while. This album was released in Australia before other parts of the world, and made a splash, if the internet is to be believed.
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Feb 9, 2022 06:57
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098 Bruce Springsteen - The Essential Bruce Springsteen 220112 https://brucespringsteen.net/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhWR4d3FJQ Born in the USA, a song repeatedly re-interpretted (mis-interpretted, sometimes) by seemingly everyone. Bruce Springsteen is another massive, "classic", musician whose work permeates popular culture. I seem to have settled into a habit of buying an album titled "The Essential" for artists like this. Britney Spears (#80), and another one coming up in a few weeks. I get 30+ songs, all considered hits, and I don't have to invest any more thought into it. I consider The Boss solved as far as this project is concerned. He is also another musician, like Phil Collins (#92) whose reputation inside my head is different from what they actually performed. This 3-hour compilation album contains very few high-energy rock songs. The Boss seemed to prefer slower melodies.
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Feb 9, 2022 07:09
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099 Justin Bieber - Justice 220119 https://www.justinbiebermusic.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWeiydKl0mU Hold On, the first actual video I found from this album, one that wasn't an "album coming soon!" just-a-still-image video. This is a story video, with an action interlude while the song is paused. Another from that 3-for-2 buying spree at JB Hi-Fi. Somehow I bought his most recent album, steeply discounted. Like many people, I mostly used to just disparage The Beebs, given his high-profile out-of-touch rich kid persona and reputation. However, I have also read fairly serious appraisals of his influence and his music that have convinced me that he's worth at least a fair listen. He has a distinct and unique style and singing voice, among anything I've heard. And I certainly don't hate these songs, even if I rarely choose this album when I'm pondering what to listen to.
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Feb 9, 2022 07:17
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100 - Run-DMC - It's Like This – The Best of Run-DMC 220126 https://www.rundmc.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLGWQfK-6DY It's Like That - one of many versions on YouTube. Closing out January and the 100th week of this project with another "everybody knows at least one of these songs" classic. Maybe my nephew will take up breakdancing? I knew a man who taught breakdancing. He was a tech in the lab next to the one I did my PhD in. Very quiet, very professional in the lab, and a stack of trophies on his shelf at home. Maybe I'll track him down if my nephew expresses some interest.
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Feb 9, 2022 07:24
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ExecuDork posted:100 - Run-DMC - It's Like This – The Best of Run-DMC 220126 Christ, that's a flashback to my childhood saturday mornings watching the top 40 songs on TV.
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Feb 9, 2022 13:31
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ExecuDork posted:Both sets of experiences exposed me to plenty of new-to-me music; even when I was already familiar with the main performer at Maxwell's, for example I own most of what Matt Good Band* has produced but the intro act is always new to me. I'm also a big fan of Matthew Good. He always has good openers and I've been introduced to a lot of bands I regularly listen to thanks to him. He had The Dears open for him on the tour for "Avalanche" and that show was loving transcendent--they basically played the entirety of "No Cities Left".
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Feb 9, 2022 18:34
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101 Tim Minchin - Groundhog Day, Original Broadway Cast 220202 https://www.timminchin.com/groundhog-day-the-musical/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hwE-dgis6Y Tim Minchin performing Seeing You, the grand finale of the musical. I chose this video rather than one of the performances on this album because Tim Minchin is awesome. I noticed that Groundhog Day 2022 would be a Wednesday many months ago, and one day I was idly googling for music to fit the theme and discovered that one of my favourite musicians, Tim Minchin, had written the music for a theatrical musical remake of the 1993 Bill Murray film. I have not seen the play live (and not recorded, either) but I have seen a live performance of a different story that Tim Minchin turned into a theatrical musical, Matilda - put on by a local girl's school (with a few roles by a few high school boys from another local school) - and it is fantastic. Musical theatre was a big part of my own childhood musical experiences. The soundtrack for family roadtrips when I was 13 to 18 was a set of tapes from musicals my parents had seen, mostly when I was 10-12 years old. We lived in England for that time, and went to London's West End theatres several times. So I grew up with Les Miserables, Chess Pieces, and Miss Saigon playing in the family minivan as we drove through the mountains. Almost all of the songs are very easy, almost compusively so, to sing along with. A few months ago my wife described an article she had read that put forward the argument that current movies differ from those of previous decades in having soundscapes rather than soundtracks composed of individual songs. There's a lot of background music in movies in general, but there seems to be a trend in the past decade or so towards fewer distinct, individual songs with lyrics and more just, well, music. You can sing along to songs from Titanic or just hum along to songs from Star Wars - and those movies and those songs are instantly recognisable to most people I know - but could you hum the tune or sing a few lyrics from the music in any Avengers movie?
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Feb 17, 2022 02:03
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102 Daft Punk - Random Access Memories 220209 https://www.daftpunk.com/ - the only thing here is an 8-minute video that serves as Daft Punk's unambiguous C'est fini statement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCHdMIEGaaM Get Lucky, the lead single from this album When this album came out, I read a review of it that started with (paraphrasing) "Daft Punk have released a disco album in 2013". And, I just now discovered that the launch party was in the tiny town of Wee Waa NSW - Google tells me I could drive there in about 3 and a half hours. I've been fairly close, having driven through Narrabri in March 2020. I can confirm that it's very much Regional Australia, with long, dry distances between very small places with unusual names. In my opinion, this album is a classic, from the day it launched.
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Feb 17, 2022 02:30
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Going with the Essential Bruce over an album like the River is criminal imo.
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Feb 18, 2022 04:29
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Hot Diggity! posted:Going with the Essential Bruce over an album like the River is criminal imo.
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Feb 23, 2022 07:23
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103 Bob Marley and The Wailers - Legend (Remastered) 220216 https://www.bobmarley.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqVy6eRXc7Q It was hard to choose one song to represent this album, but I went with Jammin' for the carefree, we're-playing-music lyrics and fun tone. What can I say about Bob Marley and The Wailers? Obviously, this projected needs some regae, and why not go straight to the top of the list?
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Feb 23, 2022 07:29
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104 Forrest Gump - The Soundtrack (with additional songs listed by Wikipedia as in the movie but not on the soundtrack) 220223 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Gump:_The_Soundtrack - The Wikipedia link rather than a website specific to this album, not that there is such a website as far as I can tell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFBnWurWQDA I went with this video rather than the many versions of the feather theme because this is the song I bought this album for. For the album to mark the end of the first two years of this project, I needed to include at least one song that I know my nephew already knows - Sweet Home Alabama. I also went a little nuts and unleashed my completionism, pulling in the 14 additional tracks listed by Wikipedia as played in the movie but not included in the collector's edition of the soundtrack (which is what I found on iTunes). There are several other songs here that my nephew might know as well, given the way the film's producers went to great lengths to assemble the soundtrack. I have a Lynyrd Skynyrd album I bought long ago, probably around age 19, that includes this song. But I didn't want to re-buy anything for this project if I could avoid it, and I don't really like Sweet Home Alabama. The music is fine, the lyrics are problematic, and what I understand about the subject matter and background to this song is complicated, but probably pretty dumb. Basically, I think Neil Young was right to take the whole US South to task for the bloody, stupid, cruel history of the 17th and 18th centuries (and before, and since) in that region. But, it's certainly an important song in the popular music of North America and I want my nephew to have a chance to play this song on endless repeat until he either loves it or hates it. Or doesn't care one way or the other, that would also be OK. Back to the rest of film soundtrack. I don't love every song here but I'm glad I've got them. The additional songs include a good tranche of The Doors, which I will also include sooner or later. And having a scattering of Elvis, Jefferson Airplane, Arethra Franklin, et cetera is no bad thing. It's a movie made by boomers for boomers, and the soundtrack is dominated by the mid-to-late 60's; the last-released song on the soundtrack, besides the instrumental theme music, is Against the Wind by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, from 1980. I had thought the movie ended contemporary with its release, 1994, but the Wikipedia page for the movie says the final scenes take place in 1981. So I guess that explains that aspect of the soundtrack. I enjoyed the movie, and one of my memories from high school is getting a ride home with a pretty classmate, who had a version of the soundtrack in her car. It might have been simply the tracks randomly queued up by her CD player or it might have been what I (stupidly) assumed, but all of the songs we heard on that 20-minute drive were considered by 17-year-old me to be Country and thus horribly tainted. I'm an idiot, always have been. Can I hope my nephew doesn't make the exact same mistakes as I did? C'mon, don't rule out a pretty girl because of 4 songs coming out of the family car. **** I'm posting this on the actual day I've assigned the album to, Wednesday 23 February 2022. This post marks the end of my 2-weeks-per-week posting, and I'll drop back to 1-to-1 from now on - unless something changes (or I'm away / forget for a couple of weeks and need to catch up). I wrote an email to my sister-in-law describing this project and what I hope to give my nephew, emphasising my desire to not contradict her nor interfere with their relationship in any way. She has not yet replied, but I'm not yet worried. I am hoping we can work out how to start getting some of this music into his ears (at a reasonable and safe volume).
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Feb 23, 2022 08:03
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ExecuDork posted:103 Bob Marley and The Wailers - Legend (Remastered) 220216 It also allows you to tell one of the best musical jokes. How did Bob Marley like his doughnuts? Wi' jam in!
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Feb 23, 2022 09:12
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105 Tash Sultana - Flow State & Notion EP 220302 https://www.tashsultana.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn8phH0k5HI The live-from-the-bedroom version of Jungle that launched Tash Sultana's career (according to the story on their website). My wife gifted me this pair of CDs for Christmas, and I decided to include them in this project as the opener to Year 3.
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Mar 2, 2022 08:29
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I heard back from my sister-in-law, and she's on board with this project. She isn't ready for her son to have unsupervised access to the internet, nor to a phone of his own, so we're back to looking at dedicated MP3 players. Options have improved a bit since last I looked, with some probably-suitable options available at around $50-$60 - which is perfect, any less and I'd assume the device would fail, too much more than that and my sister-in-law would worry too much about loss or damage. Also, with the new plan to not send my nephew a giant lump of ~1800 songs, massive storage space and/or micro-SD capable isn't a dealbreaker anymore. Any suggestions? I'm leaning towards the Timoom MP3 Player (Walmart.ca link) in whatever is the current version (6, I think). I also want to give him some volume-limited child-friendly headphones, but what I can find seems pitched at younger children - he turns 10 in a couple of days. I had a cassette player (not a Sony brand Walkman, but same idea) when I was 10 and whatever regular headphones came with it in 1988. I know I could crank the volume higher than I should have and I don't want to inflict ear damage on my nephew, yet. Suggestions here are also very welcome. **** Breakdown of music purchasing - the first two years. One aspect of this project that emerged very quickly was the surprising, continuing prevalence of music sold only on physical media. I suppose I can thank hipsters for bringing vinyl back, but I'll take that thanks away from them, too, because vinyl now commands a silly price premium. There's the Cassette Thread but I don't see the need to really explore that. I like CDs. They're already digital music, in a form that most computers can happily rip, with the addition of a $20 USB-CD drive from Amazon. I like direct downloads of MP3s much more, for the instant-gratification and for the avoided shipping costs. But artists seem to be very fond of CDs, for reasons I can only speculate about : there's an extra step (ripping) between the purchase of a CD and the sharing of the music files with all and sundry. Bandcamp seems to rely on an honour system, providing MP3 (or a large selection of other formats) without copy protecttion, and in many cases the option to pay little or nothing for an entire album. A few really big musicians - world famous, very well established, humungous-arena-selling-out artists like Radiohead and Billy Joel (actually, those are the only ones in the first 2 years) work similarly, selling direct MP3 downloads from their own websites. The other big source of digital music is iTunes - the files come through as M4A but the iTunes app includes a convert function that works well. The final source for music not delivered on shiny plastic in the first two years of this project was Steam - I included soundtracks from two games. CDs come from either the artist's website (or proxy website, merchandise-sellers that sell CDs and memorabilia for several or many artists) or from Amazon most of the time. You can see in the following table that I bought CDs one or two at a time from several other sources, including thrift shops. I separated out Warner music because they're a giant music company and they handle CD sales for at least some of their signed artists.
At 54% of this decidely non-representative project, CDs are far from dead, and anyone claiming MP3 is an archaic format is paying attention to something entirely different.
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Mar 2, 2022 10:44
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106 They Might Be Giants - Flood 220309 https://www.theymightbegiants.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Am-BF7ObCI Birdhouse in Your Soul, just because. Nerd rock. What can I say? I bought the live version as a direct download of MP3 from the band's website (only the third musician to offer this so far in this project). My wife has had the studio version on CD for many years and I decided to give my nephew both versions this week. I probably first heard a TMBG song - likely Istanbul Not Constantinople - sometime around the age of 13 or 14. A friend of mine back then was a fan; he's gone on to be a musician himself and when he releases his next album I'll include it in this project.
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Mar 9, 2022 09:26
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107 Simon and Garfunkel - The Essential Simon and Garfunkel 220316 https://simonandgarfunkel.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwP3vPQi0nI The Sound of Silence, every Emo kid's and every Goth's secret favourite song because of that opening line. It's been covered by pretty much everbody, including Disturbed. Another "Essential" compilation from one of the planet's most popular musical duos. There's a reason so many of these songs are classics, and part of that reason is the perplexing (to me) popular market for very slow songs, played quietly. Still, you probably know most of the lyrics to most of these songs.
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Mar 16, 2022 11:36
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108 Fuel - Sunburn 220323 https://www.fuel-official.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6zf3dW2t9Q The official video for the album-title track, Sunburn. I've talked about the local Tip Shop before, but as a reminder, the local municipality subcontracts the job of salvaging saleable items from the stream of material heading towards the landfill / recycling facility. The employees set prices on most items with a shrug and a wave - their task is to divert waste, and they track weight of material, not identity. So they're happy to let small but potentially valuable items go for next to free, especially if we're buying something heavy and bulky like a desk or a bedframe at the same time. Somebody must have dropped off a pile of CDs - actually, probably several somebodies did so recently, given the breadth of the library on old bookshelves at the back of the Tip Shop near the doors and bicycles. There are probably about 400 or 500 CDs there, ranging from home-made burned disks (and blank re-writeables) through sappy collections (I also picked up a kind of lazy greatest hits of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals, and now I have goddam Magical Mr. Mestoffiles stuck in my head all the loving time. I'm not going to inflict this on my nephew) and a few real gems. The day I bought this one (which, yes, I consider a gem) we also bought a pile of other things, drinking glasses and tools and plant pots, for about $10 and I can reasonably state that this CD was free - had we not included it, the cost would have been no less. Fuel fits solidly into the category of "music I liked when I heard it but did not pursue any further back when it was new", also in the genre "rock" or "hard rock" or something prefixed by "nu-", which everything in the late ninetees and early 2000's was burdened with. I like this album.
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Mar 25, 2022 00:06
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I just spent a frustrating hour making and implementing an important decision: how will my nephew listen to his music? I spoke with his mother a little while ago and she will be happy with what I've settled on: SanDisk Clip Sport Plus 32GB MP3 player. I bought a red one and a blue one, otherwise identical, from Amazon UK via my Amazon Australia account. They'll both come to me, I'll set them up exactly the same, then show them to my nephew on a skype call and let him choose the colour (after I let him know the basic ideas of this 10-year gift project thing). And apologise for missing his 10th birthday with this. It was way more difficult to get to this point than I think it should have been. SanDisk is a weird brand to shop, it shows up in lots of places but the options are limited or hidden or just plain don't work. This morning I was trying out plans and abandoning plans as websites hosed up. Plan 1: Buy the same thing, most likely a SanDisk player, from somewhere in Australia (probably Amazon) and from somewhere in Canada (probably BestBuy). This plan fell apart when BestBuy's website refused to let me add anything to my account, even after I had set my default address to my nephew's house. gently caress off BestBuy. Plan 2-4: variations on buying stuff in Canada and having one of them sent to me, somehow. Plan 5: buy something from Amazon that cost less and came with an unknown brand, or under Amazon's AGPTEK brand. Reviews of various AGPTEK and other clones consistently brought up two dealbreaker issues: poor battery life and poor file management / music playback controls. And one of them: Some loving knockoff mp3 player description posted:A great gift for wives, children or the elderly I also discovered that Sony has effectively exited the lower part of the mp3 player market, and exclusively sells their higher-end Walkman models for at least $400 (some are much more than that). Older Sony Walkman show up in various places but for stupid prices that I assume are associated with money-laundering or other nefarious activities, or simply broken fragments of some kind of product-recommendation algorithm, released to roam the internet. I only bothered to look into Sony because years ago I had a 8GB Walkman MP3 player that I quite liked. Their technology has moved on from that (circa 2014) but not in ways I would have liked. Eventually I found my way to what I bought through a "customers who viewed this also bought" link under a different SanDisk product on Amazon. That had not shown up in my searches for "SanDisk MP3" for some stupid reason. Ugh. Anyway, in a couple of weeks I'll have made a big stride on this project, which is a good feeling and lets me check off an important item from today's to-do list.
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Mar 25, 2022 02:01
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Honestly a Walkman is still your best option if you want to meet that quality/price zone. Plus those micro-SD slots pretty much means infinite storage nowadays.
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Mar 25, 2022 23:12
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Yeah, I really liked my Walkman, and I was quite angry with myself when I broke it (I snapped something inside the headphone port trying to get my lovely tape-deck adaptor to be less crackly in the car I had at the time. I upgraded the head unit in that car to something that could take an AUX line in and USB after that trip). My nephew's 18th birthday and the end of this project lines up fairly well with the 50th anniversary of the original Walkman portable cassette player (not exact, but about 6 months later than the release anniversary). The 40th anniversary edition - here's a review looks really good to me, but at $600 it's not something I want to give a 10-year-old. I'm hoping they do something special for the 50th anniversary and I hope I'll be able to afford to gift him one of whatever Sony comes up with in 8 years. The A50 and A100 series are very appealing to me but too expensive for right now. I discovered I could not find exactly what I wanted, but the SanDisk units I bought are a good-enough compromise. The ideal MP3 player for my nephew right now, given his age, his mother's rules, and my budget, would be something very much like a SanDisk Clip Sport Plus or a Sony Walkman E-series, with water resistance and general toughness (he's 10, he'll drop it in a puddle at some point) and a micro-SD card slot, along with a good UI and file management system and at least 15 hours of playback life through wired headphones. He doesn't need bluetooth and it needs to not cost more than about $100. That exact combination does not exist at that budget point. Throw in a few wanted-but-not-needed features like a hold button and (at least some) physical buttons and things get even more unobtainable. The SanDisk units came with 32GB internal memory, and the total file size of his collection to date (320 kps MP3, always) is about 19GB, so this unit should be good up to around his 12th birthday on current trends. Buying him new hardware every 2 years is something I was thinking of doing in this project anyways. Maybe the next device I buy for him will be a phone?
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Mar 27, 2022 07:42
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109 3 Doors Down - 3 Doors Down 220330 This band seems to have no independent website, just Facebook. I'm not going to link to Facebook if I can avoid it. So here's a link to the page for a bar in southwestern Sydney with the same name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpfhcljJ9bQ It's Not My Time, the lead single from this album. I picked this one up at the same time as the previous album by Fuel - at the Tip Shop. Another band I'd heard of and figured I'd like to hear on my phone now and then. I did not know about 3 Doors Down's politically-conservative leanings, which includes performances at the inaugurations of both W and Trump. I might have avoided this band if I'd known about that, but I'm not sorry I included this album in this project. I decided a long time ago that an artist's personal opinions - including about sex, politics, and religion, the three topics one is supposed to avoid discussing in polite company (or something) - would have little or no bearing on my enjoyment of their art. Content that directly references an opinion I don't share, or that I find distasteful, or that I strongly disagree with crosses a line for me, though. If I find out a musician voted a certain way or played a particular show I probably won't really mind. If they put out a song that lavishes praise on something or someone I dislike, I might have a problem. As far as I can tell, on this album 3 Doors Down don't cross that line. A song about the National Guard (Citizen/Soldier) is clearly aligned with their conservative politics, but the existence of the National Guard does not provoke disgust in me. And I like the music enough to ignore any mildly problematic lyrics. I try to keep an open mind when it comes to art, and I want to allow everyone the chance to say their opinions so I can react accordingly. There are obvious exceptions (bigots of any flavour - racist/sexist/(somebody)-phobic; political extremists, outspoken religious fanatics, probably a couple of others revolving around violence and threats of violence) but I think it's important to allow a person to state their opinions in their own words before I decide what to do about it. For celebrities - and any musician who has produced an album achieves this low bar - my reaction can be as simple as not buying their music. 3 Doors Down, to my knowledge, has not done anything that really prevents me from enjoying their music.
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Mar 30, 2022 09:55
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I’ve used that thought to justify keeping that kind of music on my library. However, I use them knowledge of various shittiness to stop giving a band/artist money in the future. For example, I’m not going to buy another Queens Of The Stone Age album because the lead singer is an abusive alcoholic. Also now that I have a daughter, I also added the rule that I would never try to turn her on to one of these types of artists. Let their garbage die with me kind of thing. Basically don’t give them any more of my money, nor any more fans. Edit: Obviously you did not give 3 Doors Down any money with the way you bought the CD, and that’s fine. Used CDs are great that way.
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Mar 30, 2022 13:20
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He may not have given 3 Doors Down any money, but bringing a cd into your house begins the 3 Doors Down curse, where you have the option to listen to a 3 Doors Down cd. Beware.
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Mar 30, 2022 13:56
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re: turning my nephew on to one of these artists. I think I can't really focus on that, musicians are people and lots of people have said or done mildly bad things. Actual criminal behaviour is another level, of course, and while I (again) do not regret buying a QoTSA album, any future Josh Homme-linked purchases will be through eBay or other parts of the second-hand market. Physical CDs suit me just fine, but I have to acknowledge their decline in the real world; there's a pretty good used book store in this small city but not one that focuses any effort on used CDs. One of the local thrift shops has a nice little collection, I have picked up some good stuff from them and I should hit them up again. They're run by volunteers so their opening hours are short and prone to cancellation. Still, I'm in a position to just skive off whenever and browse offerings from the late 90's. BigFactory posted:He may not have given 3 Doors Down any money, but bringing a cd into your house begins the 3 Doors Down curse, where you have the option to listen to a 3 Doors Down cd. Beware. The ghosts in this house...
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Mar 31, 2022 00:22
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110 Massive Attack - Collected 220406 https://massiveattack.ie/ - the fan site. Massive Attack seems to lack their own presence on the web. EDIT: I just found the link to the official site through the fan site: https://www.massiveattack.co.uk/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7K72X4eo_s Teardrop, one of their most popular songs. Trip Hop, huh. Not a (sub)genre I'd heard of prior to getting this album. Another one from the Tip Shop, a later visit than when I bought the last two entries. I bought a fistful of CDs, and decided to re-assign this one to this project. There are one or two others that I might also gift to my nephew. My job has changed recently and my income is less predictable, and less overall, than it was previously. Having a few basically-free CDs already ripped means if I need to fill a slot at the last minute I can do so without resorting to a $20 (or more) purchase on iTunes. ExecuDork fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Apr 7, 2022 |
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Apr 7, 2022 10:29
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111 Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R (Deluxe Edition) 220413 https://qotsa.com/ - the band's official website. But Goon Hive Mind opinion is to avoid giving money to Josh Homme if at all possible, due to his violent criminality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l0nzPpvbFs The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, the first video for a track on this double-length album that came up through Google. I suppose QotSA is more famous for their earlier work. I bought this album based on advice in the "Where Do I Start With [X]?" thread. Mark Lanegan died in February of this year, and this project includes me suddenly paying attention to a band when one of the members dies. Mark's first appearance on an album with QotSA is this one, and I plan to explore the Screaming Trees later. I quite like QotSA, and the side projects various members have done, particularly Them Crooked Vultures, is very interesting. But, to avoid rewarding Mr. Homme for his shittiness, I'll be buying his other outputs through the used market. Dave Grohl is widely considered to be A Good Person, but I don't think the two sides of my boycot are equal - not giving money to Dave Grohl carries much less negative weight in my mind than the positive weight of not giving money to Josh Homme. Both are very wealthy, so realistically this matters not at all to either of them, but perhaps it can be something I discuss with my nephew.
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Apr 13, 2022 01:38
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ExecuDork posted:Trip Hop, huh. Not a (sub)genre I'd heard of prior to getting this album. Trip hop has always seemed to me to be a very British genre, even though the name was coined in relation to US producer DJ Shadow. Plenty of famous acts have made contributions (Groove Armada, Morcheeba), but it all comes back to two bands from the Bristol underground scene of the early 90s: Massive Attack and Portishead. Massive Attack formed out of a music collective called the Wild Bunch, and it was them who began fusing the sampling and breakbeats of electronica and hip hop with a kitchen sink's worth of other genres from reggae to classical. Portishead, meanwhile, are a focused trio more heavily influenced by 70s film scores and jazz. The combined legacy of their albums between 1991 and 1998 is so profound that even though neither band has released new music in over a decade now they still define trip hop completely for a lot of people. Although I slightly prefer Portishead and consider their live album P:NYC to be the holy grail, Massive Attack Collected is a perfect introduction. It's got almost all of their most important tracks - only Heat Miser and Mezzanine are missing - plus some deeper cuts and OST contributions. Due to the collective nature of the group it also offers a wider range of musical styles; Teardrop and Unfinished Sympathy are much lighter and more symphonic, while at the other extreme you have grimy electronic tracks like Angel and Inertia Creeps. A fine pick.
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Apr 15, 2022 23:38
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112 Arctic Monkeys - Suck it and See 220420 https://www.arcticmonkeys.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlYJKfunfC0 Suck it and See - the title track for this album. Apparently, the saying "suck it and see" is not sexually suggestive nor particularly aggressive in the UK, but it caused some minor worries on the west side of the Atlantic. AM is one of my wife's favourite albums from this project, and I decided to move back in time by one album for the band. Maybe the next one will be more recent.
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Apr 21, 2022 10:16
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113 Various Artists & The Wiggles - Rewiggled https://www.thewiggles.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a13WnqsRc5g The Wiggles cover Elephant by Tame Impala on Triple j's "Like A Version" series, the most prominent performance from this double album. The Wiggles are a children's music band, running for decades with several changes of line-up. The band has won a slew of awards for their educational efforts, and most of their stuff is pitched at an audience younger than my nephew at the start of this project, his 8th birthday. So I would not normally have considered them, but they released this double album of covers and I pre-ordered it as soon as I heard about it. Disk 1 is covers of Wiggles songs by other musicians. Disk 2 is The Wiggles covering songs by other musicians, including Pub Feed by The Chats (#51) who perform the Wiggles song, Can You (Point Your Fingers And Do The Twist?). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSz0ST8a_lQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0CGComnvCY
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Apr 28, 2022 07:06
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So you’re just giving your nephew whatever you come across without any care as to what it is then?
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Apr 28, 2022 11:25
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IUG posted:So you’re just giving your nephew whatever you come across without any care as to what it is then? This last one is closest to music a 10 year old might like, although he’s 14 now and hasn’t gotten any of it.
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Apr 28, 2022 11:44
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I know 10 year old me would've been ecstatic if someone gifted me a bunch of nu metal CDs. I assume things have changed since 2002.
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Apr 28, 2022 23:51
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