Archive for the “Music” Category

Hip to be Square

In an endeavor to fill my empty soul with joy in the form of capitalist fulfillment, I embraced my consumer whore nature and purchased an 8gb Apple iPod Touch. The “I” stands for inflated sense of ego.

In early 2007, my CD/MP3 player broken and I never really got around to purchasing another device. A friend threw me a replacement in the form of a JSK Digital MP-407 USB thumb drive MP3 player (oddly, the manufacturer doesn’t have a web site), which had a measly 256mb capacity. I generally only listened when mobile on transit and I also stuck to the same artist for a week at a time, so it really wasn’t an issue only have two or three albums with me at any time.

The manufacturing defects of the thumb drive started to become exposed via random player reboots and the inability to lock the next track button leading to my pocket suddenly deciding on song changes. I decided it was time for a quality player, but resolved to not making it an impulse buy. My next plan of action? Impulse buying an expensive mobile music player. Of course, as a fashion accessory, it kind of is a thief-happy device due to the white earbuds. I didn’t even let those rubbish pieces of audio equipment leave their packaging. Instead, I’ve been using my dumpy (but adequate) Sennheiser PMX-60 pair which don’t attract much attention, although they supposedly leak a lot of sound due the open design… but nobody on public transit has complained yet. I dare you! I FUCKING DARE YOU! I tend to keep my iPod in concealed as to avert the questioning eyes of the young and the beautiful. That I must above all things love myself.

I’ll get right into the Negative Nancy.

It bugs me that controlling music volume or making a track change both require looking at the screen. So you can’t just throw a hand in your pocket to make a quick adjustment. No Adobe Flash negates the “full web experience” that Apple claims. It may be a strategy to avoid streaming video that isn’t YouTube or a method to reduce memory usage, but Flash is now a necessary component of the web. It isn’t just used for frivolous splash pages anymore. There is also no scrobbling through Last.FM to keep a record of all the music you listen to. There are workarounds and I imagine there will be a supported standalone app once the iPhone SDK third-party additions are allowed to be copied over through iTunes in June.

Now on to why the thing sells well. Apple sure knows how to throw a nice graphical layer or some simple, useful features. The user interface is pretty and responsive with its PowerPoint-style page transitions from menu to menu. My attempt at drunk Facebooking while sitting in the crowd at a Guelph Storm hockey game was luckily thwarted by the small touch keyboard, hazy vision, and my Man-Sized fingers. The next morning moved nicely into a session of hungover bed-chillaxing while checking the message history in a competition to see if I could delete possible items before recipients read their contents. It was as I remembered – nothing sent since I was too drunk to log in. Stay in school.

Some of the iPhone/iPod Touch-specific webapps are very nice, such as the aforementioned Facebook version, mostly since it doesn’t waste whitespace on advertisements (which I block anyway, on PC) and doesn’t require zooming on any screen. The zoom in/out finger strokes can get tiring when browsing the web, but once more sites create webapps, it can make the mobile Internet experience much more seamless.

I’ve yet to really use the features of the Touch other than music and email, mostly since I don’t want a jailbreak attempt to create a $350 brick. In all actuality, with my lifestyle, the WiFi features are simply a gimmick since I’m so often near or at a PC anyway. I probably soon will be buying a mobile phone, but the iPhone was never in my frame of thought since Rogers are fucking assholes about allowing their wireless service prices to even approach anywhere near the somewhat reasonable prices of US provider. This covers both their equipment costs and data plan options. Of course, the reviews of the iPhone for its phone functions haven’t been too praising, other than the visual voicemail feature. I’ll probably instead find an unlocked Sony Ericsson and be that annoying jackass double-fisting expensive technology while crying out for Nature as the disillusioned man-child he really is.

The new Nine Inch Nails instrumental release Ghosts I-IV finally got music release methods down to the way they should be. By self-releasing five different packages choices, the consumer can make a decision on how much they wish to invest into the product. The higher-end selections are for the hardcore listeners that decide quality and support for the artist are paramount, while the digital download or 2CD set attract the casual listener. For any package, you get the immediate lossless, DRM-free download link so you don’t have to wait for your package to ship. You can even sample 1/4 of the release in a shareware-like plan to invite listeners to purchase more. This range of selection doesn’t devalue music, as I felt Radiohead’s deceiving blind 160kbps MP3 fiasco introduced and Saul William campaign represented for its fully-free download option.

Within hours of release, there was so much immediate demand that the web servers handling orders were down to a standstill. This, of course, exposes the limits of HTTP as a delivery platform; this is why the über-nerds prefer BitTorrent for data transfer. I bought the $10 2CD release however my FLAC download cut off at 161mb out of 608mb done due to the server overload. Now the best part about the new album is its licensing under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike, which means I can jump on The Pirate Bay to grab the album in full and it’s completely legal. The abandonment of outdated copyright law restrictions puts power completely in the consumer’s hands (hello to you, democracy). It doesn’t make the assumptive pretense that the artist or audience are a victim or criminal. They’re on equal ground and have the free will to define the value of a piece of art. I imagine in the next month you’ll find Ghosts I-IV is worth far beyond expectations simply due to the message its release represents.

Nike+ may continue commissioning the creation of iPod Nano exercise mixes by LCD Soundsystem and Aesop Rock to appease the hipster market share, but they don’t have my touch. Savour the flavour.

1. (6:12) The Knife – 2006 – Silent Shout – 07 – “Like a Pen”
2. (5:56) !!! – 2007 – Myth Takes – 03 – “Must Be the Moon”
3. (7:41) Celldweller – 2003 – Celldweller – 04 – “The Last Firstborn”
4. (5:44) Covenant – 1996 – Sequencer – 06 – “Tabula-Rasa”
5. (3:53) Skinny Puppy – 1990 – Too Dark Park – 03 – “Spasmolytic”
6. (5:01) E-Craft – 2001 – Dos Unit – 02 – “Embryonic”
7. (5:55) Cleen – 1998 – Designed Memories – 02 – “Freezeout”
8. (8:00) Infected Mushroom – 2003 – Converting Vegetarians (CD1) – 07 – “Scorpion Frog”
9. (9:37) Hybrid – 2000 – Wide Angle – 11 – “Finished Symphony”
10. (5:39) New Order – 2005 – Waiting For the Sirens’ Call – 09 – “Guilt is a Useless Emotion”
11. (5:01) KMFDM – 1995 – Nihil – 03 – “Flesh”
12. (7:18) Envy – 2006 – Insomniac Doze – 07 – “A Warm Room”

Running time: 75:57

Do you like Huey Lewis and the News? I find talking about music is such a subjective experience, throwing about vague assertions while trying to claim it’s just an opinion, but kind of fact. Then there are those that use it as an excuse to stretch thin their English lit degree. I did it because I’m a narcissist. Over a year ago I wrote up my Top Albums of 2005 with brief descriptions of each album, and then a few months ago, supplemented that with my 2005 catch-up list. This time, it’s more extensive.

Herein lies the music from last year I neglected in my Top Albums of 2005 list. This was either due to me not partaking in said listening activities until 2006, or my temporary senility when composing said rankings. So let the games continue, in no particular order!

I’m here to keep you informed because I’m a people person. By that, I mean I hate you. Just kidding. Last summer my Sony MDR-G57 neck-hugging headphones were reaching their last legs with both earpieces torn off, causing irritation to the top of my ears. I decided to get some earbuds for running and also while oot and aboot. I didn’t research my options since I knew any quality earbuds would cost upwards of $100, so instead I just went to my nearest Future Shop and bought some Sony MDR-J20 earbuds that were $32.99CDN.

Like the dying man in Magnolia, all I had was goddamn regret !! Do you see those hooks for keeping them attached to your ears? They’re useless. It’s difficult to even walk and keep the earbuds attached to your ears – they don’t even hang off the tip if the bud falls out of your canal. This happens when just walking, so forget about trying to run. The size of the buds are such that I can’t even get them inside my canal. I really only wear them when traveling on public transit between work, but I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve had to force the buds into my ear whenever I sat down in a seat and had my backpack or some other obstruction lightly tug in the cord. The design of the cord has the left side shorter than the other with the longer right side having to go around the back of your neck… which also caused tugging when I was wearing a backpack.

Sound-wise, they’re decent but nothing to write home about. Sound isolation is pretty good too so I don’t have to listen to my idiot co-workers on the shuttle bus home. I have a lot of pent-up rage, don’t I? Well dozens of other people in the Amazon reviews agree, so it’s all justified, baby!

In the past I had refused to write about music as to not contribute to the nit-picky industry of music critics. I’m beginning to think the reason was my own general laziness. When reviewing my list, please keep in mind that I have never cared too much about lyrics. As long as they lack heavy-handiness and cheese, focused tends to hone in on production and melody. The ordering in this list is somewhat unexplained subjectivity that I refuse to think about!