Thursday, August 09, 2007

Can't seem to get on topic

But after sharing the book recommendations, I feel compelled to make some music recommendations. Both of these came to me from Colby, so if you like them, you should send all your affection to him.

First, an album: Ys, by Joanna Newsom. This is not the kind of album that you are likely to like right off. Newsom is a harpist - not an instrument you're used to hearing - and her voice is a bit ... unusual. Each track is fairly long - 7 to 15 minutes - and lyrically, the songs are very dense. But I think they're wonderful.

The other thing you need to try is Last.fm. Think of it as internet radio where you create the station. You enter the name of an artist you like, and Last.fm plays music from that artist and other artists that are "near" or "similar" to the artist you chose. It also does some social networking music tracking stuff. Obviously, you could create a channel for Joanna Newsom, but then who knows if you'll ever get to hear Ys? You should just buy it from iTunes, and then hate me for a week until you start to like it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suggest pandora.com over last fm.com. I find that it pulls up stuff I like more often.

Anonymous said...

That is freakin' awesome! I'm never listening to the radio again!

A. Lo said...

Re: News and Opinion

Oh man, I should've taped Wednesday's Daily Show for you. They did a segment called "Even Dick Don't know Dick" about Cheney's prediction of the Iraqi quagmire in '94. You should see if you can find it on You Tube--it was pretty funny!