Music Archives
Music paints a pretty accurate picture of what's going on in media at the moment.
About an hour ago I received this IM: "Can you write a bitchy response to this?
i can't understand how this is a failure when the band is taking $2.26/unit when signed bands typically earn about $0.02-$0.10 per record"
The article in question, Most Consumers Grabbed 'In Rainbows' for Free, not surprisingly refers to Radiohead's In Rainbows which let people download the album for any price they chose. Numbers have started to emerge from the experiment and pundits everywhere are debating about its relative success.
My take: This very debate lies at the heart of the problem. Success, like just about everything else in the universe, is not a binary. Things are not either successes or failures, rather it's a relative measure based on a number of factors. (It's a very postmodern take, I know.)
Now when it comes to most articles, the focus is that 6 out of 10 people paid nothing to get the album, leaving the whole experiment with an average price-per-album of $2.26. The other half of the equation, however, is that of the 38% who chose to pay something, they "forked over an average of $6, with U.S. consumers paying almost twice as much ($8.05) as those from other countries ($4.64)." Now sure this is less than the cost of a physical album or download on iTunes, but maybe, just maybe, what people are telling us is that these things cost too much. Plus, has anyone asked what percentage of people actually pay for albums? Is it unreasonable to think that if Britney Spears sells 2 million records, another 3 million people steal it? (Sounds about right to me.)
Part of the reason I've been so focused on music lately is because I think it's a nice case study for what's going on in media generally. Here are a couple thoughts on how:
- Music is stuck in a contradiction: While it's more popular than ever before (how many people do you see with white headphones), it's also less profitable in traditional terms (that is record labels are struggling).
- Digital production has fundamentally altered the economics of creating music (garage band is a piece of software, not a bunch of guys with nowhere else to practice).
- It's increasingly unbundled (the shift to a world of singles rather than albums is all but complete -- hink about all the people who listen to playlists or shuffle on their iPod).
- Musicians are discovering it's not the size of the audience, it's what you do with them. (This is a lesson I've been explaining using NoahBrier.com as an example: I don't make any money directly off this site, however, the platform has allowed me to start things like likemind, which certainly have monetary value.
- Finally, and maybe most importantly, the best distribution platform anyone ever built for it is free. Napster was better than any record store that ever existed. I didn't need to leave my house and I could get anything I wanted in seconds. Oink, which was a giant BitTorrent site that just got shut down, had everything on the planet in every format you could ever imagine. Even musicians liked it: As Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails explained, "I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great." Or, as DJ Rupture put it: "In many cases, I believe that downloading an album from Oink would be both faster (more on this in a bit) and give you more information about the CD than sites like iTunes."
As usual, I haven't really answered anything here, just added a whole lot more questions. But, as Terry Heaton so nicely put it, "Postmodernism offers no answers, but asks questions that might lead to answers, if we're willing to ask them."
Update (11/11/07): Keith makes a great point: "What I failed to realize when the news hit was, regardless of how much coin the band makes from the actual sales, they’ve just built a most impressive consumer database. In order to download the album, you must give your address, e-mail address (obvs), and mobile phone number!" Think about the value of a database of over a million of your fans. Amazing.
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Assorted thoughts on the state of musical things.
Clearly the music business has been on everyone's mind lately. Between Radiohead going with pay-what-you-want and the slew of announcements that followed, it's been a hot topic. So, in a move that should surprise no one at all, I'm going to throw my two cents in the ring (inspired in part by Chartreuse calling me out).
So in no specific (or sensical) order . . .
- I've said it before (though maybe not here), digital technology and piracy is not to blame for the decline of the music business. Rather, poor planning and lack of strategic vision is the real issue. Rather than dealing with the hand they (and the rest of the media world) were dealt, they tried to hold back the dam with some chewing gum (even winning lawsuits for hundreds of thousands of dollars). If the industry had invested even a small portion of their legal fees in building something people wanted, they probably would have been the ones Rupert paid millions to instead of Intermix.
- Suing your customers is a bad business practice. Period.
- A while back I wrote that everything is relative. Well this, my friends, is a perfect example. Small artist invests small amounts to make record. Said small artists needs to recoup small amounts to break into the black (especially without all the accountants, lawyers, handlers and marketers to pay). It's not brain science . . . Sure they may not make millions like the record company did, but then again, the only figure that really matters is the one you need to pay your rent (and whatever else you like buying I guess).
- I listen to more music and go to more concerts than I ever could/would have before all this digital music stuff happened. I love it. Two weekends ago I shelled out $50 for an Arcade Fire show and this week another $20 for !!! (which I didn't even make it to thanks to a delayed flight). I am seeing Go! Team Friday in San Francisco (btw, if anyone wants to meet up, I'll be out there for a few days) and Sufjan Stevens in two weeks. That's a lot of music and a fair amount of money. All of it is being spent on bands not on major labels who I wouldn't know about without all this crazy music sharing that's going around.
- Despite what Chartreuse said, Radiohead is an anomaly and much of the success of this experiment is due to past work (not just marketing) and the hype Radiohead can create (seriously, how many other bands have fans who wait outside the night before the release?). That's not to say that this isn't a good model, but rather that few other bands will see the kind of success from it that Radiohead will. It's not an indictment of the system or the other bands, but rather it's praise for Radiohead.
- Speaking of revenue models for music, I think it's Prince, not Radiohead, who's got it figured out. (I wrote a bit about this a few months ago.)
- Doritos and Missy.
- And speaking of music and marketing, I'm pretty excited to see how things work out for RCRD LBL, I've been chatting with those guys and I think it's bound to be big.
I think that's it for now. I'm sure more thoughts will pop in my head and I'll add them as updates or just stick them in the comments. Until then, feel free to throw in your own.
Update (10/17/07): Just read this entry over at Virtual Economics and thought you all might enjoy.
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How musical lines are blurring.
After a totally insane weekend at Electric Picnic, I am back and ready to write again. I've got three entries in my head at the moment, so hopefully that means there will be a bit more real substance around here and a bit less randomness. Just so people can hold me to it, the entries are: "the death of the middle" (how the middle was never efficient, but it's a worse time than ever to try and compete in that space), another entry I can't remember at this very moment (damnit!) and "the blurriness of music today" (which is what you're going to read now).
I first start thinking about the idea of no more musical genres as I was sitting at Live Earth at the Meadowlands. The lineup included Keith Urban, AFI, Akon, Fallout Boy, John Mayer, Alicia Keys, Melissa Ethridge, Dave Matthews, Kanye West, Smashing Pumpkins, Bon Jovi, Roger Waters and the Police. There is very little all those bands have in common except for the fact they all sell a lot of records and they all played in New Jersey that day. I don't know that this is necessarily a new idea, but it really struck me that musical genres really seem to be disintegrating before our very eyes. We all know hip-hop is mainstream, but how about Kanye West sampling French electronic band Daft Punk in his newest single?
This weekend the same thing struck me. The mix of music at Electric Picnic was eclectic to say the least as bands like Iggy Pop, Bjork, Primal Scream, Polyphonic Spree, LCD Soundsystem and Chemical Brothers shared billing on the main stage and Beastie Boys, !!!, Nouvelle Vague and The Go! Team pulled huge crowds at side stages. Once again, these bands have incredibly little in common other than the fact they showed up on the program together, yet everyone seemed to enjoy every one. Sure there were enough people at both Live Earth and Electric Picnic to support different groups seeing different genres, however, I don't suspect that's actually what happened. Rather, people's musical tastes and music in general seems to be blurring to a point that finding the lines between genres is nearly impossible. It seems that everything is just "pop".
So how did we get here? Well, as I'm sure you expect me to say, I believe it has much to do with digital access to music. People are listening to more music than ever before (as the never-ending sea of white headphones attests to) and I expect this includes artists as well. In addition, the speed at which a band can reach popularity at this point is astounding. One review on Pitchfork for Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah! turned them into indie darlings overnight. Then, thanks to access to their music on MP3 blogs and the like, the buzz built to a level that eventually led to a mention in Rolling Stone as a hot new band for 2005 (an amazing feat if you consider that Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah! is one of the oddest bands on the planet and fronted by a lead singer who puts the "ine" in "whine").
Anyway, the point of all this is to say that the world is blurring and music is probably a great case study in how and why.
Update (9/5/07): Just remembered another entry I've been meaning to write: "What Google Gears is all about" (another "it's only a matter of time before Google takes over the universe" post)
Update (9/5/07): In going through my feeds I ran across this entry from Rob Walker comparing Kanye/Justin to Prince/Michael (or disputing that comparison, rather). Two sentences that relate to this entry: "I don’t know whether it’s a permanent change or just a slump, but pop music is just not the center of pop culture to the degree it was in the Prince/Jackson era, and surely West must be aware of this." and "Meanwhile, who is really the new Michael Jackson? The iPhone of course." My first reaction to the first quote was to say that pop music is still at the center, it's just that the definition has become much blurrier. However, while I do think pop's definition has changed, Walker has a point about the iPhone. I'd even take it further to say that nothing competes with Michael/Prince in their heyday because there's just more of everything competing for attention. Therefore, even the most popular things get a smaller percentage. (I know that's not incredibly insightful, but hey.)
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It's an industry in a state of disarray and things only seem to be getting worse.
[First a message from our sponsor: "Big Winners in J&J Media Review: OMD and Naked" and "Naked Wins J&J’s U.S. Comm. Planning Chores". Have a nice day.]
Let's talk about music. Sure, I know "writing about music is like dancing about architecture", but it's fun nonetheless. Every article I read telling me that they're struggling only makes me feel less bad for them. Industries change and businesses need to change with them. The choices are hold on to an outdated business model and die or evolve and survive (note I didn't include sue customers as an option).
Anyway, the latest round of articles on the music industry's woes has much to do with Prince's latest move. Rather than releasing his album in stores, he made a deal with the Mail on Sunday in England to give away nearly 3 million copies of his new album with the paper. According to the Guardian, "Prince is estimated to be being paid between £250,000 and £300,000 by the newspaper, a far greater sum than he would receive as an advance from a record company."
Of course, this makes the record stores and industry none-too-happy as evidenced by a quote from Paul Quirk, co-chairman of Britain's Entertainment Retailers Association: "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores." (Zing!) Funny enough, it's Fake Steve Jobs who put it about as succinctly as I've seen:
Here's the back story. The music companies are in a dying business, and they know it. Sure, they act all cool because they hang around with rock stars. But beneath all the glamour these guys are actually operating two very low-tech businesses. One is a form of loan-sharking: they put up money to make records, then force recording artists to pay the money back with exorbitant interest. The other business is distribution. They’ve got big warehouses and they control the shipment of little plastic boxes that happen to have music in them.
Neither of those businesses are particularly relevant in today's digital age. But that doesn't mean they're not still trying to make it happen. A recent Economist article mentions "360 degree contract": "Instead of settling for a cut of CD sales, they increasingly offer artists broader contracts that encompass live music, merchandise and endorsement deals. Such deals, also known as multiple-rights or all-rights contracts, are particularly important in regions with rampant CD piracy, such as Africa, Asia and Latin America." Not surprisingly, many artists are reluctant to sign deals like this.
I wish I had some incredible insight into how to fix this problem, but at the moment I don't. What I do know, however, is that there's got to be an answer. I also think this is an incredibly good case study in resistance to change. How long before the music industry realizes the world has passed them by and they take off the blindfold? People are out there doing clever things. Apparently RCRD LBL is going to seek out sponsorship/marketing deals as part of it's association with Downtown Records. Or take a look at what Canadian folk-pop singer Jane Siberry has done: "she has a “pay what you can� policy with her downloadable songs, so fans can download them free  but her site also shows the average price her customers have paid for each track. This subtly creates a community standard, a generalized awareness of how much people think each track is really worth. The result? The average price is as much as $1.30 a track, more than her fans would pay at iTunes."
There was a pretty good idea in this Slate article from a few years ago: "What we need is a system that will continue to pack the corporate coffers yet be fair to music lovers. The solution: a real-time commodities market that combines aspects of Apple's iTunes, Nasdaq, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Priceline, and eBay." All these require evolution of the current model, however, and the industry doesn't seem so down on that.
So as not to throw out a lot of problems without any solutions, I turn the table to all of you (and myself . . . I will give it more thought): What would you do to fix music?
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An annual tradition, this is my favorite music from the last 12 months with MP3s.
When the new year rolls around most people are content to come up with a bunch of resolutions and reflect on the past year of their life. I, on the other hand, prefer to spend the weeks leading up to the new year figuring out my favorite 50 albums of the past 12 months. It's a serious undertaking that takes weeks of ranking, grading, listening, searching and other verbs that end in 'ing.' After all that inging it's finally time to unleash the list to the world. Each album on the list includes a link to the band/album's official website, as well as my own five word description and a legal/semi-legal MP3 when possible. If anyone's got MP3s to add to the list, please let me know. Also, for those interested, here is the link to the top 50 albums of 2004.
And now, without any further ado or introduction, my top 50 albums of 2005:
1 Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
2 Wolf Parade - Apologies to Queen Mary
3 Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs
4 Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth
5 Antony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
6 Bettie Serveert - Attagirl
7 The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
8 M.I.A. - Arular
9 Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah
10 Ben Folds - Songs for Silverman
11 Deerhoof - The Runner's Four
12 Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
13 The Bravery - The Bravery
14 Architecture in Helsinki - In Case we Die
15 Archer Prewitt - Wilderness
16 The Decemberists - Picaresque
17 The Boy Least Likely To - The Best Party Ever
18 Animal Collective - Feels
19 Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
20 Death From Above 1979 - Romance Bloody Romance: Remixes and B-Sides
21 Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have Been So Much More
22 Aqueduct - I Sold Gold
23 Spoon - Gimmie Fiction
24 Beck - Guero
25 Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine
26 Prefuse 73 - Surrounded by Silence
27 Devendra Banhart - Cripple Crow
28 The Hold Steady - Seperation Sunday
29 Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to Paralyze
30 New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
31 The Fiery Furnaces - EP
32 Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
33 Fischerspooner - Odyssey
34 Ben Lee - Awake is the New Sleep
35 Brendan Benson - Alternative to Love
36 Sam Prekop - Who's Your New Professor
37 The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
38 The Doves - Some Cities
40 Stars - Set Yourself on Fire
41 LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
41 Coldplay - X & Y
42 Iron & Wine - Woman King
43 Ed Harcourt - Strangers
44 Dressy Bessy - Electrified
45 M. Ward - Transistor Radio
46 Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock n' Roll
47 Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams
48 Stellastarr - Harmonies for the Haunted
49 Mercury Rev - the Secret Migration
50 Bright Eyes - Digital Ash ina Digital Urn
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Five questions for figuring out what people are into.
I wrote four questions on August 4, 2004 and then saved this as a draft. Just rediscovered it and added a fifth question.
- What's in your CD player right now?
- Prince, Elton John or Madonna?
- 80's synths or 90's guitars?
- Depressed acoustic or upbeat acoustic?
- Do you despise electronica?
What else can you ask?
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An attempt to answer one of the daunting music questions that still baffle us in the 21st century.
Over at
SimpleBits, Dan Cedarholm
posed a daunting question as part of a contest to win a CSS geek's dream pack including
both Dan's books as well as a t-shirt and an icon set. Since I was planning on buying the book anyway, I jumped on the chance to win it for free (as anyone who knows me will clearly understand).
However, this was more than just a raffle. There was a serious question involved; a serious music question:
Who is the present-day equivalent to Huey Lewis?
Dan continues:
This isn’t a trick question, but rather an attempt to clarify whether Mr. Lewis was an anomaly. Who, in 2005 is a middle-aged, awkwardly goofy, sports-loving rock star who, despite all that, wrote undeniably catchy songs? I dunno. Perhaps one exists, and perhaps one doesn’t. Feel free to look as deep into this question as you’d like.
So, after giving it some thought (and coming up with very little), I did what I normally do when I don't know what to say . . . I started writing. Although the final product is mildly (possibly more) offensive, I do think it's fairly amusing so I decided to post it here. This also marks the addition of a new section of the site I'm calling
Diasporic Comments (if anyone has a better suggestion for the name, please feel free to let me know, I considered "commented elsewhere," but I felt as though it required more explaining than a diaspora . . . which could very well be flawed logic on my part).
Anyway, now you can browse through comments I've made on other sites via the archives and see the five most recent on the Diasporic Comments homepage.
So, anyway, to go back to Huey, here's my response to just who his modern day counterpart is:
Hmmm . . . my first response was to answer simply with “who cares.� However, after some more thought, I believe there are two major issues here.
1. What current popular musician will turn into a middle-aged “awkwardly goofy, sports-loving rock star�?
If Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie can be considered a “popular musician� I am fairly certain he would eventually turn into an “awkwardly goofy� middle-aged man. However, based on the emotion in Gibbard’s songs I would have to believe he does not like sports (there’s simply not enough testosterone in there. Seriously, is there any question Kid Rock is a sports fan? How easy is it to imagine him on his couch on Sunday’s scratching his balls, eating Cheetos and rooting on the Lions? Very easy, but I digress.). That is, of course, unless Gibbard is a Chicago Bears fan, in which case he, like I, is only emotional because of the years of misery the team has put him through. However, that still leaves us with a major hole . . .
2. What singer writes “undeniably catchy songs�?
While Gibbard may write some catchy songs, I have trouble imagining there’s anyone that would call anything he’s written “undeniably catchy.� However, I would also argue that you would be hard-pressed to find very many songs written in the last five years that have been “undeniably catchy.� Justin Timberlake and Usher both seem to be spot on (if anyone here claims they haven’t had either “Cry Me a River� or “Yeah� stuck in their heads they’re full of shit). Usher owns a part of the Cleveland Cavaliers, so he’s probably a sports fan.
However, both those answers leave us with the issue of becoming awkward at middle aged. They both are smooth . . . maybe too smooth. It is quite possible that as they age all that machismo will slowly transform to awkwardness as they attempt to relive their days of dating supermodels while they sport pot-bellies and half a head of hair. Unfortunately, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, it’s a hard story to buy.
That leaves me with two possible answers. One is to return to my original thought, which is the answer of, simply, “who cares.� However, this is important, so I’ll continue. I conclude by offering up a singer/songwriter who defies nearly every norm. He’s a pop artist who writes explicitly sexual songs, including a 12-minute song called “Sex Me.� He’s a man who was caught on tape urinating on an underage woman, yet remains free and popular (although there was backlash, it has since passed).
That’s right ladies and gentleman, I am arguing R. Kelly is the modern-day Huey Lewis. “Ignition (Remix)� is an “undeniably catchy song.� I think we can assume he’s a sports fan, since he was in his 20’s an living in Chicago during Michael Jordan’s run and I doubt anyone who went through that isn’t a Bulls fan.
Which leaves us with one last criteria: Will R. Kelly be “awkwardly goofy� when he’s middle aged? That seems easy, just imagine your kid comes home from school and everyone’s talking about the tape where daddy is peeing on the little girl. Enough said.
R. Kelly folks, you heard it here first.
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It's always been my style to listen to the sounds in music without paying much attention to the lyrics.
I listen to a lot of music. It's just what I do. I carry my MP3 player around everywhere I go and love to discover the next musical thing. All that may or may not interest you (I'm going to assume not), but this may: When I listen to music I listen sounds, not words. I pay no attention to lyrics. That extends even to the most lyrical music (Elliot Smith, Fiona Apple, Mountain Goats), groups that hardly exist without the lyrical handiwork of their lead singer. I've talked to a few people about this and never really run into anyone who shares my listening style.
My method has its advantages, though. For instance, it's easy to get the gist of music while not giving it your full attention and I can quickly dispose of albums with sounds I'm not into. Most importantly, though, it allows me to make recommendations to people that usually accurately match their musical tastes. This is probably because rather than paying close attention to lyrical intricacies I'm more aware of general trends in sound, which makes it easy to match one sound to another (they key to making music recommendations).
With all that said, it was with much interest that I read the following passage in a New York Times magazine profile of Nic Harcourt, host and DJ of KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic:
Many people would love to know what exactly Harcourt is listening for, but he is unable to provide a simple answer. Surprisingly for someone who plays so much emotional, personal music, Harcourt rarely pays attention to lyrics. What he listens for, he says, is primarily a sound and a feeling -- part of the reason he's so willing to play music in foreign languages -- rather than literary content.
That's it, in words, finally. Though fairly non-descriptive, I couldn't agree more. It's a feeling I'm listening for, something that attracts me to the music, invites me in, makes me want to keep listening. There are sounds I know others will like, even sounds I know will make a mainstream splash, as well as those sounds that will always be reserved for my ears only. People find it hard to believe that I can be a music fan and ignore lyrics like this, but I think it's exactly that that allows me to be a music fan who's tastes range from one end of the spectrum to the other.
It's nice to know there's someone else out there.
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Well ladies and gentlemen, I've run into my first must-hear album of the year. It's
Andrew Bird's new one, and it's called
"The Mysterious Production of Eggs."
As with most albums I really like, I can't give a good description of it. But you can check out a track for yourself. Go ahead and download "A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left" or check out Andrew Bird's "listen" page to hear some more stuff.
UPDATE: You can go to his label's site (Righteous Babe) and listen to a streaming version of the entire album. Isn't indie swell?
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This is the moment everyone's been waiting for, the proof that I really have no life. These are my 10 favorite albums of 2004, in order (roughly), with five word descriptions (or less) and an MP3 (mostly legal and only when I could find a link). (Also, for the MP3s, many are links to InSound and betterPropaganda.) I'm going to keep editing this list, and some rankings may change. Hope you enjoy it, I worked very hard. Any comments, questions, suggestions, let me know.
1 - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Shake the Streets
http://www.tedleo.com/ Rockin' punk originally from Jersey
MP3: "MeAndMia"
2 - Moonbabies - Orange Billboard
http://www.moonbabies.nu/ Swedish, LIYL My Bloody Valentine
MP3: "Sun A.M."
3 - Saturday Looks Good to Me - Every Night
http://www.saturdaylooksgoodtome.com/ 50's sounding rock from Detroit
MP3: "The Girl's Distracted"
4 - The Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed
http://www.themountaingoats.net/ One guy whining with guitar
MP3: "Palmcorder Yanja"
5 - Annie - Anniemal
http://www.anniemusic.co.uk/ Very poppy electro with vocals
6 - Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street
http://www.kingsofconvenience.com/ Erlend Oye's better known project
MP3: "I'd Rather Dance With You" Live at Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, October 31, 2004
7 - Erlend Oye - DJ Kicks
http://www.erlendoye.com An indie DJs DJ mix
8 - Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
http://www.franzferdinand.co.uk/ Scottish rock that everyone's heard
9 - Joanna Newsome - The Milk-Eyed Mender
http://www.walnutwhales.com/ More quirky than Bjork?
MP3: "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie"
10 - The Arcade Fire - Funeral
http://www.arcadefire.com/ Canadian band hard to describe
MP3: "Wake Up"
11 - Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous
http://www.rilokiley.com/ This band does no wrong
MP3: "Portions for Foxes" Live at Good Records, Dallas, TX, October 23, 2004
12 - The Killers - Hot Fuss
http://www.thekillers.co.uk More poppy than The Strokes?
MP3:
13 - Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
http://www.ironandwine.com/ Guy and his guitar folk
MP3: "Naked As We Came"
14 - Annimal Collective- Sung Tongs
http://fat-cat.co.uk/fatcat/ . . . Beats the hell outta me
MP3: "Leaf House"
15 - Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans
http://www.sufjan.com/ Snowy folk with Christian overtones
MP3: "Sister"
16 - A.C. Newman - The Slow Wonder
http://www.acnewman.net/ Lead singer of New Pornographers
MP3: "Miracle Drug"
17 - Of Montreal - Satanic Panic in the Attic
http://www.ofmontreal.net Acid was involved in recording
MP3: "Lysergic Bliss"
18 - The Streets - A Grand Don’t Come for Free
http://www.the-streets.co.uk/ New breed of British hip-hop
MP3:
19 - Interpol - Antics
http://www.interpolny.com/ Just like their last album
MP3: "Slow Hands"
20 - Feist - Let it Die
http://www.listentofeist.com/ Every song is completely different
MP3: "Mushaboom"
21 - Phoenix - Alphabetical
http://www.wearephoenix.com/ French electro-pop band
MP3: "Everything is Everything"
22 - Joy Zipper - American Whip
http://www.joyzipper.tv I really like electro-pop
23 - The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
http://www.thegoteam.co.uk/ Left this description to last
MP3: "Power is On"
24 - Walkmen - Bows and Arrows
http://www.thewalkmen.com/ They appeared on The O.C.
MP3: "Little House Of Savages"
25 - Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters
http://www.scissorsisters.com/ Somewhere between Elton and Prince
26 - Maritime - Glass Floor
http://www.maritimesongs.com Poppy guitar music nothing more
MP3: "Sleep Around"
27 - Ratatat - Ratatat
http://www.ratatatmusic.com/ Two guitars and a computer
MP3: "Seventeen Years"
28 - Madvillain - Madvillainy
http://www.stonesthrow.com/madvillain/ Madlib and MF Doom hip-hop
MP3: "Accordion"
29 - Mirah - C'mon Miracle
http://www.krecs.com/mirah/ Often beautiful female vocals
MP3: "Jerusalem"
29 - The Cardigans - Long Gone Before Midnight
http://cardigans.com/ I like female lead singers
30 - John Vanderslice - Cellar Door
http://www.johnvanderslice.com/ Intelligent rock with electronic hints
MP3: "Pale Horse"
31 - The Roots - The Tipping Point
http://www.theroots.com/ Another solid album
32 - Kanye West - The College Dropout
http://www.kanyewest.com/ Should this be ranked higher?
33 - Murs - Murs 316 The 9th Edition
http://www.definitivejux.net/jukies/murs/ Murs and 9th Wonder hip-hop
MP3: "3:16"
34 - Wagon Christ - Sorry I Make You Lush
http://www.ninjatune.net/ninja/artist.php?id=35 Electronic music with some umph???
35 - Air - Talkie Walkie
http://www.intairnet.org/ Air make sweeping electronic music
36 - Wilco - A Ghost is Born
http://www.wilcoweb.com How do you explain Wilco?
37 - The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
http://www.thefieryfurnaces.com/ Not sure I get it
MP3: "Chris Michaels"
38 - Modest Mouse - Good News for People who Love Bad News
http://www.modestmousemusic.com/ They make poppy indie rock
39 - Magnetic Fields - I
http://www.houseoftomorrow.com/tmf.php All songs start with "I"
40 - Prince - Musicology
http://www.npgonlineltd.com/ Prince does Prince again
41 - Death from Above 1979 - You're a Woman, I'm a Machine
http://www.deathfromabove1979.com/ These guys rock hard
MP3: "Romantic Rights"
41 - The Fever - Red Bedroom
http://www.thefeveronline.com/ Same realm as The Strokes
MP3: "Gray Ghost"
42 - The Bad Plus - Give
http://www.thebadplus.com/ Exciting jazz trio
43 - cLOUDEAD - Ten
http://www.dirtyloop.com/cLOUDDEAD.html Hip-hop like you've never heard
MP3: "Rifle Eyes"
44 - Lambchop - Aw C’Mon/No, You C’mon
http://www.lambchop.net/ Two albums of southern goodness
MP3: "Something's Going On"
45 - TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
http://www.tvontheradio.com/ Brooklynites experiment with sound
MP3: "Dreams"
46 - Zero 7 - When It Falls
http://www.zero7.co.uk/ More female vocals than Air
47 - Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse
http://www.sonicyouth.com/ Grunge grandfathers make fuzzy music
48 - Mellow - Perfect Colors
http://www.mellow-workshop.com The band's name says it
49 - Lali Puna - Faking the Books
http://www.lalipuna.de German glitch-pop
50 - Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands
http://www.younggodrecords.com/Artists/DevendraBanhart/ Mostly indescribable quirky folk music
MP3: "The Body Breaks"
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