2 Years of iTunes

...the iTunes Music Store, that is. This week was the second anniversary of Apple's music distribution system. One of my regular on-line activities has become browsing through the new releases on the ITMS, often randomly branching down the "people who bought this also bought..." lists to find things I don't hear about. Checked out my "Purchased Music" playlist, and this is what I found...

513 songs; 1 day, 10 hours, 34 minutes and 35 seconds of sound; 1.98 gigs.

Most were individual song purchases. The first, back on April 30, 2003, were...

- Rosalita: Springsteen
- Road to Nowhere: Talking Heads
- How Bizarre: OMC.

How bizarre, how bizarre. (First introduced to that tune on Hong Kong's MTV during my 1998 visit, just stuck in my head.) The most recent were

- Aguas da Amazonia: 2. Japurá River: Philip Glass
- Blues in the Bottle: The Holy Modal Rounders
- Hora Decubitus (Edit): Charles Mingus
- Jump, Jive, An' Wail: Louis Prima.

I've picked up a few complete albums along the way...

- I'm Your Man: Leonard Cohen
- Sacred Love:Sting
- Good News for People Who Love Bad News: Modest Mouse
- A Ghost Is Born: Wilco
- Asian Roots: John Kaizan Neptune & TakéDaké
- Double Forte - Shubert: Die Schöne Müllerin, Winterreise: Olaf Bar/Geoffrey Parsons
- Remain in Light: Talking Heads
- Renée Fleming: Renée Fleming
- Speakerboxxx/The Love Below: OutKast
- The Yoshida Brothers: The Yoshida Brothers
- This Is Jazz, No. 7: Duke Ellington: Duke Ellington
- What's Wrong With This Picture?: Van Morrison
- And a few Christmas albums by The Roches, John Fahey, and David Grisman.

Eclectic, eh?

Out of the 513 purchased tunes, 37 garnered a 5-star rating from me...

- What's Up?:4 Non Blondes
- Rosalita (Come Out Tonight): Bruce Springsteen
- Ool-Ya-Koo: Charles Mingus
- Lean on Me: Club Nouveau
- Sweet Jane: Cowboy Junkies
- Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue: Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
- The Joker: Fatboy Slim
- Not Fade Away / Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad: Grateful Dead
- Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World: Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
- Champagne Charlie: Leon Redbone
- Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen
- Float On: Modest Mouse
- Bukowski: Modest Mouse
- The Good Times Are Killing Me (Alternate Mix Version): Modest Mouse
- In the Summertime: Mungo Jerry
- Hey Ya!: OutKast
- The Great Pretender: The Platters
- Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Single): The Platters
- You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin': Righteous Brothers
- I Don't Want to Go Home: Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes
- Send Your Love: Sting
- Send Your Love (Dave Aude Remix Edit Version): Sting
- Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On): Talking Heads
- Crosseyed and Painless: Talking Heads
- The Great Curve: Talking Heads
- Once in a Lifetime: Talking Heads
- Listening Wind: Talking Heads
- Monkey Man: Toots & The Maytals
- Twisted Horns (Original Mix): The Twisted Pair!
- Whinin Boy Moan: Van Morrison
- Too Many Myths: Van Morrison
- Somerset: Van Morrison
- Saint James Infirmary: Van Morrison
- At Least That's What You Said: Wilco
- Muzzle of Bees: Wilco
- The Late Greats: Wilco
- Storm: The Yoshida Brothers

These ITMS purchases, added to the CDs I've ripped from my library of over 600, the LPs I've digitized (mainly some old John Hartford), the radio streams I've hijacked (Schickele Mix, mainly), a few mp3s from the net, and a handful of keeper podcasts, my total iTunes library is currently 4921 "songs," 16 days, 20 hours, 43 minutes and 25 seconds, topping out at 20.53 gigs.

About a quarter of that is Classical (big collection of Mozart wind ensemble stuff, as well a bunch of Philip Glass). The non-Classical I usually listen to via a playlist that includes the 3, 4, and 5-star tunes (2182, 897, and 159, respectively for a total of 3238) that is set to include the ones I haven't listened to in the last 7 months. Today, that list contains only 229 tunes. With my Belkin FM transmitter, it's NPR for the morning commute, and that playlist for the ride home. (Surprisingly, in Central Jersey, smack dab between NYC and Philly, there's a frequency (104.7) that gets me all the way through my 35-mile commute fairly cleanly.)

Suffice it to say that between iTunes and the iPod, I've rediscovered music both old and new and reintroduced it to my daily life. Thanks, Apple.

Gotta Hormone High

Just realized today that I really haven't listened carefully to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks closely enough. For years, I thought he was saying he's "gotta hormone high." Figured it was about not needing drugs. Today, I heard "gotta home on high." Makes a lot more sense next to the rest of the lyrics. Not as bad, though, as most of these mondegreens.

Your Daily Art

Your Daily Art looks like a keeper for my feedreader. I particularly like the wit of the headline of this one. It ain't just the daily bread that we need.

When the Music's Over...

Over at Fast Company Now, Ryan Underwood writes about a theory he's heard that purports to explain the alleged decline of the music business. Thank goodness it's not the hoary overwrought story about downloads, but it is a bit weird...

"The difference between analog recordings (vinyl) and digital (CDs, MP3s) is similar to that of incandescent light bulbs and florescent ones. The former emits something natural and organic that resonates deeply with our inner psyche, the latter, while offering a technically superior performance, retains a thin veneer of the artificial that fails to fully penetrate our senses, therefore making us unable to form as strong an emotional bond. That explains why, in this guy's opinion, the music industry thrived so heartily up until the early 1980s or so and then began a steady decline as CDs and MP3s ultimately replaced vinyl."

Yeah. Right. OK -- I do have about 8 feet of vinyl in my basement that I'm emotionally bonded to. Otherwise I would have trashed them long ago, since the only time I hooked up my old B&O turntable in the last 10 years was to digitize some old Orchestra Luna, Josh White, and John Hartford albums. I'll also admit a bit of a nostalgic warm feeling when I hear the same pops and crackles through the iPod ear-buds that I heard decades ago when these black platters got more play than today.

But blaming the analog-to-digital shift for the troubles of the music industry. I think not. There are some far more logical culprits.

How about a shift in the radio business to automated stations playing 15 unidentified songs in a row. Even if you do come across a new tune that strikes your fancy, you can't find out who performs it, and therefore can't go find the recording in the bins or online. There's a tune with a catchy hook that's been in my head for years (doodoodoodoodoodooooodoodoodoodoodoo...), but no one plays it anymore, and when they did. They never announced the artist. Frustrating.

Then there's the perceived value thing. CDs seemed a good value...until they started hitting $16-17 for about an hours worth of stuff you really weren't sure you wanted, except for one or two tracks. Sure, the deeper cuts could grow on you, but I know I cringe every time I go into a Sam Goody's or other mall music store. The value issue was exacerbated when DVDs started showing up in the next aisle at similar prices for hours and hours of entertainment.

Finally. Let's blame it on us boomers. Facing the fact that musical tastes start to gel in the teens and twenties, those of us that made up the demographic dreadnaught known as the baby boom generation are largely well past the exploratory phase of cultural development when it comes to music. The natural conservatism and nostalgia that comes with age, combined with the wider range of expenses like mortgages and tuitions, leaves one a bit less open to new artistic expressions.

This doesn't stop old fogey's like me from stumbling across newer music like Modest Mouse, Wilco, Andrew WK, Black Eyed Peas, Moby, and Fischerspooner, but I have to admit that the 20 gigs on my iPod is disproportionately devoted to Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Manhattan Transfer, Paul Simon, and the Beach Boys, with an additional spike associated with the early days of MTV in the 80s (Sting, Madonna and a bunch of one-hit wonders) and another smaller one from the turn of the century when I fell into a post-new age neo-psychedelic Ambient groove (Aphex Twin, 23 Degrees, and Zero 7).

Hey. Even this 54-year-old white guy occasionally dips into hip-hop (OutKast, Us3, Digable Planets, and Sean Paul) but admittedly most of that genre has eluded me. The problem is that for aging boomers like myself, while getting deeper into an appreciation for rap and hip-hop might take some level of unavailable effort and attention, it seems that the greater proportion of modern music is aimed at the youth. (As it always has been -- a while back I found myself singing along to some early Beatles that was 40 years old, and wondering what an equivalent hit 40 years before that might have been -- maybe Al Jolson or Rudy Vallee?)

And the youth are in slightly smaller and far more diverse numbers than when we came lumbering down the generational pike, making it more difficult for the music industry to come up with the big dollar-efficient megastars, big broad hits, and big numbers of the 60s, 70s, and even 80s.

So don't blame digital or downloading. Blame the boomers for getting the industry hooked on irrational expectations and then forcing it into withdrawal.

Howard Dean on Higher Powers

I knew I liked this guy...

"The issue is: Are we going to live in a theocracy where the highest powers tell us what to do? Or are we going to be allowed to consult our own high powers when we make very difficult decisions?''

National Day of Reason

A not-unreasonable antidote to the threat of theocracy.

Mickey D's 50th

Today is McDonald's 50th Anniversary. Say what you will about the health implications of fast food, Ray Kroc certainly launched a powerful cultural behemoth. Leveraging the American obsessions with being on the go and the automobile culture, the golden arches have evolved into an everpresent symbol of the best and worst of the nation, not only here, but around the world as well.

My memories of the early days of McDonald's in New Jersey (Route 18 in East Brunswick, late 50's, early 60's) include making a big deal of eating in the car, with my sisters and I in the back seat, with our food "tabled" on the package shelf under the rear window of our 58 Plymouth Savoy (or was it the 54 Chevy BelAir?), dipping fries into the "triple thick shakes." Today, it's more of "road food" burgers, grabbed from the drive through and eaten behind the wheel or the occasional Egg McMuffin breakfast (no meat, no butter for my wife). However, everyonce in a while, despite my usual taste preference for Wendy's burgers, and Burger King's Whoppers and fries, I must admit that I get the occasional hankering for two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.

Followed by my daily doses of Pravachol and Glucophage. Better living through chemistry.