Monthly Archives: January 2008

iLL, the brilliant green unleash new releases

Nakamura Koji’s post-Supercar project iLL releases a new album titled Dead Wonderland on March 5, so says Bounce.com. iLL’s first album, Sound by iLL, was an entirely instrumental work, but the new album should find Nakako using his voice again, as evidenced by his last single, "Call my name".

Bounce also reports the release of the Complete single collection by the brilliant green on Feb. 20. The collection includes all the singles the band has so far released, including two new songs. A first-run special edition includes a DVD covering the same ground. the brilliant green’s newest song, "Ash Like Snow", serves as the opening theme for a new Gundam series.

Full circle: Napster sells MP3s in the spring

Billboard.biz reports Napster will sell unprotected MP3s in the spring. I don’t know how Napster works these days, but I find it odd Napster would restrict subscribers to copy-protected content, while allowing ala carte customers access to the same content protection-free. Shouldn’t that be the other way around?

Sony BMG, meanwhile, announced it would roll out its digital music cards, which can be redeemed for unprotected MP3s at MusicPass.com. The inaugural titles aren’t terribly impressive, but then again, I’m not the target audience. Buying a card to scratch off gunk to get at a pin number to enter for access to … monku, monku, monku. Just give me a link and a buy button, dammit.

Is the title of R.E.M.’s next album as ironically titled as ‘Up’?

Billboard reports R.E.M. has turned up the guitars on its next album, Accelerate. Nine years ago, the band titled its first post-Bill Berry album Up, and it was anything but. Accelerate sounds like another chance for a mistitled effort. As trusted a source as Billboard can be — that’s you snickering right? — I don’t think I’ll believe R.E.M. has kicked the dreary thing till I hear it.

If I’m wrong, I probably won’t drop money on a CD — I’ll settle for digital (if it shows up on Amazon.) If I’m right, there’s always the I.R.S. back catalog to explore.

On the playlist, or what’s the thread here?

I had a lot of stuff I was auditioning to write about on this site a month back, but I had to do a purge and get some new stuff on the playlist.

Sometimes I’ll write these entries and wonder how I can put Kylie Minogue next to Karlheinz Stockhausen on a playlist, beyond the compulsion to alphabetize. Is there some tenuous thread in my subconscious to link the two? No. The point is there is no link. It’s easier to gauge the complexity of Stockhausen’s phrases next to the simplicity of Kylie’s hooks, as much as it’s easier to see the crudeness of Stockhausen’s electronics next to arsenal of effects employed by Kylie’s producers.

Yin. Yang. Something to that effect.

Continue reading »

The Slush Pile, or getting those two hours back

Neil Gaiman decided he didn’t want to be a movie critic for the rest of his life when, after watching a particular assignment, he realized he would never get those two hours back. I could spend my time spinning some albums in the hope that something clicks, but I kind of don’t want to give away those stretches of 30 to 50 minutes either.

So onto the slush pile these titles go ….

Continue reading »

Useless HOWTO: Finding barcode numbers between different formats

Over the course of cataloging my music collection, I came across a useless skill: finding barcode numbers of titles between formats.

It’s not a skill pertinent to anything released after the early- to mid-’90s, but it is helpful to fill in gaps for anything released before then. This skill does require some equally useless prerequisites (although they’re probably not useless to the folks who track these kinds of things.)

To demonstrate this skill, I’ll recount my hunt for a barcode number of a cassette I’ve long since let go for a title that’s long since been out of print.

First, the prerequisites …

Continue reading »

For lack of a wish list

Have you noticed the Amazon MP3 downloads don’t have an option to save to your wish list? I certainly did.

Now that Warner titles are available for download, I’ve been searching for stuff I used to own, as well as albums I’ve been meaning to check out. I’m used to the "Save for Later" feature of eMusic, and I found it odd that Amazon would leave out one of its most versatile features from this particular section of its site.

MP3 purchases are supposed to be impulsive, I guess — iTunes doesn’t have that kind of feature.

Amazon does provide links to CD titles from the download site, and from there, the wish list can be used. It’s rather passive-aggressive, no? "Here," Amazon’s interface seems to be saying, "why don’t you consider getting the CD while you’re at it?"

Well, I consider digital files to be the 21st Century answer to the cassette tape, but, to paraphrase Alton Brown, that’s another entry. Personally, I buy digital for a few reasons:

  • To hedge my bets. The eMusic subscription model is a cost-effective way to figure out if a CD is worth buying. If I’m not wowed by what I download, then there’s no onus for me to get a CD. The CD is, essentially, a high-quality backup of some lossy files.
  • To get titles not yet available domestically. Bridin Brennan’s Eyes of Innocence is available in the US through iTunes, and Nina Hynes’ Really, Really Do can be had through Amazon. Neither has been released in the US on CD. BIS titles are notoriously expensive, but an eMusic subscription can alleviate some of that expense.
  • To reacquire titles I used to own but don’t like well enough to get on CD again. I’ve so far done that once with the Kiss-Offs’ Rock Bottom, and I’ve been meaning to that with Amazon downloads.

In other words, I buy digital when I’m not feeling confident to invest in an entire CD, and yet Amazon attempts (by design or not) to make me consider a CD purchase — in addition or, ideally, instead.

I’m probably seeing conspiracies where there are none, but the inability to add MP3 downloads to an Amazon wish list strikes me as a well-engineered oversight.