Five years ago, my listening habits changed pretty dramatically.
I turned 35, and I decided to get out of the rat race for finding the next big thing. MP3 blogs hyped bands based on a single download. A Pitchfork reviewer would sneeze, and the entire indie rock ecosystem would crumble. The 80s revival refused to die.
So I retreated into catalog, and the number of new releases I would seek out dropped by half. I still bought the same amount music, but the distribution between old and new skewed to the former.
And that makes 2012 an odd year. It’s the first in half a decade where newer releases dominated. There’s just one qualification — most of those new releases came from Musicwhore.org regulars. The Great Catalog Shift also meant a drastic reduction in discovering new artists.
Still, it’s heartening to be in a position where I’m scrambling to cut albums off the favorite list than squeezing in something just to fill space.
Welcome to Musicwhore.org, a vanity music blog where I tell an un-listening world what has been occupying the most time on my player. It tends to be heavy on Japanese indie rock and modern classical music, but I do make room for classic college rock (think Fugazi, the Smiths), and an occasional pop artist from time to time.
In the past, I thought it was my job to proselytize, to convince you that hey, what I’m writing about is cool and you’d like it. I don’t think that any more.
I like what I like, and you like what you like. And if you get bored with what you like, you might find something in what I like to make it something you might like.
What isn’t my job is finding what will be hot and make you cooler than everybody else. I leave that to other blogs to care about that kind of thing.
Instead, I write about music that at times may be hard to understand — especially if you don’t speak Japanese — and more often harder to acquire. And if you’re the adventurous type, you just might discover a whole ecosystem of listening that you may not have realized existed.
And if that happens, then perhaps I’ve done my job.
One of my favorite discoveries of the past year has been New Amsterdam Records, a label specializing in music described as “alt-classical.”
Hurricane Sandy did a number of the label’s newly-minted headquarters in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. Despite all the precautions the staff took, Sandy destroyed 80 percent of the label’s stock as well as a furniture, musical equipment and personal items.
The label has started a fundraising drive to help rebuild. New Amsterdam pays out 80 percent of its sales to composers and artists, so they encourage people to send donations for hurricane relief directly. I’ll be donating when pay day rolls around next week.
Just to give you an idea of why I think it’s important to support New Amsterdam, I’m embedding a few my favorite releases from the label.
So let’s get to the bottom line: Was it worth redeeming airline miles, reserving a hotel, buying a right tier ticket and traveling from Seattle, Wash. to Berkeley, Calif. to watch a 4 1/2-hour opera by Philip Glass?
The short answer is yes. Yes, it was worth it.
Did Einstein on the Beach turn me from a passing Philip Glass fan to a Glassian acolyte? No, it did not. I like Glass as much now than I did before.
If anything, my fear was traveling 673 miles (according to available statistics on Grindr) only to end up at a non-offensive, non-denominational school play. So many navels have been subjected to deep staring when discussing the cultural impact of Einstein on the Beach that it’s almost ripe for disappointment.
Like that time I rented Pulp Fiction from the video store.
So far this year, no album has made me fall in love with it. At the same time, a lot of albums have been vying for my affection to various levels of success.
As a result, the list is in a lot of flux at the moment. In previous years, a few albums usually manage to put a stranglehold on their rankings, leaving the stragglers to fight out for the bottom ranks. This year, I’m actually hesitant to rank anything until December.
If there has been anything definite, it’s the disappointments. Hello, Valtari. Sorry, Royal Wood.
So here, then, are the contenders for the year-end Favorite Edition list with preliminary ranking:
Santigold, Maker of My Make-Believe
Jeremy Denk, Ligeti/Beethoven
Frank Ocean, channel ORANGE: I didn’t even hear about Frank Ocean till the gay blogs started mentioning his coming out as bisexual. I have no expertise on what makes a good R&B album. All I know is that channel ORANGE appeals to me. In strange way, it reminds me of James Blake’s self-titled album, though both albums are pretty far apart on the musical spectrum.
Scissor Sisters, Magic Hour: I like looking at Jake Shears when he’s wearing as few clothes as possible, but I wouldn’t want him to serenade me. While I’ve mostly been ambivalent to Scissor Sisters in the past, Magic Hour, for some inexplicable, reason has charmed my pants off. Jake, that is an invitation.
Tokyo Jihen, Shinyawaku: I had previously listed Tokyo Jihen’s live album, Tokyo Collection, on this list, but Shinyawaku collects some of the band’s best material, most of which never made it to an album. “Kao” and ” Pinocchio” stand out in particular.
ZAZEN BOYS, Stories:ZAZEN BOYS III still makes me cautious to jump into new ZAZEN BOYS material, but Stories turns out to continue the sober streak forged on ZAZEN BOYS 4. Make no mistake — this album is still all sorts of angular, but Mukai Shuutoku and company actually maintain the kind of focus ZAZEN BOYS III failed to subvert.
TOUMING MAGAZINE, TOUMING MAGAZINE FOREVER: Of course, if you still miss NUMBER GIRL hard, there’s always TOUMING MAGAZINE.
Duran Duran, A Diamond in the Mind
Gossip, A Joyful Noise: I think I’m finally making peace with the fact Gossip will not be the rock band that brought Standing in the Way of Control into the world. All that to say, this album is far better than Music for Men.
I started this entry on July 29. It’s now September. A few of the albums I meant to mention have already been released. I’m just going to keep them here.
Dead Can Dance, Anastasis, Aug. 16
I debated whether to go to the duo’s show in Redmond and ultimately decided against it. For one, I’m broke, and for another, I’ve only started exploring Dead Can Dance’s back catalog. For the longest time, Spiritchaser was the only album of theirs I owned. I’ve since added Aion and the latest, Anastasis, which seems more Aion than Spiritchaser.
Tokyo Jihen, Shinyawaku, Aug. 29
I posited that Tokyo Jihen albums are like Star Trek movies — the even-numbered ones are better than the odd-numbered ones. I’m going to ignore the flotsam of color bars, which is an EP and thus not technically an album, and say Shinyawaku follows the pattern. Although a collection of b-sides, it possesses some of the band’s most interesting moments, some of which should have appearned on their albums.
My perception of Natalie Merchant is locked in the early ’90s. As one of the early stars of so-called alternative rock, Merchant gave off something of a precious vibe in the music press, and the press was all too willing to play up Merchant’s heavy hand in the creative direction of her former band, 10,000 Maniacs.
The younger Merchant had a propensity for dourness that pushed against with her bandmates’ eagerness to rock. Fans ended up with songs such as “What’s the Matter Here?”, a bouncy tune about child abuse.
I didn’t follow Merchant’s solo career because I was a big fan of that tension. I also liked the chemistry among the Maniacs, something Mary Ramsey nicely keyed into when she assumed singing duties after Merchant’s departure.
In 2010, Merchant emerged from a 7-year hiatus with an ambitious double album setting poems to music titled Leave Your Sleep. Guests on the album included the Klezmatics and Wynton Marsalis, and the songs ranged in style from orchestral to folk.
I liked Leave Your Sleep enough to catch Merchant with the Seattle Symphony.
Austin may bill itself as the Live Music Capital of the World, but it seems Seattle is more aligned with my particular tastes. Since arriving here in January, I’ve gone to more concerts than I did in my final year in Austin.
Classical music certainly has more of a presence here. Austin’s live music scene dwarfed the local arts scene, and I never once felt compelled to go to an Austin Symphony concert. By comparison, I’ve subscribed to the Seattle Symphony.
New music also seems to have an audience in Seattle. Kronos Quartet recorded its Neptune Theatre performance for a live album, and Alarm Will Sound stopped by Town Hall. Seattle Symphony also schedules a number of premieres, such as a new work by Nico Muhly back in February.
I haven’t delved into the local scene that much, which is where Austin trumps Seattle. Austinites really get behind their local talent, whereas I don’t get that same sense in Seattle.
But there are touring shows a-plenty here. Most of the ones I’ve seen were held at the big theatres — Paramount, Moore and Neptune.
I’ve scaled back the number of shows I’m attending now that I have a better handle on how broke I am from paycheck to paycheck. But as the following list shows, I think Seattle’s music scene and I will get along.
Duran Duran’s producers on its last four albums didn’t, none more spectacularly than Justin Timberlake. But Mark Ronson, being an avid fan of the band, did. What did he get? The understanding of what constitutes a Duran Duran album.
Many articles and reviews have already paid lip service to Ronson’s goal of making All You Need Is Now, Duran Duran’s 13th studio album, the never-recorded sequel to Rio. So too does this Johnny-come-lately review.
My hesitation about creating a separate Musicwhore.org Twitter account is pretty much rooted in laziness. I like using Twitter’s web interface, but it’s lousy when you have multiple accounts. It’s the same situation I faced with my Eponymous 4 account — I would post updates to the personal account, even though they should be coming from Eponymous 4.
TweetDeck has always been a solution to this multiple account conundrum, but I disliked having to launch an Adobe AIR application to do something I feel more comfortable doing through the web. So I would barely use it.
Mark Ronson got it.