I’m not ever going to try and compete with cutty edge music blogs, or laboriously listen to everything that comes out to save you the bother. No. Why would I do that? I prefer to listen to some new stuff, and lots of old stuff, and catch on to things five months after all the really advanced musotards*.
Also, having demolished my 30gb Creative Zen, and having borrowed a 2gb iPod Nano from a child, I’ve been forced to somewhat streamline my portable collection. Here be a few notes on newish stuff I’ve been listening to of late:
- The Breeders - Mountain Battles: I really like this album, it’s gone onto my ‘play all the way through’ album rotation.
- Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Thrash: Again, I really like this, it grew on me steadily with each listen. It’s not quite Pavement, but it’s a near as we’re going to get these days.
- Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil: Entertaining in parts. I like the sound of ‘Bad Kids’ for some reason.
- Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid: Only put this on this week, so not sure yet. I love ‘Grounds for Divorce’, but the rest of it is of a different ilk. Possibly a grower.
- Lykke Li - Youth Novel: Likable stuff, though I generally flick after the first half of the album. Nice summery sounds though.
- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!!: Only put it on the iPod last night, but already liking the sound of it.
- Santogold - Santogold: Again, it’s very new to me, but I don’t know what to make of this. Lots of genre-hopping, and I’m strugging to listen to ‘I’m a Lady’ with a straight face.
That’s about it, there’s other stuff on there too, old reliables, digital comfort blankets, jam on toast, pints of Smithwicks, but I’m not going to list those.
Here’s a muxtape with some songs on it. It may change whenever I feel like changing it, rendering its link to the above list obsolete, or at least rendering my telling you what’s actually on it now pointless. What’s a muxtape? Go see.
2gb really isn’t enough. I don’t like not being able to select an album from an extensive collection when I’m walking somewhere, and I’m not organised enough to plan ahead and predict what albums I’ll want to listen to tomorrow. I’m glad I didn’t like music** back in the days of CD’s and tapes, I would have had to carry a rucksack around.
In other news, there’s a new branch of Real Gourmet Burger in Ballsbridge (there’s been one in Dun Laoghaire for a while). It’s great (polite staff, good burgers) and it’s jammed. Why someone didn’t open a chain like this years ago is beyond me, it seems like the most obvious idea in the history of dining.
*No offence, musotards, I’m just sulking in your shadows.
**Pre 2000ish I led a sheltered musical life, surrounded largely by people who liked dance compilations, like Best of Euphoria 4 for example. But dancing is wrong. I dabbled in bits and pieces of good stuff (the first album I ever bought was Beck’s Odelay, quite by accident, I bought it with a book token. That’s quite iron-ee.) But I generally wasn’t that fussed with music, or audio in general.
