2011, The First

Back again, as if you cared. I hope you do. Nobody reads this. Otherwise someone would comment, or email me, or give me SOME indication that I'm not just indulging myself.
So sheer self-indulgence then. Story of my life.

So who've I been listening to the most over the past 3, or so, months since I last posted? Well! Let me show you:


Honestly a bit surprised to see Ghostface up there. I think it might be due to a scrobbling error, but since Ghostface is awesome, I'm not gonna look in to it.
Otherwise it's pretty heavily laden with the classic psych I've been listening to especially recently. Heavy hitters The Byrds and Jefferson Airplane make their appearances, as does heavyweight champion Sublime Frequencies, who just *never* stop getting listened to, at least a lil bit. Otherwise some big ups for Seam, who've never appeared on any of my lists before. Even that count doesn't do them justice, since one of their albums just doesn't scrobble at all. *shrug*

So how does this all affect the leader board?


The top three artists remain as unchanged as ever, but here we see Neil Young taken down from his perch for the first time in a [ra]coon's age, as the battle for fourth place really heats up between The Byrds, Neil Young, The Beatles, and Jefferson Airplane. When I sync my iPod later today, these numbers'll change yet again. Things are getting interesting. Ennio Morricone seals the deal with 8th place, well enough behind the fierce battle for 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th place. Ennio's sneaky though, and when he gets play, he plays hard. But how solid is his 8th place? For that, we'll have to look at the top 35:


As you can see, Melvins and Papoose aren't too far behind Mr. Morricone, but when we look at the historical trends in the case of those two artists, we can see that they're plays have remained relatively unchanged in the intervening months. They're essentially on their way out, but they're still a good ways ahead of their nearest competition. Unfortunately Sonic Youth is playing the long-game, and I expect them to slowly creep their way up the charts, while Wiz Khalifa is a spring player, and likely to get some heavy play in the upcoming months.

So who are the artists who have entered the top 35 in the past 3 months?

And the full list of place positions as of Apr 1, 2011:

1. Sublime Frequencies

2. Xiu Xiu

3. Sun City Girls

4. The Byrds (+5)

5. Neil Young (-1)

6. The Beatles (-1)

7. Jefferson Airplane (-1)

8. Ennio Morricone (+2)

9. Melvins (-2)

10. Papoose (-2)

11. Sonic Youth (+1)

12. Silkworm (+2)

13. Wiz Khalifa

14. Madlib (+1)

15. Patton Oswalt (+1)

16. Ghostface Killah (New Entry)

17. Dangereus (New Entry*)

18. Scrapbooker (-7*)

19. Unsane (+2)

20. Bear McCreary (-3)

21. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

22. Flight of the Conchords (-4)

23. The Jesus Lizard (-4)

24. Sebadoh (-4)

25. Dinosaur Jr. (-3)

26. The Mighty Boosh (-3)

27. Bob Marley & The Wailers (-3)

28. Fugazi (New Entry)

29. Bob Dylan (-3)

30. Gil Scott-Heron

31. Pavement (-6)

32. Todd Barry (-5)

33. Janelle Monáe (+2)

34. Ravi Shankar (-4)

35. Crystal Castles (New Entry)


So congratulations to the new entrants to the top 35: Crystal Castles, Fugazi (who are really more of a re-entrant)The Dangereus (re-entrant), and Ghostface Killah (probably another re-entrant himself). Dangereus performed as predicted, sprinting to #17, despite their being handicapped (by me), and they're not done yet, either. Fugazi are down for the long haul, so I'd expect them to slowly creep up, just like Sonic Youth. Ghostface, on the other hand, has a number of albums I haven't seriously delved in to, yet, and when I do I predict he could even end up cracking the top 8. He's a good ~200 or so plays behind Ennio, but it seems totally feasible to listen to that much Ghostface. I mean, he just fuckin' rules, namean?

Falling out of the list, we have: John Fahey, Hossein Alizadeh, Grateful Dead, and Shellac. At this point in the year, I don't want to make any predictions here, especially considering the paucity of new releases gracing the playing field.

*Full Disclosure: I am in these bands, and have manually removed certain scrobbles, because I don't want to be seen as playing favorites, conflicts of interests, whatevers.

2010 In Review

I don't wanna explain my shit.
Realistically, I spent *way* more time listening to old music than I did music released during 2010. Maybe it's because I'm old and bitter, but it's not like I'm just harping on the musics of my youth, but have rather been blown away by new (to me) material that's decades old. I don't feel like the bulk of contemporary artists are making the same caliber of music. Except Janelle Monae (and Joanna Newsom, even if I don't find myself listening to her too much).

Albums of the year:
1. Janelle Monae - The Archandroid
2. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
3. Wiz Khalifa - Kush and Orange Juice
4. Xiu Xiu - Dear God, I Hate Myself
5. Aziz Ansari - Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening
6. Ariel Pink - Before Today
7. Die Antwoord - $0$
8. Julian Lynch - Mare/James Black - CMYK
9. Sleigh Bells - Treats/Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (II)
10. Emeralds - Does It Look Like I'm Here?

Honorable Mentions: Tame Impala, Flying Lotus, Gonjasufi, Kanye.
Full Disclosure: I woulda been way more open to Kanye if he hadn't been the winner of 2010's unnecessary-hyperbolic-acclaim award. Flying Lotus and Gonjasufi are on Warp records, which could have been easily predicted simply by listening to 30 seconds of either, and since I've been listening to Warp records for the past decade, neither were really that new or surprising sounding (to me). They still get honorable mentions, however. I prefer the Gonjasufi, to be honest.
Tame Impala: nice heavy psych. I like it, but just didn't have enough room on the list.
Hey, speaking of that list, I just feel that the Sleigh Bells/Crystal Castles are too similar to give separate entries. They've both banging, they've both nasty, they're both one hard-working dude with a charismatic bitch for people to fawn over.
James Blake/Julian Lynch are both good, both really similar in my mind. Julian Lynch especially is making music that sounds like I could make it at home on my computer. So I am. (Watch for 2011's list to be full of my own projects, natch).

Naturally I didn't/couldn't listen to everything this year. This is what stands out among what I listened to. I'm gonna keep on being a crank, and submit that maybe some of these artists don't deserve "best of year XXXX" honours, save for the fact that their competition is so weak. Except for Janelle Monae. Unless someone gives me a reason to say otherwise, Imma keep up with my claim that it's the "best album" of the past 5 years or so.