few things in life make me happier than music. to keep on rockin' and rollin', i make it a point to visit these places.
Some people call Pitchfork Media elitist and pretentious, but all I know is that it's still the best source, for me, of discovering new music that I'm sure to like and of being updated on my favorite bands. Living in Guatemala, I'm unable to see live shows or to talk to like-minded folks about the stuff I like, but Pitchfork.com keeps me feeling in the loop.
Pitchfork was the only place that covered U.K. band Flotation Toy Warning months after some friends and I heard it used by Martin Pickle in a short film. It's the only place where I can find out about a possible Camera Obscura/M.Ward collaboration, watch Weezer covering MGMT's Kids, listen to some good tracks, and wait excitedly for a new Broken Social Scene album. Of course I like Pitchfork most of all because I agree with almost everything they say as well. If only Pitchfork came in the form of a skinny, faux-hipster with a job so that I could fall in love with it in person.
Absolutely freaking brilliant. Ridiculous happiness is what take-away shows brings me. Take-away shows is the brainchild of French independent filmmaker Vincent Moon and La Blogotheque, a French music website. Bands are invited to perform on the streets of various cities, primarily Paris, but also Belfort, New York, Seattle, L.A., etc. and Moon (and other directors in later shows) brilliantly films them doing what they do best, making good music.
These are performers who don't need crazy dance moves or wacky autotuning to sound good. Everything from Xiu Xiu and Architecture in Helsinki to Jens Lekman and Beirut to Lampchop and David Bazan, everything that I love and a lot that I have yet to love, or hate. Take-away shows presents music in its purest form - just the artists and their instruments - unadulterated and so lovely it can bring tears to my eyes. One good take-away show could make me extremely happy for the rest of the day.
I use a few magazines to stay up to date on art, music, film, books, etc. Paste Magazine is the one I look forward to the most. It gives me everything I need in a well-designed magazine that uses great, thick paper, perfectly saturated photos and a nicely matted cover. The web version is even more informative, though it can tend to have too much information scattered all over. The email that I get from them about once a week reminds me to stop and enjoy the things that make life worthwhile. My wish is that they would personalize either the website or those emails to my particular tastes.
NPR music's first listen series consistently features new music that I am bound to be interested in or to love. NPR not only produces great news features and stories but the music staff seems to have an impeccably sophisticated sense of what's fresh, hip, well-written and well-produced.
preferred over pandora - after finding that pandora really wasn't suggesting any particularly fresh or new bands, i turned to last.fm. last is user-friendly and chock full of good bands and songs, without being repetitive in its suggestions. you can allow it access to your music folder and play songs straight on last.fm. each new track shows you a couple of other bands you might like that aren't necessarily in your library yet. i've found a handful of new bands in one sitting, everything from chamber pop to folk to shoegazing to rock and on and on. each piece of feedback that you provide, whether you love a track or ban it, seems to be taken into consideration.
Hands down, hands down, the very best radio station out there. KEXP was one of the redeeming qualities of living in Seattle. KEXP has good taste in music, period. Three bad songs in a row on KEXP? No such thing. Missed the title of a song or band? No problem, all of the playlists are archived so that you don't miss a thing. They even have a song of the day feature in case you can't tune in that day but need to have a booster shot of good tunes. Fortunately, even though I no longer live in Seattle, I can still listen to KEXP online.
Austin has a great music scene, and Austin City Limits, the show, for years and years has been featuring the amazing artists that come through the city. Whether or not it's a band that you're normally into or not, ACL turns any band into your favorite.
If there's one good thing about California, it's this radio station and really for just one reason: Morning Becomes Eclectic. MBE is one of the best morning shows, featuring live performances by bands across different genres of music. Not only can you listen to the show anytime (they've got them all archived), but you can also watch the performances. This is a spectacular feature because to see a band live, performing stage shenanigans, is one thing but to see them, somewhat muted and contained, in the context of a studio is just good music in its purest form.
Unfortunately over the past years KCRW has "sold out" (I know, I hate having to use that term but I feel there's no other way to describe it) to the commercial powers that be. Amazon seems to be strewn all over the website. For example, when you click on best albums of 2008, what you get are links the DJs' top ten lists sponsored by Amazon. If you want to click on a DJ's top ten list, you get sent to some other part of the website; clicking on the album takes you to Amazon. I don't want to go through that extra trouble, I just want information!
Yes, there's a bias towards indie and electronic, but that's A-OK with me, especially the Indie part. An obsession with Hot Chip's Made in the Dark stripped down version actually made me sign up for this Hype Machine business, and boy, was it worth it. Endless listens to remixes and barebones versions of my favorite tracks, for an obsessive personality like myself, is too good to be true.
Grooveshark has a user-friendly interface and a good assortment of songs that can be played outside of the United States. Even with my shoddy internet connection, the songs play pretty smoothly. I can find all the bands I like from the Magnetic Fields to Wolf Parade to Camera Obscura. Although the collections aren't complete, recommendations for other tracks are fairly solid, though somewhat predictable. I still have a preference for last.fm because of its sleek design and information about bands but would probably go to grooveshark first to try out any tracks I hear about.
My friend Jessica linked me to this, and I left it sitting there for an hour before I actually tried it. The concept is this - pick one of the moods that are available (from "feel like crying" to "driving route 66" to "sunday morning"), and there's a couple of hundred tracks playlist right there at your eardrums. There's a very decent selection of indie, electronic and non-top 40 tracks. All in all, I was impressed although I can't help but think that this may have been developed by a group of folks with a tremendous collection of music and Itunes's "Genius" button.
