1. I Fight Dragons (179 plays) - Over this quarter I have continued to really enjoy the B Side to The Near Future and listened to them a lot after work. Scarlett likes quite a few of those songs as well.

2. Anberlin (74 plays) - For the concert last year I put all their albums on my phone. So when I listen to my music already on the phone, Anberlin comes up a lot.

For (hopefully) obvious reasons, we didn’t listen to Prince when I was a kid. (Which was when almost all his albums came out). After hearing about him a few times on Giant Bomb and today’s AV Club article, I hit Spotify to see what the fuss is all about.

At the end of my interview about starting the Kickstarter project, Brian Mazzaferri of I Fight Dragons opened the door to speaking with him about the process when it was all done. It was, as is the case with many Kickstarter projects, very exhausting and we only recently had time to actually do the interview. In the interview I briefly mention the delays in the vinyl album. This actually a pretty big problem in the music industry at the moment. Demand for vinyl has increased to a point where the record pressing plants can’t keep up with demand, but not yet to the point where it makes sense to open a new factory (with all the upfront costs involved). Even The Protomen’s new album The Cover Up has had its vinyl release delayed due to production delays. Of course, the new old tech is cassette tapes, so perhaps vinyl demand will fall a little. Time will tell. Without further ado, the interview:

Once again Scarlett had a hand in determining the year’s winners. However, sometime around June she stopped requesting Disney music all the time, allowing others a chance at the spotlight. Still, while other artists were able to take the top artist spots, I didn’t listen to any one song often enough to undermine the Disney songs taking the top spots there.

Artists

1. Alan Menken (450 listens) - THE Disney songwriter 2. Mandy Moore (332 listens) - 100% all of these are from the Tangled soundtrack 2. Five Iron Frenzy (332 listens) - I just enjoyed the heck out of FIF music this year. 4. The Beatles (329 listens) - As usual, this is a mix of me picking something different when the family’s together and just enjoying listening to it myself. 5. Anberlin (247 listens) - I had Google Music load all the albums to my phone in preparation for the concert. This means when I listen to music in the car, Anberlin is very likely to come up. 6 .I Fight Dragons (207 listens) - As I mentioned in the Q4 post, most of this is due to the new album coming out this year. 7. Donna Murphy (139 listens) - A great performance on the Tangled soundtrack. 8. Chance the Rapper (116 listens) - Many of these are from early in the year. I still really enjoy Acid Rap, but am also ready for something new. 9. “Weird Al” Yankovic (115 listens) - A new album produced most of these scrobbles. It’d be slightly higher if the Android app didn’t have a problem with the quotation marks in the artist name. 10. Childish Gambino (113 listens) - I went through as part of listening to my music in alphabetical order. It reinforced that I probably am done with him for now. Lyrically my wife can’t stand it and I shouldn’t listen to it in front of the toddler. 11. Celia Cruz (100 listens) - The Queen of Salsa. 12. Brad Kane (97 listens) - From the Aladdin soundtrack. 13. The Beach Boys (96 listens) - I continue to love Pet Sounds. 14. Billie Holiday (93 listens) - She’s so great it’s too bad she isn’t really played on many radio stations anymore. 15. Jonathan Coulton (92 listens) - Wow, didn’t realize I listened to so much JoCo.

1. Five Iron Frenzy (147 listens) - Many of these came from me continuing to go through my collection in alphabetical order. 2. I Fight Dragons (102 listens) - IFD’s Kickstarter album finally came out. I really like it a lot. I’ve been listening to the B side more than the song cycle, but that’s mostly because those are more easily listened to here and there while the song cycle is best heard all at once. 3. Anberlin (98 listens) - Tried to listen to a bunch of Anberlin to get ready for their farewell concert. 4. Fantastic Plastic Machine (71 listens) - Also from the alphabetical listen. 5. Fall Out Boy (63 listens) - Partly from the alphabetical listen and partly from Scrobbles from Spotify of their new singles. 6. Final Fantasy (Soundtracks) (50 listens) - from the alphabetical listens. 7. Edith Piaf (44 listens) - from the alphabetical listens. I’d completely forgotten we had a bunch of her music. We used to listen to it more often. 7. Doctor Octoroc (44 listens) - from the alphabetical listens. I really don’t like the albums anymore. 9. Willy Chirino (43 listens) - Mostly from listening to his great Christmas album. The only Spanish-language Christmas album I have. 10. Relient K (41 listens) - I felt nostalgic for some Relient K. Still love the earlier stuff. 11. DC Talk (40 listens) - While I still like some of the songs, others have not aged well. 12. Dj CUTMAN (39 listens) - I just love these remixes. 13. Celia Cruz (38 listens) - Put on some Celia because Scarlett really likes to dance to salsa. 14. Elvis Presley (35 listens) - Going through my collection of #1s. 15. Taylor Swift (32 listens) - Danielle got the new album and, unsurprisingly for Ms Swift, it’s quite catchy.

Technology continues to complicate the media landscape. The other day I learned on the Fedora Planet how to send Pulse Audio over the net - allowing one computer to listen to music (or other audio) from another. But, in the context of music, who cares? I have all my music on Google Music. I can just plug my phone into the sound system and listen to music (or any other speakers). This also eliminates my need to use DLNA / uPNP servers/clients to play my music. (They never worked all that well anyway)

I’ve been really loving my favorite new  Florida-based Ska band, Beebs and Her Money Makers since I saw them in concert last year. I really enjoyed their new album Wurst Album Ever which I crowdfunded.

Check out the new 70s-tastic video for Death to Ego:

http://youtu.be/IIzctrbkYvI?list=UU5PW7d9uk-k7yqjI3zVRIvg

I continued listening to artists alphabetically on my computer and randomly on my phone.

1. Childish Gambino (92 listens) - Came across his music in my alphabetic romp. Currently conflicted. I enjoy the verbal jiu jitsu, but find a lot of it whiny (after hearing for the 15th time) and just so overly aggressively sexual I feel wrong listening to it with my daughter around. 2. Billie Holiday (64 listens) - long-time readers know that Danielle and I listen to pretty much everything from the latest music to the oldest music. Billie Holiday is awesome and more people need to listen to her. 3. Danny Baranowsky (61 listens) - Listened to the Super Meat Boy soundtrack. It was fun. 4. Chance the Rapper (47 listens) - Still really enjoy Acid Rap and don’t enjoy #10Day. 5. The Black Keys (46 listens) - I always start off happy listening to The Black Keys, but the sameness drags on me by the end. 6. Alan Menken (45 listens) - for Scarlett. 7. Celia Cruz (44 listens) - I can listen to Celia Cruz at any time. Really enjoyed revisiting these songs. 7. Brave Saint Saturn (44 listens) - Although the first album’s a tad cheesy, I really enjoy where Reese took things for the second two albums. I continue to hold out hope that he will do another one. 9. Mandy Moore (43 listens) - Scarlett wanted to listen to a lot of Tangled this quarter. 10. Anberlin (31 listens) - Maybe it’s just the quarter in which I bought it, but the last album failed to make a lasting impression. I’m sure, with time, I’ll come to enjoy it as much as I enjoy the other albums. 11. Christafari (30 listens) - The music is a great groove. I have the first two albums and I think I like more songs in the first one, but I do like a lot of the second one. Although no longer an evangelical, I still find it to be pretty uplifting. 12. Ben Shive (29 listens) - There’s a certain timelessness to the songs. Some of them remind me of a subdued Billy Joel. 13. The Chipmunks & The Chipettes (28 listens) - Playing some Chipmunks for Scarlett. 13. The Weeknd (28 listens) - I know there are issues with some of the lyrics, but I do like the sound of a few of the songs. Especially “High for This” 13. Ben Prunty Music (28 listens) - The FTL soundtrack. Quite moody. I enjoy it.

I was explaining bands to Scarlett and she wanted to see an example. The only concert movie I had was from the I Fight Dragons Chicago show. I put that on and she rocked out; And asked me to dance with her. The first video (blurry because she’s so close, I think) she is spinning on my finger. The second she’s dancing on her own. I didn’t think to record video until well into things so she’s not going as crazy with the dancing as she had been.

Suddenly Charlie XCX seems to be everywhere. In reality she’s been slowly appearing in and writing lots of pop songs for the past few years. But I had no idea who she was or anything. So I was surprised to find I had “What I Like” from her True Romance album on my computer. Must have been one of those MP3s Rolling Stone used to give away weekly.