This year I bought LOTS of albums. I don’t know if it’s the most albums I’ve purchased in one year since writing these blog posts or even since keeping track of Scrobbles. I do know that while I listened to my music randomly, in general, I did also listen to entire albums whenever I purchased one. Sometimes I’d listen to the album a few times and other times I’d take the album purchase as an opportunity to review the artist’s previous work. I know that was the case with Five Iron Frenzy (although that was also concert prep as I mentioned a few days ago), Relient K, I Fight Dragons, and Fall Out Boy. It was a very fun year for me, musically. Kacey Musgraves, for example, was a reminder that country music doesn’t have to suck. Disclosure made me realize that I could still like loop-heavy electronic music. I hope that I can continue to explore new sounds in 2014.

This quarter I mostly listened to my music on pure random with a few variations which’ll be accounted for below. This finally allowed The Beatles to place in 2013. In the last few weeks I just listened to music that I added in this quarter to make sure I had a chance to get to know some of the newer songs.

1. Five Iron Frenzy (198 listens) - I had a a FIF listening blitz leading up to their November Concert (which I still have to finish the blog post for). Lyrically, I think it’s the best album they’ve ever put out. Sonically, I think it’s in my top 3. 2. Celia Cruz (107 listens) - Almost all (if not certainly all) of these listens happened in the last month. Someone gave me Celia Cruz Absolute Collection for my birthday or Christmas (I’m so bad at remembering who gives me what - especially because I received all my gifts in quick succession over Thanksgiving)  and I loved it. It has all of Celia’s top songs from her entire career . I think it’s a great survey of how she evolved as an artist. The collection contained tons of gems I’d never heard because they came out way before I was born and weren’t played on the radio when I was growing up. 3. MxPx (101 listens) - Digitizing the I Fight Dragons flexi-disc motivated me to once again try to digitize my live MxPx album. In addition to listening to my newly created files, I also went back and listened to some of the older stuff. 4. Alan Menken (80 listens) - Scarlett discovered the ability to request for us to play certain songs for her. I spent much of December playing The Little Mermaid sountrack for her. I also played the Aladdin soundtrack for her. So Alan Menken comes out of nowwhere to the #4 spot for this quarter. 5. Anamanaguchi (62 listens) - More love for Endless Fantasy. I really, really like that album. 6. ?? (HyunA) (53 listens) - I your really want to understand how obsessive toddlers can be over music, this is the perfect example. All but two of these listens were from Scarlett requesting to listen to HyunA. And a vast majority of these listens are for Bubble Pop. Thanks to Google Play caching the song on my phone, even Dina is now well-versed in HyunA’s single.

It’s December and I should have gotten all of my Kickstarter products by now. But that’s not exactly what happened. Every single one of my Kickstarters was late except the one I had the least faith and relationship with - Random Encounter’s Let Me Tell You a Story.

I Fight Dragons – Project Atma (music): Holy COW! This band - my first Kickstarter - nearly disbanded over the Kickstarter! I thought they were the surest bet. They’d self-published their first few albums and they had rented a studio and had a producer and everything. However, they clashed over the direction the producer was taking them and almost broke up.

When I was in middle school in Oregon I was introduced to the concept of non-worship Christian music for the first time. Up until that time the only English music we listened to was Oldies and 70s music. I’d catch a pop or rap song here or there - mostly because the public school buses I rode would listen to the pop or rap stations - but that was it. I think it was like 10% shielding us from the “bad messages in pop music” and 90% my parents just listening to what they enjoyed - which was the music they grew up with. And since those stations were always on when we were growing up, that’s what we grew to like. It’s why I’m the only person in the circle of friends in my age group that knows all the Doo-Wop standards.

I’m writing this in late August - by the time this post appears I should have received all of my Kickstarter goods or they should be in the mail. Interestingly, even though the Kickstarter backer cycles were spread over about a three month period, they’re all supposed to be delivering the product at around the same time - 4th quarter of this year. As of the time of this writing, this is the status of my Kickstarters:

This article on AV Club considers how A Tribe Called Quest’s most critically acclaimed album is their worst artistically. I felt the same thing happened with GRITS - I LOVE their first two albums, but hate everything after that - which is when they started to pick up steam and be featured on MTV. It’s not some kind of hipster hate of the popular - I kept buying the albums hoping they’re return to a sound more like The Roots. Eventually I gave up. I feel like the same happened with Childish Gambino - I really don’t like his first commercial release, but I loved his mixtapes. I hear the same said of Lupe Fiasco.

This quarter was a mix of listening to the music I had at work and listening on pure random. Once again Amarok lost the first played and last played stats. Of all the stats to lose, these are the least detrimental, but it makes the “don’t play songs I’ve heard in the last x days” playlists not work. So I just went on pure random and rediscovered some music I’d forgotten about. Once again no Beatles on the top 15. We’ll see if they can rectify that next quarter. (Note: I have added Amazon affiliate links this time around. If you use them to buy the music, it helps support this site)

This article explores a side of the blues I never knew existed. Apparently there was certain degree of openness about lesbian blues singers when it was indie that I wouldn’t have expected to find in 1920s America (as well as hidden via slang and double-entendre references to lesbianism)

http://youtu.be/s4Rjy5yW1gQ

Saw this on Boing Boing a while ago. It saddens me that girls and women are treated as second class citizens within geekdom, but it heartens me that women like these don’t let it keep them from their geek pursuits. I hope to raise Scarlett to be just like them - self-confident enough to pursue whatever she wants, regardless of what others think.

This reveals more about my stereotypes than anything else, but I was extremely shocked to find out that the lead singer from The Offspring (yeah, the Pretty Fly for a White Guy band) is a molecular biologist. He’s working on helping to kick AIDS in the butt. Who would have thought?