kathyp

in the meantime, i'm starting

I just read this about a week ago. It was charming for the most part. I like Rob Sheffield, and I really enjoyed his first book, but there were elements of Talking To Girls... that made me roll my eyes, especially that women and girls are flaky, superficial music fans who just want to dance. I take it that it's supposed to be some sort of compliment (we girls don't have to worry about serious stuff like bootleg collecting, or discussing the minutiae of Smiths lyrics -- my examples, not his), but it's a tired old stereotype.

1. You're Quiet - Brendan Benson

2. Versatile Heart - Linda Thompson

3. The Man Amplifier - Young Marble Giants

4. The Ballad of Bitter Honey - Eef Barzelay

5. Scarecrow - Eddi Reader

6. Strawberry Blonde - Ron Sexsmith

7. Blues Run the Game - Jackson C. Frank

8. Sweedeedee - Michael Hurley

9. Vibrate - Rufus Wainwright

10. When the Roses Bloom Again - Sally Timms

This computer only has about 300 songs on it (and over-represented by people named "Wainwright"), but here goes:

1. Know Your Chicken - Cibo Matto

2. Well-Alright - Spoon

3. I Want To Be Evil - Eartha Kitt

4. Can't Hardly Wait - Replacements

5. Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk - Rufus Wainwright

6. That Time - Regina Spektor

7. The Magic Position - Patrick Wolf

8. Not Ready to Love - Rufus Wainwright

9. Goddamn HIV - Mary Gauthier

10. Hearts Club Band - Martha Wainwright

What I Liked:

Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs - Medicine County

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - I Learned The Hard Way

Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM

Goldfrapp - Head First (though not as much as Seventh Tree)

Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid

What I Didn't

Joan Armatrading - This Charming Life

(I love Joan Armatrading, but this was a little disappointing. Listened to it one time and sort of forgot it existed.)

Mary Gauthier - The Foundling (See above)

She & Him - Volume Two

(I know M. Ward and Zooey have a lot of fans here, but I just can't get into her voice. It's kind of, um, awful.)

I give a grade of "Incomplete"

Rufus Wainwright - All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu

(Again, I really wanted to like this, but I find myself going back to Release the Stars and Want One more often than not.)

Bettye LaVette - Interpretations

(Is it possible for songs to be too iconic?)

Just picked this up today:

Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace - David Lipsky

Love her. Check out Metropolis, too.

These won't win me any popularity points...

The Mountain Goats -

Yes, John Darnielle is a great songwriter, but I'm not a fan of his thin, whiny vocals

Bright Eyes

See above

And yes, The Hold Steady. He doesn't sing; he barks.

The Loop area is nice also for shops. Vintage Vinyl is there as well as Chuck Berry's place Blueberry Hill.

Yes. So. Grand is good for shopping, too, but I'm biased since I grew up around there.

judging by Billboard's charts, a lot of albums do well the first week, and drop off after that. (Excluding mega blockbusters -- the Lady Gagas of the world -- that keep on selling a full year after the release date.)

(Oops. The way those are stacked it looks like Morrissey borrowed Peaches' hotpants.)

I'm actually okay with downloading most of my music these days. I'm more likely now to take a risk than I did ten or fifteen years ago when I was a broke twenty-something grumbling about paying $15 for a cd when I couldn't find it used.

People who use "I's" as in "his and I's"

Definitely spelled "definately"

People men who tell me I need to smile more

Baggy shorts on grown-ups

Flip flops

Axe body spray

I always took "get" to mean understand its influence, but not necessarily like the band.

I "get" Sonic Youth, but I'd rather listen to my cat howl when she doesn't get her wet food than Daydream Nation.

(Yes, that is a terrible analogy.)

"Warsh" for wash, "Melk" for milk...

My dad insists he's pronouncing those words correctly, but he does say "warsh" and "melk."

St. Louisans like "farty" instead of "forty," too.

How many books do people usually read in a year?

According to my Goodreads page, 108 in '08.

But most of them were trash. My goal is quality over quantity this year.

Right now:

The comparisons to Catcher in the Rye are pretty obvious. I'm halfway through and not abandoning, but I wanted to like this more than I actually do.

Normally I like Will Self, but this is kind of "meh." Rewrite of The Picture of Dorian Gray set in London during the height of the AIDS epidemic.

315/400

Extremely progressive

It's not dead with me as I still buy retail CDs and LPs as well as CD-r media for burning lossless downloads.

Same here. I still enjoy buying CDs, but if I could only get music in digital form, I'd deal.

I burn my downloads to CD-Rs (which are also getting scarcer and scarcer). I'm surprised not that many people do. I have an older stereo and no way to play my iPod through it. (I mean, I guess there is a way, but I'm too lazy to.) To my probably not-too-nuanced hearing, they sound fine.