Category: music

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

On the top-selling music of 2006: “Personally, I can‚Äôt handle The Fray, John Mayer, Jack Johnson, that Daniel Powter song, James Blunt, any Coldplay since ‚ÄúParachutes‚Äù, etc, etc ‚Ķ It‚Äôs all part of some introspective sad sensitive-guy thing that I just can‚Äôt buy into. It‚Äôs Generation X in reverse.“

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

“I confess I’ve been increasingly dissatisifed with the direction of modern pop, which has more and more privileged screechy and/or whiny vocalists who are utterly unable to play any instrument themselves, and thus, usually, unable to actually write music or songs themselves.” Over at Collision Detection, Clive Thompson points to a recent article by Chuck Klosterman about how YouTube is reviving musical virtuosity. Klosterman:

One of those depressing paradoxes about rock ‘n’ roll: Very often, profoundly exceptional guitar playing is boring to listen to… It’s difficult for nonmusicians to appreciate world-class guitar playing through solely sonic means, mostly because a) the difference between great guitar playing and serviceable guitar playing is often subtle, and b) every modern listener assumes production tricks can manufacture greatness. (As a result, radio audiences are automatically skeptical of what they hear.) Guitar brilliance usually comes across as ponderous. But that changes dramatically when one adds the element of video; somehow, watching changes the experience of hearing. There are certain things that sound good only when (and if) you can see them. And YouTube lets you see them.

Two comments on the side:

One, for great example of YouTube sanctifying musical skill, check out the video of Stanley Jordan playing “Autumn Leaves” that I linked to earlier. Seeing is believing there.

And two, I’m really curious why Esquire didn’t put the links directly in the body of Klosterman’s essay–we’re talking about the internet, here. Is there a reason to list a plain-text web address buried in a footnote?

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things from 2006

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

As I write this, there’s only about 9 hours left in 2006. I thought it might be a little too gauche if I let this post slip over to 2007. To start, I’ve reviewed about 30 books here over the past 5 months. I think that works out to a review for every 2 or 3 that I read. Trolling my memory for things I liked from the entire year1, I come up with…
A Few of the Books I Really Liked This Year:

  • The Batman In: Nine Lives – I love Motter & Lark’s noir-ish rendition of the Gotham world. The limited, careful color palette is really cool.
  • Economics for Real People – Gene Callahan’s introduction to economic thinking is a nice refresher for nerds like myself, and a friendly welcome for those who wouldn’t read something like Man, Economy, & State. There’s also a PDF version of the book.
  • Beautiful Evidence – Edward Tufte makes a nice contribution to “forever knowledge” about visual communication here. Lovely work in a lovely container.
  • Getting Things Done – David Allen’s book didn’t convert me completely, but I haven’t found other personal development books that were so concrete and actually worth exploring in depth.
  • Understanding Comics – Scott McCloud’s book helped to revive my love for the form.
  • The Ghost Map – Steven Johnson’s compelling take on Sickness and the City. Though I think some of his other books are more tightly written, I like the bigger, broader ideas here.
  • The Broker – I don’t read a lot of pop fiction, so I wasn’t expecting John Grisham to be such a good writer. Besides being a fun read, he also has some well-crafted moments.

Worst Book:

  • Mary, Mary – I made sure not to set the bar too high for James Patterson, but this was still really awful. Ugh.

Best-Loved Music:

  • Feist: Let It Die – So much tasteful variety here. Aside from Leslie Feist’s great, great voice, the orchestration and instrument colors in this album are pretty incredible. There’s also a killer cover of the Bee Gees tune “Love You Inside Out”.
  • Joanna Newsom: Ys – At first listen, I wasn’t too sure. 30 seconds later, I was in heaven. Folksy wailing over tricky harp riffs. Trust me on this one.

Worst Music Surprise:

Personal Technology:

  • Samsung SGH T-509 – To the elation of all my friends, I broke down and got a cellphone this year. And I rather like it. What it really does best is stay unobtrusively in my pocket.
  • Apple 24″ iMac – Still drooling over this one. I’m a little ashamed that I still don’t feel like I have enough workspace.
  • Pen & Paper – Nothing beats this combo. I try to always keep them around.

Best-Loved Blogs:

  • Jason Kottke does a great job. After my brief time blogging, I appreciate his work even more. The quality is so consistently high. Great editing, and he’s willing to be patient to give better context or a personal contribution. Love it.
  • Shaun Inman‘s redesign is really cool.
  • Joshua Blankenship‘s blog is awesome. So much energy and optimism there. He makes me want to be more creative.
  • The Mises economics blog has a consistently great mix of high-brow academics and low-brow insight into everyday life.

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1. Disclaimer: All memories are subject to change. If I remember something really good, I’ll add it to the list.

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

From Bob Becker‘s classic article on the paradoxes of percussion: “Substantial preparation time is often required for only a few seconds of actual performance… A performer who resigned his position as a percussionist with a major symphony orchestra once explained that, ‘Ninety percent of the time I was bored to death, and the other ten percent of the time I was scared to death.'”