Rock & Pop

I haven't been using my iPod much, and that's ok. With the old 40GB I used it all the time because I had the charging dock and could run the music through my computer speakers, like running iTunes without hogging all the PC resources. The new 60GB doesn't fit the old dock and I just haven't felt like buying a new one. So, I occasionally listen to it at work and sometimes if I ride the bus, which I don't do much this time of year. In the winter I'll be sure to use it more.

I find that with the iPod, and iTunes for that matter, that I tend to listen more to playlists or just my shuffled library, and not albums. I like to listen to albums. A lot. On the go it makes more sense because the chance that I'm going to be able to give an album the attention that it deserves is very little, so playlists are ok. If I'm listening to music at my PC then it's usually because I am organizing or adding to the library or just get the urge to hear a certain song and then that song or some website will trigger the desire to hear a different song.

I've fallen out of the habit of listening to albums. I used to just lay on my bed or chill on a couch and close my eyes and take in some music, or maybe I was driving, in the days that I had a car, in which case I kept my eyes open. Mostly. Anyhow, albums rule and are really my preferred way to take in music. I'm going to emphasize it more in my day to day routine. Here's what I've enjoyed recently, nothing new, just what I picked out of my collection to hear.

Last week I listened to Sleater-Kinney's The Woods multiple times. It is good. Very good. I think I only listened to it two or three times immediately after I bought it. That was enough to determine that it was as good as any hype it received and that it met/exceeded my own expectations. Then I bought Stars Set Yourself On Fire and that album just grabbed ahold of me and everytime I thought about listening to SK my Stars album would glint in the sun and beg to be spun. I listened to that yesterday after not hearing it for a month or more. It also meets the criteria of good, and very good. Today I gave Sonic Youth's Murray Street two spins. I was going to name my favorite tracks off of it but that's really irrelevent. I do have favorites on it but the whole thing is just so phenomenal and no tracks on it deserve the disservice of being unfavored. Just now I listened to Caribou The Milk of Human Kindness. Wow. Utterly pleasant. Two songs that I'll note as personal standouts from that disc are Bees and Brahminy Kite.

Fin.

-A.Ho-