Entry-Level Hipster

This post is a follow-up.

Here are the albums I enjoyed. They are sub-headed by row, and prioritized by how much I dug it. Unless otherwise noted:

-core-

Neutral Milk Hotel- In the Airplane Over the Sea
Radiohead- Kid A
Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion
Radiohead- OK Computer (barely made it)

-pork1-

Godspeed You! Black Emperor- Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (prioritized, as I didn’t listen to it until way after the rest of this list)
Daft Punk- Discovery
Massive Attack- Mezzanine
Arcade Fire- Funeral
Kyuss- Welcome to Sky Valley
Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Godspeed You Black Emperor- FA8

-pork2-

Aphex Twin- Richard D. James Album
Boards of Canada- Music Has the Right to Children
Weezer- Blue (got a lot of points on nostalgia)
Radiohead – The Bends (might be my favorite Radiohead album yet)
Sufjan Stevens – Illinoise (good album, if creatively stifling for me)
Modest Mouse – The Lonesome Crowded West
Interpol – Turn On the Bright Lights

-pork3-

Sigur Ros- Agaetis byrjun
The Strokes- Is This It
The White Stripes- White Blood Cells
TV On The Radio- Return to Cookie Mountain
Panda Bear- Person Pitch
TV On the Radio- Dear Science

-pork4-

Fleet Foxes- Fleet Foxes
The National- Alligator
Radiohead- In Raindbows
The Mars Volta- De-Loused in The Comatorium

-pork5-

Animal Collective- Strawberry Jam
Atlas Sound- Logos
The Mountain Goats- The Sunset Tree
Beck- Odelay
Nine Inch Nails- The Downward Spiral
Dirty Projectors- Bitte Orca
The Hold Steady- Separation Sunday

-class1-

The Who- Who’s Next
Slint- Spiderland
David Bowie- Low
Neil Young- After the Gold Rush

-class2-

Bob Dylan- Blood on the Tracks
Beatles- Rubber Soul
The Replacements- Let It Be
Kraftwerk- The Man Machine
Pixies- Doolittle
Nick Drake- Pink Moon
Michael Jackson- Thriller

-class3-

The Rolling Stones- Sticky Fingers
Prince- Purple Rain
Jeff Buckley- Grace
Beatles- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (nearly got axed, but retained for Lucy… for now.)

-class4-

Led Zeppelin- Led Zepplein IV
The Rolling Stones- Let It Bleed
The Velvet Underground- Loaded
Beatles- Revolver
Pixies- Surfer Rosa

-class5-

Pink Floyd- Tommy (listened after the list)
Fleetwood Mac- Rumors
David Bowie- Ziggy Stardust
Bob Dylan- Bringing It All Back Home
David Bowie- Hunky Dory
Pink Floyd- Animals

-class6-

Iggy Pop- Lust for Life
The Ramones- The Ramones
Pink Floyd- Dark Side of the Moon
Bob Dylan- Highway 61 Revisited
The Stooges- Raw Power

-class7-

Bob Dylan- The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
King Crimson- Red (finally an album by them I enjoy!)

-class8-

Miles Davis- Kind of Blue
The Doors- The Doors
The Beatles- Abbey Road
The Kinks- The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
Led Zeppelin- Led Zeppelin II
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Trout Mask Replica
Neil Young- Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Lou Reed- Transformer

-hip1-

Genius/GZA- Liquid Swords
A Tribe Called Quest- The Low End Theory
Wu-Tang Clan- Enter the Wu-Tang
Notorious BIG- Ready to Die
Kanye West- The College Dropout

-hip2-

Kanye West- Late Registration
Mos Def- Black on Both Sides
Jay-Z- The Blueprint

-hip3-

Dr. Dre- 2001
NWA- Straight Outta Compton
Eric B. & Rakin- Paid in Full
Lil Wayne- Tha Carter III
Run DMC- Raising Hell

-metal1-

Metallica- Ride the Lightning
Burzum- Burzum
Burzum- Filosofem
Mastodon- Leviathan

-metal2-

Opeth- Blackwater Park
Mastodon- Crack the Skye
Burzum- Det som engang var
Mastodon- Blood Mountain
Morbid Saint- Spectrum of Death
Windir- 1184

Some More Notes:

• Of the 190 albums counted (some were skipped due to length or unavailability), I liked 99 of them, or 52%.
• I didn’t care to weigh my percentage of albums enjoyed by genre.
  • 67% of /mu/-core
  • 62% of pitchfork-core
  • 51% of classics
  • 43% of hipster-hop
  • 50% of heavy /mu/tal

Conclusion: I will like just about anything half of the time, and thus wasted quite a bit of time listening to many albums.

Popularity: 91% [?]

The Valentine’s Mixtape

Nothing says loneliness like a mixtape amirite?

These days kids are making youtube playlists. Or I do. But I’m an ADULT.

So whatever. The point is I’ve got a pretty pitiful love life and nobody to actually create an entire playlist for. I don’t even really listen to enough music nor pay attention to the subtleties of personality (SITE NAME, THANK YOU) to do that kind of shit.

Rather, I thought back, waaay back about half of my life ago, and tried to associate a song to someone I either dated or should have dated. The ‘should have dated’ list is a lot shorter than what I was expecting it to be, for the key reasons that: I don’t remember people who I ultimately don’t care about, and even if I do remember them and think I should have dated them, I probably didn’t hang around them enough to associate a song.

And if I did manage to associate a song, well, that would mean they’re in the mix.

So it begins.

click for the list

Popularity: 2% [?]

Love Today

Love. I would ban the word from the vocabulary. Such imprecision. Love, which love, what love? Sentiment, fantasy, longing, lust? Obsession, devouring need? Perhaps the only love that is accurate without qualification is the love of a very young child. Afterward, she too becomes a person.
-White Oleander

Perhaps I’m just taking it all a little too personally.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I Hate Listening

Music not really a good topic to talk to me about. I typically hate it. I find it to be distracting.

For the most part, now that I think about it, I just hate to listen. This extends further than simply lack of musical taste, however, into other areas. I prefer older games with written dialog (or even older games with no dialog at all) so I can mute the fucker, I prefer foreign films because when I download them illegally they come with subtitles, and silent films because… duh.

And this was because I find music distracting from whatever I’m trying to pay attention to. If I’m playing a game, I’m trying to kill things. If I’m watching a movie, I like to be able to think about the plot, or appreciate the choreography. To establish the necessity for this as clearly as possible: Resident Evil, Memento, Buster Keaton. I’ll get into why I hate attempts at storytelling in video games another time. Suffice to say that the voice in my head doesn’t speak loudly and does not like being spoken over.

However, lately it seems this voice has quieted. No longer merely a rambling whisper, it seems to have silenced entirely. The angry, critical inner-Editor-in-Chief has apparently stepped down. I’m much more at ease, and unfortunately much stupider than I once was.

Which means I can now enjoy some tunes.

I’ve started by downloading a bunch of discographies, and listening to albums through once, saving only the songs that are immediately of interest to me on the first listen.

Thus begins the “First Listen” portion of my iPod finally getting used for something other than porn.

Popularity: 1% [?]