Tag: Music

How I Buy Music in 2024

Earlier this year I ran out of space to store records. I could ship a load of old ones to our storage unit, but I really do like having my music around me so that didn’t feel like a good idea. I was also noticing the the already high price of records was creeping up, from £20 to well over £25 in most cases. So apart from a few new releases from Wrong Speed Records, I’ve not bought vinyl at all this year, and have instead reverted to either digital music or CDs.

Both of those formats provided challenges for me though. Digital music is great, but it means I have to think about backups, and having multiple copies in case of disk failure. I largely solved that by saving all new music to Dropbox, and then making it available on all my computers that way. I also back up to a large hard drive in my main computer that contains everything I have ever downloaded since 2021. The challenge with CDs was that the 20+ year old machine I used to play them on died over a year ago, so I was just ripping them to MP3 and playing them that way.

That wasn’t too much of a problem to start off with, as two of my main sources of music was the albums I get as part of my subscription to The Quietus magazine, and a Bandcamp subscription to the music of Constellation Records. In both cases new music arrives every few weeks, and I download it and play it on my computer. My computer is plugged into an amp, which is connected to the speakers from my old CD player, so the sound is pretty decent.

In the end I did buy a CD player, and another cheap amp to connect it to some other vintage speakers I have. So now I have my record player and CD player routing to one sound system, and my home and work computers to the other. That way I can play any music I own in my home office without too much effort with cables and switches. It also means I spend a lot less money on music because CDs are under half the price of records, and digital music is cheaper still.

After doing this for a few months, I can’t say I notice a huge difference in sound quality between anything I listen to, and I’ve enjoyed the subscription music a lot, whilst also spending far too much time on Ebay tracking down things I want to own on CD that other people are getting rid of. That’s where the real cost saving happens, and I’m operating on an average of about £3 per CD right now.

We are also setting up a media swap scheme at work, so I can take in any CDs I don’t want anymore, and hopefully pick up a few things from other people.

So that’s how I’m consuming music in 2024. I still have Spotify for when I’m walking the dog or on my work computer, but my default is still very much an ownership model, with a strong preference to buy directly from the artist or the record company. That way money goes to the people who make the music, and should hopefully support them sufficiently to make more.

New Music

I’ve worked for my current employer for 24 years. On the day I had my interview, I bought two albums on the way home. Once was Kid A by Radiohead, the other was Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven by Godspeed You Black Emperor!. It amuses me that this week I’m writing about two records that are made by some of the same people, and then one that definitely wasn’t.

My three records for 4th October are:

I think I know what I’ll be listening to on Friday.

Journal Fragments

Excerpts from my journal over the last few days that fit the themes of this blog.

Technology

I have my full travel setup operational now. I did start with my small computer, but found myself missing the extra screen and the familiarity of the laptop. So the laptop is once more the primary computer for non-work stuff, which makes it easier to swap in the other laptop after Easter when I need to do some work here.

I didn’t intend to bring my docking station here, but as it was still in my bag I thought I’d install displaylink-debian to make my life easier. I have it running on my other laptop, and as of this morning I have it running on this one too.

I think I have a good understanding of what technology I prefer to use now, and as a result have an idea about what I would like my next computers to be. Right now a single USB-C cable for everything is where I’m at; especially as I have several docking stations which make this possible wherever I am.

Based on my usual criteria for laptops, and assuming I was buying new, the models I should be looking at are:

  • Thinkpad X13
  • Thinkpad L13
  • Thinkpad L13 yoga
  • 13″ MacBook Air

But none of these are upgradeable, so I am seriously considering getting something slightly bigger so that I have the option to upgrade the memory later on. Or I might just go down the refurbished route again and get something that will last me 2-3 years.

Looking at the 14″ laptops, the E14 and L14 are both very customisable, and meet the specifications I’m after on everything except for size and weight. The prices to add extra memory are really reasonable as well, so it might just be that we go for something that meets the specifications we need now, with anything else being a stretch goal. I don’t need 40 or 64 Gb of memory in a laptop, especially when I have that in my desktop and rarely use more than half of it.

Books

I finished The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow last night. It’s a really important book that anyone who uses the internet should read. Today I’ll start Dead Centre by Tim Farthing, which is the only other book I bought with me. I have my Kindle though, with a huge backlog of fiction, so it’s not like I won’t have things to read.

Music

I am listening to the new Jiin record, although once I start the book I will switch to Dead Centre by Reigns. I am also feeding Spotify with music for the family playlist. I only listen to Spotify whilst walking the dog, but it’s good to hear a few new favourites making their way into what we listen to in the car.

There is a new record shop in Newport, that has only been open 2 weeks. I bought Dresden Dolls and East India Youth CDs, and resisted buying a lot of expensive records. This is a shop I will definitely support, and will return to again in June.

Reading habits – January 2014

I should probably write proper reviews of some of these, but for now I will just make a list.

Ken McClure – The Secret
Adrian Barnes – Nod
Anne O’Brien – The Virgin Widow
Donna Tartt – The Goldfinch
Jon Ronson – The Psychopath Test
Scott Stossel – My Age of Anxiety

I also made a Spotify playlist of music released this year, to help me remember what I’ve listened to.

Christmas projects

I have all sorts of things planned this Christmas, some of which may happen and some of which may take a little longer to reach fruition.

  • Albums of the year (which I always do), and which will be ready on or around 31st December.
  • One movie a day, where I will watch one decent movie a day, and list them all with a few notes on why I chose them and how they all fit together.
  • A writing project, which I’ve started, and which might end up being a “one poem a day” type exercise.

It is good to have some time to work on this sort of thing, and I’m hopeful it will redress the balance a little after a year of too much work, too much responsibility and not enough creativity.

Music that is currently rocking my world

I often get asked to recommend music, which I’m often very bad at because I know from experience that a lot of what I listen to might not be to everyone’s taste. But if I was recommending some music from this year (or from recently but that I largely discovered this year) then my list would look something like:

Shearwater – Animal Joy
The Twilight Sad – No One Can Ever Know
Craig Finn – Clear Heart Full Eyes
Metric – Synthetica
Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls
Pog – Between the Station and the Sea
Moonface – With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery
Crystal Stilts – In Love With Oblivion
AAAHHHRCHESTRA – Denmaaahhrk
Lana Del Rey – Born to Die
Thieves Like Us – Bleed Bleed Bleed
Tindersticks – The Something Rain
Paul Heaton – Paul Heaton Presents… The 8th
The Wedding Present – Valentina
Maxïmo Park – The National Health
Bear in Heaven – I Love You, It’s Cool
The Flaming Lips – The Flaming Lips And Heady Fwends
Errors – Have Some Faith In Magic
Tennis – Young & Old
Julian Cope – Psychedelic Revolution
Guillemots – Hello Land!
Stevie Jackson – (I Can’t Get No) Stevie Jackson
The Kabeedies – Soap
John Zorn – Templars: In Sacred Blood
Holograms – Holograms
Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz – Abraxas: The Book of Angels Volume 19
Allo Darlin’ – Europe
John Zorn – The Gnostic Preludes
Yeasayer – Fragrant World
David Krakauer – Pruflas : The Book Of Angels Volume 18
Swans – The Seer
The Indelicates – Diseases Of England
Craft Spells – Gallery
The Fall – Your Future Our Clutter
Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra – Theatre Is Evil

Albums of the year – 2011

These are the 30 records I couldn’t live without in 2011. Some more than others, but they all deserve a mention.

  1. The Indelicates – David Koresh Superstar
  2. Destroyer – Kaputt
  3. Radiohead – The King of Limbs
  4. Elbow – Build a Rocket Boys!
  5. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
  6. Marissa Nadler – Marissa Nadler
  7. The Twilight Singers – Dynamite Steps
  8. British Sea Power – Valhalla Dancehall
  9. Luke Haines – 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations On British Wrestling Of The 1970s and Early 80s
  10. 8in8 – Nighty Night
  11. Frank Turner – England Keep My Bones
  12. Craft Spells – Idle Labor
  13. Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls
  14. Widowspeak – Widowspeak
  15. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
  16. Wilco – The Whole Love
  17. Toro Y Moi – Underneath The Pine
  18. Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi
  19. Amanda Palmer – Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under
  20. Akron/Family – S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT
  21. Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin’ On
  22. The Horrible Crowes – Elsie
  23. Dum Dum Girls – Always in Dreams
  24. Grails – Deep Politics
  25. Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
  26. The Horrors – Skying
  27. Tori Amos – Night Of Hunters
  28. Soft Metals – Soft Metals
  29. Los Campesinos! – Hello Sadness
  30. The Decemberists – The King Is Dead

Albums of the Decade

I don’t really know where to start when trying to draw up a list of songs or albums that sum up the last 10 years. 2000 was a long time ago (10 years, in fact), and I’m not sure I can be truly objective when comparing things I’m listening to now and records that I remember being at least as important at various other points in the last 10 years. I love the new Flaming Lips album, but is it really better than Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots? Is In Rainbows better than Kid A, or was it just released more recently? And is it really possible to sum up a decade in a list of records?

My gut instinct is that no record released this year should make the list. Just because I’ve not had time to assess their importance. But at the same time I don’t think that’s fair to an album like The Hazards of Love, which I reckon I’ll still be listening to in 2019.

So without further ado, a first stab at a list of records from the last 10 years that I think people should own, and that in some way sum up the decade for me.

Radiohead – Kid A (2000) – To me this record redefined what a big selling record could sound like, and did a great job of sounding like everything I was currently listening to at the time (Tortoise, Jim O’Rourke, Miles Davies and a few even more esoteric things). Everything they released this decade would get into my top 100, but this is where they laid down the blueprint for what was to come. I bought this album the day I had my first interview to work at the University, and to me it perfectly sums up 2000.

Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) – The album that introduced me to Wilco, and that marked them out as something more than just an alternative country band. It was also the first album (I think) that was streamed to listeners before it was released, and marked the first of four consecutive great albums they released between 2002-09. It was hard choosing between this, A Ghost is Born and Wilco (the album), but I think YHF just shades it, and is the one I’d recommend people start with.

The Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004) – They seemed to come out of nowhere, and to be critically acclaimed without ever being fashionable. This album was the one that really introduced me to them, and made me realise that there was something coming out of Canada that wasn’t 24 minute instrumental masterpieces or trite pop songs. I played this album to death in 2004, and still dip into it every now and again, and it is something I would recommend to anyone who likes music.

The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday (2005) – I didn’t discover this band until their 4th album (Stay Positive), but soon fell in love with their second effort from 2005. They are described as a bar band, but I see them as the 21st century version of Jack Kerouac and the best storytelling band ever. The music is loud and simple, the lyrics are narrative and hilarious, and the fact that something made in 2005 topped my listening charts for this year just goes to show it is something special.

Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid (2008) – Last year’s album of the year by a mile, and something I keep going back to when I want to be reminded of 2008 (which was generally a good year). I’ve been a fan of theirs for a while, but this is the first album where I would recommend every single song.

Albums of the year 2009

Calculated using the same algorithm as the last two years, and only including albums actually released this year.

  1. The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
  2. Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
  3. The Horrors – Primary Colours
  4. Portugal. The Man – The Satanic Satanist
  5. Florence and The Machine – Lungs
  6. Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
  7. The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love
  8. Califone – All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
  9. Doves – Kingdom Of Rust
  10. Maxïmo Park – Quicken The Heart
  11. And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – The Century of Self
  12. Robyn Hitchcock – Goodnight Oslo
  13. Editors – In This Light And On This Evening
  14. Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers
  15. Bear in Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth
  16. Julian Casablancas – Phrazes For The Young
  17. Fresh Body Shop – The Ugly Army
  18. Atlas Sound – Logos
  19. David Byrne & Brian Eno – Everything that Happens will Happen Today
  20. Monsters of Folk – Monsters of Folk

Oddly enough, three of my most played (and favourite) albums of 2009 were released prior to 2009. They slot into the top 5 as follows:

  1. The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday
  2. The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
  3. Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
  4. British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?
  5. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

Nothing else from before 2009 got anywhere near the top 20 (American Demo by The Indelicates being the closest by some distance).

A brief life update

This week I’ve largely been:

  • Listening to the new albums by The Flaming Lips, Atlas Sound, Charlotte Hatherley and Broadcast (all of which I’m really enjoying)
  • Updating my main workstation to Ubuntu 9.10
  • Learning about Google Wave
  • Trying to juggle various work tasks (and not dropping anything hopefully).

Oh, and I still hate this time of year. Even though we had no annoying begging children this year, there is still the firework-hating dog to deal with.