Lala - my not-so-new favorite thing.

This post is long overdue.  If you have seen any of my recent activity online (Facebook, Google Reader, or certain posts about top music), you might be aware that I have become an avid user of Lala.  The short story: Lala is a free online music service without advertising.  The longer story follows.

You can read Lala's official story about their features at their How it works page.  I'll expand on what I like about these main features, and one additional minor feature, to show what I think makes Lala pretty awesome.

1. Play over 8 million songs for free.  They have a pretty extensive music catalog, of which you can play any song for free once.  After the first free listen, you can listen to 30-second clips of songs you don't own (you can always listen to full-length songs you own - see #2).  I especially like that they organize music so that it is easy to queue up albums, which is how I prefer to listen to music.
2. Play your music, anywhere on the web.  You can match your music collection on your computer to Lala's catalog so that Lala recognizes what songs in their catalog you own (no, it does not matter how you came to own the music).  If you own it, it can always play it for free on the web.
3. Discover new music through friends and experts.  They've got some social networking and cataloging aspects.
4. Buy new music starting at 10 cents.  You can buy any song as a "web song" for 10 cents.  This gives you unlimited plays of the song via the web, but you can't download it to your computer.  You can also buy songs for download, usually for 89 cents.  Note that if you have previously bought a song as a web song, you only have to pay the difference (79 cents) to buy it as a download.  The song files are DRM-free variable bit-rate MP3s.  In my experience the bit rate is usually around 240 kbps, which is excellent unless you're an audiophile.
   
   I will add here that Lala's download prices are pretty phenomenal in comparison with the competition.  For example, here are some comparisons with two other major MP3 vendors for four new album releases that I bought this past Tuesday (yes, I went kinda crazy):
   
   Four Tet - There is Love in You
   iTunes - $9.99
   Amazon MP3 - $6.99
   Lala - $6.49
   
   Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM
   iTunes - $9.99
   Amazon MP3 - $7.99
   Lala - $7.49
   
   Basement Jaxx - Zephyr
   iTunes - $9.90
   Amazon MP3 - $6.99
   Lala - $6.49
   
   Jaga Jazzist - One-Armed Bandit
   iTunes - $8.91
   Amazon MP3 - $6.99
   Lala - $6.99
   
   As you can see, iTunes is kinda ripping people off (though I will concede that they pioneered the MP3 selling business and make selling/buying music very easy for both producers and consumers), so it's a good thing that I don't even have an iTunes account set up.  I used to use Amazon MP3 quite a bit, but I have more recently been buying the majority of the music that I purchase through Lala
5. Scrobbling to Last.fm!  Listening to music is pretty much worthless to me unless I can scrobble it to Last.fm, my ultimate music listening cataloger.  Without this minor feature I don't think I would have begun using Lala nearly as much as I do now.

I've actually been a Lala member since early 2007, back when their main thing was trading CDs, though I never really used it.  They've since dropped that business model and are now a digital music service.  I rediscovered them this past fall when Pitchfork started using Lala to share music that they reviewed and Google started including Lala previews in music searches.  Since then I've been using Lala to check out new releases, listen to recommendations from friends, and listen to my collection from work (don't tell Boeing).  It has greatly contributed to the amount of music I listen to and to the amount of music I actually purchase.

I was a bit disappointed in December to hear the news that Apple acquired Lala.  Although Apple appears to have used Lala technology for at least one good purpose (providing browser-enabled previews for iTunes songs), my fear is that Lala will be absorbed into iTunes and I will lose some of the features I have come to love.  For example, I'm pretty sure this would result in increased music prices.  Also, if the web streaming becomes part of Apple I think Boeing will get wise to the goings on pretty quickly as users jump on board, and therefore block it.  I hope these worries do not materialize.

Skinny jeans are ruining mens' fashion.

For me, at least.  I'm not saying this because I think skinny jeans are stupid - some people (though not all who wear them) pull off the look very well.  I am not one of those people.  I have what I like to call a "black people butt" and "black people hips".  Besides making me feel like I'm wearing figure skating pants, they tend not fit over my butt all the way (or at least not as much as I would like pants to fit over my butt).  I'm also partial to a wider leg opening that falls over the shoe, instead of showing off my shoelace knot and socks.

Skinny jeans don't directly affect me since I don't really ever wear jeans, but the skinny/slim trend has moved over to pants.  This in itself would not be a problem either, except that all the creative effort into making interesting pants is now diverted to making interesting skinny pants.  And there aren't many people out there making interesting mens' pants in the first place.  Every cool-looking pair of pants that I have seen over the past few months has been of the skinny variety.  Case in point: I've ordered 3 pairs of pants off diesel.com (one of very few places I've found that has interesting pants for men) only to return them because the fit is too skinny (even though I took care to check that they are not described as skinny or slim).  Maybe I should just resign myself to the fact that Diesel does not make pants for black people.

So if you see a pair of cool-looking non-skinny (preferably boot-cut) pants out there somewhere, let me know and I'll be all over it.

Top Albums of 2009, Part 2

We saw in Part 1 that Phoenix topped the aggregate top albums list.  In Part 2 we'll break down all the individual top 10 lists.

Brian George (Obscurity Award, WTF?! Award)

1. Converge – Axe to Fall
2. The Juan MacLean – The Future Will Come
3. Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Agorapocalypse
4. Future of the Left – Travels with Myself and Another
5. Pissed Jeans – King of Jeans
6. Girls – Album
7. Shackleton – 3 Eps
8. Khanate – Clean Hands Go Foul
9. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
10. The-Dream – Love vs. Money


Christy Cronin

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
2. Manchester Orchestra – Mean Everything to Nothing
3. Metric – Fantasies
4. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
5. Passion Pit – Manners
6. Arctic Monkeys – Humbug
7. Coconut Records – Davy
8. The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love
9. She Wants Revenge – Up and Down EP
10. Matt & Kim – Grand


James Kolpack (I Didn't List Phoenix Award)

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
2. Atlas Sound - Logos
3. Office - Mecca
4. The Thermals - Now We Can See
5. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
6. Flight of the Conchords - I Told You I Was Freaky
7. Papercuts - You Can Have What You Want
8. Max Richter - 24 Postcards in Full Colour
9. Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth
10. The xx - xx


Jason White

1. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2. Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
3. Pearl Jam - Backspacer
4. Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything to Nothing
5. Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures
6. Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
7. Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
8. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
9. The Decemberist - The Hazards of Love
10. Mute Math - Armistice


Obi Orjih

1. Mew – No More Stories...
2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
3. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It's Blitz!
5. Pictureplane – Dark Rift
6. Röyksopp – Junior
7. Metric – Fantasies
8. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
9. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
10. Doves – Kingdom of Rust


Robert Schwartz (I'm With Obi Award)

1. Mew - No More Stories...
2. Regina Spektor - Far
3. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
4. Beirut - March of the Zapotec/Holland EP
5. Metric - Fantasies
6. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
7. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimist
8. Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP
9. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
10. The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come

Top Albums of 2009, Part 1

The results are in.  My cloud has determined the top 10 albums (actually 12, since the last 4 tied) of 2009.  Ignore all other top 10 lists (except maybe Metacritic's, which actually shows you everyone's list) and only pay attention to this one.

Each participant submitted a personal top 10 list, and I aggregated them using a 10-to-1 point system to generate the list below.   Here's the list of critics:

Brian George
Christy Cronin
James Kolpack
Jason White
Obi Orjih
Robert Schwartz

Since there are 6 individual lists, the maximum possible number of points for a single album is 60 points (if it was number 1 on everybody's list).  Without further ado, here are the top albums:

1. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix [35 points, 5 lists]

2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion [24 points, 3 lists]

3. Mew - No More Stories... [20 points, 2 lists]

4. Metric - Fantasies [18 points, 3 lists]

5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! [17 points, 2 lists]

6. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest [16 points, 4 lists]

http://lala.com/zf5S

7. Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything to Nothing [16 points, 2 lists]

8. Converge - Axe to Fall [10 points, 1 list]

9 (tie). The Juan MacLean - The Future Will Come [9 points, 1 list]

   Regina Spektor - Far [9 points, 1 list]

   Atlas Sound - Logos [9 points, 1 list]

   Wilco - Wilco (The Album) [9 points, 1 list]

Check out Part 2 for each critic's individual list.

Reciprocal altruism.

I have had an e-mail starred in my inbox for 5 months now, intending to write a blog post about it.  It's about time that I actually do it.

The motivation is an article sent by my friend Rob: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23wright.html

It concerns one of my favorite topics: science and religion, and whether they are reconcilable.  The author seems to think they are.  I, for the most part, think they are not.  At least, science is not compatible with religion as the institutions exist today.

As the article notes, religious apologists often argue that science cannot explain our moral instincts of right and wrong.  Wright points to the notion of "reciprocal altruism" (benefit through mutual cooperation), which may have played a part in the evolution of our moral senses.  I think this is right.

I would only add that this evolution occurred on a cultural scale.  I don't think that we are born with an innate sense of right and wrong, but are instead raised to learn right from wrong.  Through teaching, observation, and rational thought, we learn how this works.

Wright seems to imply that "convergence" on moral instincts due to reciprocal altruism is evidence that objective moral truths exist.  I happen to disagree with this idea, but I do not completely dismiss it (there are also non-theistic motivations for thinking they exist).  I do, however, think that the analogy to stereopsis and perception of three dimensions is a bad one.

The main point of the article is that science and religion are compatible.  Basically, you can use the scientific theory of evolution through natural selection (along with this notion of reciprocal altruism) in conjunction with belief in a creator that set it all in motion.  Note, however, that in order to use this approach, believers must still abandon the Judeo-Christian conception of an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God; but they can still keep a creator.  This is why science is not compatible with current theology, though it is possible that religion could evolve into some sort of deism that is compatible with this approach.

Wright argues that in order for peace to be achieved concessions must be made on the atheist side as well.  I will grant him that the idea of a creator is compatible with science, and I feel like most atheists (though not the really stubborn, belligerent ones) would do this as well.  However, that is not the argument that theists are making.  If/when religious discourse abandons irrationality, then real dialogue can begin.  It seems logical to observe complexity and wonder if that is evidence of a designer, or to observe "convergence" and wonder if there are objective truths.  Debating from that point of view would be more worthwhile than using beliefs based on blind acceptance of a book of myths.

This is not a New Year's resolution.

School's out!  W00t!  Note to self...do not wait until finals week to start your 10+ page philosophy papers.  Those last couple of weeks almost took me back to my days of pulling all-nighters as an undergrad.  Yeah, you can't do that when you have to work 40 hours a week.  This is where I pledge to manage my time more effectively next semester...and then end up failing horribly again.  Speaking of next semester, I'm switching to 2 math classes and 1 philosophy class (after Boeing made some massive changes to their tuition reimbursement program...but that's a topic I'm probably better off not blogging about).

So now that I don't have work, school, or soccer (and haven't for the past 5 days) until work on Monday (I guess Sunday for soccer), it's time to get my life in order.  Here's how bad things are...

I have a puzzle that's been sitting in the same state (only the border is complete) on one of the desks in my home office for the past year. I haven't gotten around to filing the CDs that are sitting around my living room since I moved into my house 2 years and 7 months ago.  Nor have I put up the artwork that I bought right before that time.  In the last year, I've almost bought as many books, intending to read them all, as the number of pages that I've so far read in all of them combined.

I need to get that task list under control.  My excuse has been that every time I've had a significant break from work/school, I've been on a trip somewhere around the world.  I can't say that this winter break, so it's time to do something about it.  The break has been semi-productive so far, but not as much as I would like it to be.  Perhaps I should be a hermit for the next few days and straighten all these things out.  My goal for next year, then, is to have everything in its right place.  Maybe I'll make that my new theme song...

Mew @ Metro (12/7/2009)

The first time I saw Mew in concert was at the Pitchfork Music Festival, where they played an abbreviated set (which is normal unless you're a headliner).  Being the fanboy that I am, I was eagerly anticipating seeing a proper Mew show, and had high hopes.  The band for the most part met expectations, though they did not significantly exceed them.

Tom and I showed up to Metro (a block away from Wrigley Field) about halfway into the opener's (All The Day Holiday) set.  Mew did not have a band touring with them during their brief North American jaunt, and instead chose to have bands audition to open for them in each city.  All The Day Holiday wasn't a bad choice, and I dug a couple of the songs I caught enough to give their album a listen yesterday.

We viewed the Mew set (the whole show, actually) from the upper balcony of the Metro.  The venue was a lot smaller than I expected.  This is generally a good thing, as it makes for a more "intimate" time with the band.  However, there were a couple of layers of people between us and the railing, so our view could have been better.

Their actual performance was pretty good.  They started off with four songs off And the Glass Handed Kites, including the trademark back-to-back "Special" (which I dedicated to Tom) and "The Zookeeper's Boy" move, followed by a couple from Frengers.  After this they rattled off five from my favorite album this year, No More Stories... (I'll spare you the full 23-word title), before finishing up the main set with one more oldie.  The encore was also heavy on Kites, with one from Stories, and one freaky interlude which featured a talking teddy bear.  I was quite surprised that they did not end the show with "Comforting Sounds", which seems to have been their standard closer (and what they closed with at Pitchfork).  "New Terrain", which seems like a natural opener (it was used this way at Pitchfork), was not played either.  You can find the full setlist here.

Speaking of freakishness, I would guess that a not insignificant portion of the crowd had nightmares that night after watching the videos projected during their set.  The images were by no means horrifying, but there were certainly some strange looking children or animals in most of them.  Jonas must have some weird things going on in that head of his...

Tom noted that Jonas looked "dainty" on stage, something he had not noticed during their Pitchfork performance because he was people-watching then.  At that show, Robert had described Jonas' stage persona as "meek".  I would agree more with the latter than the former, as I was not led to question Jonas' manhood in the way "dainty" connotes.  Strangely, though, I did think that he was a little less meek during this show than the last one.

So, what could have made the show better?  For one, the sound mixing seemed off on a few songs, during which I could barely hear Jonas' vocals.  This is a shame, as Tom describes his singing as "instrumental".  Bo could have also played a couple of the songs a little cleaner, though I can certainly understand the difficulty in reproducing the riffs used in "Introducing Palace Prayers" and "Repeaterbeater" in a live environment.  They had a couple of mini-jams (we all know that I don't like jams), but they were usually appropriate as intros or interludes - there wasn't a case where they just refused to end a song, which is one of my pet peeves.  They also left out a couple of my favorite songs: "An Envoy to the Open Fields" and "Cartoons And Macramé Wounds".

Overall, though, I was quite pleased.  If it wasn't for the freezing cold conditions and the fact that I had an early flight back to St. Louis the next morning, I would have insisted on waiting around afterward to try to meet the band.

4.6/5

Inspirational documentary of the month: Food, Inc.

First came An Inconvenient Truth, which turned me into a tree-hugging, earth-loving hippie for a couple of years.  And then I changed my mind and pondered making my own documentary entitled "So Spring Comes a Little Earlier Each Year: What's So Bad About That?".*

Then I saw Sicko, and jumped on the universal health care bandwagon.  Yeah, I've pretty much done a "John Kerry" 180-degree flip-flop on that one.  While I definitely like the idea of covering as many people as possible (I'm a softie for taking care of the people), Tim convinced me that health insurance should basically not be treated differently from car insurance, home insurance, or any other type of disaster insurance.  I could go on more about this, but that's out of scope for this blog entry.

Now, it's about the food we eat.  This topic was first broached by King Corn, which documented the industrialization of corn, how it has killed the family farm, and how corn now permeates the majority of the food we eat.  Food, Inc., further, "examines large-scale agricultural food production in the United States, concluding that the meat and vegetables produced by this type of economic enterprise leads to inexpensive but unhealthy and environmentally-harmful food" (description stolen from the linked Wikipedia article because I'm too unoriginal to come up with a better one).

Food, Inc. is definitely a movie worth seeing, if only to raise awareness and/or stimulate discussion.  My first instinct after seeing it is to become a vegetarian or only eat organic produce.  But I've had this reaction before, and it didn't last very long.  It seems that the lifestyle that I prefer (often on the go, never cooking for myself) is not very compatible with this choice.  And then there's the worry (briefly dismissed by one of the organic farmers in the movie) of whether we could feed everybody if the system shifted to organic policy.  I have some other solutions to the overpopulation problem that drives this concern, but I fear those are too radical for dissemination.

In any case, I invite anyone who has not seen this movie to do so.  Afterward (or if you've seen it already), you can engage me in rational discourse to convince me that I am overreacting, or underreacting, to it.


* - I should confess that I'm still a bit of an environmental hippie, but not for the same reasons.  In general, I think reusing, reducing, and recycling is a good thing, but a lot of my motivations are more financial these days (even though I still pay more for electricity), as opposed to attempting to save the world from impending doom.