tunequest

site-related news

Welcome to the new tunequest

Hello everybody. Starting today, tunequest is being served with WordPress, a very very cool content-management system/blogging tool I discovered while working on one of my day jobs. The previous tunequest site had been manually coded using Adobe Golive CS2. It’s a nice enough program (though prone to crashing), but it was tedious for maintaining a journal-style site. Golive will continue to be used ~~for the static pages (graphs and songlists) and~~ because I like its CSS interface and site integration features.

I’m hoping the new site will allow me to post more fluidly about the journey that is tunequest. Plus, as a database-driven site, I’ll be able to implement some more advanced features, such as the cloud.

In the meantime, I’ll be integrating those old musings into this new format.

One Hundred Sixty-Eight Songs (that’s 17 albums) in 3 days.

the flaming lips [ego tripping at the gates of hell]
the faint [danse macabre remixes]
david bowie [earthling]
the clebanoff strings [exciting sounds]
saint etienne [finisterre]
they might be giants [factory showroom]
chris cornell [euphoria morning]
cq soundtrack
nobukazu takemura [finale: for issey miyake men by naoki takizawa]
southern culture on the skids [dirt track date]
the chemical brothers [dig your own hole]
pizzicato five [couples]
mudhoney [five dollar bob’s mock cooter stew]
eyes wide shut soundtrack
the chemical brothers [exit planet dust]
yo la tengo [fakebook]
lalo schifrin [enter the dragon]

A very productive couple of days. in fact the past 6 days represents 8.6% of the playtime accomplished since tunequest began. not a bad performance. however, now i’ve got far too many tunes to write about here, so here are some quick thoughts:

Continue reading →

April 18-20 : 135 songs played. 34 removed.

so i broke the 3000 mark recently (which incidentally was the posies ‘open every window’ from the legendary dgc rarities compilation), and it occurred to me just how big a project this is and just how large, in practical terms, my iTunes library is. yeah, i know 14,000 songs is a lot, but really, in my head, it’s just been a number. though i am prepared to complete this project over the long haul, it seems daunting when i hit a milestone such as 3,000 (a respectable number by itself) and still see that i have more than 11,000 to go.

today’s entry:

deletron 3030 [deletron 3030]
christopher franke [babylon 5: a late delivery from avalon]
nine inch nails [demos and remixes]
yo la tengo [and then nothing turned itself inside out]
elastica [elastica]
oslo philharmonic performing tchaikovsky’s no.1
masamichi amano [battle royale]
dusty trails [dusty trails]
christopher franke [babylon 5: chrysalis]
marseille philharmonic live at the opera de marseille conducted by lalo schifrin

elastica, in my mind, never seemed to reach the point of appreciation where i would be like "yeah, elastica rules!" even though i’ve owned their debut album for almost 11 years. on the flipside, in those 11 years, i’ve never had a period of time when the band fell out of favor; there’s just been a consistent mild respect and liking for the music. and it continues to this day. elastica’s first album is really quite enjoyable, inventive and catchy. •

there is a lot to like about yo la tengo and if i had to name the preeminent band that carry’s the "indie rock" torch, they would be a top contender. and while their body of work is extensive and all of it is above par, none of their albums are as brilliant as 2000’s and then nothing turned itself inside out. it is a departure from the band’s earlier work, the kind of diversifying album rockers start to make as they get older. mellow and gently meandering, it takes a mostly moderate tempo and incorporates a wide range influences, creating a beautiful and relaxing collection of tunes. it was the song ‘madeline’ on this album that turned me from a casual listener to a real yo la tengo fan. and, of course, the song titles taken from troy mclure movies earn this record extra points. •

quickies:
dusty trails, the side project of former breeders and luscious jackson members, has a similar sound and feel to and then nothing turned itself inside out, but with a more 60s cinematic atmosphere to it. simply elegant it is.
nine inch nails demos and remixes is a bootleg that features some disconcerting early versions of now-familiar standards. if nothing else, it’s interesting to hear how the songs progressed before landing on an album.

April 14-17 : 163 songs played. 25 removed

last week was a good week for tunequest. not only is 381 songs a new weekly best, but i achieved a new daily best on april 10. this is precisely the pace i need to keep, but in retrospect it seems i spent all my free time working on this project last week and i hope not to burn out on it. as a bit of a bonus, i had a more productive than usual weekend contributing to this week’s gains.

and while i’m on the subject of progress, i made some new calculations that take into account the rate at which i’m weeding songs from my library, not just the rate at which i’m listening. so far, i’ve had a net decline of 5 songs per day. i’m fine with that; i know i’ve had detritus accumulating for years now and it needs to be cleared out. when those numbers are taken into account, it looks like i would be able to get though an additional 13,000 songs before the end of the year, a 1500 song surplus, which is certainly more optimistic than what the graphs are saying.

and while i’m on the subject of calculations (take that, segue!), i discovered that after 2 months of listening, the top 10% of songs are now responsible for 46% of the total playcounts, a 3% decline from when i started. this has lead me thinking about the iTunes library as a metaphor for economics and society. i imagine the total number of songs to be the population of a society and the number of plays a song has represents its "wealth." heck, this model even takes into account governmental directives; by listening to the lower-played songs, i’m "aiding the poor." this would be a fascinating essay to write. i may just do some research on it.

but enough meta, onward tunequest:

add n to (x) [avant hard]
michael andrews [donnie darko]
dennis mccarthy [deep space nine: the visitor]
dave grohl/foo fighters [dave grohl demos]
gorillaz [demon days]
glitter mini 9 [break up at the rock show]
philip glass [dracula]
golden shower GS [digital 2600]
four tet [dialogue]
nine inch nails [the fragile – left]
cibo matto [stereo type a]
howard shore [lord of the rings: the two towers]

Derided as self-indulgent by many, the fact of the matter remains that nine inch nails‘ the fragile contains some of trent’s best songwriting, just mixed in with more filler. ‘the day the world went away,’ ‘even deeper,’ and ‘the wretched’ (especially that one) are among the finest in the entire nails catalog. most of the fragile’s strength is on the ‘left’ disc, though ‘right’ starts off well but quickly meanders, but that’s a topic for another post. •

the dave grohl demos bootleg i picked up in paris (at fnac, maybe) 10 years ago, when foo fighters were still very new and still "dave grohl’s new solo side project." it’s an interesting collection of mostly pre-nirvana material, much of which would be reworked for inclusion on foo fighters self-titled and the colour and the shape. there’s even a live performance of ‘down in the park’ (official version appears on songs in the key of x) where dave doesn’t quite know the words and a solo acoustic version of ‘marigold’ (titled ‘color pictures of a marigold’), the ‘heart-shaped box’ b-side and only nirvana song that dave gets sole writer’s credit for. •

quickies:
miho and yuka, please stop appearing on everyone else’s records and put together a new cibo matto record, stereo type a is brilliant and we want some more, dammit. and don’t give me any of that ‘"we’ve broken up" business. you’re good on your own, but you’re great together.
speaking of miho, gorillaz’s demon days is an ok record, though somewhat disappointing. ‘feel good inc’ and ‘fire coming out of a monkey’s head’ are superlative.
and finally, i have heard the soundtrack to the end of the world, and it is ‘revenge of the black regent’ by add n to (x).

Some cleanly simple piano, well-played

If you feel the need or want for some good simple piano music, check out Mikhail Pletnev’s quite strong performance of Tchaikovsky’s Morceaux: 18 Pieces for Solo Piano.

On .

April 11-13

wow. a whirlwind of music the past couple days. i guess that’s what happens when impending deadlines force you to stay at the office into the wee hours of the evening. who says publishing isn’t a rewarding field?

some great music this time around:

alan silvestri [back to the future ii]
christopher franke [babylon 5: the ragged edge]
string theory [anhedonia]
hum [downward is heavenward]
christopher franke [babylon 5: lines of communication]
medeski, martin and wood [combustication]
john barry [across the sea of time]
stereolab [dots and loops]
christopher franke [babylon 5: the coming of shadows]
daft punk [discovery]
at home with the groovebox
mikhail pletnev performing tchaikovsky’s morceaux (18) for piano
mouse on mars [distoria ep]
christopher franke [babylon 5: no surrender no retreat]
oslo philharmonic performing tchaikovsky’s manfred symphony
yoko kanno [cowboy bebop: vitaminless]
orbital [diversions]
christopher franke [babylon 5 volume 1]
man or astroman? [destroy all astromen!]

•

while we’re on the subject of leaps-above-the-bar music, i must also mention both stereolab’s dots and loops and hum’s downward is heavenward. though i’ve been a stereolab fan for quite some time now (i’ve even been to 2 shows), i didn’t realize until i was preparing this write up how highly rated dots and loops is. stereolab is a great band, but it can be very uneven. on most albums, every 5 star song is countered by a 3 star song (the lowest on my ratings scale; 1 and 2 stars are reserved for organizational purposes), but not dots and loops. every song on that album is either 4 or 5 stars. ‘miss modular, ‘prisoner of mars’ and ‘parsec’ stick out as particularly outstanding works.

i remember my first stereolab reference. it was my senior year of high school and i was on a road trip with 2 friends and my mom, scouting colleges in central florida. we were walking around the campus of the florida institute of technology when my friend roy mentioned that he was getting into this new band stereolab (of course, the band had been together about 6 years at that point, but it was new to him). now, i never really trusted roy’s musical recommendations. our tastes overlapped for the most part, but not enough for me to heed his opinion. nothing really came of it, but i do remember seeing dots and loops laying about his room. it wasn’t until 2 years later when i heard cobra and phases that roy was vindicated in that regard. the rest, as they say, is history. •

a note about the babylon 5 music: i’ve gotten about 60% though my collection of it and i still can’t make head or tails of it. it all just sounds so… the same. the 30+ albums that make up the more than 17 hours of music is a lot to digest, particularly when it’s all a similar style. that’s not to say that it’s not good. each season’s theme is excellent of course, and some choice cues are great, such as the classical guitar work that i heard in the ragged edge today. but there’s a lot of more ambient ‘mood setting’ music that kinda blends together from album to album, which makes it hard to decide which tracks to take special note of.

then of course, there’s the coming of shadows, which also made the playlist today. the entire production team was firing on all cylinders for this episode, including christopher franke, who has written some very tense music for a very tense episode. if i had to recommend any of the babylon 5 albums, it would be this one. •

quickies:
some smooth slacker jazz from medeski, martin and wood.
the surf-inspired stylings of man or astroman?, including a rendition of the MST3K theme.
some competent electronic work from orbital.

April 10 – 91 songs played. 5 removed.

what a day! 91 songs played and 5+ hours of listening. that’s what i need to be doing everyday. it’s not likely to happen, but it is something to strive for.

~~also, it seems that this tunequest page has managed to obtain a google pagerank of 4 in just over a month. from what i understand, that’s pretty good, so huzzah for tunequest!~~

bjork [selmasongs]
blind melon [blind melon]
massive attack [blue lines]
danny elfman [batman returns]
matmos [a chance to cut is a chance to cure]
franz waxman [bride of frankenstein]
danny elfman [batman]
savath + savalas [apropa’t]

i’ve mentioned before about the randomness of the ipod and, despite allegations that the device isn’t very random in the first place, one shouldn’t read too much into supposed patterns of play.

nevertheless, it is disconcerting that my ipod chose to play not only danny elfman’s batman and batman returns, but a performance of the adam west batman theme by the royal scottish national orchestra. the ipod even tried to play batman again after i was forced to stop and restart at one point. it’s all randomly possible, i know, but is still wiggy. not that it matters, elfman’s batmans are classics and his theme is, of course, instantly recognizable. recommended all around. •

speaking of scores, i had pegged bride of frankenstein as one destined for my dust bin. after a careful listen though, i must say that i am fascinated by it. it was composed in 1935 and sounds much more like an orchestral suite or ballet than a film score. it turned out to be quite the highlight of the day. •

also some good trip hop by the likes of massive attack and some excellent spanish-influenced melodic downtempo by savath + savalas (aka prefuse 73 amongst other things). •

and a final note about blind melon, a group whose music it seems i should have outgrown by now. i’ve had the album for 13 years now, and it is inseparably linked to and trapped in time with the alternative explosion of the early 1990s. sometimes i think it’s time has just come and gone, but fads aside, it features song really decent songwriting with catchy hooks and impressive guitar noodling. blind melon’s debut is more mellow, groovy and musically complex than many of its contemporaries. though i feel like i should let it go, but just can’t seem to make myself do it. •