The Fabulous World of Music

since being back this summer, a third flowering of new music has happened in my life.

the first came my junior year of high school with the advent of cable internet and file sharing. through user of peer to peer programs like napster and (the best sharing application of all time ever) audio galaxy, i started to lay the foundations for my future music collection. during this time i sought to deepen my catalogue of groups i knew i liked (beastie boys, beck, weezer) and try out new music i had heard glimpses of when in other circles i would not have normally (daft punk, yesterday's new quintet, television). in several cases, this actually led me to purchase hard copies of the music i had already obtained.

the second boom came my senior year of college. i had left peer to peer sharing behind and graduated to rTunes, allowing me to acquire music from other people's iTunes on my college's network. i again used this to expand into some new areas i had only heard were good (godspeed you black emperor, iron & wine) and some i knew to be good but hadn't ever pulled the trigger on in store (sigur ros, jackson 5).

while the third boom hasn't necessarily been due to any technological advancement (apart from music rescue, maybe), it hasn't been any less prolific. with the help of Andrew, Lisa, and the amazon.com mp3 store, new music has been in abundance this summer. also, frequent trips to best buy and half-price books. albums purchased this summer have included

"the definitive collection" by stevie wonder
"the white stripes" by the white stripes
"elephant" by the white stripes
"mothership connection" by parliament
"weezer" (the red album) by weezer
"modern guilt" by beck
"odelay" (10th anniversary double cd edition) by beck
"rabbit fur coat" by jenny lewis with the watson twins
"chronicle, Volume 1" by creedence clearwater revival
"rock and roll part three" by ozma
"the essential earth, wind and fire" by earth, wind and fire
"seeing sounds" by n*e*r*d
"reflection eternal" by talib kweli
"return to the 36th chambers" by o.d.b.
"paper trail" by t.i.
"t.i. vs. t.i.p." by t.i.
"tha carter 3" by lil wayne
"enlarged to show detail" by 311
"flight of the conchords" by flight of the conchords
"rodrigo y gabriela" by rodrigo y gabriela
"feed the animals" by girl talk
"night ripper" by girl talk
"free at last" by freeway
"hvarf - heim" by sigur ros
"med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust" by sigur ros

chances are i may have missed one or two, so if you have intimate knowledge of the music situation, please add missed purchases in the comments.

another large part of the music addition this summer has been through the singular kindness of Tyler Christensen and his big box of rap cds. while i won't list as exhaustively the new arrivals, rest secure that i now have such seminal albums as "straight out of compton," "fear of a black planet," and "stakes is high."

the last piece of the puzzle for new music summer has been free online mixtapes. highlights include "man in the mirror mixtape" by rhymefest, "dilla-gence" by busta rhymes, the entire "we got it 4 cheap" series by clipse, and "totally flossed out EP" by the cool kids.

i'm going to work on putting together a best of new summer music playlist for a future post. should be pretty exciting.