Death To Lala

"Lala is shutting down. What this means for you."

Lala was recently bought by Apple to ideally help boost their iTunes platform (though there have been no new announcements about any incorporations to the iTunes platform). The deal was most certainly made to kill competition and the end result has finally reached me and all end consumers. As of May 31, 2010 I will receive $275 in iTunes credit because of the sheer volume of $1.00 web albums I bought over the past 15 months. I will certainly need it to rebuild my playlists, all of which I had to cut & paste into a spreadsheet like the true anal music collector I am - nothing left behind, no meticulous playlist building efforts lost.

So...moving on! I have decided to put my chips down for Grooveshark now - http://listen.grooveshark.com

Grooveshark is similar to Lala; you can listen to any song for free. It also has elements of Pandora in that you can build your own internet radio station based on artists you like and they will find similar songs to expand your horizons. Also like Lala, you can tap into anyone's collection to discover new music and build a community. It is free to sign up though they have a $25 annual fee for an enhanced platform that gets rid of the ads. I am not yet sure it is worth it because I have had no trouble using the free version so far. Grooveshark seems to be climbing the ranks of sites to find new music, stream music all the time and find fellow music heads around the world. 50 to 60 million songs are downloaded everyday and since last year their audience was growing 2-3% daily (the source: http://blogcritics.org/music/article/musicians-find-fans-at-grooveshark-artists/)

While I continue to figure out how I can build playlists to keep feeding all of you with new songs, I am going to start suggesting and tagging all of the many artists' web sites that stream their new albums before they come out, fellow bloggers that put up free songs and mp3s, RCRD LBL and Pitchfork.com for the newest music and remixes (although the latter also used Lala so we shall see what they offer).

Here is my first find for all of you - Band of Horses is streaming their new album Infinite Arms on their web site now before it officially comes out on May 18th. Visit their web site to listen; they organized the songs into a really cool picture pinwheel that rotate like a slideshow. I saw them at the New Orleans Jazzfest recently and their new songs sounded great live, particularly Compliments. For those in and around NYC, they are playing the Williamsburg Waterfront with Grizzly Bear on Sunday, June 20th and there are actually still tickets available so go get them: http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/h2oshows/

I am about to jump into wedding attendee season but I promise to write soon - maybe even collect my favorite songs to hear at a wedding reception and make a playlist? Comment/e-mail me your favorites for consideration!

What I Eat For Dinner, Mostly

With all of the 'Best Of' lists circulating around not only because it is the end of the year but the end of a decade, a pretty rocky one at that, I thought I would give you my very personal list. My criteria for judging each song had nothing to do with what Spin, Rolling Stone, Billboard, friends nor any other source said. I did not look at albums sold, concert tour earnings, or award winners (although I did enjoy going to the MTV Woodie Awards). I simply reviewed my lala.com collection and sorted by sheer number of times I played the song, and picked the top 25.

This is certainly not scientific - I have a large iTunes collection, listen to NPR music and woxy.com, and have a stocked iPod that were not consulted. I also had a slight bias towards keeping a few songs from albums that came out this year over a few older, more played classics; however you will see pre-2009 dates below that I could not bear to remove. Finally, as my last defense, several of these songs come from my 'she goes' playlist that is my favorite chill mix that I play late at night when I am working, writing, a little drunk or in need of comforting background music; it only makes sense that my relaxed mood music finally gets the praise it deserves.

I may very likely follow suit and follow this posting up with another one listing my top songs or albums of 2009, of the decade or go negative with my most hated songs. However, I decided to first give you a more intimate look into my music collection. I feel exposed, and maybe even a little embarrassed, or is that vulnerability? I suppose that is the feeling that anyone gets when sharing their preferences although, music is the throne for personal preference.

Enough of my rant, enjoy! The playlist is free to listen to, at least until Apple decides what to do with their new purchase - lala.com.

KEY: (Song, Artist, Year the album was released, Number of plays I have for the song)

1. Glass, Concrete and Stone, David Byrne - 2004 - 66 plays

2. The House She Lived In, The Veils - 2009 - 51 plays

3. Two, Ryan Adams - 2006 - 46 plays

4. Tightrope, Yeasayer - 2009 - 41 plays

5. Dog Days Are Over, Florence & The Machine - 2009 - 40 plays

6. Jacksonville Skyline, Whiskeytown - 2001 - 39 plays

7. Growing Up Beside You, Paolo Nutini - 2009 - 37 plays

8. Sit Down By The Fire, The Veils - 2009 - 34 plays

9. Sunlight, Harlem Shakes - 2009 - 35 plays

10. Goin' To Acapulco, Jim James, Calexico - 2007 - 33 plays

11. Goods, Mates of State - 2004 - 28 plays

12. Paranoia in B Major, The Avett Brothers - 2007 - 27 plays

13. Skinny Love, Bon Iver - 2008 - 27 plays

14. Whispered Words (Pretty Lies), Dan Auerbach - 2009 - 26 plays

15. Burial, Miike Snow - 2009 - 25 plays

16. Eet, Regina Spektor - 2009 - 23 plays

17. My Girls, Animal Collective - 2009 - 21 plays

18. Boulder to Birmingham, Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler (Live) - 2006 - 21 plays

19. Hysteric, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 2009 - 21 plays

20. Winds Of Change, Fitz and The Tantrums - 2009 - 21 plays

21. Lalita, The Love Language - 2009 - 21 plays

22. Daylight, Matt & Kim - 2009 - 19 plays

23. The Giant of Illinois - 2009 - 18 plays

24. Intro, The xx - 2009 - 14 plays

25. Little Secrets, Passion Pit - 2009 - 11 plays

There are some really great albums expected to come out in 2010, stay tuned!

Foresighting The XX and Family of the Year as two bands that will get BIG

I am calling it now - The UK band The XX and LA/Silverlake band Family of the Year are going to be big and popular by the end of the year. Both don't have that much information out about them and are newcomers but the buzz has been hitting me wave after wave and I am continuing the trend. I will have official confirmation of how good both bands are when I see them back to back on October 20th and October 21st when they come to New York.

Right now The XX are killing all over Europe, playing some of the dates with Florence & The Machine, which is another band I have really been into. The band is comprised of two boys and two girls from South London, they are only twenty but have producing abilities well beyond their years. Their sound is kind of like Massive Attack, Thievery Corporation or Hot Chip but more lyrical and they have that distant, slightly creepy, spacey sound down perfectly. It is perfect music to play while you are chilling with friends, bumping around the house doing little tasks or while getting some action (which makes sense since the tracks are chockablock full of sexual references). Their influences clearly come from R&B; they garnered a wave of buzz from covering Aaliyah's Hot Like Fire. These are the influences they list on their MySpace page: Aaliyah to CocoRosie, Rihanna to The Cure, Missy Elliott to Chromatics, The Kills to Ginuwine, Pixies to Mariah Carey and Justin Timberlake to Tracy + the plastics. Check out The XX album in the playlist on the right side of the screen - Intro, Basic Space, and Heart Skipped a Beat are my favorites. Also, look them up on MySpace for more tracks and other cities they are playing in November and December - http://www.myspace.com/thexx.

Family of the Year is a brand new find. I was told about them by their manager that lives in New York this past week. They are about to self-release their EP Where's The Sun on September 22nd, which is pretty incredible given that they have had such a huge response to their music even though they don't have an official album out yet. Ben Folds just asked Family of the Year to open for him on a few upcoming dates. The band is comprised of four guys and two girls; they describe their sound as 'post-teen spirit' and claim such influences as Chumbawumba, Barenaked Ladies, and System of a Down. They aren't on itunes or lala.com yet but you can hear several tracks on their MySpace page - http://www.myspace.com/familyoftheyear. They only have a few gigs in New York and LA up on their page but stay tuned, it is about to be packed with appearances. You will all have your chance to see them in a small venue the first time around and I suggest you take it. We all have stories about liking a band and not seeing them the first time around and the next opportunity you have is a big venue full of more late to the party teeny boppers than you can stomach.

Check out these other newcomers to my rotation:

Fitz and The Tantrums - good old soul with a modern twist a la Amy Winehouse or Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. Their album title is genius Songs for a Breakup Volume 1.

YACHT - like The XX but a bit more pop, get up and dance.

The Antlers - a darker Explosions in the Sky at some points, a dash of Radiohead and pinch of Yeasayer.

Ramona Falls - Menomena side project. Good, creepy rock.