Friday, February 19, 2010

Pooped

How do I stopped from being burnout?
I don't even know where to start up.

Again.


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Saturday, February 6, 2010

Top 2009: Honorable Mention

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31. Owl City - Ocean Eyes [77.33 %]
Notable Tracks:
Cave In. The Saltwater Room. Tidal Wave.

32. Röyksopp - Junior [77.26]
Notable Tracks:
Happy Up Here. Vision One.

33. Kevin Devine - Brother's Blood [77.17]
Notable Tracks:
All Of Everything, Erased. Time To Burn (Another Bag Of Bones).
Hand Of God (When You Breathe, Breathe...).

34. Sea Wolf - White Water, White Bloom [76.67]
Notable Tracks:
Dew In The Grass.

35. Enter Shikari - Common Dreads [75.67]
Notable Tracks:
Juggernauts. Wall. Hectic.

36. Dance Gavin Dance - Happiness [75.00]
Notable Tracks:
Tree Village. NASA.

Favorite Compilation/Mix Album: Tiesto - Kaleidoscope

Favorite Soundtrack: Brother's Bloom Original Soundtrack [Nathan Johnson]

Favorite Live Album: The Starting Line - Somebody's Gonna Miss Us


(Next post... Top 2009: 30-20)


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Top 2009: Introduction II

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Q: How did you compile this list? How did you rate the music?

A: Even though this was a list of my favorite albums, I felt it was not only necessary but top priority to be true to myself and my opinion... and not get entirely wrapped up in what other people believe to be the (quote... unquote) best albums.

Understandably, personal opinion isn't the easiest thing to measure.
(It's fkking hard, and time consuming.)

So I just re-listened to all the albums that I pick up from 2009.
Kicked back with my laptop and my iTunes library...
And one by one, I rated them. And not by a 5-star system like iTunes offers, conveniently.

But an additional 6-star.
Many will consider this, just simply... stupid. Unsmart.
And at times, I think the same.

But I felt the only way to describe a quality of a track was through 6-stars.


For example:
(As seen above) is my rating of Discovery - LP.
The iTunes rating system allows me up to 5-stars (obviously lol).
But when I thought about it, 5-stars just didn't do enough justice to the best of songs.
So to mark a 6-star track (for evaluation purposes), I just uncheck the box to the left of the track title.

The best way of describing this theory is through a simplification of the scale and its correlation with "skipping":

6-star: Never skip this track. And in many occasions, I skip songs to get "here".
5-star: Great song. Rarely skip.
4-star: (If I'm listening to the whole album, usually won't skip.) The song is alright. Nothing outstanding.
3-star: Skippable track. Usually is skipped, unless I'm not paying attention. Haha.
2-star: (WTF is this?) Always skipped.
1-star: This never happens. I don't listen to complete trash [alternative rock]. (Delete)

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After I rate the whole album.
I added it all up. Divide by number of total tracks (some times excluding short interlude or intro tracks that are just unrateable.)

From there, you get a number __ out of 6.

Some final ratings, tied with other albums. So in that situation (which happened a lot)...
I just counted up 6-star tracks.

Example: Discovery - LP [4.5 out of 6] (1 track)

...And that's how.

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Q: Why did this post come more than a month late? [It ain't 2009 anymore, dumbass.]

A: It was a little bit of bad planning, with a side of burning myself out with work.
And like I stated prior...
1. I had to go back and find every album that I got this year.
(I missed a couple, down the long run. So I went back and corrected this.)
2. Decipher which one's came out in 2009.
3. Listen to it mostly all the way through. (Some tracks were obvious 5 and 6-star tracks to me.)
4. Listen to particular tracks over and over again. (My attention strayed off a lot, especially in the late hours.)
5. Calculate.
6. And then I found myself extending the list, because I felt like a list of 10 was enough (in proportion to the music I listened to in '09), or a list of 15... And then it became a list of 20. Et cetera, et cetera.

The Top 2009 list is officially 30, with a set of 9 Honorable Mentions.

-After opening up the list to (technically) 39, I did a lot of visual refining for the layout of this list on Illustrator. And hours of fine tuning, frustration, a little bit of learning and relearning the program, saving of multiple files over multiple programs...

I just didn't plan this out properly, with all consideration.

Looking back, the only way that this could have been released (lets say) mid-December...

...was if I starting this whole entire project in October.
(Which in turn, would have taken many albums that were released late 2009 out of consideration.)


[With all that being said... I'm almost entirely happy about the final product and its tardiness.]

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This concludes the introduction.
Have fun.


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Top 2009: Introduction Part I

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[Late or not late, I was gonna find a way to post this.]

2009 was a year of settling down, for me [and music].
It wasn't a year of trying out new genres, like the past couple years have been.

I guess the years prior to 2009... have been about trying things out. New things.
Experimenting, in a sense.

With that being said, this doesn't at all mean I've listened to less music.
It's really quite the opposite.

For one, I went back and uncovered a lot of hidden gems from years past.
(Which this particular list won't cover any of these, cause its a list of albums from 2009.)

Two, I really dug deeper into the artists that I always had enjoyed. And artists that have particularly same characteristics.

And three... I guess there was only two pieces of evidence. Lol.


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Preface: I guess this is it.

Fuhk.
This is a weirdly uninspiring moment.
I actually finished the Top 2009 [albums] list.

[Ahhhhhhhhh]
(Yeah, that was a subconscious thought.)

Let me set up this big project, creative writing piece, whatever you may call it.

Since I started [really] listening to music; 7 or 8 years ago...
I got into talking about my favorite albums of that particular year.

I was so excited to catalog my opinion. And display it in an aesthetically pleasing manner.
[Being the visualist that I've grown to be.]

These were probably my earliest experiences with... what probably wasn't considered blogging quite yet...let alone, my earliest experiences of writing in general.
Outside of school work, that is.


Finding out that you enjoy something "scholastic" has to be one of the most profound moments that one can ever have

...at least for me.


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These yearly retrospective's have become a tradition to me.


Life is all about closure.
Proper closer.


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Why settle for silver when you can go for gold, baby?

Last Place Winners (L.P.Dubb) interview.

0:46, hahaha.

twitter.com/lpdubb
myspace.com/lpdubb

(They better be paying me for all this exposure.)


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Thursday, February 4, 2010

Oh man.

What have I learned today?
...


Hmmm.


Well...

1. Peanut Butter (the cat) is freaking the fuck out.
2. Brandon is awake, and he still brings an A game with BP.
3. Bill will sleep anywhere.
4. Cats shed everywhere. Thus its impossible to hide from them.

5. I'm hungry. But I shouldn't indulge.

6. I believe I should be sleeping, and should be handling any serious words for another day. [Preferably, in 5 or 6 hours.]



Be back then.
Iono, if people care...

But thank you to everyone, who supports consistent means of opinion.

Communication is the most vital tool to a successful ___________.

Mad Libs that shit, cause I'm messy.
Nite, love of my life.


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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Best song [ever].



Assuming that all things are equal,
Who'd want to be men of the people,
When there's people like... you.



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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Cudi, and couple other things.

(Pay attention to the cry beat at 1:14. So good!)


1. I love Ottoman by Vampire Weekend. [I really do.]
2. Cudi's acting debut, HBO's How To Make It In America premieres February 14th at 10pm.
(Fk Valentine's Day.)

















3. If you like Cudi, take a listen to Theophilus London's mixtape, This Charming Mixtape.
(Or roll over to greenlabelsound.com and listen to his single "Humdrum Town".)


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