The First Great Album of 2009 is… Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

Such is life in 2009 that “new music Tuesday” no longer means a drive down to the local Tower Records but slavish reloading of the iTunes home screen around 23:45 PST on Monday. And given the iTunes economy the idea of immediately purchasing the album is a rare decision indeed even for established bands that you love (can you say “St. Anger,” Metallica?). Right now there are only couple bands where I immediately buy the album without even listening: No Doubt / Gwen Stefani, Pet Shop Boys, Madonna, U2, The Killers, and moving forward The Bravery.

And if you get a certain sense from that list you’d not be too far off. New Wave + “Neo Wave. ”  Which, I am proud to say, means that I’ve kept the promise I made in 1988 when I wrote in the Residence Halls Association yearbook profile (I was a council member) that I hoped I’d still be listening to 80’s music in twenty years. I sure do listen to that classic music, especially thanks to targeted programming on XM radio. But the fact that the groups I tend to like today sound a lot like that bands I liked yesterday is no coincidence. 

Franz Ferdinand Tonight
Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

In any case, that brings us to today’s big release from Neo Wave stallwarts Franz Ferdinand. On their past albums I basically “cherry picked” the really good songs, a common practice in the iTunes Economy. Sure… I’ll buy the whole album but that’s not the default option. 

iTunes is nice in that you can listen to 30 second samples, but artist websites often have the full tracks. Franz Ferdinand’s MySpace page has all their songs available for listening, so I took a good listen to the tracks from today’s release, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand. The idea was to listen with the idea of trying to figure out which tracks were the “good ones” to pick off on iTunes. But as I listened I kept liking more and more of the tracks. And once you get to eight or nine, you might as well spend the $9.99 for the entire album.

There are easily eight or nine killer tracks on this album. Highlights include the lead single “Ulysses” and basically the rest of “side one” (“Turn it On,” “No You Girls,” “Send Him Away,” “Twilight Omens,” “Bite Hard,” and “What She Came For.”). Great driving beats, the classic “Franz Ferdinand” stomp, increased uses of keyboards, and new-wavy choppy lyrics.  The album has a couple so-so tracks at the end but the album does end on a great note with the short version of “Lucid Dreams.”

So congrats, Franz Ferdinand, on the first great album of 2009! 

MacWorld Predictions Scorecard

Well, Apple’s keynote has come and gone. How’d I do with my predictions?

Will Be Announced

  • Updated Mac Mini with lots of expansion options – nope
  • Updated iMac with faster processors (larger screens are a possibility, though I think it’s a longshot) – nope
  • Updated MacBook Pro 17″ with unibody enclosure – yep
  • iWork ‘09 with online/web/MobileMe component – yep
  • iTunes DRM free – yep
  • Hulu viewing on AppleTV – nope
  • iPhone 3G 32GB – nope
  • iPhone tethering option with AT&T (for too much money…) – nope
  • Pricing and ship date for Snow Leopard – nope
  • Lots of Christmas quarter sales numbers – Lots? No. Some numbers… Partial credit?

Won’t Be Announced – almost all yep

  • iPhone Nano (though I think a smaller form factor would be cool)
  • iPhone/iPod/Mac Tablet (though I think a larger form factor would be cool)
  • Mac Netbook
  • Touch screen iMac
  • Mac Pro update
  • Cinema Displays
  • iLife ‘09 – Oops.

Kind of a bummer I guess. A lot of folks were predicting Mac Mini and iMac updates, so I won’t feel bad about that prediction. I am kind of stoked about the iTunes thing, though. Along with getting rid of DRM, Apple also announced variable pricing on the iTunes Store (a consession to the record companies). You can also purchase iTunes music on the iPhone over 3G networks.

Now the DRM thing doesn’t really affect me since I have all Apple equipment, and thus I don’t have any compatibility issues. Still, I thought it would be interesting to see how much it would cost to convert all my previously purchased songs to the DRM-free format — for 30 cents a pop.

special-offer

Look, I’m no fan of DRM. But, like I said, the DRM doesn’t really bother me. It sure doesn’t bother me 93 dollars worth!

Special offer indeed.

Top Songs of 2008

This is my first post on the all-new Kevdo.com blog. Instead of creating another “personal” blog to go along with my iPhone releated blog, Useless Productivity, I decided to merge those into one, allowing me to blog about any topic and on a more regular basis. So, here we are… hope you like it.

In 2008 I decided to leverage the Play Count feature in iTunes and on the iPod to see which songs I listened to most during the year. I have looked at the statistics and in 2008 I listened to 1295 songs at least once. Of course, that number does not count any songs I listened to on CD, radio, XM, or elsewhere. It also doesn’t count all the podcasts I listened to, which are averaging about 2 hrs worth per day (and the sad part is that number might be a conservative estimate). 

So, out of those almost-1300 songs, which songs were listened to the most in 2008?  Here’s the top 20, with the song play count listed next to the artist.

  1. Fistful of Sand (Moon Version) - The Bravery (50)
  2. Every Word Is a Knife In My Ear (Moon Version) - The Bravery (44)
  3. The Name Of The Game (The Crystal Method’s Big Ass T.T. Mix) - The Crystal Method (41)
  4. Love Me Sexy (Frat Pack Remix) - Will Ferrell (41)
  5. Believe - The Bravery (39)
  6. This Is Not the End (Moon Version) - The Bravery (35)
  7. Paralyzer - Finger Eleven (35)
  8. Give It 2 Me - Madonna (34)
  9. Above and Below - The Bravery (33)
  10. The Little Things - Danny Elfman (33)
  11. An Honest Mistake - The Bravery (30)
  12. Fearless - The Bravery (30)
  13. The Ocean (Moon Version) - The Bravery (30)
  14. North American Scum - LCD Soundsystem (29)
  15. Reptile - The Church (28)
  16. A-Punk - Vampire Weekend (28)
  17. Funplex - The B-52’s (26)
  18. Crushcrushcrush - Paramore (26)
  19. Bad Sun (Moon Version) - The Bravery (22)
  20. Tyrant - The Bravery (21)

Well, obviously The Bravery take the cake in 2008. And their appearance in the top 20 has a lot to do with their 2007 Sun and the Moon album that was remixed and re-released in 2008 (hence the label “Moon version”). I like both versions of the album, though I like the remixed stuff better in general. But in any case I did listen to this album and my “Bravery Best” playlist quite a bit in 2008. 

Also note that the number above does not found the number of times I’ve heard at least a snippet of the Moon version of “A Fistful of Sand.” You see, I made a ringtone out of that song and it’s the default on my phone. So, I actually heard that song more than 100 times in 2008!

Number four on the list is the remix that I created of Will Ferrell’s “Love Me Sexy” (MP3 Download) from Semi-Pro. You could download all the individual music and instrument tracks and I was able to put them into GarageBand and tweak some of the levels and add additional musical cues. It was a lot of fun and obviously I ended up liking the results.

It’s also interesting to see a couple of my 1980’s icons on the list. “The Little Things” was from The Wanted Soundtrack and is very Oingo Boingo-ish. I really liked Madonna’s latest album overall and one of her tracks ended up in my top 20.

Of course, this list favors tracks released earlier than later in the year. As such, The Killers are the most likely “victims” of this since their recent album was only released in November. So, maybe it’ll be their year in 2009.

So, I guess I’ll reset all my play counts for 2009 and see who I end up listening to this year. If you had a favorite song, album, or artists in 2008 please leave a comment!

Happy New Blog Year Everyone.