Albums added in October: 24,319

eMusic Features

Halloween Ear Candy

Featured Selections

Ani DiFranco

Queen of independent alternative folk, Ani DiFranco makes her eMusic debut with a whole mess of albums – from the earliest on her own label Righteous Babe up through recent studio releases.

Lush, Topolino (12)

Along with the sunny change in style Lush showed on Lovelife, they also put out a blizzard of quality B-sides. This Topolino is one of two regional collections of those (the Japanese version having a slightly different track listing), featuring a number of summery gems. Others are included on the singles also added this month.


Scooter, The Age Of Love (11)
-, And the Beat Goes On (11)
-, Back To The Heavyweight Jam (12)
-, Mind The Gap (14)
-, No Time To Chill (12)
-, Our Happy Hardcore (10)
-, Sheffield (12)
-, The Stadium Techno Experience (12)
-, We Bring The Noise (12)
-, Who’s Got The Last Laugh Now? (12)
-, Wicked! (11)

Along with Dune and Blümchen, I spent a lot of time and even more money tracking down these import albums of happy hardcore mainstay Scooter, many of which never made it far out of Germany despite being in English (although they have had significant success in the UK). In addition to the albums above, numerous singles and compilations were also added.

t.A.T.u., Happy Smiles (12)

Despite losing the tabloid allure of their faux teen-lesbian act, t.A.T.u. continues to turn out enjoyable pop albums. And like their prior releases, this saw dual release – first in Russia as Vesyolye Ulybki (Happy Smiles) and then repackaged as Waste Management.


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Albums added in September:14,769

Featured Selections

Handsome Family, Through the Trees (13)

Funny story – my friend TNG played this alt-country couple’s album essentially non-stop for six months in an office we shared, and I hated it. Now I can’t live without it. I have since sampled the rest of their catalog, and while still quality all, they never top the lyrical genius and sublime modesty of tracks like “Weightless Again”, “My Sister’s Tiny Hands”, “Giant of Illinois” and “The Woman Downstairs.”

The Notwist, Neon Golden (13)

Glitch acoustic-inflected marginal pop, of the Ms. John Soda vein. “Consequence” will remind you of something you can never quite pin down.

Ulrich Schnauss, A Strangely Isolated Place (8)
-, Far Away Trains Passing By (6+6)
-, Passing By (4)

Ulrich Schnauss started out in homage to early Tangerine Dream and gradually evolves over multiple releases into warm 90s shoegazer ambience, sounding like instrumentals left off Slowdive’s Souvlaki.

Hector Zazou & Swara, In the House of Mirrors (10)

It came as a shock to discover that Hector Zazou had died, which I found out simply by reading a user review of this, his final collaboration.


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Albums added in August: 12,936

Featured Selections

Blümchen, Best Of (33)

A fantastic double-album collecting Blümchen’s hits from the happy hardcore of Herzfrequenz to the sophisticated dance-pop of Die Welt Gehört Dir, plus numerous remixes.
[ed. note: Under the revised album credits system, this is an even better bargain - 33 tracks as a 12-credit album.]

Nina Deli, Bricolage (6)

A MySpace discovery, Nina produces hushed post-triphop atmospheric balladry.

Hybrid, Soundsystem 01 (15+12)

Despite being a mix collection featuring numerous high-profile electronic beat artists (Trentemøller, Sasha, Spooky) the composition and prevailing mood frame a much quieter, downtempo, emotive experience anchored by film composers like Harry Gregson-Williams (Kingdom of Heaven, Man on Fire) and John Murphy (28 Days Later, Sunshine).

Ra Ra Riot, The Rhumb Line (10)

Debut album by act often described as a cross between Arcade Fire’s majestic scoring and Vampire Weekend’s jittery pop. Includes their cover of Kate Bush’s “Suspended in Gaffa.”

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Albums added in July: 13,106

eMusic has (finally?) garnered a Web 2.0 makeover, adding in the obligatory design elements: large type treatments, pastels, glassy controls, AJAX motion, and of course gradients. Each album is also now festooned with related content from YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, and 17 other ’social networking’ sites. Fortunately many of these are collapsable so you can avoid them if you’re not doing more than just grabbing an album.

What I find most exciting, in suitably pedantic fashion, is the inclusion of much higher resolution album artwork. eMusic still features a lot of releases that are difficult to source elsewhere, which also includes finding quality cover art. Their prior thumbnails were even smaller than the iTunes default badge, let alone suitable for environments like CoverFlow or the iPod Touch. If you’re appreciably obsessive, you may want to go back into your download library and upgrade some of your album art, although it should be noted that some albums still have only the smaller original image and patchwork default images reminscent of Sierpinski triangles.

Featured Selections

Einstürzende Neubauten, The Jewels (15)

Collection of tracks originally offered to band supporters via the band’s site at neubauten.org. A step back from the more-conventional songcraft of previous works (e.g. Alles Wider Offen) to earlier experimental flair. Doubtless this is due to the origin of the tracks, which were constructed based on idea cards similar to Eno’s “Oblique Strategies” and taking lyrical cues from dreams.

Head Like A Kite, There Is Loud Laughter Everywhere (13)

I originally discovered Head Like A Kite via Pandora suggestion based on a playlist derived from the Cranes, though they sound very little alike. Loud Laughter, HLAK’s second album, takes more chances, covers a wider range of influences, and includes the irrepressive “No Ordinary Caveman.”


Nine Inch Nails, The Slip (10)

Trent Reznor’s online promotion experimentwas to distribute the album digitally for free as a reward to fans (still available on the band’s site). Along with Ghosts I-IV, the album restored my faith that Reznor &co. could still put out quality material that wasn’t generated by the same algorithm and sound blender combination that composed much of The Fragile on. Since you can download the album for free elsewhere, the main motivation to purchase here is to support NIN as you might buying the physical copy.

Ratatat, LP3 (13)

Jubilant rock carnival instrumentals make for infectious playground listening.

The Secret Meeting, Ultrashiver (10)

Collaboration between Curve’s noisemaker Dean Garcia and Collide’s vocalist kaRIN. With Collide already being among the most Curve-esque of the darkwave contingent, the crunch-clash result is the kind of beautiful noise you would expect.


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Albums added in June: 13,347

RIP George Carlin

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Anything pertaining to the Guitar Hero/Rock Band duopoly garners exhaustive attention nowadays. So it’s no surprise that Neversoft’s major follow-up to Guitar Hero III is bigger in most every way in a bid to unseat Rock Band with its immersive group play.

IGN: Guitar Hero World Tour Preview

But under the face-melting surface, World Tour’s greater influence may ultimately be in the steady march towards unifying simulation (pretend you’re a rock star!) and emulation (make actual music!). In the past we’ve come to this junction from the other direction, using game platforms as engines for music production: MTV Music Generator series on the Playstation 2 (used by artists like Boomkat to sketch out songs), Nanaloop on the Game Boy (part of the 8-bit music movement), and upcoming touch-studio offerings for the iPhone like MooCowMusic’s Band and Intua’s BeatMaker. Meanwhile, rhythm games by the likes of Harmonix (Frequency, Amplitude, Guitar Hero) and Konami’s Bemani division (Beatmania, Dance Dance Revolution, GuitarFreaks) have gradually introduced ever more elaborate interactions between players and underlying musical performances. In FreQuency, for example, a secondary mode allowed players to ‘remix’ songs in freeform fashion after unlocking them through normal play.

Based on this early preview, World Tour is even more ambitious with its Music Creator mode. While normal gameplay will center around the established note-matching mechanism for various instruments, the proposed editor supports multi-track note creation for each of the supported instruments (minus vocals, evidently for legal reasons—cross apply the perversities that abound in most online smack talk and this makes regrettable sense). Premade loops, tempo control, and beat quantizing are provided within a wizard interface to simplify the learning curve. For laying down tracks, the guitar controller provides extensive options: you can program drum machines through the new touch-sensitive fret strip on the guitar controller, trigger samples by fret buttons, change pitch with the strum bar and sample speed through the Star Power tilt control. Need more crunch? Licensed Pod modeling technology from Line 6 lets you can choose your amplifier. Want to generate notes algorithmically? Use the built-in arpeggiator. Once you’ve finished laying down tracks, a separate mix mode is available for looping and editing. Finally, you publish your creation (complete with custom cover art) to an online community store where others can download and play it within the game. User ratings will drive online charts. Voilá, you’re a published musician.

One of the most common comment-thread trolls since the release of Guitar Hero has been purist backlash: "why not play a real guitar?" Up to now, the typical answer is along the lines of, "because this [playing a simplified game]  is more fun than learning the real thing." And certainly, to remain successful, World Tour will need to retain that sense of rock star power at mere mortal effort levels. But the potential for the Creator mode, and whatever follows it, to create a new level of musical expression suggests an exciting future of entertainment all its own.

I have never watched The Sopranos, and my knowledge of plot points is mostly limited to examples given in a lecture from The Sopranos and Philosophy (specifically about Tony Soprano as an ethical manager). Yet I still found this exhaustingly detailed argument about the final moments of the series finale to be compelling reading. The unattributed author calls on intertextual references, cinematographic clues, symbology, authorial intent, film precursors, and philosophical precepts to make the case "why Tony died in Holsten’s in the final scene of The Sopranos." Even without any of the necessary background as a viewer, I can certainly appreciate the obsessive passion to craft a canonical resolution to a long-running and well-regarded series, as well as some of the formal elements that are particular to fan discussions (e.g. unnamed characters discussed by acronym—see the comments for a suitably pedantic mini-debate over the correct abbreviation for "Man in Member‘s Only Jacket").

The Sopranos: Definitive Explanation of “The END”

Albums added in May: 13,572

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John Timmer reports on studies from the journal Science which suggest that ineurotransmitter levels influence perceived fairness:

Exploring the neurochemistry of fairness

First, consider the notion of innate fairness. People who participated in a experimental transaction called the Ultimatum Game (a simple 2-party example of game theory) tended to reject offers they perceive as ‘unfair’ even though doing so results in them receiving less. This reinforces a recurring theme in current economic theory that participants often act fundamentally irrationally (e.g. Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational and other efforts in behavioral economics). One hypothesis drawn from the Ultimatum Game is an underlying evolutionary selection of a shared ‘golden rule,’ given the comparative advantage of group cohesion this might reinforce.

Second, the implications of the neurochemistry itself are more sobering. Even basic negotiation is often based on latent manipulation through psychological leverage; more advanced techniques sometimes exploit physiological factors such as room temperature or sleep deprivation to affect pliability. The casino industry has invested heavily in psychological profiling both in developing comp systems and interior design to lower inhibitions and increase the desire to stay on the gaming floor (high ceilings, rounded walls, indirect lighting, running water)—some examples are given in a short featurette on the DVD for Ocean’s Thirteen. Pushed a little further, you can see some of the same techniques deployed in the fields of law enforcement and the military as interrogation aids, as well as within specialized training such as SERE. In each case, the environment and physical comfort of the targeted participant are manipulated to lower their resistance, gain their trust, or ultimately obtain some concession.

Moving from science to science fiction, you can find ready parallels to controlling serotonin and oxytocin with the Pax used to curb aggression on the Outer Rim planet Miranda in Joss Whedon’s Serenity; the drug Prozium in Equilibrium and Soma in Brave New World; and more obscurely, the hormones produced by alien Powers that activate the ‘god module’ (aka neurotheology) in humans from Walter Jon Williams’ Voice of the Whirlwind. In each, the population is effectively controlled through their own neurochemistry by instilling languor, reducing aggression, suppressing emotion, etc.

Remember the instant photo? Almost four months ago, Polaroid announced that they were no longer planning to make their trademark instant film, following the end-of-life status for their instant cameras last year. instant film stocks are projected to last only through 2009. They have also shut down their other film lines, including large-format and professional-grade lines. At the time, they announced a partnership with ZINK (Zero Ink) Imaging to market a new product based around their crystal-based dye paper. And now they have announced the PoGo portable photo printer, due later this summer:

Polaroid PoGo

The PoGo – short for "Polaroid On the Go," a seemingly unnecessary repetition of the cultural meaning of "Polaroid" – is about the size of a compact digital camera and can accept digital prints from camera phones via BlueTooth or from PictBridge-capable cameras by cable. Rather than normal dye- or ink-based photo printers that rely on quickly-exhausted cartridges, the Zink process embeds all of the color technology within the special photo paper itself. Embedded dye crystals are manufactured molecules that generate the necessary additive hues to create color prints under heat. The paper currently produces "2×3 in. borderless sticky-back prints" in about a minute.

Despite the claim of "fade-resistant, long-lasting images," it will be worth testing just how long these instant photos hold up, like their spiritual predecessors and other home printers. The entire class of photos that have been produced by digital cameras and never committed to professional printing raise rather wide-ranging questions about future provenance. What will we hand down to our grandchildren in place of unfinished photo albums and shoeboxes of snapshots? Will we still be able to read even now-ubiquitous formats like JPEG and the various RAW flavors in 50 or 100 years, like we can with earlier generations of photography going back to examples like daguerrotypes? As with the physical book, the printed photograph requires no special reader, no software, no compatibility matrix. Until flexible, non-volatile media like E-Ink or Zink develop equivalent endurance, we risk losing entire generations of family history to the junkbin of obsolete media.