Am albernsten fand ich schon immer das Wort albern selbst.

Marcello Carlin explains why 1985 was such a bad year for music. He goes through the charts and the NME best-of lists. Take half a day off to read it all.

Tutorial on how to convert tapes and records to CD in eight steps (via Mefi).

Bei mir in letzter Zeit immer häufiger bei Musik und gewissen Stimmen. Den Sänger von 16 Horsepower z.B. kann ich absolut nicht mehr hören. Der treibt mich zum Wahnsinn mit seiner Predigerstimme. Oder die gesamte Rockmusik der letzten zehn Jahre von Oasis über die Strokes, White Stripes bis zu Franz Ferdinand nun. Alles immer die gleiche Scheiße. Beschissene Kopien von beschissenen Kopien.

Ich nehme mal an, dass die Idiosynkrasie eine Alterskrankheit ist. Eine Art Vorgeschmack auf Alzheimer. Man ekelt sich nur noch vor der Gegenwart bis man dann nix mehr von ihr mitkriegt. Was ist nun erstrebenswerter? Das ist hier die Frage.

Favourite artists for each letter of the alphabet (via said the gramophone, only four in common with you, Sean):

• A - Laurie Anderson
• B - Beatles
• C - Cat Power
• D - Nick Drake
• E - Brian Eno
• F - Feelies
• G - Giant Sand
• H - PJ Harvey
• I - Idaho
• J - Keith Jarrett
• K - King Crimson
• L - Tom Liwa
• M - Joni Mitchell
• N - Nirvana New Order
• O - Oregon
• P - Pink Floyd
• Q - Quasi (the only band with Q I remember)
• R - Roxy Music
• S - Smiths
• T - Tindersticks Talking Heads
• U - U2
• V - Velvet Underground
• W - Wipers
• X - X
• Y - Yo La Tengo
• Z - ZZ Top

P.S. I also started a thread at ILM as I think this is a very good question to find out people with similar tastes. Taste cluster analysis could be interesting here.

Nobody says nothing in such a clever and funny way as Brad Zellar: All The Stories Have Not Been Told, But Those That Have Not Been Told I Do Not Have

Two blogs which have made me start my own weblog thingy have disappeared or are on hiatus.

Firstly Jorn Barger from Robotwisdom (cannot find server?) who physically disappeared and didn't update his page for more than three months. His beard grew quite long according to the photo in this Wired article which gives details of his whereabouts now. Barger started his site in 1997 and was one of the first webloggers. I have always found his internet approach interesting and instructive. He constructed some useful flat portal pages with lots of links to his favourite writer Joyce and also to Joni Mitchell, my favourite songwriter. He also thought a lot about language, artificial intelligence and the internet as a meeting-point of the two. On the other hand he was a little bit of an obsessive. The end of the Wired article shows that his common sense does not seem to be extremely well developed:

Josh Kortbein was the first music blogger. He started his Josh Blog end of 1998, I discovered it about a year later and have been reading it since. It has always been a difficult read with few links to the outside world. Music was often analysed from a theoretical viewpoint. In the past years the blog has been leaning heavily towards philosophy, especially Wittgenstein. On Christmas last year Josh wrote something personal in his blog which has always been a very rare thing. It was on depression and touched me and I wanted to mention it as this is a feeling I know but I forgot about it. Now his blog is on hiatus with the message

on top of the screen. I hope he gets better and I also wish that he will start blogging again soon. Here is the personal post which I lifted from the Google cache:

I know that my English is crap but I prefer to write in English as my German is even worse. It's a way of hiding the fact that I cannot even write properly in my mother tongue. I am joking but there is a grain of truth in this.

Inspired by this thread I am relistening to Roxy Music's Avalon. I still like some songs of it but overall it is a little on the shallow side. It's a nice chill-out album though. Outstanding tracks:

• Avalon (#3) for the coolness and the cheering girls in the background
• While My Heart Is Still Beating (#5) for Bryan's yodeling in the beginnning and the sad saxophone line
• Take a Chance with Me (#7) for the late start and the bouncing guitar
• Tara (#10) for the lyrical saxophone, the absence of Bryan's voice and the sweet shortness

Vorhin im Radio ging es um RFID (radio frequency identification), die chipbasierte Nachfolgetechnologie des Barcodes. Ein Datenschutzexperte sagte etwa sinngemäß, dass Big Brother heute kaum zu fürchten wäre, da die Staatsbediensteten sich als kaum kompetent bis völlig unfähig bzgl. neuer Technologien erwiesen hätten.

Ich schätze mal, es kommt eher umgekehrt. Die sollten sich warm anziehen, sonst können wir die Beamtenschaft morgen alle im Internet beim Büroschläfchen live beobachten.