I didn't buy a lot of new music last year. Only 19 full-length CDs. Whereas I purchased about 50 CDs which had been released prior to 2003. I suppose that means that I am not too hot on contemporary music. There is not even one newcomer in my top ten. So if you know of a 2003 album which you could imagine I could like given that I like the following please tell me in the comments.

Excellent:

• Robert Wyatt - Cuckooland
• Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
• Yo La Tengo - Summer Sun
• Cat Power - You Are Free

Pretty good:

• Massive Attack - 100th Window
• Howe Gelb - The Listener
• Jay Farrar - Terroir Blues
• Bonnie Prince Billy - Master and Everyone
• Go-Betweens - Bright Yellow, Bright Orange
• American Analog Set - Promise of Love

Honorable mentions:

• Calla - Televise
• Swell - Whenever You're Ready
• Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Pig Lib
• Neil Young - Greendale
• Added: Rickie Lee Jones - The Evening of My Best Day

I mean albums which are great from start to finish. Without filler. Just things coming to my mind now. Sometimes I am not too sure. This is indicated by a question mark in brackets.

• neil young - after the gold rush, harvest, time fades away, live rust, ragged glory
• joni mitchell - blue, court and spark, hejira
• velvet underground - vu & nico, vu, loaded
• nick drake - five leaves left, pink moon
• joy division - preston warehouse, les bains douches
• montgolfier brothers - seventeen stars, the world is flat
• smiths - hatful of hollow, the world won't listen
• swell - well?, 41
• yo la tengo - electropura, summer sun
• cat power - what would the community think?, moon pix(?)
• giant sand - center of the universe(?), chore of enchantment
• belle & sebastian - if you're feeling sinister
• blue aeroplanes - swagger
• cocteau twins - heaven or las vegas
• cowboy junkies - lay it down
• cure - seventeen seconds
• mark eitzel - west
• brian eno - another green world
• field mice - where'd you learn to kiss that way
• serge gainsbourg - l'homme à tête de chou
• gun club - lucky jim
• house of love - "butterfly"
• idaho - year after year
• tom liwa - ich reite auf einem pferd auf dem sonst nur frauen reiten
• modern lovers - the modern lovers
• my bloody valentine - loveless
• new order - movement
• nirvana - mtv unplugged
• mary margaret o'hara - miss america
• jeffrey lee pierce - wildweed
• pinback - this is pinback
• pink floyd - dark side of the moon
• pixies - bossanova
• red house painters - down colourful hill
• sonic youth - dirty
• talk talk - spirit of eden
• teenage fanclub - bandwagonesque
• tindersticks - the first tindersticks album
• wedding present - seamonsters
• wipers - youth of america
• arab strap - philophobia(?)
• beatles - revolver(?)
• robert wyatt - old rottenhat(?)

p.s. johnny cash - solitary man, primal scream - screamadelica, jesus lizard - goat, lambchop - is a woman, tom waits - nighthawks at the diner, robert wyatt - cuckooland

p.p.s radiohead - amnesiac, hail to the thief


 
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[music, lists] November 5, 2003 at 11:35:00 PM CET


Lists the world doesn't need, part 5284




Bands and solo artists for which I am in the top 100 results at Google:

• Östro 430 (no. 1)
• Sun Kil Moon (no. 3)
• Tom Liwa (no. 4)
• Okkervil River (no. 7)
• Fehlfarben (no. 18)
• Montgolfier Brothers (no. 22)
• Mark Kozelek (no. 24)
• Loose Fur (around no. 60)

Pretty lame all this but you know I am obsessed with the interweb and all that.

A propos interweb I am not sure whom to blame for the awful look of my new blogroll (scroll down, it is on the right) which has been decimated substantially to about 60 items. The programmers who didn't allow German Umlauts or my German fellow bloggers who nevertheless use them in their blog subtitles. Ouch!

P.S. In case your blog is not in the blogroll it doesn't necessarily mean that I don't read it anymore. It can be because of that but often it means that you do not ping weblogs.com after each posting and therefore blo.gs doesn't know the correct timestamp of your blog. I will make a static page (maybe even on the front page) with all the other weblogs I read soon, promised.


 
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[music, lists] October 7, 2003 at 10:46:00 PM CEST


What does your music collection say about you?




No idea, really but I liked the thread on ILM called Random A-Z where you make a selection of all the music you own and condense it by accidentally choosing one album per first letter of the artist. My result obtained by Excel random function applied to the Access database with almost 2,400 items (CDs, records, tapes etc.) with lots of embarrassing stuff but some goodies too:

• anyone's daughter - piktors verwandlungen
• buffalo springfield - on the way home
• chopin - sonate nr. 3 h-moll (harasiewicz)
• daf - alles ist gut
• eleventh dream day - lived to tell
• friends of dean martinez - wichita lineman
• jan garbarek - eventyr
• mick harvey - intoxicated man
• incredible string band - the 5000 spirits
• keith jarrett - always let me go
• bb king - king of the blues 1966-69
• low - trust
• moby grape - live grape
• friedrich nietzsche - kompositionen
• oregon - always, never and forever
• pavement - brighten the corners
• q: nothing!
• reverend horton heat - lucky
• michelle shocked - the texas campfire tapes
• troggs - greatest hits
• ub40 - present arms in dub
• stevie ray vaughan - soul to soul
• chris whitley - dirt floor
• xtc - drums and wires
• neil young - decade
• frank zappa - jazz from hell

 
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[music, lists] April 17, 2003 at 12:31:00 PM CEST


Music for the next two weeks




Catherine and me are going on holiday to Perpignan tomorrow. I selected twenty albums (my cd wallet holds 24 but I'll take some lyric sheets) to listen to, ten new ones and ten older ones. The list:

• Cat Power - You Are Free
• Howe Gelb - The Listener
• Go-Betweens - Bright Yellow, Bright Orange
• Keith Jarrett - Always Let Me Go
• Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Pig Lib
• Massive Attack - 100th Window
• Mountain Goats - Tallahassee
• Radiohead - Hail to the Thief (p2p mix)
• Suicide - American Supreme
• Yo La Tengo - Summer Sun
• Laurie Anderson - Strange Angels
• Peter Gabriel - Passion
• Negresses Vertes - Mlah
• Lou Reed - New York
• Velvet Underground - Loaded
• Neil Young - After the Goldrush
• Mark Eitzel - West
• Belle and Sebastian - If You Are Feeling Sinister
• Joy Division - Les Bains Douches
• Tom Liwa - Stäfa/CH

 
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[music, lists] March 13, 2003 at 10:10:00 PM CET


Music for insiders




Some albums by bands I have hardly ever listened to at all up till now but which have been praised by some connaisseurs. What is essential, what is overhyped? Any tips?

• Dead C - Trapdoor Fucking Exit
• Merzbow - 1930
• Boredoms - Super Ae
• Mr Bungle - Disco Volante
• PIL - Metal Box
• Disco Inferno - DI Goes Pop
• Stockholm Monsters - Alma Mater
• Bark Psychosis - Hex
• AR Kane - i
• Slint - Spiderland
• Seefeel - Succour
• Piano Magic - Low Birth Weight

 
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[music, lists] December 19, 2002 at 10:25:54 PM CET


Albums to check out




I'd be extremely happy for a comment concerning the following albums which are on my wish list. Which ones are rubbish, which ones are awesome? Please tell me. I am a little bit in the blogging bardo (Tibetan for the place in between life and death) right now, sorry for that. All those Christmas parties drained me out somehow.

• Suicide – American Supreme
• Add N To (X) - Loud Like Nature
• Mary Margaret O’Hara – Apartment Hunting
• Mountain Goats – Tallahassee
• Low – Trust
• Wire – Read & Burn EPs
• Reindeer Section – Son of Evil Reindeer
• Hayden – Live at Convocation Hall
• Neil Halstead – Sleeping on Roads
• Beth Gibbons/Rustin Man - Out of Season

top referrer today: 10 Yahoo - Loose Fur


 
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[music, lists] December 10, 2002 at 7:56:32 PM CET


Best of 2002 lists




Agnes M does a countdown of the best of 2002 with mp3 links to one to four songs every day in her music blog this is not an exit which I probably discovered via Wisdom Goof. As of today she is at #11 which is Ugly Casanova's Sharpen Your Teeth by Now with the four mp3 links still working. I didn't even know that the Tindersticks (#15) had a new album out with the characteristic title Trouble Every Day. Wilco on #12 seems quite reasonable to me too. I am very curious about the next album doors she will open for us like in an Advent calendar. Someone who names The Smiths, Joy Division and the Pixies as three out of five favourite bands can't have a bad taste ;-)

Kenan Hebart from Analog Roam also did a post on the Best of 2002 with links to other people's lists. His list has Beck on the top spot, Interpol on #2, Wilco on #4, Sonic Youth on #10, Yo La Tengo on #11 and the two Tom Waits albums on #12. Another nice selection.

This Is The Thread Where We Post Every Single End of Year List We Can Find and The Best of the first 2/3 of 2002 (not really true I guess as the last posts are from December) at I Love Music.

Dean Martucci did a long list in his blog Notes from Slipping Acres (December, 5th) including some usual suspects like Beck, Lambchop, Wilco, Interpol and Tom Waits.

As of now my favourites would be:

• Montgolfier Brothers - The World Is Flat
• Lambchop - Is a Woman
• Tom Liwa - Two Originals...
• Hayden - Skyscraper National Park
• Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
• Tom Waits - Alice
• Sonic Youth - Murray Street
• Yo La Tengo - The Sounds of the Sounds of Science

 
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[music, lists] November 25, 2002 at 9:42:55 PM CET


Bands to grow old with



• Bad choices: U2, The Cure
• Unclear choices: Sonic Youth, Wilco, Lambchop, New Order, Radiohead (after Amnesiac I wouldn't put anything past them)
• Good choices: Giant Sand, Beck, REM
• Excellent choice: Yo La Tengo

 
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[music, lists] October 29, 2002 at 12:26:52 AM CET


Food for the ear




Finally I ordered the following albums from Glitterhouse, my favourite mail order in Germany. It will probably take a week or so before I get them, they are not Amazon.

• Comsat Angels – My Minds Eye 6
• Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump limited edition 2 CDs 16,5
• Hayden – Skyscraper National Park 15
• Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas 16,5
• Neu! - 75 13,75
• No-Man – Returning Jesus 14,75
• Rocket from the Tombs – The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs 14,5
• Sonic Youth & ICP & The EX - In the Fishtank 9,75
• Trembling Blue Stars – Her Handwriting 16,5

 
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