Blazing Sun: The Music Issue

Been listening to a lof new music lately. Some recommended by friends, some just from exploration on my own. A friend told me about a website called Pandora. Pandora is an extention of the Music Genome Project which undertook to analyze music by tonality, beat, charactersitics, vocals, etc. Basically, you start by entering the name of a song or artist you like, and then it begins playing either that song or artist at first, followed by songs or bands similar to the one you selected based on those internal characteristics. It saves your "stations" and as you either give it thumbs up or down, learns your musical preferances. It's completely free, runs right off the webpage, and seems to stream music of pretty high quality. I find it works best to use only one artist/track as the "source."

I recently rediscovered Bush and have been trying to get my hands on more of thier music. Maybe its the grungy vocals and harsh guitars.

At school, everyone on the building network who is using iTunes simultaneously can see and play each other's music. I've browsed a bit, listening to more indie artists like Yo La Tengo, and Death Cab for Cutie. I like the latter one better, although its very quiet music. I was lucky to find someone had the music from Triplets of Belleville, with its french jazz.

Also enjoying some Norah Jones and early Alicia Keys. Found a ton of Enya, which is nice for a change of pace. All this new age and jazz- must be the stress.

A friend introduced me to Imogen Heap who have some unsual distorted electronic vocals in their "Hide and Seek."

Beck is also pretty cool. Especially thier Guero album. Kind of reminds me of Pedro The Lion with a little harder sound with the electric guitars and a hint of Mexico.

Speaking of which, the Colombian artist Juanes has some good music, especially "La Camisa Negra" and "A Dios le pido."

Other music I'm listening to: Muse, Aphex Twin, Franz Ferdinand's new album, New Order (Crystal is a great track), Steven Lynch, and other assorted trip-hop, electronica, alternative, and grunge.