Today I listened quite a bit to Bon Iver's Forever Ago. Bon Iver is new to me. I've seen several reviews and some mentions on discussion boards, but Forever Ago is my first album by the group. Overall, I'm very pleased with the album and will definitely be listening to it more. It's a very quiet album, consistent with my understanding of the group. Almost ambient sounds with nice chords and movement.

Heretic Pride is the wonderful new album from The Mountain Goats. It's a bit more musically sophisticated than earlier albums, but doesn't sacrifice anything to get there. Catch the second track, San Bernadino, for an example of how they've added some excellent string work. Still very much a Mountain Goats album with great lyrics and songwriting. If you're not familiar with The Mountain Goats,

Man I love Joe Jackson's music.  I remember the first album I heard back in the '80s on my roommate's nasty record player.  Not even being etched on tupperware and played back on a victrola could hide that music.  Now Jackson has a new album out,Rain, that's his first in 4 or 5 years.  I didn't even listen first, I just bought it.All in all, I'm very happy with it.  Some of

Today's music has been Brett Dennen's So Much More and Goldfrap's Seventh Tree. The former is listed as an alternative album while the second is country. Both classifications are wrong. These are pop albums and really good pop albums at that. Both are on the perky side and cover pretty standard pop topics of love and relationships. Don't sell them short though. Both are good listens and I don’t

Honestly. I really like this article as it does say things that are quite true about how music is produced.  But saying that sound is worse than ever is quite frankly ridiculous. When CDs we introduced in the 80's, the single most popular format for recorded music was cassette tape. Not LPs. Can anyone honestly convince me that an MP3 encoded even as low as 128 sounds worse than a prerecorded

I just mentioned MetaCritic in a post and thought I should provide a link. MetaCritic is a kind of review aggregator that allows me to see what several reviewers think simultaneously. It's nice as it provides lots of information, but it also prevents overlooking something because the one review you happened to see is negative.

Most excellent band. They've gotten quite a bit of hype, but it is well deserved. Eclectic pop without the alternative attitude. The link is to a MetaCritic review. Since Sylus died, this has turned into my default online review provider.

I spent the day trying to sync my iTunes library on two Macs.  Sounds simple.  I bought SuperSync as it seemed the most capable of the iTunes management packages I tried.  But, when you're slinging 8000+ songs across the net and dealing with an XML database, things are never easy.At the end of the day, I do recommend  SuperSync.  I got a ton done and did not mangle my iTunes

I must say that the iPod Touch saved me while trapped in a plane on the runway in Baltimore. Pat Metheny’s latest with Christian McBride certainly soothed the soul. Miracle Fortress also hit the spot with a nice pop flare. An unexpected treat came from Via Audio’s Say Something Say Something Say Something, an album I wasn’t expecting to enjoy nearly as much as I did.