Relevant History

It's nice to have a steady gig

The Mercury News has an article on the 5th anniversary of the debut of the iPod. It starts with a quote from Creative Strategies' Tim Bajarian, and includes the following:

"The iPod is the first glimmer of a future in which we will have very small devices that let us carry around tons and tons of information,'' said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a research director for the non-profit Institute for the Future. "That will have an affect on the way people relate to their pasts, and the way media serves as a source for shaping their identifies.''

The number of times Tim and I have been quoted in the same article is scary. Actually, he gets quoted all the time. I should say, the odds that I'll get quoted in an article-- especially an article about anything Apple-related-- and he won't are very, very small.

I really thought another line I tossed out-- "People carry the Walkman, but they wear the iPod; there's all the difference in the world"-- would make it into the article. But hey.

[To the tune of The Beatles, "This Boy," from the album "Anthology 1 (Disc 2)".]

Technorati Tags: ipod, ubicomp

A punch-up at a carbon trading market

From the Guardian:

The boredom caused by endless hours on the tour bus and a succession of anonymous hotel rooms are well known problems, but rock stars on tour now have something else to grumble about: the environmental impact.

Thom Yorke, singer with Radiohead, yesterday hit out at the "ridiculous" use of energy by such events, and threatened to stop playing far-flung destinations if steps were not taken to reduce carbon emissions.

He said: "The way that tours are structured now and the way it works is a ridiculous consumption of energy ... I would consider refusing to tour on environmental grounds, if nothing started happening to change the way the touring operates."

Unlike bands such as the Rolling Stones and Coldplay, Radiohead do not offset the carbon emissions caused by their tours, because they are not convinced of the environmental benefits of such schemes, which claim to make activities carbon-neutral by planting trees or investing in renewable energy projects.

[To the tune of Radiohead, "A Punch Up At A Wedding (No No No No No No No No)," from the album "Hail To The Thief".]

Technorati Tags: carbon trading, environment, music, Radiohead

New iTunes

Downloaded the new version of iTunes today. The icons are a bit different, but the cool new thing is the ability to have iTunes download artwork for music you upload, not just songs you get from iTunes.

It seems to have a little trouble with older jazz CDs, which isn't that surprising; and for some reason there's nothing for Paul McCartney's All the Best, which is mystifying.

[To the tune of Paul McCartney, "No More Lonely Nights," from the album "All the Best".]

Technorati Tags: itunes

Showtime?

Just tried to visit the iTunes store. There's a page that says, "It's Showtime," and the service is being updated. Fascinating.

[To the tune of 2Pac, "Secretz Of War (Featuring Outlawz)," from the album "Resurrection".]

Technorati Tags: ipod, itunes

Give me that old time rock and roll

A few weeks ago I made a Beatles CD for my son. I included an alternate take of "A Hard Day's Night" from the Anthology 2 CD, a rehearsal that has a nice, hard edge to it (and Paul forgets the lyrics at one point).

He loved it, and also the couple live tracks I wedged on the disc. They've now replaced Princess and the Pauper and various Sesame Street CDs as his favorite nighttime music. Believe me, it's a step forward.

But after listening to the live version of "Ticket to Ride" fifty times in a week, I decided it was time for something new. So I ordered the Live at the BBC discs. They're quite fascinating. They're like the Beatles giving a guided tour of the early history of rock and roll. And it's really fascinating to hear how far the Beatles evolve between 1962 and 1970: early on, you'd think they were a talented rock and roll band, but you wouldn't peg them for Most Creative Group of the Decade.

Of course, now my son is humming along to covers of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and the occasional show tune. Still, it beats yet "C is for Cookie."

[To the tune of The Beatles, "Sweet Little Sixteen," from the album "Live at the BBC (Disc 2)".]

The hive mind stops making suggestions to Steven Hawking, goes back to YouTube*

Via Wonkette, the Ted Stevens video mashup:

Really good.

[*Decode the reference!]

[To the tune of Grateful Dead, "Truckin'," from the album "1973-12-19 - Curtis Hixon Convention Hall, Tampa FL".]

Technorati Tags: humor, internet, music, policy

Ted Stevens remixed

Sen. Ted Stevens' "the Internet is tubes" remark last week have been remixed by Boldhead. It's pretty great.

[via Alternet and Firedoglake]

[To the tune of Paul Holcomb, "DJ Ted's Techno Tubes," from the album "The Bold Headed Broadcast".]

Technorati Tags: humor, internet, music, policy, politics

WolframTones

WolframTones is unquestionably one of the stranger, cooler things I've run across recently.

WolframTones is an experiment in applying Wolfram's discoveries [described in his 2002 book A New Kind of Science] to the creation of music.

At the core of A New Kind of Science is the idea of exploring a new abstract universe: a "computational universe" of simple programs. In A New Kind of Science, Wolfram shows how remarkably simple programs in his "computational universe" capture the essence of the complexity--and beauty--of many systems in nature.

WolframTones works by taking simple programs from Wolfram's computational universe, and using music theory and Mathematica algorithms to render them as music. Each program in effect defines a virtual world, with its own special story--and WolframTones captures it as a musical composition.

Some of the music is pretty weird-- like Steve Reich or John Cage on a bad day-- but you can play around a lot with it, adding instruments, changing the tempo, etc.. Lots of fun.

Technorati Tags: emergence, music

Let the Eagle Soar

What the Internet was made for: video of John Ashcroft's "Let the Eagle Soar."

Technorati Tags: humor

Django Reinhardt

In Kepler's Books, while buying a Valentine's Day gift for my wife, I got a Django Reinhardt CD. Reinhardt makes regular, if brief, appearances in Alan Furst's books-- people put him on the Victrola while having a drink before dinner, or he's playing in the background in some smoke-filled brasserie whose walls are stained amber from years of patrons' cigarettes.

So far, I'm not sure what's special about him, or what sets him apart from countless other jazz guitarists of the 1930s. He's good, not question; but why is he timeless? Not clear yet. Must keep listening, I guess.

iPod is back

We seem to be back to normal down. I did a sync, and all is well.

Thank heavens.

[To the tune of The Blue Nile, "Tinseltown In The Rain," from the album "A Walk Across the Rooftops".]

Technorati Tags: ipod, London

iPod problem

UAL 954, over Canada. Just tried to play one of my playlists, and my iPod is refusing to play any of the songs from the iTunes store. It seems to play everything else just fine, and I can still play them on my Powerbook.

Subtracting those songs only leaves me with about 4200 songs to listen to, but needless to say, this is a Troubling Development. They include some of my absolute favorite songs, and of course I paid good money for them.

Not the sort of thing you want to have happen, especially on the road.

The one unusual thing I've done to the iPod recently is update the OS. I wonder if that wiped out the permissions? That would be a bug, not a feature.

Technorati Tags: ipod, itunes, travel

More crazy deliciousness

Two 11 year-olds do their own version of the insta-classic "Lazy Sunday" video.

A great example of how tools like iMovie lower the bar for media creation.

[To the tune of Billy Joel, "Captain Jack," from the album "Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (Disc 1)".]

Another quote

This time, in the San Jose Mercury News.

Thanks, Apple, for the whole mini-store dustup!

[To the tune of Johann Sebastian Bach, "- Allemande," from the album "The Cello Suites, Yo-Yo Ma (Disc 1)".]

Technorati Tags: applestore, itunes, privacy

Rock on

Finally, a carrying case for the iPod that will do justice to my Rick Derringer-Procol Harem-Blue Oyster Cult-ELP-David Essex playlist.

[To the tune of Bob Dylan & Grateful Dead, "All Along the Watchtower," from the album "Dylan & The Dead".]

Technorati Tags: ipod

Rob Dougan

Just discovered Rob Dougan, even though I've been listening to his "Clubbed to Death" from the Matrix soundtrack for ages. His work-- the songs I bought off iTunes, anyway-- remind me of Gary Numan's late work: a kind of brooding, heavy electronica that I find good background music when I'm editing.

[To the tune of Rob Dougan, "Born Yesterday," from the album "Furious Angels".]

The future draws just a bit closer

if memory serves, in Idoru (one of the later Gibsons, anyway) there are laptop computers made with composite wood cases and keypads made from shells or other natural materials. Now Treehugger reports:

Custom Wooden iPod Case by Peter Kinne:

Here's a creative, unique way to keep your iPod from getting scratched, scraped and otherwise defaced that doesn't involve the usual ubiquitous, unsightly leather cases. Designer Peter Kinne has developed a handy wooden case that keeps your baby safe and looks good, too.

Technorati Tags: Apple, design, ipod

Virtuality, reality, and air guitar

This is a philosophy dissertation waiting to be written: what is real, and what is virtual, about the virtual air guitar?

[To the tune of Bread, "Guitar Man," from the album "Anthology".]

Technorati Tags: digital culture, digital/physical

The perfect stocking stuffer

I want one! (via GMSV)

The iPod Zepto

[To the tune of Michael McDonald, "I Keep Forgettin'," from the album "If That's What It Takes".]

Technorati Tags: humor

I always wondered about that

Other places Jimmy Buffet wasted away.

On the other hand, he's managed to turn that song into a chain of restaurants and a food and drink label. He may be wasting away in Margaritaville, but he's laughing all the way to the bank. It's as if Robert Plant and Jimmy Page were major players in lighter-than-air travel, or Stevie Wonder had a telecom.

Technorati Tags: music

Upon reflection...

...I've decided that the new Bang and Olufsen earphones are really, really good.

Technorati Tags: music

Catching up on the news

How did I miss this?

Yes Lyrics to Be Added to New Testament

[T]he Catholic Church's College of Cardinals voted unanimously Monday to incorporate the lyrics of Yes into the New Testament.

[T]he revised YesScriptures will feature a dazzling, airbrushed gatefold by artist Roger Dean.

Perhaps the most significant change is a more complete history of the life of Christ. In the revised account of Christ's temptation by Satan, the Lord and Savior is brought to a mountaintop overlooking a pastel landscape filled with exotic, half-melted rock formations and wispy, cloudlike trees. Christ, though tempted, "can see all good people turn their heads each day, and, so satisfied, He continues on His way."

Christ's rejection of the Lord Of Lies is then followed by a 16-minute keyboard solo by synthesizer maestro Rick Wakeman.

Talk about your supergroup....

[To the tune of Johann Sebastian Bach, "Toccata in C Minor BWV 911," from the album "Toccatas BWV 910-916".]

Technorati Tags: music

Mystery Jill Sobule fan

Someone in the office today has some really interesting stuff on their iTunes. They're a big fan of someone named Jill Sobule, who I've never heard of before, but who occupies the same musical space as Tori Amos, Joan Osborne, and Vienna Teng-- smart lyrics, interesting arrangements, punctuated with little sonic nods to the Beatles, Buddy Holly, Joni Mitchell, and other classics. Really interesting stuff.

Who's music is this? This is going to bother me.

[To the tune of Jill Sobule, "When My Ship Comes In," from the album "Happy Town".]

Technorati Tags: itunes, music

More iPod madness

From the New York Times:

While jogging in Central Park on a recent morning, I found myself following closely behind a man, also out for a run, pushing one of those fancy, three-wheeled sports strollers and listening to his iPod.

We were going at the same speed and, as I kept pace behind him, I began to realize that the runners passing us in the opposite direction were doing a double-take as they looked into the stroller and then at the man pushing it.

What curiosity was there to see? I wondered. A particularly cute baby? A small dog receiving the royal treatment? No, I decided, as I sped up to solve the mystery, my guess was that there was a distraught baby inside, crying incessantly, but to no avail because its father's ears were plugged with headphones.

All my speculations were proved wrong as I overtook the man and looked inside the stroller to see a girl no older than 2, listening contentedly to an iPod of her own - mini, of course.

[To the tune of Paul Simon, "Father And Daughter," from the album "The Wild Thornberrys Movie".]

Technorati Tags: humor, ipod

Other things at the intersection of music and sociability

A couple data-points from the present that point to the future, that I couldn't put in the Mercury News article because of length:

iChatStatus: lets you displays what song you're listening to in your iChat status menu;
iTunes insert in Kung-Log (now Ecto): publishes a description of the song you were listening to when writing a blog post.

Technorati Tags: Apple, ipod, itunes, music

Related to the myPod article

Greetings to anyone who's here via the iPod article in the Mercury News.

In the interests of driving up my monthly bandwidth consumption, here are links to other iPod-related things on the blog and elsewhere:

The Daddy + iPod set on Flickr;
The iPod cake;
A piece on random playlists;
iTunes visualizer, aka Toddler Mesmerizer;
My idea for hyperlinking in iTunes (actually this is the original post);
The best iPod case ever;
The birthday present;
My iPod earbud covers rant;
Thinking about smart playlists;
The deep meaning of shuffle;
If Proust had iTunes;
iTunes + Rendezvouz;
Spreading iTunes sharing.

Technorati Tags: Apple, culture, ipod

That was really quick

My Mercury News piece on the iPod is already out on the Web site:

From iPod to ourpod: Will it become a more social machine?

By Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

About a week before my last birthday, my 6-year-old daughter started thinking about what kind of cake I should have. In her world, birthday parties have themes, and birthday cakes are serious business: She once talked my wife into making a dome-shape cake, decorating it like a ball gown, and putting a Barbie in the middle. (The effect was a bit like Evita Perón at the prom.) After a few days, she figured it out. ``You should have an iPod cake,'' she announced.

Boy, that was fast.

I wonder if it'll still be out on Sunday?

Hey, so long as they check cashes....

Technorati Tags: Apple, cyborg, ipod, music

New favorite playlist

Interesting article on random playlists in Wired News, which makes a good point about all the claims that random playlists really aren't random:

The problem, it turns out, isn't that the programs aren't randomizing my playlists. They are. According to Jeff Lait, a mathematician and author of randomm3u, it's what's happening between my ears, specifically, in my expectations of what it means for something to be random.

To illustrate his point, Lait referred to a phenomenon statisticians call the birthday paradox. Roughly stated, it holds that if there are 23 randomly selected people in a room, there is a better than 50-50 chance that at least two of them will have the same birthday. The point: Mathematical randomness often contradicts our intuitive expectations of randomness.

What we want, Lait says, isn't a list that's been randomized, but one that's been stratified, or separated into categories that are weighted by a listener's preferences. A stratified playlist might select songs randomly but would be smart enough to throw out choices that, say, would repeat a band within 10 songs.

As I've noted before, I spend the intellectual energy on iTunes playlists that I used to spend making mix tapes (and it turns out I'm not alone), so pure randomness isn't something I've coveted. Instead, I've had two recently that I've been working through: one that plays top-rated songs that I've played fewer than five times, and top-rated songs that I haven't played in the last 90 days.

The former playlist is down to under ten songs, and it's inevitable that it will zero out. The latter, on the other hand, is more likely to deliver value over time: it's like finding that really album that got mis-filed in the back of the milk crate when you were packing up two apartments ago.

I still want hyperlinking in iTunes; but I like how it's possible to set the program to reconnect you with music that you say you like, but haven't listened to in a long time.

[To the tune of Jessica Andrews, "Now," from the album "Now". A far more amazing song than it has any right to be.]

Technorati Tags: Apple, itunes, music

iTunes Visualizer, aka Toddler Mesmerizer

In What the Dormouse Said, John Markoff tells a story about Steve Jobs showing him iTunes. At one point, Jobs turned on the visualizer, and remarked wryly that "it reminds me of my youth." This then led to a long discussion about LSD and its importance to early computer hackers-- and Markoff's book.

My children have both been iTunes visualizer fans. My daughter finds it entertaining, but my son finds it downright mesmerizing. When he was a baby, and waking up at all hours of the night, the one thing that would invariably get him back to sleep was Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, and the visualizer. He'd see the patterns start in "So What," and get wide-eyed; then after a moment-- maybe once Coltrane's solo started-- he'd put his head down on my shoulder. By "Freddie Freeloader" he was transfixed, and calm; usually he was asleep before "Blue in Green." (If that didn't work, it was into the car for a drive.)

Now, when I'm putting him to bed he sometimes asks to listen to some song, "with the patterns." (He asks for it with the same cadence and tone of voice you'd use to order a mixed drink on the rocks: "I'll have a vodka tonic-- with the patterns.") Usually he falls asleep pretty quickly, the flicker of the visualizer lighting his face. He'll comment on them at first-- "That's bee-ooh-tee-full!"-- but after a couple minutes he'll just watch, then his eyes close....

Tonight he woke up around 11, and after a brief struggle over what kind of drink he could have before going back to sleep, I put him back to bed, with the promise that he could have the patterns. It took longer than usual, but it worked.

Who knows how long it'll help him fall asleep, or what the long-term consequences will be. Maybe I'm creating his generation's William Burroughs, or Paul Kahn. Or maybe when he's older, he'll just look at the visualizer and think, it reminds me of my youth, too.

[To the tune of Warner Brothers Symphony Orchestra, "What's Opera Doc?," from the album "Bugs Bunny On Broadway".]

Technorati Tags: children, visualization, What the Dormouse Said

Yeek!

I haven't seen any of these issues (thank heavens), but apparently some people are having trouble with iTunes 5:

A new version of Apple Computer's iTunes software released last week appears to be giving many iPod owners headaches, according to reports from across the Web....

People have reported a range of problems with the updated program, while others said the software works fine. Among those reporting problems, many say that trying to install the program causes their computers to crash. Others report that once they install the program, it won't transfer music purchased at the iTunes Music Store to their iPod, deletes playlists, interferes with other programs or generally wreaks havoc on their computers.

Thanks for the heads-up, Nancy!

[To the tune of Yes, "And You And I," from the album "Yessongs (Disc 1)".]

Technorati Tags: Apple, ipod

Playing around with Nicecast

I'm fooling around a little with Nicecast, a program that lets you create streaming audio from your iTunes playlist. I haven't actually got it working completely (i.e., no one can hear my stream but me), and I'm not sure I'll actually do it; it might be the kind of thing that works best on desktop machines.

But it seems like a nice thing to do.

[To the tune of section iv, "initial syllable," from the GotDigital.net stream.]

Technorati Tags: internet, music

All. My. Music.

Again.

They're shouting, "Kids love iPod!"

I'll have to not break this one.

The color screen is cool.

Definitely happy birthday.

[To the tune of The Blue Nile, "Let's Go Out Tonight," from the album "Hats".]

Technorati Tags: Apple, children, ipod

My musical doppelganger

This essay describes my musical adolescence-- indeed, my whole relationship with pop music when I was roughly 14-- so well, it's scary:

As Led Zeppelin's brilliant "Misty Mountain Hop" fairly exploded from the stacks of speakers above a new Alabama State Fair attraction called The Himalaya, I stood in line for tickets and bobbed my head. A high-school-age girl just ahead of me did the same, and at one point, she looked straight at me and smiled. And there you have it: an older girl actually smiled at me while Robert Plant wailed lyrics I still can't decipher. It goes without saying that I made plans to find the album, but the following week I chose Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd instead. This was a hideous, grievous error, made even more inexcusable by the fact that all three albums were in the "L" bin at J.C. Penney the afternoon that I purchased the Skynyrd classic....

Even if you weren't a teenager in the 70s, it's well worth reading.

[To the tune of Bread, "Guitar Man," from the album "Anthology of Bread".]

Technorati Tags: memory, music

A political movement everyone can get behind

Petition To Put Ray Charles On The $10 Bill

[To the tune of James Brown, "Papa Don't Take No Mess," from the album "20 All-Time Greatest Hits!".]

Technorati Tags: culture, music

Everybody Loves a Happy Ending

I recently bought the new Tears for Fears CD, "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending." I've long been a big fan of theirs-- I listened to "The Seeds of Love" pretty obsessively when I was teaching at Williams-- and had listened to the new CD a couple times at work, thanks to the miracle of iTunes sharing.

I wasn't completely taken with it, but ordered it anyway, mainly out of loyalty. But after a few days, I think it's brilliant It's not the sort of CD you can just listen to casually: it needs a little time to sink in. There's no catchy single on it, but I've never liked TFF's singles as much as their other stuff; instead, what you get is lots of complexity, interesting arrangements, and echoes of late Beatles and early 70s pop-- in a really good way.

I also got Blue Nile's "High" at the same time. It's also terrific, but in a very different way: if Tears for Fears is music that you'd listen to at night while walking around in a shiny, well-lit downtown, Blue Nile is what you'd listen to while looking at the downtown from across the bay, standing at the edge of the old docks, the hulking darkness of the abandoned warehouse behind you.

[To the tune of Tears For Fears, "Ladybird," from the album "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending".]

Technorati Tags: The Blue Nile, music, Tears for Fears

Ironically you can't play it on an iPod Shuffle

I'm not talking about music. I'm talking about iPod War.

[To the tune of Talking Heads, "Born Under Punches (The Beat Goes On)," from the album "Remain in Light".]

Technorati Tags: ipod, music

The Weight

Just found an amazing Grateful Dead cover of The Band's classic song "The Weight," from their September 4, 1991 concert. It's truly brilliant: soulful, heartfelt, yet also joyous. Plus Bruce Hornsby played piano with them on that tour, and is terrific.

The Internet Archive truly is a thing of wonder.

[To the tune of Grateful Dead, "The Weight," from the album "1991-09-04 - Richfield Coliseum".]

Up late, again

...trying to play catch-up with my work and various other commitments. I'm clearly getting old: staying up until 1 or 2 is no longer quite as effortless as it was when I was, say, in college. Gotta get some interns....

It also helps to maintain a strict no-TV rule, which keeps me from getting sucked into the 45-minute hospital shootout in Hard Boiled, or the Big Brawl in Matrix Reloaded, for the thousandth time. Instead, I'm listening to Ambrosia, a California lite-rock kind of group from way back when. They're one of the bands I rediscovered thanks to iTunes. But since I was a kid in the 1970s, when they had most of their hits, and I only had a terrible $29 stereo from K-Mart, I'm hearing a lot of what's in these recordings for the first time. A slightly curious sensation, to be so familiar with these songs, yet to have missed so much of the detail.

[To the tune of Ambrosia, "Biggest Part of Me," from the album "One Eighty".]

GrooveLily

One of the great virtues of being a Mac office is having access to my colleagues' music collections. (Many of us listen to music while we work; often, none of us will be listening to our own stuff, but will have on someone else's playlist.) Recently I discovered GrooveLily, a trio whose work is a mix Sea Level, Tori Amos, Vienna Teng, and Louisiana Leroux. (How's that for an obscure combination?)

They're really good. I'll have to add them to my Amazon wish list, if I can ever find it again.

[To the tune of GrooveLily, "Apocalyptic Love Song (I Don't Care)," from the album "Are We There Yet?".]

iPods in stereo. No, not that kind of stereo. A different kind

I know there are lots of cool things for the iPod, but this had got to be some kind of... record... or something.

The IPOD-Photo Stereoscope

In the early days of photography, stereoscopic viewing was all the rage.... Fast forward 100 years and with the help of what is now an antique stereoscope, a digital camera, and a device such as an IPOD-Photo, one can once again view colour stereopair images without specialised computer hardware.

Because, after all, when I look at an iPod, the first thing I think is, "Okay, that's nice, but really: how could I use it to revive a 19th-century visualization technology?"

The pictures really are worth several thousand words. It's a real testament to power of user reinvention.

[via unwirednews]

[To the tune of Elvin Bishop, "Fooled Around And Fell In Love," from the album "Essential Southern Rock (Disc 1)".]

iPod okay

It seems to be back to normal. (Don't worry, I Lab-- you don't have to pass around the hat for another one!) My normal life can now resume, and my plan to spend much of this evening listening to Radiohead, ELP, and Projections at metal-bending volume while trying to see the future of collective intelligence tools can go forward.

I don't notice it so much until I get it back, but when it's gone I miss my iPod more than my cell phone-- which is saying a lot.

[To the tune of Radiohead, "A Punch Up At A Wedding (No No No No No No No No)," from the album "Hail To The Thief".]

iPod update

I took my iPod to my neighborhood Apple store, and showed it to the guys at the Genius Bar. They were able to put some music on it, no problem. So there may be a problem with my Powerbook. Or maybe the problem was caused by the Entourage-to-iCal script I was trying out. Anyway, I've deleted the latter, and hope that the problem doesn't repeat itself when I plug it at home.

The spike continues

I thought I got a lot of iPod shuffle-related hits yesterday; this morning they've doubled. Very interesting.

Maybe I can parlay this into a new career as a music technology critic. You never know where links will take you. (Actually, I guess most of the time you just look at the status bar.)

[To the tune of Global Communication, "14:31," from the album "76:14".]

What should be after the iPod shuffle?

So everyone knows the iPod shuffle is out-- or everyone who's visited here in the last couple days, thanks to a couple old entries about it that Google thinks it should pay attention to.

As the proud owner of his second iPod, I think the shuffle is a very nice little device. But what's really interesting about it isn't just the industrial design, or the fact that you can wear it around your neck.

Rather, what fascinates me about it is that it's a product designed to work with a particular user practice. You can either set it to play songs in order (sort of a playlist for your entire player), or to play at random. And according to Apple, random is cool:

As official soundtrack to the random revolution, the iPod Shuffle Songs setting takes you on a unique journey through your music collection — you never know what’s around the next tune.... iPod shuffle rejects routine by serving up your favorite songs in a different order every time.... The trail you run every day looks different with an iPod shuffle. Daily gridlock feels less mundane when you don’t know what song will play next. iPod shuffle adds musical spontaneity to your life. Lose control. Love it.

I'm on record as a fan of the shuffle feature, even though I spend a lot of time on playlists (this is not a new thing-- when I was in graduate school, I took breaks from studying for my third-year comprehensive exams by making tapes for the party I was going to have after passing). Smart playlists are also great, and it'll be interesting to see if the iPod shuffle uses those, too.

But what should be next? Playlists, smart playlists, and shuffle are all cool. But there's another way to listen to my music that I've wanted for a while.

Hyperlinks. Or Hypertunes, as I described them a couple months ago:

[W]hy not do with music what we can do with electronic texts? Why not enable a kind of listening that isn't fixed and linear, but is still purposive and intentional? In other words, you should be able to create hyperlinks between songs, not just arrange them in a fixed order.

Start with, say, Halo's "Halcyon." On my playlist, I've got it between a song from the My Neighbor Totoro soundtrack and Mogwai's "Two Rights Make One Wrong," but it would also fit well in a playlist with Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb;" Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" (it's that combination of ringing guitars and sad melody); or Steve Reich's "Different Trains." Each of those songs, in turn, has its own associations for me; and those songs have their associations.

Likewise, Sting's "Stolen Car" fits well between Seal's "Prayer for the Dying" and Blue Nile's "Headlights on the Parade," but also would sound good with U2's "Ultraviolet," Bryan Ferry's "Slave to Love," or Starfish's "Under the Milky Way"--

--which in turn which works with Midnight Oil's "Beds are Burning," Tears for Fears' "Woman in Chains," or K. D. Lang's "Constant Craving," which I put in the same mental category as Nina Simone's "I Shall Be Released" (which in turn links to Dylan's version), Jessica Andrews' "Now," and Fiona Apple's "Criminal." And on and on, marching through one's hard drive.

An iPod that followed the paths I set (this song links to these other songs), and could throw in some songs based on categories I choose (include songs from the same album, or songs from bands that an artist was previously in, or songs that came out the same year), would be a formidable piece of entertainment technology.

The deeper point here is that we build multidimensional associations with songs-- we see stylistic similarities between different songs; we associate very different songs that we listened to at a certain time in our lives; we connect songs with events or friends (or, even more powerfully, exes); we mentally link songs that have overlapping personnel-- but playlists are linear, and the shuffle feature doesn't consider these factors at all.

Hyperlinks have been amazingly important for the development and management of textual content on the Web; making them a resource for music-- and for music listening-- would be something I'd love.

What other ways of slicing and dicing your music would be cool (other than better earbud covers)?

[To the tune of Röyksopp, "Eple," from the album "Melody A.M. [US Bonus Disc] (1 of 2)".]

Giant number of hits today

Since Apple released a new iPod, the iPod Shuffle, I've seen a tenfold rise in the number of hits this blog is getting, thanks to the fact that I've written two entries about the iPod shuffle feature.

Ha!

[To the tune of Cirque Du Soleil, "Le Rêveur," from the album "Varekai".]

Barbie-rian invasion

The last three artists I uploaded to my iPod was sample-heavy electronica by Machine Drum; Projections' Between Here and Now; and Royksopp's Melody AM. Wait, there's one more. What's the artist's name?

"Barbie"?

Not some obscure, ironic, poststructuralis, going to be sued out of existence by Mattel group. No, the real thing: the soundtrack from Princess and the Pauper.

A couple weeks ago, we gave my daughter the DVD, and it turned out to have a CD of the music with it. She's now memorized the music (though she later clarified, "I haven't memorized it, I just sing along with it"), and last week she asked me, "Could you put this on your iPod so I can listen to it?"

But I hate to say it, it's actually not that bad. Barbie seems to be on some kind of self-improvement kick, and is trying to stop being the plastic equivalent of Paris Hilton. (The competition being too intense, I suppose-- Paris Hilton being both real, and far more plastic than Barbie ever could be.) The Princess, for example, has a busy social calendar, featuring things like a talk at the Historical Society, followed by tea at the Horticultural Society (is she visiting the kingdom's royal societies in alphabetical order?), but she'd rather "sit in the library and read science books all day." Science books?

And the music itself isn't bad, in a light Andrew Lloyd Weber way. Pretty sophisticated, given the audience. But it's better than some evil cross between Ashley Simpson and Barney, which is what I had expected....

Still, I can't help but notice that Her name kind of jumps out on the playlist.

[To the tune of Jens Lekman, "Do Impossible Things," from the album "At The Department of Forgotten Songs".]

Apple headphones

My opinion of the Apple in-ear headphones after a day of using them is... they suck. Terrible bass, too quiet, and generally less satisfactory a listening experience than I get with nondescript $15 Sony earbuds.

Maybe I can sell them on Amazon.

Wired CD

The latest issue of Wired (the subscription issue, anyway, I don't know about the newsstand version) contains a CD. And for once, it's not the latest version of AOL's software. It's music, and some of it is very good.

Actually, it's a fairly diverse collection, so almost everyone will find SOMETHING that they like. Since it's so often the case that you only like one or two of the songs on a conventional CD, having one song you like on a free one seems like a real bargain.

HyperTunes?

I love playlists. I have 79 of them on my iPod, and devote the same kind of care to them that I once poured into party tapes. Yet I keep thinking, there's a better way to thread one's way through a music collection, creates a greater degree of surprise for the listener, yet still reflects their preferences and capitalizes on the idiosyncratic associations that we all develop between songs.

Rather than listening to playlists, which are a metaphor from radio broadcasting, why not do with music what we can do with electronic texts? Why not enable a kind of listening that isn't fixed and linear, but is still purposive and intentional? In other words, you should be able to create hyperlinks between songs, not just arrange them in a fixed order.

Start with, say, Halo's "Halcyon." On my playlist, I've got it between a song from the "My Neighbor Totoro" soundtrack and Mogwai's "Two Rights Make One Wrong," but it would also fit well in a playlist with Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb;" Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" (it's that combination of ringing guitars and sad melody); or Steve Reich's "Different Trains." Each of those songs, in turn, has its own associations for me; and those songs have their associations.

Likewise, Sting's "Stolen Car" fits well between Seal's "Prayer for the Dying" and Blue Nile's "Headlights on the Parade," but also would sound good with U2's "Ultraviolet," Bryan Ferry's "Slave to Love," or Starfish's "Under the Milky Way"--

--which in turn which works with Midnight Oil's "Beds are Burning," Tears for Fears' "Woman in Chains," or K. D. Lang's "Constant Craving," which I put in the same mental category as Nina Simone's "I Shall Be Released" (which in turn links to Dylan's version), Jessica Andrews' "Now," and Fiona Apple's "Criminal." And on and on, marching through one's hard drive.

An iPod that followed the paths I set (this song links to these other songs), and could throw in some songs based on categories I choose (include songs from the same album, or songs from bands that an artist was previously in, or songs that came out the same year), would be a formidable piece of entertainment technology.

Mono

I just discovered a Japanese band called Mono. I've been on something of an ambient/electronica kick recently, and just ran across them thanks to Salon's audio section (which I ignored for a long time, even though I've been a subscriber for a long time). They're pretty wild: the reviews I've read of them compare them to Sonic Youth (which I saw once in concert and was totally unimpressed by, though probably because I saw them in a club with terrible sound, and was on one of those blind dates that you just hope you survive-- it was like Martin Scorcese's After Hours... minus the humor or suicide) and the Scottish group Mogwai (which I'd never heard of).