iPod war - Some Meat Pete

In case you missed it, Pete finally contributed his bit to the war in the comments of the previous post. Just to draw attention to it, I thought I would copy his songs (and comments) as a new post. I have some things to say which I will add to the comments of this post in due course.

----

Alright, at long last, here's my attack (sorry for not having it as a new post):

1. The Mamas & The Papas - California Dreaming

First up, it's not looking good. To be honest, I didn't even know this was on the iPod, but I must have liked it somewhere along the line.

2. Oasis - Alive

A B-side from Jiggy, don't even really know the track. I'm beginning to feel like Napoleon invading Russia...

3. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Biomusicology

Might need an aspirin after this one.

4. Jebediah - Star Machine

Forgettable song from their patchy sophomore effort. Kev Mitchell is certainly producing far more worthy material these days.

5. Something for Kate - The Killing Moon

A decent cover of the classic Bunnymen tune, but nothing extraordinary.

6. Belle & Sebastian - Night Walk

From their disastrous "Storytelling" soundtrack. Not anywhere near as bad as the film, though.

7. The Go-Betweens - Spring Rain

Finally, something with a bit of iPod-war firepower! Opening cut from the great "Liberty Belle..." album.

8. Manic Street Preachers - ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart

Probably the most ridiculously titled song of all time, coupled with incorrect usage of an apostrophe. Not a bad cut, though, from a top album.

9. Split Enz - Bon Voyage

David Stratton writing in the Australia described it as "utterly shithouse."

10. The Go-Betweens - Finding You

The live version from their 2005 dvd/cd release, "That Striped Sunlight Sound." Nice track, but here's further evidence for the major flaw in the iPod shuffle, namely that particular artists seem to crop up early time and time again. Oh well, could be worse, could have been Travis or Nik Kershaw.

So there you go. I wholeheartedly surrender, and leave you wondering whether it was worth the wait. Clearly not. Looking forward to the next war, hopefully I'll fair a bit better! Thanks guys.

iPod war - Jiggy

Here's my random selection of 10 tracks from the 12,230 I currently have on the iPod:

1. Super Furry Animals - Download

A song which I originally considered to be one of the lesser tracks on Radiator, this haunting tune could even be one of the highlights. A great Gruff Rhys vocal, great piano...a great driving at night song.

2. The Kinks - Everybody's Gonna Be Happy

A bit "flower power" for my liking, as it's quite a bit dated. Not one of my favourite Kinks songs, but there's no denying that it's catchy, and the handclaps add a lot to the song.

3. Bob Dylan - New Morning

One of the least cynical and most positive songs in the Dylan catalogue, this is a pretty straight-forward love song, and one of the highlights from his 1970 album of the same name. A great melody, and feel-good lyrics. By 1975 he'd release his divorce album "Blood on the tracks".

4. Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A Changin'

A coincedence to get two Dylan tracks in a row. Everyone knows this song, one of his early folk classics. Not my favourite Dylan era (I prefer when he went electric), but there's no denying the power of this song.

5. Spiritualized - I Want You

Not a huge Spiritualized fan (despite the fact that I have 3 of their albums), this is pretty standard mid-90's psychedelic space-rock. It's okay but I don't think I'll ever really love this sort of music.

6. Menswear - Piece Of Me

A bit embarrassing that I have a Menswear album in my collection, as these guys are real Britpop "has beens". Not like Blur, Pulp and Oasis who survived the Britpop era intact (although some would argue against this). I'd like to be able to say I bought this album in the mid-90's, which is why I have it, but I actually bought it second hand in 2003. In all honesty this is a pretty good tune, although the lyrics are a bit cringe-worthy. Sample:

Sex is a secundary thing doomed to come dumb and king
What's your preference? Come on now and talk some sense

7. Simpsons - Dancin' Homer (Medley)

Hehehe. The "Capitol City" song by Tony Bennett from the season 2 "Dancin' Homer" episode of Simpsons. Brings back lots of memories from when Simpsons truly was a really good show, and not the abomination that it is now.

8. Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out)

A true Radiohead classic, this closer from their 2nd album "The Bends" was one of the first songs which really made me fall in love with them. Despite the fact that they have progressed musically since this, this is an amazing song, and makes be long for another album like "The bends".

9. The Lemonheads - Mrs. Robinson

A cover by the Lemonheads, which was a bonus track on their excellent 1992 album "It's a shame about Ray". A good, if predictable, early 90's American rock version of the classic Simon & Garfunkel tune.

10. The Shins - Mine's Not A High Horse

Appropriate that this should come up in the mix, as I only just purchased their new album "Wincing the night away". This song is from their last album, "Chutes too narrow" from 2003. This album is one of my favourites from the past 5 years, a truly excellent album of indie pop done remarkably well. James Mercer is a brilliant songwriter with great vocal delivery, and it's minor classics like this which make CTW so brilliant.

So who won?

iPod war - Wally Raffles

Wally Raffles just bought himself a brand new 80GB iPod. I'm jealous!

He's just ripped all of his music and challenged myself and The Blogger Formerly Known As NoMeatPete But He Has Now Started Eating Meat Again to an iPod war. For those who don't know the rules, you can read them here.

Here's Dean's selections, together with his commentary:

1. Powderfinger - Already Gone

Choice track, although I used to hate this song when I first heard it.

2. Split Enz - Walking Down a Road

A bit of an epic track, but quite enjoyable, I love that recurring piano beat/riff/tune (my lack of musical knowledge is showing here).

3. Rolf Harris - Football Crazy

Hehehe...one from the novelty collection. It's actually an alright song, pure novelty though, although I suspect it will get beaten today. The other interesting thing is that it has nothing to do with Australia at all (Harris' usual targets) - it's about English soccer.

4. The New Main Street Singers - Never Did No Wandering
(From "A Mighty Wind" soundtrack)

Despite being part of a mockumentary, this is actually a good song - I am still undecided on whether I prefer this version or the Folksmen version.

5. Tim Rogers - Up-A-Ways

Hehehe - I know you guys hate this track, but I actually don't mind it.

6. Paul Kelly - Everything's Turning to White

Choice - probably the pick of the list so far. Such a powerful song, such a great story, fantastic....

7. The Beatles - A Day in the Life
(From "Love" - but not dissimilar to the original)

Another great track, very true to the original. I think there is a little bit of subtle mashup at the end, but on the noisy train that was a bit hard to hear, so it was virtually like listening to the original version.

8. The Cruel Sea - It's Alright (Cos she loves me)

Great rocking track - I love that sound that the Cruel Sea get - like it's kind of intense, but feels really laid back at the same time...strange....

9. Amiel - Lovesong
(From "New Music from the Panel" compilation CD)

Hehehe - for a pop song, I actually like this song, despite the fact that it has been done to death on the radio. This version however, she replaces the word "stupid" with the word "F^$". Its actually a little bit over the top to be honest.

10. INXS - Bitter Tears

Typical solid INXS track.

I'll put my selections in the next post.

iTunes 7 rocks my world!

Apple has just announced iTunes 7.0, a new version of their popular iTunes jukebox software. Along with this comes an iPod firmware update. Just another update, you hear? No siree. Apple have finally added a feature that I have been wanting since I've had an iPod.

Gapless playback.

Yes, you read that right. Apple have finally fixed the gapless playback (segue) issue.

I've ranted about this in a previous post, and that was before I even purchased an iPod. In fact, it was one of the things which was deterring me from buying an iPod. Eventually I caved and got one, but it has always annoyed me. So much so, that I tended to avoid listening to albums like Dark side of the moon and Abbey road on my iPod because they just didn't reflect the experience of listening to the same albums on CD. I was always hoping that Apple would listen to their customers, and in this case they have and I'm very happy.

I'm happy they have implemented it, but I'm extra happy because they did it so goddamn elegantly. While initial reports (from various sources) indicated that I would have to manually go through my collection and tag the albums/tracks which require gapless playback, iTunes did all the hard yards for me. After upgrading, it ran a quick analysis over my 50GB+ library and automatically figured out which sequences of tracks require gapless playback. A quick iPod sync later, and I was listening to the awesome medley on Abbey Road as nature intended it. For the first time on my iPod, Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam were characters in the same story, not separate ones with gaps.

Niiiice! (those extra i's are in honour of Apple, who I am very happy with at the moment).

In an ironic twist, I was listening to Brian Wilson's SMiLE album just yesterday. This is an album where each track is a chapter in a complete work, with segues galore. I was holding off on listening to it because I knew it wouldn't be very good on the iPod. Now I can listen to it again just like Brian Wilson wants me to :)

FYI, the next item on my iTunes wishlist is the ability to perform AND or OR operations on playlists, on the iPod. For example, let's say I have these 2 playlists:

Party mix
Tracks I haven't played in 2 weeks

I want to be able to AND these playlists, so I can hear all party mix songs that I haven't played in 2 weeks. At the moment, I have to create another playlist in iTunes just for this purpose. But I want to be able to do this from the iPod, so I can do it at home (and not from iTunes, which is on my work computer).

Sayonara Señor iTrip!

I just got back from JB Hi Fi where I had my perfectly functional Pioneer stereo head unit replaced with a Sony CDXGT150. Why would I do something so crazy? Because this Sony head unit has a feature that my old car stereo doesn't have, an auxiliary (line-in) connector. This means that I can finally farewell my iTrip (well, at least in the car).

So it's goodbye to the following:

• No more iTrip falling out of the dock every time I drive over a bump too quickly (I have lost count of the number of times this has happened).
• No more poor static-y sound quality, especially when I go through a suburb that's broadcasting a local radio station on the same frequency as the iTrip (88.2 MHz was my current setting).
• No more switching between LX and DX modes on the iTrip in a lame attempt to improve the sound quality.
• No more little "click" sound when the iPod goes from one track to the next (probably due to the iTrip broadcast being cut off for a fraction of a second). [Unfortunately, the segue issue is still there.]
  
• No more having to make sure I pause the iPod before leaving the car. You see, the iPod has a cool feature where it pauses automatically when the earphones pop out (or in this case, the line-in connector). Since the iTrip was connected via the dock, I had to always ensure that I paused the iPod when I removed the iTrip.
• No more using the volume control on the iPod while I'm driving only to realise that it has no effect on the volume broadcast via the iTrip (the volume control doesn't affect the output through the dock connector).
  

My debut album with the new improved "iPod on the go" was Hail to the thief. When opening track 2+2=5 got to the loud bit and the iPod was all cranked up, I was in pizza-faced paradise. The comparison in sound quality is ridiculous. Listening to AM radio was even better than listening to my music through the iTrip. Listening through the line-in connector is just like listening to a CD in the car. I miss this sound quality :-) In fact, I'd been so disappointed in the iTrip sound quality that for the past few months I have totally avoided listening to albums in the car and listened to podcasts instead (where sound quality isn't so important and the iTrip is more than suitable).

Some may argue that this was a waste of money. Well, maybe it was. After all, I could simply listen to CDs when I'm in the car and listen to the iPod everywhere else. But I'd still have the dilemma of deciding which CDs to carry with me. And this goes against the whole reason for buying the iPod in the first place, to centralize my music collection and be able to listen to what I want when I want. Which includes driving in my car.

So if you are still listening to your iPod in the car via an FM transmitter and sound quality is of paramount importance to you, then I highly recommend upgrading stereos. It may be one of those situations where you don't realise what you're missing out on until you hear how it should sound. And it's not excessively expensive, JB Hi Fi are currently selling the Sony model I bought for about $168.

And while this may have come off as a major anti-iTrip rant, I still think that the iTrip is an elegantly designed device that has its place. It's great when you are out and about with no other musical options than listening to the radio. In this case you truly can take your music everywhere. But in the places where you listen to music the most, you can definitely get better sound quality through other means.

iPod random mixtape #002

Time for another post, and I'm going to take the lazy approach. So it's time for another iPod random mixtape!

1) Here comes a regular - The Replacements

Paul Westerberg sings this song about a guy who wastes his life away in the pub. It's not clear if this is song is autobiographical, about guitarist Bob Stinson, or about nobody in particular. What's clear is the emotions that Paul's vocal and lyrics stirs up inside you while listening to this song. Add to this some fantastic lyrics:

You’re like a picture on the fridge that’s never stocked with food
...
He says opportunity knocks once then the door slams shut

and you have the makings of one of the most brutally honest and emotional songs of all time. This is the perfect closer on their Tim album, and a perfect example of how the 80's weren't all that bad.

2) A poem on the underground wall - Simon & Garfunkel

This is actually the bonus version of the song from their Parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme album - I think it's another take. It starts with Paul Simon saying "listen carefully to this thing because...I wanna go with on the arrangements" (the ... is where the producer or someone interrupted him).

It's a short song not unlike anything else they recorded, with some nice finger pickin' guitar pluckin', and an interesting lyric about what seems to be a graffiti artist writing a four-letter poem on the wall of an underground train station. Was it love? Was it a more rude word? Paul Simon doesn't give much away in this song. I suspect there's a deeper meaning to this song, but maybe I'm too shallow to see it.

3) Heaven can wait - Meat Loaf

I remember that when I bought Mr. Loaf's Bat out of hell album I thought it was one of the best albums I'd ever heard. But that was my 77th album purchase, and now I'm up to 906 albums. Yes, you could say I've come a long way. The songs from Bat out of hell can be divided into two categories: over-the-top rockers and over-the-top ballads. This is one of the latter.

It's cringe-worthy stuff, it's dated, but it's not without its merits either. The arrangement shouts out Broadway musical. The lyrics are overdone, like a bad meatloaf. But amidst all its daggy-ness you still gotta respect a guy who takes his schmultz so goddamn seriously.

4) All nighter - Elastica

I bought Elastica's self-titled album when I was really into Britpop. While a lot of Britpop albums have aged remarkably well, this one hasn't done so well. There are some good songs on the album, but this is a 90-second throwaway song that isn't particularly memorable.

5) Circus - Tom Waits

I have to admit that I found Tom Waits' latest album Real gone (the album where this song is from) a little disappointing. It had a too-difficult opener (even by his standards), a momentum-killing 10 minute 3rd track, and the absence of piano didn't help either.

Circus is a typical Tom Waits spoken word piece, with spare circus-like instrumentation and surreal lyrics that only Tom can muster. It's an effective track, harking back to his Franks wild years days both musically and lyrically. But it works more as a mood piece than a song, and probably works better in the context of the album than as an individual track.

6) I shot the sheriff - Bob Marley & The Wailers

Everyone knows this track, so I'm not sure what to say about it. Eric Clapton covered it, but the old adage that "the original is the best" definitely applies here. It's a typical early Wailers tune (from their rootsy Burnin' album), with political lyrics and falsetto backing vocals during the chorus from Bob's fellow Wailers.

7) Manmade horse - Something For Kate

This is not what I would consider a standout track from their excellent Echolalia album - but that says nothing about the quality of this track, just about the quality of some of its peers. This could quite easily be a standout track on another album.

Paul Dempsey's songwriting skyrocketed on this album, but credit needs to be given to the producer as well. While their previous album Beautiful sharks sounded quite murky in places (despite the great songwriting), Echolalia truly sounds like the work of a professional band.

This is a great tune, its lyrics are intelligent without being pretentious and Mr Dempsey puts in a fine vocal performance. Add some nice piano tinkling and you have a song which really should be a standout.

8) The ids are alright - Guided By Voices

I have 147 Guided By Voices songs in my CD collection (and therefore iPod). That's almost as many Beatles songs as I have, but most people probably haven't even heard of Guided By Voices. Why do I have so many GBV songs? Because they are so goddamn short, that's why! Robert Pollard writes pop music and doesn't waste any time. He gets his hooks in, and he gets right outta there before the songs grow tired. Many other artists could learn from his school of thought. The problem with the GBV catalogue is that so many of their albums are hit and miss affairs. For every pop nugget like To remake a young flyer you have to put up with a throwaway song like Big chief chinese restaurant.

So where does this song fit in? It's a typical short GBV number at a little over a minute. Robert's faux-British vocals sing about something that I don't really understand, which is also a GBV trademark. The tune is kinda nice but it doesn't seem to really get anywhere. I'd like to say that this is the kind of song that fits better in the context of the album, but last time I listened to Universal truths and cycles I remember thinking that it was pretty much all over the shop. So I'm not sure how listening to this song in the context of an album would help its cause.

9) Back to back - The Replacements

The 2nd 'Mats cut to make this random mixtape. This is from their penultimate Don't tell a soul album, which many consider to be the nadir of their catalogue because it has a commercial sheen and a lot of fans thought that it was a bit of a sellout.

Personally, I consider this album to be better than their last album All shook down. Why? Because it has good songs, and nothing on All shook down is as memorable as most of the songs from this album. Bad production can kill good songwriting (it happened on Elvis Costello's Goodbye cruel world). But good production can't improve average songs.

So, back to this song. It's not unlike a lot of the 'Mats earlier stuff, it's just a bit more pop and a bit shinier. Still an enjoyable listen, even if I wouldn't put it in my top ten 'Mats songs.

10) Something about England - The Clash

Sandinista! is a holy mess of an album. It's a double album (triple on vinyl) which is absolutely begging to be cut down to a brilliant single album. There's way too much filler on it. And despite its filler, it's also a true genre-hopper. It jumps from punk to waltz to dub to hip-hop all within the space of a few songs.

This is quite a "pop" song by their standards, with a typical Joe Strummer lead vocal and Mick Jones backing him at key parts of the song. Not one of the best songs from Sandinista!, but definitely in the above average category.

iPod random mixtape #001

There are currently 11,538 songs in my iPod. A metric shitload. The ultra-cool Shuffle Songs feature allows me to shuffle my entire collection to see what comes up. Every now and then (usually as it's nearing the end of the workday) I can't decide what album to pick next. So I let the massive random jukebox decide for me.

It's a great feature because songs come out of the mix that I haven't heard for a long time, and sometimes hearing them out of context of the album they are on makes me appreciate them more. A good example of this is Trout mask replica which is incredibly difficult to listen to as a whole album, but hearing a single song from it is easily digestable.

I had this idea a while back that I'd have a regular feature where I'd put the iPod into shuffle and then write a quick blog posting on the first 10 songs that come up. It really comes down to laziness on my part, sometimes I can't think about what to write and this just makes it easier for me. I'm fairly sure this isn't an original idea as I'm sure many other bloggers have done a similar thing.

Anyway, here we go:

1) Hey, Snow White - Destroyer

Interesting first selection. I don't actually know this song that well, because it's a relatively recent purchase and I've found it a very difficult listen mainly due to Dan Bejar's unique vocals and the length of the album.

Well, at almost 8 minutes in length it is certainly in the "epic" category. There's some interesting guitar work here, the lyrics are fairly repetitive. And the vocals do grate.

Actually, I have a confession to make. The album that this song is from (This night) is on the shortlist of albums that I am considering selling on eBay. It needs a few more listens before I make the final decision to grant it clemency.

And when I did a google for some of the lyrics from this song to quote them in this post, I actually typed "Hey Snow Shite" instead of "Hey Snow White". Call it a Freudian slip, if you like.

2) Apart - The Cure

Well, this is certainly turning into an epic mixtape as far as song lengths go. But this is more like it. While not one of my favourite songs from their excellent Wish album, there's no denying that this is vintage Cure. Moody and atmospheric music. A depressing Robert Smith vocal (double tracked in parts for extra effect). The usual dark lyrics you'd expect from anything in the Cure canon. A great overall vibe. I guess it's unfair to call this one of the lesser tracks from Wish, but that has nothing to do with the quality of this song -- more to do with the exceptional quality of some of the other songs.

3) Footstomp - Dan Brodie

A yeee-ha instrumental on his yeee-ha Empty arms broken hearts album which I purchased recently for five quid. Gets the toes-a-tappin' and the knees-a-slappin'.

4) It's gonna take an airplane - Destroyer

What's with this then? 2 Destroyer sings in the space of 3 randomly selected songs? Another song which is hard to comment on, but it is from their 2004 album Your blues which I must say I find more listenable than This night (it's not as long, and the tunes seem to be more melodic).

If you're reading this and wondering who the hell Destroyer are and why I have 2 of their albums in my collection, they are a side-project of Dan Bejar from Canadian supergroup The New Pornographers. His voice is definitely an acquired taste, the best comparison I can think of is Phil Judd from Split Enz.

Actually I'm getting near the end of this song, and it's a pretty cool cut actually. Surreal lyrics, an interesting vocal and some pretty awesome backing vocals as well.

5) Fall at your feet - Crowded House

Crowded House have an incredible hit rate, you could pick almost any song from their catalogue and be impressed.

This superb song should be known by anyone with good taste in music, and it's one of the highlights of their album-of-highlights that is Woodface, which also happened to be their most commercially successful album.

A brilliantly romantic lyric, melody to die for and chorus that is made for waving lighters in the air -- all the elements are in place in this classic slice of Oz-Kiwi pop.

6) The riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls - D Generation

Here's the problem with the shuffle feature. Maybe I should have eliminated the Books and Spoken Word genre from the mix. I was very tempted to skip over this "song" and pretend it "never happened", but that would be dishonest now wouldn't it?

For those who don't know (or aren't from Australia), the D-Generation are some of the finest comedians Australia has seen in the past few decades. They had a brilliant show on ABC called the Late Show which aired on Saturday nights in the early-mid nineties'. They have been associated with other great TV shows like Frontline, as well as movies like The Castle.

Anyway, this is from a CD I have of their radio show from late 80's and early 90's, before they were TV stars. It's little snippets of their radio show, which was unfortunately very topical and therefore a bit hard to appreciate now as they are talking about things that happened over 10 years ago. An example is them interviewing Bob Hawke (or at least an imitation of him) who was the Australian PM at the time.

Still, you gotta appreciate the phone calls from Wayne from St Albans.

7) Come again - Dallas Crane

Ahhh...such a relief to hear some music after the 13 minutes of talking that was the last track.

This is a corker, one of the highlights from Dallas Crane's solid album Twenty four seven. A classic slice of Aussie rock, with a chorus that sounds like it has been genetically engineered for singing along in a pub with a pint in your hand, swaying from side to side.

Jet get international kudos for their highly derivative Get born album, while Dallas Crane are stuck being support acts for other bands who are more commercial successful. There isn't any justice in this world.

8) Let it be - The Beatles

The very poignant title cut from their swansong, everyone who has ever heard music knows this song. If you haven't, you have been living under a rock. Before I was a Beatles fan, I actually thought this was a mid-period Beatles song. I remember being very surprised when I found out this was from their last album.

A great Paul McCartney vocal, a classic George Harrison guitar solo, timeless lyrics and sentiment. The band may have been falling apart at the time, but when listening to this song they still sound like the greatest band of all time.

And if I close my eyes, I can picture Paul McCartney singing it, with that cool late 60's beard he was sporting at the time.

9) Sing - Blur

From classic British pop to early Britpop. This song was actually on the Trainspotting soundtrack, many may know it from there. But the copy that came up on the random mixtape was actually from Blur's debut album Leisure.

Leisure is a pretty poor album overall, but this is clearly one of the highlights. This is more psychedelic Blur, they weren't quite at the cockney stage of their Modern life is rubbish or Parklife albums, and they were galaxies away from their more experimental Blur and 13 sound.

Hard to really understand any lyrics from this song. But the chorus is really all you need. Ahh ahh ahh ahh! It's inclusion on the Trainspotting soundtrack does seem appropriate.

10) Song of our so-called friend - Okkervil River

Another newie for me, this is from Okkervil River's 2005 album Black sheep boy. Yes, I hadn't heard of them either about 3 months ago. But I read quite a few reviews of the album (many proclaiming it to be one of the best albums of 2005) and went out and bought it.

If I had to pigeon-hole this song I'd probably call it alt-country. I guess the singer is comparable to Bonnie "Prince" Billy, a little bit off-key in parts but it works well for the music.

Pretty catchy song. But I do need to get to know the album better.

Benefit of using an iPod #001

Appreciating singles again.

Before I got an iPod, a single would never get any space in my CD case. Who wants to waste a precious space in a 32-disc case for a CD that only lasts 10 minutes? I actually sold many of my singles on eBay for this very reason (although I kept a few really choice ones, like Paranoid android which has some cool B-sides).

Before the days of the iPod, one had to hope that the artist would release a great B-sides and rarities compilation so you could justify keeping the CD in your case. Many bands including Oasis, Suede and Belle & Sebastian have done this. But it doesn't happen as often as it should.

On an iPod, a B-side can take pride of place on a playlist. Singles can be listened to as they were intended to be listened to. No more discrimination against the little guy.

Come back to me you neglect-o-rino singles!

A slice of music?

For those who don't know, I have just put in an order for a 60GB iPod. Yes, I am joining the fashionable ranks of the white earphone club.

Readers of this blog know that I have not taken this decision lightly. But I've decided to live with an almost-full 60GB iPod and hopefully they'll have a bigger model by the time I get close to exceeding the capacity.

So for the past week, I have been very busy ripping my CD collection. I manage to get through a case of 32 CDs per day, using iTunes to do the ripping.

I started with digipaks (i.e. CDs with cardboard or non-standard sleeves) as they are kept separate in my collection on the top shelf. These are normally the CDs that get discriminated against when I'm deciding what to put in my CD wallet for the week, because it takes more effort to take the disc out of these delicate sleeves than it takes to get a CD out of a standard jewel case. So I'm glad the iPod is going to remove that barrier of discrimination.

I'm now well into the jewel cases, which I have sorted into alphabetical order by artist name, and then chronological order within the artist. I am well into the D's now, and it's already been a week. Yep, there's lots of CDs.

Each day, I listen to all the songs I have ripped so far using the iTunes "Shuffle" feature. For the first few days it was fairly predictable, with not many tunes in the library and I found myself listening to a lot of artists over and over again. Since the 15 Beatles CDs have been ripped, I find myself getting at least a Beatles track a day. I guess the odds are in favour of that. It's cool hearing a Beatles cut that I haven't heard for a while, and probably wouldn't have heard for ages had I not been getting an iPod. I'm a loser from Beatles for sale being one such cut. Choice cut, great lyric.

Each day more artists, songs and albums are getting added to the mix, making the shuffle more exciting each day. And I'm only up to D! It feels like I'm baking a giant musical cake, where the first few days contained the flour (Augie March, Badly Drawn Boy, Beatles) then the eggs are slowly added to the mix (Belle & Sebastian, David Bowie, Jeff Buckley) and now we are getting to the sweet sweet sugar (Elvis Costello, Crowded House). It's fascinating listening to the collection on shuffle, it really is. It makes me realise even more what a brilliant songwriter Elvis Costello is, when I hear a great song like Poor fractured atlas after a mediocre song off David Bowie's Diamond dogs. It really puts things into perspective.

Today I added the dark paprika of The Cure to the mix. The bleak Cold from their bleakest album Pornography came up in the mix. A song I hadn't heard in a long time, and didn't even remember it to be frankly. It's great rediscovering songs like this, although it doesn't even feel like a rediscovery, simply loads of music potential that was waiting to be unleashed.

Tomorrow's going to be an exciting day - the mysterious Doors aroma will be added. And one of my absolute favourites, the spicy Bob Dylan. This cake is getting tastier by the day, and I'm not even a quarter of the way there.

This is going to be one mighty strange tasting cake when it's finished baking in about a month.

To iPod or not to iPod: that is the question

There's a lot of things that are stopping me getting an iPod.
But I'm always hearing of new things that shout out to me "Get an iPod already! You'll love it! Think of the possibilities!".

This is one of them:

You Ain't No Picasso: iPod War!

Sure, it's only a little game, but it's the kind of thing that just isn't possible with old-skool CDs.

Another thing that I think would be pretty cool (along the same lines as the iPod war) would be to put the iPod on random and get a series of random tracks from my 10000+ track collection (all legitimately purchased mind you) and then write a blog posting on the random selection of tracks. I think it would be a cool idea, but whether it would be something that remained exciting or something that I quickly outgrow I don't know.

So to summarise, here are some of my issues with iPods:

1. I don't like the fact that tracks that have a segue between them don't blend into each other on an iPod. That is especially notable with "concept" style albums. For example, Polyphonic Spree's latest album Together We're Heavy would be pretty unlistenable on an iPod, because the tracks are designed to blend in with each other into a seamless whole. On the CD, the band actually recommend that if you are going to copy the album to a digital music device, you should do do as one track to preserve the listening experience. Here's my problem: I don't want to rip the CD as one track. They are individual tracks and I would like to listen to them that way. But I still want it to behave like a seamless whole if I choose to listen to it that way. Imagine playing the music quiz game on the iPod and getting the 58 minute "track" Together we're heavy as an option. It just ain't cricket.
   


2. I've heard mixed comments about the battery life on these devices. I know the batteries can't easily be replaced by the consumer, so it could be a costly exercise to replace them. But I've heard they are getting better.
   


3. At the moment the biggest iPod you can get is 60GB. From memory this would hold about 15,000 tracks on average. That's all good and well, but I currently have almost 11,000 tracks in my CD collection. And this is quickly growing. I don't want to outgrow the iPod and then have to buy another one. The whole joy of having an iPod would be to have the whole CD collection in my pocket. I don't want half a CD collection in my pocket.
   


4. The amount of time it would take to rip my entire CD collection to an iPod would be ridiculous. Seriously, ridiculous. And at the rate at which I'm buying CDs, I'd never catch up. By the time it's ripped, a new iPod model with double the capacity and much more bells and whistles will be released.
   


5. Album art. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people don't give a shit about this. But I love holding a CD booklet in my hand, looking through the artwork, enjoying the design. When music goes into a purely digital format you lose all of this. Sure, you can still go to your shelf and actually look at the booklets, but it's not the same.
   

Anyway, I promised a posting on my reasons for not yet buying an iPod, and here it is. I'm sure I've given Matt some much needed ammunition to finally respond to one of my blog postings :-)

But seriously, the segue issue is my biggest issue with iPods. Dark side of the moon would simply not be the same on an iPod. It just doesn't sound right if Time doesn't merge into The great gig in the sky. And CDs are the most convenient technology which allows me to listen to albums this way.