This was a pretty diverse year for my music listening, so I hope people enjoyed their New Year's mix CDs. For those who didn't get one (free by request), here's a mix of recent stuff (2012-2013).
This was a year where my taste actually matched the general public at a few points (Daft Punk, M.I.A., Janelle Monae). Shoegaze continued to be big, with new bands (Chatham Rise, A Place to Bury Strangers), a new album by the codifiers (My Bloody Valentine), and even an all-Japanese cover of Loveless. Speaking of covers, DJing in Johnny Urgh's 3-D House of Covers on the late, lamented Turntable.fm got me back into my weird covers obsession (SHONEN Knife, Melvins, Martha Wash). I hope to get back into it on Plug.dj
Stoner rock continued to be big (Windhand, Vista Chino, Dark Earth, Devil to Pay, Orange Goblin, The Quill, Nightstalker). I was glad to discover Red Desert, the Twin Cities' own contribution to the genre. I hope to see them live in 2014.
I now have Pandora access on my living room media system via both networked Blu-ray and Chromecast, but it just doesn't do it for me, I still prefer human-curated radio. Listening to internet radio has not been publicized as a big selling point for Apple TV, but I do it all the time. Mostly Radio K and Sanctuary Radio, but I also discovered Heavy Handed Radio via the Tunein app. Tunein has become my favorite radio app on the iPod Touch, it has the most stations and the least drop-outs.
Spotify has improved this year, allowing web access with no download, making the app more useful for non-subscribers, and eliminating listening limits for the free version. I'm still mostly using it to try out albums to see if they are worth buying, as I hate the commercials, but not enough to pay for it. I did make some playlists, which is always fun. Here's the Spotify version of Jfro's 2013 for Spotify fans. It's missing a few songs (Why no mbv, Spotify?)
I uploaded all my music to Google Music, since my 13,000 songs don't all fit on my iPod. It's also always nice to have another backup.
Other sources for music discovery include Bitch Blogs, Chunklet, All That Is Heavy, @WFMU, Fast 'n' Bulbous, @StonerRockMusic, and @stonerrock.
- M.I.A: "Y.A.L.A."
- Janelle Monae: "Q.U.E.E.N."
- Daft Punk: "Get Lucky"
- Pomdexter: "Call Me a Hole"
- Zynic: "Dead End"
- Diana: "Perpetual Surrender"
- Windhand: "Orchard"
- Vista Chino: "Dargona Dragona"
- Dark Earth: "Time Warp"
- Red Desert: "Slow Kill"
- Devil To Pay: "Yes Master"
- Orange Goblin: "Aquatic Fanatic"
- Nightstalker: "Soma"
- The Quill: "Freak Parade"
- Tar: "Walking the King (Peel Session)"
- Ted Leo: "Return to Crap Kingdom"
- My Bloody Valentine: "Only Tomorrow"
- A Place To Bury Strangers: "Leaving Tomorrow"
- Chatham Rise: "Oncoming Daze"
- SHONEN Knife: "When You Sleep"
- Melvins: "Female Trouble"
- Martha Wash: "Dream On"
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