iPod Observations (iPodservations?)

Instead of just writing to insanely short posts regarding my ipod (I should probably use the term mp3 player, but who has time to write that out? Plus, it makes an even shittier portmanteau), I figured one kind of short post would be doing us all a favor.

They Might Be Giants -- "Apollo 18"
They Might Be Giants are, in short, awesome. I can't recommend going out and buying all of their CDs enough. Even their kids albums. It's OK. No one will judge as if you just bought a Wiggles CD. But Apollo 18 is something special. Not because it's songs are any greater than others (though they are awesome), but because of the presence of Fingertips: 21 tracks of random song tidbits.

According to Wikipedia (because I'm too lazy to check up on it myself), the liner notes bear the message, "The indexing of this disc is designed to complement the Shuffle Mode of modern CD players." That's all well and good, but you still know what to expect when listening to the CD on shuffle. What they couldn't have been prepared for is how amazing the album is when you put your iPod on shuffle.

Most people have the capacity for at least 1000 songs, genres and styles varying dramatically. One could easily swing from Robert Johnson to Air to Metallica without skipping a beat. But throwing any of these song segments between:

elevates the listening experience into something legitimately surprising and fun (my personal favorite is, "What's that blue thing doing here?"). It's like little non sequiturs just for you. I can't recommend adding Apollo 18 to your iPod as soon as possible.

Music for Show
I don't think I'm alone in exploring someone's iPod when I get the chance. You see it sitting all lonely, just playing some music and you wonder, "what else you got?" It's like examining someone's book shelf or record/DVD collection (except, in this case, there's the likelihood of the person having never listened to some of the stuff on there). We all have our biases when looking for stuff. We'll judge when we feel it's warranted and laud likewise. But I'm going to make a confession: some of the music on my iPod is for show.

It's not that I don't like everything on there, it's just that I'm simply not inclined to listen to some of it. I recently had to put all of my music back on my iPod because it crashed, so right now, there's even more on there that I probably won't listen to because I'm trying to give some stuff another chance (though I doubt my Adam Sandler CDs will hold up as well as they did in high school).

Some examples: since I mentioned him earlier, Robert Johnson. Sure, it looks great and like I have a deep appreciation of roots music, but I can only take so much in one sitting. And if you look, I only have music by the most famous of the early blues musicians.

Elvis Costello -- I can't say this wholly because I only have When I Was Cruel, which is a fine album, but not one I've felt like revisiting since its release. I still need to check out more of his earlier stuff to see if it will wind up in the same place.

Feist -- She has some great songs, but also some fairly dull songs mixed in. I find that my middle of the road opinion of her as a solo artist hasn't changed since 2005. Didn't stop me from buying The Reminder, though.

Frank Zappa -- I actually love everything by them I've heard, I just haven't heard that much. The album I have, Just Another Band from L.A., is pretty much to make me look cooler than I am.

Tim Buckley -- His son is one of my favorite singers ever, but I never really dove into Tim Buckley's music, but I keep him hanging around.

Van Morrison -- I actually don't care for him much at all (and I loathe Brown Eyed Girl), but tons of people like him so I feel bad if I ignore the fact that I have one of his CDs (greatest hits). Plus, it was given to me as a gift. I don't need the added guilt.

Warren Zevon -- He's loved by musicians, so why shouldn't I? I actually took this album from my college radio station and it's good, but I couldn't hum a melody from it if you asked me to.

What about you? Any music you keep around just to impress those nosy friends and acquaintances? I just realized that most of mine are from an another era. Maybe I have a deep guilt about not appreciating the "classics" as I should.