An ode to my ipod

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I think the ipod is one of the single greatest inventions of all time. 

The biggest storage challenge in our house is figuring out where we will put all of our CDs.  When you have two musicians in one house, you acquire a lot of CDs.  Fortunately, many of these were procured through Roger's small but frequent gigs moonlighting as a radio DJ.  Plus, 90% of any discretionary income we ever have goes to music and books. 

Books, music, chocolate, and wine.  That's pretty much what makes me happy.
(note to self: book blog post imminent for sure)

This is about 1/2 of our collection.  Just half. 

My tastes are pretty eclectic.  The CD shelves hold pop hits from the 80s and jazz standards from the 60s, Disney classics and classic Genesis, well known artists like Sheryl Crow and the Counting Crows and lesser known fare like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and The Mighty Busso (seriously...don't ask).   

For this reason, the ipod is a dream come true. 

Remember the days before the ipod?  Traveling with music was a pain in the ass!  Never knowing exactly what I would want to listen to at any particular point, I loaded my backpack with CD player, headphones, extra batteries, and a CD carrying case full of options.  Needless to say, I always felt like I was missing something and the battery issue was fairly annoying, not to mention expensive.  Exercising with music was even more of a pain.  The CD usually skipped and the Discman was bulky and tough to carry.  Even with the best mix, you would only have about 90 minutes worth of tunes before you had to switch it up. 

Enter the wonder of the ipod: we still haven't imported our entire CD collection into iTunes but there's enough music to play for 41 days straight without repeating anything.  Kind of mind blowing.  Of course, not all of this fits on the ipod so I create smart playlists that I can mix and match at will.  I set the playlists to upload a random set of music from a certain category, genre, or mood to the ipod every time I sync it and the result is a never-ending jukebox of fabulous finds.  Current playlists include:

• My Christmas Mix (any piece of music with "holiday" or "Christmas" in the title or genre; in total it's about 17 hours of music and ranges from rock to jazz to bluegrass versions of some of my favorite tunes. 
• Jazz (a random selection of 100 jazz tunes that updates every time I plug in my ipod).  Artists range from Miles Davis to Harry Connick, Benny Goodman to John Zorn, Bobby McFerrin to The Bad Plus.    
• Soundtracks and musicals (everything from Les Miserables and Wicked to The Big Chill and The Red Violin). 
• My favorite go-to bands for groovin' rock: Dave Matthews, Peter Gabriel, Barenaked Ladies, Sting, Vampire Weekend
• My "funkies" and "folkies": Jonatha Brooke, Susan Greenbaum, Paul Simon, Phish, Nancy Griffith, Eddie From Ohio
• The closest I really get to pop: Sheryl Crow, The Beatles, Jimmy Buffett, The Roots 

There's not much about pop music that I love these days.  I love a good hook and I can take fun tunes like Boom Boom Pow or Bad Romance in small quantities.  Unfortunately, I find that most pop music is over-produced, over-processed, and musically anorexic.  I don't want "perfect" music.  I want it to be in-tune and fairly melodious with a little bit of "heft" and complexity to it.  If it's over-produced, I get suspicious.   Auto-tune was a hip invention when it was created (on a dare, no less) and there are all kinds of creative applications for its use as an effect, but it has become such a ubiquitous part of the pop music scene these days that it just turns me off. 

When Glee first came on the scene, I was so excited because it was a cute show that had witty dialogue and the occasional fun song.  Those of us who were "real-live" Gleeks in high school could relate to the show choir thing.  My only real beef with the show was that the music was too perfect to be real.  I'm not sure how they expected us to believe that an obviously auto-tuned song was being sung "live" in the middle of a school cafeteria but during the first season I kind of tolerated it because the plot lines were interesting, endearing, and even emotionally touching.  Two episodes into the second season and I lost interest.  In the absence of a certifiable plot, the music and sexualized dancing was all the show had to offer.  It was the musical equivalent of a porn film: the show was a weak vehicle for the overproduced musical numbers with no true storyline to back it all up.  

If you want better examples of musical TV shows, I suggest you check out Flight of the Conchords or Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog (which, technically, never aired on TV but is available streaming on Netflix.  Watch it.  It's good.).   

I have a few favorite "relative unknowns" and I like to evangelize to the masses any chance I get so if you find yourself looking for last minute holiday gifts or you don't know what to do with all those iTunes gift cards that find their way into your stocking, check these out:

Sonos: An a capella group that uses Auto-tune the way in which it was intended.  Their arrangements of pop covers are just amazing.  They also have a new album of Christmas/holiday tunes called December Songs.   It's been heavy in playlist rotation these days. 

Speaking of creative covers, you may have seen Pomplamoose in the latest holiday Hyundai commercials.  People seem to love them or hate them.  I adore them.  Not only are their covers really different, their original music is good too.  My favorite thing about them is that they layer their tracks and record all the music themselves.  Maybe you have to be a musician to appreciate this, but track layering is really, really challenging.  It takes true musicianship to pull off what they do and make it look easy and fun. 

As witty songwriters go, Jonathan Coulton is top of the heap these days.  I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite song but his cover of Baby Got Back is awesome and I really dig his zombie song RE: Your Brains.  Roger has a man crush on him.  It's pretty cute. 

Those are my current faves and I'm always looking for more so bring on your recommendations.  I can always make room on the ipod for a new favorite.