Friday Top 5: Music Technologies

1998. The sweet sounds of Savage Garden on the radio. The warm assurance of knowing the stock market will continue to go up forever. A time of wonder. Those memories seem so faint now. After the Y2K epidemic caused our government to collapse and the America’s secret zombie program was inadvertently unleashed, the situation- I think we can admit now- got a little hairy.

For a while there the walking dead feasted on the brains of the living and wrought havoc on everything in their path. But hey, at least American Idol was good. I loved zombie Paula Abdul! Now that I think about it, that may have just been regular Paula Abdul. Those times were great, but I’m glad our benevolent overlord Stephen Colbert was able to defeat the zombie menace and piece together the somewhat functional government we have today. It’s possible I’m not remembering the past correctly. Savage Garden could never have actually been popular. Right?

Luckily, when I’m feel nostalgic for the turn of the century I can just hop in my 1998 automobile. The interior seems modern enough, but if you look just above the CD player you’ll see something mind blowing. It’s what the ancients referred to as a “tape player.” You see, back before music was just a series of 0’s and 1’s being read by a computer, there were these little tapes that held reels, and on those reels there was music. Crazy right? Crazier still, I continue to use this wacky contraption. Only now, I plug my phone (which is really a pocket camera/mp3 player/super computer, WTF!) into a device which goes directly in the tape deck. Then, I hear the music. Glorious music. The faint hiss of the tape deck and music.

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FT5: Long Songs Worth Your Time

0710top5coverAdmit it: you have the attention span of a coked out squirrel. You don’t want to hear jam bands, experimental noise bands, or ambitious concept albums. You’re a 21st Century, internet-streaming, iPod-shuffling, next-button-pressing, son of a bitch.

I forgive you. Yet I must insist that you occasionally look to songs stretching beyond that holy 3 minute mark to satisfy your fickle rock and roll urges.  Here are 5 Long Songs Worth Your Time.  Follow the jump for the full list.

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FT5: Bands I Refuse To Apologize For

0619top5coverSince this is my first post, I thought I should give everyone a little bit of insight into who I am. Unlike the other ATH writers, I refuse to have “Guilty Pleasures.” Either I like a band, or I don’t. I won’t apologize or make excuses for what I listen to, and I try not to give other people a hard time for what they like (one exception would be Nathan). I’m not saying every band I like is great. Sometimes they have great musicians with bad lyrics and catchy beats. Sometimes they’re just catchy. And the best is when I hate a band, but I hear them so often that I’m tricked into liking them. That being said, here are five bands on my iPod that have play counts at or around 30, and that’s just since April.  Follow the jump for more.
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A Cry For Help

If you know someone who listens to these or other equally horrible bands it’s important that you get them the help they so desperately need. Once they admit they have a problem, then and only then can the healing begin.