In the wake of a barrage of lists, countdowns and obsessive recapping of the year/decade/century/millennium in music, allow me to offer a few — just a few! — leftover, but important, nuggets.
- Where do I find out about all of this stuff? I mainly learn about new music from two sources: MP3 blogs and the radio. The two radio stations I listen to are WERS, the Emerson College station based here in Boston, and KEXP in Seattle. I listen to WERS early in the morning, and I listen to KEXP streaming online in the office. I highly recommend both stations.
- Relatedly, WERS has exposed me to (or reminded me of) a host of artists that I either missed the first time around or never full appreciated how awesome they were — The The, Pete Townshend, The Band and Squeeze, to name a few. A site that has been extremely handy for picking up the back catalogs of these artists is YourMusic. It’s more or less the heir to the Columbia House/BMG mantle, but their model is more like Netflix nowadays: set up a queue, get a CD every month for $6.99, shipping included. You can also make one-off purchases for the same price. They present the same limitations of artists and labels we all enjoyed with Columbia House and BMG back in the day, but if you’re looking to pick up a greatest hits comp or fill out your collection of a popular artist, it’s a great, affordable resource. Just the other day, in the wake of the Top 100 project, I added Nine Inch Nails’ “Year Zero” to my queue. Recent WERS-inspired purchases from YourMusic include Sinead O’Connor’s “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” the best of The Jam and Joe Jackson’s greatest hits.
- In my 2009 in review post, I mentioned my outlook on what might be the top 10 albums of 2010. But Stereogum has a far more comprehensive roundup, with several selections I hadn’t known about that made my mouth water.
- And yes, yes, everyone was right. Metric’s “Fantasies” is super-good 😛
Safe Digression 