As expected Apple jumped into the cloud-based music game yesterday when Steve Jobs announced iCloud. While I download iTunes and update my iPad to try out some of the features that are available now, here are a few thoughts on the announcements.

It’s about time that there will be iPad synching via wifi.

The mere ability to sync to the cloud is worth the cost of admission, saving space, memory and time, especially for those apps.

If you think about it the iCloud feature allowing you to access songs you bought previously is about the same as what we currently have for iOS apps, which you can delete and re-download.

All that synching addresses and email with the Cloud stuff didn’t seem revolutionary to a Gmail and Android user, though it sure excited the Apple fan boy in the office next to me. Ditto with the Twitter integration with Contacts and enhanced notifications.

iMessages the next BBM? Maybe, but a dagger in SMS, I doubt it. Sure for close friends who you know have iPhones, but if you don’t know what phone they have? There are reasons why here in the States we prefer SMS over mobile IM and email and I suspect they are the same ones that will limit the popularity of iMessages.

There sure was a lot of Twitter integration with iOS 5, but none with iTunes. Kind of a shame.

Apple’s thorough Twitter integration seems like a big middle finger to Facebook, will it appease our social media desires or just make us hungry for Facebook features throughout iOS?

I can’t find any mention of streaming in all of the iCloud and iTunes in the Cloud descriptions, just downloading to multiple devices. So just because I have uploaded 20,000 songs to iTunes in the Cloud doesn’t mean I can access them at a moment’s notice unlike Google Music. I need to download a track first before I play it. Seems like we’re still playing off the hard drive and dealing with hard drive space with this option.

TechCrunch is calling iTunes Match (where for $24.99 a year iTunes will scan your music library, identify the existing tracks that match tracks available on iTunes and give you access to them through iTunes in the Cloud) as paying “$25 a year to legalize all your content” and CNNMoney calls it “music pirates permanent amnesty.”. But before you go matching all those songs you laboriously ripped from your CD library think about the quality you ripped those songs at. I know that mine are all better than 256 kpbs so the matched tracks are actually a step down in quality.

I’ll post a deeper dive into the new iTunes features once I’ve had a chance to try them out.

Initial iCloud Thoughts is a post from: Trumblog

Last month Google announced their cloud-based music service Music Beta by Google, why it isn’t Google Music or GMusic I don’t know, because no one is going to be calling it by a name that is meaningless when shortened to 2 words and what happens when some day it is out of beta? Music by Google? Yeah right. Anyway, 2 weeks ago I got my invite and I’ve been using it exclusively since then. It’s not the cloud-based music service of my dreams, but it has promise.

To get started you need to download the Music Manager program that scans your hard drive for music files and then upload them. This is music only mind you, so you won’t upload photos, movies, etc unlike the Amazon Cloud drive and rumblings out of Cupertino about what they have up their sleeve. But then why would Google include photos and video when they have Picasa and YouTube? Uploading music is click and go, straightforward, though you can tweak the upload rate and frequency for checking for new files as well as which music files are uploaded, I picked the iTunes option, which has worked well and included my playlists, which I can’t guarantee the other options will.

I have well over the 20,000 track limit so it took several days for them all to upload, but the good news is that you can play tracks as soon as they have uploaded. There is grumbling online about it taking days to upload a full music collection, and while scanning my library and then giving me automatic access to my tracks would be great, uploading takes place in the background and it’s sure faster than when I ripped many of those albums from my CD collection into iTunes and I didn’t hear any grumbling about that at the time. Whether it was luck or a feature, my favorited tracks from iTunes seemed to be the first to upload filling a Favorites playlist right away which was much nicer than doing it alphabetically and being stuck with Abba to test with. And actually if you have over 20,000 songs in your library the the Music Manager will “will prioritize [the uploading of] songs based on a combination of your listening preferences and ratings.”. Cool huh?

The Google Music online player itself is pretty basic. You can view your music in 5 ways; New And Recent, Songs, Albums, Artists and Genres. Clicking on any of those displays your music grouped based on your selection and displaying album artwork, except for the Songs display, which gives you an alphabetical list of every song in your library. Clicking on an individual artist or genre then gives you detail of the albums with track listings.

Selecting a Song or Album reveals an icon like a dog eared page that opens options for playing it, adding it to a playlist, editing the metadata, deleting it or shopping for the artist. There all do exactly what you expect. The meta data editing is limited. I found that some of the album artwork was wrong after importing and needed to be updated, a task that requires uploading a jpg or gif rather than the easier cut and paste like with iTunes. There are also less fields for editing, no BPM, composer, comments or lyrics and sadly just a single genre, no tagging. The “shop this artist” just opens a Google Shopping search for the artist, there is no music store per se.

A few other areas where the Google Music Beta disappoints are the lack of social media integration, the lack of auto playlists beyond Thumbs Up, Recently Added and Free Songs (my auto playlist of music just from 2011 is the go to soundtrack for my commute), no sorting by year and no instant mixes by artist, just song or album. Perhaps the biggest omission of functionality is Podcasts and audiobooks. Podcast mp3s will upload from your collection to Google Music, but you can’t subscribe to or manage podcasts from Google Music. The same goes for audio books, which upload, but aren’t handled well for easy playback.

While the Google Music online player merely satisfies, its mobile integration truly impresses. With the Music app on an Android phone Google Music puts your entire music library in your pocket. You can access every track and almost every playlist from your phone whether online or off. Just like the online player, the mobile app groups your music by Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres and then gives you a extra tab for Playlists. Click on any track and, assuming that you have cell service, it plays after a few seconds for buffering. Think about that, 20,000 songs from your library accessible any time from your smart phone.

Now sometimes, on the subway, on vacation in Rural Maine and certain parts of San Francisco, you don’t have cell phone service, no problem. First of all you can “pin” albums and playlists to make them available offline and they will be downloaded to your device. The Music app also pre-buffers music for you based on what you are listening to so if I’m listening to my collection of songs on random it pre-buffers the next few songs so that on my subway ride from Boston to Cambridge my music keeps playing without missing a beat.

Music syncs automatically so new music is available from your device as soon as it’s added to the player, meta data changes show up quickly and all of your playlists from the browser-based player are on your device, with one exception, your Thumbs Up dynamic playlist. Why this is missing I have no idea. Instant mixes are synced from the browser to mobile and vice versa, but for some reason the playlist of tracks you are most likely to have at your finger tips is missing. Also missing is the ability to thumb up or down a track from your phone when you find a forgotten gem you’d like to hear again or trash you want to delete. Hopefully those features will be added soon.

Music Beta by Google feels like a beta. There is a lot of promise here, you can feel the potential, but there are still missing features. Comparing it to my dream music service it certainly gives me easy access, with the only hold ups being lack of download capability and my issue with iPad playback. It’s a little lacking in the data area and then there is no social component, but the browser and mobile integration is superb and they have a great foundation to build from.

Review: Music Beta By Google is a post from: Trumblog

These are exciting days for cloud-based music services. Amazon launched their Cloud Drive in March. Then Google rolled out the Google Music Beta at their I/O Developer Conference. And of course all signs point to Apple announcing iCloud or some similarly named cloud-based music service soon, perhaps in a couple weeks at its Worldwide Developer’s Conference. So, with this glorious opportunity ahead of us here’s what I would like in the music service of my dreams:

Easy Access

I want all of the music files that I have collected in one place and have no hear of losing them to a hard drive crash, natural accident, vindictive co-worker, etc. At some point I may also need them back, because of one of those aforementioned issues with my backup, so I want an easy download option too.

And when I say my entire music collection, I mean my entire music collection, not just the album cuts from the major labels, but rare indy singles, alt takes that never were supposed to see the light of day, unauthorized remixes, live versions, mashups, etc. I worked hard to collect it all and I want access to it all.

Then I want to access those tracks any time and anywhere that I want on any device. PC, Mac, iPod, iPad, Android. Online and offline. If it has a browser and a speaker I want to hear my music coming out of it. I can live without an official Roku channel, but provide an API so some enterprising folks can integrate it with Roku, Google TV, Apple TV, and whatever comes next. Also if my device has memory that can be written to I want some of my tracks to be available if the wifi goes out or I’m outside cell range (like on the subway during my commute).

Plenty of Data

I admit that I get a little anal about my music meta data, the correct year, album artist, disk number, artwork, etc. It simultaneously drives me nuts that I have to pick only one genre for a song (is Paper Planes rock, electronic, world, hip-hop, alternative or all of them?) and to have both the genres Electronic and Electronica represented in my library. Give me the control to edit the information about my music the way that I want it and tag it to my heart’s content.

The flip side of that is that I want to pull plenty of data about my collection and listening habits. What albums from the past year did I listen to the most? Which of my albums are on the 4AD label (why is label not included in music meta data I ask you?). Presumably this service will be doing some data mining of my music taste so give me recommendations about artists, albums, tracks, playlists and even blogs that I should check out.

Social

A perfect music service will integrate with social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Blogs so that I can let friends know what music I like, share what’s new, what mood I’m in, and I can find out the same about my friends. Those social features of course promote discovery of new music, which then the service would support through access to music blogs, band websites, music stores, etc so that I can learn about bands, listen to new tracks and find new music.

Finally, the service should be free and has no memory limits. How do you make money? Well, a music store is the obvious economic model. Targeted ads based on my music collection is another. Fully integrated, media rich, band/ label micro sites could be sold at a premium. Then there’s the benefit of keeping consumers within your online ecosystem (think Google keeping you in the GMail, YouTube, Google Voice, Android set of services and away from Apple).

Ok, so that is my wish list. Next I’ll start writing about how some of the existing services that I’ve tried in my quest to find the music service of my dreams stack up.

The Cloud-Based Music Service Of My Dreams is a post from: Trumblog

Only a few more hours of shopping before Christmas and I am here to help with my annual list of my top albums of 2010. I’ve even included handy links to Amazon.com so that you can gift these albums to those friends and family who you have waited until the last minute to shop for.

Before I get to it, let it be known that
1. This is not a list of the “best” music of 2010
2. This IS a list of the music released in 2010 that I listened to the most this year
3. The measurement for this list is based on identifying the albums released in 2010 that I downloaded and listened to and then averaging the total number of tracks played by the number of tracks in the album
4. I am fully aware that this measurement process benefits albums released earlier in the year, is impacted by the timing of travel (where I am more likely to listen to a new album repeatedly), my decision to rip my CD collection, which lead to lower new music listens this fall and a general interest in the back catalogs of some artists which lead to catching up with older bands rather than new music. But let’s face it, the album is a construct, the calendar is a construct, my decision to measure based on listens rather than preference is a construct, lists that stop at 10 are constructs. Accept it for what it is, live with it and c’mon it’s just my list no one is getting rich or famous off of this.

1. Charlotte Gainsbourg – IRM

My first love of 2010 and that quirk of timing results in it topping the list. I went through a bit of a phase with her father a couple years ago and Beck, who produced the album, has been a favorite for a while so when the single “Heaven Can Wait” was released I snapped it up and was primed for the album. Charlotte and Beck did not disappoint with what sounds like a Beck album by a chanteuse. Beck leans on the Serge Gainsbourg stylings that he used on Sea Change and Charlotte is a chip off the block with songs about S&M, but where Serge was cool and insinuating (or out and out graphic) his daughter is cool and sexy and Beck’s production delivers the perfect atmosphere for her.

2. Broken Bells – Broken Bells

I knew that this album would be on the list because of how much I listened to it this spring, and I was prepared to issue a major caveat that despite its position I just didn’t care for it as much as the others. You see I listened to Broken Bells a lot at first, rather enjoyed it at the time and then didn’t revisit. That became a vicious cycle, I didn’t listen to it again because I hadn’t listened to it lately and assumed it was because I’d stopped liking it and that the album didn’t stand up. But I listened again for this review and as you probably know from it’s inclusion on lots of other “Best Of…” lists, this is a great album. Danger Mouse’s production is fantastic and his partnership with James Mercer, while resulting in very different music than what he did with Cee-lo, has a similar structure and yields alt-rock songs with a experimental edge. I take it back guys. Well done.

3. Josh Ritter – So Runs The World Away

If you have not heard this album stop reading now, you have something better to do which is to go, buy, download and listen to So Runs The World Away. Seriously, now that I know this about you I can guarantee that reading my blog is a waste of time compared to that. For those of you who have heard So Runs The World Away you already know the astounding mix of musical inventiveness, creative songwriting and storytelling that Ritter delivers in this album. The middle of the album slumps a bit, but when you have songs like “Change of Time”, “The Curse”, “Another New World” and “Rattling Locks” on the album the other songs have a lot to live up to and the lesser tracks give you a chance to catch your breath. Unlike Broken Bells, this is an album that I never had doubts that I would return to over and over for the years to come.

4. MIA – Maya

I tweeted that this could be my album of the summer and it certainly was the album of my road trip to a Family Reunion that resulted in enough listens to make it my 4th most listened to album this year. If Maya didn’t get the love that MIA’s earlier albums got. Maybe it isn’t as strong as her last 2 albums and the revolutionary chic is wearing thin on people, but that shouldn’t get in the way of a good album. While Arular and Kala combined music and sounds in ear twisting ways, on Maya MIA does some genre testing with tracks that are straight up reggae, rock and pop along with the hip-hop/world music in a blender tracks that we fell in love with her for. No matter what a weaker MIA delivers better juxtaposition of sounds with funky beats than anyone else I can think of.

5. Louisa Maita – Lero-Lero

Every music collection and I’d dare say every life has room for some beautiful music from Brazil. Personally, I tend to commune with this muse on Sunday mornings and hot, lazy summer evenings and this year I prayed at the altar of Louisa Maita. A beautiful voice, but less classic than Babel Gilberto. Rhythmically experimental, but less electronically driven than Ceu or Cibelle, though there is a Maita Remixed album. Loida Maita’s gorgeous voice and dynamic backing musicians deliver a lovely album for those cool mornings and hot nights where it is needed.

6. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

The Suburbs took some getting used to. It did not deliver the heart pounding lump in the through awestruck response that Neon Bible did and let’s you know from the first track that features a jangly piano rather than a wall of sound. The Suburbs is a more reflective and melancholy album on growing up in the suburbs and getting older. Instead of embracing you with sound the way that other Arcade Fire albums do Suburbs highlights lyrics first, which takes a few listens to absorb and then the music makes sense and pays rewards handsomely. I think of the teenager who imagined the scenario from “neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” now older and looking back on his childhood and meditating on middle age writing this album. The songs don’t grab your lapels and shake, they set the scene and explain, but he can’t help but give you a thrill with the “Heart of Glass” -like “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).”

7. Vampire Weekend – Contra

No sophomore slump for Vampire Weekend, actually Contra sounds like a second disc of their first, eponymous album and that’s just fine. More West African style guitar, more wry songs about the life of the bohemian prep school set. I couldn’t have been happier.

8. Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record

What do you know, after a bunch of side projects Broken Social Scene regrouped this year and produced Forgiveness Rock Record. Is it a great album? Maybe not, but it’s a quality album from a band that I like, as opposed to say Belle & Sebastian’s Write About Love that did nothing for me. There are some quality tracks like “World Sick,” “All To All” and “Ungrateful Little Father” as well as some filler, but the balance is positive and filled my earbuds nicely during quite a few commutes this year.

9. Standard Fare – Noyelle Beat

There are some sounds that when a band has it I just can’t help myself and that punky, electric guitar and drums skiffle with a female lead singer is one of them. I think that it started with Velvet Underground’s Mo Tucker singing “I’m Sticking With You” and was what I loved about The Vaselines. The Moldy Peaches caught my ear for the same reason. This year it was Standard Fare that hooked me with that sound. I didn’t listen to this so much as an album, but more like a set of individual tracks that I’d run into on random play and then star as favorites. The pop-punk sound, authentic interplay between Emma Kupa and Danny How and lyrics focused on yearning and regret guarantee that if I was 15 at least one Standard Fare track would appear on each mix tape that I gave to a girl I was wooing.

10. Sade – Soldier of Love

Frankly, I’m shocked that Sade made the list, not because I disliked Soldier of Love, but because I couldn’t remember it. Until I relistened to the album for this post I couldn’t hum the title track. With a few exceptions I just didn’t dig into albums this year the way that I have in others, but with a recent downloads playlist and repeat play they get listened to. Basically, if you are hoping for something new and different from Sade, sorry, more of the same smooth soul/ smooth-jazz. But if you like Sade, and I have been a fan since Smooth Operator hit my teen ears in the middle of a serious Depeche Mode jag, then you will not be disappointed.

2011, the slate is clean.  Bring it on.

Top 10 Albums of 2010 is a post from: Trumblog

I have to idea if the video below is real and of the 4 guys in the video below are actually playing live with their iPhones or not, but regardless, it’s sure possible that they could. Many of us walk around with more computing power in our pockets than power the space shuttle. Let’s keep using that power for art.

Mobile Computing Power And Art is a post from: Trumblog

If you don’t know about HONK!, here’s the deal. Every October brass bands from around the world make their way to Somerville, MA for a day of musical luniness and a parade to Octoberfest in Harvard Square. Oh and it’s this weekend, October 9th and 10th, 2010.

I’m not talking ho-hum, oom-pa-pa, 76 Trombones kinds of brass bands. These are bands that unfurl their freak flags and wave them around from stilts or weave them into pom-poms. Bands that Tom Waits, Shane MacGowan and Frank Zappa would travel to see. We’re talking The Pink Puffers, personal fav Rude Mechanical Orchestra, The Seed and Feed Marching Abominable. Punk, cross-dressing, black and green, orange and red, loud, manic, street, brass bands.

Then there are the crowds. Mosh pits of band geeks, hipsters and folks that just want in on a good thing. Ecstatic crowds high on the scene and amazing music. Youngsters, oldsters, families, singles, confirmed bachelors and spinsters getting in on the excitement and showing these bands what playing for the best fans in the world can be like.

Did you miss yesterday’s concerts in Davis Square? No matter, the parade from Davis to Harvard Square is today and in addition to the bands you’ll get Bread and Puppet, Boston Hula Troop and plenty of community groups strolling along the parade route. Then more concerts in Harvard Square at Octoberfest.

It’s going to be another glorious October Sunday for HONK!, there’s something about a confluence of raucous brass bands that seems to clear the skies and raise the temperatures each year, so keep it coming.

Want to see more photos of past HONK!s? Check out my sets on Flickr:

HONK! 2008

HONK! 2009

UPDATE: here is my set on Flickr from HONK! 2010:

HONK! 2010

HONK! 2010 is a post from: Trumblog

Yesterday Amazon.com sent me an email that I might be interested in a reissue of Norah Jones’ album Come Away With Me: Green Box (Eco).  Now I don’t know what they mean by a green box.  Maybe it’s just the color green.  Maybe it’s recycled.  But clearly they are trying to cache in on the environmentally conscious lovers of Ms Jones’ light jazz stylings. Whatever makes this box green, what I want to know is:

How does buying an album that you already have save the environment?

I mean Come Away With Me sold approximately 22.5 million albums, so if you like the album you probably have it.    Buying a second copy of an album you already have means that there is more plastic, more chemicals and  more trees turned into CD case inserts rather than turning carbon dioxide into oxygen.  The truth is, the green version of the album, the  ecologically conscious one costs about half the price, just $7.99, and is the digital version.  Please don’t get suckered and don’t reinforce this commercialism riding on the coat tails of environmentalism while actually hurting the environment.

How Does Buying a CD Reissue Help The Environment? is a post from: Trumblog

My Funny Valentine – Keith Jarrett Trio, Keith Jarrett Piano Gary Peacock Double Bass Jack DeJohnette Drums

Happy Valentines Day is a post from: Trumblog

So you may have gotten a new mp3 player yesterday that you need to fill or an iTunes gift card that is now burning a hole in your pocket.  Here are my top albums from the last year to give you some ideas.  These are probably not the most “important” albums of the year (Spoiler Alert: neither Animal Collective nor Grizzly Bear made the list).  This is the music that I enjoyed the most in 2009.

The albums are in no particular order (except for the last item), I liked each album for different reasons and can’t pick a favorite.

1. Gossip “Music For Men”

Beth Ditto and band’s Blondie-esque, punk meets disco diva styling won my heart in the last couple months of 2009.  But it was her Dolly Pardon in Doc Martins attitude on the first track, Dimestore Diamond, that hooked me.  Ok, that and the line “I heard it through the bass line not much longer would you be I baby.”  The fact that the album is about the length of my commute to and from the office which allowed for regular complete listening experiences was an added bonus.

2. Marianne Faithfull “Easy Come, Easy Go”

I always wanted to like Marianne Faithfull more than I actually did, but that all changed with “Easy Come. Easy Go.”  She owns each and every one of these tracks, the loss of “Down From Dover,” the weariness of “Hold On Hold On,” the haunting of “In Germany Before The War” that event Dietrich couldn’t top, the yearning of “Dear God, Please Help Me,” and I even love her version of “The Crane Wife 3″ when I avoided The Decemberists last year.  Family, sorry about the weekend of repeated listening, I hope that it didn’t sour you on this gem too much.

3. Os Mutantes “Hiah Or Amortecedor”

I was highly skeptical of this new Os Mutatantes album and expected nothing from the first album from a band in 30 years with only one of the original three members remaining.  I was expecting something along the lines of later albums from Big Star and the David Byrneless Talking Heads reunion.  But I was pleasantly surprised.  “Hiah Or Amortecedor” may not be their best album but it is a damn fine addition to Os Mutantes’ discography including the same mix of pop and absurdity of their earlier albums.

4. Regina Spektor “Far”

What is it for me about gals and pianos? Regina, Tori and Amanda I love you all.  Spektor’s “Far” is quirky, catchy and wonderful with a punk sensibility and the storytelling and musical style reminiscent of Ben Folds.  Her songs veer from literally jump starting hearts, to magical lakes, along fantasies of family life in an airstream and meditations on favorite songs and Blockbuster rental cards.

5. Wilco “Wilco (The Album)”

Wilco and Regina Spektor’s albums were released a week apart and to me are linked as a masculine and feminine soundtrack for the summer in my office.  “Wilco (The Album)” is certainly less country and experimental than previous albums by Wilco, but it maintains those touch points in these more pop focused songs that hold up better as an album that any of the other releases since “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.”

6. Various Artists “Dark Was The Night”

It came early and stayed.  I gorged on this album, the latest in the series of Red Hot albums, is full of “All Songs Considered” hipster artists like The Dirty Projectors, Feist, Grizzly Bear, The Decemberists, Cat Power, etc. when it first came out at the beginning of the year and returned to it regularly.  It’s a 2 CD (or at least that’s what I’m told, I have 31 mp3s) collection with many highlights and few lesser tracks.

7. Bon Iver “Blood Bank”

I can remember the moment walking up Massachusetts Ave one snowy Tuesday morning after downloading “Blood Bank” when I realized how good this album was.  In the spirit of 2009, I’m pretty positive that I twittered about it.  An extension of last year’s “For Emma, Forever Ago,” “Blood Bank” sounds similar with haunting melodies and is just as good, only happier.  Just 4 songs are enough for Bon Iver to solidify himself a spot in my top list.

8. Angus & Julie Stone “A Book Like This”

I discovered this brother and sister from Australia when vicariously listening up for SXSW, no I didn’t go (sigh).  “A Book Like This” was actually released a couple years ago, but only just made it to the States (so including it here is a bit of a cheat).  They have a  shuffling, childlike, folky sound that won me over on songs like “Just a Boy” and “Mango Tree.”  Check out their EPs for even more goodness.

9. Vijay Iyer Trio “Historicity”

Calling this my top jazz album of 2009 isn’t saying much since it’s the only jazz album on this list.  Vijay Iyer on piano, Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums have a modern hard jazz sound with none of the soft jazz crap that I can’t bear.  Their rhythms lurch and jump provocatively while maintaining the melody of the song and groove of a band.  Maybe the best way to describe it is just to say that they cover M.I.A.’s Galang which fits tightly into their repertoire.

10. Tie – Norah Jones “The Fall”, Ceu “Vagarosa”, Andrew Bird “Noble Beast” and Flight of The Conchords “I Told You I Was Freaky”

Reviewing my listening habits of 2009 I realized that I listened to these 4 albums quite a lot, but for one reason or another I can’t say that they were top albums of 2009. Therefore I’ll just group them in the number 10 spot as albums I really enjoyed.

Norah Jones “The Fall” – In her third album after “Come Away With Me,” Ms. Jones is turning the corner from being being widely loved and therefore derided by hipsters to gathering apologists for her musical turns.  I couldn’t stand “Chasing Pirates,” the first single from the album, both for the title and lyrics and what is up with the top hat and St. Bernard on the cover?  Too cutesy for my taste.  But the album actually drew me in. Jones is clearly out of her Americana phase and turning to a more twee sound, but she maintains the jazz influences which gives her pop songs more bite and engagement so that repeated listenings led me to find new things to like about it.  Put me in that new camp of followers who defend Norah and look forward to what’s next from her.

Ceu “Vagarosa” -  I like me some nueva Bossa Nova especially with some electronica and Ceu delivered a nice addition to my collection this year.  This is not top shelf stuff, but it’s also not the Brazilian trance crap that is stipmined off the hills of Sau Paulo to populate compilation CDs.  It’s fun, it’s light, it’s enjoyable and it’s quality.  “Vagarosa” has been a great soundtrack for both sunday morning coffee and New York Times reading as well as cocktails on the deck chillaxing.

Andrew Bird “Noble Beast” – Bird’s disc was a pleasure with every listen, with great hooks, intelligent lyrics and a pleasing sound, but somehow I never dug into it.  I knew it was there, but it just didn’t stick. I can say the same was true of Neko Case’s Middle Cyclone as well.  Why didn’t these albums catch me? I don’t know.  Was it timing, other stuff caught my ear?  Were they good, but without a spark that I needed to really love them?  Call them albums that I would have loved if given the chance, but somehow I just haven’t.  Sorry Andrew and Neko.

Flight of The Conchords “I Told You I Was Freaky” – Chucking cable this year, I missed the second season for FOTC, but I made up for it with listens to this album.  I’d heard that the Conchords didn’t want to do a second season of their show and that quality had diminished, but maybe the limitations of an album’s length helped them out, but cutting out the substandard tracks.  DSS should probably be called for the way my entire familia sings along to an album with songs about “sugar lumps,” being a man whore, and an overabundance of male genitalia at a disco.

What did you listen to in 2009.  What were your top 10+?  What do you recommend? Share your love of music in the comments.

Top 10+ Albums of 2009 is a post from: Trumblog

To my mind, one of the best albums of 2009 was The Gossips “Music for Men”, which I loved in part for Beth Ditto’s Blondie’esque mix of punk and disco (Heart of Glass has been one of my favorite songs since the moment I heard it back in the 70′s).  If it had been recorded in the 80′s Blondie’s take on We Three Kings would have been a New Wave classic up there with The Waitresses “Christmas Wrapping.” Today it’s a reminder of Debbie Harry and her band’s staying power.

An MP3 of the song is also available from Blondie’s website. Thank you and Merry Christmas.

Blondie – We Three Kings is a post from: Trumblog