The Corbett Report: Politics and Language with Andrew Gavin Marshall

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Politics and Language with Andrew Gavin Marshall (Video)
The Corbett Report

It’s all around us. We all use it on a daily basis, and it is used against us, even if we don’t know it. It is language, and it can be used as a political weapon even more effectively than outright oppression. Andrew Gavin Marshall of The People’s Book Project joins us tonight to discuss his article, “Austerity, Adjustment, and Social Genocide: Political Language and the European Debt Crisis” and how the public can put up their mental defenses against linguistic manipulation by the would-be so-called political elite.

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What I've Learned at SXSW So Far

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The first thing I learned was that when people remind you all day to set your clocks ahead an hour on Sunday night, you should probably do that.  Instead, I woke up the next morning thinking I had plenty of time to make it to Paul Lamere's panel "Finding Music With Pictures: Data Visualization for Discovery" only to discover that it was, in fact, happening at that very moment, thanks to the ridiculous scam that is Daylight Savings Time.  Fortunately, Paul has posted his slides over at Music Machinery (linked from his name, above) and so when I have some more time I am going to try to piece together what he talked about based on a smattering of pictures and text.

I also learned that the SXSW Animated Shorts are not as good as the ones at Sundance that I was lucky enough to see a few years back, and in retrospect I should have skipped them entirely to attend the "Bloggers Fight Back: Legal Workshop for Music Bloggers" panel.  But since I didn't, don't be surprised when I start writing this blog from jail.

When I finally got into some panels, I learned even more.  Mainly, I learned that metadata is the magic word of the day.  First up was the "Love, Music & APIs" panel featuring speakers from Echo Nest and SoundCloud.  Their main point was that APIs are the new currency in music apps, and if you don't have one, you're not really playing in the same game as everyone else.  They had a slide listing all sorts of cool music companies with APIs - interestingly enough, Pandora wasn't listed.  I wondered why not, as they seemed to be in the heart of the music recommendation space, and my friend Lori quickly realized "they must not have an API."  I felt so sad for them.  The panelists talked a lot about Music Hack Days, finally answering the question of what actually happens at those things.  The answer:  a lot of smart people make a lot of really interesting and cool music apps in a very short amount of time, nearly all of them based around APIs.  And what do those APIs revolve around?  Metadata.  That was also the topic of the second music-related panel I attended that day, "Music & Metadata: Do Songs Remain The Same?"  The panelists here used a pretty broad definition of "metadata," using it to cover everything from the spelling of a song's title (apparently when users submit their own titles to most metadata repositories like MusicBrainz or the old CDDB, you can end up with 176 spellings of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door") to things like a song's cultural impact or a singer's unique and recognizable turns of phrase.  The main takeaway is that metadata may start out in the hands of the artist, but quickly becomes "owned" by listeners, users, remixers, etc.  Metadata is cultural currency in much the same way that APIs are technical currency.  Combined, they are helping make this a fascinating and wonderful time to be a music nerd.

The last thing I learned is that the line to see Surfer Blood was too long last night, so I will be trying again tonight.  Of course, there are about 50 bands (and a movie) that I want to see all playing at the same time tonight, so I have no idea what I'll end up seeing, but I'll tell you all about it here!

Web Developer's Lament

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This one's for all the web developers out there...

I'm on a "working vacation" for a couple weeks up in Belfast, ME, staying in a house on the bay.  Somehow working from here doesn't feel quite as much like work as it does when I work from my usual office location.  However, events have conspired to make it feel as much like work as it possibly could - namely, a client has been doing their best to make sure that no piece of code I write this week is ever actually done, due to the specifications changing daily, not unlike clouds shifting in a summer breeze.

So I wrote this song to explain how I feel.  [This isn't all about this particular project, but that was a good starting point.]

This is a live recording made down by the water.




Lyrics:
They changed the specs again
Just when I was nearly finished
Said the client changed their mind
I don't know if I can take this

They changed the specs again
I've already written so much code
And the thought of starting over
Makes my sanity erode

Chorus:
Why won't they just let me finish?
Why can't I just be done?
Why won't they just let me finish?
Is this their idea of fun?

They changed the specs again
Pushed the launch up by 2 weeks
They've added a shopping cart
God, my knees are feeling weak

They changed the specs again
To match the new designs
They want it to just "work like Google"
Lord, I'm losing my mind

[Chorus]

I give up, I give up.
I give up, I give up.

Let's add some features, I give up.
Let's build a CMS from scratch, I give up.
Let's refactor every function, I give up.
Let's start calling ourselves agile, I give up.
Let's have a status meeting, I give up.
Let's adopt a framework, I give up.
Let's add members' only area, I give up.
Let's change databases, I give up.
Let's review my timesheet, I give up.
Let's never document anything, I give up.
Let's outsource to India  

Still More Holiday Music That Doesn't Suck

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SK Holiday Open House by flickr user vastateparksstaff

"Christmas music."  "Holiday tunes."  "Mind-numbing winter-themed muzak pabulum."  Call it what you will, our ears are subjected to a lot of crap every winter.  Well, Wired For Music is here to help, with yet another edition of our patented "Holiday Music That Doesn't Suck" playlist.

This year's playlist has some songs that a lot of you will probably already know, but I've had enough people ask me about them in the past that I finally decided to put them on.  Hopefully there'll be some surprises on here too for more "advanced" listeners, whatever that means.  And it even features one song I swore I would never, ever include (it grew on me).

Enjoy, and be sure to check out the playlists from previous years!

1. Dean Martin - A Marshmallow World
   "The King of Cool" gives us his take on this sugary classic.  Dean's version was never as popular as Bing Crosby's, but it does feature some of his trademark near-drunken slurring, particularly on the last verse's "take a walk-with-yourfav-or-itegirl."  This song makes me wish it was snowing right now.
2. Gruff Rhys - Slashed Wrists This Christmas
   This is the first track of the Super Furry Animals' frontman's brilliantly titled "Atheist Xmas EP."  It's a bit repetitive, but then, so this this whole season, isn't it?
3. The Futureheads - Christmas Was Better In The 80s
   Not entirely sure why these guys are so nostalgic given that I think they're younger than I am, but it's still a great song.  Apparently it's a big deal in the UK to release a single at Christmas time, which explains the existence of a few tracks on this playlist.  Some of them work out great, and others...don't make it to this playlist.
4. The Gasoline Brothers - Hungover Boxing Day
   This Dutch band really nails that feeling of waking up on Boxing Day and realizing - wait, what the hell is Boxing Day?  Europe is weird.
5. Badly Drawn Boy - Donna and Blitzen
   This song definitely sounds like it was written a few days before the deadline for getting on the Xmas single charts or something like that.  The lyrics read like he was doing a holiday-themed Mad Libs and just plugged in words like "sleigh ride" and "reindeer" here and there.  But the music saves it, especially those massive timpanis.
6. Marvin Gaye - Purple Snowflakes
   Nothing says Christmas like (a presumably high) Marvin Gaye singing about "purple snowflakes" while his backup singers sprinkle phrases like "chestnuts roasting" and "tootsies toasting" all over the place.  This song is ridiculously good, and his voice is just angelic.
7. Okkervil River - Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas
   I can't decide if this is more depressing than Tom Waits's "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis" (featured on 2008's playlist), but it's damn depressing regardless.  Seriously, go read the lyrics, I'll wait.  Can you imagine if Jeff Tweedy still wrote songs like this?  Wow, that would be awesome.
8. Morphine - Sexy Christmas Baby Mine
   Still not depressed?  Listen to a dead man croon "Merry for you. Not too merry for me./I want you here with me. Misery loves company."  You're welcome.
9. The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York
   I resisted this song for the past 5 years - in fact, I really hated it until late last year when it suddenly just clicked for me.  I don't know if it's living in New York or what, but one of my most-hated Christmas songs ever has finally wormed its way into my heart.  This one's a classic that I'm sure you've heard a million times, but it still belongs on this playlist.  
10. Barenaked Ladies - I Saw Three Ships
    Just a pretty little palate cleanser.  They really should have let Steven sing first, but that's being nitpicky.
11. Lord Nelson - A Party For Santa Claus
    Feeling chilly?  Let the hot island rhythms of Tobago (by way of Brooklyn) of this little ditty warm you up (or go drink some cocoa, I don't care).  I like the message of this song - how come no one ever gets presents for Santa?
12. The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick
    Of course The Beach Boys would write a song about Santa's sled.  This song is stupid, but I love it.  And it features the brilliant line: "Christmas comes this time each year."  Deep.
13. Aimee Mann - I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas
    A happy little song about getting off the ol' drugs for Christmastime.  Isn't that sweet?
14. Ella Fitzgerald - Good Morning Blues
    Leave it to Ella to have a bad time at Christmas.  "Don't send me nothing for Christmas but my baby back to me" - it's a great time of the year to be alone, isn't it?
15. dj BC - Waltz Of The Flowers (reflower)
    An interesting mix of a classic, from dj BC's "A Very Re:Composition Christmas."  Lots of interesting stuff on that album, it's really worth checking out if you like classical music, remixes, or both.
16. The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight)
    A message of love and peace for the holidays from Joey Ramone.  [Presumably he and the person to whom he was singing were allowed to resume fighting on Boxing Day.]
17. Kanye West ft. CyHi Da Prynce & Teyana Taylor - Christmas In Harlem
    Despite famously being from Chicago, which does not include Harlem, Kanye does a serviceable job with this sequel to Louis Armstrong's "Christmas Night in Harlem" (featured in 2008's playlist).  I think the best verse here belongs to CyHi Da Prynce, who raps in character as Santa Claus.  This song gets extra credit for the part at the end when Teyana Taylor starts singing the melody of "Strawberry Letter 23."
18. Milly & Silly - Getting Down For Xmas
    Looking at Santa's outfit, I'd say that playing funk music at this time of year is pretty much a no-brainer.
19. Frightened Rabbit - It's Christmas So We'll Stop
    These guys really do a great job with the whole "suicidal but catchy" thing.  Sample lyric: "Oh it's Christmas so we'll stop/'Cause the wine on our breath puts the love in our tongues/So forget the names/I called you on Christmas Eve/In fact forget the entire year/Don't reflect just pretend and you won't feel scared."  Yikes.
20. David Bowie & Bing Crosby - Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy
    For a song that was conceived of, written, rehearsed, and performed in a little over an hour, this is pretty amazing.  If you haven't heard this before, you're probably going to like it.  I think it's all the more incredible considering the backstory (see link above).
21. Lovebyte - Auld Lang Syne
    I actually cut another electronic instrumental song off this list, but I just had to give a nod to the robot inside me with this overly upbeat, bizarre version of the New Year's classic.
22. Sarah McLachlan - Song For A Winter's Night
    Sarah McLachlan's take on Gordon Lightfoot's beautiful little song is spare and beautiful, and I find it really evokes the feeling of a cold winter's night effectively.  Great harmonies, too.

Like the list?  Download it!  [you can now download previous years' lists, too!]
Hungry for more?  Check out some of these awesome holiday playlists:

• Annals of Spacetime
• Fuel/Friends
• ilovethis
• Wired For Music

What are you listening to this holiday season?  Tell me in the comments, and have a happy December!

Friday Playlist: Baby's First Playlist

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My ridiculously cute daughter

My wife and I recently had a baby girl (Alison, pictured above sporting a stylish baby towel).  Parenting, of course, has its challenges, but it also has its joys - and a big one for me these days has been sharing music with my daughter.  Music is a primary way that I communicate with the world (hence this blog), and my communications with her have been no exception.  When I'm not singing her improvised lyrics to lullabies (or making up new songs entirely), I've been playing her different songs from my library and noting her reaction to various things.  For example, Metallica seemed to make her gassy.  She liked Aimee Mann, but only the early stuff.  And she absolutely loves Spiritualized.

So I've compiled her very first playlist, comprising some of her favorites for chillout time, dance time, and sleepytime.  I hope you enjoy it as much as she does.
PS A friend of mine gave me the gift of 3 albums from Rockabye Baby, namely lullaby versions of songs by Queen, Radiohead, and Led Zeppelin.  Those are all awesome, and have the added bonus of lulling me to sleep, but I prefer to save those as secret weapons when I'm trying to conk her out, as opposed to just putting on music for her to chill to or dance with me to, etc.

1. Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (Original Version)
   I first played this for Alison when she was only a few days old.  She had just finished eating and was in what baby experts call the "quiet alert state."  So I figured it would be a perfect time to play her some tunes.  I asked my wife what she thought a baby would like, and she said "Spiritualized?"  I said yes.  This is the original version of this song which includes lyrics from Elvis's "Can't Help Falling In Love" (the Presley estate made the band remove that portion of the song from this album's original release).  The lyrics to the whole thing are pretty perfect to sing to a new baby.  This is probably Alison's favorite song thus far (and one of my favorites, too).
2. Thievery Corporation - From Creation
   She wasn't too taken with other Thievery Corporation songs, but she really seemed to click with this one.  By "click," I mean she got quiet and stopped fussing and seemed to chill out a bit.  I assume she likes these guys because, like her parents, they're from DC.
3. K'naan - Fatima
   This song is actually kind of a downer, lyrically (it's about a young girl who was murdered, I think), but Alison really seemed to enjoy the rhythm, particularly in the chorus.  [Editor's note: I'm saying things like "seemed to," "appeared to," etc. a lot because when I asked her what she thought of all these songs, she gave me no answer, so I'm having to go on educated guesses here.]
4. Cat Power - Living Proof
   This is my favorite Cat Power song.  Alison definitely seemed to enjoy it, but I don't know if it was genuine or if she was just trying to please me because she knows it's my favorite.  Either way, she enjoyed being gently swayed in my arms to this song.  Who wouldn't?  Babies are supposed to like simple, repetitive melodies, and this one definitely fits the bill.
5. Yellow Ostrich - Mary
   She seemed pretty relaxed during this song, which seems to be about the singer's friend who's on drugs.  Alison overlooked the content and just focused on the soothing background, which definitely chilled her out.
6. The Snake The Cross The Crown - Cakewalk
   Alison definitely identified with this song's ethos of "I just want to do the things that I feel like doing, and I want to be rewarded for same."  Basically a baby's mantra.
7. The Beatles - Flying
   I've been told that when I was a wee tot, almost nothing would soothe my jangled nerves as much as when my parents would put the big headphones on me and throw on either a Beatles record or something classical.  Alison has a lot more Beatles to go (and classical, for that matter) but she seemed to take to this track - not a bad start.
8. Phish - Horn
   I first played her "Bouncing Around The Room" which I thought she'd love, but I guess it was a little too simplistic, even for her. But she loved "Horn," especially the intro/chorus. She says she's psyched to hear Trey's solos on some live versions when she's a little older.
9. Self - Uno Song
   I don't know a lot of Self songs after Subliminal Plastic Motives, but this one came up on shuffle the other week and she really dug dancing along to it.  And by "dancing" I mean "me waving her around in my arms."  Tapping out the beat on her back also seemed to help her burp, so hey - bonus.
10. Her Space Holiday - Sleepy California
    Despite this song being about the slow death of the singer's estrangement from his mother and the painful death of his grandmother, Alison really seemed to enjoy it.  She can be kind of dark that way.  Or she was sleepy, it's hard to tell sometimes.
11. The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
    Another song that appeals to Alison because of her DC heritage.  Also because it's slow and soft and beautiful and has a cool beat.  And she likes when I sing along to it.
12. Jane's Addiction - Stop!
    The first time I played this for her, I bounced her up and down vigorously along with the music - taking her up really high on the downbeats, particularly during the intro and chorus.  My wife thought I was going to scramble Alison's brains, but Alison seemed genuinely happy.  And it's hard to tell if a baby's brains are scrambled anyway, they don't do all that much higher-level thinking at this phase.
13. U2 - Trip Through Your Wires
    U2 was another Amanda suggestion, and so far Alison has enjoyed most of what she heard.  This song seemed to be her favorite, meaning she fell asleep during it.  Right now her TTS (time to sleep) is a pretty indicator of how pleased she is with life overall.  Alison also seems to love "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" but I'm not a huge fan of that song, so it didn't make the list.
14. Grateful Dead - Box of Rain
    I think Amanda suggested this album, too, and Alison seemed to love every track, so I picked this one because it's awesome. And she just fell asleep to it while I was writing this, so that's one in the "plus" column.
15. Radiohead - 4 Minute Warning
    I mentioned above the lullaby version of Radiohead CD a friend gave us - it got me thinking about Radiohead songs in general, and I had an inkling that this song might be lullaby-esque enough in its current state to work on a baby.  And I was right.  I ended up playing this about 10 times in a row one night as she gently drifted off to sleep in my arms.  [Editor's note: the fact that she woke up crying 10 minutes later has nothing to do with this song, that's apparently just how babies are sometimes.]

What do you think?  For those of you without kids, what would you put on a baby playlist?  If you have kids, what have you put on a baby playlist?  What worked?  What didn't?  Tell me in the comments.

The F Word: Where have all the radicals gone? When feminism gets moderate

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Where have all the radicals gone? When feminism gets moderate
by Meghan Murphy
The F Word

In a world where feminism as a whole is often touted as a bad word, radical feminism in particular is marginalized, not only by the mainstream media, but often within third-wave feminist discourse. Are we afraid to be 'too' radical at the risk of alienating the masses? Or is radical feminism simply misunderstood?

This radio documentary asks: Where have all the radicals gone? Has feminism been swept up in the neoliberal current? Have we de-radicalized in order to be more palatable to the masses? In the face of strippercize, Sarah Palin, and 'post-feminism,' is feminism in need of a re-radicalization?

Featuring an interview with renowned feminist scholar, Sheila Jeffreys, your host Meghan Murphy explores all these questions and more.

To Listen to the Episode

What I've Learned at SXSW So Far

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The first thing I learned was that when people remind you all day to set your clocks ahead an hour on Sunday night, you should probably do that.  Instead, I woke up the next morning thinking I had plenty of time to make it to Paul Lamere's panel "Finding Music With Pictures: Data Visualization for Discovery" only to discover that it was, in fact, happening at that very moment, thanks to the ridiculous scam that is Daylight Savings Time.  Fortunately, Paul has posted his slides over at Music Machinery (linked from his name, above) and so when I have some more time I am going to try to piece together what he talked about based on a smattering of pictures and text.

I also learned that the SXSW Animated Shorts are not as good as the ones at Sundance that I was lucky enough to see a few years back, and in retrospect I should have skipped them entirely to attend the "Bloggers Fight Back: Legal Workshop for Music Bloggers" panel.  But since I didn't, don't be surprised when I start writing this blog from jail.

When I finally got into some panels, I learned even more.  Mainly, I learned that metadata is the magic word of the day.  First up was the "Love, Music & APIs" panel featuring speakers from Echo Nest and SoundCloud.  Their main point was that APIs are the new currency in music apps, and if you don't have one, you're not really playing in the same game as everyone else.  They had a slide listing all sorts of cool music companies with APIs - interestingly enough, Pandora wasn't listed.  I wondered why not, as they seemed to be in the heart of the music recommendation space, and my friend Lori quickly realized "they must not have an API."  I felt so sad for them.  The panelists talked a lot about Music Hack Days, finally answering the question of what actually happens at those things.  The answer:  a lot of smart people make a lot of really interesting and cool music apps in a very short amount of time, nearly all of them based around APIs.  And what do those APIs revolve around?  Metadata.  That was also the topic of the second music-related panel I attended that day, "Music & Metadata: Do Songs Remain The Same?"  The panelists here used a pretty broad definition of "metadata," using it to cover everything from the spelling of a song's title (apparently when users submit their own titles to most metadata repositories like MusicBrainz or the old CDDB, you can end up with 176 spellings of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door") to things like a song's cultural impact or a singer's unique and recognizable turns of phrase.  The main takeaway is that metadata may start out in the hands of the artist, but quickly becomes "owned" by listeners, users, remixers, etc.  Metadata is cultural currency in much the same way that APIs are technical currency.  Combined, they are helping make this a fascinating and wonderful time to be a music nerd.

The last thing I learned is that the line to see Surfer Blood was too long last night, so I will be trying again tonight.  Of course, there are about 50 bands (and a movie) that I want to see all playing at the same time tonight, so I have no idea what I'll end up seeing, but I'll tell you all about it here!

Web Developer's Lament

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This one's for all the web developers out there...

I'm on a "working vacation" for a couple weeks up in Belfast, ME, staying in a house on the bay.  Somehow working from here doesn't feel quite as much like work as it does when I work from my usual office location.  However, events have conspired to make it feel as much like work as it possibly could - namely, a client has been doing their best to make sure that no piece of code I write this week is ever actually done, due to the specifications changing daily, not unlike clouds shifting in a summer breeze.

So I wrote this song to explain how I feel.  [This isn't all about this particular project, but that was a good starting point.]

This is a live recording made down by the water.




Lyrics:
They changed the specs again
Just when I was nearly finished
Said the client changed their mind
I don't know if I can take this

They changed the specs again
I've already written so much code
And the thought of starting over
Makes my sanity erode

Chorus:
Why won't they just let me finish?
Why can't I just be done?
Why won't they just let me finish?
Is this their idea of fun?

They changed the specs again
Pushed the launch up by 2 weeks
They've added a shopping cart
God, my knees are feeling weak

They changed the specs again
To match the new designs
They want it to just "work like Google"
Lord, I'm losing my mind

[Chorus]

I give up, I give up.
I give up, I give up.

Let's add some features, I give up.
Let's build a CMS from scratch, I give up.
Let's refactor every function, I give up.
Let's start calling ourselves agile, I give up.
Let's have a status meeting, I give up.
Let's adopt a framework, I give up.
Let's add members' only area, I give up.
Let's change databases, I give up.
Let's review my timesheet, I give up.
Let's never document anything, I give up.
Let's outsource to India  

Still More Holiday Music That Doesn't Suck

To contact us Click HERE

SK Holiday Open House by flickr user vastateparksstaff

"Christmas music."  "Holiday tunes."  "Mind-numbing winter-themed muzak pabulum."  Call it what you will, our ears are subjected to a lot of crap every winter.  Well, Wired For Music is here to help, with yet another edition of our patented "Holiday Music That Doesn't Suck" playlist.

This year's playlist has some songs that a lot of you will probably already know, but I've had enough people ask me about them in the past that I finally decided to put them on.  Hopefully there'll be some surprises on here too for more "advanced" listeners, whatever that means.  And it even features one song I swore I would never, ever include (it grew on me).

Enjoy, and be sure to check out the playlists from previous years!

1. Dean Martin - A Marshmallow World
   "The King of Cool" gives us his take on this sugary classic.  Dean's version was never as popular as Bing Crosby's, but it does feature some of his trademark near-drunken slurring, particularly on the last verse's "take a walk-with-yourfav-or-itegirl."  This song makes me wish it was snowing right now.
2. Gruff Rhys - Slashed Wrists This Christmas
   This is the first track of the Super Furry Animals' frontman's brilliantly titled "Atheist Xmas EP."  It's a bit repetitive, but then, so this this whole season, isn't it?
3. The Futureheads - Christmas Was Better In The 80s
   Not entirely sure why these guys are so nostalgic given that I think they're younger than I am, but it's still a great song.  Apparently it's a big deal in the UK to release a single at Christmas time, which explains the existence of a few tracks on this playlist.  Some of them work out great, and others...don't make it to this playlist.
4. The Gasoline Brothers - Hungover Boxing Day
   This Dutch band really nails that feeling of waking up on Boxing Day and realizing - wait, what the hell is Boxing Day?  Europe is weird.
5. Badly Drawn Boy - Donna and Blitzen
   This song definitely sounds like it was written a few days before the deadline for getting on the Xmas single charts or something like that.  The lyrics read like he was doing a holiday-themed Mad Libs and just plugged in words like "sleigh ride" and "reindeer" here and there.  But the music saves it, especially those massive timpanis.
6. Marvin Gaye - Purple Snowflakes
   Nothing says Christmas like (a presumably high) Marvin Gaye singing about "purple snowflakes" while his backup singers sprinkle phrases like "chestnuts roasting" and "tootsies toasting" all over the place.  This song is ridiculously good, and his voice is just angelic.
7. Okkervil River - Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas
   I can't decide if this is more depressing than Tom Waits's "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis" (featured on 2008's playlist), but it's damn depressing regardless.  Seriously, go read the lyrics, I'll wait.  Can you imagine if Jeff Tweedy still wrote songs like this?  Wow, that would be awesome.
8. Morphine - Sexy Christmas Baby Mine
   Still not depressed?  Listen to a dead man croon "Merry for you. Not too merry for me./I want you here with me. Misery loves company."  You're welcome.
9. The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York
   I resisted this song for the past 5 years - in fact, I really hated it until late last year when it suddenly just clicked for me.  I don't know if it's living in New York or what, but one of my most-hated Christmas songs ever has finally wormed its way into my heart.  This one's a classic that I'm sure you've heard a million times, but it still belongs on this playlist.  
10. Barenaked Ladies - I Saw Three Ships
    Just a pretty little palate cleanser.  They really should have let Steven sing first, but that's being nitpicky.
11. Lord Nelson - A Party For Santa Claus
    Feeling chilly?  Let the hot island rhythms of Tobago (by way of Brooklyn) of this little ditty warm you up (or go drink some cocoa, I don't care).  I like the message of this song - how come no one ever gets presents for Santa?
12. The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick
    Of course The Beach Boys would write a song about Santa's sled.  This song is stupid, but I love it.  And it features the brilliant line: "Christmas comes this time each year."  Deep.
13. Aimee Mann - I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas
    A happy little song about getting off the ol' drugs for Christmastime.  Isn't that sweet?
14. Ella Fitzgerald - Good Morning Blues
    Leave it to Ella to have a bad time at Christmas.  "Don't send me nothing for Christmas but my baby back to me" - it's a great time of the year to be alone, isn't it?
15. dj BC - Waltz Of The Flowers (reflower)
    An interesting mix of a classic, from dj BC's "A Very Re:Composition Christmas."  Lots of interesting stuff on that album, it's really worth checking out if you like classical music, remixes, or both.
16. The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight)
    A message of love and peace for the holidays from Joey Ramone.  [Presumably he and the person to whom he was singing were allowed to resume fighting on Boxing Day.]
17. Kanye West ft. CyHi Da Prynce & Teyana Taylor - Christmas In Harlem
    Despite famously being from Chicago, which does not include Harlem, Kanye does a serviceable job with this sequel to Louis Armstrong's "Christmas Night in Harlem" (featured in 2008's playlist).  I think the best verse here belongs to CyHi Da Prynce, who raps in character as Santa Claus.  This song gets extra credit for the part at the end when Teyana Taylor starts singing the melody of "Strawberry Letter 23."
18. Milly & Silly - Getting Down For Xmas
    Looking at Santa's outfit, I'd say that playing funk music at this time of year is pretty much a no-brainer.
19. Frightened Rabbit - It's Christmas So We'll Stop
    These guys really do a great job with the whole "suicidal but catchy" thing.  Sample lyric: "Oh it's Christmas so we'll stop/'Cause the wine on our breath puts the love in our tongues/So forget the names/I called you on Christmas Eve/In fact forget the entire year/Don't reflect just pretend and you won't feel scared."  Yikes.
20. David Bowie & Bing Crosby - Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy
    For a song that was conceived of, written, rehearsed, and performed in a little over an hour, this is pretty amazing.  If you haven't heard this before, you're probably going to like it.  I think it's all the more incredible considering the backstory (see link above).
21. Lovebyte - Auld Lang Syne
    I actually cut another electronic instrumental song off this list, but I just had to give a nod to the robot inside me with this overly upbeat, bizarre version of the New Year's classic.
22. Sarah McLachlan - Song For A Winter's Night
    Sarah McLachlan's take on Gordon Lightfoot's beautiful little song is spare and beautiful, and I find it really evokes the feeling of a cold winter's night effectively.  Great harmonies, too.

Like the list?  Download it!  [you can now download previous years' lists, too!]
Hungry for more?  Check out some of these awesome holiday playlists:

• Annals of Spacetime
• Fuel/Friends
• ilovethis
• Wired For Music

What are you listening to this holiday season?  Tell me in the comments, and have a happy December!

Friday Playlist: Baby's First Playlist

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My ridiculously cute daughter

My wife and I recently had a baby girl (Alison, pictured above sporting a stylish baby towel).  Parenting, of course, has its challenges, but it also has its joys - and a big one for me these days has been sharing music with my daughter.  Music is a primary way that I communicate with the world (hence this blog), and my communications with her have been no exception.  When I'm not singing her improvised lyrics to lullabies (or making up new songs entirely), I've been playing her different songs from my library and noting her reaction to various things.  For example, Metallica seemed to make her gassy.  She liked Aimee Mann, but only the early stuff.  And she absolutely loves Spiritualized.

So I've compiled her very first playlist, comprising some of her favorites for chillout time, dance time, and sleepytime.  I hope you enjoy it as much as she does.
PS A friend of mine gave me the gift of 3 albums from Rockabye Baby, namely lullaby versions of songs by Queen, Radiohead, and Led Zeppelin.  Those are all awesome, and have the added bonus of lulling me to sleep, but I prefer to save those as secret weapons when I'm trying to conk her out, as opposed to just putting on music for her to chill to or dance with me to, etc.

1. Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (Original Version)
   I first played this for Alison when she was only a few days old.  She had just finished eating and was in what baby experts call the "quiet alert state."  So I figured it would be a perfect time to play her some tunes.  I asked my wife what she thought a baby would like, and she said "Spiritualized?"  I said yes.  This is the original version of this song which includes lyrics from Elvis's "Can't Help Falling In Love" (the Presley estate made the band remove that portion of the song from this album's original release).  The lyrics to the whole thing are pretty perfect to sing to a new baby.  This is probably Alison's favorite song thus far (and one of my favorites, too).
2. Thievery Corporation - From Creation
   She wasn't too taken with other Thievery Corporation songs, but she really seemed to click with this one.  By "click," I mean she got quiet and stopped fussing and seemed to chill out a bit.  I assume she likes these guys because, like her parents, they're from DC.
3. K'naan - Fatima
   This song is actually kind of a downer, lyrically (it's about a young girl who was murdered, I think), but Alison really seemed to enjoy the rhythm, particularly in the chorus.  [Editor's note: I'm saying things like "seemed to," "appeared to," etc. a lot because when I asked her what she thought of all these songs, she gave me no answer, so I'm having to go on educated guesses here.]
4. Cat Power - Living Proof
   This is my favorite Cat Power song.  Alison definitely seemed to enjoy it, but I don't know if it was genuine or if she was just trying to please me because she knows it's my favorite.  Either way, she enjoyed being gently swayed in my arms to this song.  Who wouldn't?  Babies are supposed to like simple, repetitive melodies, and this one definitely fits the bill.
5. Yellow Ostrich - Mary
   She seemed pretty relaxed during this song, which seems to be about the singer's friend who's on drugs.  Alison overlooked the content and just focused on the soothing background, which definitely chilled her out.
6. The Snake The Cross The Crown - Cakewalk
   Alison definitely identified with this song's ethos of "I just want to do the things that I feel like doing, and I want to be rewarded for same."  Basically a baby's mantra.
7. The Beatles - Flying
   I've been told that when I was a wee tot, almost nothing would soothe my jangled nerves as much as when my parents would put the big headphones on me and throw on either a Beatles record or something classical.  Alison has a lot more Beatles to go (and classical, for that matter) but she seemed to take to this track - not a bad start.
8. Phish - Horn
   I first played her "Bouncing Around The Room" which I thought she'd love, but I guess it was a little too simplistic, even for her. But she loved "Horn," especially the intro/chorus. She says she's psyched to hear Trey's solos on some live versions when she's a little older.
9. Self - Uno Song
   I don't know a lot of Self songs after Subliminal Plastic Motives, but this one came up on shuffle the other week and she really dug dancing along to it.  And by "dancing" I mean "me waving her around in my arms."  Tapping out the beat on her back also seemed to help her burp, so hey - bonus.
10. Her Space Holiday - Sleepy California
    Despite this song being about the slow death of the singer's estrangement from his mother and the painful death of his grandmother, Alison really seemed to enjoy it.  She can be kind of dark that way.  Or she was sleepy, it's hard to tell sometimes.
11. The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
    Another song that appeals to Alison because of her DC heritage.  Also because it's slow and soft and beautiful and has a cool beat.  And she likes when I sing along to it.
12. Jane's Addiction - Stop!
    The first time I played this for her, I bounced her up and down vigorously along with the music - taking her up really high on the downbeats, particularly during the intro and chorus.  My wife thought I was going to scramble Alison's brains, but Alison seemed genuinely happy.  And it's hard to tell if a baby's brains are scrambled anyway, they don't do all that much higher-level thinking at this phase.
13. U2 - Trip Through Your Wires
    U2 was another Amanda suggestion, and so far Alison has enjoyed most of what she heard.  This song seemed to be her favorite, meaning she fell asleep during it.  Right now her TTS (time to sleep) is a pretty indicator of how pleased she is with life overall.  Alison also seems to love "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" but I'm not a huge fan of that song, so it didn't make the list.
14. Grateful Dead - Box of Rain
    I think Amanda suggested this album, too, and Alison seemed to love every track, so I picked this one because it's awesome. And she just fell asleep to it while I was writing this, so that's one in the "plus" column.
15. Radiohead - 4 Minute Warning
    I mentioned above the lullaby version of Radiohead CD a friend gave us - it got me thinking about Radiohead songs in general, and I had an inkling that this song might be lullaby-esque enough in its current state to work on a baby.  And I was right.  I ended up playing this about 10 times in a row one night as she gently drifted off to sleep in my arms.  [Editor's note: the fact that she woke up crying 10 minutes later has nothing to do with this song, that's apparently just how babies are sometimes.]

What do you think?  For those of you without kids, what would you put on a baby playlist?  If you have kids, what have you put on a baby playlist?  What worked?  What didn't?  Tell me in the comments.

Democracy Now: In U.N. Address, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Urges Obama Admin to End "Regime of Secrecy; Exposed: U.S. May Have Designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks an "Enemy of the State"

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Democracy Now

In U.N. Address, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Urges Obama Admin to End "Regime of Secrecy

Speaking via videolink from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange addressed a side meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday evening. In his remarks, Assange gave thanks to the United Nations for its treaties on political asylum and denounced the U.S. treatment of alleged Army whistleblower Bradley Manning. Assange also accused President Obama of exploiting the Arab Spring and called on the U.S.to end its persecution of WikiLeaks and its supporters. We air Assange’s address.

To Watch the Report and Assange's Address

Exposed: U.S. May Have Designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks an "Enemy of the State"

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may have been designated an "enemy of the state" by the United States. U.S. Air Force counterintelligence documents show military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or its supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy" — a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death. We speak to attorney Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a legal adviser to Assange and WikiLeaks.

To Watch the Report

What I've Learned at SXSW So Far

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The first thing I learned was that when people remind you all day to set your clocks ahead an hour on Sunday night, you should probably do that.  Instead, I woke up the next morning thinking I had plenty of time to make it to Paul Lamere's panel "Finding Music With Pictures: Data Visualization for Discovery" only to discover that it was, in fact, happening at that very moment, thanks to the ridiculous scam that is Daylight Savings Time.  Fortunately, Paul has posted his slides over at Music Machinery (linked from his name, above) and so when I have some more time I am going to try to piece together what he talked about based on a smattering of pictures and text.

I also learned that the SXSW Animated Shorts are not as good as the ones at Sundance that I was lucky enough to see a few years back, and in retrospect I should have skipped them entirely to attend the "Bloggers Fight Back: Legal Workshop for Music Bloggers" panel.  But since I didn't, don't be surprised when I start writing this blog from jail.

When I finally got into some panels, I learned even more.  Mainly, I learned that metadata is the magic word of the day.  First up was the "Love, Music & APIs" panel featuring speakers from Echo Nest and SoundCloud.  Their main point was that APIs are the new currency in music apps, and if you don't have one, you're not really playing in the same game as everyone else.  They had a slide listing all sorts of cool music companies with APIs - interestingly enough, Pandora wasn't listed.  I wondered why not, as they seemed to be in the heart of the music recommendation space, and my friend Lori quickly realized "they must not have an API."  I felt so sad for them.  The panelists talked a lot about Music Hack Days, finally answering the question of what actually happens at those things.  The answer:  a lot of smart people make a lot of really interesting and cool music apps in a very short amount of time, nearly all of them based around APIs.  And what do those APIs revolve around?  Metadata.  That was also the topic of the second music-related panel I attended that day, "Music & Metadata: Do Songs Remain The Same?"  The panelists here used a pretty broad definition of "metadata," using it to cover everything from the spelling of a song's title (apparently when users submit their own titles to most metadata repositories like MusicBrainz or the old CDDB, you can end up with 176 spellings of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door") to things like a song's cultural impact or a singer's unique and recognizable turns of phrase.  The main takeaway is that metadata may start out in the hands of the artist, but quickly becomes "owned" by listeners, users, remixers, etc.  Metadata is cultural currency in much the same way that APIs are technical currency.  Combined, they are helping make this a fascinating and wonderful time to be a music nerd.

The last thing I learned is that the line to see Surfer Blood was too long last night, so I will be trying again tonight.  Of course, there are about 50 bands (and a movie) that I want to see all playing at the same time tonight, so I have no idea what I'll end up seeing, but I'll tell you all about it here!

Web Developer's Lament

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This one's for all the web developers out there...

I'm on a "working vacation" for a couple weeks up in Belfast, ME, staying in a house on the bay.  Somehow working from here doesn't feel quite as much like work as it does when I work from my usual office location.  However, events have conspired to make it feel as much like work as it possibly could - namely, a client has been doing their best to make sure that no piece of code I write this week is ever actually done, due to the specifications changing daily, not unlike clouds shifting in a summer breeze.

So I wrote this song to explain how I feel.  [This isn't all about this particular project, but that was a good starting point.]

This is a live recording made down by the water.




Lyrics:
They changed the specs again
Just when I was nearly finished
Said the client changed their mind
I don't know if I can take this

They changed the specs again
I've already written so much code
And the thought of starting over
Makes my sanity erode

Chorus:
Why won't they just let me finish?
Why can't I just be done?
Why won't they just let me finish?
Is this their idea of fun?

They changed the specs again
Pushed the launch up by 2 weeks
They've added a shopping cart
God, my knees are feeling weak

They changed the specs again
To match the new designs
They want it to just "work like Google"
Lord, I'm losing my mind

[Chorus]

I give up, I give up.
I give up, I give up.

Let's add some features, I give up.
Let's build a CMS from scratch, I give up.
Let's refactor every function, I give up.
Let's start calling ourselves agile, I give up.
Let's have a status meeting, I give up.
Let's adopt a framework, I give up.
Let's add members' only area, I give up.
Let's change databases, I give up.
Let's review my timesheet, I give up.
Let's never document anything, I give up.
Let's outsource to India  

Still More Holiday Music That Doesn't Suck

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SK Holiday Open House by flickr user vastateparksstaff

"Christmas music."  "Holiday tunes."  "Mind-numbing winter-themed muzak pabulum."  Call it what you will, our ears are subjected to a lot of crap every winter.  Well, Wired For Music is here to help, with yet another edition of our patented "Holiday Music That Doesn't Suck" playlist.

This year's playlist has some songs that a lot of you will probably already know, but I've had enough people ask me about them in the past that I finally decided to put them on.  Hopefully there'll be some surprises on here too for more "advanced" listeners, whatever that means.  And it even features one song I swore I would never, ever include (it grew on me).

Enjoy, and be sure to check out the playlists from previous years!

1. Dean Martin - A Marshmallow World
   "The King of Cool" gives us his take on this sugary classic.  Dean's version was never as popular as Bing Crosby's, but it does feature some of his trademark near-drunken slurring, particularly on the last verse's "take a walk-with-yourfav-or-itegirl."  This song makes me wish it was snowing right now.
2. Gruff Rhys - Slashed Wrists This Christmas
   This is the first track of the Super Furry Animals' frontman's brilliantly titled "Atheist Xmas EP."  It's a bit repetitive, but then, so this this whole season, isn't it?
3. The Futureheads - Christmas Was Better In The 80s
   Not entirely sure why these guys are so nostalgic given that I think they're younger than I am, but it's still a great song.  Apparently it's a big deal in the UK to release a single at Christmas time, which explains the existence of a few tracks on this playlist.  Some of them work out great, and others...don't make it to this playlist.
4. The Gasoline Brothers - Hungover Boxing Day
   This Dutch band really nails that feeling of waking up on Boxing Day and realizing - wait, what the hell is Boxing Day?  Europe is weird.
5. Badly Drawn Boy - Donna and Blitzen
   This song definitely sounds like it was written a few days before the deadline for getting on the Xmas single charts or something like that.  The lyrics read like he was doing a holiday-themed Mad Libs and just plugged in words like "sleigh ride" and "reindeer" here and there.  But the music saves it, especially those massive timpanis.
6. Marvin Gaye - Purple Snowflakes
   Nothing says Christmas like (a presumably high) Marvin Gaye singing about "purple snowflakes" while his backup singers sprinkle phrases like "chestnuts roasting" and "tootsies toasting" all over the place.  This song is ridiculously good, and his voice is just angelic.
7. Okkervil River - Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas
   I can't decide if this is more depressing than Tom Waits's "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis" (featured on 2008's playlist), but it's damn depressing regardless.  Seriously, go read the lyrics, I'll wait.  Can you imagine if Jeff Tweedy still wrote songs like this?  Wow, that would be awesome.
8. Morphine - Sexy Christmas Baby Mine
   Still not depressed?  Listen to a dead man croon "Merry for you. Not too merry for me./I want you here with me. Misery loves company."  You're welcome.
9. The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York
   I resisted this song for the past 5 years - in fact, I really hated it until late last year when it suddenly just clicked for me.  I don't know if it's living in New York or what, but one of my most-hated Christmas songs ever has finally wormed its way into my heart.  This one's a classic that I'm sure you've heard a million times, but it still belongs on this playlist.  
10. Barenaked Ladies - I Saw Three Ships
    Just a pretty little palate cleanser.  They really should have let Steven sing first, but that's being nitpicky.
11. Lord Nelson - A Party For Santa Claus
    Feeling chilly?  Let the hot island rhythms of Tobago (by way of Brooklyn) of this little ditty warm you up (or go drink some cocoa, I don't care).  I like the message of this song - how come no one ever gets presents for Santa?
12. The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick
    Of course The Beach Boys would write a song about Santa's sled.  This song is stupid, but I love it.  And it features the brilliant line: "Christmas comes this time each year."  Deep.
13. Aimee Mann - I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas
    A happy little song about getting off the ol' drugs for Christmastime.  Isn't that sweet?
14. Ella Fitzgerald - Good Morning Blues
    Leave it to Ella to have a bad time at Christmas.  "Don't send me nothing for Christmas but my baby back to me" - it's a great time of the year to be alone, isn't it?
15. dj BC - Waltz Of The Flowers (reflower)
    An interesting mix of a classic, from dj BC's "A Very Re:Composition Christmas."  Lots of interesting stuff on that album, it's really worth checking out if you like classical music, remixes, or both.
16. The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight)
    A message of love and peace for the holidays from Joey Ramone.  [Presumably he and the person to whom he was singing were allowed to resume fighting on Boxing Day.]
17. Kanye West ft. CyHi Da Prynce & Teyana Taylor - Christmas In Harlem
    Despite famously being from Chicago, which does not include Harlem, Kanye does a serviceable job with this sequel to Louis Armstrong's "Christmas Night in Harlem" (featured in 2008's playlist).  I think the best verse here belongs to CyHi Da Prynce, who raps in character as Santa Claus.  This song gets extra credit for the part at the end when Teyana Taylor starts singing the melody of "Strawberry Letter 23."
18. Milly & Silly - Getting Down For Xmas
    Looking at Santa's outfit, I'd say that playing funk music at this time of year is pretty much a no-brainer.
19. Frightened Rabbit - It's Christmas So We'll Stop
    These guys really do a great job with the whole "suicidal but catchy" thing.  Sample lyric: "Oh it's Christmas so we'll stop/'Cause the wine on our breath puts the love in our tongues/So forget the names/I called you on Christmas Eve/In fact forget the entire year/Don't reflect just pretend and you won't feel scared."  Yikes.
20. David Bowie & Bing Crosby - Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy
    For a song that was conceived of, written, rehearsed, and performed in a little over an hour, this is pretty amazing.  If you haven't heard this before, you're probably going to like it.  I think it's all the more incredible considering the backstory (see link above).
21. Lovebyte - Auld Lang Syne
    I actually cut another electronic instrumental song off this list, but I just had to give a nod to the robot inside me with this overly upbeat, bizarre version of the New Year's classic.
22. Sarah McLachlan - Song For A Winter's Night
    Sarah McLachlan's take on Gordon Lightfoot's beautiful little song is spare and beautiful, and I find it really evokes the feeling of a cold winter's night effectively.  Great harmonies, too.

Like the list?  Download it!  [you can now download previous years' lists, too!]
Hungry for more?  Check out some of these awesome holiday playlists:

• Annals of Spacetime
• Fuel/Friends
• ilovethis
• Wired For Music

What are you listening to this holiday season?  Tell me in the comments, and have a happy December!

Friday Playlist: Baby's First Playlist

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My ridiculously cute daughter

My wife and I recently had a baby girl (Alison, pictured above sporting a stylish baby towel).  Parenting, of course, has its challenges, but it also has its joys - and a big one for me these days has been sharing music with my daughter.  Music is a primary way that I communicate with the world (hence this blog), and my communications with her have been no exception.  When I'm not singing her improvised lyrics to lullabies (or making up new songs entirely), I've been playing her different songs from my library and noting her reaction to various things.  For example, Metallica seemed to make her gassy.  She liked Aimee Mann, but only the early stuff.  And she absolutely loves Spiritualized.

So I've compiled her very first playlist, comprising some of her favorites for chillout time, dance time, and sleepytime.  I hope you enjoy it as much as she does.
PS A friend of mine gave me the gift of 3 albums from Rockabye Baby, namely lullaby versions of songs by Queen, Radiohead, and Led Zeppelin.  Those are all awesome, and have the added bonus of lulling me to sleep, but I prefer to save those as secret weapons when I'm trying to conk her out, as opposed to just putting on music for her to chill to or dance with me to, etc.

1. Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (Original Version)
   I first played this for Alison when she was only a few days old.  She had just finished eating and was in what baby experts call the "quiet alert state."  So I figured it would be a perfect time to play her some tunes.  I asked my wife what she thought a baby would like, and she said "Spiritualized?"  I said yes.  This is the original version of this song which includes lyrics from Elvis's "Can't Help Falling In Love" (the Presley estate made the band remove that portion of the song from this album's original release).  The lyrics to the whole thing are pretty perfect to sing to a new baby.  This is probably Alison's favorite song thus far (and one of my favorites, too).
2. Thievery Corporation - From Creation
   She wasn't too taken with other Thievery Corporation songs, but she really seemed to click with this one.  By "click," I mean she got quiet and stopped fussing and seemed to chill out a bit.  I assume she likes these guys because, like her parents, they're from DC.
3. K'naan - Fatima
   This song is actually kind of a downer, lyrically (it's about a young girl who was murdered, I think), but Alison really seemed to enjoy the rhythm, particularly in the chorus.  [Editor's note: I'm saying things like "seemed to," "appeared to," etc. a lot because when I asked her what she thought of all these songs, she gave me no answer, so I'm having to go on educated guesses here.]
4. Cat Power - Living Proof
   This is my favorite Cat Power song.  Alison definitely seemed to enjoy it, but I don't know if it was genuine or if she was just trying to please me because she knows it's my favorite.  Either way, she enjoyed being gently swayed in my arms to this song.  Who wouldn't?  Babies are supposed to like simple, repetitive melodies, and this one definitely fits the bill.
5. Yellow Ostrich - Mary
   She seemed pretty relaxed during this song, which seems to be about the singer's friend who's on drugs.  Alison overlooked the content and just focused on the soothing background, which definitely chilled her out.
6. The Snake The Cross The Crown - Cakewalk
   Alison definitely identified with this song's ethos of "I just want to do the things that I feel like doing, and I want to be rewarded for same."  Basically a baby's mantra.
7. The Beatles - Flying
   I've been told that when I was a wee tot, almost nothing would soothe my jangled nerves as much as when my parents would put the big headphones on me and throw on either a Beatles record or something classical.  Alison has a lot more Beatles to go (and classical, for that matter) but she seemed to take to this track - not a bad start.
8. Phish - Horn
   I first played her "Bouncing Around The Room" which I thought she'd love, but I guess it was a little too simplistic, even for her. But she loved "Horn," especially the intro/chorus. She says she's psyched to hear Trey's solos on some live versions when she's a little older.
9. Self - Uno Song
   I don't know a lot of Self songs after Subliminal Plastic Motives, but this one came up on shuffle the other week and she really dug dancing along to it.  And by "dancing" I mean "me waving her around in my arms."  Tapping out the beat on her back also seemed to help her burp, so hey - bonus.
10. Her Space Holiday - Sleepy California
    Despite this song being about the slow death of the singer's estrangement from his mother and the painful death of his grandmother, Alison really seemed to enjoy it.  She can be kind of dark that way.  Or she was sleepy, it's hard to tell sometimes.
11. The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
    Another song that appeals to Alison because of her DC heritage.  Also because it's slow and soft and beautiful and has a cool beat.  And she likes when I sing along to it.
12. Jane's Addiction - Stop!
    The first time I played this for her, I bounced her up and down vigorously along with the music - taking her up really high on the downbeats, particularly during the intro and chorus.  My wife thought I was going to scramble Alison's brains, but Alison seemed genuinely happy.  And it's hard to tell if a baby's brains are scrambled anyway, they don't do all that much higher-level thinking at this phase.
13. U2 - Trip Through Your Wires
    U2 was another Amanda suggestion, and so far Alison has enjoyed most of what she heard.  This song seemed to be her favorite, meaning she fell asleep during it.  Right now her TTS (time to sleep) is a pretty indicator of how pleased she is with life overall.  Alison also seems to love "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" but I'm not a huge fan of that song, so it didn't make the list.
14. Grateful Dead - Box of Rain
    I think Amanda suggested this album, too, and Alison seemed to love every track, so I picked this one because it's awesome. And she just fell asleep to it while I was writing this, so that's one in the "plus" column.
15. Radiohead - 4 Minute Warning
    I mentioned above the lullaby version of Radiohead CD a friend gave us - it got me thinking about Radiohead songs in general, and I had an inkling that this song might be lullaby-esque enough in its current state to work on a baby.  And I was right.  I ended up playing this about 10 times in a row one night as she gently drifted off to sleep in my arms.  [Editor's note: the fact that she woke up crying 10 minutes later has nothing to do with this song, that's apparently just how babies are sometimes.]

What do you think?  For those of you without kids, what would you put on a baby playlist?  If you have kids, what have you put on a baby playlist?  What worked?  What didn't?  Tell me in the comments.

What I've Learned at SXSW So Far

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The first thing I learned was that when people remind you all day to set your clocks ahead an hour on Sunday night, you should probably do that.  Instead, I woke up the next morning thinking I had plenty of time to make it to Paul Lamere's panel "Finding Music With Pictures: Data Visualization for Discovery" only to discover that it was, in fact, happening at that very moment, thanks to the ridiculous scam that is Daylight Savings Time.  Fortunately, Paul has posted his slides over at Music Machinery (linked from his name, above) and so when I have some more time I am going to try to piece together what he talked about based on a smattering of pictures and text.

I also learned that the SXSW Animated Shorts are not as good as the ones at Sundance that I was lucky enough to see a few years back, and in retrospect I should have skipped them entirely to attend the "Bloggers Fight Back: Legal Workshop for Music Bloggers" panel.  But since I didn't, don't be surprised when I start writing this blog from jail.

When I finally got into some panels, I learned even more.  Mainly, I learned that metadata is the magic word of the day.  First up was the "Love, Music & APIs" panel featuring speakers from Echo Nest and SoundCloud.  Their main point was that APIs are the new currency in music apps, and if you don't have one, you're not really playing in the same game as everyone else.  They had a slide listing all sorts of cool music companies with APIs - interestingly enough, Pandora wasn't listed.  I wondered why not, as they seemed to be in the heart of the music recommendation space, and my friend Lori quickly realized "they must not have an API."  I felt so sad for them.  The panelists talked a lot about Music Hack Days, finally answering the question of what actually happens at those things.  The answer:  a lot of smart people make a lot of really interesting and cool music apps in a very short amount of time, nearly all of them based around APIs.  And what do those APIs revolve around?  Metadata.  That was also the topic of the second music-related panel I attended that day, "Music & Metadata: Do Songs Remain The Same?"  The panelists here used a pretty broad definition of "metadata," using it to cover everything from the spelling of a song's title (apparently when users submit their own titles to most metadata repositories like MusicBrainz or the old CDDB, you can end up with 176 spellings of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door") to things like a song's cultural impact or a singer's unique and recognizable turns of phrase.  The main takeaway is that metadata may start out in the hands of the artist, but quickly becomes "owned" by listeners, users, remixers, etc.  Metadata is cultural currency in much the same way that APIs are technical currency.  Combined, they are helping make this a fascinating and wonderful time to be a music nerd.

The last thing I learned is that the line to see Surfer Blood was too long last night, so I will be trying again tonight.  Of course, there are about 50 bands (and a movie) that I want to see all playing at the same time tonight, so I have no idea what I'll end up seeing, but I'll tell you all about it here!

Web Developer's Lament

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This one's for all the web developers out there...

I'm on a "working vacation" for a couple weeks up in Belfast, ME, staying in a house on the bay.  Somehow working from here doesn't feel quite as much like work as it does when I work from my usual office location.  However, events have conspired to make it feel as much like work as it possibly could - namely, a client has been doing their best to make sure that no piece of code I write this week is ever actually done, due to the specifications changing daily, not unlike clouds shifting in a summer breeze.

So I wrote this song to explain how I feel.  [This isn't all about this particular project, but that was a good starting point.]

This is a live recording made down by the water.




Lyrics:
They changed the specs again
Just when I was nearly finished
Said the client changed their mind
I don't know if I can take this

They changed the specs again
I've already written so much code
And the thought of starting over
Makes my sanity erode

Chorus:
Why won't they just let me finish?
Why can't I just be done?
Why won't they just let me finish?
Is this their idea of fun?

They changed the specs again
Pushed the launch up by 2 weeks
They've added a shopping cart
God, my knees are feeling weak

They changed the specs again
To match the new designs
They want it to just "work like Google"
Lord, I'm losing my mind

[Chorus]

I give up, I give up.
I give up, I give up.

Let's add some features, I give up.
Let's build a CMS from scratch, I give up.
Let's refactor every function, I give up.
Let's start calling ourselves agile, I give up.
Let's have a status meeting, I give up.
Let's adopt a framework, I give up.
Let's add members' only area, I give up.
Let's change databases, I give up.
Let's review my timesheet, I give up.
Let's never document anything, I give up.
Let's outsource to India  

Still More Holiday Music That Doesn't Suck

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SK Holiday Open House by flickr user vastateparksstaff

"Christmas music."  "Holiday tunes."  "Mind-numbing winter-themed muzak pabulum."  Call it what you will, our ears are subjected to a lot of crap every winter.  Well, Wired For Music is here to help, with yet another edition of our patented "Holiday Music That Doesn't Suck" playlist.

This year's playlist has some songs that a lot of you will probably already know, but I've had enough people ask me about them in the past that I finally decided to put them on.  Hopefully there'll be some surprises on here too for more "advanced" listeners, whatever that means.  And it even features one song I swore I would never, ever include (it grew on me).

Enjoy, and be sure to check out the playlists from previous years!

1. Dean Martin - A Marshmallow World
   "The King of Cool" gives us his take on this sugary classic.  Dean's version was never as popular as Bing Crosby's, but it does feature some of his trademark near-drunken slurring, particularly on the last verse's "take a walk-with-yourfav-or-itegirl."  This song makes me wish it was snowing right now.
2. Gruff Rhys - Slashed Wrists This Christmas
   This is the first track of the Super Furry Animals' frontman's brilliantly titled "Atheist Xmas EP."  It's a bit repetitive, but then, so this this whole season, isn't it?
3. The Futureheads - Christmas Was Better In The 80s
   Not entirely sure why these guys are so nostalgic given that I think they're younger than I am, but it's still a great song.  Apparently it's a big deal in the UK to release a single at Christmas time, which explains the existence of a few tracks on this playlist.  Some of them work out great, and others...don't make it to this playlist.
4. The Gasoline Brothers - Hungover Boxing Day
   This Dutch band really nails that feeling of waking up on Boxing Day and realizing - wait, what the hell is Boxing Day?  Europe is weird.
5. Badly Drawn Boy - Donna and Blitzen
   This song definitely sounds like it was written a few days before the deadline for getting on the Xmas single charts or something like that.  The lyrics read like he was doing a holiday-themed Mad Libs and just plugged in words like "sleigh ride" and "reindeer" here and there.  But the music saves it, especially those massive timpanis.
6. Marvin Gaye - Purple Snowflakes
   Nothing says Christmas like (a presumably high) Marvin Gaye singing about "purple snowflakes" while his backup singers sprinkle phrases like "chestnuts roasting" and "tootsies toasting" all over the place.  This song is ridiculously good, and his voice is just angelic.
7. Okkervil River - Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas
   I can't decide if this is more depressing than Tom Waits's "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis" (featured on 2008's playlist), but it's damn depressing regardless.  Seriously, go read the lyrics, I'll wait.  Can you imagine if Jeff Tweedy still wrote songs like this?  Wow, that would be awesome.
8. Morphine - Sexy Christmas Baby Mine
   Still not depressed?  Listen to a dead man croon "Merry for you. Not too merry for me./I want you here with me. Misery loves company."  You're welcome.
9. The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York
   I resisted this song for the past 5 years - in fact, I really hated it until late last year when it suddenly just clicked for me.  I don't know if it's living in New York or what, but one of my most-hated Christmas songs ever has finally wormed its way into my heart.  This one's a classic that I'm sure you've heard a million times, but it still belongs on this playlist.  
10. Barenaked Ladies - I Saw Three Ships
    Just a pretty little palate cleanser.  They really should have let Steven sing first, but that's being nitpicky.
11. Lord Nelson - A Party For Santa Claus
    Feeling chilly?  Let the hot island rhythms of Tobago (by way of Brooklyn) of this little ditty warm you up (or go drink some cocoa, I don't care).  I like the message of this song - how come no one ever gets presents for Santa?
12. The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick
    Of course The Beach Boys would write a song about Santa's sled.  This song is stupid, but I love it.  And it features the brilliant line: "Christmas comes this time each year."  Deep.
13. Aimee Mann - I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas
    A happy little song about getting off the ol' drugs for Christmastime.  Isn't that sweet?
14. Ella Fitzgerald - Good Morning Blues
    Leave it to Ella to have a bad time at Christmas.  "Don't send me nothing for Christmas but my baby back to me" - it's a great time of the year to be alone, isn't it?
15. dj BC - Waltz Of The Flowers (reflower)
    An interesting mix of a classic, from dj BC's "A Very Re:Composition Christmas."  Lots of interesting stuff on that album, it's really worth checking out if you like classical music, remixes, or both.
16. The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight)
    A message of love and peace for the holidays from Joey Ramone.  [Presumably he and the person to whom he was singing were allowed to resume fighting on Boxing Day.]
17. Kanye West ft. CyHi Da Prynce & Teyana Taylor - Christmas In Harlem
    Despite famously being from Chicago, which does not include Harlem, Kanye does a serviceable job with this sequel to Louis Armstrong's "Christmas Night in Harlem" (featured in 2008's playlist).  I think the best verse here belongs to CyHi Da Prynce, who raps in character as Santa Claus.  This song gets extra credit for the part at the end when Teyana Taylor starts singing the melody of "Strawberry Letter 23."
18. Milly & Silly - Getting Down For Xmas
    Looking at Santa's outfit, I'd say that playing funk music at this time of year is pretty much a no-brainer.
19. Frightened Rabbit - It's Christmas So We'll Stop
    These guys really do a great job with the whole "suicidal but catchy" thing.  Sample lyric: "Oh it's Christmas so we'll stop/'Cause the wine on our breath puts the love in our tongues/So forget the names/I called you on Christmas Eve/In fact forget the entire year/Don't reflect just pretend and you won't feel scared."  Yikes.
20. David Bowie & Bing Crosby - Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy
    For a song that was conceived of, written, rehearsed, and performed in a little over an hour, this is pretty amazing.  If you haven't heard this before, you're probably going to like it.  I think it's all the more incredible considering the backstory (see link above).
21. Lovebyte - Auld Lang Syne
    I actually cut another electronic instrumental song off this list, but I just had to give a nod to the robot inside me with this overly upbeat, bizarre version of the New Year's classic.
22. Sarah McLachlan - Song For A Winter's Night
    Sarah McLachlan's take on Gordon Lightfoot's beautiful little song is spare and beautiful, and I find it really evokes the feeling of a cold winter's night effectively.  Great harmonies, too.

Like the list?  Download it!  [you can now download previous years' lists, too!]
Hungry for more?  Check out some of these awesome holiday playlists:

• Annals of Spacetime
• Fuel/Friends
• ilovethis
• Wired For Music

What are you listening to this holiday season?  Tell me in the comments, and have a happy December!