LUIS MIGUEL, “POR DEBAJO DE LA MESA”
In which I quote James Murphy for some reason.
While I appreciate the compliment, I too would much rather read any non-SWM on a big major pop release than me. And preferably someone who got paid for writing about it; not because money makes for better writing, but because it makes for better justice.
I know this will mean nothing to the vast majority of my followers, but I’ve spent the last hour or so scrolling through a giant pdf of Mafalda comics, and I’m nearly ready to nominate Quino for Greatest Cartoonist of All Time, End of Discussion.
I’m always fascinated by design choices I wouldn’t have expected from a given sector. This is a 20-degree tilt away from being a Hercules & Love Affair sleeve.
Well, I was going to subscribe to iTunes Match for $25 a year (getting tired of managing three different devices’ sync folders, thought it would be nice to be able to stream anything on demand), but apparently there’s a 25,000 song limit on music you haven’t bought from iTunes.
I’m not going to front like 25,000 songs isn’t a lot of songs — it is! — but it’s less than half my music library. Not talking illicit downloads, even; my CD and vinyl rips are well over 25,000 songs, and I’m not convinced I should be penalized for having broad tastes, deep curiosity, and a preference for spreading my music-purchasing dollars out over many different retailers, formats, and price points.
I didn’t want to say much more that that; it’s a small complaint in the scheme of things, but I was looking forward to the idea of being able to pull up albums I’d only just remembered I had, or hadn’t thought to listen to in ages, or even just shuffling and being surprised by the corners of my collection. I wouldn’t really be surprised if Apple quietly got rid of the limit once the service is established; permanent cloud access is too appealing and obvious a leap to make. Checking around, it looks like Google Music and Amazon’s Cloud Player have similar limitations for now. And Spotify has a whole nest of interrelated issues that mostly just depress me.
Speaking of which, if Match ever does drop the limit, and I try to use it, and find that they use generic album artwork instead of the high-res jpegs I’ve painstakingly applied to every song in my library, sometimes changing it within albums to indicate which are the bonus tracks — you’re not wrong, it is sad — it might be a dealbreaker for me. I’m impossible to please, is what I’m saying.
This has been your weekly dose of “my God, he can complain about ANYTHING, can’t he?”
cureforbedbugs asked: Watch yr back, Bogart, I'm bearding up, slowly but surely.
I may not agree with it, but I will defend to the death your beard’s right to exist.
girlboymusic asked: Something something a question about your beard, obviously. I don't know. I'll try and think of something good.
My beard is in the just-before-unruly stage, where individual hairs, or individual clumps (feels weird to call them locks) could stand trimming, but the overall look is still presentable with a single smooth-down motion of the hand. Give it a week, and it’ll start to look more untamed: the undergrowth deep, thick, and long, the sideburns so bushy they’re more like a gaudy, gilt roccoco frame to my cheeks than the slim, graceful Art Deco frame I prefer. (Not sure that analogy holds.) Saw my first gray hair in my mustache today. Plenty in the beard proper, especially where I landed on my chin the one time I’ve ever fainted, but first in the mustache. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled, etc.
bwall05 asked: What would your 33 1/3 pitch be? (Also, congrats on EMP!)
I’ve said it before, but A Nod Is As Good As a Wink… To a Blind Horse by Faces would be my dream sale. Not because I think 70s guitar rock is particularly undervalued, or anything — it’s just a really fascinating album from a lot of different perspectives, and it’s been pretty emotionally important to me at various points in my life.
But I’ve thought about many, many others, including pre-rock vocal albums by folks like June Christy, Abbey Lincoln, or Hoagy Carmichael… various-artists compilations like Jock Jams, Volume One (dead serious), or No New York, or Harry Smith’s Anthology… something from the world-music, or Latin music, or free-jazz, or Christian-music, sides of my personal canon. There are far too many great records, and far too many still-neglected corners of the music world, for me to really feel all that comfortable pitching yet another guitar-rock record right down the middle of the old well-traveled country-blues-folk-soul-rock-and-roll fairway.
And thanks! (Note to anyone reading who’s presented before, particularly from out of state: could I pick yr brains? jonathanbogart at gmail, obv. Thx again.)
