(no subject)

[sorcyress]

The other day, I was idly listening to the radio at work, when some ad came on. Babbling about some important reform or another, and they got as far as saying "President..."

"...Bush" my brain automatically filled in, conditioned by the last eight years.

"...Obama" the radio continued. And it's stupid and silly and I've so clearly drunken the kool-aid, but it made me smile.

At any rate, Happy Birthday, Barack. You're cool.

***

Goddamnit, every once in a while, one of my pushbuttons gets caught unawares, and in the midst of a perfectly dull morning, I find myself crying, just because of what came up on shuffle on my itunes.

Fuck you, World/Inferno. Fuck your live album, and your introductions to songs, and for making me never quite be able to listen to Cathy Catherine the same way, I suspect. That was pretty, and sad, and I've pretty much been there, yep.

((Also, and in a weirder way, fuck *me* for having all those stupid damn pushbutton issues that get caught unawares. Moreso for having ones I don't-won't-can't talk about, and for ones I at least can't talk about in public fora. I'm too fucking lucky to be sad.))

***

Roomcleaning. Of course, room is currently at a stage where I'm not sure there's enough space in it to clean it. No, I'm not kidding. This is going to be fun.

***

"Sirens" is rapidly becoming one of those albums with more songs starred¹ as "good" than not. Other albums that fall into this category include:

"Addicted to Bad Ideas" by World/Inferno Friendship Society- 9/11 songs starred (82%)
"Red-Eyed Soul" by W/IFS -9/15 (60%)
"Assassins" (revival cast)- 9/15 (60%)
"Who Killed Amanda Palmer" by Amanda Palmer- 8/14 (58%)
"Inland Territory" by Vienna Teng- 7/12 (58%)
"Big City Rock" by Big City Rock- 6/11 (55%)
"Across the Universe" (movie cast)- 8/16 songs starred (50%)

"Sirens" has merely 5/14 (36%) songs starred currently, but that'll change as I continue to listen to it. And eventually, I'll go through and figure out what album has the most stars to its name --there are some albums with more double starred songs than others.

And of course, if I went on Dmitri, and figured out which songs need stars still, it would change --when I lost all my playcounts and playlists in '07, it totally affected the starcount of my music, just based on what I've been listening to -this is why Clam Chowder, and a lot of the musicals have many fewer stars than they should have.

Also, it's worth noting that two of my favourite bands --Great Big Sea and Bowling for Soup-- don't have any albums with the majority of stars. Assuming a 12-song album though, GBS can make almost three 100%s for me. That's a little awesome, really.

What albums do you like the absolute majority of songs on?

~Sor
MOOP!

1: I don't use iTunes's rating system at all properly. Instead, songs that I like get a single star. If I realize I like it immensely, I give it two. I use five stars to mark songs that need to have something done to them, especially if listening to them on my ipod ((things like "go into a playlist" or "cut off the last minute of silence on this one" or whatever)

ETA: Okay, "Sirens" is up to 6/14 (43%). And I suppose it says something about the sort of music I enjoy that the song started and I went "Okay, I know this isn't Dar², and I don't *think* it's Vienna, so...s00j?

2: Because I only have three Dar Williams songs, which is actually pretty freaking tragic. They're all good though --she's got a 100% star-rating in my library. ;D

Comments

[tolkienkookad.livejournal.com]

I think just because you're willing to write about these issues you have in Livejournal, means you're willing to talk about them with the right person.

Do that. It helps.

[harena.livejournal.com]

Talking always helps! This has been completely & utterly underscored to me repeatedly and even just recently when i had built up walls so thick that i thought i could not talk to the two most trusted people in my life and that when i finally did, i not only found out that they did not think any less of me, they were totally able to help me sort out (againagainagain) some of the crap that floats around in my head in the form of negvox.

Soyar, i totally endorse the Talking thing. And i KNOW you have the right/trusted person out there. i know you do. *nods firmly*

[harena.livejournal.com]

What albums do you like the absolute majority of songs on?

All of pre-1980 Pink Floyd. ELO's Time. Jellyfish's Spilt Milk. TMBG's John Henry, Flood, and that Other One. o O (names names titles words)

Kate Bush's Hounds of Love. Tangerine Dreams' Phaedra, Exit, & White Eagle. Sigur Ros' that first one that Thorgo turned me onto and that we were just talking about in the pieshop the other day, darned unspellable Icelandic. :iconshakepawplz:

uhhh.. i'm sure there's more, but those are the ones what sprung forth and latched themselves on my frontal lobe.

Oh & The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!

[thorog.livejournal.com]

Ágætis Byrjun?

[harena.livejournal.com]

Yes! that's the one ^_^

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Every album Incubus has ever produced. Same with Lake Trout. Also:
- Addison Groove Project - Allophone
- The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
- Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica, Lonesome Crowded West

Really...pretty much everything I have. That's why I paid money for it. Those are just the ones that especially come to mind as "OMG I love everything about this album."

I've never understood the point of the rating system. If I like a song enough to give it four or five stars, I'm going to remember it without needing to rate it. If I dislike it enough to mark it way down, same thing. If it's in the middle, it's not worth marking because it's not in either of the other two categories, so it must be okay.

[ncarraway.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute - someone else has heard of Lake Trout? You are now my hero.

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

I love them. I just wish they'd stop doing this sort-of-on-hiatus-but-hey-we'll-do-a-show-every-few-months thing.

Also you are now my hero too, because I've never met anybody else who's heard of them except through me.

[ncarraway.livejournal.com]

Sweet! Two heroes for the price of one. We should open a sandwich shop.

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

I like sandwiches. This is a good idea.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

I currently have over 6000 songs in iTunes, over 700 of which have five stars. There's really no way I can remember every one of those. For me, obsessively rating everything, combined with careful construction of smart playlists, mean that the stuff I like more comes up much more often than the stuff I like less on shuffle.

[ncarraway.livejournal.com]

Kid A. I'll hear no ill of it.

The Decemberists' new album basically functions as one song, but I like every movement. I have a deep love for Tegan & Sara's "So Jealous", and every time I listen to the Talking Heads' "Remain in Light", I'm stunned by how much I love the tracks I'd forgotten about. Oh man - and Opeth's "Ghost Reveries"? UNSTOPPABLE. Then there's Joni's "Blue" - any one of those tracks could be a "favorite" - and King Crimson's "In the Court...", which is just godly. The Grateful Dead's "American Beauty" is more around 60 or 70%, but then there's "Foxtrot" by Genesis, from back when they were a real band.

Er, I could go on for a while, but I don't really want to list more albums than you did!

[mrs-pansy.livejournal.com]

I have terrible, awful taste in music. Everyone says so. So, I'll not embarrass myself here, in semi-public. Anyhow, here's to talking about issues. When you're ready for it to help, it helps.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Oh honey, I enjoy the Spice Girls. Non-ironically. And I am growing to like country. And rap is pretty much completely dancable.

You *cannot* have worse taste in music than I do.

~Sor

[thorog.livejournal.com]

My current one is Royksopp's Junior. I think Michael Jackson's Thriller does pretty well too. There are probably others.

[harena.livejournal.com]

*reminds Thorgo that he was going to fix her up with that!*

[miriampenguin.livejournal.com]

The Amazing New Electronic Pop Sound of Jean Jacques Perrey
Nigunei Hisvadus Vol 1 & 2 (probably 3 also, but I don't have it)
... the only other one I can think of is The White Album by The Beatles, but I haven't run the numbers on the actual percentage.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

My star ratings, from five to one, generally mean outstanding, excellent, good, fair, and poor. I think something equivalent to your system would be albums with a majority of songs having four or five stars, but I think there are quite a lot of those. So, just the ones that have a majority with five stars:

"Rain, Hail, or Shine" by Battlefield Band - 5/9
"Abbey Road" by the Beatles - 9/17
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by the Beatles - 9/13
"1" by the Beatles¹ - 15/27
"Tubthumper" by Chumbawamba - 6/12²
"Drum, Hat, Buddha" by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer - 8/12
"Crossing the Bridge" by Eileen Ivers - 7/12
"Lemonade & Buns" by Kíla - 8/11
"Get Lost" by The Magnetic Fields - 7/13
"Automatic For The People" by R.E.M. - 8/12
"Eponymous" by R.E.M. - 12/12³
"Sasquatch" by Sixteen Feet - 7/13
"Imaginary Tartan Menagerie" by the Tartan Amoebas - 7/9⁴
"Tartan Amoebas" by the Tartan Amoebas - 6/10
"WhirlyGig" by WhirlyGig - 7/10

1. Not sure if this should count, since it's kind of a greatest hits.
2. Not strictly a majority, but it also has no songs rated less than four stars, so.
3. Also a best of, but still. So awesome.
4. Obligatory Star Trek: Voyager reference here.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Except I apparently can't count, because Eponymous actually only has 10/12. (The other two are only four stars.) That's still higher than anything else, though. Like I said, so awesome.