So it took 4 years, 5 months and change, but yours truly hit the six digit mark in scrobbles. I would like to thank my two computers that stored all my tracks, all
the thousands of artists who I'm listened to, the last.fm/Audioscrobbler software
itself and all the peeps who keep last.fm running, and most importantly, my left ear and my right ear, for taking it all in.

At first, I wanted to pick the 100,000th track….I was tempted to program it so it would be a repeat of the very 1st track I played, which was Know. But…

Three days deep into in 2011 and I'm still not sure what my thoughts were of 2010 as far as music goes. I know for sure nothing absolutely blew me away, and that a lot of the albums on other top 10 lists don't even appeal to me conceptually. Conversely, I did listen to a lot of very worthwhile albums and don't really recall too many works that flat-out disappointed me. As you should know by now, I rank my albums based the number of plays they received between January 1st and New Year's Eve of 2010. I do not…

It has been a busy year, amigos and amigettes. Usually around this time, I will take a look back at years past and the albums I dug at the time. I add in all the new albums and the additional spins each LP got since then and reformulate the list, creating an updated and more relevant "best of" list. Sadly, I have not had time to do such a feat (I barely have had time to count up my best of '10 list!) but hopefully later in the new year such a feat will be performed. Since that's usually a…

Yes, friends, allies and passer-bys, this past August 29th was a momentous occasion. It marked the beginning of the 4th year of a personal, life-long experiment. Thanks to last.fm, I have the power to have every track I listen to recorded as public record and available at a mouseclick, and this is the 3rd time I look back and see how my listening habits have changed from year to year. I never took a stat class in college and discussing most sports stats is like getting my teeth pulled. But being able to break down my favorite music acts in…

Fri 16 Apr – Rogue Wave

It's easy to let life changes in any band to bleed through onto stage and studio. Bands by nature share bloodlines with both gangs and gypsys; a self-contained and unified front, yet living out of a suitcase. It's only natural for the album-to-album, show-to-show sine waves of joy and despair to show up from time to time. From that logic, Oakland's Rogue Wave would have the most depressing, maudlin catalogues in indie rock. The band has endured numerous setbacks, any one of which would have shattered your average band. (To briefly summarize: lead singer/songwriter…

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I've read a lot of rock bios, and I've read of lot of books about rock from actual writers. One chief complaint I've always had about rock bios (even the ghost-written ones) is that there's no real narrative arc, no grand scheme holding things together. Most tend to connect the major events of the artist or band's career together, giving the reader a Cliff's Notes version of that band's career. This isn't a bad approach, but it tends to downplay the little moments of joy and exhiliration that caused most of the artists to get into the music biz…

This is going to one of my listier blogs, so apologies in advance. I went to The Exclusive Company here in Janesville, after a day shift at my job. This was the first time I have had to work on Record Store Day so I didn't get to be there as the doors open. As a result I missed out on a LOT of the rare swag (no Chronic Town on vinyl for me!) and also at the Exco they fill up bags full of sampler CDs, drink coasters and stuff like that and the first 50-75 people get that…

Fri 5 Mar – Gomez

There's a certain temptation to dismiss Gomez out of hand, especially if you're a music biz nerd weaned on sale figures and buzz. The Brit quintet seemingly reached their apex in both categories with their 1998 debut Bring It On. Since then, countless musical trends streaked across the NME and MTV while Gomez went about their own business, becoming music festival staples in between amassing a respectable catalogue. Now, in 2010, the band are tallying a string of sold-out shows around the world including a stop in Wisconsin's capital city.

Longevity is an admirable…

MY 2009 HALO LIST of UNHEARD GOODNESS

OK, so here's the stuff that came out in 2009 that I had an inkling to listen and the opportunity did not present itself. Some of these may end up in my amended most of/best of chart next year; some I may not get to until I am old and wrinkled. Albums are not in any particular order.

Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Sloan – Hit & Run EP
Matt & Kim – Grand
Mastodon – Crack the Skye
Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers
Sonic Youth – The Eternal
Street…

Welcome friends old and new to my 4th annual unveiling of my 15 most listened to albums. If you're new to the festivities, let me quickly recap my philosophy and see how it applies to this list. I take a daily tally of all the albums I listen to completely, something I've done since New Year's Day of 2001. Then, at the end of the calendar year, I count up all the times I listened to the discs released that year. The disc that I listened to the most is the #1 album, the next highest gets #2, and so…