i hate the sound of guitars

A very misleading list, since 23 artists were tied for 4th, and since I was travelling most of the week, and listened to lots of music not counted by last.fm. But:

X-Ray Spex - Thanks to tercat for inspiring me to dig out Germ-Free Adolescents
Divinyls - Thanks to Hub Comics for inspiring me to dig out […]

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Lifehacker recently ran an article on their Top 10 iTunes Smart Playlists. I disagreed with most of it, but it got me thinking about playlists, and I realized I could get solve some of my iTunes peeves by chaining multiple smart playlists together.
My favorite radio shows on my favorite station, WMBR, mix brand new […]

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After Flasshe, Steve, and 125records:
This is on the home iTunes. I keep my iTunes music on external hard drives; the one at work has the same content, but different play counts. I’m about to go to a 4 hard drive model with classical/jazz on different drives, because the danged drives are almost full.
Total length: 70:08:08:26 […]

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The Magnetic Fields - pre- and post-show listening binge. Good gravy, they’re great. I’m grudgingly coming around to the point of view that Distortion does sound a l’il bit like Jesus and Mary Chain circa Psychocandy — not because of the guitars, not because of the melodies (which are quite as Merrittorious as ever, if […]

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There’s basically nothing I don’t love about Smokers Die Younger’s X Wants the Meat.
I love the cheap-sounding keyboards (Casio? I can live in hope). I love the also cheap-sounding and frequently fuzzed-out guitar and bass (Slates amps and Skinny Rat guitars? Sounds like they could be), the determinedly plonky single-note guitar lines they play, and […]

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Elvis Perkins - (already covered this one)
Circus Devils - I actually think that the total amount of time spent listening to an artist would be a more useful metric for me than the number of songs I listen to. Songwriters like Dean Edward Wells, Robert Pollard, and John Darnielle are why — one of their […]

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I really should have found the time to write about this album two days ago, but oh well, life is full of missed opportunities. I also missed my opportunities to hear Ash Wednesday in the year of its release, else it would’ve been shortlisted for the best-of set.
I try to avoid Neutral Milk Hotel as […]

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Nirvana - watching the end of Season 3 of Lost, where Jack goes all [redacted to avoid spoilers] inspired me to load my iTunes up.
Engine Down - suddenly realized I hadn’t listened to this band in a long time
The Casket Lottery - I’ve been listening to the new Able Baker Fox album (see below) which […]

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More justification for my usual laggardly approach to putting together the year-end mixes: If I’d put my 2007 list together midway through January, it definitely would’ve included Les Ondes Silencieuses, represented probably by “Echoes and Coral,” or “Sea of Tranquility.”
Colleen (real name: Cécile Schott)’s story would be intriguing even if I didn’t love the music. […]

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