My Album is Better Than Your Album

It's a pretty common belief that pop music died after the 90s. This decade has had its popular music not defined by bubblegum teen princesses and hunky "funky but not threatening" boy bands, but instead by black guys, materialism, sex, and "getting tipsy." With the mainstream largely done with this brand of irresistible sugar coated tunes, good pop albums are few and far between. Annie, however, seems to be out to change that.

Hailing from Norway, Annie emerged on the international scene after the release of her first album Anniemal gained an appropriate amount of blogger buzz. Songs like "Chewing Gum" and "Heartbeat," the latter produced by fellow Norwegians Röyksopp, proved that pop music was definitely not dead. Catchy, danceable, and sugar-sweet, it was a total revival, easily overshadowing recent efforts from the former gods such as Britney or Jessica.

Annie's second album, Don't Stop, slated for release on October 6th (but available now if you know where to look), takes the style of the first album and cranks it up to 11. Annie has called it "pop with strange edges," but upon listening it is immediately noticeable that this album is more than pop. It's pop, it's dance, and it's electro all at once. It's catchy, it's funny, and it's also deep enough that it demands more than one listen to catch all the crazy eccentricities. The tracks are varied in style, some sounding straight out of the 90's such as the first single "I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me," some faster 4 to the floor anthems such as "Song Reminds Me of You" and, of course, the obligatory slow tracks like "When The Night," which Annie was pleased to call her "first power ballad." Hip-hop is even represented, with the subdued drones on top of fat beats in "Take You Home." Annie and producers Timo and Richard X have succeeded in doing what Madonna and Britney's producers have been trying to do over and over again: make an album which takes the pop style we all love so much and modernizes it. Don't Stop does just that, utilizing dirty synths, trance-like melodies, and some of the best, most danceable beats I've heard in a good while, all while mixing it up enough so that it never gets boring. Clubs, be prepared for some serious bangers.

It's clear that her voice has had some training since Anniemal as well, coming across more dynamic and powerful throughout - it's especially clear in songs like "Sweet," and "Bad Times," which really show her range and vocal ability extremely well. While in Anniemal the vocals are largely more of a rap-sing hybrid, on most of the tracks here she belts it out, showcasing her sugar sweet voice in all of its glory. Combine this with clever lyrics largely written by Annie herself, and you end up with a complete winner, a pop album that's also not a pop album, since it probably won't be heard on too many radio stations.

Save a couple so-so tracks like "What Do You Want (The Breakfast Song)," Don't Stop is a masterpiece, an album that should bring Annie droves of fans beyond her already established indie blogger base. There's little to dislike about Annie or this album regardless of your music taste, and anyone who has a soft spot for pop music should definitely check this one out.

Some tracks for sampling:
My Love Is Better
I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me
Song Reminds Me Of You

Metro/ Natural

Recently, I've been really enjoying using my camera again. I took a basic digital photography class spring quarter this year, and I learned a ton. Before I basically just had an eye for cool pictures, and now I really know what goes into making a picture great. I've been a ton more active in the process, as opposed to just throwing it on auto and hoping for the best. Over the course of the spring and summer I've been shooting around Seattle with a general theme in mind: the combination and contrast of the urban setting with nature. This happens all over the place here, and I went out across the city to try to find it. These pictures are all high dynamic range, which means that they are composed of more than one photo of the same subject combined in Photoshop and edited so that everything in the picture is evenly exposed regardless of differences in light levels. Under the cut you will find these pictures as well as a little blurb about the picture and how I accomplished it.

Gasworks Park at Sunset - 3 exposures looking south across Lake Union at Gasworks Park. Taken right at sunset so that the red light from that combined nicely with the blue in the rest of the sky and the water. I love the colors in this one.


Capitol Hill Sky - 4 exposures taken out of a 12th story window in Campion Hall. The clouds are what I was trying to focus on the most here and they ended up coming out better than expected. I love how you can see the slight outline of the mountains in the background.


Green and Red - Trees and the Garrand Building on campus. I didn't have a specific aim in this picture, but I really like the way that the colors turned out, especially the greens. This is a HDR composed of two exposures.


Gray Skyline - Another skyline shot, 3 exposures taken from my friend's roof. This is another picture where I was aiming at capturing the full glory of the clouds, but they didn't come out quite as good as the other cloud shot. It's striking how different the skyline looks based on where you are looking at it from.


Green - Taken out my dorm room window. 2 exposures.


Amazon.com - This is the Amazon.com corporate headquarters. It sits by itself on top of a huge hill, so my aim was to capture it's majestic loneliness. The contrast of the blue and orange in this picture is really striking.


Through the Trees - 4 exposures taken from a park at the top of Beacon Hill. This is the picture that really got this project going, I absolutley love the skyline framed with those trees and bushes.


Blues and Greens - 3 exposures taken out of the 7th floor of Bellarmine hall. I love the perspective in this, so many different buildings and crazy angles are going on here it can be hard to figure out what's actually going on and where this was taken. My photography teacher couldn't believe that I didn't heavily alter this one.

The whole set plus bigger sizes can be found at my flickr.

Vice Presidents

As all the media hype dies down and focuses more on weather than politics, I think it'd be good to stop for a second and reflect on both of the candidates' VP picks - Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. The VP pick is one of the first important decisions a candidate makes, and it reflects greatly on their judgment whom they pick and why they pick them. While both of them seemingly had legitimate reasons for picking their running mates, there are definitely some issues with both of them that could end up hurting their candidacy, especially with the younger population.

Joe Biden is largely a good choice for Obama. His political resume is exactly what the ticket needs to reassure democrats and swing independents. He has had experience in Washington for over 30 years, had dealt with countless foreign leaders, and is a very white, middle-class man. This balances Obama's weaknesses almost exactly, adding the experience that he is constantly accused of lacking by the McCain campaign. Joe is a family man, down-to-earth, and doesn't even live in Washington. He takes the same Amtrak to and from work every day, a trip totaling almost 4 hours. Obama has spun this to fit his campaign's message, saying that the fact that he doesn't live in Washington means that he hasn't been shaped by the "same old politics," and instead has shaped those politics himself. Looking a little deeper into his policies, however, reveals some issues that some of Obama's strongest supporters might have with him.

These issues have to do with copyright, DRM, net neutrality, and the big content producers. A recent CNET article detailed his voting record on these important issues, and it could be seen as a very bad thing by most web-age young adults - one of Obama's largest and most dedicated demographics. Biden is "a staunch ally of Hollywood and their efforts to expand copyright law." Among others, he voted to make it a felony to trick devices into playing unauthorized music, and has also sponsored an RIAA backed bill aimed at making it harder to record songs from online radio stations. In addition, he hasn't been nearly as vocal about the need for enforced net neutrality as Barack Obama has. It is one of Obama's official policies, but Biden has mostly said that no preemptive laws were necessary. It seems to me that although Biden is a good choice in the foreign policy and experience departments, he might need to rethink his policies on these other important issues if he wants to keep the votes of countless young people.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, seems to be nothing but a terrible choice for John McCain. It was completely obvious from the start that he only picked her due to her gender, and the barrage of negative coverage she has been receiving has been unrelenting. She has little to no experience on the national stage, is currently under investigation for her practices as Alaska's governor, and has a daughter who is walking proof that her abstinence only sex-education policies don't work. If John McCain's aim in picking a woman was to appeal to disenfranchised Clinton supporters, that aim has failed. These women will not vote for someone who thinks abortions shouldn't even be legal in the case of rape or incest, and they definitely won't vote for a ticket with a frontman who thinks that he'll get votes just because he picked a woman as his running mate.

I anxiously await the VP debate. The difference in experience is mind-boggling.

I'll leave you with this:

ohax revamp

Hello!

For those of you who haven't visited my website recently, I thought I'd just let you know that I've done a good bit of work on it over the last month or so. Moved it over to a new faster server, added new content such as some articles that I've written, and I've also spent some time organizing everyone who hosts content with me into a more unified structure. They're mostly music, so I created a landing / splash page with links to everyone's sites, so ohax is kinda like a record label or something now. It's pretty sweet.

ohax.com - main page of my portfolio.
ohax records - ohax "records" landing page
DJ Toaster - DJ toaster page. You can download almost every mix I've made (at least the good ones)

SO yeah, check them out! If you make music and want a simple website and a place to distribute it online quickly, hit me up and join the fabulous celebrities who already are signed to ohax records. ;)

Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs Review

Death Cab for Cutie used to be a band that I never really gave a chance to. Years ago I was listening exclusively to electronic music, and aside from lead vocalist Ben Gibbard's side project with synthesizers "The Postal Service," I didn't really listen to much in the way of indie rock. Death Cab flew into my radar with 2005's major label debut "Plans," an album that many dismissed for being "too poppy." What it really was was flawless production, amazing lyrics ("I Will Follow You Into The Dark" comes to mind), and these things were exactly what the band needed to be successful on a major and break through to the mainstream.

"Narrow Stairs" takes the poppy production of "Plans" and mixes it with a darker, bleaker sound both lyrically and musically. The album starts out with the fantastic "Bixby Canyon Bridge," which is quite possibly the hardest Death Cab has rocked on a studio album. Distorted guitars and huge drums take the place of Gibbard's relaxing vocals for most of this track, and it's largely a sound that Death Cab haven't experimented with until this point, and it really works. In "I Will Possess Your Heart," the second track and first single, the band jams out to a midtempo bassey groove for a whole 4 minutes before the lyrics even start, and then the track transforms into a catchy stalker-esque song that borders on creepy at points. "You gotta spend some time, love // You gotta spend some time, with me // I know that you'll find, love // I will possess you heart."

Overall, the first 15-20 minutes of the album really shine as new and different for Death Cab. I was genuinely spurised at this different sound, and thought that it would last for the whole album, but that wasn't the case. "No Sunlight" and "Cath" feel like they could have been taken straight from "Plans," both very upbeat and infused with sugar-sweet guitar riffs and catchy lyrics that you'll be singing for hours after finishing them ("When I was young // Lying in the grass // I felt so safe // The warming bath // of sunlight, of sunlight"). "Grapevine Fires" mixes melodic piano with the spastic drumming that we've all come to love from Jason Mcgerr. Throughout the album they mix their old style of soft rock with a newer, harder sound that's evident on tracks such as "Bixby Canyon Bridge" and "Long Division." The mix works, and the harder sound is definitely a musical territory that Death Cab can succeed in.

Despite the album overall having a darker theme and some different styles, it's still easy to listen to and keeps a fairly consistent sound and production style. There are notable influences from older music in some of the tracks, as well: "You Can Do Better Than Me" sounds like the music was sampled straight from the Beach Boys, and "Pity and Fear" echoes the Indian theme that The Beatles toyed with in some of their later material (but it's no "Within You or Without You"). What Death Cab have succeeded in doing with "Narrow Stairs" is creating an album that, while not exactly groundbreaking or genre-defying, is worthy of praise simply because they manage to take the same basic formula that they've used for the last few albums and give it a fresh sound. I'll be listening to this one for a while.

Wow.

Just two months ago, Nine Inch Nails released "Ghosts I-IV," a collection of amazing instrumental material. For those of you who didn't catch the release, it was released by surprise on their website in various different formats. You could download the first of the 4 volumes for free, download the whole thing for $5, or pay from $10 to $300 for various physical formats. The entire album was licensed with a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share Alike License - meaning you're free to share and remix the music for your own projects, use it in films, etc, as long as you don't charge for the end result and you credit them.

I saw this distribution system as a shining light for the future - a method that I actually approve of. If more albums were released in this way artists would make more money and people buying music would be a whole lot happier.

Today Trent released yet another full album - this time a more classic NIN outing with lyrics and the screaming guitars that we've come to love. The catch this time is that there is no catch - the album is completely free to download in a variety of digital formats including mp3, FLAC, and even high-definition, better than CD WAV audio.

Check it out, you have so little to lose!: http://nin.com

I guess they're planning to release hard copies on CD and vinyl in June too, which is amazing because I also love to actually have my music.

I'm so happy with everything this band is doing. Kudos Trent, for attempting to singlehandedly change the entire music industry. This will catch on, I'm sure of it.

New Music!!

So 2008 has been a great year for music so far. I thought I'd just pop in on here to give you guys a couple of amazing albums to get you through this last stretch before the wonderful summer.

Santogold - Self Titled

I was told about this artist from circusdelight before her actual album came out. It's not out yet, but it's leaked, so I'm sure if you look hard enough (waffles) you'll be able to find it. Definitely check her our if you like M.I.A. as they are very similar, but Santogold definitely has a bit more of a rock aspect going for her. Her album switches it up between hipster indie rock jams and MIA style club bangers, and it's a pretty solid listen all the way through. For a good example of her style, check out L.E.S Artistes.

M83 - Saturdays = Youth

M83 is an interesting man. Saturdays = Youth is his fourth album, and each one, while different from the others, mostly shares the same spacey, synthy, abstract sound. This album goes a bit beyond that, and we're given a record that feels more like a pop rock album than his previous hugely electronic outings, but still has plenty of synths and heavy beats to keep any electronic music fan happy. Mixing about half instrumental droney tracks with the other half epic pop, there really isn't a dull moment on this disc. The fusion of rock and electronic music works perfectally. Vocals definitely take the front of the stage in this disc a bit more than in his past albums, but the lyrics, reeking of 1980s teenage angst like the album cover, definitely add to the whole experience. I would highly reccomend this album to anyone who likes new wave, electronic, or rock music. Also check out "Before the Dawn Heals Us," his previous album. Graveyard Girl is the first single off this one.