Not quite Instant Karma

Ok, it’s for an excellent charity and the music is really excellent overall (let’s pass over Aerosmith/Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars dreadful reggae version of Give Peace A Chance). Yoko Ono gave permission for Amnesty to put together this double CD of rather decent acts doing versions of John Lennon’s post-Beatle stuff.

I listened to it in my housemate’s car on the 2 hour drive back from the parents place yesterday. Highlights: Jackson Browne doing ‘Oh My Love’, The Raveonettes’ ‘One Day At A Time’, a-ha’s ‘#9 Dream’ and Regina Spektor’s sublime take on ‘Real Love’.

A gripe though. I can’t import the friggin’ thing to iTunes. I can get a few tracks on each cd and then the bloody thing crashes my Mac. Grrrr. I smell copy-protection.

Before I go all guns blazing to Warners, has anyone else had the same problem?

Last.fm vs Normaliser

According to last.fm, my Top Ten most listened to albums are:

1. Bic Runga – Birds
2. M. Ward – Post-War
3. Nellie McKay – Get Away From Me
4. Cat Power – The Greatest
5. The Magnetic Fields – 69 Love Songs
6. Scritti Politti – White Bread Black Beer
7. Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
8. Bent – Ariels
9. Girl Talk – Night Ripper
10. Paddy McAloon – I Trawl The Megahertz

Which all very respectable and tasteful indeed.

However, last.fm calculates this on the basis on tracks played. So, if the album has loads of short tracks (69 Love Songs, 3 Feet High and Rising, Best Of’s) and you play it a couple of times, it will show up higher than an album with a few very long tracks (sorry, Sigur Rós, Blue Nile and Talk Talk).

So, some brainbox came up with a way of calculating your charts based on the length of the tracks. It’s called last.fm normaliser and you should give it a go now.
My Top Ten albums are now a little more surprising:

1. Paddy McAloon    I Trawl The Megahertz
2. Bic Runga    Birds
3. Bent    Ariels
4. Cat Power    The Greatest
5. Röyksopp    The Understanding
6. Nellie McKay    Get Away From Me
7. George Michael    Patience
8. Belle and Sebastian    The Life Pursuit
9. The Avalanches    Since I Left You
10. a-ha    Analogue

This seems a tad odd. While I Trawl the MEGAHertz is a wonderful album, I don’t think it’s my most listened to one. It seems that the normaliser calculates the average length of the tracks on the album, so with Paddy’s opus, you have track 1 at 22:06 mins (yes!) and the shortest track at 2:42. That makes the average about 12 minutes x 9 tracks = 108 mins. But the actual length of the album is about 53 mins. Hmmmm.

Still, interesting tool. Give it a go and report back, last.fm-ers!

Dublin’s finest: Pride 07

Dublin’s finest, originally uploaded by Enda P.

It’s Pride season again, and, for the first time in several years, I’ll not be taking part.

Partially because I’m on uncle duty this weekend (I’m taking the kiddies to see Chris Evans shirtless Fantastic Four II), and partially because I’m a little bored with the whole thing. A year out will be no harm.

(I’ll neglect to mention that I’ll be parading through the centre of London next weekend on the gay Muslim float, but that’s another blog entry…)

“You have two cows…”

Even though saying his name* makes my teeth grate, Rick O’Shea, a 2FM DJ, has a blog and he has a rather amusing entry on cows.

Samples:

SOCIALISM:You have 2 cows, and you give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM:You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM:You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.

etc etc

My favourites are these;

SURREALISM:You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

and

THE POLISH GOVERNMENT:You have two cows. You lecture one on how turning gay will mean the end of cattle. The other cow emigrates.

* I think Rick may have started deejaying when it was a requirement to have a silly name, and now he can’t turn back. Poor mite.

Something sexy to say in Icelandic

Loksins, ég hélt þú ætlaðir aldrei að koma! Sestu hérna í fangið á mér.

This is what you say if you see Jónsi from Sigur Rós approaching you. Or perhaps a Sugacube. Or, yes, Bjork.

Ok class, repeat after me: [phonetically] “Loksins, eg helt thu aetladir aldrei ad koma! Sestu herna i fangid a mer.”

What does it mean? Oh yeah. “At last, I thought you’d never get here. Now, cheer up and sit on my lap”.

This could be very very useful.

(Thanks to the lovely Orn for the language lesson.)

Mix Time: Moon June School

The weather has been good, work has calmed down, and I’m beginning to get into holiday mode. It must be time for a some mixagé.

Back to funky town this time with a few choons to jut your hips inappropriately to should you feel so inclined. The Haji & Emanuel mix of Umbrella is rather shagtastic, and the Toto track has nothing to do with Dorothy but more to do with 80s soft rockers - yes, really. Other notables include the Pete Tong mix of With Every Heartbeat (which used to be credited to Kleerup feat. Robyn, but the names get switched for the re-release), and a rather dirrty electro cover of Robert Palmer’s I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On. Uuuuuuurrrrrrrp!

Tracklist:

1. If (Original) * Haji and Emanuel feat. Robert Owens
2. Toto (Original) * Brazen
3. Umbrella (Seamus Haji & Paul Emanuel Club Remix) * Rihanna
4. Sunshine Song (Thomas Gold Remix) * Nicole Otero
5. Love Comes Over Me (Damien Strong Remix) * Montoja feat. Miss Chianty
6. With Every Heartbeat (Tong & Spoon Remix) * Robyn feat. Kleerup
7. Didn’t Mean to Turn You On (Justin Martin Remix) * Colette

(All tracks purchased from DJDownload.com, except track 3 (thanks DJ Never) and track 6 (can’t remember where I found it!)
Download Moon June School (Remastered mp3 continuous mix 39MB [mediafire link]

PS: The penguin is one of 25 who live in the main park in Gothenburg, Sweden. How nice!