A Request for New Music

After listening to Elevator Love Letter for the 857th time, I decided it's high time for new music.

You can tell that I've been pretty busy by the fact that I haven't bought, downloaded or discovered any music in the last 3 months. Normally, my iPods' contents are periodically freshened with new stuff. I'm trying to improve. Help me! Suggest some bands / albums that you think I'd like.

You can use this cheatsheet of recent popular songs:

• Stars: Elevator Love Letter. OMG, OMG, best song ever! So beautiful, so immediately applicable to everyday life situations.


• Modest Mouse: Blame it on the Tetons. The official Xobni engineering song. Current iPod playcount: A ridiculously high 55. We listen to this all the time.


• Jurassic 5: Jurass Finish First. iPod playcount: 45. I listen to this for the mom & pop soundbits at the end.


• Samy Deluxe: Eppendorf. iPod playcount: 38. German ego rap.


• Zero 7: Crosses. Lo-Fi music mixed up with José Gonzàles - music that reminds me of that Sony Bravia commercial that was filmed a few blocks from where I live.

What's good these days?

Tuning My Run

Three months ago, I picked up a pair of Nike+ shoes at the local Nike store. They’re yellow and they’re radical. I quickly proceeded to buy the iPod+Nike kit and a shiny new iPod nano. These Apple guys are such prom queens: They’re hot and they know it. They’ll make you jump through hoops: iPod+Nike on your perfectly fine old iPod? Exchangeable batteries for the insole accelerometer? Dream on, boy.



It didn’t take long to get over that you’ve-just-been-ripped-off feeling. This stuff really works. Now that I can measure of my runs, I run more often and for longer distances. My favorite feature? Holding down the center button to jump straight to the Stanton Warriors. Runner-up? When you’ve just run your best mile so far, they have sound clips of famous athletes to congratulate your achievements.

Want to battle? Mail me.

Music Tastes

My taste in music is a bit odd. Back before I switched to buying all my music on iTunes, I bought a large share of my CDs in the US, which gave me a heavy dose of Americana. Here in Europe, radio stations are either stuck in either in the mid-90s, play classical music all day, or focus on techno tracks. The result is that the music I listen to seems too avant-garde for fellow Europeans, and evokes only contempt in North America. That won't stop me from handing out recommendations, though.

I've been listening to a lot of electronic pop at work. Most probably know Postal Service from their music's plentiful appearances in TV commercials. Similar in style, but less well-known: Electric President. Their music is beautifully crafted, with lots of attention to detail, and slightly melancholic. Electric President is much like the Canadian band Broken Social Scene: You listen to the album once and feel a bit uncomfortable. By the third listen, you'll notice all the tiny details and nooks and fall in love with them.

I discovered Nizlopi at a Jamie Cullum concert in Freiburg, Germany, where they were the support act. In some ways, they were better than the main show: It's just two guys, a bass, and a guitar, singing sad songs about girls. The band itself is named after a Hungarian girl whom the vocalist had a crush on in school. Meeting a Hungarian girl and falling in love with her, only to be disappointed soon after seems to be a common mantrap: I've heard this story too many times. In this case, it at least resulted in good music.

Europeans will yawn at this, but I quite like Jan Delay, the German hip-hop superstar of the year. Energetic, funny, German hip-hop from Hamburg. He seems to be much-loved in his hometown: When I visited Hamburg earlier in the year, this album seemed to playing everywhere.

Attentive readers will have noticed the Amazon links I planted in this post, but rest assured that this is just an experiment. I'd guess that most readers have switched to iTunes anyways: Apparently, after just 5 years, Apple has already captured more than 3% of the US music market: Quite a feat.