number ten | culture. ish.

John Baldauff — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 03:39:00 +0000

Jason, I don’t think there is a problem with your playlist at all. But maybe that’s because I know you and that you actually DO listen to music of all kinds. I’m just saying there seems to be a trend towards the obscure and to be honest I just don’t see that followed through in most people around campus. Perhaps the reason for this is that those who would send in a playlist to culture. ish. tend to be those with a more eclectic taste of music in the first place. But I’m just saying that I have a stinking suspiscion that some of these playlists are purposely exagerrated towards the obscure. Still, maybe this is presumptuous for me to suspect?

p.s. i’m glad no one said “hey john i listen to nelly”

number ten | culture. ish.

Adam — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 14:21:00 +0000

Jason, the Death Cab comment wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. I love the band. I was more getting at the fact that we get lots of playlists with all three (plus Copeland - thanks, Mark) in them. Even that’s not so much of a problem, really; it’s that playlists with those bands make up a substantial portion of what we get. We’ll still run playlists like that, and I’m not intimating that they’re bad playlists - just that, well, it’s fine to leave them out and put more mainstream stuff in.

On a side note - I don’t think that most of our playlist submissions are what the people are actually listening to; at the very least, a lot of them are intentionally constructed. I could be wrong about that - and, honestly, maybe it would be interesting if people did just list what they were actually listening to. Just thoughts.

Mark - Deerhoof is amazing. Have you heard Danielson’s Ships? They’re the backing band on a few of the songs.

number ten | culture. ish.

Mark — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 06:16:00 +0000

I too noticed the trend of Sujfan, Copeland, and Snow Patrol, and I was wondering if they were prerequisits. But to be completely honest, my playlist is legit. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I’ve pretty much abandoned a lot of American culture and gone to Asian culture.

While this is the case more for films than music, I still have gotten into a lot of Asian music, and probably half of this stuff you can find on itunes. I just wanted to get my playlist out there because I want people to see that other countries are doing great stuff too, and people’s excuse is that there’s no way for them to know about it, so I’m telling them. Also, bands like Asobi Seksu and Deerhoof are American, they just have Japanese lead singers. Deerhoof opened for Radiohead this summer, so you know they’re good.

Also, I’m all about the ambient, minimalist music. Anybody else? That’s what half that stuff is. It directly correlates with the types of movies I like.

number ten | culture. ish.

Jason — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 03:59:00 +0000

Huh. I listen to lots of music, John, including U2 and CCR, but they weren’t what was playing at the time. Why is that a bad thing?

I nearly skipped over the Death Cab song I had on mine because I knew someone would react the way Adam did. Maybe I should just make a list of all Kinks songs sometime down the road? But then someone would complain that A) they’ve never heard of them, or B) the hipster is trying to be ironic or how there are more popular/obscure bands that would be better. Heaven forbid someone list what they’re actually listening to.

number ten | culture. ish.

Adam — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:27:00 +0000

It’s a tough balance to acheive. We mostly get playlists that fit into one of two categories; either they’re entirely composed of popular music, and so aren’t really helpful as far as pointing out new stuff, or they’re entirely obscure bands, and so aren’t really helpful as far as providing context for the new stuff they point out. (My playlist, admittedy, probably falls into the second category; but it is representative of what I listen to.)

Ideally, we’d like playlists that are maybe 1/3 to 1/2 recognizable music (and by recognizable music, we don’t mean Snow Patrol, Sufjan, and Death Cab in every single playlist. They’re good, but there are other bands). We can only publish what we receive, though - so if anyone’s reading this and hasn’t submitted a playlist yet, consider that a hint as to how to get yours in. (I can’t guarantee, though; Chris C. does more with the playlists than I do.)

number ten | culture. ish.

John Baldauff — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 22:51:00 +0000

Ok, does it seem to anyone else that there is a trend to say “Hey, why don’t I make a playlist of bands no one knows about because that obviously means it is good music?” God forbid someone put some CCR or U2 or Nelly on their list…