It’s the future. You have a device in your pocket that is exponentially more powerful and has hundreds, maybe thousands of times more storage than the largest computers of 30 years ago. Maybe you have a bag with a tablet computer in it which is roughly comparable in terms of storage and processing power to the phone in your pocket. Only bigger. They are massively-capable devices by any measurement we care to throw at them.

You’re listening to music from your phone on your headphones.

This is where our story gets a little strange. Where did that music come from? More and more, people are streaming music from an online service without actually storing anything on their local device. Services like rdio, 8tracks, spotify seem to be growing in popularity. Most people think the notion of buying music on a CD is quaint or even absurd. If you happen to be someplace and want to watch a video on your tablet, chances are you’ve downloaded it or streamed it from somewhere. Almost nobody would consider buying a movie on a DVD and transferring it to their iPad.

iPad Workplace 2.0 by mbiebusch

Yes, iPad. If you have a tablet, there is a high probability it’s one of those things that Apple sells. Android on tablets has not taken off with the exception of the Kindle Fire. And Apple just released a new one this week.

While they’re marvelous devices, getting content onto them is something of a challenge. They only support a very narrow band of video formats for playback. If you’ve downloaded a video from somewhere, unless you carefully checked the format beforehand, it probably won’t play directly on your iPad. If you’re a determined sort of individual, you might have Handbrake or Miro Converter on your computer and can transcode that video before transferring it to your iPad.

The key ingredient here is “computer”. There are no tools native to the iPad that let you do this sort of conversion. Worse, there are very few players capable of playing back these alien formats on the iPad. The short-lived VLC promised to do for the iPad what it does for general purpose computers but it was not meant to be. Now it’s dead. There is an Xvid/DivX player but it is predictably awful.

This is no accident. Apple really wants you to get all your content from the iTunes Store. They’ve made it difficult to write software to do this sort of thing on the iPad and even more difficult to actually get it into the app store where people can download it. They’ve limited the codecs they support. And they don’t provide tools to convert video to it on your computer. Services like Netflix exist and will happily stream video to you if you’re a member, but you’re borrowing that media. When it’s off their servers, you don’t get to watch it again.

How many years until this same thing has happened to computers? Not soon enough for the media companies.

I finally replaced my copy of Selected Ambient Works 85-92 and picked up a couple of albums by Four Tet and Seefeel to go along with it. All in glorious FLAC.

Also, while I’m pimping Bleep, you should check out their podcast. It’s really good if you’re into that whole electronic kinda thing.

Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.

Jon Bon Jovi, via MSNBC reprinting the Sunday Times (paywalled)

A popular recent quote from a man who’s seen a thousand cities and rocked them all. I’m not a fan of Bon Jovi’s music, but I can’t really argue with what he’s saying in the above-linked article. There is a whole generation of people who think music is supposed to sound like it’s on YouTube.^[1]

The comparative high-quality of compressed music available in the iTunes Music Store and elsewhere is considered reference-quality for most people. As portable music goes, the quality of 320kbps, VBR-encoded AAC files or MP3s is pretty damned good. On a good pair of headphones or a high-end system though, the limitations start to become apparent.

When I first started listening to compressed music at the turn of the millenium, many people compressed around 96kbps. I tended to compress at higher levels and encoded my music in 160kbps rips from MusicMatch transferred to my Creative Audio Nomad Jukebox. A clunky, hard-drive-based music player with a horrible interface that I loved the hell out of at the time. People thought I was crazy for using such “high quality” mp3s.

As the years went on, I realized that the harsh encodings of 2000 sounded really bad on my improving audio gear. So I upped the bitrate and transcoded everything at 192kbps. This happened again later and I jumped to 256 and then 320. Now it’s happening again. I’m actually listening to physical media as my preferred media format. And re-ripping a large chunk of my library in “lossless” format. If it were available, I’d buy everything in SACD or some emergent blu-ray audio format, were such a thing to exist.

To FLAC or ALE?

Now that I’m considering doing the Lossless step, I’m faced with a somewhat difficult choice. FLAC or Apple Lossless Encoder? I think the “correct” choice would be FLAC, an open-source audio compression codec. Unfortunately, it doesn’t integrate very nicely into iTunes. There are plugins for it, but they’re hacky and Apple is bound to break them with every iTunes upgrade.

So, the great dilemma of the modern age: does convenience trump portability? In this case, for me, I think it does. There are tools to move from Apple Lossless (ALE) to FLAC (DoubleTwist for one) that should serve well enough if I ever do have to ditch the Apple platform at the cost of a few hours of scripting and re-encoding. The other “advantage” of ALE is that it’ll happily play on my iDevices if I ever want to take some with me. And iTunes makes it relatively easy to make lossy copies of ALE files for transport. If there’s another piece of music software out there that can do this with FLACs, I’d love to hear about it.

The Setup

I’ll be listening to music in the following places:

• My computer
• Home system (direct via SPDIF)
• My laptop with headphones (streamed via wifi)
• My living room (streamed via Airport Express)
• Anywhere else on my iPhone or iPad (via homesharing)

When I’m roaming, I’ll have my iPhone or iPad and headphones. In all of the above locations around my house, I want lossless audio served up from my main computer. On my iPhone and iPad, I want that converted down to some decent, high-quality compressed format like AAC 320VBR.

iTunes provides an option to convert music on portable players to AAC 128Kbps on sync. Unfortunately, this is woefully inadequate for me. This means storing two copies of music in my iTunes library: one uncompressed and one compressed. The best instructions on how to do this that I’ve found are on iLounge from 2004 (found an updated version from 2011 with no real new info). They recommend converting before sync and then deleting the copies again after you’re done. The old option on the iPod “classic” to “manually manage music” is no longer present on the iOS devices.

Another option is to keep multiple iTunes libraries. One for lossless streaming, the other for syncing to devices. This is not super groovy as it means shutting down iTunes and restarting it depending on what I’m doing. I also lose a lot of metadata by having separate libraries. Play counts and ratings in one library don’t automatically get linked up without some very clever (probably impossible) AppleScripting.

Speaking of AppleScript, I should probably mention Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes. He’s got a ton of useful automation for all kinds of iTunes tasks including a script for re-encoding lossless tracks onto an iPod capable of letting your manage your music collection. (probably means iPod classic)

Where to from here?

I’m in limbo. I’m currently ripping tracks to lossless in iTunes and removing said tracks from my iPod synced playlists. Every disc I rip gets removed from my iPhone and iPad. I’m likely not going to replace everything in my library. Some things I just don’t have. Others probably wouldn’t benefit hugely from a lossless conversion due to weak recording. I’m toying with the idea of using my laptop for device syncing, copying compressed versions to that machine and keeping my desktop server as the lossless library.

Help me! I’d love to hear your suggestions, no matter how outlandish. I am more than willing to throw iTunes to the kerb for a decent home streaming solution.

[1] – Sony killed the music industry in the 80s with The Walkman and tape decks so maybe it’s just the most-recent “death of the music industry”.

• iTunes connectivity – it already hooks into the iTunes Music Store via wifi, why not allow it to browse and playback music from shared iTunes libraries on the LAN? I would love to be able to access my music or friends’ music when I’m visiting and don’t have a laptop around. Syncing tunes wirelessly and sharing tunes would also be fantastic additions.

It was probably the feature I most wanted back then, and the last one to arrive. This pleases me.

There was one other item on the list that never made it, and that’s having access to the radio channels in iTunes. That feature’s largely been supplanted by the availability of 3rd party radio apps. Just as well too, since Apple hasn’t really done much with their radio channels and I’m honestly surprised they’re still in there. Now hopefully Apple can keep itself from killing off third content providers entirely.

What do I want next? Here’s a short list:

• “Lossless” music downloads in the store. Even better would be HD audio, DVD-A or SACD quality music. Unlikely given how uninterested the recording industry (and, I guess consumers) seems to feel about it.
• Multiple encodings. Like video, it’d be neat if I could store a lossless version of a track and a lower-quality compressed version for carrying around on my ‘pods. iTunes can do it with video so audio should be easy.
• Alternate formats. WAV, FLAC, WMA, OGG. Unlikely at best.
• Separation of services from the core of iTunes. App, Music and Movie Stores, Ping (I predict Ping’ll disappear altogether in a year or so), Books (?), TV and Movies…

iTunes has gotten hugely complicated and is the cause of many slow-downs and beachballs during the course of the day. Most of the time, I just want a music player. I never actually watch movies or TV in iTunes preferring other players. I only use it to get video onto my iP*ds but I’d much prefer not having to clutter up my computer’s storage with the extra video copies. Hell, while I’m thinking wishfully, maybe it’d be nice if Apple would let me play AVI/XviD, WMVs and WebM video while we’re at it to save me the trouble of transcoding.

I won’t hold my breath. All signs point to Apple locking down iTunes even tighter (and bloating it even further). Talk of removing optical drives on all future Macs and forcing users to buy everything through the iTunes Store is not that far-off considering some of the recent money grabbing. Then again, maybe they’ll get broken up for anti-competitive practices. I give that a couple of years at their current rate.

On the surface, this would seem to be the easiest of the different streaming types to achieve. In iOS 4.2, we have “Airplay” streaming to connect to an Airport Express or Apple TV. It works fairly well, but I get occasional glitches causing drop outs in the audio. Less than ideal. I’m not sure if this is because of network issues or because the devices themselves are too resource constrained to provide a continuous stream of bits.

Airplay is even worse if you want to try playing a video game to your home stereo. I was getting lag of around 2 seconds while playing Orbital. Stick with headphones or plugin directly to some speakers if you want big sound.

For streaming music, I usually use the Remote app on my iPhone or iPad to send music from my home machine to the Airport and it works much more reliably.

But what if I want to use my headphones? I could sync the music that I want through iTunes, but that’s slow and annoying. I’d still like to be able to browse my home machine and stream music directly to my device like I can in OS X. We keep hearing rumours that Apple’s working on building a cloud storage service for your music. With nearly 200GB of music on my network and limited upstream bandwidth, this would be impractical. I’m fine with keeping a limited selection of music on my devices when I’m out in the world, but having full access to my music when I’m on my home network from all of my devices would be awesome. Using a feature like “Back to my Mac” to be able to stream from my home collection when roaming would be great for bonus points.

Apple’s never really done much with their built-in streaming radio service in iTunes either, and I’m a little surprised it’s still included at all, given their push towards moving everyone into the iTunes Music Store. I still use it and have a few channels I still listen to regularly (hello GrooveSalad!). It’s surprising that I need to install a 3rd party app to do this, and to be honest, I’ve never found one that I actually like. I’ve tried Fstream and a couple others whose names escape me, they were so underwhelming. Dedicated channel apps like CBC are great for individual radio streams, but are of varied quality and fill up my home screen with multiple, redundant apps.

One feature I never looked for but now have access to is AirPrint. Apparently with a few select HP printers, I could print directly from my iPhone to a networked printer. Even if this feature worked with printers I actually own, it’s not something I could see myself ever using. I am so close to being a paperless being, I think I only ever print things when dealing with government agencies and insurance companies. For printing photos, I need a real computer with a calibrated monitor and gamut-proofing tools.

Having used iOS 4.2 for a couple of months, I’m happy to say that it’s a big improvement over the 3.2 OS that the iPad shipped with. Multitasking makes the iPad feel more like a real computer, though app switching is somewhat awkward. I love the brightness control in the little “iPod control area” in the multitasking … app bar? dock? I don’t know what to call that area — in the left-most area. I still have no idea if keeping many apps open eventually bogs down the operating system or not. I tend to scan through this area every so often and close down apps that I’m not using. On the iPhone, the differences are less noticeable, but an incremental improvement nonethless.

Arcade Fire – “Neon Bible” (2007)

Art Rockers from Montréal, The Arcade Fire made a strong debut with their self-titled album in 2002 with a critically-acclaimed follow-up “Funeral” in 2004. In 2007, their stunning concept album “Neon Bible” landed amidst outstanding and well-deserved critical press. A guitar-smashing performance on Saturday Night Live showed them as exuberant and exciting on stage. I lack superlatives. This album will be studied by future generations.

Beck – “Sea Change” (2002)

Beck’s gone through more musical styles than most artists change their underwear. Beck’s 2002 downer, “Sea Change” is a masterpiece of mellowness. If you can find the 5.1 SACD version and have that many speakers, I suggest you pick it up, turn the lights off and take a wheeze off of your favorite medicine. I guess Beck was going through a pretty heavy break-up when he wrote this and it shows. It’s largely a downer, but an impressive one.

Belle & Sebastian – “Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant”

The prolific Belle & Sebastian are best-characterized as sardonic, laid-back, pretty music. It seemed like they were releasing an album per year and sometimes more than one at a time for a period. Their music is big, featuring lots of great instrumentation and sounds like it could have been recorded in the ’60s or ’70s. Horns and keyboards, strings and woodwinds. They’re a 7-piece band that often sounds like an orchestra. Yet they still manage to produce delicate pop tunes with occasionally silly, occasionally biting lyrics. And they keep getting better.

Boards of Canada – “Geogaddi”

Highly influential electronic artists Boards of Canada reached a sort of pinnacle with 2002′s “Geogaddi”. Sprawling 23 tracks, the listener is taken through weird interstitials and longer beat-driven, sample-infested tracks. Part ambient, part down-tempo techno, this is a masterpiece of electronic music. Listening to it now, you can hear its influence in music like Autechre and Ulrich Schnauss as well as recognize bits of it from BBC commercials, Top Gear and other sources. This album is probably the 2000′s “Music for Airports”. Psychedelia through synthesizers.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – “Clap Your Hands Say Yeah”

An internet phenomenon, CYHSY went viral sometime around late 2005 with the tune “Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood”. Hailing from Brooklyn and Philly, the quirky, band evoked early Talking Heads with the lead’s weird vocal stylings and catchy melodies. Their 2007 followup “Some Loud Thunder” failed to resonate the same as their first album, but I remain hopeful for a resurgence.

Cut Copy – “In Ghost Colours”

The ’80s are alive and well in the first decade of the new millennium and Cut Copy are leading the way into the time machine. Evoking bands like New Order, “Hurting” era Tears for Fears, and Japan, “In Ghost Colours” is an entertaining throwback that ends up sounding as if it could have been produced anytime in the last 30 years. Also, it’s really really good.

The Dears – “Gang of Losers”

Maintaining my 30% Canadian Content, The Dears are another Montreal band who’ve been putting out catchy indie tunes since the mid-nineties. The 2000s offered up a a number of great albums starting with 2000′s “End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story”, the excellent “Gang of Losers” landed in the middle in 2006. Their albums are larger-than-life, having an epic scope that seems almost too big for the band to contain. There’s a grandioseness to their pop tunes that make them larger than life. Intricate arrangements and the lead singer’s swaggering vocals make for an entertaining, if emotional listen.

Death Cab for Cutie – “Transatlanticism”

Oh Death Cab. You used to be just a little thing. A quiet moody band with the delicate vocal stylings of Ben Gibbard. I think those days are gone now that you’ve gone and gotten all big and successful. Your albums are heavily produced, slickly-packaged perfect little jewels of pop. But I’ll always have 2003′s “Transatlanticism”. The title-track remains one of my all-time favorite, most-depressing listens with a 7 minute crescendo that peaks in a triumphant chorus. It’s really beautiful.

Editors – “The Back Room”

Were they inspired by Interpol? Were they both influenced heavily by Joy Division and through some quirk of time-and-space simultaneously channeled Ian Curtis nearly 25 years after his death but 4 years apart? Whatever their source, Editors’ “The Back Room” stands on its own as a bleak, driving album of catchy singles that hint at something much darker underneath. Post-punk, post-new-wave, rock, their follow-up “An End Has a Start” drew questions of whether their first album was a fluke. Their third album “In This Light and On This Evening” may have even that opinion as truth. Fluke or not, The Back Room was one of my favorite albums of the oughts earning a respected place in my library with an embarrassingly huge playcount.

Elliott Smith – “Figure 8″

Two thousand and nothing’s “Figure 8″ was considered by some to be the downward trend of the legendary singer-songwriter. Accused of suffering from too much production, Figure 8 nevertheless contained some masterful pieces of music from one of our generation’s most gifted musicians. “From a Basement on a Hill” and “New Moon” are sad farewells with glimpses of brilliance. I miss him a lot.

Sasha – “Involver”

You think I should get back to something fun and danceable? I’m bumming you out? You think this music sucks?? Fine. Go pick this up and put it in your drive. Better yet, go driving around your neighbourhood with this blaring on the stereo with your windows down. You’ll feel cool doing it. Trust me.

The Helio Sequence – “Keep Your Eyes Ahead”

It took 4 years for Portland-based The Helio Sequence to come back online after 2004′s “Love and Distance”. A blend of electronics and guitars, “Can’t Say No” is one of the finest pop confections I’ve ever heard. The rest of the album ain’t bad either.

Interpol – “Turn on the Bright Lights”

The 2000s were good for New York bands. Interpol turned up in 2002 with an astonishingly bleak and lyrically confusing album “Turn on the Bright Lights”. Their epic NYC has a surprising sadness to it bookended by two extremely catchy tunes the mysteriously titled “Obstacle 1″ and the popular “PDA” which made a showing in the game Rock Band. Like Editors, they were at their best with their first album.

The Killers – “Sam’s Town”

Criticized for taking themselves too seriously, Las Vegas’ The Killers began with 2004′s “Hot Fuss”. Another 80s throwback to british New Wave, it begged the question, “who the hell do these guys think they are”? Sam’s Town told you just who they were. Channeling a kind of weird blend of americana and post-new-wave sound, they evoked Duran Duran meets Bruce Springsteen with some extremely likeable pop. One of my fondest memories of my most-recent trip to Las Vegas was blasting this while driving through the Nevada desert in a rented Toyota. And the blackjack.

The Knife – “Silent Shout”

The Knife. They’re Swedish. They’re weird. Silent Shout is one of the creepiest electronic albums of all time. The female/wife/alien member of the band was recently on a UK awards ceremony dressed as something from another world and gurgled into a microphone for nearly a full minute to the astonishment of those in the audience. I believe she was accepting an award for this year’s Fever Ray solo project which possibly the second creepiest electronic album of all time. Dark and minimalist, Silent Shout is music for this decade’s batch of serial killers.

LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem

Hey, it’s time to party down with James Murphy’s LCD Soundsystem! A 2 CD set of fun-times and hangovers, I think this collection had more beer spilled on it than any other album of the 2000s. I’m pretty excited that they’re coming out with a new album. Disco punk. Get it.

Mclusky – “Do Dallas”

It’s 2001 and we had to go to Wales for some fun punk. It’s hard to find a song on this album that clocks in at 3 minutes or more. They combine their punk vibrance with clever, often hilarious lyrics. Honestly, if you like Do Dallas, get all their other albums. They’re all excellent.

Modest Mouse – “The Moon and Antarctica” (2000)

This album was a turning point for the band. Previous efforts were less produced, less totally a vision of Isaac Brock’s strange stylings. The Moon and Antarctica is a sonic journey unlike any other. Their sound is unique and though later albums further refine it and turn it into something approaching radio friendliness, this remains their most ambitious album.

The National – “Boxer”

What an album! Previous efforts embodied american indie in a way few other bands could. Boxer transcends that simplistic classification and moves into much bigger territory. A towering album of rock, it has a yearning, mid-west sadness set to pounding drum beats and careful guitar shimmers. One of my favorite records of the past 20 years. The New York Times recently ran an excellent article and featured a streaming version of their unreleased album new album “High Violet”. Even at shitty flash bitrates, the album sounds like another epic.

The Organ – “Grab That Gun”

More Cancon. The Organ were a short-lived post-punk girl band from the west coast of our mighty nation. Evoking The Smiths’ early albums, the band’s title instrument made an interesting backdrop for Katie Sketch’s mournful vocals. I had the good fortune to see them at Zaphod’s in Ottawa before they called it quits and while thoroughly enjoyed their music, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Katie up there on stage who looked as if she’d run off screaming at any instant. Fragile, sad, emotional pop music. By girls. I hope they get back together.

Portishead – “Third”

For awhile there I don’t think anyone expected Portishead to release another album. They’d owned the title of musical vapourware for over a decade. And then it happened. They released “Third”. A challenging, sometimes disjointed album constructed from their trademark self-recorded samples, strings, and who knows what. The album’s undeniable masterpiece is track 4: “The Rip”. It has a fucking banjo in it. And it’s beautiful. Beth Gibbon’s vocals are every bit as good as they used to be. Maybe even a little smokier. It was worth the wait. I don’t know if I can stand another 10 years for the next Portishead album.

The Postal Service – “Give Up”

Ben Gibbard’s side-project with producer Jimmy Tamborello, I often feel like Ben should’ve dropped Death Cab and kept making Postal Service records. His vocals combined with Tamborello’s quirky synth lines make for a surprising combination. The result is something exceptional. Honestly though, you’ve already got this album, so let’s move on.

Queens of the Stoneage – “Lullabies to Paralyze”

The Queens of the Stoneage had few peers in the hallowed halls of rock in the 2000s. Josh Homme’s guitar and vocal talents meshed with his strong songwriting are the driving force behind the band. Lullabies was released in 2005 after the departure of Nick Oliveri and I believe is their strongest effort in the oughts.

Radiohead – “In Rainbows”

After reinventing themselves in 2001 with the surprising Kid-A and Amnesiac, Radiohead have continued to prove their alt-rock mastery with Hail to the Thief and finally “In Rainbows”. The band’s evolution has continued along an upward trajectory culminating in this album. Watching them grow has been a fascinating journey.

The Raveonettes – “Lust, Lust, Lust”

Awesome post-new-wave, post-punk bubble-gum shoegaze pop rock, to throw a few labels around casually. They pick up where The Jesus and Mary Chains’ “Automatic” left off. Evoking elements of Twin Peaks-era Julee Cruise meshed with My Bloody Valentine levels of jangly guitar noise, the end result is something ethereal and moody that somehow manages to be fun.

The Shins – “Chutes Too Narrow” (2003)

Say what you will about them now, the Shins defined indie rock in the early part of the oughts with “Oh, Inverted World” and “Chutes Too Narrow”. Strong songwriting and simple guitar-based melodies define the Shins and their music holds up fairly well. But there’s a darker side to the songs. There is a mean streak in James Mercer that sometimes peeks through the light-sounding music. In “Kissing the Lipless” he sings about a relationship on the rocks that lingers on through sheer inertia. Hard not to think of these songs of bitterness when he was accused later of being involved in some domestic violence. Nevertheless, it makes for some good music. The great remains of a friendship scarred.

Sigur Ros – “Von” (2004)

Featuring one of the creepiest opening 10 minutes of any album ever, Von starts slowly and builds to… what? Wordless singing and haunting music, it sounds like it’s from another world. The gloomy beginnings slowly give way to a more urgent sound, building to a cacaphony of guitars and drums you could mistake for metal if you heard them out of context. One of of the stranger bands to achieve popularity.

Silversun Pickups – “Carnavas” (2006)

I think the band’s name is a play on silversPun pickups, as in guitar pickups. For awhile there, I thought that was their name and only later dropped the P from their name like some kind of mental defective. It’s ok, I say “libary” too. On purpose. Carnavas is a solid bit of sonic calisthenics. It’s an assault on the ears the way early Smashing Pumpkins was. Loud guitars, a somewhat whiny-sounding lead singer, a female bassist, the formula is almost perfect. And it works. Carnavas is a great album.

Snowden – “Anti-Anti”

What is Snowden? This one album from this relatively unknown band has had strong replay value for me. Noisy, strong drumming, strange vocals singing evocative lyrics over humming synthesizers or guitars in a permanent sustained drone – I can’t tell. It’s a strange, post-punk kind of rythmic noisefest and a strong album. I hope to hear more from them.

The Strokes – “Is This It?”

I first thought the Strokes were the product of a fictional A&R company concocting the perfect fake throw-back band. The Strokes came on with lots of rock swagger and an over-driven, precise guitar-based sound that was too perfect to be genuine. Later albums didn’t quite hold up to the same level of perfection as their opening effort making me wonder if it was just a fluke?

Tool – “Lateralus” (2001)

What more needed to be said after 1996′ “Aenima”? Not much, really and if it was said, it was probably going to take you a long time to figure it out. Tool’s 2001 prog-metal opera is a mystifying sonic assault in complex time signatures. The whole album is constructed with a precision and deftness you’d think required many computers to put together. And they did this live. James Maynard Keenan’s strange lyrics really make me wonder if he does have access to another dimension and maybe this music is the key.

TV On The Radio – “Return to Cookie Mountain” (2006)

Continuing the parade of strange rock outfits, Brooklyn New York’s (did I say this was a great decade for New York music?) TV On The Radio’s “Return to Cookie Mountain” is nothing short of brilliant. Featuring horns amongst the synthesizers, they have a large sound. The horns and rhythms often suggest improvisational jazz as much as art rock, there is a punk element as well with strong energy throughout. The lyrics are somewhat inscrutable, but evoke some strong imagery. Uncategorizable. Hard to define. Listen.

Wilco – “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (2002)

There’s almost too much story that goes along with Wilco’s “YHF”. The album was too strange for any record company to release it. It tore the band apart. Jeff Tweedy was a visionary dictator unwilling to compromise (aka asshole). There’s been a movie made about it. And so on. I’m not sure they created it, but Wilco certainly defines “alt country” and this album contains some of the prettiest, most heart-felt songs of the decade. Not perfect, there are weak parts on this record that possibly make the high points sound all the sweeter.

Wintersleep – “Welcome to the Night Sky” (2007)

Do I have room for another Canadian album? I hope so, because I’d hate to knock one of those other albums out of the list. Wintersleep’s “Welcome to the Night Sky” is a strongly-crafted alt-pop album that propelled the band to international recognition. Coming back from a tour in Europe with such contemporaries as The Handsome Furs and the Stills, their new album is due out very soon (May 18th, 2010) and I can only hope it lives up to this one. If it doesn’t I’ll still have Welcome to the Night Sky.

Yo La Tengo “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out” (2000)

New Jersey’s quintessential alternative indie(?) band have been making their special brand of pop tunes for going on 2 decades. 2000′s “And then nothing” is still one of their best with light numbers like “Cherry Chapstick” and one of the most depressing album openers of all time in “Everyday”. They set you up for a good cry then make you smile. Great stuff. Moody, melancholy and well-crafted. They blend drum machines and guitars and soothing vocals effortlessly.

The Playlist

So, here we have it:

• Atlas Sound, Logos
• Bat for Lashes, Two Suns
• Crocodiles, Summer of Hate
• Fever Ray
• Grizzly Bear, Veckatimist
• Handsome Furs, Face Control
• Metric, Fantasies
• The Raveonettes, In and Out of Control
• Silversun Pickups, Swoon
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz!

I actually had a hard time coming up with 10. If I were being honest, I’d probably drop Metric and Silversun Pickups out of this list. “Fantasies” didn’t have any stand-out killer tracks on it, though it was probably a more consistent album than any of their previous ones. “Swoon” was similar, lacking anything truly earth-shattering, though “The Royal We” and “Panic Switch” are solid tracks.

Notable albums that didn’t make the cut: The xx, xx. That album was pretty over-hyped and gets tired fast. Tegan & Sara’s “Sainthood” (despite a couple of excellent tracks), and the already boring Phoenix’ “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix”. If you’re gonna sell your songs to car manufacturers, at least wait a few months for me to get tired of your music first. Still catchy though.

It occurs to me that I’m spending more time talking about the music I liked less than the albums I listed above. If I had to buy just three of them, I’d probably pick Atlas Sound, Bat for Lashes and Grizzly Bear. But I couldn’t buy just three because then I wouldn’t have Handsome Furs’ excellent minimal electro-rocker “Face Control”. And Fever Ray is truly strange and excellent.

Did I miss any? Leave me a note if you think I’m missing out on anything 2009 had to offer. Happy listening.

Currently listening to All We Want, Baby, Is Everything by Handsome Furs from the album Face Control

Which brings me to the Grados. The SR225s are the second pair of Grado headphones I’ve owned. I started out with a pair of SR125s which, until these, were my favorite ‘phones for around-the-house listening. Large, soft foam-covered earpieces and an over-the-head style band do not make these ideal “out-and-about” listening devices. They’re also an open design and bleed sound like no other headphones I’ve ever used, subjecting anyone in the same airspace to whatever it is you’re listening to you. Calling them headphones is almost a disservice, they’re more like a head-mounted speaker system.

Which isn’t far off the mark, really. If I could continue the head-mounted speaker analogy, you might find that you need a better amp to drive these without distortion compared to smaller, less demanding headphones. The iPods have long been known for possessing a decent headphone amplifier for a portable device. When driving the Grados, I find noticeable distortion at volume settings that are clear and detailed with my Shure in-ear phones. These ‘phones exacerbate the problems with the MacBook audio circuitry like no others. The noise is painful and may make you want to invest in a decent external audio interface, which, if you’re serious about sound, you’ll want to do anyway.

So far, I’m making these out to be more of a pain than they’re worth, so you might be wondering why I’d have bothered to upgrade the SR125s to the 225s. And why I’d consider myself a serious enthusiast for these headphones.

The reason is that with a decent headphone amplifier, these headphones don’t sound like any other I’ve ever listened to. They have Real Bass. It’s detailed and palpable and extends far below where you might expect a headphone to go. The other reason is they possess an airiness and spaciousness unlike any other headphones. All that moving air your neighbours are being subjected to while you listen to these is the same air the Grados are using to magically create a soundstage inside your head.

If you like listening to music and consider yourself to be a person who likes nice things, and you have a decent sound system, you might want to do yourself a favor and audition a pair of Grados. Honestly, with the type of music I listen to mostly (rock and electronic music predominantly with occasional forays into jazz and classical), I don’t notice a huge difference between the SR225s and the 125s. The bass is a little more detailed and present, I think, but otherwise, without going into fruity audiophile language, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of difference. The build quality on the SR225s is marginally better though and they have a slightly longer and thicker cable.

If you do want to use these with a portable device like an iPod, you should consider an external amplifier. Here are a few links to well-reviewed headphone amps:

• Total BitHead (review on Stereophile)
• Grado RA1
• Creek Audio OBH-21

Also, take a look at Grado Labs’ website. They’ve expanded their product-line in the past couple of years and have some in-ear headphones as well as a slew of truly high-end ‘phones that you probably can’t afford but will lust after because they’re beautiful.

One final relevant link I rediscovered when looking for a place to actually purchase (US only) the Grados online: goodcans.com’s review of Grado headphones. They mention that the Prestige series that the SR225s belong to have been updated and have a new ‘i’ designation. Apparently the bodies have been redesigned and are a bit deeper which can only mean that they sound even better.

• SR225i on amazon.com, B&H Photo Video ($200)