We have to talk about this. Over at Pretty Goes With Pretty they've mentioned this already. And I'm anal about my metadata. So, Dear Science comes through with the comma.
Bothersome. It's now on my iTunes with the comma:
It's not like that can't be fixed, though. I know it's wrong because of the album cover, and the website:
and the fact that it's just retarded to have a comma there. It's on Frazy with the comma:
and on Last FM, probably the most annoying of the lot (if only because I love it so much), it shows up like this:
It remains to be seen whether the iTunes store will get it right and list the album, plus metadata, sans comma.
. . .
Speaking of iTunes, I downloaded the latest version over the weekend (what are we on now? Version Eight Point Four Bajillion?) and have been playing with the new 'Genius' feature.
Whilst signing up for it, it tells me that it is 'sending information about [my] library to Apple', and I panic for a second. Well, it's done now. And I'm pretty sure if the legal stormtroopers try and find me here, they'll have a job, seeing as I don't even know whose wireless I'm connected to.
Genius then takes its sweet fucking time to load up. I almost cancel it and go do something else a couple of times.
Genius is meant to be a sort of Last FM-style database referral tool that, once activated and having scanned your entire library (at the cost of several precious minutes of your young life) can build genre-based playlists, based on the range of music in one's library. I'm looking forward to this because - and I don't know about everyone else here - making playlists is a chore. Having to go through the entire library for a few songs: chore. Not having playlists: even worse. I hate listening to entire albums while I'm out and about, and I have having it on 'Shuffle All Songs' because it doesn't come through with the ones I want. Solution?
Not quite.
Now, I had my reservation for a couple of reasons. I've read a few reviews of Genius already, one of them being on the PC World blog. PC World took great pleasure in messing around trying to get it to create Beatles-inspired playlists, only to be told over and over that it couldn't.
"What this suggests is that the iTunes Store listings largely determine what is showing up in your Genius list. If an artist isn't available in the iTunes Store, the Genius playlist creator may not work," the staff writer says. Hmmm. I know for a fact that about 40% of my library will not be available in the iTunes library, because
a) it's too obscure
b) it's a full album that I've recorded off vinyl
c) it's labelled wrongly
d) it's not out yet
Okay, well. Genius has now installed itself. Let's have a look-see.
"To make a playlist, select any song from your library and press the Genius button at the bottom of the window." I am informed in cheery, MS Word Paperclip-tones.
The 'Genius button' is a picture of an isotope . . . isotopes have something to do with science . . . only clever people know about science, geniuses, you might say. And Apple's new feature is pretty clever, hence . . . oh, do you see? Genius!
Genius marketing it ain't.
I go ahead and use the Genius button first on something from Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, one of the more obscure albums that first scrolls up. It's an experimental/no wave album. I would expect any of the artists from Paw Tracks to come out, but mostly, less imaginitively, some other electronica. Genius, to its credit, gives me a playlist, comprised of Animal Collective (that was a gimme though), Beirut (!?), a few tracks from the album itself, Blonde Redhead, The Blood Brothers (?), Camera Obscura (?), Cass McCombs, Cat Power, The Clash (!?!), Health, Joanna Newsom (!?!?!?) . . . the list goes on, and stays about as puzzling.
I try it a few more times with semi-obscure artists and get similar results (Genius even recommended Arctic Monkeys, when I fed it Kickball. Also, Bright Eyes/Minor Threat, really?). I try it for a track off Only By The Night and Genius tells me no no no. It also refuses:
The Beatles
Dear Science - TV On The Radio
101101 - Alto 45
Shut Up, I Never 7" - Black Eyes
The Boredoms
Twice Born - Fucked Up
In Rape Fantasy And Terror Sex We Trust - Joan of Arc
Ecstasy And Wine - My Bloody Valentine
Panda Bear Soccer Star - Panda Bear
News From Nowhere EP - Seachange
Self-Titled - Vanilla Swingers
Make It It - Wicked Farleys
And none of the old Northern Soul MP3s I've collected. So, all in all, Nice try Apple, but if Genius can't recognise half of my library - and a bloody good quality chunk it is too - I'm not going to use it. And while it is a good idea, and I was keen, it takes for-fucking-ever, and I am of the suspicion that one has to scan one's library every time one adds new tracks in order to have them included in the playlist search results. Chore. Plus, the sheer bizarreness of some recommendations has me scratching my head and retreating to the corner to make a mixtape instead.
Monday.
Lazy Saturday.
"I had the best dream last night. I dreamt I had the Force."
Pull Yourself Together, It's Not The End Of The World (Wednesday)
Large Hard-on Collider? Large Hadron Collider. Whatever, whatever. I like that two of the CMS experiments are called ALICE and ATLAS. 'Alice and Atlas' sounds like celebrity children's names.
(The Flickr photostream I got that photo from was called 'HOLLYWOOD KIDS'. No joke of a lie.)
Have as many kids as you can, 'cos then there's more chance that one of them will make it in (jazz hands) 'Hollywood'. Then who's paying the bills? 'Hollywood Kid.'
Well? I haven't got all day! Put the fucking thing on so I can decide whether it's worth it to go all the way down the road to the shop or not. The world can't end before I turn twenty, can it?
Things I Need To Do Before The World Ends:
- turn twenty
- take a Polaroid photograph
- get arrested, just to say I have
- call my Dad, I said I would about a week ago, fuuuuuuck
- wash my hair
- stuff myself with bacon (if we're all going to die, what's the point of being vegetarian?)
- listen to Only By The Night a few more times, decide whether it's a snoozer or just fucking crap
The new Kings of Leon album is all over the internet - this doesn't necessarily mean I have it, nobody sue me, okay? I don't know what to make of it. Just got a Boredoms and an OOIOO album, neither particularly new, and the Liars back catalogue. Oh, and Cass McCombs' not-particularly-new record. These are all things I've been meaning to buy for ages, like the books in If On A Winter's Night A Traveler (not my choice of US spelling, I can assure you).
Sunny days make me motivated. I think it's time to go and rearrange my books into publishing-house order. Don't laugh at me, this is not a way off from the truth of how I spend my afternoons.
Sidney called me up last night, wanting to know what I wanted for my birthday. You'd think, being my sister, she could at least think of something. She's hocking her Nintendo to pay for it, which I thought very noble, until it became apparent that she only wants that money so she can buy fags and cider to drink in the park this weekend. I might just get her to get me Where The Wild Things Are, I haven't ever owned a copy.
Tuesday, I Have Awoken
Oh, tits.
About a week ago I packed up my tennis bag, grabbed my lucky silver Jesus pendant, fucked off back to crappyland and forgot to take a jacket. And now here I am. Except I forgot several important things.
ONE: To take a jacket. It is fucking freezing here. What happened to that Indian summer I was so sure we were going to have? I blame global warming/credit crunch/the morning after pill.
TWO: Any information pertaining to my student loan, cos now it is about a fortnight till my fortune of a rent comes out and I have no money to pay it with.
THREE: Not to spend all that aforementioned money on cider, Meskin food and birthday presents. It's like Happy fucking Christmas in September. Maybe prospective parents should have some kind of reproductive schedule which means we all don't get born in the same month.
Anyway, running around like a blue-arsed fly borrowing money, putting it in banks, calling up unhelpful women at the council and visiting all relatives is only going to be good exercise, hooray. A proper post'll be up soon. Promise. In the meantime:
ONE: Photo Clichés. I've got a furry SLR 'see no evil' from Oxford Brookes two or three years ago, somewhere amongst all the stuff I haven't unpacked yet.
TWO: Fleshmap. I can't remember how I found this, and it may be old news already, but I thought it was super interesting. Where else can you find prints of 12 men's nipple hair formations? The page full of boobs was my favourite. You can even sort them by nipple size, hello!
THREE: Another magazine ran a story on the dollar bill, which apparently is 77 years old. Not a greatly momentous year, but excuse enough for some sort of diverting artists' takes on said note.
FOUR: This reminded me of the Jason Polan $13 bill I saw a way back at Wooooo magazine. I like his giraffes better.
FIVE: Speaking of giraffes, and other African wildlife; I want I want I want this. I always kind of wanted a real mounted moose head, but I'm too much of a pussy vegetarian to get one, plus I've seen Fawlty Towers, I know how dangerous those things can be. So if I can have a cardboard moose head . . . why can't I have a unicorn? I am a girl after all.
SIX: Speaking of wanting things, this Thursday I will be twenty years old. I do not want a big fuss made of me on the day, however, I do expect to be showered with gifts. You heard?
SEVEN: Speaking of me, and me being a hipster, Good magazine ran an amusing story on how hipsters are wankers. I can't find a link to it, but it was in the last issue, go see, it's good. And then posted a link to a Silver Jews MP3, good times. I just said 'good' so much it doesn't make sense anymore.
And to finish:
Kate comes in one morning and puts the BBC news on. For once, that didn't make me all crabby. This may have been only because the first cheery words into my sleepy sloos ears were ". . . giant mechanical spider will wake up soon and start walking around."
Sod that for a game of soldiers.
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