Charts

It’s the end of the year so rather than try and remember what music I liked let’s have a look at what I actually listened to.

Top 15 artists:

Mogwai
Aimee Mann
Sigur Rós
The Mountain Goats
Tom Waits
Iron & Wine
The Flaming Lips
Low
Girl Talk
Melt-Banana
Shellac
Pixies
Smog
Sleater-Kinney
Regina Spektor

Top ten albums:

Sigur Rós – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
Girl Talk – Feed The Animals
Melt-Banana – Bambi’s Dilemma
Low – The Great Destroyer
Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days
Regina Spektor – Begin to Hope
Iron & Wine – The Creek Drank the Cradle
James Summerfield – Count To 10 & Start Again
The Good, The Bad and the Queen – The Good, The Bad and The Queen
Mogwai – The Hawk is Howling

Hmm.

Actually, these lists are pretty pointless. First off there’s a bias towards what I’ll listen to when I’m working, hence the preponderance of more ambient, backgroundy, acoustic stuff. When I’m not working I’ll listen on shuffle which means the less ambient, more frontgroundy stuff is down in the Long Tail. And to be honest my music habits are long-tailed to fuck and back. Music isn’t like water to me. It’s like air, floating around being all random and that with most artists in my collection getting a couple of plays, if that. And I like that. The freedom to not have to care about music and just being able to enjoy it as part of my environment is lovely. That’s not to say I don’t listen hard to music – I’m just a lot more selective. Been furrowing my brow to Murcof a fair bit after seeing him perform the other month and I keep dipping into the Merzbox for the occasional slab of drone. With those it’s headphone on and eyes shut. For everything else it’s just here. And that’s not to diminish its value in the slightest.

Anyway, oblig music post done.