2020 Artists of the Year Countdown!

 

Mountain Goats ca 2005

Well here it finally is! The Artists of the Year Countdown for 2020! It's a very good one and I love making these things, it's just that I found myself doing a lot of podcasting with other people this year and kept putting the recording of this show off. You understand. But here it is! I hope you enjoy it!

2020 Artists of the Year Countdown

***Featuring***

Alanis Morrissette
Bad Religion
Barenaked Ladies
The Beatles
Bob Dylan
Elton John
Fall Out Boy
The Mountain Goats
New Found Glory
Outkast
Talking Heads
Taylor Swift
The Wonder Years

Throwback Thursday: 2003

10. Barenaked Ladies - Everything to Everyone
9. Barbra Streisand - The Movie Album
8. Jagged Edge - Hard
7. Dido - Life For Rent
6. Loon - Loon
5. Ludacris - Chicken*N*Beer
4. Outkast - Speakerboxx/The Love Below

Speakerboxxx

     1. Intro
     2. Ghetto Musick (featuring Andre 3000)
     3. Unhappy
     4. Bowtie (featuring Sleepy Brown and Jazze Pha)
     5. The Way You Move (featuring Sleepy Brown)

     6. The Rooster
     7. Bust (featuring Killer Mike)
     8. War
     9. Church
   10. Bamboo (interlude)
   11. Tomb of the Boom (featuring Konkrete, Big Gipp, and Ludacris)
   12. E-Mac (interlude)
   13. Knowing (featuring Andre 3000)
   14. Flip Flop Rock (featuring Killer Mike and Ludacris)
   15. Interlude
   16. Reset (featuring Khujo and CeeLo Green)
   17. D-Boi (interlude)
   18. Last Call (featuring Slimm Calhoun, Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz, and Mello)
   19. Bowtie (postlude)

The Love Below

     1. The Love Below (intro)
     2. Love Hater
     3. God (interlude)
     4. Happy Valentine's Day
     5. Spread
     6. Where Are My Panties?
     7. Prototype
     8. She Lives In My Lap (featuring Rosario Dawson)
     9. Hey Ya!

   10. Roses (featuring Big Boi)
   11. Good Day, Good Sir
   12. Behold a Lady
   13. Pink & Blue
   14. Love in War
   15. She's Alive
   16. Dracula's Wedding (featuring Kelis)
   17. My Favorite Things
   18. Take Off Your Cool (featuring Norah Jones)
   19. Vibrate
   20. A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre (Incomplete)

I mean, there really was only one option when it came to which album to pick this week, wasn't there? 39 tracks (a couple of tracks of filler, but mostly complete songs) over the course of two discs? What a deal! I have equal amounts of love for both of these albums. Speakerboxxx is a tad easier to listen to, being less experimental, but the truly rewarding experience is listening to them both. I picked the two huge singles from them because it IS Throwback Thursday, after all. Enjoy!


3. Eagles - The Very Best Of
2. Rod Stewart - As Time Goes By...The Great American Songbook Vol.II
1. Clay Aiken - Measure of a Man

New Countdown! Thanksgiving! December! Oh My!

The Neighbourhood

Well, I'm typing this on Tuesday night because I don't want to be fussing with recording and posting and all of that hooey (which I love!) down at my folks' place this week/weekend. So it feels REALLY early, but I kind of like it.

I just want to thank you for coming to listen to my podcast. If you're reading this, then I'm thankful for you and all the steps that led you to my little corner of the Internet. I hope that you're happy you came when you leave and that you'll eagerly come back soon!

Countdown #176

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Fitz & the Tantrums
Grouplove
Imagine Dragons
MS MR
The Neighbourhood
Outkast
Panic! at the Disco featuring LOLO
Pearl Jam
The White Stripes

I Posted More When I Didn't Have a Hard Drive...

...But I'm going to make an effort to correct that. I think one of the problems is that I feel like I have to get a post out in the same sitting as I start it. And if I want to include music (which I always do!), that can seem a little daunting. But I'm going to try to realize that it's not like that. It's like writing a paper for school (only more fun!): you have to write drafts. Take it slow (I never used this concept in school, either.)

OK, so, first order of business. Remember the brackets? The battle of the bands? Well, I'm going to Sally Forth on that. We have some Round 1b business to take care of. Thanks to a certain Ms. Wells, I am lacking a vote in the NOFX vs Strung Out match-up. So, the first person to vote for one of them in the comment section of this post, regardless of if you've already voted in this round, will be the deciding vote!

Now: Round 1c!!!! (exclamation points make things more exciting.....!!!!)

1. Red Hot Chili Peppers vs. Sublime

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Readymade from Stadium Arcadium
Sublime - Seed from Sublime

2. Outkast vs. Ben Folds Five

Outkast - Morris Brown from Idlewild
Ben Folds Five - Army from The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner

Now: Trent Reznor wants to give you 1.25 free albums!!

That's right. If you have ever had even a passing interest in Nine Inch Nails, here's your opportunity to pick up the new NIN LP "The Slip" and "Ghosts I", the first part of "Ghosts I-IV" which is a series of instrumentals composed in 10 weeks in late 2007. It's free! And worth checking out! Go here for The Slip and here for Ghosts I

Here's a song from each!

Nine Inch Nails - 1,000,000 from The Slip
Nine Inch Nails - 3 Ghosts I from Ghosts I

Ok. Despite what I said up there above, I'm going to go ahead and post this. I just get so excited with the links and the words and the public reading my stuff!! Plus, I only crossed like 2 things off my list of things to talk about, so maybe I'll come back in a couple days and cross some more off!

Have a great day!

Brackets

Ok. So NCAA Basketball March Madness is pretty much over now, but I decided I wanted to try something related to tournament brackets. The classic rock station that we occasionally listen to at work is having a battle of the bands with this tournament bracket and everything. So that's what I'd like to do too.

I'm a part of this website called Last.fm that keeps track of music that I listen to on my iPod or computer. And so, using the chart that it has for the Artists I've listened to most, I have made up a bracket of my own. It's really neat, but I don't think you get to see it yet. First, I'm going to gauge the interest in this endeavour with something of a pre-tournament set of match-ups. There are some positions on the bracket that are ties (basically, I've listened to two or more artists the same number of times) and so we're going to pick who gets those positions right now.


RULES FOR SAMPLE SONGS (Pre-tournament and Round 1):

For the first two contests, I will be posting songs from the contestants' most recent LP (not including greatest hits, live, or B-sides collections) that I own. Round 2 will have a different set of rules.


Oh, and the winner of the whole thing will have an entire post devoted to them including a playlist created by yours truly that you can download and burn to a CD in memory of the time we've spent together! Awww.

OK. So here are the pre-tournament match-ups and their sample songs:

1. Fall Out Boy vs. Sufjan Stevens
Fall Out Boy - You're Crashing, But You're No Wave from Infinity on High
Sufjan Stevens - Decatur, or, Round of Applause For Your Stepmother! from Come On Feel the Illinoise

2. Outkast vs. Blink-182
Outkast - Idlewild Blue (Don't Chu Worry 'Bout Me) from Idlewild
Blink-182 - Easy Target from Blink-182

3. Coheed and Cambria vs. Catch-22 vs. Taking Back Sunday
Coheed and Cambria - Feathers from Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV: Volume 2: No World For Tomorrow
Catch-22 - So Cold from Dinosaur Sounds
Taking Back Sunday - My Blue Heaven from Louder Now

4. Jack Johnson vs. Sublime
Jack Johnson - Sleep Through the Static from Sleep Through the Static
Sublime - Jailhouse from Sublime

5. Alanis Morissette vs. MxPx
Alanis Morissette - Everything from So-Called Chaos
MxPx - Well Adjusted from Before Everything and After

6. Ben Folds vs. The Get Up Kids vs. Foo Fighters (Now, that's Ben Folds (solo) not Ben Folds Five)
Ben Folds - You to Thank from Songs For Silverman
The Get Up Kids - Martyr Me from Guilt Show
Foo Fighters - Let It Die from Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace

7. Descendents vs. Linkin Park vs. No Use For a Name
Descendents - I Won't Let Me from Everything Sucks
Linkin Park - Given Up from Minutes to Midnight
No Use For a Name - Bullets from Keep Them Confused


So, take a listen if you don't know the artist, leave a comment with your votes and I guess the voting will close at like 11 pm EST on Monday. Thanks in advance for participating!