Pursuing my newest hobby with my usual obsessiveness, I've checked out 51 or so new releases this year. They are ranked below on a descending scale from "great" to "trash."
As for notable albums, the new Strokes album is horrible! So bad. The new Flaming Lips album is not as good as I was hoping. And the Rhye album is really good.
I just watched the movie "Bonnie and Clyde." Have you seen it? For me, it was one of those movies that I had heard a lot about, and that I felt that I should see, but I just never got around to watching it. It was really good. Definitely worth checking out.
It's happy go lucky, then randomly violent, then happy go lucky again, then randomly violent again. You know what's going to happen, but somehow they make it seem unlikely. Then it feels inevitable.
I am in the midst of spring break at my university, which essentially means two weeks off from work. Or that's what it should mean. Instead, I keep getting emails from a student, the President of the Economics and Finance Club, a club that I supervise. Every single day, there is more work.
These club members have big plans, and big plans are always harder to pull off than small plans. For example, they want to have something called Finance Day, but that takes a lot of administrative steps that normally wouldn't exist at a regular university.
If they want music played at the event, that music has to be vetted by higher-ups in the university. (We can't have any lyrics critical of religion, the country, or the university, for starters.)
I won't bore you, except to say that every basic step needs approval from at least three people. So we'll see if anything happens.
Meanwhile, all of their midterms are sitting on my desk, ungraded.
But no complaints. I am, after all, on vacation. It's mostly relaxing.
In the meantime, Quincy is getting delayed. I am planning to get another chapter done tomorrow. I was hoping to pump out five or six chapters between now and next Saturday, when my vacation ends. Not sure if I'll get there, but four would be nice.
And now . . . music! If I were making a top ten list so far, I'd just scoop them off the top, in order. I feel like I've made mistakes with some of these "grades." I get the feeling that a readjustment will soon be in order, for a few albums in particular, like Phosphorescent (better than 68/100), Rhye (probably better than 82/100), and Autechre (worse than 82/100). Anyhoo, here they are.
Koze--Amygdala (90/100)
Youth Lagoon--Wondrous Bughouse (88/100)
Foxygen--We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic (88/100)
My Bloody Valentine--MBV (87/100)
Yo La Tengo--Fade (85/100)
Atoms for Peace--Amok (84/100)
Devendra Banhart--Mala (83/100)
Matmos--The Marriage of True Minds (83/100)
Wooden Wand--Blood Oaths of the New Blues (83/100)
Waxahatchee--Cerulean Salt (83/100)
Rhye--Woman (82/100)
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds--Push the Sky Away (82/100)
Autechre--Exai (82/100)
Nosaj Thing--Home (81/100)
Grouper--The Man Who Died in His Boat (81/100)
David Bowie--The Next Day (81/100)
Mogwai--Les Revenants (81/100)
Parquet Courts--Light Up Gold (80/100)
Jim James--Regions of Light and Sound of God (80/100)
Iceage--You're Nothing (79/100)
Indians--Somewhere Else (79/100)
Mountains--Centralia (78/100)
Local Natives--Hummingbird (78/100)
Autre Ne Veut--Anxiety (77/100)
Ex Cops--True Hallucinations (77/100)
Toro Y Moi--Anything in Return (77/100)
Broadcast--Berberian Sound Studio (74/100)
Night Beds--Country Sleep (74/100)
Johnny Marr--The Messenger (73/100)
Justin Timberlake--The 20/20 Experience (72/100)
The Men--New Moon (72/100)
A$AP Rocky--Long.Live.A$AP (72/100)
FIDLAR--FIDLAR (71/100)
Foals--Holy Fire (71/100)
California X--California X (70/100)
Four Tet--0181 (70/100)
Phosphorescent--Muchacho (68/100)
The Flaming Lips--The Terror (68/100)
Pantha du Prince & The Bell Laboratory--Elements of Light (67/100)
Widowspeak--Almanac (67/100)
Jacco Gardner--Cabinet of Curiosities (66/100)
Frightened Rabbit--Pedestrian Verse (66/100)
Sally Shapiro--Somewhere Else (64/100)
Suuns--Images Du Futur (64/100)
Chelsea Light Moving--Chelsea Light Moving (64/100)
Brokeback--Brokeback and the Black Rock (57/100)
Various Artists--Trance (Motion Picture Soundtrack) (56/100)
Clinic--Free Reign II (48/100)
Everything Everything--Arc (46/100)
Jamie Lindell--Jamie Lindell (16/100)
The Strokes--Comedown Machine (7/100)
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