MixtressRae's Top 50 Albums of All Time

The rules I used in figuring out my top 50:

*one artist can't have more than two albums on the list
*no greatest hits
*no soundtracks

They are listed in reverse chronological order from release date. highlighted titles denote a top 10 selection.

Portishead's Dummy is my #1 Favorite Album of All Time. I've listened to it hundreds of times since its release in 1994 and I have never tired of it or skipped a track from it because I didn't want to hear it. That's BIG props.

TOP 50 ALBUMS OF ALL TIME:

Grimes // Art Angels

Chelsea Wolfe // Abyss

Grimes // Visions

Scissor Sisters // Night Work

Goldfrapp // Seventh Tree

Chromatics // Night Drive

Yeah Yeah Yeahs // Show Your Bones

Fiona Apple // Extraordinary Machine

Metric // Live It Out

M.I.A. // Arular

Queens of the Stone Age // Lullabies to Paralyze

Air // Talkie Walkie

Goldfrapp // Black Cherry

Tool // Lateralus

Moby // Play

Massive Attack // Mezzanine

Gary Numan // Exile (extended)

Bjork // Homogenic

Delerium // Karma

Cake // Fashion Nugget

Sneaker Pimps // Becoming X

Fiona Apple // Tidal

frente! // shape

Lush // Lovelife

Tori Amos // Boys for Pele

Cibo Matto // Viva! La Woman

Garbage // self-titled

Bjork // Post

PJ Harvey // To Bring You My Love

Veruca Salt // American Thighs

Heather Nova // Oyster

Portishead // Dummy

Nine Inch Nails // The Downward Spiral

Tori Amos // Under the Pink

Nirvana // Unplugged

Sarah McLachlan // Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

Mazzy Star // So Tonight That I Might See

PJ Harvey // Dry

Bel Canto // Shimmering, Warm, and Bright

Depeche Mode // Violator

They Might Be Giants // Flood

Peter Gabriel // Passion

The Cure // Disintegration

Kate Bush // Hounds of Love

Depeche Mode // Some Great Reward

Kate Bush // The Dreaming

The Cure // Pornography

Talking Heads // Fear of Music

Roxy Music // Country Life

Brian Eno // Here Come the Warm Jets

Everything happens so much.

So there's this Twitter about a fake horse and the above is the text of one of its tweets. And then there's this article from my favorite music critic Lindsay Zoladz that I just read and am pretty much stealing the idea (and title of the article) from right now...

So, the thing is, and this is not a secret because we are all experiencing the everythingness of everything right now together, everything is just too damn much.

The internet has provided us with access to absolutely everything at any time and it has very much fragmented our attention, and possibly our brains forever. I've spent this week trying to hear ALL the critically-acclaimed music that came out this year so that I can make a complete and accurate mix of my favorite music from 2015. I don't want to hear a song on January 12th of 2016 that came out this year that is the best-song-ever that I didn't know about in 2015.

But as many smart people have pointed out much more eloquently than I ever could, this is impossible. I agree with Zoladz that we should go back to the mentality we had in the baby-days of the internet. Listen to an album you love over and over until you KNOW it, until it is part of your soul. Let that soul-sound lead you to other things like it or other things that remind you of it. Explore a world without time in the natural way that your brain wants to enjoy things.

I've spent a lot of time in the last few weeks reading books. Like checking out physical sheaths of paper housed in hardback covers and reading the paper within. And then checking out more books that are in the same subject. Immersing myself in a world of a subject. I'm not pressuring myself to read the top ten books of 2015 according to someone else. I'm not even reading cover-to-cover if the book doesn't keep that much of my attention. The internet has not even called to me much in this time. I'm reading, I'm taking notes, and I'm being entertained.

It's odd to grow up in this time when we've been able to observe entertainment becoming study and overconsumption. We have started thinking we have to experience all the high-brow bits of culture so that we may be able to pontificate about it. It's boring. Just read what you like. Listen to the music you like, even if you've only listened to one album on repeat for six months. If you're being entertained, you're doing it right.

We're not developing relationships with culture anymore...we're just dipping our toes into everything. I had a New Year's Resolution for this year to fragment my attention less. I think I started to accomplish that, but it's one of those resolutions that I will have to further attempt next year as well.

Maybe my "best of 2015" mix won't be the beast that past years' mixes have been. I've thoroughly LOVED two albums (Grimes' "Artangels" and Chelsea Wolfe's "Abyss") this year and I'll take that over heard-30-albums-once-and-can't-remember-them this year.

Acquisition vs Assimilation.

As I've been lamenting on all the social medias and my YouTube videos, all I can think about recently is the radio station. I seem to only have enough room in my greyspace to concentrate on the thing that is enjoyed by the least number of people. I've been very lazy about writing. I haven't done it at all since the last blog entry which was the first time I'd written...

Excuses aside, I still have my regular amount of philosophical thoughts. I usually babble them on my radio station now or to my Michael and my friend Lindsey instead of writing about them. I'd like to say that this will all change from now on, but likely it won't.

My year isn't going as specifically outlined by me in my little year goal notebook. Instead of ALL the writing I had planned I've started a YouTube channel and a radio station. I'm allowing myself to "go with the flow". I've given myself permission to focus on the creative projects that I want to focus upon, which don't involve writing right now. I still plan to undertake NaNoWriMo in November and generally write my face off as the months get colder...

but this summer I've been listening to music.

Listening to music is my favorite pastime of all time. I've been on vacation this last week and not having the money to GO on vacation, I've mostly stayed in playing Animal Crossing and listening to my iPod on shuffle. I "discovered" several gems shuffling my entire music library. That wouldn't have been possible 15 years ago. The way I enjoy music now is different than the way I enjoyed music then.

The difference, I now realize, is acquisition versus assimilation. Pre-iPod (2001) I would get a new CD once or twice a month and spend the entire time between each CD purchase pouring over the sounds within the newly-bought album. I'd memorize the lyrics and burn the images from the artwork into my brain. I had the time and space to integrate the new music into the rest of my collection. I had the time to get to know the music and where it fit into all of the many music schemas within my mind. All I had was the music I had acquired slowly over the years, and maybe the radio...or whatever mixes my friends made me in the spaces between new CDs.

Now my attention is severely fragmented by the paradox of choice. I listen to Spotify. I listen to Songza. I listen to SomaFM. I acquire new music from Freegal (free library service--not available in Joplin, but in Kansas City) and Google Music weekly, sometimes even daily. I don't acquire new music because I'm sick of what I have already amassed, but simply because I can. I can have so many tracks that I forget to listen to albums I've had for years. I have albums I have NEVER heard in their entirety. I'm ashamed to admit that. Truly ashamed.

Lately I've been researching shoegaze, listening to Pale Saints and Slowdive and Lush and My Bloody Valentine. I thought I would make a mix for my radio show, but it wasn't coming. It wasn't coming because I was listening to the tip of an iceberg of a genre of music I wasn't already intimately familiar. I was seeking the kind of knowledge I only have of music I've known since the days of Assimilation, while in the midst of the distractions everywhere in the Age of Acquisition. I haven't had enough time with shoegaze, but I was assuming I could bang it out really quick.

I don't yet know how I'll do this, but reconnecting with my music library over these past few vacation days has convinced me I simply MUST take more time to assimilate sound. I will never be able to hear every new album from 2014, but that old Delerium record is sitting within the folds of my iPod needing just as much validation as anything in my "recently added" playlist. I have almost 10,000 songs in my digital music library. If I listened to each one of them, I would probably decide I didn't like at least 5% of them.

Doing the weekly radio show (every Friday from 7-11pm CST here) has opened Pandora's Box/The Tree of Knowledge for me. Until I started the radio station at the beginning of July, I hadn't sat still and listened to my music for four hours at a time since the Age of Assimilation. I needed it. Immersion into sound helps me sort out my emotions. It is assimilation that calms me into knowing myself, not acquisition. You can never hear it all, especially when you're clicking through to the next song before you've ended the one currently playing. Radio is reconnecting me to what's been within reach all along, and I am grateful.

New Wave.

New Wave is a genre of music I am very familiar with, so it was the most joyful of challenges to accept when my coworker/friend Evan asked for a mix. This is what I LIVE for, children. My nickname isn't "mixtress" for nothin'. I truly thrive on making mixes. Thanks to Evan for the idea and ANYONE reading this, feel free to request a mix via comment or email (mixtressrae@yahoo.com).

I agonized for almost a week on the order of this mix. I knew from the beginning that it would have to be a two-discer, but I didn't know how to put it together or what to name it. Last night, it came to me via two amazing Tears for Fears songs on the mix:

"Mad World" and
"Everybody Wants to Rule the World"

They were sitting right next to each other on the mix and I knew that wasn't right at all, but it gave me the idea for the title of the mixes and how I would separate them from disc to disc. The first disc would represent the earlier part of the genre (1977-1983) when the Cold War was more of a theme and the music was darker overall. This portion of the mix overlaps with punk a bit and the songs within are sometimes referred to as post-punk. Disc one would be named "Mad World". Disc two would represent the later chunk of new wave (1983-1988) when it morphed into a lot more dancey beats. The songs you remember from the credits of '80s movies are on this disc and it's called "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". The YouTube playlist above is both discs in one and is missing one track that isn't on YouTube, one my dad and I made with his synthesizers before I was old enough to remember the experience. Below is a terrible quality version of that song which I am afraid is the only version in existence? Depends on if I find it in my dad's tapes later on and upload a better version.

tracklist

My top five songs on the mix (in order of appearance):

Only a Lad // Oingo Boingo

The Safety Dance // Men Without Hats

Shout // Tears for Fears

The Walk // The Cure

How Soon is Now // The Smiths

For further New Wave listening I suggest:

Songza's "Dark Side of the Synth"

SomaFM's "Underground '80s"

Digitally Imported's "Future Synthpop"

Walking with Headphones: a Guide.

The short version involves donning headphones, then putting one foot in front of the other. Happy July everyone! Ok, I’ll be serious...

As summer starts to scorch, wandering Joplin’s avenues in a sundress with some hazy drawling tunes in your ears is becoming a more and more appealing and worthwhile activity. There are many benefits to walking while wearing headphones. Slowing to a walking human’s pace (as opposed to viewing the world through 45mph-speeds in your car) concurrently slows your brainwaves to a similar pace. Suddenly you begin to know the cracks in the sidewalk, which houses have the best wildflowers, and which empty lots have the biggest variety of weeds you need to ask Jill later if you can eat. And the graffiti! In a car, you’re likely to miss all the cool “You Are Beautiful”-type graffiti on dumpsters and the spray-painted stencils behind stop signs. In my experiences, headphones make you more likely to zen-walk, taking the element of startling sounds out of your outdoor stroll. With only the sound of Goldfrapp to guide you on a midsummer night’s walk, you may find yourself prancing with your hands raking through vines and tree branches, leaping over concrete parking thingies and twirling around street poles. What if you tuck a single lavender flower behind your ear and grin like you haven’t grinned since you were 8? It can happen and I can show you how.

MixtressRae’s guide to walking with headphones with wild abandon and child-like joy:

*First rule of walking with headphones is a reminder that needs to be shouted from the rooftops. You don’t owe your attention to anyone. Let me type that again: you don’t owe anyone your attention. You don’t have to talk to the skeezy dudes on the street that drunkenly offer you a ride, and with headphones, you can more convincingly pretend you don’t hear them. For that matter, with your tunes at proper volumes and/or sufficient noise cancellation, you don’t have to hear others at all. I have a couple of decades of experience wandering these streets at all times of day and in all kinds of weather. I’ve been victim to catcalls (by catcalls, I mean anyone yelling anything lewd, insulting, or generally abusive at you as you try to just take a freaking walk!), porch hollers, and the creepy slow-down (when a car stuffed with guys slows to your pace beside you while spewing lewdness in your general direction). It’s yucky, but if you stomp your confidence into the asphalt while fervently ignoring the offending individuals, you’ll intimidate the little weasels. They’ll slink away with their tails between their legs. As with most vermin (and if you catcall people on the street, you ARE vermin), they’re more scared of you than you are of them. Don’t let anyone stop you from walking with headphones. It is your AMERICAN right!

*Second rule of walking with headphones is a continuation of rule one; pretend no one is watching you (and honestly, they aren’t). Stop and smell a flower. Stop (not in the street!) and change your Pandora station. Dance-walk. Dancing while walking is one of the most glorious joys in our world and it’s free and available no matter where you are. You must dance in this life. If your first reaction to this rule includes protestations of “looking silly” or some other such nonsense, just imagine how you would feel if you saw someone dancing on the street or in their cars. You’d think, “Man, I wish I had the guts to enjoy myself that much.” Well, I’m here to remind you that you, yes YOU, have the capacity for great freedom and glee. This glee only needs to be unleashed...with DANCE! In this life, we’re all too wrapped up in our own brains to notice others, so why worry what you look like?

*Last rule of walking with headphones may at first seem like a contradiction to the first two; hyper-visual-vigilance. Not having your ears to alert you to possible danger means needing to be aware of your surroundings with your eyeballs. This is not contrary to dancing and ignoring vermin, as it is actually a big part of the zen experience. These rules are meant to make anxiety melt away and turn the focus inward. Looking at the world around you at 3mph with the soundtrack of your choice is a gigantic part of the fun of walking with headphones. I don’t really need to tell you to look both ways at intersections, right?

Now that you have the attitude and the attention (and a pair of headphones, I trust), go out and walk before it gets August-hot and all you want to do is hide underground until October.

Music to listen to on a summer walk with headphones:

She & Him // (any of their albums, except the Christmas one)

Goldfrapp // Seventh Tree

Queens of the Stone Age // (any of their albums)

Lana Del Rey // Born to Die

Aesop Rock // Fast Cars, Danger, Fire, and Knives

albumWEEK

Originally posted in Current, Etc publication last issue (well CURRENT issue until Thursday):

ALBUMweek.

During the month of February I undertook a sort-of music boot camp. Each week, I had a particular way of enjoying music that I confined myself within for the entire 168 hours of that week's regular listening periods. I endeavor to tell you in a four part series my results for each week here in these Current, Etc pages. I do not promise these four parts will be in sequential order, or even in a row, depending on how pressing future music topics will be, but for today I'll share with you my rediscovery of THE ALBUM.

Listening to an album in order, in one sitting, is becoming a lost art. I recently realized I don’t know music I’ve discovered/downloaded in the last five years as albums. I know it as songs floating in and out of shuffles/mixes. Conversely, I don't think artists conceive of their music in album form as often as was done in the '70s-'90s.

The album has had a relatively short shelf-life in the grand scheme of music, if you consider The Beatles' Revolver (1966) as the birth of the album (and lots of rock critics do). THE ALBUM being a collection of songs with a conceptually-thematic atmosphere that lures you into an aural landscape for approximately three quarters of an hour, transfixed. Ultimately, I discovered that while the album did have a short run and many albums are very important to me, it’s really always been fragmented. We pick and choose the songs we love, the sides we pick up the needle for again and again. The attention span of a human does not normally last 45 minutes. For an album to make it into your pantheon of things to sit still for, it has to be spectacular! It is rare that an album makes it, without the need to skip, replay, multitask. ALBUMweek made me realize I hardly ever quiet my mind enough to experience music as its divine creators intended.

In undergoing this project, I wanted to recapture the feeling of letting my self dissolve into the sound of the album (I've been on shuffle for too many years). I felt like I did restore something deep within the earth of my mind. I defiantly reclaimed the ability to pay attention to music. Picture a woman wearing ridiculous plaid pants sitting cross-legged in a papasan chair clutching a vinyl sleeve whilst gazing wistfully into the middle-distance. This was me the entire first week of February and here are ten of the best albums repossessed during my love affair with THE ALBUM:

The Cure/Seventeen Seconds
Nirvana/Unplugged
Marilyn Manson/Antichrist Superstar
Nine Inch Nails/The Downward Spiral
Brian Eno/Before and After Science
Cibo Matto/Viva! La Woman
Fiona Apple/When The Pawn...
Veruca Salt/American Thighs
Talking Heads/77
Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Fever To Tell

What are your favorite albums? Email me: mixtressrae@yahoo.com

Posted with Blogsy

Milktoast Music Review.

Adventures in Psychohistory: Part 1 Episode 1: The Galactic Fast One // Richard Pickman, Durkadub, Hail Zeon!, For the Galaxy aka Milktoast Music

If you like your industrial music full of cult movie clips a la Thrill Kill Kult and early Skinny Puppy, look no further than this 2013 release. It's frightening, embodies a minimalist/chaos melody dichotomy, and even includes clips from "Barbarella"!! This release feels very '90s, but in a good way. It's like my zine for your mind: you might emerge feeling confused and disoriented, but take an ibuprofen and jump right back in the entropy, baby!

Standout Track: Revelation on Terminus

I've received an advance copy (thanks so much, Milktoast kids!), so while you wait for the January 28th release date to roll around, check out their other music here: http://milktoastmusic.com

High Fidelity (2000).

This is probably my favorite movie of all time (we'll see by the time I'm done rating these movies--the stack is dwindling). I love the book.

The only thing that could make the movie better would be if the music were more my taste, but the aura of High Fidelity is totally and completely perfect. I AM ROB GORDON. Well, I'm not as much of a pushover (and I hope I'm not as much of an asshole), but my music habits are very similar. The concept of "top five" leeches into my existence on a daily basis. I find it indispensable. It's so much more quintessential than a top 10. It forces you to commit to FIVE. Genius.

Perfect use of Jack Black, too.

Ok, this movie could also be better if a female was a main character and NOT just an object of Rob's affection. And if there were gay characters...I'll dock "atmosphere" a point for that. I dig that Rob puts on music before he even checks his messages when he gets home from work, a place wherein he listened to music throughout his entire workday.

I get goosebumps every time I watch the scene when Rob is reorganizing his record collection "autobiographically". That is so fucking ambitious and awe-inspiring. I'm boring and I do alphabetical then chronological within artist. Well I did do, before my CDs flew away. Now, iTunes organizes for me. The distinctly specific comfort Rob describes at reorganizing his record collection is no longer a comfort I get to enjoy. However, I am starting to collect vinyl, so perhaps someday I'll have a wall covered in floor-to-ceiling shelving full of vinyl. What I really want is mixtapes. I wonder if I could get friends and strangers to donate their mixtapes to me, since I only have like twenty of my originals. If you're reading this and you have old mixtapes gathering dust in your garage, email me (mixtressrae@yahoo.com). I will send you stamped self-addressed boxes for you to fill up and send me your beautiful old cassettes. Seriously.

Joan Cusack NEEDS to be in every one of John's movies. And vise versa. She is just a gem.

I want to live in Rob's apartment. It's so cozy and dark and full of personality. Like a little cave-like sanctuary. I will have that again one day.

This is one of the few movies that I still like the middle and end. I'm IN with this movie up until the end. Usually, plots blow their load in the first act, but not High Fidelity. And it doesn't end when you think it will...it doesn't end when they get back together. And I think that's awesome. And their relationship isn't this divine thing that fixes itself and ends up perfect. It's not crazy or terrible, just good. I love it. Real.

Rob doesn't even describe the "art of making a tape" until the end of the movie...love it. It truly feels like getting a glimpse of a real person's life instead of a neatly packaged plot which doesn't happen in life! I hate neatly packaged!

I love that Laura says no to Rob when he proposes to her. And I love that he explains the "other woman" as being a "fantasy". It's one of the only examples of a realistic relationship in film I have ever seen. I thought it was primarily the dialogue and Rob's relationship to music that drew me to this movie, but it's also Rob and Laura and all the genuineness between them. Y'all know I'm not a sappy girl; this is a love story I can get behind!


replayability: 10
character average: 9
atmosphere: 9
music: 8
dialogue: 10

TOTAL: 46

How To Behave When Art Is Being Made Before Your Eyes.

In July, for the first time since my fixation began in 1996, I saw Fiona Apple in concert.  My husband and I had relatively good seats that we paid approximately 25% of our paychecks to obtain.  Fiona was phenomenal, but the crowd was NOT.  As a whole, the audience broke all of the rules below, and I felt separated from the woman I’d desperately wanted to share a room with for sixteen years, the woman I had driven two and a half hours to see perform her art...grr, digress digress.

  

July 17, 2012 -- Midland Theatre, Kansas City, MO.
Her setlist was as follows: Fast As You Can, On the Bound, Shadowboxer, Paper Bag, Anything We Want, Get Gone, Sleep to Dream, Extraordinary Machine, Werewolf, Tymps, Daredevil, I Know, Every Single Night, Not About Love, Carrion, Criminal, and It's Only Make Believe.

Here are five rules of etiquette (I know, I’m no Lady Von Halbach) for all-encompassing enjoyment of a concert (“concert” here defined as any single musical act you have paid more than 10 or 15 bucks to see: i.e., NOT a festival and NOT a typical Friday night at the dive bar downtown):

1. As an overall mindset, try to remember that there are people in the crowd that really really really want to see the performer, you know, perform.  You will be doing those particular fans a service by being as reserved as possible during the evening’s events.  This is not a time for attention-seeking behaviors.  Your fellow concert-goers didn’t pay to hear or see YOU do anything.
2. A note on phone usage: Y’all know I am serious about my technology, but when you’re experiencing an in-person event, such as music being created before your very ears, I am very anti-phone.  Don’t take video.  Don’t take pictures.  Put the screens in your purse or pocket for two freaking hours and be in the moment, people!
3. No one wants to begrudge a concert-goer a beer or two, but please keep your drunkenness to a minimum.  If the booze-habit gets you in and out of the aisles for cup-fills and bladder-empties more than a couple of times, just stay by the bar and let someone else have your seat/standing space.
4. If there are seats, sit down (especially if you’re in the front).  I’m 5’5” (that’s not short) and the behemoths standing in front of me made it very difficult to see the tiny glorious woman onstage.  For a large portion of the concert, a man’s substantial left ear was covering Ms. Apple’s entire head.  Common sense makes obvious the fact that EVERYONE can see if EVERYONE is sitting down. Conversely, if the venue is set up such that you couldn’t possibly disturb anyone by standing, by all means, dance your cute little butt off!
5. Keep your clapping/screaming/yelling to an absolute minimum.  You paid for the ticket, the performer already KNOWS how much you love them. Admittedly, this is somewhat of a personal issue (I feel like a baby seal slapping her flippers together when clapping). There’s no reason to clap/yell during a performance unless, ill-advised as it most certainly is, the artist has encouraged some sort of rhythm-bastardizing-group-epileptic-fit (for the record, Fiona would never engage in such tomfoolery--she didn’t even leave the stage before her required encore, bless her no-nonsense heart).  Call me crazy, but I believe all displays of appreciation should be held until the very end of the performance, like at symphonies and operas.

NOW, you can applaud...You’re welcome.  I love you too.

Finally, I shall contradict myself completely and reap the rewards of the assholes that held their phones up during the performance.  Below is a playlist of videos from that night.  They're not well-done, but they're in order and they're for posterity, for me, so I'm placing them here...

Music archiving.

I must have control of my musical environment. I recently turned my iTunes Match back on after several months of having it off after a fiasco with a Tina Fey audiobook not showing up in my audiobooks correctly and it erased my play counts from the months that Match was off. This may mean nothing to you, but it screwed with my world, I tell you!

As I've mentioned before, I am listening to all 80GB of my music this year. From January 1st until yesterday I had listened to over 900 songs and I was keeping track by using the play count data iTunes automatically keeps and it was all for naught! Luckily, I still have my last.fm stats and I still remember almost everything I've listened to this year, so today I painstakingly went through my entire music library (9477 songs, mind you) and fast-forwarded to the end of each track I know I've listened to this year so far so that iTunes would know that I've played it.

Needless to write, but I will, it took hours -- about 4, to be almost exact about it. This is an obsession. How many people would even notice that their play counts are different after messing with setting on their iTunes? How many people even mess with settings on their iTunes? How many people even know what iTunes Match even is? How many people even know they have play counts in their iTunes? How many people that know about Match and play counts and all that would even care if they knew their play counts were messed up?

My archiving nature is screaming so loud right now. It seems completely arbitrary which songs it counted and didn't...my counts are nowhere near accurate now, nor were they before this fiasco. Thank goddess/Buddha/Jesus/whoever for last.fm.

The glitch also erased my most recent mix. Thankfully, I keep a detailed notebook of my mixes. What's wrong with me?

I have also been preoccupied lately with how much awesome music is out there and how little time in the day, in my life, there is to listen to it all. Every moment I don't have headphones in or around my ears I feel guilty for not consuming music. I want it at all times! Even past the point of having a headache from all the brain-processing. I'll pop a few ibuprofen and dive back into the distortion!

I have a problem.

Hi, my name is Mixtress Rae and I am a music nerd.