The stones know.
Haiku 01
Brilliance is fleeting;
good thoughts are so hard to hold.
Don’t blink. You’ll miss out.
Andrew’s favorite albums of 2010!
We’ll start with a list. Lists are easy. Hooray. Here are my favorite albums that were released last year:
| # | Album | Artist | Best Song |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Head and the Heart | The Head and the Heart | Down in the Valley |
| 2 | The Suburbs | Arcade Fire | Half Light II (No Celebration) |
| 3 | High Violet | The National | Runaway |
| 4 | Magic Central | Breathe Owl Breathe | Lake Light |
| 5 | To Travels and Trunks | Hey Marseilles | Calabasas |
| 6 | July Flame | Laura Veirs | July Flame |
| 7 | The Winter of Mixed Drinks | Frightened Rabbit | Living in Colour |
| 8 | In Evening Air | Future Islands | Swept Inside |
| 9 | Hunger and Thirst | Typhoon | CPR – Claws Part 2 |
| 10 | The Violent Blue | Electric President | Safe and Sound |
This list is pretty representative about the kind(s) of music that I typically enjoy. It’s not the WIDEST assortment of music, which I suppose diminishes my musical-appreciation credibility a bit. However, there are a few bands that probably aren’t considered super “mainstream”, so I reckon I’m still relatively hip. Or something. And we all know that being cool is the most important thing there is. So yeah. Yahoo.
I imagine that most people who share similar tastes in music with me have heard of The National and Arcade Fire and probably Frightened Rabbit as these bands have put out multiple albums and have been headlining shows internationally for years… blah, blah, blah. Instead of talking about how popular/unknown these bands are, and how totally cool/hip that makes me, let’s just compare the amount of views on their Myspace music pages. That’s TOTALLY the most legitimate way of deciding popularity.
| Artist | Myspace Profile Views |
|---|---|
| Arcade Fire | 6,734,851 |
| The National | 4,555,420 |
| Frightened Rabbit | 3,144,631 |
| Laura Veirs | 903,012 |
| Future Islands | 626,934 |
| Electric President | 458,848 |
| Breathe Owl Breathe | 290,684 |
| The Head and the Heart | 212,602 |
| Hey Marseilles | 194,678 |
| Typhoon | 176,601 |
There you have it. Myspace finally proves itself useful. The three bands at the bottom of the list are “local” bands from Seattle or Portland (I live in Seattle) – that’s why I’ve heard of ‘em and you likely haven’t. However, I predict that due to the extreme awesomness of this blog, and the amount of influence which it will soon have, all of the bands listed above will become immensely popular within the next few months.
I hate picking genres for music, so I’ll just go ahead and lump these all together in the “good music” category. You should absolutely go listen. Unless you have terrible taste. And love punishing your ears. In which case, go listen to some Katy Perry or something.
Revolutions (around the sun) lead to resolutions (which hopefully aren’t broken)
Hey! It’s almost a new year! And that means… something about resolutions, or some such nonsense, right?
I love and hate the idea of new year’s resolutions. Hooray for trying to make yourself better but booooo for not just doing it. Why wait ’til a “new” year is starting to make a change? I mean, yeah, being lazy is much easier than not being lazy, so I suppose we should embrace anything that discourages complacency and stagnation and whatnot, even if it’s some silly new year’s tradition.
That being said, in my case, quality resolutions are hard to think of – when you’re as awesome as I am, it’s kinda difficult to think of things that need to be improved… however, because I’m so smart, I’ve come up with something that I think will be good for me (and even better for anyone lucky enough to stumble across this humble blog). My idea goes like this:
Every day in 2011, I’ll do something ~creative, and post the results here. For you! But mostly for me.
I know. I’m so good at coming up with stuff. I totally didn’t steal this project idea from anywhere else.
Each day, when I’m ready to channel my brilliance into this blog, I’ll go to a random number generator and select a number between 1 and 10. Each of these numbers correspond to one of the project ideas described below:
1: A wonderfully insightful post having something to do with books/reading/bibliophilia
2: A terribly witty/moving/thought-provoking haiku
3: A short story inspired by a prompt on Ficly (stories are limited to 1024 characters)
4: A post detailing something delicious that I have cooked/baked
5: A doodle (ink, pencil, crayon, WHATEVER)
6: A wonderfully insightful post having something to do with music
7: A list of 5 things which make me happy (idea inspired by this delightful book)
8: A photograph taken by me!
9: A free-form blog about whatever I happen to feel like writing about. It too will be wonderfully insightful.
10: A vlog, likely filled with hilarity and/or crazy special effects.
If I think of other projects that sound appealing, I might add them/switch them in later.
So every day I’ll receive my project assignment from the universe and then throw something new up on this blog. I hope that this will ultimately make it easier for me to be creative. Hopefully the universe is benevolent and doesn’t make me post haikus 14 days in a row. I imagine that would get a bit tiresome? But who knows!? This project could really suck. A lot. But hopefully it doesn’t. Hopefully it’s amazing. We’ll find out.
1, 2, 3… go!
_________________________
Update! (1/21/11)
So obviously I have failed to add something every day. Boo, Andrew. What a shame. But it’s really not all that surprising. I’m so lazy and adding something every day is hard! However, instead of giving up and quitting on this project, I reckon I’ll just do my best to add stuff as often as I can/feel like it. I’ve just been yelled at by two people that I shouldn’t quit entirely (I know! At least two people look at this!), so I won’t. You’re welcome.
