I Got Those Gettin' Up Early Now That Summer is Over, Post-Labor Day Blues

A couple of interesting articles to share with you all:

Salon has a review of of a new book called This is Your Brain On Music. Written by Daniel Levitin, a former record producer turned academic neuroscientist (I smell sitcom...), if this book is half as interesting as the article in Salon, it is worth checking out. My favorite quote from the Salon article: The cerebellum attempts to predict where beats will occur. Music sounds exciting when our brains guess the right beat, but a song becomes really interesting when it violates the expectation in some surprising way -- what Levitin calls, " a sort of musical joke that we're all in on." FINALLY!! A biological explanation for the huge success of Arcade Fire!

Yesterday's New York Times featured an article called The New Tastemakers, primarily about Pandora, that great service that creates personalized "radio stations" based on information provided by the listener: favorite songs, favorite groups, songs you hate, etc. For some reason, though, I end up listening to KEXP, Jonesy, and Nic Harcourt way more than I use Pandora. I think it is because a lot of the stuff that comes up on Pandora is so obscure that even if I like it, I'm suspicious... How could Pandora know about something good that Stereogum hasn't mentioned? My brain must be playing tricks on me...

And as an ode to the waning days of Summer 2006, I'd like to share a couple of tunes that have kept me and my cerebellum laughing our asses off, figuratively speaking of course, for the past several months. While I still haven't figured out how to upload songs, I'm including links to sites where you can listen or download these songs for free, quasi-legally. (In most cases, it may require a bit of scrolling, but well worth it.)

Little Miss Sunshine was my favorite movie of the summer. This is Your Land by Sufjan Stevens and How it Will End by Devotchka, both featured in the film and on the soundtrack, are available at Silly Pipe Dreams. The Funeral, a great track by the Band of Horses, is available from the Sub Pop website. Mothers Sisters Daughters Wives by Voxtrot has been one of those songs that has me repeatedly flipping CD cases (while simultaneously eating lunch, talking on the phone, and navigating via Mapquest directions on I-5) to determine who it is whenever it comes on in the car... Great song. And if you liked the song by the Mountain Goats from the video I posted last week, here it is courtesy of Chromewaves. And finally, the song that Mel and I dance naked around the apartment to, Young Folks, by Peter, Bjorn, and John (featuring the gal from the Concretes) courtesy of the awesome mp3 blog, Fluxblog. Enjoy.