My Favorite So Far This Year
Absolutely loving this new disc by Beirut. While I don't put it on the same level as The Aeroplane Over the Sea (one of my favorites of all time), it does exhibit many of the same qualities that define my love for that album. The vintage quality, the reckless instrumentation, the outpouring of intimate emotion. I am especially taken on this one by their command of melody, and "Postcards from Italy" absolutely breaks my heart halfway through when the trumpets make the 1st statement of the 2nd melody in the song. So incredibly beautiful. Swoon...
So I am also trying out the new Rhaplink above. I know it doesn't offer all the links to all the music services, but it sure does make things easier for me. Plus, now that Rhapsody is making it so easy for folks to listen to music even if they don't have Rhapsody accounts. Brilliant. And the sound quality on Rhapsody continues to outshine all of the other services. Sure, Napster just went to a free model, but their streaming sound quality is just unbearable.
DRM still annoys the crap out of me and I have been enjoying eMusic to supplement my collection lately. Its nice to have MP3s that will ALWAYS play in my portable player no matter what.... so I'm never left completely out in the cold. Currently, I'm using WMP11 to sync all my music to my plater, even the Rhapsody tracks as last week I started having problems getting Rhapsody to sync correctly again. Oh well. Whatever it takes.
