This morning I decided to put together my list of favorite records from 2009. It seems all the cool kids do it, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that I read other people’s lists, a lot. But while I was digging up all that great music I listened to this year, I found myself delving into a load of musical data that had been collected by machines, through various methods, all of it extremely inconsistent. While I did finally put together a big list of stuff I loved from 2009 (you may want to just skip down to the bottom if you aren’t interested in my rants about music technology), what I really learned was that there is a big problem with tracking the music we listen to.

Let me first state, for the record, that I am not your typical music lover. For fear of sounding pompous and snobbish (which I am), I’ll attempt an explanation. For starters, I follow the mantra of “listen to everything and throw away nothing.” This, of course, means that my music library is enormous and contains large amounts of material that I have never – and will never – listen to. It’s unfortunate, but that’s just the way I am. Second, I am extremely anal about data. I make sure that files are properly tagged according to my own preferences. I worry that if I have the wrong tags, my data will only make sense to me, and will not work in aggregate on services like Last.fm. And since we’re on the subject, let me point out that I’ve been tracking my listening habits on last.fm since 2004. I use it every year (and on much shorter timelines) to understand my own listening habits and to find interesting and meaningful correlations between my musical tastes and those of others. In short, I’m a data junkie, in so many different ways.

Needless to say, my dependence on data and my infatuation with these types of data-porn have caused me equal parts enjoyment and headache. Here’s why:

1. I collect lots of data, and none of it matches. While devising things like year-end best-of lists, it would of course be useful for me to know exactly what I listened to the most this year. But the scrobbles that I’ve sent to Last.fm differ from the track-by-track playcounts in iTunes. There are a couple of reasons for this, but the most important is this: Last.fm counts a track after you’ve listened to half of it, iTunes counts it only if you finish the entire track. While most people wouldn’t care about this, it bugs me to no end. Which brings me to the next important point….

2. My listening habits don’t work properly with the systems I use to gather listening data. I’m a finicky listener. I skip tracks, a lot, sometimes just before the end of a song. When I’m actively engaging in playlisting and jumping around to tracks I love, I don’t always wait for them to finish playing all the way through. Sometimes I like to skip before I even reach the halfway point. Both iTunes and Last.fm don’t like this behavior, and neither of them gathers data properly if I do this.

3. I listen to music everywhere, in a variety of formats, both analog and digital. I’ve recently become addicted to Lala. It allows me to listen to a huge amount of music, anytime, anywhere. It even sends my listening data to Last.fm. But again there’s an inconsistency: Lala only sends a scrobble when I’ve listened to a track all the way through. And the playcounts that Lala tracks in its own system then don’t match up with the playcounts I have in iTunes. And moreover, I have iTunes on several different computers, and each of them tracks playcounts differently. But wait there’s more! I use a plethora of other services to listen to music: MOG, Hype Machine, YouTube, and even MySpace. And that’s just my online listening. I listen to CDs in the car, I listen to vinyl extensively, I listen to my iPod on airplanes, and I listen to the radio when I need to change it up a little. I’m surrounded by music, constantly, and there just isn’t any reliable way to track it all.

4. Data can give you insight, but it can’t make a decision for you. This, of course, is one of the fundamental problems of fields like artificial intelligence, but it plays out just the same when we’re talking about real-world scenarios like choosing favorite albums. If I were to believe the data that I have, my most-listened-to music, then I would tell you that my favorite album of 2009 was The Beatles. While I’m a firm believer that year-end lists shouldn’t be relegated to albums that were released that year, I couldn’t rightfully put this album on my list, since I discovered The Beatles years ago. In fact, my listening data would have you believe that my three favorite artists of all time are The Beatles, Iron & Wine, and Andrew Bird. While The Beatles easily make my list of all-time favorite artists, the others do not (much as I adore them both). In an effort to understand my data better, I use a cool service called LastGraph, which allows me to plot my listening habits, compare things over time, and even break it down to individual artists and see what dates exactly I was listening to them. While this allows me to see my listening habits in 2009, it doesn’t really tell me much about what I liked and didn’t like – only what I listened to, and when. It doesn’t break things down by genre. It can’t tell me that I liked one album more than another. And in some cases it would actually suggest the wrong conclusions; just because I listened to an album all the way through three times doesn’t mean I liked it.

Quite simply put, there’s really no good scientific method for determining favorites. Taste is personal, sometimes irrational, and always case-by-case. The work I’ve done to track my own listening has provided me with some valuable insights for sure, but it simply can’t account for everything.

And with that, I give you my favorite albums of 2009. Some caveats: not all these were released in 2009 (noted when applicable), but are the albums that I loved in the past year; there are a couple of reissues here (noted when applicable); as you could probably guess from the above rants, these are not necessarily the albums I played the most in 2009 (noted when applicable); these are in no particular order, except when grouped for comparison with other albums. Also note that I work for a major record label, and I’ve noted whenever one of my favorite albums happens to be connected with that label. This should not be construed as a shameless plug; every album on this list was chosen by me, based on my personal preference, and not because of my relation to the record (except where noted, as applicable).

Nickel Creek – Nickel Creek (2000)
Sara Watkins – Sara Watkins
My buddy Will turned me on to Nickel Creek early in 2009. I have no idea how it came to be that I had never really listened to them, but doing so has opened a whole lot of new doors. I’ve had the 2000 album Nickel Creek on repeat for a while now, but when I started working at WBR (and suddenly acquiring huge amounts of new music) I stumbled on the excellent solo debut by violinist/vocalist Sara Watkins. It’s a Nonesuch release (part of WBR), and I’ve been thoroughly impressed by Nonesuch’s vinyl offerings. This one is no exception, printed on beautiful 180g with the full album on CD, double gatefolded, with huge lyric sheets. I love the packaging almost as much as the music inside.

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
When you’re a teenage music snob, there’s nothing better in the whole world than telling everyone to go fuck off when your favorite band suddenly becomes famous. There’s a part of me that really wants to do that now – I drank the Phoenix Kool-aid way back when their first album, United, came out. It was a veritable dance-pop masterpiece, a studio gem, and the only other cool French band at a time when Daft Punk was still, well, nevermind. I want to tell all these hipster kids who love Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix to do their damn research, since this is, after all, their fifth album. But I can’t help the fact that I love this album more than anything since that first album. You win this time, hipster kids.

Zac Brown Band – The Foundation (2008)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love country music, simple songs about being simple. No bullshit, no pretense, just songs about life, love, happiness and pain, and all the little things. I may not agree with everything that most country artists stand for (particularly the stuff about god and country), but I stand by great music, regardless. I should note that this album came very late in 2008, and therefore made its way onto lots of 2009 lists. I should also point out that it was released on a Warner Music Group label (Atlantic), although I had nothing to do with this record whatsoever.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – The Live Anthology
The single greatest thing about working at WBR is that I get to participate in projects by some of my all-time favorite artists – and Tom Petty is one of them. I had the chance to work on The Live Anthology by building out The Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Superhighway Tour, a website experience designed to give fans early access and exclusive content related to The Live Anthology. And while all of this has shaped the album for me in a way that not many people could understand, I can state without a doubt that this is one of my favorite live recordings I’ve ever listened to. I admit that it’s probably way too much music for the casual Tom Petty fan, and perhaps even too much for the die-hards. But the sound quality of this album alone is worth the price of entry. Few studio albums can even live up to this standard, so hearing a live album like this is a revelation.

The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
Yet another example of having the opportunity to work on a release from one of my all-time favorite bands. This is my favorite Flaming Lips album since The Soft Bulletin, which is one of my favorite albums of all time. This is exactly the kind of bizarro psychedelic album I’ve been waiting for all these years. Welcome to 2010.

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
As long as we’re on the topic of weirdo psychedelic pop records, here’s everyone’s favorite from this year.

Yeasayer – Ambling Alp (single)
I jumped on the Yeasayer bandwagon late (guess those hipster kids got their revenge). All Hour Cymbals is great, but this new single has me anticipating the band’s 2010 release more than just about anything. Dig the video (NSFW):

Battlelore – Evernight (2007)
Howard Shore – Complete Recordings from The Lord of the Rings (2005, 2006, 2007)
Early this summer I started reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. But I didn’t just start reading it. I really jumped into it. I ran to the library to gather reference materials. I delved into the incredible wealth of information on Wikipedia and elsewhere. And of course I started listening to related music. It should go without saying that the Howard Shore scores to Peter Jackson’s movies are landmarks in film scoring, and the complete box sets (physical versions only, except you can get the Return of the King set digitally) provide a completely encyclopedic look into this symphonic rendition of Middle-earth. I also started listening to a strange little band called Battlelore. Hailing from (where else?) Finland, this epic fantasy metal band has devoted their entire musical catalog to original songs about Tolkien’s works. They’re not the best metal band out there by any means, but their albums have given me a lot of interesting food for thought as I work my way through the books.

DEVO – Freedom of Choice (1980, reissued 2009)
File under: holy crap I can’t believe this album came out in 1980 it sounds as relevant today as ever. Also note that I’m closely involved in working on this band, but would have been psyched about it anyways.

Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
Took a while for this one to grow on me, but I’m glad it did. I’ve been a huge Andrew Bird fan for a long time, and this album takes him in a subtle new direction without throwing a curveball. Still the same craftsmanship and songwriting, still the same great whistling and violin, but everything feels fresh and different. And that, I think, is the mark of a great artist.

P.O.S. – Never Better
Who said the Minnesota hip hop scene is dead? Grabbed this one on clear vinyl, one of the best looking records I’ve purchased in quite some time. P.O.S. reminds me why hip hop is awesome, and why if you aren’t pissed off, you aren’t doing it right.

Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
If I were to base my year-end list entirely on which album I listened to the most (as I discussed above), this would probably be number 1. I’ve listened to the whole album repeatedly since it was released, and even moreso after I snagged a vinyl copy at work (it’s another Nonesuch release). I had nothing to do with this album, but really wish that I did. I love it more than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and possibly more than any other Wilco albums.

Brad Paisley – American Saturday Night
Brad Paisley taught me one very valuable lesson back when his song “I’m Gonna Miss Her” was a minor hit: humor in music is not just something to be relegated to parody and silliness, it is every bit as important as love and pain and any other emotion you can express. Paisley is well known for his funny songs, and they’re often his biggest hits. But he can wrench your heart out with the very next song on the album, and I can’t help but admire him for that. Oh, and I should mention he’s really one of the best guitarists in any genre out there today.

Mates of State – Re-Arrange Us (2008)
I started listening to this album early in 2009, had a couple months of solid listening (it’s great driving music), and then sort of forgot about it. While revisiting my 2009 listening data, I put this album back on the ol’ iTunes and was happy to find that I love it every bit as much now as I did then. (Sorry, no Lala widget for this one.)

King Khan & The Shrines – The Supreme Genius of King Khan & The Shrines (2008)
I’m late to the party on this one too. Good thing the party don’t stop.

Pomplamoose – Videosongs and Covers (2008-2009)
I was introduced to Pomplamoose through their gorgeous Christmas song “Always In The Season.” I quickly bought all their other tunes, and boy am I happy I did. It’s perfect pop, a la The Bird and the Bee, and here’s the kicker: their YouTube channel is filled with all these awesome videos of the band in the studio. Check it out.

Charles Mingus – Ah Um (1959, reissue 2009)
One of the all-time greatest jazz albums ever recorded, reissued in stunning sound, with a bunch of bonus material. Don’t talk to me about music unless you’ve already listened to this album.

And a few more that I thought were great, but don’t really have the energy left to write about:
John Zorn – O’o and Alhambra Love Songs
Bat for Lashes – Two Suns
Beck – The Velvet Underground & Nico (record club)
Clipse – Til the Casket Drops

I don’t work in e-commerce. Well, not exactly. For all intents and purposes, I work in promotion. And I guess in some ways that means I sell stuff, so in a sense, yes, I work in e-commerce. Anyway, there’s this thing that’s been bugging me for a long long time, and now that I’m working at a record label, it bugs me even more – mostly because I still don’t have the slightest inkling of an answer.

How in the hell are music prices determined?

Let’s look at a little case study here: the new album by Bill Frisell, Disfarmer (I won’t review it here, but this album is pretty sweet). The album came out just a couple weeks ago, and was released in both CD and a few digital formats (read on).

Now first, let me point out something before we go on: this is not a mainstream album. It’s jazz, it’s a little on the avant garde side, and frankly will never hope to compete with the Jonas Brothers. Because of this, one would expect that the album may be priced differently than your typical Walmart 10 dollar albums. Actually, I’m sort of surprised that Walmart carries it at all, but that’s really another article altogether. I digress.

Anyhow, let’s take a look at all the different ways you can buy the album, and then I’ll discuss how absolutely bizarre these pricings are.

Straight from the label
Disfarmer was released on Nonesuch Records, a part of Warner Bros. Records, and is available directly through the Nonesuch store. I should point out that the Nonesuch store is really an incredibly resource for anyone interested in modern jazz or classical recordings from the last 50 years or so. Nonesuch has always been one of my favorite labels, and I’m really excited to be working alongside them.

The Nonesuch store sells Disfarmer in the following formats:
$14 – 320kbps MP3
$16 – 320kbps MP3 + CD

Amazon.com
The album is available in both CD and MP3 from the respective parts of the Amazon site, at the following prices:
$11.99 – 256kbps MP3
$12.99 – CD

iTunes Music Store
Available in the proprietary Apple AAC format, DRM free
$13.99 – 256kbps AAC

Brick and Mortar Stores on CD
The album is available on CD in a variety of stores. Here are some of the prices I’ve found:
Walmart – $14.88
Best Buy – $13.99
Target – $12.99

Why the pricing differences? Well, for starters, price fixing is not legal. List price for the CD is $18.98, but in order to remain competitive, these gigantic retailers buy huge volumes, for a lower unit price. Giant retailers also have the ability to retain a stock of these discs for quite some time at very low marginal cost.

But that doesn’t explain the oddities in digital pricing. I can buy a 320kbps MP3 version – the “highest quality” MP3s available, in quotes because it is almost the data contains redundant or extraneous information, and for the average listener is indistinguishable from V0 or even 256kbps formats – directly from the label that released the album for 14 dollars, the highest price for a digital format among the three retailers offering. iTunes’ price is only one cent lower, comes in a lower bitrate, and is encoded using Apple’s proprietary AAC format (although it is DRM free). Meanwhile Amazon offers the lowest price, just 12 bucks, in 256kbps MP3 format.

We seem to be forgetting one very very important detail here: if you buy the CD, you can make your own digital files, in any format/bitrate you want. The pricing here would suggest that the album is being pushed in its physical format before the digital format. After all, I can get the album for just a couple bucks more, and even download the digital files instantly so I can listen while I’m waiting for the CD to arrive in the mail.

I’m all for choice, and I believe that retailers should be allowed to sell products as they wish, so long as they aren’t doing anything unfair or unethical. But something seems extremely counterintuitive here. Logic would suggest that if I buy the music directly from the label that created it, the overhead on that purchase would be less, and the artist would get paid more (in reality, it’s a lot more complicated than that, but let’s assume this to be true). Why, then, is the label’s price the highest of any retailer, in both physical and digital formats? Most likely it is due to volume of sales. Yep, the sheer number of transactions made by third parties (aka middlemen) makes the price lower, and therefore the vast majority of sales result in lower payouts to the label and artists (at least this is what logic tells us).

This complicates what I believe to be the cardinal rule dictating the sale of music today:

Fans want to support the artists they love, but will almost always opt for convenience and competitive pricing.

In many cases, of course, the convenience/price factor leads fans to pirate the music. But those who choose to legally purchase the music have only a couple of choices: they can pay more to support the artist, or opt for the convenience of online music stores and their lower prices.

There’s something very important at play here: the public fundamentally distrusts the middleman, whoever that may be. Given an option, I’d bet most fans would buy the CD at a show rather than buy it from Walmart. And I’d bet fans want to buy digital direct from the artist, and not iTunes.

I think there are about a hundred and one other factors that go into this pricing, but I, like most music fans, remain absolutely baffled by it. And as a savvy consumer, I always want to explore my options before I buy anything. Personally, I’ll still take this on a case-by-case basis, depending on price, availability, and a few other factors (I’ve recently been on a vinyl kick, and love the vinyl+MP3 options on many new releases).

How do you feel about this? Would you rather buy the physical copy and make your own digital versions? Do you opt for the lower priced MP3 options? Would you prefer to order directly from the label rather than Amazon or iTunes? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

It’s no surprise that I’m an Apple fan. Perhaps a fanatic. And I’ve been that way for ages. I’ve been a happy iPod owner for around 8 years now (I owned an iPod before I owned a Mac, and this was in the days before iPods were fully supported on Windows). I’ve been making music on Macs since 2002. But there is still one gigantic sore spot in the Mac and music world: iTunes.

I would hope I don’t have to explain this point, but it turns out many people love iTunes, and I understand why. Apple didn’t force its way to the top of digital music world by accident. They came up with a well engineered, well marketed, and well designed system for distribution and playback, and iTunes lived at the core. But as time rolled on, iTunes became bloated, slow, full of features that I either didn’t need or only used sparingly enough that it didn’t make sense for me to have them. And so I began searching for other options, but found nothing, until recently.

I had tried Songbird before, back in the pre-1.0 days, and thought it had a lot of promise, but couldn’t stand the many bugs that kept me from really enjoying it. So when 1.0 came out a few months back, I couldn’t help but get excited. And I was not disappointed.

Let’s consider speed. iTunes relies entirely on a flat-file database that stores all of the metadata about your music. You’d think this would work well, and in fact it does for small music libraries (average users have numbers in the 100s or 1000s). But for me (I have some 75000 tracks), iTunes was slow and unresponsive. Search – a feature of the utmost importance – was painful, often beachballing. With Songbird, it’s quick and easy. And the shortcut keys are the same as Firefox (more on this later). What’s more, the search bar can be used to see a host of other searches on a variety of websites.

Now let’s talk about Songbird’s most “featured feature,” the ability to play the web. See, Songbird is actually built on Firefox, which means you’ve got a browser built into your music player. If you open a webpage with embedded mp3 files, Songbird automatically detects them and shows them in a separate pane.

The pane functionality also allows you to install a whole bunch of incredible open source plugins to do everything from download cover art, read lyrics, display reviews and images, and even find related YouTube videos. One of my favorite plugins scans your music library, and cross-references with concerts in your city to find out who’s playing. Check out this fully decked out screenshot:

Of course, as with any 1.0 release, there are a lot of things missing from Songbird, or things that don’t work well at all. For starters, iPod support is limited. I’ll probably continue to use iTunes to manage that for a while. Songbird also doesn’t download from the iTunes Music Store (though I don’t care too much, since I hate AAC format). And my biggest gripe is that it doesn’t yet integrate with Quicksilver, though I have faith that some ambitious individual will fix this problem soon.

Give Songbird a try. I did, and I’m glad.