Redefining
So I can’t REALLY complain about Vaio II losing his life. I mean, the dude lasted through the damp, dark hellhole that was Van Land for two years, plus being carted around North America a whole bunch of times.
Also, I saved about 98% of the stuff I had on him because his hard drive was too small for all my crap and I’d moved everything to an external a few months ago. So my stories, my pics, my music, my internet nonsense [AND MY BLOGS]…all saved.
So I really can’t complain.
But I’m going to anyway, because one of the things I DID lose was my playcounts for my songs. Which is a big deal for me, because I very often sort my songs by playcount and pretty much had a whole hierarchy going on where I defined my “top 50” songs by playcount.
Well, that’s all gone now, so next comes the arduous task of redefining my favorite songs.
That’s hard for me.
But exciting, too. I think with the nearly three years of downloading a new song every day, my musical tastes have evolved a bit. So things that were on my “favorites” playlist from before that may just have been on there due to past playcounts—even though I haven’t played them in months—have all been removed. Time to start anew!
Haha, I know none of you care, but this is pretty much the most exciting non-school-related thing to happen since September.
Happy birthday.
Massive Levi’s, Sam!
DUDES.
This is one of the greatest things I’ve heard in awhile.
Badass Coldplay song + badass Dethklok lyrics = extra super badass song.
Is it sad that this…calms me? I’ve listened to it on repeat for about 20 minutes now and I’m really chilled out.
Now we just need Nathan Explosion singing the Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle to the music of Paradise.
This is mostly to get the Inspector Gadget song out of my head, to be honest
My Decade of Music update:
After the musical drought that was February and March of this year, April has swooped in to save the day. I had a real hard time finding really good music during the previous two months, mainly because a) I finally started work and thus didn’t have as much free time to randomly browse Soundcloud/YouTube/Pandora/the internet in general to find songs, and b) I think I just didn’t have good luck those two months; I know there were spells in 2010 and 2011 during which I really struggled to find a new song every day.
But this month? FREAKING AWESOME SONGS!
I shall share my favorites with you:
- Tiga’s (Far From) Home is like crack. Or heroin. Or meth. Or all three mixed together and injected into your eardrums. Make sure you listen to this with headphones or speakers with a good bass. You’ll thank me later.
- I stumbled upon Ehrencrona’s This Is So Good randomly, but I’m certainly glad I did.
- Sometimes iTunes has really good freebies. Sleepyhead was one of them. Eric Hutchinson’s Watching You Watch Him is another.
- Music by Joe Hisaishi? YES. Considering my shameful unilingualism, I had to run 天空の城ラピュタ through Google Translate; according to that, it says “Castle in the Sky.”
- And finally, let’s get some Dragonette going with Let It Go.
Woo!
Oh, and song suggestions are always welcome. :D
This Just In: Doom Metal makes me Horribly Ill
Oh man.
I had never heard of doom metal before stumbling upon this song by Sunn O))). What is doom metal? Says Wiki, it’s a form of metal “that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much “thicker” or “heavier” sound than other metal genres.”
Oh, okay. Cool.
“Both the music and the lyrics intend to evoke a sense of despair, dread, and impending doom.”
Me? It just made me nauseous as hell.
I listened to about 90% of this and while it was going on I could feel this building nausea and general “I feel crappy” sense. I actually had to stop it and go into the bathroom ‘cause I thought I was going to lose it, but once the music stopped the nausea/crappiness went away and I felt fine. I tried it again about an hour later and the same thing happened again.
Brutal.
Edit: hahahaha, I found this very shortly after I decided to write a post on this song:
w00t
Oh yes.
This is an amazing song.
Lyrics:
Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck; some nights, I call it a draw
Some nights, I wish that my lips could build a castle
Some nights, I wish they’d just fall off
But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I’m still not sure what I stand for
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don’t know anymore…
This is it, boys, this is war – what are we waiting for?
Why don’t we break the rules already?
I was never one to believe the hype – save that for the black and white
I try twice as hard and I’m half as liked, but here they come again to jack my style
And that’s alright; I found a martyr in my bed tonight
She stops my bones from wondering just who I am, who I am, who I am
Oh, who am I? Oh, who am I?
Some nights, I wish that this all would end
Cause I could use some friends for a change
And some nights, I’m scared you’ll forget me again
Some nights, I always win
I always win
But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I still don’t know what I stand for
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don’t know…
So this is it? I sold my soul for this?
Washed my hands of that for this?
I miss my mom and dad for this?
No. When I see stars, when I see stars, that’s all they are
When I hear songs, they sound like a swan, so come on
Oh, come on. Oh, come on.
That is it, guys, that is all – five minutes in and I’m bored again
Ten years of this, I’m not sure if anybody understands
This is not one for the folks back home; I’m sorry to leave, mom, I had to go
Who the fuck wants to die alone all dried up in the desert sun?
My heart is breaking for my sister and the con that she called “love”
But when I look into my nephew’s eyes…
Man, you wouldn’t believe the most amazing things that can come from…
Some terrible nights.
The other night, you wouldn’t believe the dream I just had about you and me
I called you up, but we’d both agree
It’s for the best you didn’t listen
It’s for the best we get our distance…
Yes, I bolded the ones pertinent to me right now. Yes, I know that makes me a tween. Bite me.
Pi Day!
I had to. I’m so sorry.
Pi Day (sung to the tune of Rebecca Black’s Friday)
March 14th, waking up in the morning
Something’s goin’ down, but I can’t tell what
Gotta pack my bag, gotta go to class
Takin’ a glance at the calendar
Lookin’ at the date, gettin’ all excited
Gotta go get my math homework
Gotta do my trig, Gotta do geometry
Seeing circles on the page
Circumferences are all the rage
e, phi, zeta, K,
Which constant should I use?
It’s Pi Day, Pi Day
Gotta get down on Pi Day
Everybody’s lookin’ out for the area, area
Pi Day, Pi Day
Doin’ math on Pi Day
Everybody’s solvin’ problems for the area
Algebra, algebra (yeah)
Calculus, calculus (yeah)
Math, math, math, math
Lookin’ forward to the answer
1:59 is the time we wait for
Gotta celebrate, best day of the year
Math, math, think about math
Think circumference
I got this, you got this
You’ve got your T-I-eight-four
Just type it, calculate it
Now you know it
Seeing circles on the page
Diameters are all the rage
e, phi, zeta, K,
Which constant should I use?
It’s Pi Day, Pi Day
Gotta get down on Pi Day
Everybody’s lookin’ out for the area, area
Pi Day, Pi Day
Doin’ math on Pi Day
Everybody’s solvin’ problems for the area
Algebra, algebra (yeah)
Calculus, calculus (yeah)
Math, math, math, math
Lookin’ forward to the answer
Yesterday was boring, boring
But today is Pi Day, Pi Day
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna do some math today
Tomorrow it’s over
But July 22nd’s soon
I don’t want this party to end
3.14159
So useful of a number
Transcendental
I’m addin’, solvin’
See spheres, find volumes
Wit’ my pi up on my side
In my free time I do some geometry
Pi r squared, r squared, wanna cheer
Check my date, it’s Pi Day, it’s a great day
We gonna do math, c’mon, c’mon, y’all
It’s Pi Day, Pi Day
Gotta get down on Pi Day
Everybody’s lookin’ out for the area, area
Pi Day, Pi Day
Doin’ math on Pi Day
Everybody’s solvin’ problems for the area
Algebra, algebra (yeah)
Calculus, calculus (yeah)
Math, math, math, math
Lookin’ forward to the answer
It’s Pi Day, Pi Day
Gotta get down on Pi Day
Everybody’s solvin’ problems for the area
Pi Day, Pi Day
Doin’ math on Pi Day
Everybody’s solvin’ problems for the area
Algebra, algebra (yeah)
Calculus, calculus (yeah)
Math, math, math, math
Everybody’s solvin’ problems for the area
Difficult to do because HORRIBLE SONG. Pi deserves better, so here’s my other math-related parody.
Claudia’s 365 Days of Music: Year 2 – A Review
HEY DUDES, it’s year 2 coming to a close! Music review time.
Total songs: 365 (again, duh)
Total time: 23 hours, 3 minutes, and 37 seconds
Total size: 2.29 GB
Mean song length: 3:59.35 (last year’s? 3:59.412. CREEPY.)
First song: Ecstasy by zZz
Last song: United State of Pop 2011 (World Go Boom) by DJ Earworm
Time for the bests!
Top 10 Favorite Music Videos/Regular Videos Featuring the Artist(s)
- Baby I’m Yours – Breakbot
- Judas – Lady GaGa
- The Cello Song – Steven Sharp Nelson
- Paradise City – Guns N’ Roses
- Jupiter – Gustav Holst
- Paradise – Coldplay
- Shoes – Tiga
- Check It Out – will.i.am & Nicki Minaj
- Shut Up and Let Me Go – The Ting Tings
- Last Friday Night – Katy Perry
The Five Stars
The final list for the year, listed from January to December acquisition.
Baby I’m Yours – Breakbot
Check It Out – will.i.am & Nicki Minaj
Corrente – Karl Jenkins
Good Life – OneRepublic
Paradise – Coldplay
Without You – David Guetta feat. Usher
The Overall Top Five
Paradise – Coldplay
This song is phenomenal. It’s not Sleepyhead by any stretch of the imagination (for any of you just tuning into my blog, Sleepyhead is the greatest song in existence in my opinion), but I really, really, like this one. I can’t explain why, I just do.
Good Life – OneRepublic
This song is very closely tied with my moving to Ontario to start a new beginning. We all saw how well that worked out, but Good Life is still tied into that part of my brain that houses the little ounce of hope I have left.
Corrente – Karl Jenkins
I can’t remember what led to my finding this song…all I know is that within five hours of downloading it I had played it the maximum number of times it could be replayed in five hours. It’s very uplifting and makes me want to do art.
Without You – David Guetta feat. Usher
The fact that it is impossible not to get up and dance/jump/groove to the chorus makes this song a winning one in my eyes.
Check It Out – will.i.am & Nicki Minaj
I DO NOT KNOW why I like this song so much; it’s totally not my usually preferred style of music. I think I might like it ’cause of its awesome bass during the chorus.
And now some tasty, tasty pie charts. First is the breakdown of the total 365 songs by genre, second is the percent of total plays by genre.
So looking at my numbers, it appears that I listened to songs purchased in 2011 a total of 7,977 times. The mean length of song is almost exactly 4:00, so that means I listened to a total of 1,914,480 seconds of music (31,908 minutes, 532 hours, or about 22 days).
ALSO: I realized I promised y’all some comparative stats with this year’s and last year’s music. I ultimately decided to save that data and use it for one (or more) of the tests I’ll be featuring on my new secondary blog StatsWeekly. Did I mention a secondary blog ever? Well, now I did, so there. I’ll probably use the data on here sometime, too. Can’t let it go to waste, you know. Reduce, Reuse, Regression.
Go to the “365 Songs” tab and check out the bottom for this year’s list.
I’ll be your eigenvector if you’ll be my eigenvalue
MUSIC STATS!
Graph of genres
Mean song length: 4:00
No five-stars this month.
WALKING STATS!
Total number of walks: 85
Total mileage: 673.1
Total steps taken: 1,348,433
Total calories burned: 37,535
Correlations!
month miles calories steps month 1.00000000 -0.02778855 -0.07326894 0.03896221 miles -0.02778855 1.00000000 0.98203163 0.99229965 calories -0.07326894 0.98203163 1.00000000 0.95563610 steps 0.03896221 0.99229965 0.95563610 1.00000000
Graph!
Tune in tomorrow for mega music review!
Oh my. Guns N’ Roses.
Question: why did it take me 23 years to check out Guns N’ Roses?
Answer: who cares, they’re AWESOME!
I give you full permission to berate the hell out of me for never paying attention to these guys before. I don’t know what’s wrong with me—I honestly never sought out one of their songs for a listen and while I’m sure I’ve heard at least 3 seconds of one of their songs at least once in my life, I’ve never questioned who’s played it.
Silly, silly Claudia.
Music Music Bo Busic Banana Fana Fo Fusic, Fe, Fi, Mo Music…MUSIC
It’s another month down! One more and we’ll be at the end of the year, meaning I’ll have TWO data sets of 365 songs. Rock on.
Graph of genres:
Mean song length: 3:44
The five-star: Without You by David Guetta (featuring Usher)
Blog 2,024: Strummin’
Okay, new favorite musician:
The more I read about this man, Steven Sharp Nelson, the more I really dig him.
“I believe the purpose of life is to be happy.”
“I believe that good music can be a source of joy, inspiration, and fulfillment.”
“I believe as Bobby McFerrin once said, listening to only one kind of music is like insisting on living in only one room of your home your entire life.”
He’s also got bios of all his cellos on his site.
Badass. Go subscribe to The Piano Guys’ YouTube page for more awesomeness.
Do obedient consonants respond to a Q queue cue?
October’s done! You know what that means:
Graph of genres
Mean song length: 5:53
The Five Star: Paradise by Coldplay
Also, I’ve decided (at least for now, haha) to dredge up a VERY old story idea for this year’s NaNo. Will it be my permanent idea this year? Probably not.
But who knows.
Also also, I think I’ve discovered my default genre of comfort: bizarro fiction.
Also also also, Mona Simpson’s eulogy for Steve Jobs (Mona’s his sister, for those who don’t know). Very touching, in my opinion.
The end.
Is Superman’s costume considered his strong suit?
It’s that time of the month (not THAT time, weirdos):
Graph of genres
Mean song length: 3:35
No Five Stars this month. Lots of pop though.
Okay, that’s all.
Oh wait, no it’s not!
I’ve found several month-long memes in my travels across the internet and have decided to do one for the month of October (minus the last day, ‘cause it’s just a 30 day meme).
These are the issues to be addressed:
- Day 01 — Your favorite song.
- Day 02 — Your favorite movie.
- Day 03 — Your favorite television program
- Day 04 — Your favorite book.
- Day 05 — Your favorite quote.
- Day 06 — Your favorite music video.
- Day 07 — A photo that makes you happy.
- Day 08 — Describe the style you had 10 years ago.
- Day 09 — A photo you took.
- Day 10 — Talk about a regret you have.
- Day 11 — Share a story from your childhood.
- Day 12 — Explain how you got one of your scars.
- Day 13 — How do you think others view you?
- Day 14 — Talk about the cuteness of your pets.
- Day 15 — A poem you wrote.
- Day 16 — A song that makes you cry (or nearly).
- Day 17 — An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.) that is your favorite.
- Day 18 — Tell us about your best friend.
- Day 19 — A talent of yours.
- Day 20 — A hobby of yours.
- Day 21 — A recipe.
- Day 22 — Your deepest fear.
- Day 23 — Write a love letter to yourself.
- Day 24 — Reveal your most guilty pleasure.
- Day 25 — If you have tattoos, show them. If not, talk about the tattoos you want or why you don’t think they are right for you.
- Day 26 — Talk about the last “random act of kindness” you encountered.
- Day 27 — The last thing that made you cry.
- Day 28 — Say something to your 15 year old self.
- Day 29 — Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days.
- Day 30 — Share what you have learned, if anything, about yourself in the last 30 days.
NOW that’s all.
Float like an ice cream soda, sting like a papercut
OH CRAP August is over. Music analysis time!
Graph of genres
Mean song length: 3:34
NO five-stars!
The end. And no, I don’t know what’s up with the country binge this month.
An Ode to the Mode
Lack of internet = fun with pre-existing data time. I don’t know why I haven’t done this yet, but tonight I decided to check out my downloading patterns for last year’s songs. That is, I decided to break the day down by hour and see when my musical acquisition activities were most active.
Let’s check it out!
Haha, late at night. Big surprise. And nothing in the early morning. There’s not much to say about this…once I have this year’s data we can do all sorts of fun comparison tests (MEAN DIFFERENCES OMFG) and then the fun will never cease.
Time for M&Ms!
B-L-O-G-G-I-N-G
June’s almost over, thank GOD. Tomorrow is a new day, a new month, a new beginning.
My road out of here.
Well. In the meantime, SONGS!
Graph of genres:
Mean song length: 3:37
No Five-Stars this month, though today’s song is pretty close.
I’m also starting a statistics blog. I would have started it today, but, you know…I’m one of those people who has to start stuff like this either on the first of the month or not at all.
So tomorrow!
Octagon Penn
Aaaaaasldfjlgjeoaicjsd stressed.
And that’s all I’ll say about that.
Anyway, on to music!
Graph of genres:
Mean song length: 3:57
The Five-Star: Check It Out by will.i.am & Nicki Minaj. I honestly don’t know what it is about this song, but I dig it.
My Beats are here, my Beats are here!
Today my father arrived in Vancouver. He’s staying here a few days to participate in the Sparta Run held tomorrow. I may or may not participate as well.
In his suitcase he brought my new pair of Beats by Dr. Dre. I got the white, ‘cause they look awesome.
And now we do a review. Please note: I was fully prepared to endorse the hell out of these before I even got them in the mail. This is because, as I’ve mentioned, I actually got to try them out on several occasions.
But now they’re here!
First impressions: they’re as comfortable as the test set at Best Buy was. And they’re pretty!
Inaugural song: Sleepyhead. Because, I mean, come on.
Response: Oh yes. Oh yes. The chorus part sounds absolutely fantastic. Very crisp, very bassy. YAY, this is why I bought these headphones.
Second song: Jupiter (the new recording)
Response: I chose Jupiter to check out the Beats’ abilities in a genre that they weren’t necessarily designed for. And you know what’s weird? The headphones really brought out the clarinets. It’s kind of freaky, but it’s true. They also, again, enhanced the bass, ‘cause that’s pretty much what they were designed to do.
Third song: Hey There Mr.
Response: so apparently there’s this super cool bass line during the chorus of this song that I honestly never heard before using these headphones. I was hoping the vocals would be brought out a bit more, but I’ll totally take this bass line.
Conclusion: yeah, these rock. I know I’m no audiophile and I know jack about sound quality in general, but to my untrained ear, these headphones rock. They’re also noise-cancelling. So if you’ve got $300 and are in the market for some new headphones, dig these.
Does |0| = −459.67?
So as you (probably don’t) know, one of my favorite composers is Gustav Holst. My favorite song of his is Jupiter, from the Planets suite. I’ve had my copy of it for about six years now.
Today, while backing up my thesis in case of catastrophic multi-hard drive failure, rather than digging through my music library to find Jupiter, I decided to search for it on YouTube instead so I could catch a quick listen.
This recording absolutely blew my mind. It is approximately 6,000 times better than the recording I’ve got of it:
Highlights:
– I’ve never heard French horns that sounded that good.
– If any musician in the orchestra made a mistake, I sure as hell didn’t catch it. Flawless.
– 3:07 = unadulterated beauty.
– I love how the conductor stops conducting at 3:47 and just emotes. The musicians know what to do.
I swear I was exposed to this song once when I was very little, ‘cause it speaks to my soul. It’s very familiar to me.
Anyway.
So today was also supposed to be “no dairy for a week starting today” day, but I remembered that fact just as I had dumped a buttload of cheese on my pasta for dinner. And because I’m not one to waste time picking individual chunks of feta out of a steaming pot of penne and broccoli, I decided to wait until next week.
Because starting in the middle of the week would be wrong.
Yeah.
Just go listen to Jupiter again. It’s far better than paying attention to my blather.
I still don’t know if I like my header
Hey people. No Canadian Mall installment today, mainly because I’ve run out of interesting malls. There may be more installments later, there may not be. But in the meantime, RECTANGLE WALK!
“A” (and “G”) = my house. This route is exactly 20 miles, but by the time I got to mile 16 it was late (started late because I got distracted by music) so I just took the bus the rest of the way, haha.
Anyway, the main reason for this was to get a reasonable estimate of how long the 40K walk would take. 16 miles = 25.7 kilometers, so it’s totally doable before it gets dark, assuming I start early enough. Maybe next weekend.
OH YEAH, and it’s April 30th, so…
Graph of genres:
Mean song length: 3:48
No five-stars again. This year has a lot of really good songs, but none quite good enough for five stars.
Tune in tomorrow for anniversary excitement!
March-endizing
It’s graph time! I know nobody gives a crap, but it’s fun.
Genres graph:
Mean song length: 3:51
The Five Star
Baby I’m Yours (feat. Irfane) by Breakbot
Also this because it’s fantastic:
And this because I TOTALLY CALLED IT in my NaNo last year.
What I wrote:
“Twenty years ago Google Face was practically brand new, just coming out of beta and gaining users at an incredibly fast speed. I guess that’s what happens when you practically release a Google Maps version for people […] Google Face not only tracks faces but also attaches to them an individual’s personal information, such as their date of birth, their parents’ names, their social security number, things like that.”
What the article says:
“Google is working on a mobile application that would allow users to snap pictures of people’s faces in order to access their personal information […] Google’s Profiles product includes a user’s name, phone number and e-mail address. Google has not said what personal data might be displayed once a person is identified by its facial-recognition system.”
The future is terrifying. This is exactly why I’m afraid of Google.
FFFFFFFFFFF
Oh goodness, this is fantastic. Crank that volume.
And happy birthday to Aaron!
Say No to Deep Space
Issues: I have them.
Because I have 9 (yes, 9) remixes/covers of Sleepyhead in addition to the original itself, I figured it’s about time I give you guys links to all the versions I find fantastic. Ordered from most favorite to absolute total favorite.
Note: it was really hard to rank these, as any remix that even touches this song automatically gets 40,000 awesome points (that’s a lot).
10. Sleepyhead (Matt Sweeny Remix)
Slooooowed down.
9. Sleepyhead (DCDJ Remix)
A fairly chill remix…slower, less intense, but still very nice.
8. Sleepyhead (Little Vampire Remix)
Sleepyhead + a bit more techno = awesome.
7. Sleepyhead (Streetlab Remix)
Missing the main chorus, which is the best part, but I do like how fast it is in comparison to the rest.
6. Sleepyhead (Le Chev Remix)
Just found this one. Another fairly chilled out interpretation.
5. Sleepyhead (Run Toto Run Cover)
THAT VIOLIN, OH SWEET JESUS
4. Sleepyhead (Neo Tokyo Remix)
2:17? Yeah, my heart skipped a few beats there.
3. Sleepyhead (Jazzsteppa Remix)
They took the chorus, extended it, and infused it with cocaine.
2. Sleepyhead (Cillo Remix)
So chill. As soon as this comes up in my playlist, my blood pressure drops to dangerously low levels.
1. Sleepyhead
No words needed here.
Be still and know that I am DOG
Woah, dudes. Woah, woah, woah.
Awesome Breakbot song combined with ridiculously trippy music video? Life is good.
That is all.
How do we know that one is the loneliest number? Have we interviewed it?
Vroom!
Genres graph:
Mean song length: 4:22
Still no five stars this year. But they’ll happen.
Okay, I feel like crap so I’m going to go pass out in a chair for a bit. Bye.
Eigenblogger 