My Not-So-Current Jams

I haven't bought many new albums lately. (Aside: is there a better word than "album" to use, seeing as how I'm pretty much all digital, unless there's an exceptional sale?) But I had an iTunes gift card so I've been using it to pick up some old songs...but first, some that aren't so new. (Links are to YouTube so you can listen along with me.)

Are You What You Want To Be? - Foster The People
Coming of Age - Foster The People
Best Friend - Foster The People: these three are from their new album...there's that word again...which, while I like, is much more weighted down in spirit than their previous release. Also, my mp3s of the album may or may not have been...created in an interesting fashion. I'll say no more.
La La La - Naughty Boy feat. Sam Smith: I listened to Sam's debut album online. Liked it, didn't love it. I prefer this and the song "Latch" which he did with Disclosure (on an album that I need to acquire, if anyone wants to help me out via PayPal.)
Meteorite - Mariah Carey: this needs to be released in an extended mix...not really remixed, just a longer version.
Sing - Ed Sheeran: I heard this was produced by Pharrell and I was like "Whaaat?" But it works.
I Need a Dollar - Aloe Blacc: story of my life right now...and this was out before his current run of success, including his appearance at the Philly 4th of July Jam on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

As for the older tracks...

Slow Down - Loose Ends: a follow-up to their classic "Hangin' on a String (Contemplating)."
He's a Saint, He's a Sinner (Extended Version) - Miquel Brown: from the woman who brought us "So Many Men, So Little Time" -- actually, this is from the same album, which I actually did purchase. Classic early-1980s hi-NRG club music. Gay, gay, gay. Video is not of the extended version, by the way.
Living For the City - Stevie Wonder: not the truncated radio version but the full-length version, which I'd never heard before.
Come Into My Life (Radio Mix) - Joyce Sims
Lifetime Love (Hard Club) - Joyce Sims: She pretty much had three or four songs that had some level of success. I now own the three that I know.
Dance With You - Carrie Lucas: Disco!!! From 1979!!! I was 17!!!
Questionnaire (Full Vocal Mix) - Chaz Jankel: this takes me back to before I moved into my own place for the first time. When we first got HBO -- long before they began their run of amazing TV series -- they used to play music videos between movies, and this was one of them.
Say I'm Your Number One - Princess: I forgot about this until I watched a YouTube video from British TV about the Stock-Aitken-Waterman production team. This was one of their hits. I was surprised because it's rather different from this.
Don’t Disturb This Groove - The System: I feel like I should have something more to say about this, but I don't. It's just a song I liked back in the day.

My 2012 In Music

Last year at this time I was lamenting the lack of new music (as in, new in 2011 or new to me) added to my iTunes library. I figured that 2012 would be better since I had gone back to work. Since May I've been out of work but at least I got some unemployment out of it. So, indeed, my 2012 acquisitions are up. (A note, which is mainly for my own reference: the figures below include a couple of CDs I got during 2012 but only got around to adding to my iTunes tonight, so I need to remember for next year's wrapup not to include them again.)

I added 567 tracks to my collection by my count (it's a complicated story but I may be off by one or two because of duplicates), compared to 271 last year. Christmas music comprised 26 of those 567 songs. There were a lot of downloads of individual songs, as well as the first song in my next project - converting my vinyl collection to mp3 format. I have maybe a few dozen 45s and many more 12-inch dance remixes, probably in the hundreds. I'm so excited about this.

Beyond that, I got some free downloaded samplers and mixtapes (which is such an odd term to use for mp3 downloads, but...):

Will Sheridan – G.I.A.N.T. Sampler
DJ ShyBoy presents the RuPaul Mixtape (RuPaul songs mashed up with other songs)
DJ Jazzy Jeff and Mick Boogie – Summertime 2: The Mixtape
DJ Jazzy Jeff and Mick Boogie – Summertime 3: The Mixtape
Dangerous Muse – Red
Slaves to the Rhythm – Pride 2011 Sampler

And then there were the albums that were released prior to 2012:

Kelly Clarkson – Stronger
Discovery – LP
Ricky Martin – Ricky Martin
David Guetta – Nothing But The Beat
Jody Watley – Midnight Lounge
Paul McCartney – All The Best
Donna Summer – She Works Hard For The Money
Elton John – Rocket Man - Number Ones
Steely Dan – The Definitive Collection
The Gap Band – The 12” Collection and More
Nona Hendryx – Nona (as I mentioned here, the first full-length album I transferred from vinyl to mp3)
Katy Perry – Teenage Dream-The Complete Confection (this is the re-released version with bonus tracks -- the original was out in 2010 so I don't feel right counting it as a 2012 album)

In 2011 I got only four albums that were actually

Foster The People!

It seems that Foster The People is playing the Mann Center in June. I think I need to see the concert. Who's going with me?

If you checked out my "2011 in music" post you know that their album "Torches" was one of just four 2011 albums I own. And I wasn't planning on buying it, even though I had heard and liked "Pumped Up Kicks." Then one of the TMZ people I follow on Twitter posted a link to the song "Houdini" on his Tumblr page. (By the way, does anyone think I really need a Tumblr page of my own?) Once I heard it, I knew I was buying the album. And although it's really, really, really early in the year, every track is at the top of my most-played in Tunes since I reset the count.

"Houdini" is currently, and surprisingly, at number two. Here's their performance from the "Live on Letterman" concert:



If you prefer, their "Saturday Night Live" rendition...with special guest Kenny G????



But which song is at number one? That would be "Call It What You Want." Here's the music video:

Someday...

Someday I'll get the time and inclination to sit down and write about the four movies I've seen in the last month, and the year-in-review post I wanted to do, and the comics I bought over the last month or two (one of them was even a DC book!!!!!) and how I love the Foster The People album, and I still need to finish putting together the photos I took when I walked around town back in October (the same day I took those Occupy Philly photos -- hey, remember when that was a thing?), plus that one other post that I began thinking about TEN MONTHS AGO and still haven't put together...sigh...someday I will do some of these posts, seriously.

But if any of you want to write them for me, hey, that'd be great as well.

My 2011 In Music

And now that we've moved into 2012, here's a look back at what I downloaded in 2011 -- some of it purchased, some of it, ummm, not -- and what ended up as the 25 most-played songs of my iTunes library.

There are only 271 new tracks in my iTunes since the beginning of 2011. That's down from 317 in 2010. Only 19 were Christmas songs, though, compared to 73 a year earlier. So if you take the holiday songs out of the mix, my musical acquisitions increased. However, a lot of those were downloads of individual songs. Part of the total also comes from a few artists I discovered through various means (such as Twitter or Facebook) who made albums available for free download:

Childish Gambino (a.k.a. Donald Glover) - EP (he's funny on "Community" but he has definite skills in the hip-hop arena; he now has a full-length album out, but I haven't bought it yet)
Loco - No Shade (Mixtape)
Simon Curtis - 8Bit Heart
DISCO PUSHER - Now You Know How The Story Ends (also a mixtape)

Then there were the records released before 2011...

Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
Brandon Flowers - Flamingo
Mika - The Boy Who Knew Too Much
Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer
RuPaul - Champion
various artists - Christmas Remixed-Holiday Classics Re-Grooved (my only "new" Christmas album)

So that leaves just four albums I got that were actually released in 2011: