January 2008 Archives
Now that Kucinich and Edwards have dropped out, the media are now saying that it is “officially a two-horse race” for the Democratic nomination. What about Mike Gravel? He hasn’t dropped out. And why should he? His chance of winning has nowhere to go but up!
They are also saying that the race is so close that the Texas primary in March might actually matter. Unfortunately, neither Kucinich nor Gravel are even on the ballot in Texas. I’m not sure about Gravel but Kucinich was barred for refusing to sign the pledge which says that he would “fully support the Democratic nominee for President, whoever that will be.”
So, the question becomes, do I care enough about the differences between Clinton and Obama to figure out how to participate in the primary? I can’t even find any relevant info on the website for the Democratic party of Texas.
I recently read that if Texas were its own country, it would rank 7th in the world for C02 emissions. Come on Texans, we can do better! Texas is known for being the biggest and best at everything and I’m sure if we put our minds to it, we’ll be #1 soon enough.
Blogger has filled in the other side of the equation (in the opposite order from most) and you can now use your blogspot domain to login to other OpenID enabled sites (such as this one). Yahoo is getting there too.
Even more amazingly, AOL seems to be experimenting with XMPP, just like I told them too.
Found via: Brad
I have bit of a “music crush” on the winner of our final category. She performed a bonus mini-set at a concert we went to at Uncle Calvin’s. We both enjoyed her performance even more than the two scheduled singers. The more I listed to the CD we bought, the more I fell in love (with the music, I mean). And the Best New Artist of 2007 is… Rose Cousins!
Here’s a video of Rose’s mother’s favorite song, and mine, “Dance If You Want To”. The quality is not great so check out better samples (and buy CDs) on Rose’s CDBaby page. Her most recent CD was also just made available on Amazon MP3 so you can get it there too.
Best Concert of 2007 goes to Pink Martini. We saw them perform with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra at the Bass Performance Hall in April. It was a pretty incredible experience. We certainly enjoy listening to their CDs but Pink Martini is one of those bands that takes it to another level on stage. We may see them again when they come to the Dallas House of Blues in May.
I couldn’t find a video of them performing Bukra Wba’do, their first song in Arabic and this year’s winner of Best Earworm, but you can listen to a clip on Pink Martini’s website. Instead, here’s a video of them performing the new album’s title track.
The next category in Stuart’s 2007 Music Awards is the Best thing to Happen to Music Since the 8-track. And the winner is… The Amazon MP3 online music store.
Amazon MP3 is the first online music store that scores well in all three requirements: price, selection, and ease of use. Most tracks are 89 or 99 cents and albums are generally less than $10. Amazon MP3 has over 2 million songs with a mix of both mainstream and independent artists. The songs are reasonably-high-quality MP3 files so they will play on virtually any digital music device (even a Zune). Individual tracks are downloaded directly from the website.
The most significant disadvantage is that buying full albums (with the discount) requires a (small) downloader application that is not currently available for Linux. This is a big disappointment particularly as there is no technical reason they couldn’t allow you to download the tracks individually and still get the album price. The only work-around I’ve been able to figure out involves contacting customer service every time you buy and album so it isn’t really practical. Amazon says that a Linux version is coming soon.
I still like eMusic.com for independent music, I just wish we could remember to use our download credits each month. It is nice to have another option as well.
My favorite category in Stuart’s Music Awards is Best Beatles Cover. This years winner is Ben Harper for Michelle.
There is nothing really surprising in his rendition. It is pretty much what you would expect from Ben Harper singing the Beatles but what’s wrong with predictable as long as you enjoy it?
Here are some of the winners from previous years. Listen to them all below.
- Fiona Apple - Across The Universe
- Godhead - Eleanor Rigby
- Ben Folds - Golden Slumbers
- Jim Carrey - I Am The Walrus (not sure what the judges were thinking that year)
Ani DiFranco has averaged one new album release every year since 1990 so she gets her own category. The winner of this year’s Best New Ani DiFranco Album is… Ani DiFranco for Canon!
Canon is Ani’s career retrospective album featuring tracks from her debut album all the way to Reprieve as well as re-recordings of some of her most memorable songs. Here is the video of the new recording of Both Hands, featuring her new baby, Petah Lucia.
The next category in Stuart’s First Annual Music Awards is Best Sophomore Album. The winner in this category I like to describe as: Norah Jones, only cool. And the winner is… KT Tunstall for Drastic Fantastic!
Now, don’t try to tell me that Acoustic Extravaganza was KT’s second album because that one wasn’t all original material so it doesn’t count. Besides, Drastic Fantastic was the second album that I bought and these are my awards so thpppt.
The video below is for the “hit single” Hold On. I think it is supposed to be ironic or something.
Over the next week or so, I will be announcing the winners of the First Annual Stuart’s Music Awards. The first category is: Train Wrecks.
And the winner, of course, is Amy Winehouse. She really hit the rock and roll lifestyle hard but her music is pretty good. My favorite song is Tears Dry On Their Own.
Feel free to nominate additional categories and/or winners.
Note: No WGA writers were harmed during the production of this awards show.
