Yeah, spill it. Why do you do one entire show on electonica & another show which (presumably) will contain your favorite rock, indie, indiepop, comedy, jazz, hiphop, country, kazzo music, show tunes, hardcore metal, hardcore pornography, & Christian music? What makes electronica so fucking special? Hunh?
I know you don't really care, but it's sweet of you to ask.
It's primarily because I really do listen to a lot of electronic music, but I hardly ever play it on my show. Why don't I play it more? There are a lot of reasons, but the two main ones are these:
1) I kinda like my shows to be quick, quirky & upbeat; a lot of the electronica I listen to is, unlike the common idea of electronic music, not really "dancey" or "beat-driven." Some of it is, but sometimes I am forced between sticking a gorgeously beautiful (but slow) electronic piece in the middle of two ridiculously bouncy indiepop songs or not playing it at all. A lot of the time, I forgo the electronic piece.
2) Since my shows are based on themes, & since a lot of electronic pieces are instrumental, the only way a lot of them can fit the theme is for the title of the piece to relate somehow. But electronica performers love to title their songs with silly words, made-up words, nonsense words. It makes it hard to attach them to a piece.
As an example, here's a track listing from a record by a prominent electronic artists, Autechre, who don't have a record out this year, but who were on my "best of" last year.
Xylin Room
IV VV IV VV VIII
61e.CR
Tapr
Surripere
Theme of Sudden Roundabout
VL Al 5
P.:Ntil
V-Proc
Reniform Puls
I'll work on my show about "V-Proc" just as soon as I find other songs about it. Any other song. Maybe I'll write eighty minutes worth of songs about it.
I should also point out (since I made the argument myself, I can easily rebut myself, sucka!) that the situation with having one day for electronica & another day for "everything else" is kind of misleading, since I don't really listen to "everything else." I pay almost no attention to commercial rock, pop, country, hiphop or soul. I don't listen to a whole lot of world music or jazz, & most of what I listen to of that is usually older when I get to it. Bands that a lot of people think of as alternative - like the Flaming Lips, let's say - I will still check out, but usually (I've found) critics & others tend to find their work exceptional because it's decent (& better than the majority of commercial radio crap), but they haven't heard everything else out there - they're really not digging deep enough. What my "favorite music of 2006" will doubtless focus on is indie rock, indiepop & some other stuff generally in that genre. The other stuff, like I said, I usually get to later. To my eternal shame.
There isn't enough time!
By the way, I found a website which apparently rates every album released during the year, although I'm not sure how. It's got a thousand album that came out this year listed (astonishing!). (The website is rateyourmusic.com.) Here are the top twenty:
01 "Ys" Joanna Newsom
02 "Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards" Tom Waits
03 "Ashes Against The Grain" Agalloch
04 "Blood Mountain" Mastodon
05 "American V: A Hundred Highways" Johnny Cash
06 "A Matter Of Life & Death" Iron Maiden
07 "The Crane Wife" The Decemberists
08 "No Heroes" Converge
09 "10,000 Days" Tool
10 "The Drift" Scott Walker
11 "Return To Cookie Mountain" TV On The Radio
12 "Modern Times" Bob Dylan
13 "Score: 20th Anniversary World Tour" Dream Theater
14 "With Oden On Our Side" Amon Amarth
15 "Okonokos" My Morning Jacket
16 "Live At The Fillmore East" Neil Young
17 "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" Bruce Springsteen
18 "The Great Cold Distance" Katatonia
19 "Pure Reason Revolution" The Dark Third
20 "The Life Pursuit" Belle & Sebastian
Like with any kind of list - especially an anonymous one - it's important to take such conclusions with a grain or twelve of salt - but this list is especially intriguing for the weirdness of the amount of what I guess is hardcore or metal (eight, or nine if you count The Dark Third, which is a prog band) & the fact that Scott Walker's new record is tenth. Two of the records are by musicians who I feel are utterly irrelevant & I wish they'd stop making music & retire to their estates (Dylan & Springsteen), & two are basically re-releases or posthumous collections (Young & Cash). I reserve the right to withhold judgment on Tom Waits, although his last few records have been pretty dull. So I'll listen to the new one eventually - I just can't believe it'll make my favorites list.
In fact, there's only one record in that list that'll make my favorites. It's easy to know which one that is, especially if you know I don't really like TV On The Radio or My Morning Jacket, & that I found the new Decemberists record incredibly disappointing.
What is it? Find out a week from Friday. This week, though, it's all about the electronica.
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