Today's Shuffle: 02/24/05...delayed by celebrity email


I've actually spent the morning listening to full albums, something I rarely do anymore. And all because Malcolm Gladwell's favorite artist emailed me.

Having been in personal Shuffle mode for a long time now, well at last since I first started iPodding, I rarely listen to albums in their entirety anymore. When I buy a new album off iTunes I probably listen to it once through that day, but then it will be relegated to a life of Shuffledom. But not today.

One more story about the wacky world of the Internet:
I recently read and reviewed Malcolm Gladwell's Blink for this blog. Toward the end of the review I mention that Gladwell spends quite a bit of time looking at the experience of a musician named Kenna. As part of the review of the book I mentioned I thought it veered into a commercial. and then I editorialized a bit more, saying that I went and listened to Kenna's clips on iTunes and unlike the experts in Blink I wasn't blown away, but also unlike the "normal" people who listened to it via focus groups, I didn't dislike it either.

I was trying to make two different points, I suppose: one was about the book...telling Gladwell, "OK, OK we get it, you love Kenna! Now move on." And one was about the book's discussion about Kenna's music...which I thought implied that people's snap judgments were either way positive or way negative...mine was neither, so I guess I was just saying, "hey, look, I'm unique and different" right? I'll have to go back and review whetehr the book really described the experts' positive opinions coming within moments of hearing Kenna's sound, or whether their positive opinions were based on more careful listening.

Well, whatever I was trying to say, I think we can safely say Kenna is a proponent of healthy ego-surfing. Why? Because he emailed me the other day about my review. Being email (with all the limitations inherent in that form of communication) I'm actually not sure if his tone was just friendly-snarky or whether he was kind of being offended-artist-sensitive. Whichever it was, I was very impressed that he not only tracks what people are saying abut him, but takes the time to respond directly. That's getting into the spirit of the Internet and the blogosphere for sure.

Mostly he wanted to tell me that maybe I missed the point: that 30-second snips weren't enough to appreciate his music. So, I wrote him back and told him that his willingness to respond directly to people motivated me to go to iTunes and just download the entire album. Which I did.

And now I've been listening a little more carefully to full albums. Kenna's. Tori Amos' new one. Keane. Actually I've listened to Kenna's several times. I don't regularly review every album I buy, but given the circumstances, a full review will be forthcoming on this one.

In the meantime, I have found his song Hellbent to be totally hypnotic and recommend it as as a download if you want to give him a test drive.

Still after a morning of albums, I returned to Shuffle this afternoon and was rewarded with a very nice mix indeed.

Killing Me Slowly by Julia Fordham
Halloween Parade by Lou Reed
Secret by Maroon 5
The One I Love by R.E.M.
Satan's Bed by Pearl Jam
Want by The Cure
M'Lady by Sly & the Family Stone
Latin Interlude by Train
Sha-La-La by Al Green
Nothing at All by David Byrne

Posted: Thu - February 24, 2005 at 03:38 PM       EmailFeedback

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