So I was thinking of celebrating the near-end of my insane work schedule by writing a “Best albums of 2006” column, but it’s almost March and I still haven’t heard all of the albums from 2006 I wanted to hear. Besides, my list would probably look a lot like most cool on-line indie zines, except mine would be way better. In any case, I agree with most of what’s become consensus – TV on the Radio’s “Return to Cookie Mountain” was the best album of the year, the Roots made a fantastic return to form, the Dears made their best album yet, Pearl Jam released their best album since whatever-your-favourite-PJ-album is (for me, it’s “Yield”), and there were some promising newcomers (The Horror The Horror, Voxtrot). All in all, not a bad year for music.<\/p>\n
But I don’t really want to write about that.<\/p>\n
I want to write about musical piracy and why it’s so awesome.<\/p>\n
Some back-story: When I was at university, I downloaded a ton of music because I was broke and Kingston doesn’t exactly have a ton of good student-friendly music shops – I remember paying $24.99 for Pearl Jam’s “Live on Two Legs” at Indigo, for example. There were some used stores, but they pretty much only stocked scratched Tragically Hip and Dave Matthews albums. Anyway, in 2nd year I heard rumours of Napster, downloaded it, and discovered heaven. I downloaded anything and everything, even getting banned from Napster for having a live version of Metallica’s Battery. I knew it was sort of wrong, but I was broke and didn’t really have much of a choice. That’s what I told myself, anyway.<\/p>\n
Napster ended up getting shut down around the time I graduated. Having a good job and living in Ottawa, I finally had money and access to some really great music stores, so I pretty much stopped downloading music. I like album artwork, and I really like the whole process of going to the store, finding what you’re looking for, excitedly popping it in for the first time… the whole deal. Plus, I always felt sort of bad getting all my music for free – didn’t seem right.<\/p>\n
I used to spend almost every Saturday in Record Runner, going home with 3 or 4 albums, listening to them non-stop all week, then going back the next Saturday. I was obsessed. When Record Runner closed, I moved on to Organized Sound. Not as much selection and I sometimes left empty-handed, but they still had some good stuff, and I liked the guys who worked there – they knew a ton about every genre, and they even once sold me their pre-release store copy of a Wagon Christ album, which I thought was pretty cool. Of course, they closed too.<\/p>\n
I don’t know of any other good music stores in Ottawa. With nowhere else to go, I started going to HMV. It turned out to not be as bad as I remembered, as there were often some surprisingly good discs in their 2 for $25 deals. It’s ultimately not a very good store, though – anything over 2 years old is like $26 for some reason, and their selection is spotty at best. Still though, it’s all there is around here…<\/p>\n
Having bought a house last year, I didn’t have a whole lot of time or money to buy music, but once Christmas was over, I wanted to get back on the horse. With a list compiled from some trustworthy sources, I headed out to pick up as many of the albums I wanted\/needed from 2006 that I could find: Hot Chip, Junior Boys, Guillemots, Of Montreal, Peter Bjorn & John, Neko Case… and I found none of them.<\/p>\n
With nowhere else left to turn, I returned to my forgotten friend, piracy. Sweet, sweet piracy.<\/p>\n
Now, I haven’t become one of those people that downloads non-stop and has 1000s of songs on my computer that I’ve never even heard. I only download albums I can’t find and that I’m not sure I want anyway. I won’t steal anything that I know I’ll be able to find and that I know I’ll love (new Do Make Say Think and “Neon Bible” by the Arcade Fire, as examples).<\/p>\n
So far, it’s been all gravy.<\/p>\n
I’ve discovered a few bands I think are really outstanding that I probably would have let slip by (Voxtrot, Peter Bjorn & John).<\/p>\n
I’ve discovered some amazing songs on some sub-awesome albums (“The Past is a grotesque animal” by Of Montreal, “Boy from School” by Hot Chip).<\/p>\n
I’ve saved myself the disappointment of buying some really mediocre albums that I probably would have bought (the Good, the Bad and the Queen and the second half of the new Bloc Party).<\/p>\n
I’ve discovered that every Explosions in the Sky album sounds exactly the same.<\/p>\n
In any case, I think if used responsibly, piracy is a good thing. Not just for the obvious reason of not paying for anything, but as a means of discovering the hard-to-find and to avoid the disappointment of buying a crappy album. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.<\/p>\n
Now, if you’ll excuse me, the new Modest Mouse with Johnny Marr on guitar has leaked and I want to see if it’s any good. I’ve heard it’s crap, but I’d like to judge it for myself…<\/p>\n
Last 5 songs: “mothers, sisters, daughters and friends” – voxtrot; “sway” – voxtrot; “pass the hatchet, i think i’m goodkind” – yo la tengo; “black swan” – thom yorke; “in the morning” – junior boys<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So I was thinking of celebrating the near-end of my insane work schedule by writing a “Best albums of 2006” column, but it’s almost March and I still haven’t heard all of the albums from 2006 I wanted to hear. Besides, my list would probably look a lot like most cool on-line indie zines, except […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}