What's playing in your MP3 players?

Now, some of you may very well have 10, 20, 40 gig hard drive units filled up, but I just have a little 512mb iRiver flash player I got last week and am really loving, so I wouldn't expect you to remember 4,000 songs (or try to list them here!) but if you have a few full albums loaded on your player, just give a few titles currently in rotation on your iPod or other brand player. Heres what I'm into this week:

Mix Folder - 21 tracks including:
Vanilla Sky (live) - Paul McCartney
Peter Gunn - Ventures
Painter's Paint - High Llamas
Farm On The Freeway - Jethro Tull
San Tropez - Pink Floyd
Witch Hunt - Rush
a track by King's X from one of their earlier albums

Full or Partial CD's:

Soundscapes Ambient
Shots In The Dark (Various)
Moody Blues - Days of F.P.
Doyle Dykes - 2 tracks
Creepshow Soundtrack
Vic Mizzy Movie Themes

What you got playin' on your 'Pod?

 

I don't have an MP3 player. Someone sent me an attachment yesterday of Rufus Wainright & Sean Lennon doing "This Boy" at a tribute to John Lennon. Sean sounded a lot like John in certain parts. Otherwise, I've never really warmed up to MP3s. I once downloaded a free Sparks song off Amazon. Everyone tells me it's the way to go, but I prefer a physical album/CD in my hand. Why do I pay $200 for a Gold CD when I can download the same album on MP3 for free? Maybe I'm weird. It's part of my obsession with collecting, I guess? I do like the aspect of getting rare recordings. I just haven't done much research.

 

Todays MP3 Dump is
Low - John Peel Sessions
Low - Trust
Beach Boys - SMiLE (Fast Eddie's 66/67 Rebuild)
Joseph Arthur - Our Shadows Will Remain
Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Elemental Chill - Volume 2 "Earth"
Denis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue
Beatles - Rubber Soul
Broken Social Scene - You forget it in People
Daniel Johnston - The Late Great Daniel Johnston (Disc 2 the Originals)
Rufus Wainright - Want Two
Beach Boys - Surf's Up/Sun Flower Twofer

 

I'm with you I'd rather have the actual disc in hand than downloaded, artifact damaged, who knows what generation of compressing, uncompressing, recompressing files of different qualities and sources.

But I LOVE my little Rio MP3 Player (The iPod is too exspensive and too easily scratched to carry around all day but it works nicely as the great jukebox I ever had) and for "portable" music @ work or while running I can't say enough nice about it. Though I had to expand the memory so I could have more than one CD @ a higher Kbs (actually I use .wma)

Would I call it "HiFi" ? Not at all. But it's nice to have your own tunes. And $200 Gold CDs make awesome sounding files.

 

all of my favorites!!!

 

Don't really care for the sonic qualities of mp3s. I do all my critical listening at home.

 

I've got about 40G worth of jazz mp3s bought from emusic.com that I need to transfer to my Zen Nomad (bought last week).

 

I've been on the cross-trainers and treadmills at the gym a lot lately. (26 days since Jan.3 - Have lost 5.5 pounds so far.) Treated myself to an RCA Lyra mp3 player in early January, 2005 to assist with my cardio.

In current rotation an assortment of '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s alternapop/rock with a smattering of some Prince tunes.

Camper Van Beethoven - "Take The Skinheads Bowling"
Ramones - "Something To Believe In"
Robyn Hitchcock/Egyptians - "Balloon Man"
Garbage - "Stupid Girl"
Dickies - "Nights In White Satin"
Prince - "Cindy C"
Prince - Raspberry Beret"
Prince - "Take Me With You"
Prince - "Cream"
Matthew Sweet - "Giving It All Away"
Nirvana - "All Apologies" (studio)
Smithereens - "It Don't Come Easy"
Patti Smith Group - "Dancing Barefoot"
Pere Ubu - "Modern Dance"
Wilco - "Casino Queen"
Linton Kwesi Johnson - "Lorraine"
Mae Moore - "Disappearing Floor"
Squeeze - "Hits Of The Year"
Popular Mechanix - "Theme From The Mosquito Men"
Ned's Automic Dustbin - "Stuff"
Television - "Call Mr. Lee"
Verve - "Bittersweet Symphony" (single mix)
Peter Gabriel - "Burn You Up, Burn You Down" (original version)
Swervedriver - "Pile Up"
and about 25 more tunes.

Works nice on random play.

 

20 gb iPod, Loaded up right now with the entire Beach Boys catalog, Emmylou Harris, Beatles, Ryan Adams, Stray Cats, Wilco, XTC, Adam Franklin, Spearhead, Phish, Dead, Phil, Jerry, Green Day, Zappa, Fastball, Fountains of Wayne, Dylan etc.

I swap it out every week, so next week it could be 20gigs of Sun Ra and Coltrane!

The iPod and ITunes has enriched my musical life more than I can say

and btw, i never dug mp3s, but i rip using aac at 320kbps and they sound great to me.

 

I'm also considering buying a small flash player for running/yard work, once my tax refund shows up. Four albums worth of music is enough for a fews days and I like the idea of swapping out the music to make a fresh playlist.

If you like 311 (or just like music that helps to get your body moving at the gym) they have 23 tracks of remixed/unreleased songs you can download for free. Go to 311music.com then go to "media" then to "audio". Some pretty good stuff there.

 

I have almost every top 10 hit from 1950-1999 plus select top 100 songs. ALL in a rough chronological order. its amazing to hear it non stop the way pop music changed over time. couldn't do it without mp3. I would have to carry more than 300 cds to have the same. it's great to pull up a song someone wanted know the title, but only remembered the tune.

 

Just curious, why not an iPod? I'm in the market right now...

 

Well, I have a 40g 3g iPod, not full yet, but still way too much to list, but my latest rips are:

Road Apples - Tragically Hip
Fully Completely - Tragically Hip
Dream Police - Cheap Trick
About 40 Tracks worth of The Who from their box set

I'll drink to that! I have been able to find new music, as well as re-discover stuff I have had for a while but forgotten about.

BGL

 

EditPod, my iPod's name, is currently going through my Marvin Gaye collection. It knows what I like.

 

hey Chris, good for you. I started running again on Jan. 1. I'm up to about two and a half miles four or five days a week now.

anyway ... listened to Green Day's American Idiot on the iPod last night. great sounding album for MP3 and a good pounding album to get me over the hills.

as much music as I've bought in the past couple of months, it's amazing how often I keep digging this one.

Jeff

 

Nice threadcrap!

 

Right now I'm listening to R.E.M. recorded live in Milan, Italy on January 15th of this year. The iPod plus BitTorrent has definitely changed bootleg collecting for the better - no more hunting round record stores for $30 CD bootlegs where you're never quite sure what you're buying - if you know where to look you can find show after show from your favorite band(s).

Also on heavy iPod rotation this week - The Donnas Gold Medal and Spend the Night. The Donnas are everything pop music is supposed to be - energetic, catchy, and fun.

And lots of disposable contemporary British pop that most members of this forum wouldn't be caught dead listening to: Kylie Minogue, Rachel Stevens, and Girls Aloud.

 

I understand where you're coming from - I own many records on CD and vinyl, and I like to sit down at home and listen in the highest possible sound quality when I have the time, but the iPod will revolutionize your life in many ways. To pick just one example - I love the new Faces box set, but I don't want to sit down and listen to 4 straight discs and sort out the highlights from the hotel room recordings - solution - rip the highlights to your iPod and listen to your favorite tracks in any order you want. I rip at 256 k AAC, and the sound quality is plenty good through headphones.

 

My iPod? 150 hours of Phil Hendrie and 100 hours of Bob & Ray.....

oh...and GREENDALE. Be the rain, baby!!!

 

Despite those who are dyed-in-the-wool high end/analog(ue) hardliners, I'm here to tell you I've only had my iRiver for about a week and I can see already that this little thing is enriching my musical life in that there's nothing quite like having such a variety of music in the palm of your hand, being able to call up whatever you're in the mood for, or randomly hearing a mix of the great stuff you've loaded (and no having to change a disc!). It's a unique experience, your own little musical world that you design and listen to for hours on end, and the trade-offs in sound quality for convenience don't seem that big of a deal when you're off in that musical world, for me anyway.

Next title to load into the mix: Vinyl Kings' Time Machine.

 

About a hundred bucks cheaper. And I'm sure I'll save even more on all the iPod accessories that I won't be tempted to buy now.

Seriously, I was sorely tempted by the iPod and its interface is probably better than the Zen's, but the size wasn't much of an issue since I don't really carry it around with me and once I transfer my mp3s I probably won't be hooking it up to my computer all that often.

 

Currently on my 40 gig iPod: 7,461 songs, 18.4 days, 35.80 gigs

At the gym in the evenings it's been mostly the Nuggets box and the most complete version of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival I have been able to assemble (from multiple sources, both official and unofficial ) which took a long time to gather together. It makes for a great playlist.

In the car for the last few days I've been working my way through 14 CD's worth of Hank Williams' Mother's Best radio shows (commercially unavailable, dowloaded in lossless files from the now-defunt sharingthegroove.org and ripped to the iPod in MP3.) It's driving my kids crazy! They hate Hank. Well, if they didn't hate Hank before, they certainly do now. I can't blame them, really. It's probably too much Hank for anyone. Except me.

My iPod is the greatest thing. I can't say enough about the joy of having so much music in one portable package.

And for those of you quick to judge, I say this: until you've listened to your favorite songs ripped to the iPod with a lossless codec (Apple lossless, or even .wav) using good headphones or ear canal phones like the Shure E3's, please refrain from criticizing the sound of this thing. Sure, I've got MP3's on there (the Hank Williams files are all 128 kbps MP3's, which sound perfectly fine given the source material, which is not audiophile grade.) But Alison Krauss or Los Lobos or Diana Krall in lossless format sound AMAZING. The iPod can produce incredible sound with care and the right gear. The right mindset helps, too.

Chris

 

My iPod is dead. Yes, don't run over it with a car. That's essentially what happened when my wife pulled the car out of the garage and accidentally ran over my bookbag. Since the case was obviously damaged, AppleCare isn't fixing it. It'll be 200 bones for a new 40 GB hard drive.

Still, iTunes runs all day at work. I've been listening to The Zombies' "Odessey and Oracle," this cool European band called Dungeon (I'll start a thread on them soon!), The Donnas' latest, and the recent Nick Cave 2CD set.

Since my entire office has iTunes installed, we also share our libraries (for those who don't know, if you're networked you can share your itunes library with others on the network... no file swapping, just listening). Between all of us, we've probably got 200 GB of music!

 

My 20gig Creative Nomad is almost full, I held off getting the 40g cos I thought I would never have so much music to fill it.... how silly I was. Should have splurged. Actually they had just released the 60 gig when I bought it, but that was way out of my pricerange. I look at it this way, in a couple of years when it breaks down (and it will cos nothing is made to last these days!!) I can upgrade and get a 200 gig model that also plays movies and takes photos etc probably for the same price as I paid for this one a year ago.

I rip at 192 VBR. The quality stays good across the board for the Nomad and also for my 2 portable cd/mp3 players and the dvd. I will no longer buy anything cdplayer-wise that does not also support mp3's, its just too convenient. I love being able to go past the 80 minute barrier, even if its just by 10 minutes, and still be able to play the cd on any of my various units.

Anyway, on the box now:

Springsteens "Oh boy" bootleg, soundboard quality I downloaded just last week from an italian website which rotates sets, 2.5 hours of classic Darkness-era Springsteen. Voted by a bunch of diehards as THE bootleg to own, if you have to own only one....

Simple Minds.. if you read any of my other recent threads, you already know I recently bought Silver box, and about 4 other early days cd's. They all rock!

Ultravox "Vienna" album. Astradyne is a fantastic track!!! Probably my fave instrumental atm.

A lot of Elvis Costello early stuff. This years Model, Punch The Clock, Trust etc. Would love to get my hands on Armed Forces and maybe upgrade and get the expanded reissues.

Billy Joel An Innocent Man. This has to be one of my fave 80's era album. I only discovered it in its entirety a few months back. I heard most of it from all the singles way back when, but it's a completely new, and sometimes very fresh experience listening to an album in its entirety, and you get a feel for the songs in a different context to a GH album!! This remaster is very very good. The cd has a couple of videos on it, but I would have preferred some bonus tracks.

Some others I have loaded on but not yet experienced properly, Joy Division (Permanent - not excited about it much as yet, but give it time), Japan (Excorcising Ghosts - how did I miss this in the 80's?), Grace Jones, Roxy Music (Avalon remaster, nice..)

all early 80's stuff except for the Springsteen and all of it acquired within the past few weeks/months, mostly unheard before that.