Jay Mathes

Author: jaymathes

  • Top 25 Albums of All Time

    Okay, so I don’t claim to know everything about pop music… Actually, I’m pretty quick to say that I have never heard the music of a lot of artists out there. But I do know what I like, and I also think that I’m a pretty good judge as to what other people should like, too. Pompous? No, I don’t think so. I think that I have been given the honored privilege and ability to critique music well – both on aesthetic and technical levels.

    About a week ago, I watched a ten-minute clip of an interview with Josh Ritter, published by some magazine (the video was a part of a series titled something about eating with artists…). In the video, Ritter mentioned that music, like movies and other art, should be judged 15 or 20 years after it has been released (obviously, that’s no help to the actual artist living it out in real-time). His point was that a good song is still a good song 20, 50, or 300 years after it is written.
    The goal of music criticism is to assess a song or album in a cultural vacuum (outside of current pop trends or stylistic leanings), allowing the music to stand on its own, judging it against nothing but its ability to relate to the human experience across space and time.
    I have been thinking a lot about my favorite art of all time – primarily books, movies, and music; and I think I’m going to try to compile a list of my top 25 albums of all time. The difficulty with this is that I have been told that there are some *unbelievable* records out there – ones that people can actually name by name – that I haven’t even heard for myself yet, and so I’m going to be taking this slowly, making sure to leave some room in the top 25 for records that I’ll have to listen to between now and before I finish my list. (If you have any suggestions, please comment on them on this post.)
    So, without further delay, I would like to announce the first (not number one, but just “one of”) of my top 25 picks of all time:
    And that, of course, is what I am listening to right now.

  • Are You Kidding Apple!?!?!

    So Apple just launched their new App Store application for OSX. It’s pretty cool, I must say – not because the store itself is that innovative of an idea (Apple has been selling people stuff on iTunes for years). But the way Apple is delivering and bundling the products and managing their distribution and installation is. For the first time ever, buy iPhoto ’11 without iLife ’11. And, for a lower price. And, you can install the software on ALL Mac computers you use. Here’s the quote about that from the App Store’s Help guide:

    “After you purchase an application, you can install it free of charge on every Mac you use.”
    Pretty impressive – especially when Apple just blasts away their delivery and shipping costs, shelf space, and breaks down nearly all possible limits on accessibility (not being near a store, not wanted to drive to a store, not having the time) – and all slashing their software’s cost to consumers… Now we’re talking some serious revenue generating.
    So I’m not one to typically complain about Apple… for two reasons: 1) there is hardly ever anything to complain about and 2) I own stock in the company. But in this case, I found a technical snag that is exceedingly irritating…
    I just purchased Aperture 3 from the App Store for $79 (regularly $199 out of the box from a physical Apple Store). Great price on some really excellent software. One, big glitch.
    Apparently, iPhoto event descriptions do not convert in to Aperture project descriptions. Where do they go? Into the air. Gone. Zappo. If you want your iPhoto event descriptions in your shiny, brand new, Aperture software, you best sit down with a warm cup of tea on a cold winter’s day, cuz cut and paste key commands are going to be your new best friends.
    So here it is: Apple, this Aperture problem really sucks. Fix it. Yeah, that’s right. I read the message boards. This has been an issue since at least April 2010. If you want people to migrate from iPhoto to Aperture, this has to be fixed. Fix it. Seriously.