antimeria

I realize I haven’t actually written much about music lately, but here’s a list of concerts I’m excited for:

1. Dan Deacon at Ottobar
2. Cymbals Eat Guitars at Rock n Roll Hotel
3. Miike Snow and Delorean (mostly Delorean) at 9:30 Club
4. Gang Gang Dance at Ottobar
5. Japandroids and Love is All at Rock n Roll Hotel

It’s late December, so it’s time for the deluge of “best albums of 2009″ posts. But since a lot of the albums I keep on repeat find their way to my end-of-year “best of” lists, I’m wanted to try a different approach–one that combines music wankery, listing  and graphs into one big nerdgasm. Onward!

My initial plan was to just take the high counts from my Last.fm charts for the last year. However, I realized that this would unfairly punish short and/or recently-released albums. Furthermore, that doesn’t really describe “obsession” as I’m used to it–the kind of constant repetition that drives my girlfriend insane (see also: Hercules and Love Affair, In Ghost Colours). So I decided to use the yearly chart as a jumping-off point, but only count the first two months after an LP initially appeared on my weekly charts. I then divided the total play count by number of tracks, and finally came up with an average for the eight-week span. The list, eight-week average and graph are after the jump. And, please–no complaints about the methodology. This isn’t 538.

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Normally, I do the rather-arbitrary “choose 10 (or, last year, 25) albums and rank them” thing about now. But thanks to a slow week at work, my innate graphic geekiness, and Microsoft Excel, you’ll be getting science. So…get ready.

Show Yr Work Update: My fifteen “most-obsessed-over” albums have 11.2 tracks on average, with a standard deviation of only 1.265.

Oh my goodness, it is Friday the 13th. It’s also Caroline’s birthday. Anyway, here are five things that I’ve been watching in the new age of high-definition DVR:

1. Californication. I’ve only watched a few episodes, but it’s growing on me. I get to enjoy Duchovny’s droll insouciance without the X-Files craziness that scares the crap out of me.
2. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I’ve really been meaning to watch this show for a long time, but I kept forgetting. Now I never have to remember when it’s on.
3. Showtime in general. I didn’t expect much from movie channels, but when they have Wall-E on repeat? They got me for these three free months, at least.
4. Mythbusters. Not really new, but high-speed explosion shots in HD are outstanding.
5. Sports. Again, not a new thing, but the switch to HD is stunning. I even watched some of the playoffs, which I hadn’t done regularly in years.

Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men, has an interview in today’s Daily Beast which reveals some interesting tidbits:

Betty married Don because he was the whole package. He looked good on paper and that’s what she wanted…. Being put on a pedestal, being worshipped and adored, being accepted, in a way it’s almost more flattering to have a man be that attached to you who doesn’t know you. I think she’s very susceptible to that. … She might not even be able to express it, but what she wants is for all of her needs to be met, with anticipation.
[...]
Whatever Roger’s true feelings are for Joan—and whatever they are, they are deep and we’ve always known that—he sure as hell welcomed the opportunity, not just because of her skills, to have her back in his life in that way. I am not big on giving the audience what they want but I am big on giving Roger and Joan what they want, if they can get close to it.

Can’t wait for season 4.