Finished Landing - Brocade (nice album), grabbed Tubular Bells, and then squeezed in Duke Ellington and John Coltrane to add to my small, nascent "must figure out what all these jazz people are on to" collection. Nice.
I used my ten to start on Iggy Pop - A Million in Prizes, except I got the censored version by mistake. I realized my error when I started to make a playlist of the tracks I still needed. I think most of the tracks I grabbed don't have anything that needed censoring, so I'm playing through them and I'll put the tracks that are actually censored back on my to-get list.
Also, I'm a little late to this party. Could you always stream the whole track before buying it? I noticed when I was deciding which ones to get that the whole track played, indeed I could play all the tracks I had in the list.
Update: Half-way through and no missing words. Also, for some reason I want to dance like a hypnotized chicken.
68 albums of either Blue Note or ECM. I could kiss Guvera or at least give a hug that bordered on slightly inappropriate. 73 total albums, only two of which were Oops that sucked nature. Never had one download problem and the tagging could win awards compared to Mtracks.
@ Cafreeman moneygrabber is something else. Ironic ( maybe?) downloading it from Guevara.
Maybe i should give them another listen, but I was underwhelmed by We were promised jetpacks when it came out. It would be easy to make some smartass remark about bands that spend more time on their band name than songwriting.
@Kenny, I'm having trouble finding something new, too. Thought I'd get another Dandy Warhols - "Dandys Rule OK", since I liked "13 Tales From Urban Bohemia" so much - and they have everything BUT that one. Other artists/album on my wish list, similar results.
While I do not care for the James Blake very much, David Lowerey's The Palace Guards is quite good. Esp "Marigolds" and "I Sold the Arabs the Moon".
I'm flabbergasted that anyone could run out of things to download
Me too. Do you have all the Beach Boys? All the Frank Sinatra concept albums? Those are two big things I'd work on if I ever couldn't find something to download, but I always do. I was working on Cybotron, since it's now of questionable sound quality at emu, and would have finished it this month, but, like I said, Modern Lovers, Modern Lovers. Goin' faster miles an hour.
I think the problem isn't so much finding something to download as finding something specific. Perhaps that's the wrong way of looking at Guvera, but it takes effort to locate specific albums. I always try to have a go-to if I run out of ideas, which is certain types of recordings by ECM (currently working on accordion players).
Yep, I have all the Beach Boys and Sinatra that I want. I did listen to a few sample of The Modern Lovers Modern Lovers. It didn't trip my trigger, plus, at 17 tracks, it would take 3 months to download with my one account. I suppose I could sign up for extras....nah.
The original album is only 9 tracks - I did have some difficulty weeding out the different versions and getting the originals. I always try to stick with original albums only and skip the alternates. Not that it makes any difference if you don't really like it.
I think the problem isn't so much finding something to download as finding something specific.
For me it is finding anything. The search is absolutely horrendous between results and UX. I gave up on leveraging it for generalized stuff and now employ Allmusic, Amazon, and eMusic to hunt very specific titles which is still a painful hit-or-miss exercise.
I'm having the same problem - I can just about find enough things I might like each month, and then if I have credits left I add nostalgia hits on 1980s pop. But so much of my want list is on small labels that are not on Guvera (I'm not hungering for Beach Boys or Sinatra). Stuff I've found so far and been very glad for includes:
- some nice ambient/psychedelic albums from Landing,
- Kollaps Tradixionales (sp?) by Thee Silver Mt. Zion,
- Songs from Before by Max Richter,
- Tubular Bells Digital Box Set by Mike Oldfield,
- a bunch of Kraftwerk that I didn't have digitally (all but their first couple of albums are there),
- Tin Drum by Japan,
- and I've started using my free credits to branch out into the wild unknown world of jazz (Duke Ellington & John Coltrane, Oscar Peterson - actually not so wild, I guess);
- if I hadn't already owned The Metamorphosis Project by The Seven Mile Journey I would have been all over it (excellent post-rock).
* If anyone else is finding other good stuff that could be tagged post-rock, ambient, non-vocal electronic, 70s progressive rock...seems like that's mainly where I'm grubbing around right now.
* Also any suggestions for other jazz stuff to get on the basis that I liked the mellower tracks from In A Sentimental mood by Ellington and Coltrane?
I finished up Black Joe Lewis' "tell 'em what your name is" then continued downloading Stewart Copeland's Rumblefish soundtrack. Just two more tracks to go...
dell: "I'm totally guessing here, but it looks like the download URL times out after a certain period."
Correct - the download is only available for the individual download session. I've found even on a fast internet connection it's not a good idea to try and download more then 2 at a time. I'll start the download, and leave that channel window open in case the download fails - if it times out I'll cancel it and hit the 'Download Now' link again, though it only remains active for a few minutes. The five that have started and stalled won't start again (though it's now a few days after you posted it, sorry!)
Katrina: "Say, one thing I like is, I am not getting logged out all of the time, anymore."
We force our developer monkeys to fix annoying problems like that ;)
Dr Mutex: "Also, I'm a little late to this party. Could you always stream the whole track before buying it?"
I get the same amount of credits as everyone else, so I've become a bit of big playlist user - I'll go through during the month and make a playlist for the month, play through them all until the credits appear on my account, and download from the playlist - that way I know the versions of the songs are the ones I want.
Sort: "I could kiss Guvera or at least give a hug that bordered on slightly inappropriate."
... might I suggest a bobble Che to cuddle at night? ;) http://www.panikstoybox.com/pd-che-guevara-bobble-head.cfm
@GP - I'm certainly no jazz expert, far, far more knowledgeable people than me are around here - see my thread Where do I go now? http://www.emusers.net/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1118&page=1#Item_23 But the two jazz recodings that really began to get me interested are Miles Davis Kind of Blue and Dave Brubeck's Time Out. Both were recorded within a few months of each other in 1959, quite different but both key recordings especially Kind Of Blue.
Thanks, Greg. I have the Brubeck, and I have the Miles Davis on my birthday wishlist (I figured with the frequency and intensity of recommendations for it on here I needed to give it listen, and some youtubing convinced me I needed a CD rather than a download). I've been keeping an eye on your thread also - thanks for starting that.
I think the best approach to Guvera is find a label with stuff you like, find out what good albums are on that label and go to town. That's what I did last Sept with Blue Note (as did lots of others here). There's always a wiki page of reasonable facsimile for any label you care to name.
I also use Robert Christgau's site to browse albums he's reviewed by label, since he's reviewed around 30,000 major and big indie labels ' albums over the last 40 years.
One rec is Sonny Rollins: Road Shows Vol. 1 - 7 tracks - Cgau gave it an A+. It's hard to go wrong with Sonny Rollins...
@greg and or GP: those are both great albums to start with. Try Mingus's Mingus Ah Am and Monk Straight No Chaser. Those did a lot to pique my interest in jazz a few years ago.
Although it is a big PITA to load the songs separately onto a playlist to be able to stream them, I have actually used Guvera to reach a decision on a new release, the Ray Davies See My Friends - before it goes off $5 at 7dig - in this case I think I'll pass on the album, and may pick up some tracks next time around there at Guvera. Was great to listen to the whole songs though.
BigD: Click the box at the top to download all tracks. Then choose one of your channels with no downloads to 'download' from. You can save the channel with your downloads as a playlist.
BigD & Mutex: Even easier: From the list of songs that are returned from a search 3 icons show up on the right hand side whenever I hover over any of the songs (I'm on an Intel box using Firefox 3.6.16). The first will allow you to add the specific song to a playlist, the 2nd will allow you to add the associated album to a playlist and the 3rd will allow you to download that specific song. 'Helper' text pops up as I hover over each of the icons telling me what it does. Whenever I find and album that I want to download from Guvera I use the 2nd icon and specify 'create new playlist' from the playlist window that pops up. When I have credits I go to that playlist, download the songs I can and after each one is downloaded I then manually remove that song from that playlist.
Comments
Also, I'm a little late to this party. Could you always stream the whole track before buying it? I noticed when I was deciding which ones to get that the whole track played, indeed I could play all the tracks I had in the list.
Update: Half-way through and no missing words. Also, for some reason I want to dance like a hypnotized chicken.
Recent downloads: Mark Hollis (of Talk Talk), the Twilight Sad, We Were Promised Jetpacks
And if you don't have it, I HIGHLY recommend the Frightened Rabbit album.
Maybe i should give them another listen, but I was underwhelmed by We were promised jetpacks when it came out. It would be easy to make some smartass remark about bands that spend more time on their band name than songwriting.
Craig
While I do not care for the James Blake very much, David Lowerey's The Palace Guards is quite good. Esp "Marigolds" and "I Sold the Arabs the Moon".
Craig
Me too. Do you have all the Beach Boys? All the Frank Sinatra concept albums? Those are two big things I'd work on if I ever couldn't find something to download, but I always do. I was working on Cybotron, since it's now of questionable sound quality at emu, and would have finished it this month, but, like I said, Modern Lovers, Modern Lovers. Goin' faster miles an hour.
For me it is finding anything. The search is absolutely horrendous between results and UX. I gave up on leveraging it for generalized stuff and now employ Allmusic, Amazon, and eMusic to hunt very specific titles which is still a painful hit-or-miss exercise.
Mark
- some nice ambient/psychedelic albums from Landing,
- Kollaps Tradixionales (sp?) by Thee Silver Mt. Zion,
- Songs from Before by Max Richter,
- Tubular Bells Digital Box Set by Mike Oldfield,
- a bunch of Kraftwerk that I didn't have digitally (all but their first couple of albums are there),
- Tin Drum by Japan,
- and I've started using my free credits to branch out into the wild unknown world of jazz (Duke Ellington & John Coltrane, Oscar Peterson - actually not so wild, I guess);
- if I hadn't already owned The Metamorphosis Project by The Seven Mile Journey I would have been all over it (excellent post-rock).
* If anyone else is finding other good stuff that could be tagged post-rock, ambient, non-vocal electronic, 70s progressive rock...seems like that's mainly where I'm grubbing around right now.
* Also any suggestions for other jazz stuff to get on the basis that I liked the mellower tracks from In A Sentimental mood by Ellington and Coltrane?
Correct - the download is only available for the individual download session. I've found even on a fast internet connection it's not a good idea to try and download more then 2 at a time. I'll start the download, and leave that channel window open in case the download fails - if it times out I'll cancel it and hit the 'Download Now' link again, though it only remains active for a few minutes. The five that have started and stalled won't start again (though it's now a few days after you posted it, sorry!)
Katrina: "Say, one thing I like is, I am not getting logged out all of the time, anymore."
We force our developer monkeys to fix annoying problems like that ;)
Dr Mutex: "Also, I'm a little late to this party. Could you always stream the whole track before buying it?"
I get the same amount of credits as everyone else, so I've become a bit of big playlist user - I'll go through during the month and make a playlist for the month, play through them all until the credits appear on my account, and download from the playlist - that way I know the versions of the songs are the ones I want.
Sort: "I could kiss Guvera or at least give a hug that bordered on slightly inappropriate."
... might I suggest a bobble Che to cuddle at night? ;) http://www.panikstoybox.com/pd-che-guevara-bobble-head.cfm
--Dan
I also use Robert Christgau's site to browse albums he's reviewed by label, since he's reviewed around 30,000 major and big indie labels ' albums over the last 40 years.
One rec is Sonny Rollins: Road Shows Vol. 1 - 7 tracks - Cgau gave it an A+. It's hard to go wrong with Sonny Rollins...