MK in Motion.com: Will Blog for Page Views

December 19, 2006

Best Albums of 2006: November

November was a month of greatest hits albums. With U2, Oasis, Depeche Mode, even Moby releasing complitions of hits in one form or another, some artists actually released full length albums with songs we'd never heard.

5. Jay-Z - Kingdom Come (yeah, I said it)

4. Joanna Newsom - Ys.

3. Willie Nelson - Songbird

2. Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards

1. Damien Rice - 9

Best Albums of 2006: October

5. Cold War Kids - Robbers and Cowards

4. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

3. Amos Lee - Supply and Demand

2. The Killers - Sam's Town

1. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

December 18, 2006

Update: Your Questions

Here are a few questions that have come in either via comments or email.

When are you going to post something other than albums?

Soon. The year of albums is just about done. Did you notice the tech post? I've got plenty to say as we approach the end of the year.

Are you going to post about leaving Alaska a year ago?

Yes, the anniversary came and went on Friday, but I have a very special article to commemorate.

Did you know you missed some very important albums?

Yes, I know one for sure that will end up in my top 10 of the year that I forgot to include in its month.

When's your next live show?

At this point it's not 'til Keane in Berkeley in January and Glen Phillips in February, but I'm always looking to fill in dates.

Do you own all these albums?

Define own... I have many of them whether through purchasing them, receiving demos or streaming songs at a time.

How do you have time for all this music?

I answered Molly in the comments a while back, but I'll explain again: It's simple math.
Easiest Job in the World + Most Boring Job in the World + iPod = Massive amounts of time to listen.

Two more months to go and then a top 100 recap for the year. Big thanks to Largehearted Boy for some extra attention.

Apple Phones, iPhones and Skype.

The iPhone was released today. There has been hype for years about Apple releasing an iPod phone, but today was not the day fanatics have been waiting for....they'll have to continue to wait. Having worked in the cell phone industry on the provider side for years, I know there is some demand, but maybe not as much as the Apple people think or even the tech pundits think. Most of my audience doesn't read the same things I read on the internets, so I'll give a little background. The recent recent and loudest news on the iPhone was out of two sources. Kevin Rose of Digg (with all new features) leaked (warning: adult language) some information on an episode of Diggnation saying that it would have two batteries (one for the phone and one for the mp3 player), it would come in two varieties 4GB and 8GB (so we're talking a Nano), and that it would be available with all carriers. I know some folks in Alaska that wet themselves if they heard that. Most people in the know believe that the Apple phone will be announced and released in January at MacWorldExpo in January. The second source was a recent post on Gizmodo that much of the tech community immediately denounced. Why did they denounce the short cryptic blurb? They assumed iPhone meant Apple and they assumed that Apple would stick to its standard protocol for launching products. Well, it turns out iPhone was trademarked in the US by Linksys years ago and released a product today called the iPhone. The thing is I have more of an interest in getting an iPhone from Linksys than I do any phone from Apple. Especially now that Skype launched version 3. If you haven't jumped on the Skype bandwagon yet, you should give it a try; It could just change your life. Back to the Apple phone issue for just a bit. I read today that Apple will be opening their own MVNO when they launch their phone. This is probably the smartest thing they could do. Sure, ESPN mobile flopped, but they had a pretty narrow market. The issue is that just about everyone already has a cell phone and thus they have a carrier. With Apple having their own MVNO from Cingular it gives them the power of the Cingular network combined with the power of the Apple brand. The issues that I saw with using carriers to distribute your phone were that Apple likes to set the price of their products. Authorized dealers of iPods and Macs aren't allowed to set their own price. If you want to buy an iPod from Best Buy or from Apple, it's the same price. Cell phone carriers and third party dealers like to run campaigns based on lowering the price of the phone in order to encourage longer term of service. Who knows what the billing/plan service side of things would look like for Apple whether they continue to target the young kids by making a prepaid product or whether they play with the big boys and try the whole family plan mess and other traditional plans. I guess we'll just have to wait until January to find out we've all been wrong...even Kevin Rose.