Hello World / Methodology

Greetings.

This is the official blog of The Chandelier Swing, a weekly radio show on KMUZ (88.5 FM / streaming at kmuz.org / available on the TuneIn Radio app). The show has been going for about a year now. The theme of the show is Indie Rock from the 90s and Beyond, but I manage to be somewhat omnivorous in my music tastes, and what gets actually played on the radio.

I've been posting my playlists on Facebook, which isn't that great of a platform. Playlists are always also available at Spinitron.com, but I like having them in a more digestible format.

Anyway, having a radio show, I guess that makes me into an official Music Journalist. Being a Music Journalist (and all the pretension that entails), I guess I need an official place to vent my useless opinions on music and life in general. Hence, this blog.

The first order of business is the ubiquitous year-end best-of list. As an analytical intellectual, I feel the need to discuss methodology before launching into the list (s) so here goes:

-My best-of lists won't necessarily conform to the format of my radio show. In the strictest definition, there were absolutely no 90s indie rock records released in 2012.

-Most music writers limit "new music" to "stuff released in this calendar year" which kinda gives stuff released towards the end of the year the shaft. Given my limited resources and predilection for physical (non-internet) releases, it usually takes me a few months to hear new music. My "New Music" consists of anything released in calendar 2012 or 2011 that I first encountered in 2012.

-I'm still discovering older stuff, so I'm going to have a category of older music I discovered in 2012. This may just showcase my ignorance of things I missed the first time around.

-Reissues are stupid. Publications (ahem, pitchfork) that put reissues in their "best new music" categories are dumb. Sorry, that Miles Davis reissue, or the reissue of the complete works of that one mental patient that you so lovingly refer to as "outsider music"? Not new, and probably not even good.

-All releases are fair game-- EPs, albums, single tracks. In this internet age, I'm seeing a lot more onesy-twosy releases. That being said, I'm a fan of albums, and it will be difficult for me to express preference for one song over a group of 12 or so.


Also, just as a note, now that I'm looking over the candidate albums for best of 2012, the pickings are kindof slim. Part of that is because I'm a self-described fogey and I don't like a lot of new music out there. Part of that also comes from becoming a parent and having different priorities in my life. Truth be told, I haven't heard a ton of new music in the last year.