In a year where it has become almost de rigueur for artists to screw with the accepted music release model, Paul Westerberg has come up with yet another variation, for his download-only album 49:00, released today on Amazon..

Betcha didn’t even know that Paul Westerberg had anything new coming out, did you? Neither did I, until I happened to see an email from the Man Without Ties web site, alerting me that it was available for download.

It’s called 49:00, and it’s an entire album’s worth of new music for the low low price of 0.49 cents. But, as in all things Westerbergian, there’s a bit of a self-destructive twist.

That entire album’s worth of new music: it’s all contained in a single file. You download one single .mp3, which is 43:55 in length.

Holy crap, Paul Westerberg has gone art-rock!

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I’m stealing this concept from the AV Club, who stole it from Idolator: pick your favorite album for every year you’ve been alive.

Even for someone like me, who’s been obsessively making lists for just about ever, this wasn’t easy. For one thing, I’d never really done it for anything pre-1980, and for another, I was born just a couple of years prior to the British Invasion, which pretty much kicked off what I consider the music that I love.

I decided to use my previous lists as a guide, but if something I thought was aces in 1989 hasn’t really held up, I’ve gone with something else that I still love every time I hear it.

While I was doing this, other things came to mind: my favorite years were 1967, 1980, 1987, 1991 & 1994; years where any of the top 4 or 5 records I love more than the top record from years like 1974, 1990 or 1999 or 2004. Also, apparently, 1962, was the worst year ever for music, because I think that Dylan’s debut is way way way down in his canon.

Most frustrating was a year like 1975, where epochal records like Physical Graffitti or Born to Run — absolute all-time classics which I still love — get edged out when they would have stomped either the year before or the year prior.

That said, as the digital encroachment and reissue dates made the actual year something was released a bit amorphous, I was able to cheat a bit to cover up a weak-ass 2000 and leverage a strong 2001.

And finally, I’ve resisted the temptation to use the U.K. release date (December 1979) of London Calling just to get Boy, or Pretenders — both of which I loved more at the time — not to mention I Just Can’t Stop It or Underwater Moonlight, which have never gotten old, even for a second, on this list.

But, you know, London Calling.

In any event, here is my list:

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“Certain songs,” Craig Finn sang on The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me, “they get scratched into our souls.” That’s the basis of “Certain Songs:” a look at the songs that have done just that. These aren’t necessarily our favorite songs or the songs that we think are the best, but rather songs that — every single time we hear them — instantly transport us back to a place and time in which that song is forever intertwined. This is one of the reasons we so hate the RIAA’s attempted stranglehold on the dissemination of music: you never know where that next certain song is going to come from.

Sometimes the things that totally change your life happen so randomly as to be almost impossible.

Probably usually, actually, which is why you can never think too much about them. In any event, the first great thing to happen to me as an “adult,” was getting involved with KFSR, the Fresno State radio station.

And it happened because Tim made friends with a guy while we were both a Fresno City College.

At the time, Tim and I had only been out of high school for a few months, and we were going to City — or at least I was — because there was really no plan for adulthood besides drinking as much beer and buying as many records and seeing as many concerts as was humanly possible before actual responsibilities started creeping in.

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Quick! What’s the question that is on everyone’s lips right now? You’d think it would be “Who is going to win the 2008 Presidential Election?” or “Are gas prices ever going to go down?” or “Should I buy one of them cheaper iPhones?” or even “What’s up with the Jonas Brothers?”

Nope, the question that is one everyone’s lips right now — again — is “Why is Kanye West such an asshole?”

I think that I have the answer, and it might be not what you think.

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Does playing someone’s music on the radio hurt them or help them? And is it a “form of piracy”?

I’m a lifelong radio listener. Not like I once was, of course, but I still listen, especially during my morning commute. A couple of weeks ago I happened to hear “The Step and The Walk” by The Duke Spirit on Indie 103.1, and fell instantly in love with it. So, is that a good thing or bad thing for The Duke Spirit?

A logical person would say that it’s a good thing for the artist. Right? I’d never heard of them, and now I have.

Of course, as we’ve seen many times before, the Recording Industry is not made up of logical persons. As a matter of fact, not only do they see no benefit in their artists being played on the radio, they want compensation.

Otherwise, “it’s a form of piracy,” and any argument that playing music is a form of promotion is a “red herring.”

Those aren’t my words, but rather the words of a spokesperson for a recording industry umbrella group with the hilarious name of musicFIRST.

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You know what, music fans? You suck. You know how I know that? Because Gene Simmons thinks that you killed the record industry.

Look, when I was your age, a band like KISS would come out with an album, and it would get played on the radio, and then you would ride my bike down to Tower Records and buy the album.

Multiply that action by millions of kids — an army! — and boom! the guys in KISS were zillionaires. Just like that. It was all so simple. It didn’t even matter of those albums were mostly singles and filler, because that’s how the game was played.

And nobody ever played it better than KISS, who were — all things considered — an OK hard rock pop band with a handful of undeniable songs, but not all-time-greats. Not musically.

As marketers, however, they were the best ever. Not even Madonna comes close to the sheer marketing chops that KISS showed from day one. Until, that is, the market changed.

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The whole music industry is abuzz this week because the third album by rapper Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III, is expected to sell a million copies this week, an event that has become all too rare in recent years.

What’s incredibly interesting about this is that according to conventional wisdom, there is no way that this CD should be a hit, a wisdom that perfectly reflected in a headline in today’s New York Times: Despite Leaks Online and File Sharing, Lil Wayne’s New CD Is a Hit.

Despite? Actually, I think it’s the other way around. Because. And that the music industry could learn some things from this.

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You’d think that it would be so easy: as a wink and a nod at the audience for whom he’s performing, Prince does a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” at Coachella, a bunch of cell-phone videos gets put up on YouTube, and everybody marvels — for the eighty zillionth time — at what a versatile mother-fracker Prince is.

And, oh yeah, what a great song “Creep” remains. Sure, it would have been cooler had Prince covered “Karma Police” or “Everything In Its Right Place,” (especially if Prince had changed the opening line to “Yesterday I woke up, you were sucking my lemon”), but, all things considered, “Creep” was good enough, and the whole thing just becomes part of the legend of both artists.

You’d think. But, as it turns out, things are a bit more complicated. Which since it’s Prince and Radiohead, makes a lot of sense, since inherent in the greatness of each artist is more than a touch of madness.

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“Certain songs,” Craig Finn sang on The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me, “they get scratched into our souls.” That’s the basis of our latest feature: a look at the songs that have done just that. These aren’t necessarily our favorite songs or the songs that we think are the best, but rather songs that — every single time we hear them — instantly transport us back to a place and time in which that song is forever intertwined. This is one of the reasons we so hate the RIAA’s attempted stranglehold on the dissemination of music: you never know where that next certain song is going to come from.

It’s around 5:00am on a balmy August morning in 1981, and I’ve not yet been to sleep. I’m in the passenger seat of Larry’s car — a light blue Dodge Colt with a long white CB antenna mounted on the back bumper — and we’re driving back to Fresno from L.A. after a marathon concert by Bruce Springsteen. Tim is asleep in the back, and as we approach Fresno, the sun starts peeking over the Sierra Nevadas.

And the song that’s blaring from the cassette deck: “Ramble Tamble.” I think about this every time I hear that song.

Here’s the other thing: I’m almost positive that this memory is false.

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“Couldn’t pay me to sit through that.”

The haters of American Idol are legion and the above comment came from a friend when I told him I was going to the final performance night. And this is one of the nicer comments I’ve heard regarding A.I., a favorite topic of mine. The show, to recap for those who could possibly be unfamiliar with, was originally conceived and produced by Satan. (Regular ‘lopers already know that Satan also created DRM, cable TV, and Microsoft.) Critics of the show have noted that this blight on the rich tapestry of human accomplishment—following thousands of years of progress in the arts and technology—is surely proof of the impending apocalypse. That this over-hyped, overplayed and played out excuse for reality television is still being massaged into the network lineup year after year by the evil overlords at Fox is proof that the dumbed-down masses, who get product placement so blatant as to be shameless shoved willingly in their faces, are also in league with Satan. How else can you explain why 25 million Americans fawn over these wannabe singers, these “pitchy” middle-of-the-road hacks seeking quick fame and fortune?

Easy.
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