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A Flat Hierarchy for Subjective mp3 Tags

I've always been anal about the way my mp3s are tagged. Before the iPod, Audioscrobbler, and foobar2000, it was an irrational obsession, since I keep my music well-sorted on my hard drive. But there's something so "official" about mp3 tags that I find appealing.

A few years ago this fixation extended to a program called MoodLogic, which applies a user-maintained database of really specific information about songs to construct playlists to match particular moods. In the end it proved more work than it was worth for me, so I abandoned it, but I've always wished for a similarly intuitive method of music browsing and playlist creation (come on, alphabetically?).

The genre tag has always been the most elusive. The subjective if not totally baseless distinctions between "Pop/Rock," "Rock," and "Pop" are enough to aggravate even the mildest case of OCD. I never bothered with this kind of categorization until recently when I realized that foobar2000 can handle multiple values for one tag field. Interesting...

allmusic does a pretty decent job of providing many (sometimes too many) adjectives it calls "styles," "moods," and "themes" for artists and individual albums. These adjectives can be semi-automatically added to mp3s on a per-album basis with tagging program The GodFather and a special patch. The tag fields "styles," "tones," and "situation" are created and the values are separated by commas. Using foobar2000's masstagger to split the fields and Columns UI's Albumlist Panel to sort your collection by these fields, you can produce something like this:

Here my music is sorted by tones, which is a much more natural way to find what I'm really in the mood to hear. Some of the tones allmusic assigns can be ambiguous or even useless (what does "crunchy" mean and why does it only apply to White Light/White Heat?), but the benefit of this system is that every album contains multiple values in its tones tags, and so White Light/White Heat can also be found under "Brittle," "Confrontational," "Harsh," "Cerebral," "Ominous," "Fiery," "Intense"...only to name a few. But if you focus on browsing only the tones with a medium degree of popularity, you'll find what you really want to hear much faster. And you'll find yourself listening to way more of the second half of the alphabet than you have been.

I didn't know it as I was applying this system to my foobar2000 config, but it's an example of what's called flat hierarchy. I can't explain it better than this post on beelerspace, which is a pretty wonderful blog in general.

Now here's the really exciting part. There is also a database search component for foobar2000 that features a "search for same" option. For instance, it allows you to right-click on a song in your playlist and generate a new playlist of all tracks in your database with the same artist, album, year, etc. So imagine this: it's Sunday afternoon and you'd like to make up a playlist, but you're not sure what you want on it. You do know that you want to hear White Light/White Heat, so you load that album, right-click on one of the tracks and generate a playlist with matching values in the tones tag. Now you have a playlist with tons of stuff that sounds like White Light/White Heat!

Unfortunately it's not that simple. Currently the database search component only allows you to match one value or all values in your search. Because White Light/White Heat has 21 tones values, matching just one of those tones is pretty easy; in my collection that search returns 1,895 tracks. Matching all 21 tones, on the other hand, narrows the search all the way down to just this album. In the future the database search might have the capability to match a user-specified number of values, in which case matching three or four tones might return a comfortable ten or fifteen similar albums. When that happens, you won't be able to justify not using foobar2000 much longer.

Alden Penner 7" arrives

With crayons, as promised.


The sleeve is an inverted sleeve of some other 7".

The back contains instructions for coloring the front: red lava, green volcano, blue sky.

$61.48

Five factory sealed and one from Mars. Thanks to Used Kids Records, Magnolia Thunderpussy, and Johnny Go's House O' Music, all on High Street in Columbus, OH. Demoted CDs soon to appear on eBay. The bike is not resting on Aeroplane.

The Unicorns Diffuse

UPDATE, APRIL 12: Added mp3

Late, late, late last night I learned that Alden Ginger recently released his own 7" under the moniker Alden Penner. The A-side is brand new, recorded on some leg of The Unicorns' epic 2004 tour, and the B-side is old favorite "We are fighting the demons of Côte St-Paul" (mp3, 3.34MB), originally released by Alden via New Music Canada, presented here as "L'Espair." Read this hilarious review on Cokemachineglow.com, then order the single from the link at the bottom of the page; it's $15 US (including shipping), comes with a box of crayons, and is limited to 100 pressings.

If for some reason you care what Nick and J'aime are up to, read this article. mp3s of "Th' Corn Gangg"-curated shows become more readily available on SoulSeek every minute.

Be sure to visit The Secret Unic-c-corns Forum while you're at it, the not-so-underground replacement for the official site, which has met the fate ordained for all things Unicorn: a sudden and mysterious death.

Vinyl

In reading about iTunes and why it's a disease, I was reminded that mp3 compression is an abomination of sound quality. Inspired, and looking for a place to get tickets for The Grog Shop's Minus Story show, I bought Destroyer's This Night on CD at Music Saves, a tiny and tidy little record store next to The Beachland Ballroom (15801 Waterloo Rd., (216) 481-1875). Small as it is, their vinyl selection includes The Unicorns and Panda Bear, which is enough to suggest how perfectly suited they are for me. How it took me so long to hear about this place is a mystery.

Arriving home I wanted to experience my new favorite album in its intended fidelity, but that proved impossible with a generic laptop soundcard and a $25 pair of Sony headphones. I quickly decided I needed a real CD player and better headphones, before realizing that I was overlooking a huge disparity, asking myself, "Why did I buy this CD?" Well, to support Dan Bejar, to possess the album's elegant artwork in physical form, and for the pristine, shiny, reflective transcription of sound. "And how will I use the CD?" Well, I'll shelve it...sometimes it'll be in my car I guess, playing out of broken speakers...it's already on my iPod at 160kbps, but I guess I might rip it if someone needs it...and if I'm really in the mood, yeah, I'll pull out my CD player and my new headphones if I ever get any.

All these reasons point to buying vinyl. CDs are only superior in terms of portability, but mp3s make them laughable on that front. Records are usually only a few dollars more than CDs and are offered by most labels on their website. The album art is larger and, if properly cared for, the sound quality is better. Not to mention the obvious psychological advantages. And this makes you wonder more...

Why don't they include CDs with vinyl? The discs themselves can't cost more than a dollar to make. At the very least, how about a password to download high-bitrate mp3s for burning or iPodding?

Even without these conveniences, I can't think of many reasons to spend money on CDs again. They now occupy this awkward middle ground that cassettes did when CDs were introduced. So while in Chicago this weekend, I picked up Destroyer's City of Daughters, Notorious Lightning and Other Works, and Mogwai's Government Commissions (2xLP), all for $36 at Reckless Records, the single best place for new vinyl I've ever been (the latter two records being displayed on the wall alongside Silver Mt. Zion, M. Ward, Dead Meadow, Black Dice, Six Organs of Admittance, etc., etc.). On Broadway near Belmont. Highly recommended.

And if I haven't convinced you to join me in turning a CD collection into a record collection, reading The Vinyl Anachronist at Perfect Sound Forever will.

Hunting Unicorns

Did you think the Unicorns saga could possibly continue? Neither did I. But thanks to the always-amazing Internet Archive, I discovered that Alden Ginger's New Music Canada site (which is also defunct) was once the All Makes Parts & Collision site. I know, I thought they were on ZeBOX too. Anyway, in addition to conclusively settling the ampersand as the proper conjunction, the site reveals some brand new song titles, including "id didnt know" and "Let's Get Strong." Chances are I already have these, but I'm anxious to apply the titles to two of the five still untitled AMP&C songs I have. But when the songs have been pulled from NMC and there are no track durations listed, what do you do? You're forced to email the given address. This isn't The Unicorns' address, so it's either sitting idly, going unchecked, or it will actually allow me to reach Alden Ginger.

Now, emailing someone whose blisteringly accelerated fame in 2004 led to the rumored break-up of his band is kind of a delicate issue, especially when you're emailing him about some very, very rare bootlegs that he probably doesn't want you to have. You have to be polite, to demonstrate that you are a true fan, to be non-obsessive, but to get your foot in the door for either (a) track durations or (b) actual mp3s. Neither of these outcomes are remotely likely. Still, I had to try:

Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:16:09 -0500
Subject: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

hey, am i writing an email to alden ginger? if so, i love all your stuff, the unicorns stuff, and i really love your solo stuff too. that song "soon" that was hosted on new music canada is really brilliant and beautiful i think, i put that on mix cds all the time. anyway i got this email address from an old amp&c site on new music canada, so i thought i'd send a note. what's up with those songs on there, "id didn't know," "oh leopold," and "let's get strong"? i'd be really interested to hear those, are you gonna host them somewhere else ever?

anyway thanks tons and tons for all the music you've made. keep sweet.

-jay

I should note that "Zzzz" is the name of one of The Unicorns' side-projects, and that "keep sweet" is the signature frequently used by The Unicorns themselves in forums and on t-shirts.

The site also lists a mailing address for "Pony Expert," AMP&C's purported label, so of course a formal letter is in order:

March 3, 2005

Pony Expert
3872 Barclay Rd
Campbell River, BC
CANADA

Dear Pony Expert,

I would like information about the band All Makes Parts & Collision, including how I may purchase some of their records.

Thank you,
Justin

Awaiting replies.

All these sparse and fleeting Unicorns gems are really motivating me to do some careful archiving of my own.