Dynamic Meter: iPod

Monday, April 28, 2008

My New 3G iPod Nano

Well, on Saturday I bought my new 8GB iPod 3G Nano. It is not quite the same as attending Coachella, but what's a guy to do. I saved up money from my articles in the Tompkins Weekly. And man, what a cool new iPod this is. It's the replacement for my 4GB 1G Nano that I have had for several years. In planning this purchase I really had trouble for a while deciding whether or not to spend a bit more for the 80GB Ipod Classic. It has huge storage for sure, but I wasn't convinced by having a hard drive based iPod. The Nano's flash drive is faster and less susceptible to bumps. Also, the Nano is so cool looking and small. I really love the new design. As far as capacity goes, I felt like I could utilize playlists in iTunes to manage all of my music. I have in fact been doing this for a while with my old iPod, so it is pretty natural to me now.

The other major item to think about was the color. Wow, so many choices: green, blue, pink, red, silver, and black. What to do? It was my wife who really helped me decide. (And I must interject that ever since I insisted that the color we were painting our living room ceiling was going to be this great red—and it came out as bordello pink—I have relied on her for color advice. Needless to say we repainted the ceiling and I am now officially banned from choosing paint colors.) This is why I went with the black—simple and timeless.

Shuffling back to Beth Orton

One of the truly great things about an iPod is shuffling. For those of us with large music collections, it can be difficult to revisit our back catalogs. There is, after all, always something new to listen to. But iPod shuffling can help.

Such was the case as I rode the bus home from work the other night. Beth Orton’s song, “Live as you Dream” cycled on and I thought, “Beth Orton, I’ve missed you.” I hadn’t listed to her in a really long time. So off with shuffle, and on with Beth.

There are a lot of things that I like about Beth Orton’s music. She has such a great voice. It truly works with the words she writes. The imagery in her songs is really evocative.

Also, when she collaborates, she picks amazing people to work with. She has co-written with Johnny Marr (Concrete Sky), Ben Watt (Ali’s Waltz) for example. And the musicians she has recorded with Include Ben Harper, Dr. John, and Ryan Adams. She, of course, got her start by working with William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers.

So in honor of my shuffling back to Beth Orton and the fact that she should have a new record out this year, here are some great things of hers to check out.

Here is an interview and performance from KCRW from 1997.

A performance on Jools Holland with Terry Callier.