Saturday, February 28, 2004
Baseball Line-ups and Album Tracks
Your typical lead-off batter is never a power hitter; his purpose is to get on base even if he never hits anything more than a single. Ideally, he'll be speedy so that you have a base-stealing threat to distract the pitcher. You want conistency from your second batter, and he definitely needs to be able to bunt. However, in the event that you get either or both of those guys on base, you want your # 3 and 4 batters to be power hitters such that you increase the likelihood of scoring the most runs possible.
With many albums, it seems that there's a correspondence between the first track and your leadoff batter only in the sense that, of your total collection of tracks and batters, the first is likely to be solid but not out of this world. But if your goal is to get the listener hooked in for the rest of the album, then it's surprising that so many opening tracks are quite slow and lack memorable hooks. (Hip-hop herbs, take note. The vast majority of "skits" are wack and are like having Gilbert Godfrey singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in between every inning.) I think there's a closer correlation between track-listing and lineups when you look in the range of the # 3-5 spots. In most cases you've got your best batters and songs there. Clearly, structuring the arc of an album might be more complex based on whatever story the artist is telling or statement making. (For example, one of my favorite tracks on Hail to the Thief, Myxomatosis, comes in the lowly spot of #12.)
Ask yourself when, even on your favorite albums, you genuinely like the last two or three tracks. In baseball, the lack of batting prowess might be outweighed by the pitcher/catcher's utility on defense, but what's to be said of those weak tracks on the album? "Filler" can't play defense.
Your typical lead-off batter is never a power hitter; his purpose is to get on base even if he never hits anything more than a single. Ideally, he'll be speedy so that you have a base-stealing threat to distract the pitcher. You want conistency from your second batter, and he definitely needs to be able to bunt. However, in the event that you get either or both of those guys on base, you want your # 3 and 4 batters to be power hitters such that you increase the likelihood of scoring the most runs possible.
With many albums, it seems that there's a correspondence between the first track and your leadoff batter only in the sense that, of your total collection of tracks and batters, the first is likely to be solid but not out of this world. But if your goal is to get the listener hooked in for the rest of the album, then it's surprising that so many opening tracks are quite slow and lack memorable hooks. (Hip-hop herbs, take note. The vast majority of "skits" are wack and are like having Gilbert Godfrey singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in between every inning.) I think there's a closer correlation between track-listing and lineups when you look in the range of the # 3-5 spots. In most cases you've got your best batters and songs there. Clearly, structuring the arc of an album might be more complex based on whatever story the artist is telling or statement making. (For example, one of my favorite tracks on Hail to the Thief, Myxomatosis, comes in the lowly spot of #12.)
Ask yourself when, even on your favorite albums, you genuinely like the last two or three tracks. In baseball, the lack of batting prowess might be outweighed by the pitcher/catcher's utility on defense, but what's to be said of those weak tracks on the album? "Filler" can't play defense.
Friday, February 27, 2004
Nick Lowe
I'm listening to the convincer at the moment, which has some real doozies on it. I can certainly see the connection between him and Costello. Lyrics don't get much better.
I particularly enjoy "lately I've let things slide" and how he uses rhyming triplets to convey being stuck in a rut:
"smoking I once quit
now I've got one lit
I just fell back into it
along with my pride
lately I've let things slide."
I'm listening to the convincer at the moment, which has some real doozies on it. I can certainly see the connection between him and Costello. Lyrics don't get much better.
I particularly enjoy "lately I've let things slide" and how he uses rhyming triplets to convey being stuck in a rut:
"smoking I once quit
now I've got one lit
I just fell back into it
along with my pride
lately I've let things slide."
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Sir Zing-a-Lot
Say what you will about Antonin, the guy can write. I enjoyed the closing to his dissent in Locke v. Davey, the recently decided case in which the Supreme Court held that Washington state could exclude divinity majors from its scholarship program without violating the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Scalia writes,
Today’s holding is limited to training the clergy, but its
logic is readily extendible, and there are plenty of directions
to go. What next? Will we deny priests and nuns
their prescription-drug benefits on the ground that taxpayers’ freedom of conscience forbids medicating the clergy
at public expense? This may seem fanciful, but recall that
France has proposed banning religious attire from schools,
invoking interests in secularism no less benign than those the Court embraces today. When the public’s freedom of conscience
is invoked to justify denial of equal treatment,
benevolent motives shade into indifference and ultimately
into repression. Having accepted the justification in this
case, the Court is less well equipped to fend it off in the
future.
Say what you will about Antonin, the guy can write. I enjoyed the closing to his dissent in Locke v. Davey, the recently decided case in which the Supreme Court held that Washington state could exclude divinity majors from its scholarship program without violating the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Scalia writes,
Today’s holding is limited to training the clergy, but its
logic is readily extendible, and there are plenty of directions
to go. What next? Will we deny priests and nuns
their prescription-drug benefits on the ground that taxpayers’ freedom of conscience forbids medicating the clergy
at public expense? This may seem fanciful, but recall that
France has proposed banning religious attire from schools,
invoking interests in secularism no less benign than those the Court embraces today. When the public’s freedom of conscience
is invoked to justify denial of equal treatment,
benevolent motives shade into indifference and ultimately
into repression. Having accepted the justification in this
case, the Court is less well equipped to fend it off in the
future.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Monday, February 23, 2004
Classified of the Day
This guy's pushing the envelope. Further to my previous Metro arbitrage post, I should clarify that that post did not convey the difference between the marginal RATE of tax and the average tax rate. That is, if you're in the 28% tax bracket, you do not pay 28% of all of your income-- only that portion between $22,100 and $53,500 (if you're single). This further underscores just how much this guy is pushing the envelope by seeking a 50% discount on Metro tickets.
This guy's pushing the envelope. Further to my previous Metro arbitrage post, I should clarify that that post did not convey the difference between the marginal RATE of tax and the average tax rate. That is, if you're in the 28% tax bracket, you do not pay 28% of all of your income-- only that portion between $22,100 and $53,500 (if you're single). This further underscores just how much this guy is pushing the envelope by seeking a 50% discount on Metro tickets.
Sunday, February 22, 2004
