Andrew Zarick

Top 25 Songs of 2011?

I can’t take credit for this list. As a matter of fact, I don’t know most of these. However, they are pretty cool.

1. College “A Real Hero (feat. Electric Youth)” – YouTube
From “The Drive” soundtrack, this infectious gem of 80′s synth-pop revivalism is loaded with super cheesy lyrics (“you’re a real hero, a real human being”) but a production style that recalls early Soft Cell or Human League. The rest of the soundtrack is just as good but this track shines through.
2. Mitzi “Morning Light” – YouTube
Thanks to Garth Trinidad for playing this late one night on KCRW while I was driving home. I know nothing about this band but love this organic disco groove and cute boy/girl vocals.
3. Com Truise “Ether Drift” – YouTube
Just when you thought electronic music has been decimated by dubstep, along comes this melodic IDM track that recalls the melancholy work of Boards Of Canada or Casino Vs. Japan. A delightful instrumental jam, perfect for headphones.
4. Theophilus London “I Stand Alone” – YouTube
“The journey starts beneath the stars…” If you have opened a magazine or turned on your computer this year, you’ve heard about this emerging artist. Believe the hype and get this record.
5. Shugo Tokumaru “Rum Hee” – YouTube
This Japanese, twee track has it all: bells, acoustic guitars, pop sensibilities, repeating “doo doos.” Nothing has been this perfect for an iPod ad since Feist.
6. Paul Simon “So Beautiful Or So What” – YouTube
Every once in a while, these old-timers come along and teach us a thing or two about great tunes (see David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “Strange Overtone”) – put this on and then delete your Vampire Weekend tracks. Never been so excited to hear a gumbo recipe.
7. Acrylics “Molly’s Vertigo” – YouTube
A delightful slice of psychedelic AM radio indie pop from one of my favorite un-sung labels, Friendly Fire Recordings. Classy and smooth.
8. The Weeknd “House Of Balloons – Glass Table Girls” – YouTube
You don’t need me to tell you about this new artist but I gotta be honest, I have never heard R&B with such gothic tendencies – this might be the single most unique blending of music from 2011. And yes, that is a Siouxsie sample. All their music is available here for free download at their website.
9. Metronomy “She Wants” – YouTube
Simply a terrific, smooth indie jam with flanged out bass and Cure-ish tendencies. ‘Nuff said.
10. Yuck “Get Away” – YouTube
Remember Superchunk, Versus, Archers Of Loaf, Seam, Sebadoh, etc.? So do Yuck and they serve up a great piece of 90′s indie rock nostalgia.
11. Washed Out “Amor Fati” – YouTube
Exceptionally sublime.
12. Gotye “Somebody That I Used To Know (featuring Kimbra)” – YouTube
Sting hasn’t put out anything worth listening to in decades (we can all argue over whether anything after Soul Cages was worth our time but I digress…) – so Gotye can fill in the void. Excellent track with a marimba melody that will never leave your head.
13. Wugazi “Shame On Blue” – YouTube
Let me be clear, I hate mashups. When I first heard “bootlegs” like The Strokes & Christina Aguilera I thought “huh…that’s funny but why would anyone want to listen to this?” Well, this merging of Fugazi with The Wu Tang Clan works – something about hearing ODB with Guy Picciotto actually feels natural – like if The Judgement Night soundtrack was still listenable. You can download the entire record here.
14. La Vida Boheme “El Zar” – YouTube
Venezualuan post-punk revivalist indie rock – no idea how I got this but to whoever sent it to me “thanks!” Beginning makes you feel like you are about to hear YYY’s “Maps” in a whole new light but it ends up sounding more like The Killers than I’d care to admit.
15. Me’Shell Ndegéocello “Dirty World” – YouTube
Sultry, sexy, dark, dirty. Perfect.
16. The Separate “Close to Me with Mark Lanegan (The Cure Cover)”
An orchestral covers album. This is the stand-out track. For some reason, I can’t find any info or links on it.
17. James Blake “The Willhelm Scream” – YouTube
Call it what you want (most people call it dubstep) but this track is soulful and unique, reminds me more of Plaid or Jamie Lidell.
18. SBTRKT “Hold On” – YouTube
Dear Music Industry – More Of Stuff Like This Please!
19. AM & Shawn Lee “Somebody Like You” – YouTube
I really dig AM so was eager to check out this collaboration with Shawn Lee. Shawn Lee, incidentally, is not a snowboarder. That’s Shawn White. Thought that would also be an amazing collaboration.
20. Jamie Woon “Lady Luck” – YouTube
More soulful electronic music – guess that was a trend this year and on this list.
21. Ford & Lopatin “Emergency Room” – YouTube
One of the guys from Tigercity works with another fella to make this fine synth pop blend.
22. Dirty Vegas “Little White Doves” – YouTube
Ok, I admit that when this CD showed up I ignored it. Having never been a fan of this Mitsubishi-branded act, I was totally blown away by this track. This is what New Order’s last album should have sounded like.
23. The Antlers “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out” – YouTube
This feels like post-apocalyptic indie rock – so bleek and yet hummable, memorable and loveable. Plus, that drummer is one handsome fella.
24. Lana Del Rey “Video Games” – YouTube
As contrived and controversial as it is, I cannot hide the fact that I love this song.
25. Britney Spears “Til The World Ends” – YouTube
The ultimate guilty pleasure, I cannot deny that I really dug this track. Amazing was contemporary production can do. Team Britney!

MGK FT. WAKA FLOCKA - WILD BOY

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Music Platforms

It’s interesting how people adopt platforms that aren’t built for sharing music, for sharing music - Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, Twitter. Yet, any service that is built for sharing music never reaches the tipping point either due to UI, lack of marketing, or legal troubles. One day soon, a new Napster will emerge.

Nas to Def Jam

“In a nut shell he has an album titled ‘Lost Tapes 2’ that his fans have been dying to have since his first one came out in 2005. They seem to not understand the cultural impact the first one had. The album is done and now they are saying he can put it out but it won’t count on his deal and they won’t pay for it but still want all the benefits of a new nas album.”

And here it is:

From: Nas
To: LA Reid, Steve Bartels, Steve Gawley, Michael Seltzer, Joseph Borrino, Chris Hicks
Subject: PUT MY SHIT OUT!

Peace to all,

With all do respect to you all, Nas is NOBODY’s slave. This is not the 1800’s, respect me and I will respect you.

I won’t even tap dance around in an email, I will get right into it. People connect to the Artist @ the end of the day, they don’t connect with the executives. Honestly, nobody even cares what label puts out a great record, they care about who recorded it. Yet time and time again its the executives who always stand in the way of a creative artist’s dream and aspirations. You don’t help draw the truth from my deepest and most inner soul, you don’t even do a great job @ selling it. The #1 problem with DEF JAM is pretty simple and obvious, the executives think they are the stars. You aren’t…. not even close. As a matter of fact, you wish you were, but it didn’t work out so you took a desk job. To the consumer, I COME FIRST. Stop trying to deprive them! I have a fan base that dies for my music and a RAP label that doesn’t understand RAP. Pretty fucked up situation

This isn’t the 90’s though. Beefing with record labels is so 15 years ago. @ this point I just need you all to be very clear where I stand and how I feel about “my label.” I could go on twitter or hot 97 tomorrow and get 100,000 protesters @ your building but I choose to walk my own path my own way because since day one I have been my own man. I did business with Tommy Mottola and Donnie Einer, two of the most psycho dudes this business ever created. I worked well with them for one major reason……. they believed in me. The didn’t give a fuck about what any radio station or magazine said….those dudes had me.

Lost Tapes is a movement and a very important set up piece for my career as it stands. I started this over 5 years ago @ Columbia and nobody knew what it was or what it did but the label put it out as an LP and the fans went crazy for it and I single handlely built a new brand of rap albums. It’s smart and after 5 years it’s still a head of the game. This feels great and you not feeling what I’m feeling is disturbing. Don’t get in the way of my creativity. We are aligned with the stars here, this is a movement. There is a thing called KARMA that comes to haunt you when you tamper with the aligning stars. WE ARE GIVING THE PEOPLE EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT. Stop throwing dog shit on a MAGICAL moment.

You don’t get another Nas recording that doesn’t count against my deal….PERIOD! Keep your bullshit $200,000.00 fund. Open the REAL budget. This is a New York pioneers ALBUM, there ain’t many of us. I am ready to drop in the 4th quarter. You don’t even have shit coming out! Stop being your own worst enemy. Let’s get money!

-N.Jones

Why Digital DUMBO matters

DUMBO is a neighborhood in Brooklyn - the word stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. As written by our friend Hide at DUMBOnyc.com, “In 1978, the naming of Dumbo was conceived by resident artists as a way to make the area sound silly and unattractive to people looking to buy real estate here.” For a more complete history of DUMBO read on here and here.

DUMBO use to be most famous for producing cardboard boxes and Brillo soap pads but now the area is perhaps most famous for its innovation in digital media and technology.

In December of 2008 Kristin Maverick (AttentionPR, Ex-Carrot Creative), Maury Postal (Carrot Creative) and myself (The JAR Group) were attending the First Thursday’s gallery walk in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. I was lucky enough to have recently met Kristin through Soccer 2.0 - the soccer team organized via the NextNY mailing list. That night, we had no intentions of founding a meetup but we found ourselves expressing the same desire to have a social event where on a regular basis the digital thought leaders of the neighborhood could come together to meet, share ideas, and build stronger relationships.

We knew the neighborhood had a vibrant tech scene, but for the most part that tech scene was somewhat underground except for a few occasional events from Drop.io, HUGE and Outside.in (Yes, these companies are in DUMBO!).

We decided to take the initiative and Digital DUMBO was born.

Collectively, Kristin and I built a list of initial contacts to notify and announce the first event to be held the last Thursday of January, 2009 (Chrysanthe Tenentes of Outside.in should not go without mention either!). As I recall, the first list we built only included about 30 people.

We secured space at ReBar, EventBrite was setup, emails were sent out and we waited. We thought maybe 50 people would show up…

January 29th rolled around and Kristin and I waited in the side room of ReBar for guests to arrive. A few people strolled in…and then, after an hour, the room was absolutely packed. Around 120 people showed up to the first event! We were absolutely stoked.

Fast forward to today, 10 events later. We now have a mailing list of over 800 names and a continuously growing crowd - a crowd of people who are genuinely excited to attend when they can. Some people every month, others every 3 months - but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they are excited to be there and glad to be amongst like-minded individuals. To be honest, sometimes I like being at Digital DUMBO more than I like hanging out with my own friends! My friends have no idea what I do for a living, but you do and you care.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times people have come up to me to tell me how much they enjoy Digital DUMBO because the people are “non-pretentious.”

For a group of innovators who are creating some of the most cutting edge interactive media, technology, and marketing companies to be described as non-pretentious is a huge compliment. It’s something to truly be proud of and a testament to what you all have helped Digital DUMBO become.

You represent the following companies (and more):

Agencies:

HUGE (JetBlue, IKEA, CNN, NutriSystem)

HUSH (Sony Ericsson, Cheerios, Hyundai)

BigSpaceship (AMC, Miramax, Paramount Pictures, Coca-cola)

Special Ops Media (Nokia, 1800 Tequila, Reyka Vodka)

Carrot Creative (NFL, Crayola, The Onion, Unilever, Dave Matthews Band)

The JAR Group (MTV, Unilever, Time Inc, TuneCore)

Domani Studios (Sears, Gucci, NASCAR)

Space150 (Starz, Toro, Dairy Queen, Target, Best Buy)

Purple, Rock, Scissors (First National Bank, TruTV)

Freedom+Partners (Comedy Central, Volkswagon, Toyota, Adobe)

Brooklyn Digital Foundry (Gucci, HUGO Boss, Viraline, Steiner Studios, Guggenheim)

Web Services:

TuneCore: TuneCore is a music delivery and distribution service that gets music you created (even cover versions) up for sale on iTunes, AmazonMP3, Rhapsody, Napster, etc., without asking for your rights or taking any money from the sale or use of your music.

Drop.io: Drop.io is an easy to use, online collaboration and file sharing service that provides users with a simple, real time and private way to chat and share images, video, audio, documents and other digital content through unique, user-created and controlled sharing points called ‘drops.’

Outside.in: Outside.in is the best place to discover news happening around you. We make it easy to find stories, events, and local discussions happening in your neighborhood, within your city, or even on your block. Thousands of sources—including local bloggers, newspapers, events databases, and even Twitter tweets—help you keep up with everything happening in your backyard.

Etsy: Etsy enables people to make a living making things, and connects the makers with the buyers.

FanFeedr: FanFeedr are a real-time personalized sports feed.

Sawhorse Media: Sawhorse Media builds Twitter-centric web properties, tools and also hosts the Shorty Awards

The Universal Record Database: URDB believes every person on earth has potential to be the world’s best ‘something’. URDB’s mission is to become the database where all such achievements will live.

Waterfront Media: Waterfront Media is the largest privately held online health company and operates The Everyday Health Network, which attracts over 25 million unique users per month across 24 sites.

Not to mention all of our Manhattan friends that come every month as well! We love you too, but I would be here all day if I wrote you up!

Digital DUMBO matters because it’s a platform; it’s an API. Leverage the API that together we have created to collaborate, innovate, and educate to ultimately build a stronger economic fabric so that we can sustain the recent success that we’ve seen in the NYC tech community.

In the week of thanks, I’m thankful to all of you that continue to support Digital DUMBO.

Special thanks goes to Kelly Samardak of Just an Online Minute (MediaPost) and Matt Caldecutt of Paint the Town Red who write about us every month as well as Kaitlin Villanova from the Carrot Creative team who has done a tremendous job in spearheading organizational efforts since Kristin Maverick’s departure!

Last but not least, all of the companies that have sponsored past events with interesting and engaging presentations (and free booze)!

Good Navigation vs Bad Navigation

This is what happens when you improve your navigation and give people more of what they want!

Pageviews Increase

Time on Site Increases

Bounce Rate Decreases

Use paginated blog navigation, not next and previous! Also add more relevant navigation to your sidebar if analytics is informing you that people are arriving to your site and not finding what they want! Or even better, create new content for them.

How to link to the iTunes Store

I’m sure this might be common sense to some, but I’m sure there are others that might need a bit of help in doing this. So here is a quick guide to linking to any product within the iTunes store whether it be an app, music or video. You can then place the hyperlink on your website and it will launch the iTunes store automatically when a user clicks the link.

There are two ways to do this.

1) You can still right-click in some areas of iTunes but it’s not as straight-forward as it use to be. You have to right-click on the product title and select “copy link.”

2) You can use the iTunes Link Maker tool. This is dead simple.

Why do I care about this? Well, that’s an experiment that I might disclose later. Regardless, I hope this helps a few people.