What Happened To All The Good Music That Was Around When I Was Young?

And the answer is that it's still there, it's just that you're now old.

When you become an 'adult' you start doing other things. You get a career rather than a job. You go to restaurants with your friends rather than clubs. You may even get married. You may even, heaven forbid, have children.

All this cuts into the amount of time you have for searching out new music. The only new stuff you hear is from commercial radio or MTV/Fuse, so you find that there are fewer and fewer good songs by new bands around. The artists you did like are experiencing diminishing returns so one by one they drop off your radar. Then one day you find that you've hit thirty and all you listen to is stuff from your college years. As someone born in 1973, it's amazing how much of my stuff on my iTunes is from 1993-1997.

Fortunately there was Napster, then Audiogalaxy, then Kazaa, then Ares(*), then Internet radio, Yahoo Launchcast, and iTunes.

So the 21st Century has been good for music. You just have to look for it like you used to.

Anjali, Basement Jaxx, Beck, Belle and Sebastian, The Bravery, The Chemical Brothers, Chris Isaak, Coldplay, The Coral, The Dandy Warhols, The Dears, Elbow, Franz Ferdinand, Frausdots, The Futureheads, Gorillaz, The Hives, Ian Brown, Interpol, James, Julie Delpy, Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, The Killers, Kurt Nilsen, Kylie Minogue, Longwave, Loretta Lynn, M.I.A, Massive Attack, New Order, Ours, Outkast, PJ Harvey, Pulp, Radiohead, Richard Ashcroft, Richard Buckner, Rooney, Rufus Wainwright, Scissor Sisters, The Shore, Snow Patrol, The Soundtrack of Our Lives, The Stills, The The, TV on the Radio, U2, Action Action, Azure Ray, Badly Drawn Boy, Beyonce, Bjork, Bloc Party, Blonde Redhead, Blur, Camera Obscura, The Charlatans, Death Cab for Cutie, The Faint, Girls Aloud, Green Day, Gwen Stefani, Hot Hot Heat, Idlewild, Ikara Colt, Jay Z, Jem, Jets to Brazil, Kasabian, Killradio, Modest Mouse, Mos Def, The Music, Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, Noir Desir, Orbital, The Postal Service, Queens of the Stone Age, Razorlight, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Saybia, Simple Minds, The Soledad Brothers, The Streets, The Strokes, Sugarbabes, The Vines, and The White Stripes all have songs from the last five years on my 'heavy rotation' iTunes list.

That's quite a lot really.

(* Don't steal music kids.)

Seeds and Pips

The World Cup phony war has begun now that the last qualifiers have been completed. I've already talked about Football365's England squad ladder and Peaky has started running a 'look at the qualifers aren't they weird' thing. So seeing as the draw is coming soon (December 9th) I decided to try and have a go at predicting it.

Now obviously I can't entirely predict a random draw, but FIFA's draws are never completely random. To start with they try to keep countries from the same continent apart as much as possible in the first round. Secondly, they seed try to keep the host country in the largest stadium, and as far away from any good teams as possible for as long as possible. Thirdly, by seeding the best teams they try to create relatively balanced groups. Although, a "group of death" always seems to turn up, which used to always seem to involve Scotland when they were able to qualify.

So who are the best teams?

FIFA over the last three world cups has decided this by a mixture of results from previous world cups and the FIFA Coca Cola (It's the real thing) World Rankings. If they decide to use this technique for 2006 then the seeds will be.

• Brazil
• Germany
• Italy
• Mexico
• Argentina
• USA
• England
• France

Now I know what some of you are thinking, one of these is not like the others. Yes I know it's a shock to see England up there, but get over it. The second pot will be made up of all the non-seeded European countries. The real dangerous ones are in there. The ones that create the groups of death/doom/despair

• Netherlands
• Spain
• Sweden
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Portugal
• Poland
• Serbia & Montenegro

If you're a seed, you do not want to pick up the Netherlands or Spain.

The third and fourth pots are more problematic. They basically involve everyone else, Asia, Africa, Oceania, the unseeded American teams, and the lowest ranked European teams. One way to split them would be to have the Africans, North Americans, and Australia in one pot, and the rest in another. This would leave the third pot with:

• Costa Rica
• Tunisia
• Cote d'Ivoire
• Trinidad & Tobago
• Ghana
• Australia
• Togo
• Angola

and the final pot with:

• Korea Republic
• Japan
• Paraguay
• Saudi Arabia
• Iran
• Ecuador
• Switzerland
• Ukraine

The draw is almost ready to be made then. The only other thing to remember is that FIFA will avoid putting three European countries in the same group, or North or South Americans with their seeded compatriots.

So anyway. The fifaish randomized draw that I did came out with these groups:

A
Brazil
Portugal
Cote d'Ivoire
Iran

B
England
Netherlands
Costa Rica
Korea Republic

C
USA
Czech Republic
Australia
Saudi Arabia

D
Italy
Poland
Trinidad & Tobago
Ecuador

E
Germany
Spain
Tunisia
Paraguay

F
Argentina
Sweden
Togo
Switzerland

G
France
Serbia & Montenegro
Ghana
Japan

H
Mexico
Croatia
Angola
Ukraine

Freeeeeeee Freeeeefaaaaalin'

According to the that commie leftist rag the Wall Street Journal Online (They don't have the guts to put this in print) President Bush's approval rating stands at 34%. From a high of 88% just after 9/11.

By creating a simple linear regression model it is possible to predict that by the end of Bush's second term in 2004 he will have an approval rating of just less than -8%. I'm not entirely sure what this would entail. My guess is that it would involve everybody hating him, but that 8% of voters would support him in a kind of ironic way. In the same way people watch The Price is Right. Which would further imply that his base of support by 2008 will be college kids, really old people, and the military.

In other news, I have a second internship offer. Yay! Me auction!!

Fox Kills Another Show

Following Firefly and Family Guy it's no surprise that Arrested Development has joined the list of quality shows that Fox has failed to make a success and cancelled. Now it's no surprise that Arrested Development didn't have the best ratings, and it's great that Fox stood by them as long as they did, but this quote from star David Cross really says it all.

"I've got an idea for what you can do, why don't you f**king fire your complete marketing team and get a new one there that knows how to market a show that won five motherf**king emmys, golden globes, SAG awards, WGA awards, DVA awards, Producers Guild Awards, critic's top 10 list; you know if you can't f**king market that kind of show and get better ratings then maybe the problem doesn't lie here maybe it lies with marketing."

Can't argue with that.