3.1.12
Before time expired on February's Amazon $5 MP3 album deals, I pulled the trigger on White Rabbits' It's Frightening, but I couldn't quite bring myself to get Tennis' Cape Dory. I'm hoping this month's offerings will be a little more exciting, as I'm still searching for some new music I can fall in love with.

3.2.12
Even though it feels like an eternity since I've had new music to listen to, this really hasn't been that bad a year historically. I've only bought four new records so far this year, but at this point in 2008, I had only purchased three new records; in 2009, two; and in 2010, five. 2011 is the obvious outlier with thirteen, and maybe that's the real issue——there was such a bonanza last year at this time that I set my unconscious expectations too high this year. Moreover, several of the records released during this time last year ended up on my year-end best-of list, whereas this year, only Sleigh Bells' Reign of Terror has a chance to be in my top 10 (or however many I decide to list this year).

3.5.12
For the past couple of months, I've heard New Order's "The Beach" whenever I would dip into my best of the 80s playlist for more than a few songs, but there was something about it that was driving me crazy: it was much longer than I remembered, had fewer lyrics, and was more like a remix.

I was trying desperately to find the version of the song that I was familiar with to no avail, until I went back through and listened to the whole album that "The Beach" is on, Power, Corruption & Lies. And that's when I figured out what everyone who is reading this who is a New Order fan has known sincd they finished the first paragraph: "The Beach" is an extended version of "Blue Monday", one of the band's best-known tracks. So apparently I am getting stupider as I get older.

3.6.12
I am inexplicably in the midst of a serious Rage Against the Machine streak. Not sure what brought that on, but I'm going to ride it out.

3.7.12
I'm still deciding about most of the rest of the songs on the Magnetic Fields' new album, Love at the Bottom of the Sea, but "Andrew in Drag" is already one of my favorites in their entire career.

First impressions: I'm half in love with it just by looking at the tracklisting simply because there's not a track over three minutes, and I'd say the average time is closer to 2:20 per song. And although I've grown more accustomed to longtime collaborator Claudia Gonson's voice over the years, it seems like she has lead vocals on an awful lot of songs on this record.

3.8.12
White Rabbits' It's Frightening sounds awful Spoon-y compared to their debut, which I guess makes sense when you consider that it was produced by Spoon frontman Britt Daniel. I like Spoon a lot, but their sound is so minimalistic that I'm not sure we need a copycat, and I kind of like the direction that White Rabbits were in headed in on their debut anyway——paring back their sound further doesn't seem to have improved their songs, and it certainly doesn't help make them more distinctive.

I'll have to take a hard listen to their just-released Milk Famous, which was produced by a man who has produced two of Spoon's records, before I decide whether it's worth buying too. I can't imagine, given the producer, that it steers the band in a new direction——if anything, it seems like they are purposely trying to emulate Spoon now and it will be more of the same of what they were trying to do on It's Frightening.

3.9.12
Clinic is one of those bands that you really only need to own one album from, and it can be pretty much any of their records. They have a pretty unique sound, but they're remarkably consistent, and it's pretty hard to be able to instantly tell from which period in their decade plus career a song fragment (or sometimes even an entire song) might be from). They're even consistent in their release schedule, reliably releasing a record every two years starting in 2000 (except for 2007's Visitations, which came a year off schedule——however, they got back on track by releasing another album in 2008).

I guess that means they're due for an album this year, although I haven't heard anything about it and I wouldn't know where to begin to look for news about the band. But even though I'm reasonably certain at this point that there won't be any new direction for the band that will compel me to buy it if there is actually going to be a new release from them this year, I'm sure I'll end up buying it just like I have everything since 2000's Internal Wrangler.

3.12.12
Also: when are we going to get a new full length from Modest Mouse? I haven't truly loved one of their albums since 2000's The Moon and Antarctica, but their last EP, No One's First, and You're Next, I liked a lot, and I really hoped it was building momentum for a new record that I could fall in love with.

But that was in 2009 with virtually no news since then (although I seem to recall a news item about them spending time in the studio with Big Boi of all people), and their last proper album was in 2007. Five years is far and away the longest gap between album releases in the band's history, and it's almost unthinkable when you consider their ridiculous output in the second half of the 90s.

At this point, though, I just hope it doesn't stretch into a sixth year——does a band that built its fan base on constant touring and regular new releases even count as the same band if they take more than half a decade off?

3.13.12
So far this year I've hesitated on tickets to of Montreal, Magnetic Fields, and Radiohead, mostly for scheduling reasons. But I am not missing Spiritualized, especially not in a club setting, and especially not when the lead single from their upcoming record is so phenomenal. They've never equaled Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, but I bet they make a holy racket live, and if they focus on their best material, it will be worth going to concert in the middle of the workweek.

3.19.12
I'm scheduled to get the new Shins, Port of Morrow, today, a day earlier than its official release thanks to my Amazon preorder and my proximity to one of their major east coast distribution centers. Before I signed up for iTunes Match, I really liked getting albums a day early, but now it kind of annoys me, because instead of matching and getting the high quality tracks from the cloud (and the accompanying artwork), I instead end up uploading the versions I ripped from CD and having to paste in the artwork myself from a web source.

That wouldn't annnoy me so much if I could delete my uploaded versions and download the offcial matches from the cloud once the album was released, but once the system has your tracks labeled as non-matches that you uploaded yourself, that's how they stay forever unless you delete them entirely from your collection and reload them from CD. And they you lose the playcounts, etc., which I'm just not willing to do.

3.20.12
I wish I was clever enough with my internet searches to figure out where all the downloads of Frank Ocean's unreleased material are hiding.

3.21.12
Here's something, Apple: how hard would it be to program the shuffle function so that two songs by the same artist don't play in a row? I know this is impossible for playlists focused on a single artist, but it seems like you could probably figure that out, too. I know that's not truly random, but I don't care——it intuitively feels non-random when you have a playlist of hundreds of songs where a single artist might only have three or four tracks and two of those tracks play back to back.

3.22.12
First impressions of Port of Morrow, the Shins' (well, really just James Mercer at this point) first record in five years: a little more studio sheen than Wincing the Night Away, possibly due to the influence of Danger Mouse, who worked with Mercer on the Broken Bells project, but otherwise a pretty solid sounding Shins record.

Also, there are several tracks where Mercer sounds like a woman, a quality I've never noticed even though he tends to sing in a high register. I don't know if something about the voice being processed a bit more is taking away some edge that helps identify it as male, but it's a little disconcerting. We'll see if it goes away once I get to know the record a little better.

3.23.12
It's getting perilously close to the end of the month, so I guess it's time to tackle March's MP3 albums for $5 from Amazon. For the first time I can remember, there's nothing I can recommend unreservedly, although there are a few decent albums that are worth owing if you are a fan of the artist but don't own that particular record yet, including the Decemberists' The Crane Wife (which as some great songs, but which also features my least favorite track of theirs, "The Island: Come & See/The Landlord's Daughter/You'll Not Feel The Drowning"), Wild Flag's Wild Flag, Neutral Milk Hotel's On Avery Island, the Books' Thought for Food, the Drums' Portamento, and of Montreal's Satanic Panic in the Attic.

The only one I'm almost sure to buy is an early career record from Magnetic Fields, Get Lost, having previously picked up both of its immediate predecessors, Holiday and The Charm of the Highway Strip, during one of these $5 deals.

I almost feel obligated to pick up David Bowie's classic Hunky Dory, but I've never really been able to get into him the way I would expect someone like myself to, so I'm still on the fence about this one.

3.26.12
While poking around randomly on iTunes, I stumbled across Modest Mouse's The Fruit That Ate Itself EP, which I had sort of forgotten existed. When it was originally released on CD, it was very limited, and you couldn't find a copy on eBay for less than $20, which was more than I was willing to pay at the time for six songs even though I was obsessed with the band for a long time. But thanks to iTunes, I was able to pick it up for $8.

There's nothing revelatory on it, but I'm still in love with their sound from those early days (Fruit was originally released in 1996, around the same time as their debut album), and it's nice to have some new songs to get to know from that period.

3.27.12
I've bought an average of two new records a month so far in 2012, and there's none that I've really fallen in love with. We need to up that average quick; hopefully April will see a bunch of releases as people gear up for the summer tour circuit.

3.28.12
I think I might be coming around to the idea that Pet Sounds is better than Smile. It feels really weird to say that out loud (as it were) because of the mythical significance Smile has taken on over the years, but I think it might be true.

3.29.12
Amanda Palmer's "Ukulele Anthem" is one of the funniest, most adorable things I've heard in a long time. Between her and her husband, writer Neil Gaiman, I can't decide who makes the other one cooler.

3.30.12
I recently changed my mind about wanting to see of Montreal next week at the 9:30 Club, but it's sold out now. I guess I should have figured——even with their last two albums getting so-so responses, they still have a huge fan base in this area, so much so that they usually play two dates at the 9:30. This time they're only playing one or else I bet it would be easy to get a ticket for either show.

I could probably still find one on eBay or Craigslist or something, but I'm not sure I'm THAT motivated.