The Best Electronic Album of each year since 1990 by Five Signs You’re Ready for the 21st Century: a blog about technology and it’s applications.
1990: Orbital – Orbital
1991: Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works 85–92
1992: The Orb – U.F.Orb
1993: Massive Attack – Blue Lines
1994: Moby – Everything Is Wrong
1995: The Prodigy – Music for the Jilted Generation
1996: The Chemical Brothers – Exit Planet Dust
1997: The Prodigy – The Fat of the Land
1998: Massive Attack – Mezzanine
1999: Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children
2000: Björk – Debut/Post/Homogenic/Vespertine/Medulla/Volta
2001: Drexciya – Neptune’s Lair / Wavejumper (tie) / Carl Craig & Maurizio – Remixes (tie)
2002: Aphex Twin – Drukqs / Squarepusher – Go Plastic (tie) / Prefuse 73 – Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives (tie)
2003: Boards of Canada – Geogaddi / Plaid – Double Figure (tie
Five Signs You’re Ready for the 21st Century
In the 21st century, life has become increasingly dependent on technology. A person who is intimidated by new technology may find life in the modern world to be difficult and frustrating. Fortunately, there are some signs you can look for to identify whether you are ready for the 21st Century.
1. You know the correct meaning of “www”.
Everyone knows that www means World Wide Web, but a true expert understands that it stands for World Wide Wait, because you wait so long for pages to load sometimes. People who don’t understand this fact have no business being online; they should go back and study until they get it right.
2. You know what “cd rw” stands for (and it isn’t “cow dung”).
Anyone who still thinks that “cd rw” stands for “cow dung” has clearly not been paying attention to recent developments in technology. If you don’t know what cd rw means, then you probably won’t understand why we need faster computers and better Internet connections either, will you?
3. You can explain why your computer
If you’re reading this blog, it’s probably because you’re interested in hearing about the latest technology and how it will change your life. Here are five ways you can tell if you’re ready for the 21st century.
● You have a home network, with at least two computers connected to the Internet through a router.
● Your cell phone is a smartphone that lets you surf the Web and exchange email.
● You carry a digital music player, and use it regularly.
● You own or lease a car with GPS navigation and hands-free calling.
● You have a high-definition TV, and subscribe to satellite or cable television.
1. You are a heavy user of text messaging, instant messaging and e-mail.
2. You use the Internet to find things out rather than asking people or consulting books.
3. You don’t like to travel without a GPS navigation device so that you know where you are at all times.
4. You can’t imagine living without your digital music player, which in your mind is more important than your TV set or DVD player.(To my great surprise, I found this point on a blog about technology and it’s applications 🙂 )
5. You can’t imagine not having wireless Internet access everywhere – at home, at work and on the go (at the airport, in your car).
This is the best electronic album of the year, and possibly the decade. It is an album that will be with me for the rest of my life.
If you are looking for a good introduction to modern music, this is it. It’s a collection of tracks from all over the world, and it’s one of the most beautiful albums I’ve heard in a long time.
The first song on the album is “Viola” by The Black Dog. It’s a haunting vocal track with an amazing melody, and it’s one of those rare songs that gets stuck in your head for days after you hear it.
The rest of the album is filled with tracks that are just as good: “A Little Bit” by Massive Attack, “Vibrations” by Caribou, “Sirens” by Aphex Twin, and so many others.
I strongly recommend this album to anyone who wants to get into electronic music.
I have been using the iPad as my primary computer for a while now. I posted some thoughts about this back in April. I’ve been meaning to write an update, but haven’t gotten around to it. Between work and travel, the summer has flown by. But the iPad is still a huge part of my workflow, so I wanted to share some thoughts on how it’s going and what’s changed since April.
You might be wondering why I’m doing this crazy thing in the first place. Some people just like being early adopters and trying new things. That describes me well enough. But there are also more practical reasons for doing this: it’s great for fieldwork, traveling light, and freeing up desk space. And switching to an iPad full time gives you a better idea of what kind of apps will work for your clients and customers in the coming years.
When she was first nominated for a Grammy in 2001, Kelli Ali wasn’t sure she could attend the ceremony. “I was five months pregnant,” she recalls, “and I thought I might be a bit too big.”
She needn’t have worried: her band Sneaker Pimps were up against Moby, Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers in the Best Electronic Album category. They didn’t win. But they did get to dress up and pretend to be pop stars for a night.
“It was an amazing experience,” says Ali. “But it felt quite detached from our world – we were just there for the one night.”
In 2001, that seemed about right. The British trio had just released their third album, Bloodsport, and disbanded soon afterwards. In their seven years together they’d sold 2m records worldwide and inspired a legion of imitators (including one band called Erasure Pimp). But they never felt like pop stars, and not just because they were upstaged at the Grammys by Britney Spears’s bellybutton.
Sneaker Pimps’ sound – slo-mo trip-hop with a whiff of goth – was conceived in the mid-90s as an antidote to the