It was only four or five years ago that I was happy to spend money on albums to find out if I’d like them. Of course, I was single and had extra time to waste then too. I found all kinds of new albums that I liked, and to some degree, I became a little more knowledgeable about music that I liked. Now that I’m a little older and have family commitments, work commitments, and other things that I’d like to accomplish, it’s become difficult to find new music that I like. I’ve got the stuff that I liked five years ago, but I can only think of one or two artists that I’ve gotten to know lately that I’ll listen to for the rest of my life. I don’t hear as much new because I don’t go out of my way to.

So, I’ve started trying to find ways to find music that I like.

Of course, there’s Pandora. But, Pandora mostly plays me stuff I already know. There’s Itunes’ genius (yes, I gave Apple all my music info… they already own the rest of my life between the Iphone I carry and the Macbook Pro I work on)… but the genius so far isn’t such a genius. It hasn’t shown me anyone that I was interested in acquiring.

So, I’ve started in on Ilike. The principle on Ilike is that you tell them who you like and they recommend others you might like. So far, I don’t think I’ve told them enough for them to craft very good suggestions, but I’m hopeful that it might become as useful to me as Netflix’s recommendations have become. I’ll keep you posted. Now, you tell me: 1. How do you find new music? and 2. Who’s your favorite musician that you’ve gotten to know in the last year?

I was sitting recently, listening to Derek Webb’s album She Must and Shall Go Free. It’s an album. It has great individual songs on it, but it is a cohesive unit, 11 or 12 (I can’t remember) songs that form a flow of thought. It’s a wonderful thing. Caedmon’s Call’s 40 Acres feels like this (as does Share the Well), Andrew Peterson’s Love and Thunder feels this way, and the best example (in my favorites) is Rich Mullins’s A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band.

I love listening to albums that are albums. MP3 players, Itunes, winamp, and all those other convenient things with those shuffle buttons have kind of ruined albums for us. We hear whatever song randomly comes next (or, in the case of Itunes new Genius function, whatever song they think sounds good to follow up the song you’re listening to). We don’t usually sit down to listen through an album; we let music be the background we do things to, and we don’t exactly catch any continuity.

So, sometime this week, turn off the shuffle feature and listen to an album. You might find that the artist put some thought into the direction that the songs take you. That’s the sort of stuff that makes an album worth paying for.

Ah, my dear wife will cringe at this topic. She knows where I’m going with this. It seems like everyone has some band, album, or genre of music that they like but don’t necessarily want to admit to liking. I don’t think it’s pretension, I think it’s just sincere embarrassment.

Take yours truly, for instance. I don’t have longish hair that sweeps down over my eyes. My jeans aren’t inordinately patched. I don’t dye my hair. I don’t wear eyeliner. But, I do, on occasion, sing along ridiculously to whatever pop-punk I can get my hands on. It might be Blink182, it might be ReliantK, it might be Brand New… but whatever it is, it’ll make my wife roll her eyes (rightfully so) and it’ll make me play air drums.

Whew. I just admitted it. So, now I’ll put the question to you… who or what is your guilty pleasure listening?

I’ve gotta go find Rebecca’s eyeliner.

Aha… the question mark. It changes everything.

Things to listen to is usually where I tell you what I’ve been listening to that is awesome.

Add the question mark though, and it becomes your chance to tell me what to spend some Itunes money on.

It’s been a while since I’ve found any new music. Can you help? I’d love to see some suggestions.  Hook me up!

The Take a Listen posts will be another regular series that I hope you’ll read around here. Hopefully it will catalogue some things that are obscure, some that are popular, some that annoy you, and maybe even some that annoy me.

Jakob Dylan’s voice is imprinted in my head along with some very distinct songs from my teenage years. Most of those came from the album Bringing Down the Horse by the Wallflowers. Songs like The Difference and One Headlight are so catchy that right now, if a drummer appeared in my family room and started tapping out that distinctive beat from One Headlight, I could probably pick up my guitar and figure out at the very least the bass line to it. And sing along. Not at all as well as Jakob Dylan, but perhaps in line with his dad’s vocals.

So, anyway, when I heard that Jakob Dylan had a “solo” album out, I thought self, that’s worth a shot. My wife and I first listened to Seeing Things on the hour-long drive over a ridiculously windy mountain to her parents’ house. It was the perfect companion. I cannot express how quickly we were caught up in the music. It’s just downright good. A very moody album, varied musically (much folky-er than his work with The Wallflowers), it’s just plain dynamite.

So, here’s my endorsement: go check out Jakob Dylan. Punch his name in at Pandora.com and you’ll get a great playlist, plus you’ll probably get to hear some songs off of the album. If you’re as hooked as I am, you’ll be a buyer.