Nevertheless, I have written, recorded and produced my own album. First impressions from the various supermodels, superstars and supersized coffees I have pre-released this work of sound to have been favorable, ranging from statements such as “It’s like Folk Metal meets Hardcore Easy Listening” and “I would have sworn it was Elvis Costello had it sounded completely different.”

Accusations of derivatives aside, the record is now available in full mp3 quality glory, including a sleeve you can print out and hang alongside your other platinum, gold and silicon record collections.

Secondly, in defining what the term “social network” actually means, I believe the actual translation is “group of Internet nerds”. The word “network” eludes to wires and technology hooking printers up to modems and cell phones into data plans. Indeed, even the adjective “networking” carries connotations more akin to IT professionals than making friends. I mean, since when did having friends become such a daily task. It used to be, you just got together and watched football or played Nintendo or drank beer when the moment struck you. Even with all the tick boxes and third party apps and “click heres” social networks provide, I still can’t do any of the things I actually do with friends.

To make short work of my point, while the word “social” inspires glasses clinging in toasts and high fives and pickup games of soccer, “network” only brings to mind work and staying in touch with colleagues and boredom. So, if it’s all the same with you, I think I’ll keep my “social” separate from my “network” for now.

Still, there are times when I think the idea of what social networks are trying to do could have the potential of making our lives better. The closest I’ve seen anyone get to this is Last.fm. They provide all of the usual bells and whistles – a blog, private messaging, etc. – because lets face it, the day you decided that you were going to start a blog you thought “Last.fm!” and every time you want to email one of your friends you’re just dying to dig into that proprietary emailing magic.

But sharing music is what put the revolution in “digital music revolution” and I’d argue it as important to the history of modern sound and culture as Nirvana or Woodstock. Once you’re a member of Last.fm you can import all of your Gmail (and a bunch of other resources) contacts, quickly seeing who is already a member of Last.fm and what their tastes are, at a glance, so that you can begin the whole experience with your already existing friends instead of starting from scratch with strangers. In about 15 minutes I had a network twice as large as what I’d ever bothered to amass on MySpace, Friendster and Facebook combined, but instead of doing all of this just to get annoying email messages and provide random Russian amateur porn stars to make lewd comments at me, I did it to broaden my musical horizons.

Now I can see what friends are listening to and how relevant it is to my own musical tastes, both from just looking at what they listen to as well as using fancy computer algorithms to introduce me to music I may never have heard otherwise. And where I can’t see any measurable results from most social networking sites where my life has actually been improved, I can definitely say that my iPod sounds a whole lot better from sharing music with friends.

I heard them on NPR’s Second Stage, which is a branch of All Songs Considered that showcases unsigned artists (which basically means they won’t be on eMusic or iTunes ).

Check out Le Loupe’s website where you can hear some of their tunes. I also dug Jessica Hoop, who I had also heard on Second Stage.

Music falls into the same category. Most bands I find laying around in mp3 stores have a lasting power of about a month, if I don’t listen to them too often. But now and then I find myself falling over some special secret band in the accidental night, a Joanna or Devendra or, most recently, Akron/Family. Though the latter wavers from excellent music to weird noize. Finding a great new band is like finding a great new love, and it can last a lifetime, even as you tire of them and the CD falls down behind the cracks of the bed, you eventually dig them out a few years later and they blend up a smooth frappe of nostalgia and new revelations with the lyrics so that you can have a second or third go with them.

And bands so rarely do care if you stay out too late or leave them behind for a few years, as you’re just another nameless, faceless number whose downloaded their latest sequence of binary code.

The latest All Songs Considered is pretty darn rootin’ tootin’ good, with new music from the White Stripes and Sufjan Stevens, as well as four girls from my new favorite city in all of the world, Brighton UK (unfortunately their music isn’t as good as some of the other things the city as to offer.)

Also, check out Feist.

These are the Eels, from 90′s fame “Before I Sputter Out.”

If you’ve got RealPlayer, she offers clips of all of her songs from all four albums on her site. It seems that she began her carrier singing in French but has now branched out to English and some other languages.

Alice In Chains
Blind Melon
Counting Crows
Dinosaur Jr
Guns N� Roses
Incubus
Jeff Buckley
Operation Ivy
Our Lady Peace
Pearl Jam
Rancid
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Rolling Stones
Soul Asylum
Stone Temple Pilots
System of a Down
Tom Petty

Bands in italics I haven’t listened to in ages. I found this all very interesting.

For shnizzel.