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My favorite music of 2010

I’ve made my Top 10 albums of 2010 list and posted it here. I don’t think there are any real surprises on there—if you know me or even if you don’t—but what I think is interesting is tracking my iTunes and last.fm metrics to see what I actually listened to. So here is my “scientific” but not exactly accurate listing of what I listened to in 2010. 

According to iTunes, of songs that came out in 2010 these are the ones with the highest play counts:

1. The Tallest Man on Earth, “Burden of Tomorrow”
2. Local Natives, “Airplanes”
3. The Rado Dept., “Heaven’s On Fire”
4. Jenny and Johnny, “Scissor Runner”
5. Gorillaz, “On Melancholy Hill”
5. Jenny and Johnny, “Switchblade”
7. She & Him, “In the Sun”
7. Trampled by Turtles, “Wait So Long”
9. Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith, “Not in Love”
9. OK Go, “This Too Shall Pass” 

Here are the ten records from 2010 with the most songs with  4★-plus rated songs on them:

1. Wild Nothing, Gemini (7)
1. Laura Veirs, July Flame (7)
3. Local Natives, Gorilla Manor (6)
3. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Before Today (6)
3. Trampled by Turtles, Palomino (6)
3. Dr. Dog, Shame Shame (6)
3. Beach House, Teen Dream (6)
3. New Pornographers, Together (6)
9. The Radio Dept., Clinging to a Scheme (5)
9. Phantogram, Eyelid Moves (5)

Here are my top 10 most played artists according to last.fm:

Here are the 15 songs (that came out in any year) I listened to most in 2010:

And lastly, here are some observations on what these metrics mean:

• I’m a podcast addict and three of my top 10 artists are from them: ESPN (for PTI, and the BS Report), NPR (Fresh Air, mostly), and TBTL (which still shows up as KIRO, which if you know anything about TBTL is funny). 
• We listened to the Jenny and Johnny record a lot on our honeymoon drive down Highway One—hence it’s high play count and sentimental-value spot in my Top 10 of the year.
• A bunch of the songs on my Top 15 playlist were on a mix I made that we played in the background at our rehearsal dinner. I guess I listened to that mix a lot. (Song #6 in my most played tracks was our “first dance” song at the wedding.)
• This was an awesome year for music and a lot of great stuff didn’t make my Top 10: Walkmen, Kanye, Big Boi, New Pornographers, Morning Benders, Surfer Blood, Trampled by Turtles, Phantogram.
• Biggest disappointment of the year was probably Spoon’s Transference. If it was any other band I probably wouldn’t be so harsh on it, but I hold Spoon to a higher standard. (The new Band of Horses comes in second.)
• I still haven’t listened to The Suburbs all the way through. I know, I know.

Here are two posts from last year about my favorite music of 2009.

My 2010

Inspired by Alex Payne’s concise recap of 2010, here’s mine.

In 2010 I:

1. Got married.
2. Quit my job at MASS MoCA.
3. Joined SFMOMA.
4. Designed six books (Manglano-Ovalle, Starling, Material World, Coyne, Immendorff, Nimoy) for MASS MoCA that almost killed me.
5. Spent my first full year living in San Francisco, a city I have grown to love more each day.
6. Ran 700 miles… would’ve been 1,000 but I missed three months due to injury.

In 2011 I will:

1. Run a few half marathons and hopefully my first marathon. (I got hurt last year training for the SF half… going to try again for 2011, knock on wood.)
2. Buy a house. We’re saving and we’re hopeful to find a place in the city that’s bigger than a parking space.
3. See more live concerts and read more books… two things I was very bad at in 2010.

What’s Next

I am excited to announce that I have accepted an offer to become the next Art Director at SFMOMA. Of course, this also means that I have resigned from MASS MoCA, where I have been a proud employee for the past four years. Friday will be my last day.

MASS MoCA is a special place. My successor will have the good fortune to work with some brilliant artists and performers, not to mention a tirelessly dedicated staff and an inspiring museum director. I am very proud of the work I did there and look forward to see where they go from here. 

(If you or someone you know is interested taking my old job, the posting is here.)

Getting married and changing jobs in the same month—a month where the seasons change, no less—has meant that I’ve been doing a whole lot of self-reflection lately. On my place in the San Francisco community. On our goals as a family. On taking (or not taking) risks with my career. On realizing that I’m going to be commuting to work on Muni every day (yikes!). 

I am still reflecting on these ideas and maybe they will crystallize into a future blog post, but I can say now that I am energized about SFMOMA and cannot wait to tackle what’s next. I start in October.

How to work from home (and not lose your mind)

When most people find out that I work from home they almost always respond with “Oh wow, that’s awesome. You’re so lucky.” I nod and say “yes,” but I know that they’re thinking of those snowy days where they work from home, curl up with their coffee and Snuggie, and lounge. Maybe they’ve turned your phone off. Maybe they’ve kept their pajamas on. Yeah, well, it’s not really like that.

In fact, working from home is absolutely nothing like that. After a few days the novelty of keeping your pajamas on all day wears off and you want to, well, work. If you’re used to working in an office, though, you have to change your routines. So here’s a few handy tips if, like me, you suddenly find yourself working from home…

1. Get dressed.
   Yes, it’s easy to stay in your pajamas all day, but don’t. Shower, change, do you what you need to do to make sitting down at your computer to work the real deal.
2. Evening exercise.
   When I worked in an office I would go to the gym in the morning, before work. But now, I go for my runs at the end of the day. It provides a clean break from work time to personal time and it gets me out of the apartment.
3. Chores.
   Or any task really. I try to give myself one 10–15 task every morning and every afternoon. Nothing crazy—just a little thing to give me a quick breather. When you work from home there are no distractions, no pop-ins, no water coolers. It can be hard to step away. These little chores help me do that.
4. Remember how lucky you are that you don’t have to commute.
   Ugh, commuting. I’ve had a number of different commutes in my life. (The worst being a 75-minute drive—EACH WAY!—from Northampton to North Adams. It was terrible, especially in the winter.) I know some people like their 30-minutes in the car or on the subway, but think about it: I take that time I’d normally spend chained to my car folding laundry or doing the dishes (see tip #3).
5. Don’t live alone (and I don’t mean roommates).
   If I lived alone, I don’t know if I’d ever stop working, but when Lex comes home from work I shut it down.

There are more, sure, but I find that these five tips keep me sane and happy.