The A to Z of 2011's music

December 15, 2011 11:00 AM

The FluxBlog 2011 survey mix is out! Ten discs, 183 songs (that’s 26 more than last year), adding up to almost 13 hours of music. Download, share and enjoy.
posted by spitefulcrow (16 comments total)

I don't know how long this is going to stay up since it links to copyrighted content, but I'm really excited about this mix. I'm studying for a big professional exam for the first week of January, and I'll actually have some new music to listen to to take my mind off of the monotony, hurray!
posted by Phire at 11:05 AM on December 15, 2011

Sort of a double.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 11:13 AM on December 15, 2011

How can they get away with just openly posting that much of other peoples music in one place?
posted by mary8nne at 11:15 AM on December 15, 2011

Yeah, that's funny...I downloaded the whole 10 disc set after reading the "sort of a double". I found the mix to have a fair bit of good stuff, and a fair bit of bad stuff. But hey, it's a mix!

My favorite never-heard-of-it track was from Cass McCombs
posted by mcstayinskool at 11:19 AM on December 15, 2011

Somehow, last year's is still up. *shrug*
posted by spitefulcrow at 11:21 AM on December 15, 2011

This is great because I've been living under a large stone reading Rousseau and hadnt heard any of the most obvious music around for the last 12 months.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:35 AM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

It was tough a tough year but thankfully the stone had a book and knew how to read.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:35 AM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Um....this is illegal, isn't it?
posted by jcreigh at 11:43 AM on December 15, 2011

Potomac Avenue: "This is great because I've been living under a large stone reading Rousseau and hadnt heard any of the most obvious music around for the last 12 months"

I've been listening to this since it was mentioned last week. Some was good, some was bad, some was nearly satirically bad. Very little of it had I heard before.

Not that I try. If one does not listen to commercial radio (commercials bring out the Fists of Rage) nor follow mp3 blogs, where *do* you find good new stuff?
posted by notsnot at 11:43 AM on December 15, 2011

turntable.fm :)

and this is a fine introduction to this year's pop landscape. I just wanted to make the Rousseau reference.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:57 AM on December 15, 2011

I'm surprised FluxBlog.org hasn't already been seized by the ICE. (I can see some government entities that could have fun with that url.) "This year's pop landscape" means it'll be dominated by the labels and artists I'd most like to ignore (but who will inevitably destroy the hopes and dreams of the FluxBlogger, no doubt).
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:21 PM on December 15, 2011

I posted a similar kind of collection of songs to highlight the pop landscape here, in 2 volumes. Just from my favourite albums.
And yeah, pretty much illegal.

I do appreciate that they paired Rebecca Black with Das Racist. And it is a pretty thorough bundle, just needing an accompanying pack for bass music and one for more experimental stuff.
posted by Theta States at 1:12 PM on December 15, 2011

I've enjoyed the 2010 survey a lot; way more pop than my usual taste, so the difference is nice.

I'd never even thought about the legality, though -- I guess I had just assumed that if it was being done that openly and not being shut down, that it was at least tacitly allowed. Eventually the music industry is going to have to come to some kind of accommodation of some kinds of music sharing, treating it more as cheap promotion for the remaining money makers like live shows and advertising soundtracks, but that time may still be a ways off.
posted by Forktine at 5:22 PM on December 15, 2011

This kind of thing is good for me, because I just don't get exposed to that much new music at this stage in my life. I got this 2011 mix a couple of weeks ago, but I've only been able to listen to a few songs so far, so...I've got nothing to say on this. Last year I got it, and while most of it was not my thing, some of it I loved, which is always exciting (even though apparently last year was heavy on the bleepy bloopy synthesizers). However, I also got this insidious earworm installed.
posted by Red Loop at 6:33 PM on December 15, 2011

This guy is an associate editor at Rolling Stone and contributor to Pitchfork, and the blog has been covered in mainstream press (NYT, Entertainment Weekly, Guardian, for example). He's been doing this for 10 years, and I don't think there's any possible way the blog could be more visible about the downloads, so I think we pretty much have to assume that those rightsholders who might be annoyed aren't annoyed.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if record labels were vying to get some of their artists included... but obviously it's tricky navigation in terms of technical legality. In the comments, one person asks,

how is this legal? not objecting to tons of free music but did every single one of these tracks get approved by their respective labels. if so good job, if not slippery slope to go down no?

and Matthew Perpetua says:

I never said anything about this or anything on this site being legal. Fluxblog: 10 Years of Dubious Legality.

I'm sure he's not speaking lightly. If he claims that the downloads were approved (though they might have been), then I suppose that would pose big problems for artists/labels who want to defend against stuff like torrenting, so he specifically does not make any kind of claim like that – which I imagine keeps everyone more or less happy. The artists get exposure in an influential venue without officially approving the process, and listeners get to sample some music.
posted by taz at 10:38 PM on December 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

i listened to last year's and i'm going to listen to this year's, just as i have listened to the sxsw torrents for the last few years - an old fart musician's got to keep up somehow and the local radio stations aren't much help
posted by pyramid termite at 5:24 PM on December 17, 2011