Best Of MetaFilter

Jukebox - 1947 Wurlitzer model 1080 by canorus (cc by)

It was ready, I dug out my box of 45's and we loaded it up, hit the switch on the back and watched the lights come on. Sean punched two buttons, the mechanism started to work, picked up a 45, place it on the turntable, and we listened to that Wurlitzer spit out Louie Louie, a record I had purchased used over 20 years ago.

Bondcliff made rouftop a ukulele. Rouftop made bondcliff a song with that ukulele, with help from scottandrew. Sing along with us....

Die Antwoord by FromSandToGlass (cc by)

South African MetaFilter member 00dimitri00 gives a bit of background, history, and insider perspective on the band Die Antwoord:

It's like we're all in on Waddy's Joke and it's a gas seeing the rest of the world trying to figure it out.

Americana album cover

Neil Young has a new album out and MeFi member yourcelf breaks down all the tracks with some background info on how much more there is to common folk songs we sing around the campfire.

Metafilter's local musicians are spending the month of July working up covers en masse of the twelve tracks of Radiohead's seminal OK Computer. It's early yet, but there've been some fun entries already, and this is maybe my favorite of the bunch: a Mariachi style Spanish-language take on "Subterranean Homesick Alien", by user hanoixan.

And he even got some help with the translation from Ask Metafilter.

choonage by Theis Kofoed Hjorth (cc by)

I can say with authority that Winamp3 went wrong in some very technically fundamental ways.

mixtape from a friend in college by jessamyn (cc by-nc-sa)

Get the details on the upcoming MeFiSwap and do some music swappening. (Signups now closed!)

Everybody's been talking about the moon, but what about the Moon Patrol? They get up at noon!

If that's not enough goofy space-related music from mefite erikgrande (with some help from Uncle Jimmy), you might also check out the improvised and thoroughly ridiculous 9 minute Star Wars blues jam, Is Everything OK?

Metafilter musician fingers_of_fire (aka Alec Berlin) has been posting some great stuff to Metafilter Music lately, from his new album Innocent Explanations. It's fun, well-produced stuff with a lot of rocky jangle to it, and this track, I'll Be Seeing Her Tonight, is a pretty darned good example of what he's been up to.

IMG00050 by Karenjw (cc by-nd)

Member hippybear makes a post about anything and everything there is to know about Jimmy Somerville (formerly of Bronski Beat, Communards, etc). It's an amazing post filled with hours of videos and loads of background information about the history of Somerville's activism and music, also posted to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the creation of ACT-UP, an organization Somerville still works with today.

Computer Room by Sam Howzit (cc by)

Whenever I have to spend my days cranking out lines of code or copy, if I end up working in a noisy place, I'm constantly looking for mellow instrumental music that can help filter out noise without being so distracting I can't think. Lucky for me (and anyone else), member Doeful Creature posted about the site musicForProgramming(); which compiles a variety of ambient tracks into one-hour mp3 files you can play while working. They even offer a podcast feed to keep up with new episodes automatically.

For any writers or programmers working in noisy environments (offices/cafés), musicForProgramming(); looks like a killer way to find new music to work by.

Metafilter Music launched several years ago as a place for musicians on the site to share and discuss their own recorded work, and Mefi community members have posted several thousand songs since then.

Olivia is one of the earliest songs posted, way back in mid-2006; it's a wonderful tune by a mefite named chococat, one of my all-time favorite contributors to Metafilter Music. His songs have a consistent warmth and charm to them, with great lyrics, gorgeous vocal harmonies, and really admirably solid mixing and production.

He's posted dozens of songs over the last several years, and you can listen to them all here; a couple of my personal favorites include Kevin Is Lonely (from his recent album-in-a-month Cake Dome) and what is unquestionably my favorite ever cover of the Elvis Costello tune Watching the Detectives.

by Môsieur J. [version 7.0.1] (cc by) & El increíble SleeveFace Gaudério by mauren veras (cc by)

If you're looking for some classic music, look no further than this recent Ask MetaFilter question about "perfect albums". Hours of great music await.