desert island cds, or the torrent equivalent

as some of you may know, my laptop died a couple of months ago. it has since revived after consultation with numerous technological physicians.

what do you do when your computer comes back to life with nothing in its memory?

you build an itunes library, of course! (not before installing open office and skype, though).

for those of you who, like me a couple of years back, did not buy music because it can be downloaded for free, but did not download too much because it was hard to find what i wanted, your days of stagnant itunes libraries are over. check out azureus. it is the best thing since sliced bread and ipods.

i'm blogging now because i did a very rare thing about ten minutes ago. i started downloading elvis, frank sinatra and ella fitagerald. never would my alt-rock teen self have imagined i would ever attempt to acquire such music.

i've been d/l-ing like crazy the past couple of weeks, but sometimes, in the midst of all that partyzone music, one feels the urge to tell the speakers that they should be seen and not heard. and sometimes, you just want to slow dance in a burning room and revisit the memories of all those times.

so i've sold out, it seems. but you know, as bon jovi once sang, like frankie said,

i did it my way.
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list of stuff i downloaded upon discovering azureus, in rough order. (this is the desert island part of the post)
1. all that oh-so-hot-right-now party music (lil wayne, timbaland, t-pain, akon, flo-rida, sean paul etc.)
2. the good stuff that never dies (radiohead, john mayer, muse)
3. disco rock (panic, franz, arctic monkeys, killers, fall out boy)
4. black music classics (kanye, fiddy cent)
4. my teenage rock heroes (foo fighters, rhcp, green day)
5. the height of brit rock (oasis, blur)
6. the classics (beatles, beach boys)
7. the singers who were known for their voices (what i talked about just now)
8. power pop hell yeah (weezer, fountains of wayne and, yes i dare admit it , 'nsync)

bands that should figure, but as this "revive your music collection" real time experiment has shown me, i don't really care for that much
1. coldplay
2. U2
take your stadium rock home with you. oh, i apologize, you guys actually do stuff outside of music that i think is cool - bono with angelina jolie, and chris martin with oxfam. or maybe that is exactly why the music isn't all to stellar.

stuff i will get in days to come:
1. all that jazz, the stuff a noob like me knows and likes (miles davis, john coltrane)
2. campy electronic music (danity kane, kylie minogue, pet shop boys and hottest group from sweden that is not abba, ace of base)
3. random one hit wonders that surface from my sub-conscious every once in a while (the middle, come on eileen, born slippy, two princes.. this is going to be hard to nail, but i'll get there)