Kim and Jessie is a song that I can easily put on repeat.

M83’s last two albums have been trending toward a sound that is very nostalgic for me, and this particular song is a stand out example.

Though the song was released in 2008, it is heavily evocative of mid-1980s groups like ’Til Tuesday, Flock of Seagulls, and Tears for Fears. If you played a string of Top 40 hits from 1985 or 1986, and slipped in Kim and Jessie, I think a lot of people would think it sounds similar and familiar. Whether that makes you die inside a little or makes you a little giddy is personal, of course.

Tonight, I signed up for Amazon’s free cloud player service—specifically because of news items I read about Amazon’s new AutoRip service.

AutoRIP is something that ought to have been done a long time ago. If you buy a qualifying CD, subject to the terms of licensing between Amazon and the major record labels, you get the dics shipped to your house and you get an electronic copy placed in your Amazon Cloud Player library. These electronic copies are back-dated as well. Amazon says any qualifying CD purchase since 1998 also (eventually) will be put into your Cloud Player.

I have a large iTunes library. It doesn’t represent everything I have ever heard, nor everything I have ever loved, nor even everything I own. But that iTunes library is becoming a beast to manage.

There is SO much data about the music—that isn’t the music—but is integral.

Recently I have made it a personal project to make sure a single piece of information exists for each track: the release date, the day it became available for sale to the public.

I don’t claim any special privilege, knowledge, education or access. Like many friends, and friends I haven’t met, I simply love music.

I got my first portable FM radio somewhere around the Christmas of 1978, and I have been trying to carry music everywhere with me ever since. It means that much to me.

In 1990 I went to work at a record store. You see, I thought I knew about music. I had been actively listening to radio and watching MTV and going to other record stores. I must have had a few hundred cassettes and dozens of LPs and dozens of CDs by then.