Tom Purves – Product Management, Fintech & AI

1. Mates of State – Bring it Back
   I have this on vinyl, I have this on iPod and I haven’t stopped playing it since spring 06. My number one and an absolute must own album.
2. Love is All – 9 Times That Same Song
   Cacophonic and confusing at first but this album really grew on me over the year. I would LOVE to see this band in concert.
3. Ratatat – Classics
   Instrumental, fast-paced and awesome. The absolutely perfect album for motivating, working out or getting work done without being distracting.
4. I’m from Barcelona – We’re from Barcelona
   Fun pop music like they don’t make anymore. Damn, I wish I was in Barcelona.
5. Shearwater – Palo Santo
   Okkervil River offshoot, very good.
6. Saturday Looks Good to Me
   Always the best, I don’t understand why no one has heard of this band. Their 30 track out-takes and b-sides album this year destroyed my last.fm statistics this year. Get them on eMusic.
7. Sunset Rubdown – Shut Up I Am Dreaming
   Wolf Parade side project of some sort and just as genius.
8. The Pipettes – We Are the Pipettes
   Second most fun album of the year. Ridiculous bubblegum for your ears but you have to admit you love it.
9. We Are Scientists – With Love and Squalor
   California hipsters, good old school rock ‘n roll idie.
10. Amy Milan – Honey from the Tombs
    Amy Milan’s long awaited solo and country(!) album. A little uneven but some fantastic tracks I keep coming back to. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a skinny boy.
11. Tokyo Police Club – A Lesson In Crime
    Home town heroes. Saw this Toronto band originally ages ago at Sneaky Dees and didn’t think much at the time. Clearly they’ve been practicing. This album innovative, expressive and very cool.
12. Islands – Return to the Sea
    Damn I miss the Unicorns, but Montreal’s the Islands are clearly the next best thing. brilliant lunacy and complete disregard for any traditional notions of melody and song structure… kindof just like the Unicorns…

Honorable mentions: The Awkward Stage, Love Kills, Heartless Bastards, Band of Horses, The Knife

Hmm, calls for a music podcast do you think? Brother can you spare some bandwidth? (last month’s podcasts blew through 25GB…)

Many of these are available at emusic. Affiliate deal: ( Get 25 FREE Music Downloads). Emusic is not quite as good a deal anymore as it once was (grrr), but still significantly cheaper per track than iTunes and with all the goodness of high bit rates and mp3 – no DRM infection whatsoever (a mode of distribution I think we should all be supporting).

Happy New Year Everyone.

In glorious Switzerland. Very much looking forward. Had a great time last year, massively inspirational. Are you on the attendee’s list yet?

For a number of good reasons, the book I’m most excited to get my hands on this January is the Imagination challenge by none other than Alex Manu with a little help from a few other very bright people I should mention. Coming from these types, this one is sure to be inspiring, highly creative and indubitably very excellently edited. </plug>

From the book jacket:

Companies constantly present technological developments-new materials, new mechanisms, and new ways to enhance existing products and services. Yet these seldom lead to truly new ideas. Why? Humans are all born with creative instincts, but in the interest of efficient and predictable productivity, institutions such as schools and businesses routinely hinder those impulses. The most innovative products and services, author Alexander Manu argues, arise out of the behaviors of play–the ability to imagine, without limits, the question “What if…?”

I have held pre-press copy of this very book in my hands but have yet to have a chance to read it for myself. I may just have to wait until I can get a copy of my own, At the book launch…

January 18th at the Rotman School of Business.
click here for the upcoming.org listing

click here to RSVP