Quality Music

College Radio

UW/Seattle community radio. Also 150 kbps+ Real or MPG live stream, and 1.4 MBps raw uncompressed stream (sheee-it!) and archives of the last week's shows, although they have sadly only implemented the last two for Windows Media; they promise they're working on mp3 or RealAudio.
Priceton College radio. Gratuitous RealAudio quality, I get 178 kbps. Seems to have a good balance of music that is fairly out there, but not so wildly out there as, say, KALX. Lots of good alternative indie stuff. RealAudio Stream
WRBB Northeastern U. 60k RM stream, and right now they're playing the Dandy Warhols, which means they're cool. RealAudio Stream
WXYC UNC Chapel Hill is free-form (never know what you'll get), but high bandwidth, so always high quality. RealAudio Stream
WKNC FM Raleigh is most notable, IMHO, for their AfterHours show that goes on around 7pm PST or so, and has really cool electronic music of all sorts. Low bitrate, unforunately. RealAudio Stream

Albums and Artists

Neutral Milk Hotel's two releases here, On Avery Island and Aeroplane Over the Sea. Deceptively simple, it's mostly just Jeff Magnum and his distorted acoustic guitar, singing about sex and death and what sounds like a bizarre but interesting childhood.

And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
-- from the song "Aeroplane Over the Sea", from the eponymous album.

Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antarctica and The Lonesome Crowded West feature Isaac Brock's voice, which goes anywhere from melodious and sad to grating and harsh, sometimes in the space of a few bars, and his idiosyncratic guitar playing, which is full of catchy licks and powerful chords.

Through both of these, the music is usually alternating from delicate and intricate to loud and powerful, both done with virtuosity. The lyrics speak of alienation, loneliness (which is how Isaac often seems on stage: commandingly powerful when performing -- how do you startsing-shouting into a microphone like that? -- he seems completely unsure of himself in between songs), with a bit of existential wonderment to change things up.

The Moon and Antarctica is really smooth, catchy, and well produced, sort of like The Joshua Tree was the first "professional-sounding" record for U2 (I think many, but not all, bands fit on the U2 trajectory from early, raw stuff -- think Boy, Unforgettable Fire -- peaking out with a well produced album that still has some creative energy -- Joshua Tree, Achtung -- and then petering out into a bunch of overproduced crap that comes from being a multimillionaire entertainer spending all your time in Los Angeles), whereas Lonesome Crowded is raw, huge, one of the rockin'-est albums ever. Almost as much as the White Stripes.

The White Stripes, Jack and Meg White. There's just two of them, but they fill the stage with more sound than many five person bands I've seen. Frequently stated as the heir to Jimmy Page or Robert Plant or other '70's blues-rock types, it seems impossible to imagine Jack White doing anything else than play the blues. He seems to get possessed by his music, fingers flying across the fretboard and spittle flying from his lips, but he is still, underneath, in control and making sure that the performance is perfect.