It’s that time of the year again. As always, I stress all year trying to determine the ranked order of every new album I listen to. It’s truly a labor of love. I used to post the list here on Tumblr but last year I decided to move it to my main website. You can check it out here - http://dankantor.com/music.html (along with each list going back to 2008).
One observation I made this year (while listening to some music in Seattle with my friend Pete) was that when an album comes out by an artist with an older album previously on a top 10 list of mine, I subconsciously start the new album at the old album’s position. It’s theirs to lose.
This year, Jamaican Queens came out with a new album. Their last album was my #1 in 2013. So this new album had the top spot this year assuming it was great and no other album was better. And that was indeed the case. It’s the first time an artist has had 2 #1 albums ever for me.
Another stat is there were only 2 albums this year by artists that never made a previous top 10 list of mine - Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Tanlines. I’ve known Unknown Mortal Orchestra for a while (they played an Exfm show of ours in 2012) but they never made a top 10 list of mine. That changed this year with a strong #3 showing.
One other thing to note this year. I left Rhapsody in August and for the second half of this year didn’t work in music for the first time in almost 10 years. Not being surrounded by people obsessed with music (and blasting it all day long) has made it a bit harder for me to discover new stuff. I’ll have to try even harder in 2016 to find the goods!
As most of you know, I left Rhapsody over the summer and joined a startup called Clarifai. We specialize in visual recognition using artificial intelligence. It’s the sort of technology that you have to see to believe. It definitely feels like magic.
Up until today, our product offering was an API for developers and companies to who want to integrate our technology into their own systems. You can see this in action on our website using our demo:
I’m very proud to announce that today we have a second product offering and our first for consumers. It’s a new iPhone app called Forevery. You can get it in the App Store here - http://apple.co/1HAysKW
Forevery automatically organizes all the photos on your phone. It recognizes people, places, emotions, times and more. It then allows you to browse or search and quickly find the photo you are looking for.
Here’s that same photo. Check out how I searched for it and found it on my phone:
If I click into the photo I can see tags, locations and even people:
This was such a fun app to work on. After working on music apps for the past 10 years, it was so nice to switch gears and work on another passion of mine - photos. This team here at Clarifai is so talented, it really is a pleasure to come in to work every day and do something I love. Please go try our app and let me know what you think. http://apple.co/1HAysKW
We’re kicking off this Father’s Day weekend with a salute to the young dads out there! With a little help from Nas, Kanye West and Jay Z, here’s a mix on the joys of fatherhood and the happiness it brings. So hit play and enjoy! http://on.rhap.com/1IoY8E9
Ramil, Online Marketing Manager, with daughter Ellie, getting in a listen of Nas’ “Daughters.”
Hi, I'm Dan Kantor. I live in NYC with my wife Isabel and our two kids Chase and Carina. I am the Founder & CEO of Pilotship.
I'm also passionate about technology, physics and sports. I studied at ITP and The University of Michigan. Go Blue!
