Music Blogger Gift Guide
1/12Red Urbanears Plattan, $60.
With a simple, classic design, Urbanears’ Plattan is effortlessly stylish. The Plattans have a hinge construction, which allows you to fold them up for easier storage, as well as a long fabric cord (which I find especially awesome) as opposed to a rubber one. They also feature a "zound plug" on the earcap, which means a friend can plug their earphones into yours to listen along to whatever you’re rocking. The Plattan is currently available in fourteen colors.
2/12Games: Def Jam Rapstar, $60.
Guitar Hero? Done. Rock Band? Conquered. DJ Hero? Defeated. (Ok, not really, but stay with me for a second...) The final frontier of music performance games is perhaps one of the hardest genres to master-Hip Hop. Def Jam’s Rapstar, available for Wii, ox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms, is the latest and greatest entry to the music-video/karaoke genre. Rock the mic on songs by Drake, Kanye West, 2Pac, Nelly, LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, and the Beastie Boys—to name a few. The game allows you to freestyle on one of the 45 included tracks, host epic rap battles or film your own music video and upload them to the Rapstar site.
3/12Books: Jay Z's , $35.
Rapper. Entrepreneur. Artist. Mr. Beyoncé. Author? Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter wears many hats, the latest of which is writer of his first pseudo-memoir. presents Jay's analysis of 36 songs from his catalog, which allows him to delve into his personal history and inspirations along the way. The beautiful 300+ page glossy hardcover (impressively, Jay did the art direction for the book) allows you to actually get in the notoriously-private artist's head. It's a must-have for his fans as well as for pop-culture junkies.
4/12Books: Death Cab for Cutie book, $30.
Photographer Autumn de Wilde (whose work has been featured in many times over the years) has been taking pictures of Bellingham Washington rock quartet Death Cab for Cutie for years. In this beautiful hardcover collection, she shows the band on stage and off—in moments staged and candid. The resulting 200-plus images give a real perspective on the men behind the music.
5/12Gadgets: ifrogz Ronin DJ-Style headphones, $50.
The Ronin DJ-Style headphones from ifrogz have a bold, cartoony design and deliver clear, nuanced sound. With oversize, soft cushions on each ear, they effectively cancel out the noise of the outside world. The headphones are available in a bright red/blue/white/black design or, if you have a more streamlined aesthetic, in all white or all black. The phones also fold up for easy storage and travel.
6/12DVD: , $27.
Fans of Leslie Feist are in luck this holiday season. , a documentary film about the singer and her collaborators has been screening at film festivals and museums throughout the fall. But if you can’t make one of the public showings, you can own the film—as well as a mess of great extra content—in time for the holidays. The film is set for a full DVD release on December 7th. Included with the film will be a collection of Feist music videos, rare live and archival footage and a 13-track bonus CD.
7/12Gadgets: Marc Jacobs $68.
Fans of MJ’s Miss Marc character will want to add these headphones to their wish list. The Marc by Marc Jacobs phones have a retro design and a low-slug fit.
8/12Gadgets: Gear Ties, Starting at $5.
Is there a corner of your room in which your cell phone charger, iPod dock and laptop charger cord are all tangled into one crazy knot? There sure is in my office. Or at least there was. Now, I use Gear Ties to keep everything separate. The reusable rubber twist ties are a perfect stocking stuffer for anyone looking for a little more organization. The 3 and 6-inch versions come packages of four that you can order in nine different colors — or, to mix things up, in special multi-color packs.
9/12Style: Lyric Culture "Songbird" leggings, $90.
Some people like specific songs because of the beat. Other people are drawn to the melody. Me? I’m all about the lyrics. So when I heard about the clothing line Lyric Culture, which uses iconic lyrics from artists like Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and David Bowie (as well as newer generation artists like Lil Wayne, Carrie Underwood, and Miley Cyrus) on chic clothing and accessories, I was psyched. I love so many of the pieces the label has out this season, but my favorites are probably the Songbird leather patch leggings. Inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s "Songbird" (the lyrics are printed inside the waistband), the leggings would look great with a vintage babydoll dress and some serious rocker boots.
10/12Gadgets: SanDisk Cruzer Blade USB flash drive, starting at $15.
Five years ago, when I made someone a mix CD, I’d burn it onto a blank disc and hope that everything went right—that there would be no skips. (Let’s face it. There often were.) These days when I make a mix, I don’t take any chances. I save the songs on a flash drive so my friends can import the mix directly. The newest drive I carry around? Sandisk’s Cruzer Blade. The super-compact Cruzer comes in capacities ranging from 2 to 16 gigabytes. I have the 8GB, which holds over 2 gigs more than my iPod Shuffle — so space is never an issue.
11/12Smythson Zip iPad Cover, from $415.
2010 has been the year of the iPad. (At least amongst my friends and family.) But if you’re like me and cannot be trusted with fragile objects, you might want to protect your tablet so it can weather spills, slips and drops. My choice cover is Smythson’s zipped iPad cover. Not only does the leather case have a sturdy zipper to seal off your iPad from any potential environmental (or loose-in-your-bag) contaminants, it also has a great interior pocket for storing all relevant documents. The case comes in chocolate, black, Damsen (pink) and my favorite, Amber.
12/12Gadgets: Glassybaby, $40.
I have to admit something. I am a glassybaby-a-holic. I have twelve. I can’t help myself--the glass vessels are too pretty, the perfect gift for candle lovers. It takes four glassblowers to create one glassybaby piece--each one is unique, so you can have three ’Joy’s and they’ll all be slightly different. Collecting your favorite colors and combining pieces is part of the fun. Most importantly, glassybaby donates 10 of certain goodwill colors and sets to charity. Glassybaby has donated thousands of dollars so far to organizations like Memorial Sloan-Kettering, The Humane Society of the United States, RxArt and amFAR.
