Top Ten Top Twenties: Marisol Segal

Marisol Segal
is a digital strategist and marketing maven with more than 20 years
experience in the music industry. Born and raised in Los Angeles, a San
Francisco resident since 2005, Marisol has worked in digital music
marketing for more than half of her music industry career. She started
at just 18 years of age, working for Los Angeles based concert
promoter, Avalon Attractions. From there she moved through the major
label chain working at bothInterscope Records and Capitol Records . In 1998, Marisol
transitioned to artist management representing a broad range of acts
including platinum selling electronic artist, Robert Miles. 

Like every digital music maven,
inventor, renegade, passionista, business diva you will read about in
the Top Ten Top Twenty series: Marisol is also a superfan.

More specifically, Marisol Segal is a Duranie. I only know the term “Duranie” because Marisol taught it to me. Nobody loves Duran Duran as much as Ms. Segal, superfan to all things Duran.  In all the years I’ve known Marisol, she has spent money on Duran Duran at least twice a year and sends me at least 10 videos (a year, at least) of John Taylor. Articles about the band are usually emailed with subject lines “OMG.” Most recently was an excited twitter from Ms Segal on October 29 when John Taylor addressed a crowd to wish the Internet a happy 40th birthday.

Meet
the digital music industry in SF: everything we started doing in this
town originates from a love of music first. Everything else came next.



Marisol loves music so much that when
I asked her for her top 20 albums between 2000-2009 she was so excited
she read the interview question incorrectly, and slaved over her top 20
albums of all time.
Like any music geek knows, in order to create a top 20 *all time* list,
much thought and work is required to come up with the top 30, 40 and
50. So Marisol (rather accidentally) wrote her Top 50 albums of all time
list. And on the last day, after two extensions (yes, I grant
extensions in certain circumstances) Marisol realized I was asking for the top 20 albums of the
21st century. Not all of the centuries known to man…



Within the industry, Marisol Segal
is a go-to electronic music expert for me and you and everyone we know.
Her reliability for expertise reveals  an intricate command of genre
and sub-genre filing systems for electronica, not to mention she knows just about everyone (DJs,
producers, fans, managers) in the LA, SF, Detroit & NYC electronic
scenes.  In researching her list and finding links, I was not shocked
to find most of her favorite albums are $35 imports which are not yet
available at digital retail. Ms. Segal, you’re taste is so refined, it’s hard to find.


Marisol Segal – Top 20 (uuuh 23) Albums 2000-2009

One can only assume it took Marisol
less than one minute to actually type this list, as she also happens to
be the fastest typist in San Francisco. I
give to thee her top twenty-three albums of the 21st century, because
one of her clever disclaimers was the addition of 3 “honorable
mentions.” I hadn’t thought of that loophole.

1. Kate Bush – Aerial: A Sea of Honey
2. Junior Boys – Begone Dull Care
3. Flight Of The Conchords – Flight Of The Conchords
4. Zero 7 – When It Falls
5. The Dears – Missiles
6. Tracey Thorn – Out Of The Woods
7. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
8. Dennis Ferrer – The World As I See It
9. Koop – Koop
   
10. Charles Webster – Born on the 24th of July
11. Miike Snow – Miike Snow
12. Detroit Escalator Company – (Excerpts)
13. Air – Talkie Walkie
14. Radiohead – Kid A
15. Duran Duran – Astronaut
16. Keane – Hopes & Fears
17. Ulrich Schnauss – Goodbye
18. Boozoo Bajou – Satta!
19. Turin Brakes – The Optimist LP
20. Intrusion – The Seduction Of Silence

Honorable Mentions:

1. Masters At Work – Our Time is Coming
2. Underworld – A Hundred Days Off
3. Clara Hill’s Folkwaves – Sideways

Next Up: Anu Kirk