Top Ten Top Twenties: Steve Jang

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Steve is an entrepreneur, tech junkie, and local SF Bay Arean since 1992.  He was part of the founding team behind imeem.com, the world's largest social music service with 80mm users worldwide, where he ran product marketing and business development for the company. 

Prior to imeem, Steve worked at Salon.com, Xuma, a web and applications hosting service, WR Hambrecht, an tech investment firm, and most recently, EMI Music's D3 group.  

Active in the local music and film community in SF, he also founded Massive Selector in 2000, a music and art collective based in San Francisco, served as part of the planning committee of the SF Asian American Film Festival, and was a member of the venerable Future Primitive Sound label known for its live SoundSessions series.  Steve currently serves on the advisory board of Internet companies such as Animoto, Conduit Labs, Pixelpipe, and StumbleUpon.  If not working on something technology or music-related, then he's surfing at Ocean Beach or skateboarding on one of the seven hills of SF.

Steve Jang is a music geek like the rest of us - he was meticulous enough to send me his top 20  ...in a formal spreadsheet. I met Steve the way I know a lot of digital music cohorts in San Francisco: through some bizarre combination of internet and name recognition. I knew his name because he worked at imeem and I was working on IODA Promonet. It wasn't until a Jambase Christmas party where we finally had a formal introduction.

Our mutual friend introduced me to Steve as (what else) my Twitter screen name. (Which, at the time, was not what it is now). Steve exclaimed, "oh you're [redacted]!!" - and I repeated the process "and aren't you [redacted]?" (note, he has also since changed and is now @stevejang). We tipped a pint and digressed to a philosophical conversation about numbers. I told him I'm a 555, he told me it's a magic number. Henceforth, I never forgot Steve Jang.

As I followed him on twitter, I took notice of his music choices and it was impossible not to experience his passion for art: this man loves music. His taste leans more dancey than mine, but genre barriers have never stopped me from respecting the nature of any one person's taste in refined music. Steve's passion transcends any disagreements we may or may not have about art. We frequently run into each other at shows or events and it is clear that like most, he is more than a dedicated music fan, he is creating waves in the changing business of music.

Make no mistake: a love of music is at the core of the San Francisco Digital Music Industry.

Steve Jang's Top 20 Albums 2000 - 2009
reminder of the rules: Steve had 2 days to deliver his list. Like all disclaimers, he reminded me that this is his list today, but it can change at any time. I understand Steve, believe me...you're in good company.

1. Funeral - Arcade Fire
2. For Emma, Forever Ago - Bon Iver
3. Kid A  - Radiohead
4. Donuts - J Dilla
5. Turn on the Bright Lights - Interpol
6. Discovery - Daft Punk
7. Stankonia - Outkast
8. Los Angeles - Flying Lotus
9. Voodoo - D'Angelo
10. In Rainbows - Radiohead
11. Madvillainy - Madvillain
12. You Forgot It In People - Broken Social Scene
13. Silent Alarm - Bloc Party
14. Like Water for Chocolate - Common
15. I Am Not Afraid Of You and I Will Beat Your Ass - Yo La Tengo
16. The Grey Album - Danger Mouse
17. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - The Flaming Lips
18. Silent Shout - The Knife
19. Attack and Release - The Black Keys
20. Kitten and Thee Glitz- Felix Da Housecat

next up: Marisol Segal (@discomaz on twitter)

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