This would be roughly the week of January 20 through January 26.
5 Years Ago (2009): The image of the week was a steampunk instrument by Mike Ford. … The quote of the week was the first two paragraphs of an essay by Eula Biss on the telephone (“The idea on which the telephone depended — that every home in the country could be connected with a vast network of wires suspend ed from poles set an average of one hundred feet apart — seemed far less likely than the idea that the human voice could be transmitted through a wire”).
Downstream recommended listening included Battlestar Galactica remixes, some proggy instrumental goodness from Marco Cervellin, mini film scores by O.S.T. (Chris Douglas), a skateboard documentary soundtrack by Odd Nosdam, and a live Amon Tobin performance.
10 Years Ago (2004): The quote of the week was a comment on Slate.com about the famous scream by Howard Dean on the 19th. … Downstream entries included Nanoloop tracks, music by Deadbeat (aka Scott Monteith), a mix by Luke Vibert (aka Wagon Christ), fourth-world trip-hop from Eivind Aarset, and material by Pocka (aka Brad Mitchell).
15 Years Ago (1999): A piece about Slow Gold II, an $89.95 piece of software that let you slow down music. … A review I wrote for Amazon.com of Michael Nyman’s score to The Piano (this is back when Amazon was hiring music journalists to write featured reviews — not consumer reviews, official Amazon reviews — of albums that it sold).