Tuesday, March 09, 2004
(7:05 PM) | Anonymous:
6,411,072,877 People In The World, and I Only Know A Few
2 POSTS IN A ROW I SO ROCK YOU ALL.It is CD Change day. I didn't do an update last week, but I've dropped a class since then, bringing me down to 20 hours on the semester, so I can totally post this now. COMMA OVERLOAD, THEY COME LIKE HOOKS AND RIP OUT YOUR SOUL BECAUSE I USE THEM WAY TOO, MUCH.
Pretty decent week in the car, my complicated formulas somehow didn't dump a crappy cd on me, which is truly always a feat. I'm a bit of an aesthetic, except instead of chains, whips, and snake charming, I use PETRA, WHITEHEART or KORN. But, the rules of the 6-cd set-up allow me to skip cds of a certain level of terrible-ness after the first listen through. This is the only thing that gets me through some weeks. THIS WEEK however, is not such a week. Heck, even the LEAVE NO CD BEHiND initiative worked out this week. Alright, let's go to the chart:
1. Kill Creek - St Valentine's Garage
So, I thought this was a good cd. It is the kind of punk rock I like - not all cheery and happy and galavanting around, yet not all caught up in having "so many issues" and being so totally "hard core". It's ANGST without taking itself seriously, the only kind of angst where you don't walk away looking like a fool. Gruff, but not Griff. You remember Griff..it was this TV show in the 70's, it showed up on nick & Nite for a time after the Monkees I think. It sucked, he was a detective..or a pirate..or a sanitation engineer or something. Definitely Not that. Wow..I just checked Amazon for ideas of what to write and saw that this came out in 1994. It is infinitely better than, because it certainly sounds like it came out of the stuido tonight. This very night. AND they are still together. Incredible. God Bless Longevity! Unless Good Charlotte is still around in ten years, in which Longevity can go directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.
2. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
I didn't intend for this to be in the week of the concert, when it was plugged into the formula, the concert wasn't even announced. This is the magic of leaving your affairs up to the gods of randonimity. Sometimes they happen to work out in a crazy manner, and you can be re-affirmed in believing in God. To know how good this CD is, reference the post below entitlestedares "They Don't Love Me Like The Yeah Yeah Yeahs Love Me". Sorry I got carry away in piling on spanish-like verbage when saying "entitled".
3. Kurt Elling - The Messenger
Surprise of the week. Thought this might not be so great, because upon casual listening to his other cd, called "Flirting with your mom..or disaster..or something I can't remember what he was flirting with..maybe moonlight?" whatever it was called, it didn't hit me right at the time. I'll have to do some further review to see if that cd is much worse, or if I just was in a "shoot the hostage" mood. It also might have been because this guy looks like the world's largest pud, outside of St. Louis Blues intermission broadcaster Dan McLaughlin. He looks like..a homosexual mannequin who comes to life to terrorize the world with his military voice in some German art silent film or something. However, here on this cd he does some amazing musical things, making the jazz beautiful with his vocal stylings. Really, there's not a bad track, and he sings something awesome, and the music in the background is pretty nice as well. I am a great Kurt Elling fan now.
4. Adam Again - Dig/Homeboys
Last time I spoke of Aaron Sprinkle and Jason/Ronnie Martin in the comments section. Next to them as a mover and shaker worthy of all glory, laud, and honor is Gene Eugene of Adam Again. Adam Again, for the time they were around (mid 80's-early 90s) were actually a good band. It's as good as any of the other rock from the time period, and not 5 years behind like every other music artist of the time. Of the time? Okay..ever. What's more, they don't seem to be trying to cash in on the instant market of Christians who like music. They seem to actually like what they do, and nothing is forced. Good stuff. Especially the song off Homeboys entitled "World Wide", from which this post cops its name. I'd go so far as to throw up "world wide" with "worlds apart" and..I don't know "Go Light Your World" for best Christian songs ever. There's nothing special about it, simple progression and painfully too short, but whenever I hear it I must listen again. This CD was actually scratched and the beginning of this song, ONLY this song wouldn't play..so I had to jump ahead and skip the first 24 seconds or so. Painful, it was.
Tompaulin - Town and City
I was pretty pumped about this CD, because they were said to be similar to Belle & Sebastian. I'd never heard that. I mean..bands are in the B&S family, like Yo La Tengo or some other assorted groups, but none are really said to be like Belle & Sebastian. However, I had no clue that Tompaulin isn't only like..big fans or something, but they basically seem to take B&S riffs and change a few things, and make new songs. The product, obviously, loses a few things. Like an incestuous baby. It is okay, don't get me wrong, this being the worst CD in my player on a week is like only getting Stephen Hawking as your graduation speaker, when you look at what drudge normally finds it's way in. All the same, I'd rather hear Belle & Sebastian play their instruments with their hair then hear this blatant rip off.
Academy and Chorus of St. Martin in the Fields - Joseph Haydn's Die Jahreszeiten Disc 1 (Der Fruhling/Der Sommer)
Time to show my ignorance, as I always must when we reach the classical time. I watched Spartacus this week. I think it is pretty much like this CD. I had massive expectations, having heard about it all my life. Then, it turned out to be ... OKAY. It's like when you go to take a drink of your sweet tea, only you forget that your mom said the tea was all gone so she'd poor you a coke. Coke is okay stuff, but when you enter with taste buds expecting the glory of sweet tea, and you take that first sip of coke, inevitably you will spit it out. It's the worst thing ever, because you expected better and vastly different. Spartacus being the Kubrick, being the EPIC, and being the classic, I thought it'd be great. But really, it's in that category of Ben Hur or The Ten Commandments...like..you watch them cause their old and classic, but they aren't anything like Citizen Kane or The Seven Samurai or 8 1/2 or Man Bites Dog or anything. There's some terrible acting, and Kubrick doesn't do anything amazing, but it still stands the test of time reasonably well. For a Choral piece, this is pretty much what Haydn seems to do here. It's like The Messiah, long flourish of orchestra build up, tenor solo, soprano solo, BIG CHORUS BREAK IN REAL QUICK..tenor-soprano duet..bass solo, alto solo BIG CHORUS BREAK IN bass-alto duet..mix and match these elements as much as you want, put em together, and you have a piece.
Like..it's good stuff, I should make that note..but Arvo Part was in last week..and I much prefer that sort of thing, where the chorus is brought in as an actual instrument, not just as an occasional and predictable break in things. But, haha..everyone laugh at me, I'm actually criticizing flippin' JOSEPH HAYDN. Who the heck do I think I am?
