This is my last post on Suzanne Vega’s music for now. After listening to all of her songs my conclusion is that while she has a pleasant voice, some of the production techniques starting with 99.9F may not paint it in the best light. Still, my favorite album is Nine Objects of Desire and her later work shows a lyrical maturity that I believe is being overlooked.

 Read the rest of this entry (1617 words await you)

Well. It’s a given I’ll buy this album. It’s the sort of disc I feel I have to listen to multiple times, to get comfortable with. My initial thought is this album sounds like Rubber Soul if the Beatles got to go back and rerecord it knowing everything they learned from Revolver through The White Album.

 Read the rest of this entry (382 words await you)

Needless to say I’m a fair Radiohead fan. They recently announced their new album In Rainbows will be for sale via their website for a price determined by you. It’s been quite some time since their last album Hail To The Thief, so there’s a ton of pent-up demand.

 Read the rest of this entry (358 words await you)

Never mind investment bubbles – the bubble that damaged me most was the hair metal one of the late eighties. After New Wave and the sexually ambiguous melodies of Kajagoogoo and Haircut 100, hard rock struck back with a vengeance via all kinds of pseudo-manly bands, waving their guitars like giant – guitars.

As hair metal grew in popularity, clones of clones of clones emerged – all  rock decedents of Van Halen and Bon Jovi in a cheap attempt to make a quick buck, hence inflating a head-banging bubble that could only collapse due the weight of the metal contained within.

 Read the rest of this entry (768 words await you)

Even if you’re not a huge Beatles fan, I think this documentary about John Lennon’s jukebox is worth seeing for a neat history of the music of the sixites.

Basically John Lennon had a jukebox that he would take around with him on tour, filled with all of his favorite music.

 Read the rest of this entry (194 words await you)

I’m guessing there are at least two readers of this blog that care about Crowded House, but MSN Music has a full concert recorded of a recent Crowded House concert from the House of Blues in Chicago – August 18, 2007. It’s over at MSN Music (USA link) and played just fine on my Mac.

 Read the rest of this entry (357 words await you)

Yesterday, it was announced that John Lennon and his back catalog have been added to the iTunes Music Store (of course, in the case of Double Fantasy that means some of Yoko’s stuff too).

 Read the rest of this entry (293 words await you)

Ars Technica has a nice update regarding the continuing death of the CD. But in addition to the vanishing of a physical format, it’s possible the whole concept of the “album” – a sequence of songs meant to be considered as a whole – is dying along with it.

Truth be told, it’s an idea that calls for a change in my way of thinking. I’m still a die-hard album fanatic. Even with digital downloads, I find it hard to download just one song from an artist. It feels somehow incomplete and unfair to to only cherry pick an artist’s best songs – like watching only one scene of a movie – so I find myself still buying complete albums, even through downloads.

 Read the rest of this entry (695 words await you)

Mr. Tunequest found a little bit of new Radiohead stuff. They’re supposed to release a new album sometime this year. Really hard to make any kind of evaluation with these really short, random snippets, but I’ll certainly get it as soon as it’s released.

 Read the rest of this entry (63 words await you)

Listening to Memory Almost Full, I initially thought: hey, this is pretty darned cool. But I soon decided that: no, is really isn’t. My attention wandered away during the album’s meandering second half.

There are definitely stellar moments during the disc’s overarching theme of personal memory, its reevaluation over time, and evaporation upon death. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will satisfy me in the long run. It’s a ray of sunshine on a slightly overcast day, continually fading behind clouds, leaving me wanting for its occasional warmth.

 Read the rest of this entry (842 words await you)