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The crush grows even stronger…

Thanks EmilyStrange for finding this.

Update [1/15/09]: Funny Strange response.

37.8gb!  It took me 8 days to download - mainly due to crappy torrent speeds.  This guy started out fast, but then fell to between 20-80k/sec for most of it.  It took me like 45mins to unrar!

I found this song while listening to Pandora recently, and I think this is my theme song:

I heard this on the radio the other day and was like “Awww Yeah!!”  Check out the beginning of the first verse, with Kanye is rapping about my new toy!:

Mac party-train part 3 of 3.5

I don’t know what this is, but I found Sam posted this great video on his blog, go check it out.

Also didn’t know that facebook had video capability, but I have unfortunately not been on there in so long that it’s no surprise that I don’t know.  Hopefully I’ll be back on there before too long.

I think perhaps the biggest shocker of the year in music is that Guns N’ Roses’ new album, Chinese Democracy, which has been 13 years in the making, is pretty good.  This of course highly depends on whether you like Guns N’ Roses or not, more specifically if you like Axl Rose’s voice.  I can imagine that lots of people don’t like the way he sounds, but I’m not sure.  I like it, I find it very unique, and I enjoyed the Use Your Illusion albums in the very early 90s - they were some of my first rock-music-that-I-actually-like-and-want-to-buy experiences.  Appetite for Destruction of course also had some good tracks.  I didn’t like 80s hair glam rock, and I never really regarded GnR to be part of that category, though perhaps some members sported the style.  At the very least GnR were a small part of the bridge between 80s rock and 90s alternative.

Now the thing to keep in mind is that as a whole, the Use Your Illusion albums weren’t really *that* great, nor was Appetite for Destruction.  They weren’t bad, they had some stand out tracks, and when they stood out, they stood out, with really great music videos to complement the Use Your Illusion singles.  But they also had some so-so tracks as well as some duds on there, which made for not continuously good albums.  In this context, Chinese Democracy does not disappoint.  I’m not even sure it’s not the best GnR album - probably not, but I’m not sure.  It feels like a far more epic and deep album.  I’m happily surprised to find that it has sincerity.  When Axl sings, it sounds like he is being sincere and not just trying real hard.  I find most of the tracks on Chinese Democracy to be good.  It’s a very good Guns N’ Roses album.  The super awesome stand-out memorable songs are not really there, but nor are the duds.  This great and poor has been replaced with a constant good.

There’s not too much about it that sounds specifically modern either.  This album could have come out in 1994, and if you heard it today you’d say “yeah, that’s the ‘94 Guns N’ Roses album..”  Unfortunately Chinese Democracy is overshadowed by the well known fact that it’s been 13 years in making.  So instead of purely enjoying the music, you can’t help occasionally wondering why it took so long if it sounds like it could easily be from 1994 (had the band not split, of course).  Was Axl retooling it for so long, and working on it so hard that it took so many years of his effort to get it to sound like an actual GnR album?  Has he lost it except when he spends 13 years to make an album?  The most fascinating experiment possible right now would be to find where Axl’s been hiding for all these recent weeks, kidnap him, get the rest of the band, lock them in a studio for two weeks and force them to release a new album in that time.  What would that sound like? Would it be horrible, another good GnR album, or something even better?

Either way, good job on Chinese Democracy, Axl, but it would benefit from some publicity.  You’re not Tool.

from the G.A.  Half street half pop singaaaaa!

by the way.. I agree with BBC Music’s review of Out of Control:

Pop music at its finest, Girls Aloud have opened up their hearts, and finally won their battle against drippy, re-hashed ballads. Long may they reign.

Amen!

Also I like that BBC licenses their published work under Creative Commons.  That’s dope!

I am happy to say that the fifth Girls Aloud album has gotten them back on track for me.  Out of Control is the most electronic Girls Aloud album thus far.  While it begins with the more expected Girls Aloud sound, by track five it turns into a Europop album, which is just fine by me. Out of Control lacks the power and sheer bliss that often times dominates Chemistry, but it is still constantly good.  Like Chemistry, Out of Control features another back-to-back track love session in “Turn to Stone” and “Untouchable”.  With the latter track, the girls have again tapped into their psychic connection with my brain and decided to basically satisfy one of my pop fantasies, that being a 7+ minute long pop song.  Ok, so “Untouchable” weighs in at 6:44, but I’ll compromise and accept it.  Congratulations and thanks are again due to Girls Aloud for experimenting and breaking new ground in pop.  I’ve listened to this album about six times over the past week and a half, and I can safely say that this is the second best Girls Aloud album.

Looks like they’ll be doing Nintendo DS commercials in the UK, which is pretty appropriate since I believe I remember my girlf telling me that Sarah has commented in the past about her DS-playing.  Also, nice to know that Billy Corgan is a fan, don’t know about that “better than the Beatles” comment though.

Looks like Coldplay has dabbled a bit too.

One of my favorite live performances comes from the twilight days of the original Metallica.  I YouTube’d For Whom the Bell Tolls from Woodstock ‘94, because all the other ones on YouTube are not in sync or are incomplete.