My first bout of fascination with Japanese rock music happened in the early ’90s as a result of watching a lot of anime. I still have all eight volumes of Bubblegum Crisis soundtracks.
Around that time, I was just buying random discs, hoping to scratch the itch caused by putting Iijima Mari’s "Ai, Oboete Imasu ka?", Miyasato Kumi’s "Himitsu Ku-da-sa-i" and Oomori Kuniko’s "Konya wa Hurricane" on repeat.
One such disc was Tomorrow by Hamada Mari.
Yet another exhibit to add to the growing amount of evidence proving Duran Duran really needs to break up.
In order to determine whether I want to expend the calories to review an album, I have to listen to it in part or on whole. I’m at the point in my life where I don’t want to spend time subjecting myself to an album where I end up having no opinion about it. Having no opinion about something is worse than having a negative opinion about it. At least with the latter, there’s fodder from which to write.
At times, I end up spinning an album from an artist I like, thinking I’ll feature it but ending up with the dreaded lack of opinion. And I could have spent that time listening to something I do like.
So I’m going to make the Slush Pile an occassional review round-up. I may not have an opinion about something I encounter, but it still leaves some sort of impression.
To all musicians with a MySpace page:
Please learn how to disable auto-play when you embed video and audio on the same page.
OutKast, I’m looking at you. I attempted to stream your latest album but that damn embedded video clip started up at the same time as the MySpace player, and I was assaulted by a cacophony.
You lost an album sale that day. (Permanently after a trusted source told me Idlewild wasn’t all that great.)
Mindy Smith, I’m looking at you as well. You did not offend me as harshly as OutKast, but you must disable that embedded video on your page lest people be confused when they hear two songs at one time.
Everyone else, take heed — you too will lose the credibility of listeners if your web handler isn’t smart enough to take appropriate measures to avoid such a cacophony. Do you not want to suck? I thought not.
Looking after your best interests,
G.
"The Pills Stopped Working" is the pinnacle track on Hem’s third studio album, Funnel Cloud. It also effectively kills the album.
Having mastered a lyrical, pastoral style of songwriting, Hem had only one way to challenge itself — write something in a quick tempo.
The two songs sporting this newer, extroverted style — "Too Late to Turn Back Now" and "The Pills Stopped Working" — mark the midpoint of the album. It’s a welcome change the band handles incredibly well.
Too well, in fact.
I’m not sure what the big deal is with the Sugarcubes reunion. Even Bounce is reporting on it. The reunion is a one-off concert for charity. Yes, Björk is performing with her old band for the first time in 14 years, but I think it would be a bigger deal if they decided to record and tour.
(I hear Einer Örn’s debut solo album from a few years back is decent.)
It’s like every time Bill Berry shows up to drum with R.E.M. for some random event. Granted, Berry’s departure from the group signaled a true turning point for the band and not in a good way. But what’s the big deal with a random reunion here or there? Log it under a bullet item and move on.
I’ve mentioned this to friends time and again, though — it wasn’t until Homogenic that I took Björk seriously as a solo artist. Debut was far too polished and had none of the rawness of Life’s Too Good, but then she wrestled free of Nelle Hopper’s boring ass and came into her own. Were the Sugarcubes to reform, it would be something of a step back for her.
Unless she pulls a Shiina Ringo and forms a new band. What’s the Icelandic word for "incidents"?
The highest bidder so far in the auction for Tower Records is offering $90 to $95 million for the beleaguered chain, so reports Musical America.
Great American has so far placed the highest bid, according to Tower. The company specializes in liquidating assets.
I remember when the Tower location in Austin closed back in 2004. I went there hoping to score some discounted goods, and the discounts were still priced higher than I would have gotten from Waterloo, even without my employee discount at the time.
At the same time, it would suck to be in Harmonia Mundi’s shoes. $1.2 million owed and a liquidiation still wouldn’t help? Damn.
Just because you own an iPod doesn’t mean you shop at iTunes, so the Beeb tells me. According to Jupiter Media, only an average of 20 tracks found on an iPod were bought from the iTunes music store. It makes me wonder about the poor sap who has only 20 music files on his iPod.
The whole debate about legal vs. illegal music downloading has frustrated me on all sides. On the one hand, I can’t stand the demonization by the record industry of listeners who use the tools at their disposal to become better consumers. Why are sales down so much? Because the Evil Sharing Networks let people be choosy about how they blow their cash. I mean c’mon — we’re not living in the Clintonian boom time now, are we?
This New York Times article (registration required) posits what would have happened if Mozart lived the same lifespan as his father Leopold or his sister Nannerl.
I guess I watched too much Star Trek Voyager in my formative years because my first reaction was that it would have major repercussions on the timeline, and it would obviously violate the temporal prime directive. (Loser! == me)
Put it another way, he probably wouldn’t have heard Berlioz or Chopin perform or compose their major works because he probably would have left some sort of influence to inspire a random, unknown person to take those ideas elsewhere. Who knows?
Yes, I know the point of the article was to imagine something along the lines of what Jimi Hendrix would have thought of Lenny Kravitz. Or Kurt Cobain of Justin Timberlake. Or JS Bach of Ludwig van Beethoven.
But all that time watching Voyager makes me more interested in the science fiction of who else would have emerged alongside Beethoven and Hadyn.
When I was working at a record store in 2002, one question that popped up from time to time was in regard to an NPR report about an opera singer who recorded an album of lullabies.
That opera singer is Montserrat Figueras, and the album is Ninna Nanna.