Updates and more

Hey all,

This semester has been incredibly busy for me. In the past two weeks, I've had tests, a 25 page paper, a 15 page paper and I've got finals coming up now. And the entire semester has been close to that par.

But enough excuses, you want to know what's coming up! I finally got my hands on John 5's latest, Remixploitation. Listening now and it is phenomenal. That'll get a review. New band called Surfer Blood has a CD dropping in a couple months. They're damn good, but you'll hear about that soon. I've got a few ideas for annual posts, I'll get those going soon too.

I've got a list of stuff I want to do...and with the end of this semester I'll actually have, wait for it, FREE TIME! So expect to start seeing something regular.

I am also starting to use my last.fm account. Site's pretty sweet, you should check it out. If you're interested in what I've been listening to lately or what I like, that's the place to look. Feel free to add me on there if you use it.

Update 10-21-09

I've been really busy with midterms and preparing for papers and such, so I kinda missed the boat on Horse the Band and Fall of Troy. Both albums are pretty good, I'd recommend both, but I don't exactly have time for a full write up, and they came out two or three weeks ago, so it's a bit late anyway. If any of the three people I've convinced to read this thus far really want me to, I'll just do it anyway this weekend. But other than that, I'm afraid I'll just have to let them pass. This semester blows. But hey, that's Junior year.

I did just get my hands on the new Rammstein though. I'll do my best to find time to listen to it and post a review this weekend. I just got a new computer so that will occupy the majority of my time this weekend, as will the two midterms I have coming up in the next weeks, but hopefully I can find the time.

New Music: Flaming Lips

As surely as Yoshimi wins, the Flaming Lips are back with their twelfth album. Fuck yes. The album is called Embryonic, and I thoroughly enjoy it.

This is the first double album the band has ever done. Embryonic does differ from some of the bands previous work, such as Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and The Soft Bullitin, but it is still true to the band's nature.

The first part of the album honestly isn't that different from the second, to me. To me, a double album is typically a light vs. dark sort of thing, there might not be a polar opposite between the discs, but there is usually something noticable. But then again, it's my impression that this is a double album for the sake of being a double album. In an interview, Wayne Coyne said "Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that we should do a double album... Just this idea that you can weave a couple of themes into there and you can sprawl a little bit." If you're wondering who Wayne Coyne is, shame on you.

While listening to Embryonic, I could hear themes from a number of different Flaming Lips albums. Some parts of some songs made me think back to the Soft Bulletin, others reminded me of At War With The Mystics, and so on. And I really like how expansive the album is. Not that the Flaming Lips have ever had limitations in their sounds, variety is always really cool.

Overall, the album is a free-for-all, there isn't much apparently structure from one song to the next, but then again, who says there has to be? The new record is just numerous bits and pieces of the band. I for one really like the fact that they're not trying to stick to one sound, as bands typically do on one album. I honestly would like to see more bands willing to be so bold.

A few of the songs do have some guest vocals. One of the vocalists is Dr. Thorsten Wörmann,a German mathematician. He speaks over instrumentals in such a way to really extenuate the song. I'm personally a sucker for songs that pull off background spoken word segments, so maybe I'm just a tad biased towards liking that. Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs also does some guest vocals, and her voice compliments Wayne's wonderfully. "I Can Be A Frog" is one song where she vocalizes the number of animals Wayne describes in the song in a way that can only be described as fun. MGMT are featured on the song "Worm Mountain."

I really like this album. It has a great mood to it, it's fun, it's honestly everything I've come to expect from the band. The Flaming Lips are a wonderful band. They're completely uninhibited in what they do, and I feel that makes for an amazing album. I would say my favorite tracks are "Aquarius Sabotage" and "I Can Be A Frog."

The album is available in a special edition, and I would definitely recommend it. The special edition has both CDs and a DVD that has the entire album in superior audio. And I don't know about you, but the Flaming Lips are just one of those bands that you need to hear in the best quality you can. It also comes in a unique packaging, with a furry cover. A lithograph is also included. This edition is quite limited, so if you'd like to purchase it, you can do so here.

The band has performed the song "Convicted of the Hex" on the Colbert Report and just this week, performed "Watching the Planets" on the Conan O'Brien show. See the videos at the bottom of the page.

So conclusion. This album is awesome, easily a 5 out of 5. It is definitely worth checking out, whether you've been a fan for years or this is the first you've heard of the band.

"Convicted of the Hex"

"Watching the Planets"

And a bonus...the music video for "I Can Be A Frog"

Boners for indie kids

www.insound.com is a fantastic place for pretty much everything indie. They have all the bands you've never heard of, full discographies, and so on. One of my favorite things about this site is that it also has LPs. I personally love LPs, so it's nice to know that if I ever want to buy one, its a simple click away, instead of searching a dozen other shopping sites.

Another great thing about the site is that is has one of the largest collections of free music I've ever seen. They have a "Free MP3 of the Week" that they'll send you if you're on their mailing list. I've come across some very good bands from this list. In fact, I've been on this list for probably three or four years, and they've never sent a bad song. And if that weren't enough, there is a "Free MP3's" section on the website, which has over 5000 songs. I haven't investigated it too much yet, but there are a lot of good songs there.

One thing I really like about the free MP3s is that a lot of the bands featured are new or unknown. Which is A) wonderful for the hipster in all of us (see: Hipster Theory of Relativity) and B) great because these bands are good, but because they're unknown they don't have to try and sound like the bullshit that's been coming out of the mainstream lately. And it really has been getting worse overall.

So if you're looking for some good music, or just a way to boost your Hipster Cred, this is the place to go. It's got everything you could want from bands that you probably wouldn't find in many other places. See for yourself, and enjoy. This website definitely gets high marks in my book.

Sorry

So sorry I haven't been able to update this...at all. The summer turned out to be a lot busier than I expected, and the school year has been rather busy as well. I missed out on reviewing a bunch of leaks I got, but oh well. I have more, and I'm going to try to actually get this updated. On the bright side, no one is actually following this yet, so I haven't disappointed anyone!

But to come:

-New Flaming Lips

-New Fall of Troy

-New Horse the Band

-New Foo Fighters single, maybe the greatest hits album.

-and more.

I've also come across a lot of new stuff which I really like (some of which is new only to me), so I'll do write ups on those as well. As soon as I get some time, I'm just going to write a whole bunch at once. So that way, if I fall behind again, I'll at least have material I can take eight seconds to post.

That's all. I felt this was an appropriate segway between not posting for almost four months and then (hopefully) posting regularly.

Later.

Welcome

Hey,

My name is Joe, and I love music. So basically, once or more a week (at least I'll try to do this) I'm going to give you an update on some good music. This will either be a new CD, a band, or, if I've got nothing else, I'll put iTunes on random, and whatever comes up, I'll do a write up on that CD. I'll do some updates on good places to get music as they come up as well.

So that's the rundown. Let's see how this turns out.