Spotify Test

Spotify has hit the States.  I am running a test to see if it will fit my needs.  To use the following link you do need to download Spotify:

Baby Huey & The Baby Sitters – Mama Get Yourself Together

A local collection link:

Johnny Adams – My Baby's Quit Me

Hiatus

I haven't completely forgotten about this blog, it's just been a busy year and a half.  Part of the reason for the delay is the demise of Lala, I have been seeking a suitable replacement but have come up empty.  I have kept up the collection while I've been away and have obtained almost all the A's.  Look for a new update soon!

Just Chill

This time out we'll go through a very chill collection: another outing from John Adams (this time The Death Of Klinghoffer, Johnny Adams' Johnny Adams Sings Doc Pomus - The Real Me, and Ryan Adams' Heartbreaker


. All in all these make a great listen for a lazy weekend afternoon.  This post also has the grand debut (for my site anyways) of Lala widgets: this site allows you to post full recordings (not just 30 second snippets) to websites as well as stream most or all of an album online (although I think it limits you to somewhere between 1 and 5 listens before asking you to pay) depending on the licensing agreement.  (Lala is no more, sadly).  Personally, I think this could have led to great things for music reviews in new media, no longer does the reader need to rely on just the word of the reviewer or a short snippet of song but they can preview the album for themselves before spending money on it.  A similar method is how I grew much of my collection during college: I would hear a song on a compilation CD and like it so much I went ahead and got the whole album.  This did garner mixed results but with the arrival of the site and other advances in new media the long term future looks rosy for music.  That all being said I will try and post my favorite songs (trying to limit it to 3 or less) of each album I discuss.

A rocker, a gospel singer and a classical musician walk into a bar...

Wow, three months between posts, sorry about that. In order to make this project manageable I'll try and cover 2 to 3 albums per post, starting now.

Structural Analysis

My apologies for the long delay from my last post, things got a little crazy around casa de deeper: from postal misappropriations to structural failures, it's been a month. I've also delayed writing this entry in the hopes that the materials (The Muhal Richard Abrams Orchestra's Blu Blu Blu) would grow on me, it didn't.

Turns out, I'm a fan of structured music (though not structured settlements): I understand Mr Abrams is supposed to be a visionary of free jazz but this recording sounded, in the words of an underwhelmed fan of another disc, like "everyone was doing a solo". While I'm sure there is some sort of coherence here I don't hear it, similar to a problem I had with Francis the Mute from Mars Volta, give me something with an understandable layout and composition and I'll let the day drift by. This may make me a philistine to some (especially a jazz fan relative from Abrams' hometown) but so be it. This recording was a little hard to track down in digital form, Amazon (linked above) has an overpriced CD that should be reserved for the true conosieur while Emusic actually had one for download (about the only thing worth downloading from this free to cheap service).  (August 2011: Emusic has grown greatly since original posting, I feel it is well worth a look)

A is for...*Shudder*

Make it stop! Oh, for the love of God! Make it stop!

I've gone through Abba's Gold: Greatest Hits a couple times now. Why did I start here? Partly for the challenge of reviewing something I don't like and partly because they were listed first in the book. While the production quality is quite good, the lyrics are so vacuous it made my ears bleed. True, it's said that the 90's remastered edition (which is what I listened to) lost a little when the tracks were not doubled up leaving what was once a choir-like effect an empty shell of it's former self; but, that doesn't remove the overall saccharine effect of the album, lots of words come through the speakers but not much gets said (kinda like this post).

That hollowness, that escapism is what I think makes this group, and disco, so polarizing: while a little escape, a little sugar can be a great harbor from the storms of life, a decade long fleeing of the woes of life left a very bad taste in many peoples' mouths.

So, was it worth it? To me, no; to a long time fan, probably; to someone looking for the perfect playlist to small animals with, instant classic.

Falme on!

Journey to the Center of Music

It's Saturday, two days after Christmas and I'm laying on my in-law's couch while the missus is on their loveseat. We've been sick all night (thanks FIL) and the tv's on the Today show, when I see a bit with Tom Moon talking about his new book "1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die". I sit up a little straighter, getting a moist belch for my troubles, and think about the possibilities. After we get better I head over to a bookstore and have a look at the artists featured: it had everything from old favorites like Metallica to newer found treasures like Johnny Cash; many I had never heard of before, like the entire world music selection and most of the jazz selection; and it rounds out with *shudder* Britney Spears, ABBA, and country. After some thought I decided to buy the book and try something out: I'm going to get one of the recordings listed every couple weeks and blog my thoughts and reactions to them and in between we'll discuss other topics of interest, mostly music related. I originally thought it would be a 3 year project, but after I double checked my math, I realized that would require a budget of about $300 a week, not going to happen.

And so, I invite you to join me in this journey through some of the greatest music yet made. The comments section will be space for you to offer your thoughts on the artists featured, alternatives that we should check out and just have fun. The comments area is not your private billboard to advertise your recordings, blogs or pages; so, don't be surprised if your spam gets deleted.