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.

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.