Music Reviews

[X*Cell]

Re: Music Reviews

Stay tuned for:

"Neighborhood Watch" - Dilated Peoples

&

"Wylde Tymes at Washington High" - Wylde Bunch

[CM1847]

Re: Music Reviews

At The Drive-In: This Station Is Non-Operational

Not a greatest hit's album(hard to have a greatest hits album when the band only had two songs that got radio play), but an "anthology" that spans the career of one of the best hard rock indie bands of the past 10 years. Take current bands Sparta and The Mars Volta and put them together, literally, and you will get At The Drive-In(those two bands were formed when AtDI split in the early 00's). Their one hit song is here, "One Armed Scissor", but you are missing out if that's the only thing you've heard from this band. This odd compliation contains as many b-sides/unreleased songs as it does album tracks, but if you like the style of music there aren't any worth skipping. The most interesting new tracks are covers of "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" by The Smiths and "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" by Pink Floyd.

The album captures the sound that made ATDI great, I'm a fan of Sparta and some of The Mars Volta, but neither will ever compare to what these guys did in ATDI. This is a good CD to get introduced to the band's albums without having to go out and get all 4 proper studio albums they put out. There is also a DVD included with three music videos and other miscellaneous material.

Listen to: Picket Fence Cartel, Lopsided, This Night Has Opened My Eyes

9 out of 10

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Music Reviews

White Stripes: Get Behind Me Satan

One thing I love about the White Stripes is their album covers. Every album has featured the talented duo in different poses and each looks somewhat simplistic, however, the covers never give away what the White Stripes have in store for that CD. Take a look at Led Zeppelin's IV (ZoSo) with the famous "stick man" and you'll expect to hear folk-rock, which you do. Take a look at the cover for Soundgarden's Louder than Love and you won't be surprised to dive into metal, head banging Soundgarden grunge. The White Stripes' Get Behind Me Satan cover only reveals that the duo comprised of Jack & Meg White are talent artists at heart and this artistic ability translates into another stellar album.

Although not sampling any songs from Get Behind Me Satan, I did read some pre-release buzz, most of it claiming the White Stripes had a new style on this album. Yes, there is a new style, but it is very much the White Stripes and they let you know its them from the very beginning with "Blue Orchid;" a classic, foot stomping, guitar-showcasing White Stripes song. Moving on through the album, it is clear the White Stripes have expanded their song writing capabilites. There are tracks that make you swear you're listening to The Beatles, Rolling Stones, or Led Zeppelin and "Forever For Her (Is Over for Me)" is a perfect example. The White Stripes move freely, and easily from hard guitar rock, to piano ballads, from blues to country, which the latter is clearly an influence from Jack White's work with famous country female artist, Loretta Lynn. While the album may be too diverse for some (a real shame), the meaning of the songs (Love & truth) keep the album together nicely, not letting the songs stray too far from eachother.

Some people may cringe and shrug their shoulders when critics claim the White Stripes are the saviours for rock n roll, but there's only one place to look to understand: Jack White's voice. One of the few voices of today that make you think of the 60s and 70s, White's voice is a mixture of McCartney, Jagger, and Plant and his songwriting abilities are of the same mixture. Let's not forget Meg White though. She knows how to plays the drums, and knows when to let up too, which is a good thing for any drummer to know. Although she doesn't get much credit, she's a good singer for Jack's songs. I enjoy her singing parts because she has a type of innocent tone to her voice and Jack plays that up extremly well.

Lets just say, this modern-day rock n' roll duo deliver another stellar album, but hell, who wasn't expecting it?

Songs to keep on repeat: Blue Orchid, Forever for Hear (Is Over for Me), Little Ghost, Ugly As I Seem.

9.5 out of 10

[Hooe]

Re: Music Reviews

"Wylde Tymes at Washington High" - Wylde Bunch

I'm actually kinda curious about this one. That one song they had in Madden was very catchy and pretty good IMO, but I'd like to hear someone else's opinion about the album before I spend my money on it.

[Thrasha]

Re: Music Reviews

Nice to read that review on the white stripes album, only one I had seen so far was the rollingstone one.

After they gave the last Britney Spears album 3 or 3.5 stars, I lost all respect for that POS magazine and stopped putting any faith in their reviews. Just to let you know if you didn't, they gave it 4.5 stars.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Music Reviews

Nice to read that review on the white stripes album, only one I had seen so far was the rollingstone one.

After they gave the last Britney Spears album 3 or 3.5 stars, I lost all respect for that POS magazine and stopped putting any faith in their reviews. Just to let you know if you didn't, they gave it 4.5 stars.

I don't normally look up reviews from Rolling Stone mag, unless somebody points it out to me. Most of the reviews I read are either from Amazon.com or AMG, the latter being a very good source. They gave the album 4.5/5 as well.

[CM1847]

Re: Music Reviews

Nice to read that review on the white stripes album, only one I had seen so far was the rollingstone one.

After they gave the last Britney Spears album 3 or 3.5 stars, I lost all respect for that POS magazine and stopped putting any faith in their reviews. Just to let you know if you didn't, they gave it 4.5 stars.

I actually gain respect for someone who gives a Spears album a decent, but not great, score like that. Reviews should be subjective and albums should be reviewed for what they are. BS albums are aimed at teenagers, it's pop music all the way. It's very difficult to review something like that, you either have somebody who enjoys that junk or somebody who laughs at it. Respect them giving it a subjective review based on it being a pop album. Anybody could laugh it off and give it 1 star, takes something to actually review it for what it is.

Anyway, good review of GBMS. I wouldn't have given it as high of an overall score at this point, but that's just my opinion. I'd say more around an 8, a lot of great songs but a lot of them don't stand out for me yet.

[Thrasha]

Re: Music Reviews

I actually gain respect for someone who gives a Spears album a decent, but not great, score like that. Reviews should be subjective and albums should be reviewed for what they are. BS albums are aimed at teenagers, it's pop music all the way. It's very difficult to review something like that, you either have somebody who enjoys that junk or somebody who laughs at it. Respect them giving it a subjective review based on it being a pop album. Anybody could laugh it off and give it 1 star, takes something to actually review it for what it is.

Anyway, good review of GBMS. I wouldn't have given it as high of an overall score at this point, but that's just my opinion. I'd say more around an 8, a lot of great songs but a lot of them don't stand out for me yet.

I understand subjective reviewing and all, but it's Britney Spears. She couldn't hit a note properly if her life depended on it. If it was a boy band album, but they could actually sing then I would respect it more. But not from someone who can't sing for sh*t.

[CM1847]

Re: Music Reviews

I understand subjective reviewing and all, but it's Britney Spears. She couldn't hit a note properly if her life depended on it. If it was a boy band album, but they could actually sing then I would respect it more. But not from someone who can't sing for sh*t.

Point taken, but again, they aren't reviewing on musical talent. They are reviewing based on how well an album does what it's intending to do. Britney Spear's 3.5 stars doesn't mean she is more talented than Coldplay who got a 3, it just means Spears did a better job of making an album for teenage girls than Coldplay did of making an album for soft rock radio.

If it were personal opinion BS would get a 0.1 out of 100 from me, but you have to take things from the perspective of what they were intended to do. Nobody buying BS albums care how well she hits the notes, they care how catchy the songs are.

[Thrasha]

Re: Music Reviews

Point taken, but again, they aren't reviewing on musical talent. They are reviewing based on how well an album does what it's intending to do. Britney Spear's 3.5 stars doesn't mean she is more talented than Coldplay who got a 3, it just means Spears did a better job of making an album for teenage girls than Coldplay did of making an album for soft rock radio.

If it were personal opinion BS would get a 0.1 out of 100 from me, but you have to take things from the perspective of what they were intended to do. Nobody buying BS albums care how well she hits the notes, they care how catchy the songs are.

Yeah I understand your point, it's still hard to swallow them giving her that rating. But I see what you mean.

[CM1847]

Re: Music Reviews

Foo Fighters - In Your Honor

New Foo's album, it's broken up into two discs, both 10 songs long, labeled "loud" and "not so loud" by the sticker on the album cover.

Disc 1 - "Loud"

Good, classic Foo Fighters here. This disc is really similar to "There Is Nothing Left To Lose", a lot of good, catchy rock songs. They aren't all screaming or as loud as the first single "Best Of You", but there's no acoustic type stuff. About 5 or 6 of these songs would make for good hit singles for them, most of the 10 songs are at least as good as Best of You. There's nothing as instantly catchy/memorable as "Everlong" or anything as rocking as "Monkeywrench", but still a lot of good songs. I would have been satisfied with this disc alone, "There Is Nothing Left To Lose" still gets regular play in my CD player, and this disc is up to that quality IMO.

Disc 1-8 out of 10

Disc 2 - "Not So Loud"

I'll go ahead and preface this by saying I've never been a huge fan of the acoustic/soft Foo Fighters. I didn't mind the 2 or 3 really slow songs they had on The Color And The Shape, but a whole album full of them didn't sound too promising to me.
I can't stand most of the first half of this disc. Grohl's lyric writting deficencies are pretty obvious. "What If I Do?" and "Miracle" are mind-numbingly repetative to me. The disc starts to pick up and finishes off with two of the best songs on the double album. "Cold Day In The Sun" is a surprise song with drummer Taylor Hawkins doing the vocals. I don't know if it's good because it's a change of pace or if he has a legit good voice, but I love the song. The last song, "Razor" features Queens of the Stone Age guitarist/singer Josh Homme on guest guitar duties and is also a great song. The much hyped duet with Norah Jones, called "Virginia Moon", is pretty weak. I liked her guest spot with Andre 3000 much better.
Overall, I liked a few of the songs decently and there are two I love, but about half of it is pretty poor IMO.

Disc 2-5 out of 10

Overall, it's worth getting just for the first disc if your a Foo Fighters fan, it's a good rock disc, much better than "One By One." The second disc feels like a bonus to me, but it's not that great. They would have been better served putting together a 14 song single disc album IMO. Still, it's good rocking Foo Fighters for 10 songs and a couple of surpirses on the second disc.

6.5 out of 10(just an average)

Highlights: "Best of You", "Cold Day In The Sun", "Razor", "The Last Song", "Free Me"

Side notes:
Buy it at Best Buy and you get Napster access to a free download of the song "The Sign", it's as good as most of the album songs, it would fit on the first disc. Also, this CD has an amazing new anti-piracy feature that blocks people from ripping the CDs to their computer. If you try you will get an entire album with scratches every second, it sounds like someone took a piece of sandpaper to the back of the CD before you ripped it. But it's just the newest anti-piracy feature, expect most mainstream albums to have it soon enough. It's stupid IMO because I paid for this album, if I want to rip it for listening on my computer and MP3 player, I should be allowed.

[X*Cell]

Re: Music Reviews

Neighborhood Watch - Dilated Peoples

Evidence and Rakaa Iriscience return for some fun and thats really all it is. Babu is a genius behind the turntables, but Evidence and Rakaa or no more than that cheap beer you buy. Its still good to drink, but the quality isn't outstanding. The hooks in the entire album are lacking, so you can't really escape the mediocre lyrics, but the beats mezmorize you enough. Dilated Peoples have hit the radio with one of their singles, and 2 other songs on the album have latched onto videogame soundtracks, and for a good reason. Their music IS fun, and don't doubt them when you have your next social get-together with friends or you decide to throw a wild party!

Lyrics - 86%
Beats - 93%
Hooks - 76%

Overall - 86% (B)

Songs to Cop: "Love and War", "Reach Us", "This Way"

[Thrasha]

Re: Music Reviews

Slim Thug - Already Platinum

Some of the songs on this album are older and had been leaked on the internet for quite some time, but that doesn't mean they aren't good. With a little bit more mixing put into some of the songs, and added guest spots, makes for a pretty good listen.

Slim is helped a great deal by having the Neptunes handling most of the production, out of the 16 songs, I believe the Neptunes were responsible for 12 of them. And in my opinion some of their best work since Lord Willin.(hopefully we'll see more of Clipse now that they have escaped Jive's death grip.) The other four tracks are handled by Jazze Pha who brings his usual laid back, keyboard funk to the game, and an up and coming producer from the south (I'll try and find his name).

Now Slim Thug will never be known as a lyricist, and rightfully so, but that doesn't mean he doesn't provide some head nodding cuts. From "I Ain't Heard Of That" to some of the concept songs (although not totally groundbreaking) cuts as "Interview" and "Miss Mary" (geee...what could he be referring to?) the album stays fresh and provides some great listening. Although some of the topics are the usual money, cash, hoes of rap its still brought with to the table with a different edge than most. With his southern accent, good voice, and ability to stay on point with any kind of beat it shows what Chad and Pharrell saw in him.

A few of the tracks off the advance that was leaked some time ago would have been great additions to an already solid album. But I can see why they didn't incorporate alot of those songs to try and give it a new feel.

Overall: 8.5

[CM1847]

Re: Music Reviews

Digging this one up for a quick review, and I enjoy reading other's reviews...

Billy Corgan - TheFUTUREEmbrace

About on the level of Zwan, he's got some top notch songs, but a lot of forgettable music as well.

6 out of 10

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Music Reviews

Digging this one up for a quick review, and I enjoy reading other's reviews...

Billy Corgan - TheFUTUREEmbrace

About on the level of Zwan, he's got some top notch songs, but a lot of forgettable music as well.

6 out of 10

Good thing Smashing Pumpkins are getting back together then.