Mad Men
Happy Belated Birthday to me! Yay.
My birthday was yesterday and it was rather lackluster. I had gotten my “big” presents prior to my birthday (iPhone and PS3 from lover), so fhere wasnt much to look forward to. Girlfriend did make me a delicious cheesecake yesterday which was wonderful. But other than that, nothing exciting happened on my birthday. Just another Tuesday really.
School has been busy and typically boring. And other than that not a lot has happened.
I have a lot of random things I’ve been meaning to blog about and hopefully I can stretch them over a few posts.
I did get the new Jay-Z book Decoded for my birthday, so I’ve slowly been making my way through that. But it’s made me think about rap vs. rock a lot.
Specifically in lyrical content, Rap tends to be more self centered. Most songs are about how much better than you I am or how my rhymes are more fly than yours. Or how my car is sicker than yours. But for the most part, rap that is considered “good” tells a story. And this is where rock and rap do share a common theme.
However most rap songs are about personal matters and the stories come internally. I have noticed that rock songs take more from an event and a song is written about that event. There is no boasting, no “my guitar is better than yours” or what have you.
These are just some random thoughts of mine after reading about Jay-Z and thinking about Alexisonfire.
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Sick Puppies World Crew – CD Review
(UPDATE: See my newest defense after a flurry of posts from the Sick Puppies Fans. Click here!)
http://silenceassound.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/oh-the-sick-puppies-fans/
So I did a review of a Sick Puppies CD, Tri-Polar, way back last summer. I found out recently that it ended up on the Sick Puppies fan forum. They didn’t really enjoy it that much. Saying that I’m a “crippled old fart” and apparently a female.
I find this pretty funny. I think that my review is a fair assessment of that CD and discussed it thoroughly. I will admit that the only song I’d ever heard of theirs was “All The Same” and that’s what I was expecting and based the review off of. Maybe if I were getting paid to do these reviews, I’d put a little more research into the music before I started. But nyeh. Not too choked about it.
It’s cool to see that people from all over the world are reading my reviews via my blog. And not surprising that they didn’t like it. I probably wouldn’t like it if someone bashed an Alexisonfire or City and Colour CD, so I will give them that. In my defense, I think I do have good tastes in music and I can definitely tell when all the songs on a CD sound similar and have little variation.
So to all you Sick Puppies fans out there, thanks for reading and enjoying!
I’ve put the link to the forum below. Take a look!
Sick Puppies World Crew – View topic – CD Review – Tri-Polar on WordPress.
Whatcha been listenin’ to?
Well thanks for asking! Cause lately I’ve been listening to a lot of different music! Some new, some really old. Here’s the list of my mostly played for the past months!
Phoenix
Thursday
Great Lake Swimmers
We Were Promised Jetpacks
The Ghost Is Dancing
Eminem
2Pac
Propoghandi
Anberlin
Circa Survive
Saosin
From First To Last
Matchbook Romance
Story of the Year
Grammy Results
Here’s a list of the major winners from the Grammy Awards last night, stolen from the GlobeandMail.
- Album of the Year: Fearless, Taylor Swift
- Song of the Year: Single Ladies (Put A Ring On it), Beyonce Knowles
- Record of the Year: Use Somebody, Kings of Leon
- New Artist: Zac Brown Band
- Pop Vocal Album: The E.N.D., The Black Eyed Peas
- Female Pop Vocal Performance: Halo, Beyonce Knowles
- Male Pop Vocal Performance: Make It Mine, Jason Mraz
- Rock Album: 21st Century Breakdown, Green Day – This is a terrible album that should not have won. Stupid Greenday.
- Rock Song: Use Somebody, Kings of Leon – This is pretty impressive considering they were up against the likes of U2, Coldplay and Greenday.
- R&B Album: BLACKsummers’night, Maxwell
- R&B Song: Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), Beyonce Knowles
- Rap Album: Relapse, Eminem
- Rap Song: Run This Town, Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West – This is tough because Girlfriend and I are having an argument over who is better, Jay-Z or Eminem. I’m on Jay-Z’s side. They both won two Grammy’s last night.
- Best Rap/Sung Collaboration: Run This Town, Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West
- Country Album: Fearless, Taylor Swift
- Female Country Vocal Performance: White Horse, Taylor Swift
- Male Country Vocal Performance: Sweet Thing, Keith Urban,
- Latin Pop Album: Sin Frenos, La Quinta Estacion
- Contemporary Jazz Album: 75, Joe Zawinul&The Zawinul Syndicate
- Dance Recording: Poker Face, Lady Gaga - Lady Gaga wins two Grammy’s as well. Interesting
- Electronic Dance Album: The Fame, Lady Gaga
- Alternative Music Album: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Phoenix – I am so glad to see this album one. I’ve been listening to it over the past couple of weeks and it is fantastic.
- Classical Album: Mahler: Symphony No. 8; Adagio from Symphony No. 10
- Traditional Gospel Album: Oh Happy Day, various artists
- Spoken Word Album: Always Looking Up, Michael J. Fox - WHAT?! Michael J. Fox spoken word? Weird.
- Comedy Album: A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All! Stephen Colbert
The rest of the winners are kind of expected. The nominee’s weren’t that strong in every category. It’s weird that the Grammy’s accepts music put out from October 2008 – August 2009. Such old music.
One album that isn’t mentioned on that list is Booker T. Jones “Potato Hole”, I have this CD to review and will probably try and get that done sometime in the coming week.
As usual Lady Gaga was wearing ridiculously crazy outfits with plenty of ‘costume’ changes. She even got to play with Elton John as the opening number. That would be a pretty amazing experience. I think Lady Gaga and Elton John should get married. They’d have some interesting kids. Too bad he’s gay. I mean, check out the earrings on this guy.
I didn’t watch the show on TV at all, but I did happen to catch Greenday’s performance of 21 Guns which I thought was particularly terrible. I miss old Greenday. Taylor Swift won 4 awards. Too bad Kayne didn’t come ruin her speech this time. I heard he just finished his community service.
CKY – Carver City – Roadrunner Records
CKY – Carver City – Roadrunner Records
CKY, often called Camp Kill Yourself is a quartet hailing out of the USA and have come forth with their fourth studio album entitled Carver City. After a few member changes and an equal amount of record company changes, the band has finally settled. Some may be surprised to know that Jess Margera, brother to Bam is the drummer for CKY. Because of this connection, you will find many of CKY’s songs on the Jackass soundtrack, as well as games such as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Now that’s really ‘helping a brother out.’
The associations with the band give you a good idea of what kind of music CKY plays. Itunes labels them as “rock” but I would have to suggest that they’re somewhere closer to the metal side of the spectrum. Carver City comes in at 42 minutes in length with 11 songs for your pleasure.
I was surprised how much singing was on this CD; I was expecting more unintelligible screaming and growling that is associated with metal. Carver City is a good mix of all styles of rock and metal.
“Imaginary Threats” the fourth song on this CD was the first to catch my ear. It immediately reminded me of “The Hand That Feeds” by NIN. I feel as if I could start singing that song to the guitars and drums of Imaginary Threats at times. I’m not too sure if this is a good thing or not.
Carver City is a well rounded CD but after the first listen, I’m not really sure how much they can be considered metal. It is true that there are a lot of stylisitic metal guitar rifts, but the drumming throughout the entire CD gives off a little bit of a dance feel.
I wouldn’t recommend Carver City to a strict metal fan, but for those who want to move into a little bit heavier stuff, this would be a good stepping stone.
