30Sep2009 1800: Summer's End
I really don't have anything to say this week. A comfortable amount of nothing has happened since the last post. I'm preparing to say goodbye to summer with one last grilling, as we have rain through Saturday and winter scheduled for early next week.
Do you like books? Do you like books about books and also time travel? I'm working my way into The Eyre Affair right now and it is making very little sense in a surrealism kind of way. Detective Thursday Next gets shot by a supervillain that stole the manuscript for Martin Chuzzlewit and then a time-traveling sports car appears in her hospital room and then there's a flashback where she's inside Jane Eyre and I'm not even a quarter through the book. Wiki spoilers told me that the time travel plot spans several books and I think retcons one of the novels out of existence. This is made for me.
Busy week for singles. [Howie Day - Be There] starts us out with a video. I guess a drunk guy is arguing with his slut girlfriend that they should get back together? Illustrated by Howie flailing around in a swimming pool/ocean/hotel room. It's a pop song. You can't see me but I'm shrugging.
[Kany Garcia - Boleto de Entrada] is not going to slow down just so I can nail down a comparison. Kany is leading a driving pop beat about something or other. I'll go back to one of the older Singles: it's like Espacio Sideral (just listen to the music, don't try to watch this) sped up about 50%. I like it?
Man I hope this next one causes a reaction one way or another. [Various - Beds are Burning] is a promising title. Oh no, it's starting with an audio quote...and now it's probably the worst possible song it could be. This is "We Are the World", with each celebrity replaced by an impersonator, doing a cover of [Midnight Oil - Beds are Burning]. Some sort of awareness-raising/celebrewank about climate change. And how can this be for charity if it's a free single?
[Fool's Gold - Surprise Hotel] starts with a riff I swear I've heard in a Modest Mouse song and then...continues. After 1.5 minutes of riff we get some Of Montrealish vocals, but they like to leave the song to its own devices for long stretches of time. And there's some Caribbean influence here as well, but not to the point of tripping my reggae alarm(s). Did I mention the song is almost seven minutes long? I'm kind of upset right now and it's not even half over.
[Animal Kingdom - Tin Man] is a breath of fresh air after all the disappointment this week. Not because it's good, but because it's average and it's the last one I have to listen to. Mellow pop rock from an androgynous voice that would be absolutely boring to play in Rock Band. I could probably let this one slide by every two weeks.
24Sep2009 2145: Schattenfreud
Full disclosure: I've had the idea of Vampire Freud kicking around for a few weeks now. But the story of Carl Jung's Red Book (that I will make up) is the most ideal situation I will ever see.
Ugh this one cover took all night to do. I'm out of shape. But don't say I never gave you anything.
23Sep2009 1800: Jungle Fever
I'm too young to have witnessed Scientology or Mormonism spring to life, so I may be assigning too much import to this, but: Carl Jung's mysterious Red Book sounds a lot like somebody's founding a religion. The story is fascinating, but Stephen Martin needs to chill the fuck out. It's not like Vampire Freud is going to send his minions to destroy the book before you can rub it all over your body. Jeez.
And may I just express my disappointment that I can't immediately install SQL Express 2008 on my Windows 7 box? What is the deal, Microsoft? I'm running an OS from a mere month in the future, why won't you support me?
[Otto - Lagrimas Negras] is pretty okay mellow funk-folk. Like if Azure Ray got really trashed on tequila one night and woke up in bed with Santana. Do you know what they're talking about? Because it sounds nice.
[The Mumlers - Coffin Factory] has put a lot of effort into
sounding like a mono 45 record from the mid-60s. The traditional reward for a
mono 45 is a spot in a cardboard box shoved in the back of your grandmother's closet.
The Mumlers make a strong case for their incarceration
inclusion in this select group.
[AIR - Sing Sang Sung] brings us forwards to the mid-70s, with incredily light pop and animation I recall from my childhood Sesame Street. What's it about? Does it even have real words? Couldn't tell you, this thing is insubstantial without quite being annoying.
[La Roux - Bulletproof] will attack you with her mighty blazing hair, because you are her ex-boyfriend and she won't take you back because you are a bullet. This song was really close to good; I like the ratatat of the verses but the chorus was a little too pop-diva for its own good. It is ultimately defeated by my fond memories of this ditty, which is itself not a very good song.
17Sep09 1905: Correction
Headphones On is by Miranda Cosgrove, not "Carly", who probably doesn't exist. You don't need to know this. Hell, I'm not even going to put it in the RSS feed.
16Sep2009 1800: Rooster Hat
I spent a lot of money to fix my car this weekend, and last night I failed my save vs. deep fryer and wasted 2.5 hours on undercooked potatos. But that doesn't matter, because rooster hat.
Scribblenauts is in stores now, but you can't get a rooster hat because you didn't preorder it. And you probably didn't go to the NYC release party, either.
Oh man Edmond hates this hat. He's been stalking back and forth, giving me his "what's that smell?" face while staring at mon coqchapeau.
Bacon-Beatles party is this Friday. If you don't know where, you can't come!
iTunes Store is back to normal after last week's con madness. Three singles and a video. [Leon Polar - Sin Cargo de Conciencia] is a very slow pop song with string backing, kind of like Her Morning Elegance but in Spanish. This sort of thing works when it's accompanied by a solid album or a cute redhead, but this song didn't do much for me at all.
[The xx - Crystalised] must be British with a title like that. And I don't think anybody told them this was a video, since they all look really bored. This is a tiny little rock song that would be great if I didn't have to look at it. Like the Moldy Peaches if they plugged in their instruments.
[Passafire - Here in Front of Me] is generic reggae-pop rock, like if Nickelback took an island vacation. A band like this might possibly have a decent song somewhere, but it certainly wouldn't get released as their single. Like Sugar Ray or Tilly and the Wall, I get the sense that these guys had a totally unrepresentative song picked for the radio.
It's a long way to go for this segue, but it's kind of the opposite of the problem presented in Brutal Legend here.
And if you thought reggae-pop was bad, wait until you hear the Disney rock of [KSM - Read Between the Lines]. This is the sort of song that plays too loudly over a teen-romance movie trailer. I tolerate exactly one song of this type, and it is [Carly - Headphones On], whose hilarious overwrought teen-sulk lyrics are balanced by a totally awesome guitar chart in Rock Band.
09Sep09 1909: A Sufficient Amount of Nines
To begin, the never-often-enough but always delightful Dresden Codak had me whooping for joy this week. Fee fee. Bak.
To continue, today is some sort of marketing holy day, a time to leverage synergies or reflect on marketings past. A time to take baby steps into the future or plunge headlong into the past. Or die horribly for getting to play the Borderlands demo before me >:(
Really I'm just typing to stall while iTunes 9 downloads. Dum de dum de dooo this is taking forever.
Oh hey, Dungeons & Dragons goes free today, so my buddies and I are going to jump on that soon. Looks like I finished Batman just in time. I'll miss Bats a little bit, but the last boss is just kind of ludicrous. In a plot way, not a difficulty way. And I've since been informed by the Penny Arcade thread that there is actually precedent for it in the animated version that nobody watched, but if we're taking that as canon now we're all in big trouble.
Okay, downloads are done. Seems like a great day to release Revolution #9 as a single, but maybe Apple Computer and Apple Music still aren't on speaking terms. Doesn't look like there's a music video either, but I can't really tell from the new store interface what's a song and what isn't.
[Palenke Soultribe - No Voy A Morir (feat. Some People)] asks us a very simple question: do we want our Daft Punk tracks in Spanish? In my case the answer seems to be "yes". Daft Punk was a great seed addition to my Pandora station, I get all manner of repetitive computer beats these days.
[Will Hoge - Even If It Breaks Your Heart] is Tom Petty but a little more country, which is to say worse. The twanging is sufficiently understated that I think I can keep this around and pretend it's from an 80s rock band instead.
Speaking of the 80s, [The Lovemakers - Love Is Dead] brings us some New Wave and some really banal lyrics. The real 80s had some stiff competition in the banal lyric arena but The Lovemakers are up to the challenge.
02Sep09 1815: The Batman
Everything you've heard is true: the goddamn Batman is goddamn amazing. All the joy of stalking and pounding thugs is there from the demo, but it's wrapped up in a story that went a little weirder and darker than I expected. Joker may be all over the advertising, but my true nemeses are Scarecrow (best areas in the game) and Riddler (I will defeat him with my brain). Buy this game, and with our monies we will guarantee a future of harmony and wonderful licensed games and crime-free streets. Puppies.
[No Lo Soporto - Nunca Ire] is middle-of-the-road rock music, with nothing to either recommend it or trash it. Somebody like Modest Mouse could rough up the edges of this sound and make it over into a good tune, but No Lo Soporto doesn't take any risks and consequently reaps no rewards.
[Miguel Zenon - Reisdencial Llorens Torres] is spazz jazz, through and through. This kind of music plays on elevators in Hell.
[Slaughterhouse - The One] pairs the sounds of Hole with XZibit for another forgettable song this week. Even worse, the rapper's pop-culture references seem to be four or five years out of date. And it downloaded without the album art; how is that even possible on iTunes?
Okay, [Justin Bieber - One Time], your video makes or breaks this week. Blurring out the Xbox button from an obviously Xbox controller doesn't help. WHAT. OH SHIT. OH FUCK. This is a twelve-year-old white Usher and I wish I was kidding.
To wash the STANK out of our ears, I suggest we all go listen to [Hello Saferide - Highschool Stalker].