What Are You Listening To?

[Avaitor]

It's okay, I don't even know what that is.

Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Drake.

Anyway, Grave- "Now and Forever"

[Nel_Annette]

The Strokes - Comedown Machine

[Avaitor]

Nails "Wide Open Wound"

This new album of theirs is basically an EP- less than 20 minutes long, but it's grindcore, so a shorter running time is bliss. It's really brutal, too, even though this is one of the slower songs. Still has a huge slaughter of riffage, though.

[Kiddington]

The Vines - "Autumn Shade"

[Avaitor]

The Mountain Goats- "Thank You Mario, But Our Princess is in Another Castle"

This one is literally about Toad. Have you heard it? You should.

[Nel_Annette]

Gold Fields - Black Sun

Pretty awesome for a debut album. Reminds me of a dancier Atlas Genius.

[Avaitor]

Prince- "If I Was Your Girlfriend"

Fuck, this is funky.

[Kiddington]

Modest Mouse - "Custom Concern"

[RacattackForce]

"I Know You Too Well To Like You Anymore" -- Reel Big Fish

[Kiddington]

Beck - "Cellphone's Dead"

[Avaitor]

Pelican- "Autumn into Summer"

In hindsight, his isn't really metal at all. Doesn't mean that it's not fantastic shit, though. Decibel voted it as the album of the year when it came out, and U concur.

[No-Personality]

Back to the 90's, a-gin'. To go through some songs and artists I think need a 2nd look (from me).

After "Change" and "You Showed Me," I was pretty excited to get to know The Lightning Seeds better... yeah, they suck. I flipped through at least a dozen other singles and not one of them was great. Among them "All I Want," "Ready or Not," and "Marvellous" are the most tolerable.

After "Hand in Your Head" (which I highly recommend), I was also pretty intrigued about... who is Money Mark? Well, he's kinda dull. After "Hand," "Cry" is his best track. It's definitely decent. "Maybe I'm Dead" is awful and "Insects Are All Around Us" is just extremely lite-Avalanches and Handsome Boy Modeling School. Speaking of HBMS, I went diving for more of their singles and found a couple of great ones. Both are recommended: "Magnetizing" and "Rock 'N Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This)."

Except for what I've heard on Scrubs (the aughts) and Slacker (the 80's), I actually had no idea what Butthole Surfers really were. An MP3 search of "Pepper" tells me it was used in the OST for The Hangover. That one is okay. "Who Was in My Room Last Night" is equally almost-fun. Just decent. The one that really struck me was "Jingle of a Dog's Collar." Always have the urge to replay that and have listened to it at least 3 times in the last 24 hours.

Speaking of soundtracks, I nearly keeled over when I remembered that I lost my original MP3 of the theme from Run, Lola Run, "Wish (Komm Zu Mir)" by Franka Potente. Of course, hearing it again reveals it was never that great. Don't know why I held it in such high regard. Thomas D's rap is every bit as irritating as Pitbull is. In general.

Also relevant to soundtracks, since I don't know if it's on an original album and which that would be, I snagged a copy of Shonen Knife's cover of "Top of the World" from the OST of The Last Supper (1995, Cameron Diaz, Bill Paxton, Ron Perlman). Which plays during the end credits- a real shock to the system since it directly follows one of the most horrifying scenes I've ever seen in cinema history. But a great track on its' own.

Last soundtrack but the second I found this amazing MP3 site, I began raiding it for the most obscure, hard to find stuff I could think of. First thing that came to mind was 1991's Nothing but Trouble. I already have "Bonestripper" left over from the Illegal-Napster days (on a very, very old burned CD- from back when I was still in high school). None of the other tracks are that great. What I really recommend is a score piece that never made it onto the soundtrack- "Helen Claire" by Michael Kamen which... may (or may not?) be from the score to Terry Gilliam's Brazil (which he composed). And some other tracks, oldies that didn't make it onto the soundtrack- "Garden in the Rain" and "Wabash Cannonball." I wanted to hear "Atlantic City (is a Party Town)" the most since it plays directly before the Mister Bonestripper sequence. Ehhhh. "La Chanka" is a little more fun. And then... Digital Underground did a version of "Tie the Knot" (a riff on the ultra-famous "Here Comes the Bride"). That's a novelty worth investing in, by virtue of how instantly ridiculous it is.

No idea who Ass Ponys are but "Little Bastard"s been kicking around in my head for years. The only part I knew was "little bastaaaaaard." Anyway, it's okay.

Ben Lee's "Cigarettes Will Kill You" is really growing on me too. Originally, it just sat there and I thought "ehhhh."

more later.

[Avaitor]

Judge- "The Storm"

[Nel_Annette]

Paramore's new self-titled album. It's... terrible. I don't know if Hayley or the new guy are writing the songs since the Farros left, but these songs are awful. Except for "Part II", which actually sounds even better than some of the old stuff.

Funny how a song about moving on manages to spew enough bile at whoever they're moving on from (gee, I wonder who) that it makes the song seem redundant. This record's crap. I don't mind a band changing its sound at all, but the songs themselves just aren't good.

We still have a long year to go for music, but this one's in the running for my Most Disappointing Album Of The Year category, a title held in 2012 by The Fray's Scars And Stories and in 2011 by Incubus' If Not Now, When?

[Foggle]

I don't even know if I'd consider Incubus albums disappointing anymore. Last one I liked was Make Yourself. Really miss their old sound.