And here's what we got:
I have been waiting for a long, long time for a new album to come rolling out from this man. The album was supposed to come out a while ago, but when your house burns down due to some forest fires that are ruining the local forestry… well I can understand a delay.
Thankfully after my faithful wait, I have been rewarded with his new release: Sycamore Meadows. After giving this album a couple of listens, it has quickly become one of my favorites for all time. It’s both amazingly happy and startlingly deep, many times simultaneously.
Oh my God.
Datarock is easily one of my new bouncy favorites. The only way I can describe them is disco acid pop. There’s probably a better way of explaining them, but that’ll work for lack of the creation of new words.
As an aside, I want to apologize for the title of this post. I’m using the normal format, but their first album is actually called “Datarock Datarock” so it makes for some crummy article titling.
I’ve got something to admit to. A secret that I’ve had for a long time. Something that very few people know about me, and I’ve kept this quiet for a very long time. I’ve had somewhat of a re-awakening to something that I though I had left behind me.
I like classical music. Beyond that I’m a fan of opera, all forms of choir music, and even musicals. I even have a keen spot in my heart for well-arranged soundtrack of both T.V. and Movie.
That’s right people, I’m basically a monocle-wearing classical enthusiast.
Break Of Day is one of those albums that every time I come across it I don’t realize who the artist is, but I always think the songs sound fantastic. Then I’ll check my iTunes and realize that once again, it’s a song from Break Of Day. Then I say to myself “I really have to review this album! It’s so good!”
Then another month passes, and no review has been written, at least not by my own hands. Well I’m changing that today, because I ended up listening to the entire album from start to finish and I am not totally in love with this album.
I’ve found myself using online music sources when I’m not around my home computer or too lazy to plug in my iPod. I’ve found myself going between two different programs: Last.fm and Deezer.com.
Both have pros and cons, and I felt that it’d make a good article to compare my findings and contrast the two services. I’m not going to gives scores, because comparisons like this are subjective. I’ll let the readers come to their own conclusions.
I have to start by saying that I’m not a huge Coldplay fan. Short of some of their more well-known songs (Green Eyes, Yellow, Clocks) I’ve never been much of a fan; a fact my girlfriend has never quite understood why. Coldplay as a rule, have never really done it for me; their music tends to border on the hyper-sensitive, and though I like sensitive music, theirs was a brand I just couldn’t stand behind.
Then they came out with Viva la Vida.
I’m a bit of a sleeper fan of Motion City Soundtrack. I had their albums available to me for over a year before I listened to them. The only reason I really gave them a chance was because I was driving through a snow storm and the radio couldn’t pick up anything. I was really shocked when I went through both albums that I had of theirs (Commit this to Memory and I Am the Movie) and was craving more. Their bouncy, feelgood sound had me totally hooked. I listened through them all again, and I realized that in contrast to their sound, much of what was said bordered on major depressing.
So as some of you may have noticed, I didn’t post at all last week. Quite simply, this is because I spent pretty much every waking hour at work. Hell I gave up sleeping hours to be there to. Wednesday I was at work for 18 hours, got 4 hours of sleep, then went to work the next day for a fun-filled 31-hour shift. A word to the wise, if you are ever installing ISA server into your topology, for the love of all that is sacred and pure make sure you put it onto a separate server then the one holding your website. Trust me on this. Unless you want to be awake at 3 am, 6 hours before your project is being presented to 100 important people.
Another helpful tidbit: if you are tired enough, you can actually sleep on a cement floor! I proved this by passing out in our conference room for nearly two hours. I say passed out because it wasn’t sleep in any sense. I actually felt worse when I was roused. Ah well, such is my work-life.
Onto the random paragraphs that summarize my life in the past little while!
I was recently at the El Mocambo with Theresa to watch Ingrid Michaelson, and one of the opening acts was David Ford. As soon as this guy hit the stage, he won my heart with his shear moxy at having many instruments that could record and repeat audio. He played them all, which involved him dashing around the stage singing into a microphone, or mashing the piano, or playing the guitar, or the maracas, etc.. He easily won top marks for the technical portion of the night. He was actually fantastically funny, and very, very English. Complete with the swanky accent and a wit so dry that you could start a fire with it, he won over the crowd with his banter and his craft.
I love Butch Walker, but I’ll try and be objective with this review. I could review many of his albums that I happen to have in my possession, but as this is the newest one out and available for free (or 6 bucks if you want to) I figured I’d try and be current and edgy and what have you.
Now there are certain artists that sound good on albums but come up short in live shows. There are other artists that rock live performances like they were born to it, but fail to translate this to their recordings (Live ones aside, obviously). Then there are artists that do both exceptionally well. This is where Butch Walker falls.