Recently in Music Category

It was weird enough seeing an album cover with me on it a few years back, but now I get an e-mail from my sister and find out my parents have become corporate media darlings (I say that in the kindest of ways). 40 years too late, mind you.

Click through the picture for the actual story..

Anybody who knows me knows that I've always been a Beatles fanatic. At one time, I owned every Beatles album release on CD and then some. It seemed as if every time I listened to an album, I'd hear something new. But, all the times I heard Hey Jude, I never realized that you can clearly hear John Lennon saying, "fucking hell" at the 2:58 mark. This makes me want to read through the hundreds of Wikipedia articles on every Beatles song to find other things that I had missed. Thank goodness for Wikipedia.

First they dump Mig, and then they pick JD as their new lead singer? Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking?

This year, 3/26 was the 10 year anniversary of the death of Eazy-E. My 40 remains tipped to you, my brotha.

I'd like to take a moment to open the Book of Eazy-E and recite a passage for you from this sacred book. This comes from the E, chapter 8, verse 10, and it reads..

So, I picked up the special edition of the new Eminem album on Friday. It comes in a cardboard box, and has some very cool photo cards that on the front tell the story of the album's concept (more on that later), and on the back have lyrics to each song. Very cool. It came with two CDs, one is the main album, the other has three bonus tracks. All of which I shall review here. Click through to read on..

Waxy.org: Daily Log: Kleptones, "Night at the Hip-Hopera"

Sure, to many, this is "welcome to last week." I downloaded the Kleptones' LP "A Night at the Hip Hopera" a couple of weeks ago, but hadn't had the chance to listen to it until a couple of days ago. It truly is one of the most masterful mashups ever, combining new and old rap music with some of Queen's best songs.

It. Is. Amazing.

The link at the top has a meticulously pieced together list of all of the samples, as well as to the 196Kb/s VBR MP3s (which the group kindly releases free of charge).

For a long time fan of rap music, and a Queen devotee like me, this is about the best you can ask for.

I think VH-1 really screwed the pooch with this one. There's so many really bad songs that they could have put in this special, but instead they manage to choose songs that aren't great, but are redeemed by the camp factor behind them. I mean campy songs make them listenable and tolerable in a controlled environment such as karaoke or occasionally on the radio.

Of course the real irony behind this list is that these are all songs that MTV and the mass media incessantly cramed down their throat because they were massively popular. They then turn around and piss on all these songs, but who's fault is it that they became so overexposed?

Then again, irony tends to be lost in the MTV alternate universe world.

The rap world has lost many of its finest and brightest, and Eazy was no exception. I think the late, great Wesley Willis said it best in his song, "Eazy-E", which I will lovingly transcribe here for you.

Rest in peace, my brotha. My 40 will remain tipped forever in your memory.

Just why is Jay-Z considered a good rapper worthy of so much critical acclaim? I mean sure, he has a couple of cool songs, but so does Naoki, and you don't see him winning any Grammys.

The New Seo Taiji Album Is So Good!

Seo Taiji's album is the shit. Yes, it is the shit. Not that there was any doubt in my mind that it would be. After all, the man himself is the shit who as far as I'm concerned can do no wrong musically.

So, here's my quick review of this excellent album.

Intro / 1:01
This is a typical Taijiriffic intro. Musically I found it quite good. Somewhat reminiscent of the "Maya" intro from his original solo album but greatly expanded upon.

Heffy End / 3:22
Intro leads into this track. Starts off with hard crunching guitar and with some pounding drum beats. The mix is occasionally broken up with simple accoustic guitar and Taiji's vocals. It's pretty obvious from hearing this that Taiji has lost nothing during his 3 year hiatus. He is indeed BACK.

Nothing / 0:17
This track is spoken and all in Korean and appears to act as a bridge into the next track.

Victim / 3:30
The assault continues with this track. This has once again hard crushing guitar and has quite a bit of English interspersed within the track. There is a great drum solo near the end which leads into a nice bridge into the outro for the track. Excellent track.

Db / 0:36
This is a simple filler track. Some guitar riffs over a hard techno beat.

Livewire / 3:53
This track almost sounds like something you'd hear in Guitar Freaks. Very up-beat and with great pacing. A great little interlude in the middle with another hard techno beat and synth with some shredding on the guitar.

로보트 (Robot) / 5:01
The first track with Hangeul in its title. The beginning starts out very much like "Hero" by The Foo Fighters. Once again another song with lots of shifting dynamics in it from really hard to really minimal. It's pretty obvious that Taiji has polished his sound a lot during his hiatus.

Down / 0:24
Another filler track. It sounds very Industrial and NiN-like. It made me wanting more, that's for sure.

10월 4일 (October, 4th) / 3:43
Taiji GETS EMOTIONAL~ in this slow track. It builds from accoustic guitar and drum to the full ensemble playing. I feel your pain, my brotha.

F.M Business / 4:02
Now Taiji GETS PISSED OFF! And you don't want to piss off Seo Taiji. With this, he speaks out against the, ``FUCKED UP MUSIC BUSINESS.'' Lots of strong words and anger in this one. I can dig it. It reminds me a lot of 교실 이데아 with all of the rage. Yeah!

O(Zero) / 5:30
This is another slowish song. Lots of excellent guitar and shifting dynamics that is commonplace in this album. It works on many levels here, from a vocal bridge with guitar feedback and a snare drumbeat with Taiji waxing poetic. Then it builds into a quasi-orchestra section(!) layered over the crunchy bass and drum. Have I mentioned that this album is.. the shit?

Outro / 2:09
Not filler. O(Zero) seamlessly blends into this track which layers natural sounds with light electric guitar and more orchestra(!). The blending's so good I didn't even realize it was a different track. I didn't want it to end.

So yes, this album awesome and if anything, Seo Taiji's music has become even better than in his previous albums. It mixes together everything well. From the poppy elements of songs such as "Take 5" and the hard hitting elements of songs such as "Ultraman" and "Internet War" and puts together a damn good collection of songs. My only complaint is that the album is a little sparse at about 50 minutes long, but there's a minimum of filler and all the songs are excellent. What more can you ask for?

Rating using the star system. *-***** with 5* being the best. My iPod uses stars, so shall this review. :)

Dive / 3:41
One word: wow. It starts off kind of mellow-techno with soft and unforced techno cues. This is quite possibly the best version of Dive that I have ever heard. While it's not necessarily as suited for DDR as the other versions, it holds up well on its own. ****

Chikara (LIVE BAND style) / 3:12
Naoki must have been taking guitar lessons from good-cool because this live-band track is the awesome. Featuring two guitars, one bass, drums, vocals, two turntables and a microphone. Oh wait, nevermind. It doesn't matter. Nothing can make this track suck. This track is amazing as hell. Get this LIVE BAND style band to do every BeForU track from now on. *****

BreAk Down (LIVE BAND style) / 3:30
This BreAk Down is completely re-done. The vocals, guitar, everything are different. It contains a great guitar solo that starts it off and pads the middle. I cannot begin to elaborate on the awesomeness of this version. However, it's hard for me to say if I like this or Chikara better. Hey, it's good enough for *****.

Firefly / 3:43
Nothing groundbreaking here. It's basically Firefly full version. Firefly itself is a good song, but it's been played to death on DDR. It's certainly not bad, though. I'll be generous and say ***. If there had been a bit more changeup other than adding some extra lyrics it could have been better.

Graduation ~sorezore no ashita~ (unplugged version) / 3:45
This "unplugged" version really exposes the BeForU girls for not being terribly great vocalists. In addition, even *I* can tell that it's not a real piano that they are using. Blue^ was able to easily differentiate it being a Yamaha keyboard. This could have been so much better with some minor tweaking, but this just falls flat on its face.

Love Love Sugar / 3:15
See Firefly. Wash, rinse, repeat. ***

Silvia Drive / 4:44
Other than a nifty little accoustic guitar intro, and really irritating voice loop before it gets into the familiar portion. Once that's done, it's really pretty much the same as the version heard in 9th Style. However, that aside this is still a great song in any form. ****

*SHINING* / 3:43
Back to the awesome LIVE BAND style versions. This is a great rendition of the song, however it seems lacking compared to the other ones. It has a cool little bridge in the mdidle with a hard-rock guitar+organ(!) solo, and another excellent guitar solo near the end. However, BeForU's vocals really don't go well with the excellent music in this track. Strip out the vocals, and make this a GF track, stat! ****

Love Love Shine / 3:17
Ok. This is what I'm talking about. Love Love Shine with some awesome added guitar over the normal track. This track has a perfect mixture of Naoki's new-found love for adding hard-rock to everything and the cutesy keyboard+Riyu Kosaka combo we all expect. A cool percussionless little vocal piece near the end wrapps everything up nicely. Very well done track. *****

Himawari / 3:34
I loved the GF version. This rocks hard as well. What else is there to say? ****

true... (2003 album version) / 4:54
The vocals are mostly the same, but the backing track is entirely redone. It starts out unplugged (still with the crappy Yamaha sample though! blah!) and then adds a nice mellow backing track along with Naoki's ever present hard-rock guitar. It works so well though. This is about 100x better than the long version from the DDRMAX OST. It's so good, though. *****

TEARS / 5:49
I'm kind of meh on this one. It starts of sounding really cool. But, then it repeats the same thing over and over and over again. It has an awesome little interlude, but then instead of capatilizing on it, the song once again drifts into repetitive mode. Once it gets to the part with the vocals, it's basically the DDR version completely recycled. Pretty disappointing, if you ask me. Probably the biggest let-down on this album. **

Shooting Star / 5:15
Another track that's kind of meh. Sort of like Tears "Lite" meets True... (Trance Mix) being inbred and creating this. **

Baby Love / 4:22
This takes us to the conclusion of this odyssey. We have Noria's ultra-cute Baby Love. Let me tell you, at this point my interest in this album is fading super-quick, so I'm hoping this track will pick me up. This track is very much in the style of Silvia Drive. It's sickeningly catchy almost forcing me to like it. Hey, works for me. ***1/2

So, overall an excellent album that's worth a listen. The good tracks far outnumber the bad tracks and it makes a great hour's worth of music. Highly recommended, even if you're not a big BeForU fan.

Seo Taiji to Make Comeback.

Awesome. The drooling shall begin henceforth.

So, I've had my new 40GB iPod for a few days now and have had some opportunity to play with it. I'm loving it, but also have some gripes with it. For those iPod owners who are thinking of upgrading, here's my list of why you should (or shouldn't) upgrade your beloved iPod to the most recent generation.

5 Reasons To Upgrade:
1) New everything -- It's not just a cosmetic upgrade, there's a lot of changes under the hood, too. This includes a much faster CPU. Of course, this also includes higher capacities including 40GB versions.
2) Set star ratings from iPod -- You can set your star ratings right from your iPod as you're listening to music. Sync that back with iTunes. Great for all those songs that you never got around to rating that always seem to play when you're using the iPod.
3) Feels much more durable -- The whole thing feels more durable. The delicate inner-ring that the remote connected to that always seem to broke is now gone. Yay!
4) On The Go Playlists -- People demanded this and Apple listened. It's about time you could keep a running queue of songs you want to listen to.
5) Touch-sensitive buttons -- They took a while to get used to, but they are uber sensitive and work really well.

5 Reasons NOT To Upgrade:
1) New everything -- This means you need all new accessories. Your old case? Forget about it. Have an old iTrip? Prepare to replace it. Almost none of the old accessories are compatible with the 3G iPod.
2) No Firewire port -- This is a sore point for me. This goes along with #1. Gone is the convenient Firewire port on the top of the iPod. Now you have the special and proprietary dock port on the bottom. This means you need to get a special dock cable for everything. Line-Out goes through the dock port too. Tease me with a Line-Out port and then make it inaccessable through normal means! Boo.
3) Heat problems -- The case still gets really hot; in fact I've had the metal case pop off of its side clips a couple times from the expanding due to the heat transfer requiring me to push the clips back in. The LCD still gets nearly unreadable when it's docked and busy.
4) Still missing some desired features/still contains some undesired features -- No album art display, no WMA support, no spectrum analyzer, games are pretty silly and useless (except for the Music Quiz game). It still skips songs if the HD takes too long to spin up when its buffer is empty.
5) Touch-sensitive buttons -- I like the buttons, but I still prefer the good-old mechanical buttons. It seems easier to accept the touch-sensitive scrollwheel (which I'm more than used to by now) than the buttons.

Bottom line is if you're in the market for a media player the iPod just cannot be beat. If you're an existing iPod owner and looking to upgrade, other than the expense, the good far outweighs the bad and there are some very compelling reasons to upgrade. However, there's always speculation that Apple will quietly announce a 4G ipod that will render the 3G owners out in the cold just like the 1G/2G owners were when the 3G came out. Time will just have to tell.

The choice, of course is up to you.

Eazy-E's Merry Muthafuckin X-Mas.

R.I.P., Eazy.

(..and no, it's not my fault the person who transcribed these lyrics did a crappy job, I just don't have that song on my iPod right now to do it myself.)