Quick Album Reviews

As many of you may know, I’ve been going music-nuts lately. I’ve probably gotten about 30-40 new albums in the last 2 months alone. I’ve also managed to "acquire" some pre-release albums. So, I’m going to quickly review some of the CDs I’ve picked up recently that are new, or will be coming out soon.

A Perfect Circle - eMOTIVe
Avoid this one like the fucking plague. Seriously. I liked APC’s first album, although it was repititious and boring - but it was listenable and had a nice groove to it. The second album.. notsomuch. This album? Horrendous. They covered one of the greatest songs of all time (John Lennon’s "Imagine") and actually managed to destroy it. Seriously. I didn’t think it was possible, but this was (at the time) one of the worst covers I’ve ever heard in my life. And such a GREAT fucking song, how could they? It’s like they literally went "okay guys - let’s think of everything great about this song and do the exact opposite". As if that weren’t bad enough, they covered Depeche Mode’s "People Are People" arguably one of the better early DM songs. They tore this song up so bad I thought they were trying to win a bet. They literally took out all the music and replaced it with what sounds like a child on his "My First Casio". All the melody of the original - gone! All the harmony and subtle background effects - gone! Everything I liked about the original - gone! This is, by far, the worst cover I’ve ever heard in my life. I know local bands defecating into their hands could do a worse cover but because this is from an act that’s actually signed to a major label, and sells multi-platinum cd’s this is unacceptable. If you think I’m just being harsh, I challenge you to listen to both of these tracks. I’ve upload them on my server and they’re available below.
Listen to The Bastardization of John Lennon’s "Imagine"
Listen to The Bastardization of Depeche Mode’s "People Are People"
RECOMMENDATION : Avoid this CD. Seriously. Your ears will thank you for it.

More quick reviews, in the LJ Cut…

Eminem - Encore
Believe it or not, I’m an Eminem fan. Not a mindless idiot fan who thinks all he touches is gold. But, he’s got his moments. I thoroughly enjoyed his "The Eminem Show" CD, and I still listen to it on occasion. However, let me tell you about this new CD - I think Eminem pulled a George Lucas. What do I mean? I think he wrote most of these songs to amuse his daughter. Practically every one of the first 10 or so tracks features blatant bathroom humor. Not just humor - but sound effects. Seriously. There’s a flatulent sound effect on almost every track. It’s wrong. There’s toilets flushing, vomitous noises, burps, squeals, flatulence, and he actually says "poop" a few times. I wish I was kidding. The one song that I think is pretty decent, called "Vomit", starts off with a minute-long intro of him vomiting into a toilet, spitting, flushing, then saying "there I go. thinkin’ of you again". I’m tempted to take that first minute out and re-encode the song for my listening pleasure - but it ain’t THAT great of a song anyway. He does a hiphop cover of "Toy Soldiers", a song I once really enjoyed. As Eminem is not a fucking idiot - this guy’s really good at covering tracks and creating moods from older, recognizable samples. I would venture to say that this cover is the highlight of the album. For future reference - here’s some highlights of Lucas-ness:
In "Big Weenie" Eminem actually says in the chorus - "you walk around and say really mean things about me - cause you’re a big weenie". Yeah, hardcore buddy.
In "Just Lose It" we get "Give a little poot, poot, it’s okay. *flatulent sound* Oops. My CD just skipped and everyone just heard you let one rip".
In "My First Single", the chorus is replete with repeated sound effects of belches, toilet sounds, more diarrhea-esque flatulence and other things only a 3rd grader would find amusing.
There’s more, but that’s a taste. This is easily his worst work to date. There was a time when he could be counted on to point out amusing anecdotes about society, injustices in our country, hypocrisies, and generally piss people off with a talent that couldn’t be denied. For this CD, I think he ran out of things to bitch about and decided to just make an album to prove once and for all that he could almost literally smear shit on plastic and people would buy it. Maybe that’s the point. If so - bravo, Eminem.
RECOMMENDATION: Only pick it up if you just HAVE to be in the loop of people that will pick up any Eminem CD sight-unseen.

Depeche Mode - Remixes 81-04
What can I say? 37 Classic, great DM songs, remixed by talented electronic musicians. Almost every track is a great listen, as would be expected, but it’s not really DM - it’s all remixes. Still, you could listen to the whole CD (err.. I’m sure this is a double-disc or larger set, but I bought a digital version online so I don’t know) and not be skipping much. The genius is in the arrangement of the tracks, as one flows to the next with near-perfect precision. I mean, in emotion and feeling, not in beats. Though, there’s a few that feel like they were engineered together.
RECOMMENDATION: Pick this up and keep it somewhere close if you’re gonna be fucking someone soon. Great fuck music, will last quite awhile without having to repeat any tracks, and very few chicks don’t dig DM

Social Distortion - Sex, Love and Rock N Roll
Nothing’s gonna beat their Self-titled Debut. That having been said, this is Social D in all their normalness. Not a lot of amazing radio tracks, as very few actually "stand out". But, it’s a great CD from cover-to-cover as they say. I’ll have to give it a few more listens to really pick up which songs are my "fave" but I’m not upset. Just wish there were more "dude, you’ve GOTTA hear this track" songs on there.
RECOMMENDATION: If you like Social D, you would do well to pick this up.

GWAR - War Party
I love Gwar, I really do. "America Must Be Destroyed" was the album that won my heart, and they’ve almost never let me down from one album to the next. Once you get beyond the silly, intentionally offensive top layer of GWAR, they really are some seriously fucking talented musicians. They’ve done, with precision, damn near every style of music there is to do - and they do it well. However, their last two albums, "Violence Has Arrived" and now this one, see Gwar trying to just be an all-out metal act, taking out the hooks, bridges, strange samples and music/singing styles of old and replacing it with balls-to-the-wall metal. They did a good job of that on VHA, but War Party just sounds hastily contrived, tossed together over a weekend drinking binge or something. Even the album art looks like something I would’ve made in SuperPaint when I was 12. Dont’ believe me? Take a look. C’mon Gwar - your album covers have never disappointed before - why start now? Hell, your albums have never disappointed, either - again, why start now? I want my GWAR back. Oh well. I’ll still go kick some fuckin’ ass at their shows - you’ll never see a better live act. KISS in their wildest wet dreams couldn’t hold a candle.

Quick Link : Watch the video for their single "War Party" - this is pretty much what the whole album sounds like. Nothing discernable.

RECOMMENDATION: Pick up "This Toilet Earth", "Ragnarok", or "America Must Be Destroyed" to fully appreciate Gwar. Then MAYBE you might wanna listen to this album.

Massive Attack - Danny The Dog
Apparently this is Massive Attack’s full score for a movie of the same name. Therefore, it’s all instrumental. If you like Massive Attack (which I do), then you’ll dig this album as a whole. But the chances of you saying "ooh… put it on track 12" or anything like that, are pretty fuckin’ slim. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s just… different. Still, a good fuck CD. But then, so is their entire fuckin’ library. Oh, Portishead too.
RECOMMENDATION: Pick it up if you’ll be sitting in your room writing for hours on end, or you wanna fuck someone slowly and passionately.

Duran Duran - Astronaut
Not good. If you liked the single on the radio… then you’ll like the album. It never gets any better. Or worse. It’s all the same. Over and over again. It really feels like they just said "Alright then, chaps, let’s put us out a record and make some cash-money and get newer, younger groupies again baby!". You can feel them trying to pump life into lifeless songs, but it ultimately falls dead and limp like an overfucked penis. That’s DD for ya, they’re an aging, limp, over-fucked penis. For my money, it doesn’t get much better than their Best Of album. This one, however… sucks.
RECOMMENDATION: If you’re over 25 and you wanna feel really old because you spent money on ANOTHER Duran Duran album… then pick it up. If you’re younger than 25, you’ve missed the boat entirely and this album is going to sound like washed-up old has-beens which is… well, yeah, that’s what this is.

That’ll do it for now. There’s a lot more, but I think that’ll work.

Oh yeah, and Bob - Fuck you. Bob said the following :

"Ok, I am so fucking sick of everyone bitching about the fact that Bush won. I understand that you wanted Kerry to win, but he didn’t. Get the fuck over it, or leave. I didn’t want him to win either, but bitching about the fact that he won isn’t going to change shit. It was the closest race in a very long time. So just shut up already. FUCK!".

It’s been ONE FUCKING DAY, that’s hardly an endless barrage of bitching and moaning. I know it really upsets Bob that we’re taking up his precious time by discussing our dissaproval of the worst President I’ve witnessed in my lifetime actually get re-elected in spite of everything he’s done - but really, I think one day of utter amazement, anger, sadness and bitching is not only perfectly acceptable, but expected… Mmkay? So why don’t YOU just shut the fuck up - or maybe, I dunno, post something other than a halfpage FOF article once every 9 months on AMF?

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