Taking a small break from the R.E.M. posts to discuss the best albums so far this year. I bring this up because I am sitting here working on my vacation mix and find myself digging into the 2010 releases and noting my preferences for the trip. Since my wife and I typically spend quite a bit of time driving around on our vacations, what’s better than creating a nice-sized playlist for the trip and then exploring the music together and to be honest, it’s a great way to involve your significant other in the process.
 
While some of you purists out there prefer the idea of playing albums straight through, as do I, a playlist at random allows for the trip to be more enjoyable for both parties because as much as I might want to listen to an R.E.M. album straight through, your significant other might prefer Phish and an hour of Phish is, in my honest opinion, mind-numbing.
 
Compromise allows for our minds to expand in the peace and relaxation of company and good music. Onward and Upward.
 
Ok, onto the best so far….
 
1. Beach House – Teen Dream
 
Best release so far this year by a mile. Quaint, dreamy and reflective. While I would hate to call this album a folk album, because I think it would give the wrong impression but in many respects it reminds me of the Fleet Foxes.
 
2. Charlotte Gainsbourg – IRM
 
With the help of Beck, Gainsbourg’s album is reminiscent of St. Vincent’s ‘Actor’ in allowing for her to explore different personas.
 
3. Owen Pallett  - Heartland
 
This feels a little bit like what Zach Condon, with Beirut is doing albeit with strings and keyboards and crooning.
 
4. Spoon – Transference
 
Somehow Spoon is finding a way to sound fresh by coming out with solid rock and roll albums.
 
 
Some of the more disappointing albums so far include:
 
1. Massive Attack – Heligoland
 
Massive Attack is another band that has not been the same in the 21st century. I feel this album feels inconsistent, in some respects, featuring too many disparate lead singers to backdrop their sound.
 
2. Peter Gabriel – Scratch My Back
 
I found this album depressing and a headscratcher. Gabriel decides to come out with an album of covers but does so only with his voice and a symphony which is a headscratcher.  Standout tracks like Bon Iver’s ‘Flume’ and Magnetic Fields ‘Book of Love’ are not worth the forgettable tracks like David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ and Radioheads ‘Street Spirit’
 
3. Surfer Blood – Astrocoast
 
I found this album to feel like your typical “Indie Rock Flavor of the Week”; an album that tries too hard and ultimately is pretty bland.

It would appear that the Simon Cowell-Produced ‘Everybody Hurts’ has been a hit. The 453,000 copies of this single that were sold in the first week in the UK set a record.
 
For those fans out there very much upset about this, the entire single, etc. I just hope that you hang in there. All I can say is that everybody hurts. Everybody cries sometimes. So just hold on. That’s what I said, hold on.

Spotify, for those that are not aware is a Peer-to-Peer service that allows for users to listen to streamed versions of approximately 6 million-plus songs that are contained within its library.  Think about it simply as going to iTunes, picking a song from it’s library and streaming it to play on your computer, over your cell phone, etc. Of course the big key to this service is that it is free.
 

When I created a "Group" on Facebook, I really was not thinking. I think that a "Page" is much better because it will allow for you the user to follow.
So click here to access.
So please sign up, and even go as far as deleting the group as I would like to eventually remove that group. :)
 
 
 

 The recent development in Haiti would appear that more than 200,000 have been killed due to the earthquake in Haiti. I write this because it is all the more imperative why I write this article.

Over the years I have sat and listened to countless R.E.M. bootlegs. Countless moments where Michael Stipe would tell the audience that as they were leaving to visit the booths that were set up on the way out of the venue. These “Booths” were set up as a means for the public to become proactive and be informed.

Now, I never thought that the band did this to improve their shtick among fans. It was never a public relations gesture, a moment where you could just say, ‘Wow, those guys in R.E.M. are awesome because they support such great things as the environment, old buildings, progressive causes. Hot, damn, I think I will go and buy their album.”

To be honest they genuinely care about the issues they support and by putting their name around a project they are supporting that cause as well. Of course they are quite aware that having a fanbase they can promote those causes, both directly and indirectly.

As fans, we should not just blindly support causes cause Michael Stipe says to. But I do not think that the cause is the issue here. The question has never been about not giving money to Haiti but rather ruining a song.

 Independent Lens on PBS recently broadcast a nice program about ‘Copyright Criminals, Can You Own a Sound’.

What is your opinion of music that is sampled? Before you answer that, I want you to listen to this. It’s the first part of the ‘Grey Album’ by DJ Dangermouse, a mash up of Jay-Z and the Beatles. 

Independent Lens on PBS had a good episode on “Copyright Criminals” dealing with the sampling issues in hip hop, and other genres.  Sampling is simply the idea of using a borrowed sound or recording and using it in a different recording, as in the example above.

What the ethical question of course the program revolves around is the legal aspect of taking that recording and using it in a different recording. Who owns that sample, which might only be a second or two.

 That could be the only explanation for having this little ad make its way to the television.

I am not sure that there is a hardline policy that bands should follow when allowing their music to be used in advertisements.  In some cases, I would argue that the properly placed song with the perfect product is alright, such as the use of  U2's ‘Vertigo’ to promote the Ipod.

‘Bad’ is a different story. The song, as told by Bono on countless live shows, related to heroin addiction. So for it to be offered in such a fashion makes me want to counter with “WTF”. Does Dale Earnhardt, Jr. have a drug problem that we were not aware of?

While the lyrics might not suggest that the song is about Heroin, the fact that Bono has provided that nugget of detail to U2 fans everywhere, you would have to wonder who in the U2 camp dropped the ball on this one. Or are they so hard up for money they will try to attract NASCAR Dads with this promo.

What bugs me is that the song turned from being one of my favorite U2 songs to one that bleeds of cynicism now. 

For those that are not aware, Simon Cowell, of American Idol (and other reality entertainment show) fame has arranged to have R.E.M.’s Everybody Hurts to be covered by a slew of all-star musicians and acts.
 
In reading the reaction on Murmurs left me pretty sick to my stomach.  It’s very difficult to pick out a winner from all the reactions from fans.
 
“Everybody Hurts may well be murdered by Cowell's ego”
 
“On a purely selfish note, this will probably bring REM a lot of exposure to a new generation of music buyers.”
 
“I'm very torn about this... do the ends justify the means??”
 
“I cannot help but think that the 'Stars' who have signed up for this are also doing it for their own egos.”
 
Of course there is plenty of reaction to the actual singers that are performing on this which I have chosen not to add. 
 
R.E.M., for all it’s said and done is a progressive act that for the last, what will almost be 30 years, has supported either publicly or not so much social causes both with their own money and to raise awareness for those causes. Putting their support behind a cause like this is noble and should not be taken any other way.

We have begun a new year and as I stare at photos of the lead singer known as Stipe, I am noticing that we have another thing in common and that is that we both have beards. His has a fair amount of gray in his; mine is still brown-black saving the gray for my temples. He is balding, I need a haircut. He’s wearing glasses. Mine are in a case somewhere. He is 50. I am 37. We both know the lyrics to Driver 8.

 
However, the staring is just staring and not any ‘longing’. Staring at him and then a white screen wondering what I am going to write about next.
 
It is not just any new year but the beginning of another decade (although not technically but that is for another site).
 
Of course if you have been reading this site in the recent past you would admit that things have been pretty quiet around here. If I was Johnny Rotten I might say, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
 
Honestly, I do too although I am not sure you can just sit to write. I do not get paid to be a fan, the home office is not on speed dial; I do not get backstage tickets, no free albums, no gimmes or anything,  but rather when I do this it’s my little place.
 
Hitting submit on an R.E.M. post is knowing that somewhere out there, a bot is looking for it and wants to respond with a Viagra advertisement and that I find pretty humerous that I am probably talking to more “Code” than anything.
 

If there is any good reason to give money to a legitimate media source, NPR should be your choice. On top of being impressive on the news circuit, currently they are also streaming, R.E.M. Live At The Olympia.
 
For the past 15 years or so, R.E.M.'s willingness to dig deep in their catalog could be aptly compared to being shackled to your bed while your partner tortures you...sexually of course. Their live setlists often feature the songs at the shows you don't attend and jealousy persists when they talk about their former lovers (setlists of prior years). Of course, if the band chose to perform such an act it would result in premature ejaculation on your part which would offer no satisfaction to the band. In this release, the shackles are removed and we are graced with an amazing release.
 
As I have been listening to this album, I am finding very little wrong with it so far. The small errors in the performances give the album some heart, reminding listeners that in the early days, R.E.M. was not about precision but reckless abandon, while the "Whirling Dervish" Michael Stipe would parade onstage.  While Stipe is not the W. Dervish that he once was, the band does give listeners a glimpse into soundtracks of the misfits of Generation X. Sure, they are not the band from 1983, but the songs are not treated as some prepackaged tchotchke from China. They do not sound overly rehearsed but very fresh and unique.