Couple 'O Things

First, thanks to TriDi for the fine photos. Highschool is but a faint memory, but its cool to see people you use to know. The whole exercise outfit thing is but a plus. (insert smiley)

Next, this week was the suck. I'm glad its over. Keeping this up will be tough, but I'm going to have to. Thankfully, I have plenty of other things to keep me occupied.

Now, the bulk of the post...which is going to be shorter than I envisioned, is a cd review. My man, Bob Mould, released his newest cd this week. I had pre-ordered it, and have tickets to the show at the 930 next month. I have followed Bob since forever. I reviewed his live DVD last year. The album for that tour was great. It followed a pretty bad cd where I had pretty much given up on him. I think that's part of what made the cd so good, but I still love. The right mix of everything.

The cd came in Monday, but I had been in a rough mood all week and just hadn't felt like listening to it. So, its Friday, I'm a little sick, but its ok. Its time.

Ugh.

Well, maybe I am done with Bob. There have been plenty of nice review of this album, but mine won't be one of them. I'm really a music geek. I have my stereo, and I have my chair (much like those old TDK ads). When I'm down for a serious listen, the lights are dim, the feet are up, and I'm relaxed. I often go to sleep. Its not the music's fault, I can fall asleep to metal, I just get really relaxed. About half way through the disc I turned the lights on and started cleaning my motorcycle jacket. Then I went in the garage and drilled out some turnsignal mounts I'd been working on.

The last was too bad as the end of the cd picked up a bit.

I don't really know what to say. Production-wise, its as clear as mud. Lots of music is that way these days because they mix and master for ipod headphones. Bastards. I can usually get past that tho. The album is just dull. In the day there was a term called AOR - Album Oriented Rock. It was what your generic Rock radio station (Richmonders, I refer to the old XL102). Pretty much middle of the road, not exceptional, rock. A good bit of this comes across like that.

Double ugh.

On the last album he got some heat for the use of a vocoder and he laughed. It worked, I didn't mind it. The album...its almost every damn song. Might as well go get Frampton's voice box thingie. Each song sounds like it uses iMAC plug in of the week downloads or somthing. There is some discoy effect on every song. Now, I know he's gotten into electronica and the like, and that's all good, but really this feels he's just playing with effects.

I'm convinced that computers and digital in general are the worst things to ever happen to music. Stuff is overlayered, everything is run through limiters and compressors, and there is no dynamic range at all. Seriously, a 60s jazz group recorded live in a room and artfully mastered has more dynamic range than lots of stuff produced now. Somewhere I saw a site that shows waveforms that prove this.....but I've bored you enough.

The end of the cd is decent, and frankly, I'll give this another go later. Often I do find that cds will grow on me over time. The saddest thing is I've always had this rule...two strikes and you're out. I don't download, pirate, etc, music. I buy it. I let the artist get whatever money they've negociated. The filp side is I won't get screwed more than twice. This just may be it.

As it turns out, I'm not going to be able to go to the show. I don't know anyone interested, so I suppose they'll go to waste. I actually think many of these songs will come across great live. Bob is an awesome performer. I've gotta say tho, I'm not real sad. That last show was so phenominal, I think I might be glad it will be my lasting memory.