Well lately I've been d/ling a few free MP3's from Amazon.com. I'd actually kind of forgotten that they offered those until I came across a band called Navar that had 2 you could download. Actually, they were pretty damn good, if I could describe them I'd say they're a fairly catchy rock band, best of pop and rock, maybe?

Mojave Shake    Everything's The Same

Then I just looked at the list of the top d/ls and got a few randomly. One that piqued my interest was a song called "Casimir Pulaski Day." I thought it'd be funny, because for those of you who don't live in IL--it's a state holiday that is one of those holidays no one gives a damn about except if they get work off, and not many people even know who Casimir Pulaski is*. So I figured a song about it would probably be a goof, but it's actually this sad song about this woman dying of cancer Anyway, I like it pretty well. I think there are a couple other songs by the same guy but I haven't gotten around to getting them yet.

Casimir Pulaski Day

I also really enjoy the song on there by Motion City Soundtrack. Actually, I didn't d/l it because it's on that Punkorama compilation I mentioned. Which, by the way, is pretty good if you're into punk-y music. I think they get a little into emo territory, and there's some rap on there kind of out of nowhere, but I'd reccomend it to anyone who likes pop-punk in general, especially since it's so cheap and there are so many tracks. And the Motion City Soundtrack song on there is one of the best.

When You're Around

I d/led several other songs, but the only other one I really like so far is "It's All In My Mind" by Teenage Fanclub, I don't particularly know how to describe it. :P

It's All In My Mind

The music download center is here, it has all the featured d/ls, top d/ls, what have you. You can also search a band or song name in their database to see if they have something you want not on that page. Also, every song, you can listen to a 30 second clip before you download, to see if you like it first.

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* I have a hazy reccolection of someone once telling me he was this Polish dude who helped train the American army during the Revolutionary war, and that the holiday was voted in basically to pander to all the Polish people living in Chicago.
posted by DJ Jazzy Phoe @ 9:10 PM  | 

 
Well, I finally gave in and re-bought the album, which is the new Lifehouse album if anyone was curious why I was beating myself up over it. Except it's really not that great of an album even though I like Lifehouse so much. I don't know if I'm just not into it yet or what, though obviously it doesn't totally suck or else I wouldn't re-buy it.

I've lost 2 CD's ever. If you count lost as not being able to have an album for awhile. Because one of them, I lost back when I lived at the dorms, and I knew at the end of the semester I'd probably be able to find it when I scoured the place for moving out. The other one was permanent, but I knew exactly where it went: I lent it to a sister of a friend that I then had a huge fight with and decided it was better to just leave her alone rather than get in another huge fight with her to make her get the CD from her sister. I didn't re-buy it, as it was Alanis Morissette, and I hadn't listened to Alanis very much for years. So really, this is my first re-buy. It makes me mad, but I was going nuts, I had to either find it or get a new copy. Yes, I'm that much of a freak.

In addition, I was sorely tempted, as I always am whenever I'm at Best Buy, to get more CD's. They had the new Audioslave and the new Foo Fighters, which I've been internally debating about both for awhile now. Audioslave's previous album, I only like the singles, but not the rest of the album. So eventually I decided I would just wait for them to come out with more singles, so at least if the same thing happens I'll like more than one of their songs.

On the Foo Fighters I was really ambivalent. I have every other Foo Fighters album. I want Dave Grohl to have my babies. But honestly, the last Foo Fighters album was not that great. And the one song I've heard off of the new album isn't bad, but every time I hear it, I literally stop listening to it in the middle. I just can't seem to pay attention to the whole song. It bores me, I guess. So anyway, I might wait for another single like I am on the Audioslave. Even one song I can listen to the whole way through would probably persuade me, since I consider it vital to my personal identity that I am the type of person who loves the Foo Fighters.

I also saw there was a new Better Than Ezra album out, which frankly surprised me. I love them, but I guess I wasn't paying attention. I actually had heard the new single of theirs on the radio, but was more confused than anything, as it's a not very extensive remix of a song off their previous album. Despite my love for them, I couldn't bring myself to buy it right then. Because even though I love them, they seem to be like Star Trek movies in that the odd numbered albums are crap. Their first album, Deluxe, only had one good song, their one hit "Good." Then their second album, Friction, Baby, was all awesome. There's only one song on the entire thing I don't want to have babies with. Then their third album, How Does Your Garden Grow? has only 2 good songs. And then their last album, Closer, was so frickin' awesometastic it is hard to believe. So I'm going to need something besides a halfhearted remix of the best song off of Closer to convince me to spend good money on an odd-numbered Better Than Ezra record, sorry guys (I like to imagine that Better Than Ezra reads this blog).

Then I looked around at the albums they had on display for sale. Honestly, I am totally out of the know. Because very few of the bands I knew much, if anything, about. When Best Buy out indie's you, you know you're not exactly on the cutting edge anymore. Not that I ever was, but it made me feel very old and uncool.

I think half of it, though, is that I don't have file-sharing anymore. I really miss it. It's a lot easier to get good music when you can download it all and decide whether it's good or not before you go out and buy it. And so I'm unwilling to pay a lot on some band I don't know anything about. I still read Rolling Stone and Spin, and they both probably have mentioned all of these bands by now, but since I can't go and d/l a song they talk about, their reviews mean nothing to me.

First off, both of them (but especially Spin) are fond of using colorful language to describe things that ultimately means nothing to anyone. "It is a true rock experience" means nothing to me. The Spin guy's rock experience is probably a lot different than mine. And same for good and bad--I can't buy an album on the say so of anyone who likes Eminem but pans Lifehouse! Eminem isn't fit to wipe Jason Wade's ass! And you can tell anyone I said so! ...although they'd probably look at you a little funny, and ask who the hell I am, if not also who the hell Jason Wade is.

So... um... yeah. If anyone had any reccomendations, that'd be nice. I'm just getting frustrated lately, as all my old CD's seem to bore me, and anything new I buy I either hate right away, or like for about a week and then am not that excited. I find poppy things are in the latter category, and anything harder or weirder is in the former.

I did end up buying a compilation called Punkorama 10. Yeah... the name makes me wince, too. Once again: if you can buy it at Best Buy, it's not real punk. Especially if someone buying it is picking up a Lifehouse album at the same time. Which is partly why I got it--whenever I do something girly like buy a Lifehouse CD, part of me wants to do something badass like buy punk. Another reason I got it: it was on sale for cheap, and has 25 tracks, plus a DVD with 20 more tracks. So even if I only like a fourth of it, it's like a good regular length CD for 8 bucks. Also, it's got some indie-er bands on it, so if I end up liking them, I get some of my poor, tattered street-cred back.

Wow. That post must've been incredibly boring for... most people.
posted by DJ Jazzy Phoe @ 7:09 PM  | 

 
Well I still can't find that CD. Gah, that makes me mad.

Anyway, if anyone wants to know, I've been listening to Coheed & Cambria a lot lately. They are pop punk... but weird. Emo, maybe? I still am not quite sure what the huge difference is between Emo and pop punk anyway (I knooow that Emo's supposedly more emotional, but most good rock, not to mention punk, is emotional). Generally I just use "emo" to mean anything I think sounds like pop-punk that isn't actually popular. Hell, I'm not even sure what the difference between punk and pop punk is. I mean, I can be like, "New York Dolls, Iggy Pop, Sex Pistols = Punk" and "Greenday, Blink 182, Good Charlotte = pop punk" and that punk is more hardcore than pop-punk but I'm not exactly sure where the dividing line actually lands. My best guess is basically when it was originally released. Pre-Greenday, it's punk. Greenday and post Greenday, it's pop-punk.

Anyway, I've had the Coheed & Cambria album awhile and liked it, but all of the sudden I decided I REALLY liked it. I don't know why, that happens to me once in awhile.

I actually was first exposed to it when a guy at the station I used to work for lent his copy to me. I have to say, it was the first (and last) time anyone's ever done that. Half the reason is that no one else I've ever been friends with IRL has had even near the same musical taste as me. So it was really nice having someone to talk music to. But I don't work with him anymore, so I don't expect seeing him again. And I don't think he'd lend me anything again anyway, because I was a bit of a jerk to him about it.

See, I'd lent him Jimmy Eat World's Futures at the same time, and had told him I didn't like it that much. I mean, it's okay, it's not a bad album, but I couldn't really get into it. I think it's because I already had two albums by them, and Futures wasn't particularly covering any new territory, so I was bored with it. So when we were talking about giving back each other's CD, he said something like, "Can I have it?" or "Do you still want it?" about Futures. And instead of being like, "No, I still want it." I said something sarcastic like, "Do you want YOURS back?"

I never think before stuff comes out of my mouth. And I was in a bad mood that day. And I had somewhat of a crush on him, and I am stuck in this horrible 7th grade mode of behavior where once in awhile I'm just a total jerk to people I have a crush on. But anyway, I think he got scared I wouldn't give his back, or just thought I was a jerk. Because we didn't talk that much about music afterwards.

Anyway, I DID want to keep Futures. Because sometimes I'll not particularly like an album, and have it for two years, and then all the sudden love it one day. Also, I am a terrible packrat. I still have my Spice Girls album, even though it's totally embrassing and I doubt I'm going to go back to loving them all of a sudden.

Which is yet another reason I'm really mad I lost that CD I can't seem to find.
posted by DJ Jazzy Phoe @ 8:02 PM  | 

 
I HATE it when I can't find a CD I want to listen to. Which happens semi-often since I'm so messy. Usually I'll finally get so mad I'll actually clean up all my crap just to find it. But lately, I did just that and still couldn't find the cd. Which makes me really mad, especially since it's pretty new. I really, really, wish I could attach a homing beacon to everything I own, and then glue the little device that would keep track of all of them for me onto a wall so that I would never lose IT and be like, "How ironic! I have lost the very thing that could help me find this thing that I am looking for."

...such are the thoughts of someone up at 3:00 a.m. with a lost CD and no one to talk to.
posted by DJ Jazzy Phoe @ 1:00 AM  |