Music Blog

It’s no secret that I love the Mercury Program. Their 2004 album “A Data Learn the Language” brought a surprising intelligence to what could have just been droning repetition. Lush, beautifully-recorded orchestration, the use of vibes as a melodic center, and intensely geometric (there’s no better word) song structures all led to an atmosphere of unusually vivid texture.

The lamen, thinking only of Mick Jagger and his rooster strut might bark the former inspires the most wicked of onstage pleasures. But the musician, after all, has at least a little bit of "normal people," peasant blood in him. He's only human. You, sir: do you feel more at ease galavanting onstage like a lunatic alone, or with eleven other people? One might say that the members of the indie collective are more enabled to put on a good show, hop around like a monkey, lose their shit like a teenage girl screaming along at a Justin concert. There's a psychology of the masses, and it says this: even the most idiotic of ideas can gather exponential rushes of gathering energy behind them, which grow and grow into a spasmadic explosion of bliss; imagine what happens with a good idea.

After reading the outbursts of fans and the numerous people slamming Linkin Park's latest release, I was of course very curious to hearing Minutes To Midnight.

The artist is Tori Amos, and the record is "American Doll Posse." It was released May 1, and I hadn't gotten around to picking it up because I haven't always been in love with everything she's done over the years... I loved Earthquakes and Under the Pink—played each of them hundreds of times, and then Boys for Pele felt like a kick in the head (it kinda was), and I left Tori to do her thing for some years. A year or two after Choirgirl Hotel came out I bought a copy, and was really impressed by over half of the tracks on there. Spark, Black Dove (January) are standouts.

Courtney Love is planning to sell a bunch of her deceased husband’s items….Former Singer of Nirvana…Kurt Cobain, who sadly passed in April 1994…last month making it 13 years ago…but still feeling like yesterday!

Let me ask you something. Where did you hear about your last favorite band? Let me rephrase that. WHO told you about this “great” artist that you just had to check out? Granted it was somebody or something whose opinion you trusted. Behold the power of “Word of Mouth”.

Is it me, or did all of Justin Timberlake’s singles get progressively worse in the order they were released in?