Miscellaneous

Hello,

Last night I was able to watch the first three episodes of Season One of "Mad Men". I didn't discover this show until Season Two, so there's a lot I don't know about concerning the story. Last night episodes started filling in some of the blanks. Things are starting to become a lot clearer. "Mad Men" is such a great show. Blockbuster has the DVDs for Season One, each DVD contains 3 episodes. By the way Season Three of "Mad Men" begins this August on AMC.

In my driving to and from work I've been listening to a couple of excellent CD's the last few days. First I listened to Prince's "Purple Rain", this is as great of a CD as I remember. Too bad that CD was his peak as an artist, but what a peak it was. I remember back in the day I could not wait until the followup to that CD came out. That was one of the biggest disappointments for me. The follow up CD was "Around The World In A Day". Overall its disappointing but it still had a couple of good songs on it, "Pop Life" and "Raspberry Beret".

I also have been enjoying the White Stripes "White Blood Cells". This fantastic CD has 16 blasts of elemental rock. This CD was my first exposure to the White Stripes and I instantly became a life long fan. This is just a fantastic CD.

Speaking of "Purple Rain", can you believe it's already the 25th anniversary of that seminal CD and movie? The "Purple Rain" movie was released on July 27th, 1984. To honor that Spin has a big article about that movie in it's July issue. They also had 9 musicians cover all the classic songs from that CD. For the most part they are pretty janky covers.

For instance, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings take on "Take Me With You" takes all the firepower out of that song. They reduce that track to a very mediocre song. Frankly it sounds more like a Sharon Jones original than the Prince classic. The other covers are pretty forgettable. What I recommend is that you get it, it's free. You can always delete any songs you don't want. But without a doubt get Prince's original. "Purple Rain" is probably one of the Top 10 CD's of the 80's.

Also at wearethefallen.com you can now download the new single from the band The Fallen. They are the result of the joining of most members of early Evanescence and the powerhouse singer Carly Smithson. The name of the song is "Bury Me Alive" and it sounds a lot like Evanescence. Carly Smithson fills in well for Amy Lee. If that's what they want to do, that is fine with me. They sound pretty good so far and that's a very cool song. I'm on their e-mail list so as they keep me up to date, I'll keep you up to date. Or you can go to wearethefallen.com. Their full website isn't launched yet though.

The new Rolling Stone cover is out and the cover story is about The Jonas Brothers. What the hell? Adam Lambert and then The Jonas Brothers? If the next cover features Danny Gokey or Kris Allen I'm going to have to consider cancelling my subscription. I subscribed to Rolling Stone, not Teen Beat. Before the Adam Lambert cover, the cover story was about Lady Gaga. That's three janky covers in a row.

The 2009 covers and a grade for the coolness and musical ability of each.
The Jonas Brothers- C, they do have some good songs.
Adam Lambert- D an over hyped musician that I'm already sick of hearing about.
Lady Gaga- C- She does some things that are musically interesting.
Green Day- A They're last two CDs have been fantastic. Check out the song "21 Guns", it's also on the "Transformers 2" soundtrack.
Bob Dylan- D A music dinosaur that Rolling Stone reports on way too much.
Kings of Leon- D Yawn!
Lil Wayne- F Another lame rapper.
The Gossip Girls- F two non-singers from a derivative TV show.
U2- B A band mostly living on their past glories.
Taylor Swift- A Someone who is musically relevant thankfully. One of the great upcoming artists and should be a bright hope for the future.
Sean Penn- B Granted he's not a musician, but one of the most relevant filmmakers currently working.
Bruce Springsteen B+ Still a cultural superstar who is leaving his footprint all over the musical world.
George W. Bush F, I'm trying to forget they cluttered their magazine with his picture.

I recently bought Paramore's first CD "All We Know Is Falling". It's a pretty good CD, they are a pretty good band. I'm looking forward to their third CD coming out this fall. There's still no word on when that CD is coming out. Hayley Williams did tell me and 10,000 of my closest friends that it will be out this fall though. That was when we saw them in concert.

Songs rockin' my iPod 1) "Summer '79"- The Ataris 2) "Clumsy"- Fergie 3) "Radio Song"- R.E.M. and KRS-One 4) "Dirty Denim"- The Donnas One of the most underrated bands currently active. 5) "Hot For Teacher"- Van Halen 6) "Fighter"- Christina Aguilera 7) "Change"- Tears For Fears 8) "Bullet the Blue Sky" (Live) - U2 9) "Gives You Hell"- All-American Rejects 10) "Dirty Diana"- Alexis Grace 11) "When Smokey Sings"- ABC 12) "Be Near Me"- ABC 13) "High"- Madonna and Antonio Banderas from the "Evita" soundtrack. 14) "Last Resort"- Papa Roach 15) "Heartless"- Kris Allen This was his only performance I really liked, but this is an amazing performance. 16) "ABC"- The Pipettes.

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow, have a great day themusicaddict