Quick reviews

Hello,

iTunes sent out an e-mail this morning that from November 26th to November 29th, people can buy 5 MP3 CD's for only $6.99. Those 5 CDs are Kings of Leon's "Come Around Sundown", Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream", Mumford and Sons "Sigh No More", Maroon 5's "Hands All Over" and Sugarland's "The Incredible Machine".

That's a pretty good deal. I have no interest in "Come Around Sundown", "Sigh No More" or "Hands All Over". I'm not a big fan of either Kings of Leon or Mumford and Sons. I like Maroon 5, but this CD is very wimpy. I wouldn't buy any of the above 3 CD's for .99c. I was looking forward to the new Katy Perry CD and it certainly has some good songs on it. However I think it's a disappointment, I was hoping for a bit more.

The only one I'm tempted with is Sugarland's "The Incredible Machine", so I listened to it on napster.com this morning. I like it and it has some good songs on it, I'm just not prepared to spend $6.99 on it at this time. Possibly if it was the physical CD I would buy it. But I've bought some digital music before and have lost a lot of it when changing computers. So unless it's free or incredibly cheap if possible I stay away from digital music. I would be more willing to buy digital music is if I lost it, the place where I bought it would let me download it again for free.

I would give "The Incredible Machine" a C+. I also listened to the Original Broadway Play Soundtrack for "Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson". napster.com only has 30 second excerpts of the 13 songs. (Does the soundtrack really only have that few songs, is it excerpted? Most Broadway Soundtracks have about 20-25 songs.) What I've heard of "Andrew Jackson" in one listen I like a lot. Although some of the language is unnecessarily vulgar. Now I'm listening to the "Hannah Montana Forever" Soundtrack. I'm listening to it for two reasons. The first is I really liked her last CD as Miley Cyrus, "Can't Be Tamed". Even after all these months I'm still a big fan of that CD. Also Entertainment Weekly gave the CD a B+ grade. Yes, I'm also liking this CD, it's just pure pop music. This CD and "Can't Be Tamed" reflects her growing maturity. That means the quality of her music is increasing. I just wish she wasn't showing skin as much as she is. Doesn't she realize she's being manipulated? This whole growing up thing definitely has a learning curve, for all of us.

Upcoming: I'll also be coming with quick reviews for the Anoop Desai CD, he's one of my favorite American Idol non winners. I've also heard good things about the new Shakira CD, I really like her. I don't think she has received enough credit in America. Her new CD is called "Sale El Sol".

One non music note: Last night I started reading the "Richard Castle" novel "Heat Wave". I put Richard Castle in quotation marks, as he's obviously not a real person. He's a character on the excellent "Castle" TV series. Anyway "Castle" has allegedly written two novels. I started reading one of them last night. This book is called "Heat Wave". Castle's protagonist is Detective Nikki Heat. As in "Castle" a female detective has to let a writer hang out with her at the behest of her boss. In "Heat Wave" the author Heat has to hang out with is magazine journalist Jameson Rook. The respective authors are Castle and Rook, get it? Ask a chess player if you don't. Rook is much more obnoxious than Richard Castle though without as much humor.

The book only has 212 pages, but the font is incredibly small. In reality, with normal font, it would be about a 300 to 350 page book. I like it so far. I haven't been able to find out who the real author is. Although the novel has a blurb from James Patterson on the cover, I'm wondering if he really is the author.

themusicaddict