New Music
Until Tuesday I hadn't bought 3 CDs at once in about 5 years.
G. Love & Special Sauce - Superhero Brother
Eminem - Relapse
Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
I picked up the G. Love album in preparation for the Mraz tour (which they're opening for). "Lemonade" was stuck in my car all summer back in '06 and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Before that I hadn't listened to them much since their debut (which I wore out). The new album is pretty standard fair but it's mostly upbeat so it gets a thumbs up. Nothing extraordinary, but it'll be good to know the tunes at the show in August and it should make for a great sunny day cruising album.
The Eminem album is 100% about doing drugs. That's a pretty common theme for Eminem yes, but in the past he at least had a few other things to talk about. Not this time. I've only gotten through it twice so far so I'm reserving judgment, and a few of the beats are good but I'm not particularly impressed on first blush. He's stuck on this new twangy intonation that he does on nearly all the rhymes on the album and I'm not a fan. I'll continue to be an Eminem supporter, but so far I'm disappointed by what I've heard.
I'm a long time Green Day fan. The only album they've put out that I didn't particularly enjoy was "Nimrod". I enthusiastically put "American Idiot" in my top 2 best rock albums of my generation (I don't actually have a #1 I just hesitate to call anything THE best) and I was pretty scared about what the new album was going to sound like and how dull it was going to seem in comparison to "American Idiot". It turns out I had nothing to worry about. "21st Century Breakdown" doesn't have the quantity of political angst, or the overt storyline of its predecessor, but it's every bit as solid musically and reminds me why I love the band. They construct rock songs like every modern rock act wishes they could, and they do it with lyrics that actually say something. This is my new car CD for the foreseeable future.
G. Love & Special Sauce - Superhero Brother
Eminem - Relapse
Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
I picked up the G. Love album in preparation for the Mraz tour (which they're opening for). "Lemonade" was stuck in my car all summer back in '06 and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Before that I hadn't listened to them much since their debut (which I wore out). The new album is pretty standard fair but it's mostly upbeat so it gets a thumbs up. Nothing extraordinary, but it'll be good to know the tunes at the show in August and it should make for a great sunny day cruising album.
The Eminem album is 100% about doing drugs. That's a pretty common theme for Eminem yes, but in the past he at least had a few other things to talk about. Not this time. I've only gotten through it twice so far so I'm reserving judgment, and a few of the beats are good but I'm not particularly impressed on first blush. He's stuck on this new twangy intonation that he does on nearly all the rhymes on the album and I'm not a fan. I'll continue to be an Eminem supporter, but so far I'm disappointed by what I've heard.
I'm a long time Green Day fan. The only album they've put out that I didn't particularly enjoy was "Nimrod". I enthusiastically put "American Idiot" in my top 2 best rock albums of my generation (I don't actually have a #1 I just hesitate to call anything THE best) and I was pretty scared about what the new album was going to sound like and how dull it was going to seem in comparison to "American Idiot". It turns out I had nothing to worry about. "21st Century Breakdown" doesn't have the quantity of political angst, or the overt storyline of its predecessor, but it's every bit as solid musically and reminds me why I love the band. They construct rock songs like every modern rock act wishes they could, and they do it with lyrics that actually say something. This is my new car CD for the foreseeable future.