As of late, I’ve been listening to a lot of music via outlets other than my iTunes Library. I’ll be honest and admit that I didn’t begin using iTunes until my first year of college, well after a large part of my generation had fallen in love with the program. I recall that first introduction to it when my friend Liz was trying to play “America” by Simon and Garfunkel. She opened up a sleek interface and typed half the word “Amer…” and up popped her results as she typed. I was impressed and immediately asked what I was looking at. She scoffed, squinted her eyes and said, “You don’t know what iTunes is?”
It was one of those technological leaps that we often find ourselves in. One minute you think you are one of the “cool” kids who is on the cutting edge, and the next thing you know someone has made you feel like a caveman who still doesn’t know how to make fire. Of course, I immediately downloaded iTunes and became voracious for new music. My iTunes needed to be fed. With it came my unquenchable need for new artists, songs, genres.
As time moves forward, science develops new tools. It succeeds itself continually, and now many of us find ourselves using iTunes less and less. Earlier today I accidentally clicked the iTunes shortcut on my desktop and cursed myself. I knew it would slow down my computer. More often than not, when told to close down, it will shut down for a second and reappear as if to ask “You didn’t really want me gone, did you?”
You see, iTunes is a memory hog. It is “bloated” software that previously had been proprietary. It was the only thing on the market that managed to do everything you could want in one simple panel; but at what cost? Web pages load slower. My CPU’s temperature and usage skyrocket. Yet the program doesn’t even have a built in equalizer (that I am aware of)!
So, what have I found myself relying on more and more? Three different music services: Last.fm, Pandora and Slacker Radio. Each with its own pros and cons, and (as with all things in this world) if they simply managed to somehow combine and create the chimera of music genomes, I would have the perfect music outlet for my tastes. But, things are not so. How do you choose between the three? My generation isn’t nearly as brand loyal as our ancestors, but we still wish for simplicity. We want it all and we want it in one place.
Coming up I’ll have a complete rundown on each service’s best and worst features. I have no intention of naming a winner but hopefully in the end someone will read my musings and be able to avoid that uncomfortable cave man moment when you realize how far behind the curve you really are.
Believe it or not you’ve probably already heard a song by this little-known rock duo from Brooklyn. In fact it’s probably safe to say that you’ve bobbed your head to the first single off of their second album, “Daylight”. Yet you have no idea where you’ve heard it but it’s ingrained in your brain like your ATM card’s PIN number. Well, here’s why: Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino joined powers in 2004 creating the simply named indie pop group that found fame by selling out to an international booze company. Their second album, Grand, dropped in early January 2009 but the group’s national interest didn’t rise until much later. For all of you Goths, Emos, and Alanis-loving women and gay men should be forewarned: Grand is incessantly happy, constantly upbeat and has enough pep to keep even the perkiest cheerleader smiling.
While for some this combination of giddiness and hyperactivity equates a good album, here it falls short. The first song on the album is the notorious “Daylight” which serves as the hook-and-line for the rest of Grand. It’s irritatingly catchy, addictive even. But what follows is a one-note album where every song seems to hark back to the previous; each benign lyric simply reflects a deep seeded ADD issue.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some bright spots on Grand. “Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare” and “Don’t Slow Down” will get your foot tapping. The latter sounds like an ode to the old days of The Beatles, sans the charm and whimsy. All together though, having three notable songs out of eleven doesn’t an album make. Avoid “Cinders”, the ninth song on the album at all costs. Its redundant use of synthesizer could cause your teeth to grind together hard enough to cause a migraine. By the time your iPod hits “I’ll Take Us Home” you’ll really wish they mean it.
Grand, like a lot of album’s these days, wraps it up with a remix of its first single. Of course most other artist’s employ a final remix as a possible improvement on the original. The “Daylight Outro Remix” actually manages to harm its predecessor. Its dampened speed drags the fun and frenzy out of the song and leaves the listener wondering why this remix was even included on the album at all.
Overall the name of the album is misleading. Grand doesn’t deliver on its promise and even the happiest of listeners will find its overwhelming chipperness exhausting by the time the album’s short thirty minute running time is up.
Beth Hart isn’t a household name, nor does she strike a fan as the type of person who would want to be one. Four studio albums and a landslide of gumption have lead the songstress into new territory on the most recent album, 37 Days, which was released in Europe in July 2007. From 1996’s humble Immortal beginnings Hart has managed to harness a soul-wrenching voice and musical talent and build upon it until every song on her discography seems to build itself on top of its predecessors. While Screamin’ for My Supper (1999) and Leave the Light On (2003) fill the gap between Hart’s Immortal and 37 Days, the musical journey of Beth Hart is the real reason even the casual listener becomes an instant fan.
Born in 1972, Hart has yet to reach her 40’s yet each successive album betrays an old-soul who some believe could be a reincarnated Janis Joplin (who died in 1970) or the unknown descendent of Joan Armatrading. The story that led to such passionate and raw talent is what drives and influences every chord in Hart’s work. Hart dropped out of high school in order to focus on her songwriting in the 80s and later became a contestant on Ed McMahon’s Star Search, winning the grand prize of $100,000. A few short years after her success on the popular talent show Hart released her first album, Immortal, which revealed that Hart had grown from her earlier performances and emerged stronger, addicted and dangerous.
Immortal, a collaboration between Hart and her band, was recorded during a particularly dark time in the singer’s life. Hart, at the time, was heavily addicted to a variety of drugs which created an album saturated in anger, imbalance and confusion over where her life was headed. The second song on the album, “Spiders in My Bed” sounds about as creepy and menacing as the title suggests. Hart’s inspiration was clearly a bad trip, overdose or both yet as a listener you can’t help but listen, wide-eyed and mouth-agape at the cries and howls that emerge from Hart’s gut. It’s enough to make your skin crawl.
Her 1996 debut wasn’t that well received as many found her hard-edged vocals and controversial lyrics to be before their time. Yet any listener who has heard “Am I the One” would know without question that Hart understood how to pull in the reigns. “Am I the One” helps to round off the album with a dark, sultry and smoky blues ballad that you might expect a bar chanteuse to sing on top of a piano while smoking a cigar. Of course other gems, such as the title track, stand-out as power rock at its best. It was clear, from the beginning of Hart’s career, that her gospel was that of the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin and the Faces.
After the tepid-warm response to Immortal, Hart’s band quickly broke apart and even Hart herself seemed to believe her career was finished. Three years later she reemerged with a new album, Screamin’ for My Supper, that showcased a more astute self-awareness, a touch of cockiness and is arguably her first completely mature and fully realized album. Hart was heavily influenced by the likes of Etta James and other blues-gospel singers of a similar period. The album plays like a dark campfire tale full of ghosts and past addictions that still rattle Hart’s cages whenever she sings a note.
Screamin’ for My Supper his the airwaves with its first single, “L.A. Song” which showcased Hart’s vocal prowess and range in a tightly packed radio-ready single. “L.A. Song” reveals Hart’s inner torment regarding Southern California which is accompanied by simple piano backing and somewhat hushed vocals that created a compelling single success. Screamin’ for My Supper is chocked full of anguish and recovery songs such as “Just a Little Hole” and “Get Your Shit Together” the latter of which is the best song on the album where Hart approaches a former friend who lives on the street. All together Screamin’ for My Supper is the album that every recovering addict wishes they could produce themselves.
Four years after Screamin’ for My Supper, Hart managed to trump her last album by releasing Leave the Light On which amped up her former efforts at describing addiction recovery and love loss. The title track quickly became a radio smash in certain parts of the US yet her resistance to commercial appeal kept the album from becoming a platinum success. Leave the Light On may not have been her first fully realized album but it was definitely her finest moment to date.
Recovery and redemption are the main themes of the album which reflects Hart’s tendency to pour every grain of her soul into her songs. “Lifts You Up” starts off the album in somewhat of an optimistic direction, a song about life’s ups-and-downs. “Bottle of Jesus” returns Hart to her addiction concentration as she cries out for “somebody waiting to save me.” The most appealing and telling song on the album is the rocking “Monkey Back” which is figuratively about getting clean with a screaming animal on your back. Where other artists might sing of such serious topics with fear or timidness, Hart belts out at her demons with each chord even while singing the humorous line “God wouldn’t save me/so now its just me and my rotten friends/the drugs ain’t working/no, they’re just jacking me off again.”
Most recently Hart has released 37 Days, yet only to the European market where she spends a large amount of time touring in Denmark and the Netherlands. Hopefully the album will one day cross the pond and grace the US population with its latest incarnation of Hart’s larger than life sound. If her first three albums are any indication, 37 Days should be another rocking album with rough-edges, deep soul and enough swagger to make Church Ladies howl along.
Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino joined powers in 2004 creating the simply named indie pop group that found fame by selling out to an international booze company. Their second album, Grand, dropped in early January 2009 but the group’s national interest didn’t rise until much later. For all of you Goths, Emos, and Alanis-loving women and gay men should be forewarned: Grand is incessantly happy, constantly upbeat and has enough pep to keep even the perkiest cheerleader smiling.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1134aebb-5e47-4e8b-9cf5-cfde1e65d110 "ADD and Music: Proceed with Caution")
The Slow, Agonizing Death of iTunes
November 23rd, 2009It was one of those technological leaps that we often find ourselves in. One minute you think you are one of the “cool” kids who is on the cutting edge, and the next thing you know someone has made you feel like a caveman who still doesn’t know how to make fire. Of course, I immediately downloaded iTunes and became voracious for new music. My iTunes needed to be fed. With it came my unquenchable need for new artists, songs, genres.
As time moves forward, science develops new tools. It succeeds itself continually, and now many of us find ourselves using iTunes less and less. Earlier today I accidentally clicked the iTunes shortcut on my desktop and cursed myself. I knew it would slow down my computer. More often than not, when told to close down, it will shut down for a second and reappear as if to ask “You didn’t really want me gone, did you?”
So, what have I found myself relying on more and more? Three different music services: Last.fm, Pandora and Slacker Radio. Each with its own pros and cons, and (as with all things in this world) if they simply managed to somehow combine and create the chimera of music genomes, I would have the perfect music outlet for my tastes. But, things are not so. How do you choose between the three? My generation isn’t nearly as brand loyal as our ancestors, but we still wish for simplicity. We want it all and we want it in one place.
Coming up I’ll have a complete rundown on each service’s best and worst features. I have no intention of naming a winner but hopefully in the end someone will read my musings and be able to avoid that uncomfortable cave man moment when you realize how far behind the curve you really are.
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Posted in Commentary, Technology, Web 2.0
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