just a companion to the movies thread...

last week i picked up The Bravery's debut album and also Kasabian. pretty good stuff.

lately the music press has been pinning The Bravery with the Killers, starting another rivalry... i'm going to say The Killers have a slightly better album (more polished, better songs, better presentation). that isn't to say The Bravery's album isn't any good. it's a really fun album to listen to... sort of like Franz Ferdinand with more electronic touches and programming.

Kasabian is very much like early nineties UK dance/indie stuff, like Primal Scream and Happy Mondays. hell... the singer even sounds like Shaun Ryder at times. good stuff.

this coming Tuesday is a huge music purchase for me... New Order's new album "Waiting for the Sirens' Call" and three double disc remasters from The Cure... woo hoo!

Bong you seem like a huge fan of UK music
is it hard to get over in NYC?

hmm... it depends. the record companies here love to gamble with new UK indie bands. so many times i've seen they sign a new band with a great debut album already released in the UK, and take it from there. the problem is the record company doesn't invest in any promotion for the band... just your basic small tour through the usual big cities (something like 10 dates or less) in small venues. that's it. no print promos, not radio spots, no TV spots... nothing. it's not like the radio stations here would take a chance on basically a little known band anyway.

if the band meets or exceeds expectations, then they're lucky. if not, many UK bands get dropped after their second album or so. it's happened to Mansun, Ash (who label hops after every single album... "Meltdown" is still not released here yet), Supergrass, Muse, Gene, countless bands.

even established bands who have a strong cult following in the US get dropped from labels. Suede was left without a label in 1999 and didn't release their last studio album and "Singles" CD in the States... Manic Street Preachers are without a label ("Lifeblood" not released here yet), so is Pet Shop Boys, The Human League, Primal Scream (no "Dirty Hits" here), etc.

fortunately there are a good number of artists who still has a label: Placebo, Radiohead, Coldplay, Travis, etc. Franz Ferdinand and Keane are fortunate to have made an impact here... i'm hoping they stay a bit longer.

/rant... but yeah, sometimes it's tough to buy music here... about half of my collection are imported UK CDs, and most likely the labels here refuse to release singles of these artists. they much rather have the public buy the full album if the band has a radio hit than sell a good number of singles because that diminishes album sales. that makes it tough for a fan like me to collect all the b-sides. i'm pretty much forced to buy UK singles (with all the CD1 and CD2 nonsense... now even more restricted by only having one b-side on each disc).

I was going to start this thread, but looks like you have me beat.

Anyway, I've actually bought a few CD's lately, which I haven't done in a quite a while, since it's so easy not to nowadays. And expensive...$20 for an album, what?!

I picked up Children of Bodom: Hate Crew Deathtoll. Pretty good black metal album with classical influence and 80's style guitar work for an intereting approach to the genre.

Old Man's Child: In Defiance Of Existence. Another Black Metal. Pretty good, but mostly just put into the shuffle and have it rotate once in a while.

Devil Driver: Self Titled. Didn't like this one. Sounds too much like Static X or Coal Chamber. Took a look at the record Label and saw RoadRunner, so seems to be just another one of Sharon Osbourne's money makers.

Dimmu Borgir: Death Cult Armageddon. Been a fan of this album for a while, so I figured I'd buy it. Got the two CD version for the same prices, which contained a nice cover of Twisted Sister's: Burn in Hell. Gotta love it. Good mellodic death metal. The purists may hate it, but I think it works with the orchestral additions.

Wow, $20 an album. Do you shop at little specialized indie record stores or FYE? I usually pay $12 an album at my indie store when I actually buy something.

I did get an advance copy of the new Alkaline Trio, Crimson over the weekend, due fro release May 17/24. The big question was whether it would be better than Good Mourning May 2003 and the BYO Split they released with Tiger Army Fall 2003. It both is and isn't. They lost any sense of Misfits style punk they may have had with GM and by the Split they incorporated a large 80s new wave/pop influence that too many [emo/punk] bands seem to be going after again. On Crimson that 80s sound is eveywhere, from synthesizers to their guitar riffs and their lyrics seem a little over shadowed by it all. The plus is the guitars are heavier, more powerful this round and a few tracks took me back to the sound they had on Maybe I'll Catch Fire. But I do think the those days are now gone. I did oddly enjoy the synth sound of a few trakcs though.

Yeah I was at an FYE, which I don't normally do. I usually buy second hand online, but I was there...

That's why you got rooked at $20 a pop then. Sorry.

I know, it was a spur of the moment thing.

Since getting high-speed I hadn't been buying CDs like I used to. That's changed recently:

Madvillain - Madvillainy: awesome, just starting to get it, and I'm not even a big rap/hip-hop listener. Cool beats and crazy rhymes.

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here: well, Dark Side of the Moon was the biggest let-down for me ever. Got this and find it better but I don't if I really get the Floyd.

Daft Punk - Human After All: The most in-your-face album from DP so far. I think I like it but all the songs are repetitive, unlike the Discovery stuff they did.

I'm anticipating the upcoming Donald Fagen solo album.

I've been told that Madvillian is just amazing whether you like rap or not. You need to give Floyd a little more time. It took about 10 years from when I was given my first Floyd CD Dark Side to really get into it just a few years ago when the best of set came out. They are real good. And cue up Dark Side with Oz, it really is pretty cool to see once.

heh... sorry Dann. :-p

anyway, it also took me quite a while to get into DSOTM. like most concept albums, it needs several listens and a bit of patience to be appreciated.

i also did the DSOTM and Thw Wizard of Oz cue thing as well... to me it seems like a bunch of literal and visual coinsidences than anything else, but still quite interesting. maybe one would need to be "under the influence" to appreciate it more, LOL.

i forgot to mention i also picked up two of Iron Maiden's remasters... the self titled debut and "Killers." everybody loves Bruce Dickinson but forgets he wasn't the original singer. the Paul Di'Anno era Iron Maiden had some great stuff... a lot more punk and thrash elements than Brucie's operatic prog-rock years.

yeah before MP3s i was buying like 3 or 4 cds a week and now i buy less than that in a year.

in the days of free downloading and Napster, i used to buy a whole ton of CDs. it was grest to find new music at my own pace, and whatever i end up liking, i bought the CD. now that we have all these restrictions with file sharing and etc... i find myself buying a lot less music than i used to. i wouldn't want to risk $15 on a CD if i have not heard one single song on it when compared to a few years ago it was easy to download a full mp3 of the song to see if i liked it or not. nowadays, i'll buy an average of 20 CDs a year.

I just buy what I know I will like, usually CDs by my already fav bands. Other than that my friends and I are real good at passing different things off to one and nother and sharing that way, whether it be copies and mp3s. I still download occasionaly but I can't always find the time and the one program avail for Mac blows selection wise. I do a lot of Bit Torrent for live shows though and that's what I usually find myself listening to anymore. I have 13 live Crooked Fingers shows as opposed to the 4 studio albums I can choose from. I'll go live and get the composition/line-up changes and enjoy it a little more.

I use soulseek. Good for the underground stuff.

I do buy my favorite bands. Amorphis is slated to release something soon, so I cna't wait for that.

Does anyone else here like System of a Down. They're really hyping their upcoming release. I'm pretty excited for that. I am also a huge Pink Floyd fan! I loved The Wall, DSOTM was pretty good, not my fav., Wish you were here is excellent, even The Division Bell had some relly good songs on it. I bought Echoes & even though I've heard all the same songs on other albums, I thought it was interesting to hear the songs in the order that Pink Floyd thought they should be in. They tell a musical story from their perspective

hey Phil, where do you usually go for live concerts Bit Torrents? i was at Sharing the Groove until it got shut down, and also Easytree (although they have a new site right now). do you know any other good places?

today i spent $75 on CDs... the latest from New Order and the three The Cure double disc remasters. whoever likes dark music should do themselves a favour and pick op a copy of The Cure's "Pornagraphy." it was recorded in 1982 and still sounds bloody brilliant today... especially remastered. still remains The Cure's darkest moment and best album.

another thing... a friend of mine got me a copy of a "Best of Glastonbury Anthems" program on a burned DVD. i'm not gonna ask where it originated from, but it's got some great stuff... live performances from Travis, Radiohead, Placebo, Coldplay, Faithless, Blur, Ash, Supergrass... lots of artists.

I was using sharing the groove too. Didn't know they were shut down, shit. I have used easytree and one of their other sites and there is a site for Colorado tapers to post their shows that I find myself at every now and then. I usually find what I'm looking for on my fav bands forums or mesage baords and link to where ever from there then.

At the moment I'm loving the new Coldplay single Speed of Sound, and Talk, a track off their forthcoming album. I was never really a massive fan of them before (though I did own the albums), but this new stuff is really great. Still have more of a soft spot for Keane though.

I heard the new Coldplay single yesterday and it was good. I was real into them for a while. I'll see how the album is. I really want to know what Radiohead is doing and two members from Travis Dougie and Andy have a track on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sndtrk.

like Tim, i also have a soft spot for Keane... what a brilliant debut album "Hopes and Fears" is. Coldplay's best album, which IMO is still "Parachutes," doesn't quite come close. i havn't heard any of the new songs yet, but i'll be definitely picking up the new album anyway. as for the artwork on the new album, it's basically an updated idea from New Order's sleeve art from the singles "Blue Monday" and "Confusion" and the album "Power Corruption and Lies," all dates back to 1983.

Phil... good call on the Travis news, i didn't know about the Hitchhikers soundtrack. in similar news, Ash has a song for the new Star Wars Episode 3 movie... fitting since they're huge fans.

heh.. i remember reading an interview in a UK music magazine, and the journalist asked Fran "if Travis and Coldplay were to get in a fight, who would win?" he asked because apparantly Coldplay and Travis are good friends... Fran's answer was something like "you think we're a bunch of whimps, do you? well... i have to say we'd win cos we have Neil." too funny...

I have a couple for you - Google "groove salad" there are some pretty cool stations on that page - it's soma fm I think...

Lately I've been watching/listening to ministryofsound.com and letting it run in the background...it's a UK internet video website - you have to register but it's free!

Anyone hear the new Audioslave track? It's called Your Time Has Come. It's pretty awesome, sounds like they're getting back to the Rage Against The Machine sound. The new album supposed to be more RATM. Can't wait.

Also, The Tragically Hip need to release more songs that sound like their older stuff. Only my opinion.

Coldplay vs. Travis in a fight! That's hilarious. I think Michael Stipe from REM could take all of 'em!

And Jamie, I miss the old Hip.

Audioslave rules IMO, I don't buy CD's anymore unless I really want to support the Artist.

I have been so deep rooted in the warez community for so long I get all my music via private FTP and usually weeks before it hits retail.