Albums (lots of)

Im considering an interesting musical project, whereby I write a review of every single album I own, either alphabetical or roughly chronological order.

Would be a fascinating thing to do for me, and I hope provide interesting reading.

Just need to find time to do it... dont hold your breath. (yet)

Music!

Hopefully this will let you hear my tracks without the need for Murdoch owned grubbiness...

..King ell...

So. 30 years since 'the king' died.
Yet oddly, yesterday was a day that suddenly made me realise just how much the exaggerated perceptions of Elvis and his hardcore of crazy fans have prevented me ever giving his music a fair chance.

At the My Brain Hurts ad meeting last night they played a whole CD of early Elvis, and I really enjoyed it. It struck me how I have always so put off from ever listening to him just by the associations that would bring. All those obsessives and "Elvis is the best thing ever" messages force fed to us all the time completely removed any joy I would have found in listening to him.

Its like being told George W Bush likes your favourite band. You just can't stomach it.

Yet when his music was there, unaccompanied by impersonators or cries of "THE KING!", or "Best song ever"; it still stood up on its own merits. Which, in a way is the best compliment you could pay to music over 40 years old.

New songs

I have added two new demo songs to my Myspace page.
If you are so inclined please let me know what you think!

Is all new music rubbish?

No. Of course not.
What a bloody stupid question.

But I hate the assumption that it is.

Why am I talking about this you ask...

Well. Firstly a great VH1 Classic promo tagline that says "Absolutely none of todays best hits"; and a Classic Gold (I didnt choose it, but it plays Beach Boys so its not all bad) promo that implies all that is old is good, and all that isnt, well...isnt.

Do new bands automatically pale to old bands? Of course not, every bit of music has to be judged on its own merits; yet people so often decry modern music without ever hearing it.

I recall a local tosser (ignorant, racist, annoying, obnoxious) who went to see Iron Maiden and complained the support band Bullet for my Valentine were "todally rubbiish". But you knew it had NOTHING to do with their performance or music, it was simply because it was new that he felt such a passionate hatred of it. Are we as a nation THAT scared of the new???

I understand these channels are appealling to older people; but does an artist's work automatically become rubbish as they get older?Is Homer Simpson's cry of "No new crap, just the hits" really how people think? Is Prince new cd terrible purely because it isnt 10 years old yet?

As much as a lot of modern music is crap (we are looking at you Westlife, 50 Cent, any one of 20 million dance-pop acts), we only have to look at Muse, Battles, Blood Brothers to see that good music exists. Rhianna, and to a lesser extent Lily Allen and co show that not only is good music alive, but good POP music is still out there; and it still sells.

Right. Action.

I started my "a band a week" blog to provide NP with some new listening; but I felt it difficult to constrain my musical rantings to that area. So after much pondering I have decided to take my personal music output blog, and turn it into something much more ranty...

So. Welcome, I have picked two choice subjects to start off with; which I hope will cause a bit of argument (if anyone will actually read this).

Rob / FireFlower