Lala - my not-so-new favorite thing.

This post is long overdue.  If you have seen any of my recent activity online (Facebook, Google Reader, or certain posts about top music), you might be aware that I have become an avid user of Lala.  The short story: Lala is a free online music service without advertising.  The longer story follows.

You can read Lala's official story about their features at their How it works page.  I'll expand on what I like about these main features, and one additional minor feature, to show what I think makes Lala pretty awesome.

1. Play over 8 million songs for free.  They have a pretty extensive music catalog, of which you can play any song for free once.  After the first free listen, you can listen to 30-second clips of songs you don't own (you can always listen to full-length songs you own - see #2).  I especially like that they organize music so that it is easy to queue up albums, which is how I prefer to listen to music.
2. Play your music, anywhere on the web.  You can match your music collection on your computer to Lala's catalog so that Lala recognizes what songs in their catalog you own (no, it does not matter how you came to own the music).  If you own it, it can always play it for free on the web.
3. Discover new music through friends and experts.  They've got some social networking and cataloging aspects.
4. Buy new music starting at 10 cents.  You can buy any song as a "web song" for 10 cents.  This gives you unlimited plays of the song via the web, but you can't download it to your computer.  You can also buy songs for download, usually for 89 cents.  Note that if you have previously bought a song as a web song, you only have to pay the difference (79 cents) to buy it as a download.  The song files are DRM-free variable bit-rate MP3s.  In my experience the bit rate is usually around 240 kbps, which is excellent unless you're an audiophile.
   
   I will add here that Lala's download prices are pretty phenomenal in comparison with the competition.  For example, here are some comparisons with two other major MP3 vendors for four new album releases that I bought this past Tuesday (yes, I went kinda crazy):
   
   Four Tet - There is Love in You
   iTunes - $9.99
   Amazon MP3 - $6.99
   Lala - $6.49
   
   Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM
   iTunes - $9.99
   Amazon MP3 - $7.99
   Lala - $7.49
   
   Basement Jaxx - Zephyr
   iTunes - $9.90
   Amazon MP3 - $6.99
   Lala - $6.49
   
   Jaga Jazzist - One-Armed Bandit
   iTunes - $8.91
   Amazon MP3 - $6.99
   Lala - $6.99
   
   As you can see, iTunes is kinda ripping people off (though I will concede that they pioneered the MP3 selling business and make selling/buying music very easy for both producers and consumers), so it's a good thing that I don't even have an iTunes account set up.  I used to use Amazon MP3 quite a bit, but I have more recently been buying the majority of the music that I purchase through Lala
5. Scrobbling to Last.fm!  Listening to music is pretty much worthless to me unless I can scrobble it to Last.fm, my ultimate music listening cataloger.  Without this minor feature I don't think I would have begun using Lala nearly as much as I do now.

I've actually been a Lala member since early 2007, back when their main thing was trading CDs, though I never really used it.  They've since dropped that business model and are now a digital music service.  I rediscovered them this past fall when Pitchfork started using Lala to share music that they reviewed and Google started including Lala previews in music searches.  Since then I've been using Lala to check out new releases, listen to recommendations from friends, and listen to my collection from work (don't tell Boeing).  It has greatly contributed to the amount of music I listen to and to the amount of music I actually purchase.

I was a bit disappointed in December to hear the news that Apple acquired Lala.  Although Apple appears to have used Lala technology for at least one good purpose (providing browser-enabled previews for iTunes songs), my fear is that Lala will be absorbed into iTunes and I will lose some of the features I have come to love.  For example, I'm pretty sure this would result in increased music prices.  Also, if the web streaming becomes part of Apple I think Boeing will get wise to the goings on pretty quickly as users jump on board, and therefore block it.  I hope these worries do not materialize.

Top Albums of 2009, Part 2

We saw in Part 1 that Phoenix topped the aggregate top albums list.  In Part 2 we'll break down all the individual top 10 lists.

Brian George (Obscurity Award, WTF?! Award)

1. Converge – Axe to Fall
2. The Juan MacLean – The Future Will Come
3. Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Agorapocalypse
4. Future of the Left – Travels with Myself and Another
5. Pissed Jeans – King of Jeans
6. Girls – Album
7. Shackleton – 3 Eps
8. Khanate – Clean Hands Go Foul
9. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
10. The-Dream – Love vs. Money


Christy Cronin

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
2. Manchester Orchestra – Mean Everything to Nothing
3. Metric – Fantasies
4. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
5. Passion Pit – Manners
6. Arctic Monkeys – Humbug
7. Coconut Records – Davy
8. The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love
9. She Wants Revenge – Up and Down EP
10. Matt & Kim – Grand


James Kolpack (I Didn't List Phoenix Award)

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
2. Atlas Sound - Logos
3. Office - Mecca
4. The Thermals - Now We Can See
5. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
6. Flight of the Conchords - I Told You I Was Freaky
7. Papercuts - You Can Have What You Want
8. Max Richter - 24 Postcards in Full Colour
9. Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth
10. The xx - xx


Jason White

1. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2. Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
3. Pearl Jam - Backspacer
4. Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything to Nothing
5. Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures
6. Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
7. Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
8. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
9. The Decemberist - The Hazards of Love
10. Mute Math - Armistice


Obi Orjih

1. Mew – No More Stories...
2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
3. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It's Blitz!
5. Pictureplane – Dark Rift
6. Röyksopp – Junior
7. Metric – Fantasies
8. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
9. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
10. Doves – Kingdom of Rust


Robert Schwartz (I'm With Obi Award)

1. Mew - No More Stories...
2. Regina Spektor - Far
3. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
4. Beirut - March of the Zapotec/Holland EP
5. Metric - Fantasies
6. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
7. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimist
8. Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP
9. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
10. The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come

Top Albums of 2009, Part 1

The results are in.  My cloud has determined the top 10 albums (actually 12, since the last 4 tied) of 2009.  Ignore all other top 10 lists (except maybe Metacritic's, which actually shows you everyone's list) and only pay attention to this one.

Each participant submitted a personal top 10 list, and I aggregated them using a 10-to-1 point system to generate the list below.   Here's the list of critics:

Brian George
Christy Cronin
James Kolpack
Jason White
Obi Orjih
Robert Schwartz

Since there are 6 individual lists, the maximum possible number of points for a single album is 60 points (if it was number 1 on everybody's list).  Without further ado, here are the top albums:

1. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix [35 points, 5 lists]

2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion [24 points, 3 lists]

3. Mew - No More Stories... [20 points, 2 lists]

4. Metric - Fantasies [18 points, 3 lists]

5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! [17 points, 2 lists]

6. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest [16 points, 4 lists]

http://lala.com/zf5S

7. Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything to Nothing [16 points, 2 lists]

8. Converge - Axe to Fall [10 points, 1 list]

9 (tie). The Juan MacLean - The Future Will Come [9 points, 1 list]

   Regina Spektor - Far [9 points, 1 list]

   Atlas Sound - Logos [9 points, 1 list]

   Wilco - Wilco (The Album) [9 points, 1 list]

Check out Part 2 for each critic's individual list.

Mew @ Metro (12/7/2009)

The first time I saw Mew in concert was at the Pitchfork Music Festival, where they played an abbreviated set (which is normal unless you're a headliner).  Being the fanboy that I am, I was eagerly anticipating seeing a proper Mew show, and had high hopes.  The band for the most part met expectations, though they did not significantly exceed them.

Tom and I showed up to Metro (a block away from Wrigley Field) about halfway into the opener's (All The Day Holiday) set.  Mew did not have a band touring with them during their brief North American jaunt, and instead chose to have bands audition to open for them in each city.  All The Day Holiday wasn't a bad choice, and I dug a couple of the songs I caught enough to give their album a listen yesterday.

We viewed the Mew set (the whole show, actually) from the upper balcony of the Metro.  The venue was a lot smaller than I expected.  This is generally a good thing, as it makes for a more "intimate" time with the band.  However, there were a couple of layers of people between us and the railing, so our view could have been better.

Their actual performance was pretty good.  They started off with four songs off And the Glass Handed Kites, including the trademark back-to-back "Special" (which I dedicated to Tom) and "The Zookeeper's Boy" move, followed by a couple from Frengers.  After this they rattled off five from my favorite album this year, No More Stories... (I'll spare you the full 23-word title), before finishing up the main set with one more oldie.  The encore was also heavy on Kites, with one from Stories, and one freaky interlude which featured a talking teddy bear.  I was quite surprised that they did not end the show with "Comforting Sounds", which seems to have been their standard closer (and what they closed with at Pitchfork).  "New Terrain", which seems like a natural opener (it was used this way at Pitchfork), was not played either.  You can find the full setlist here.

Speaking of freakishness, I would guess that a not insignificant portion of the crowd had nightmares that night after watching the videos projected during their set.  The images were by no means horrifying, but there were certainly some strange looking children or animals in most of them.  Jonas must have some weird things going on in that head of his...

Tom noted that Jonas looked "dainty" on stage, something he had not noticed during their Pitchfork performance because he was people-watching then.  At that show, Robert had described Jonas' stage persona as "meek".  I would agree more with the latter than the former, as I was not led to question Jonas' manhood in the way "dainty" connotes.  Strangely, though, I did think that he was a little less meek during this show than the last one.

So, what could have made the show better?  For one, the sound mixing seemed off on a few songs, during which I could barely hear Jonas' vocals.  This is a shame, as Tom describes his singing as "instrumental".  Bo could have also played a couple of the songs a little cleaner, though I can certainly understand the difficulty in reproducing the riffs used in "Introducing Palace Prayers" and "Repeaterbeater" in a live environment.  They had a couple of mini-jams (we all know that I don't like jams), but they were usually appropriate as intros or interludes - there wasn't a case where they just refused to end a song, which is one of my pet peeves.  They also left out a couple of my favorite songs: "An Envoy to the Open Fields" and "Cartoons And Macramé Wounds".

Overall, though, I was quite pleased.  If it wasn't for the freezing cold conditions and the fact that I had an early flight back to St. Louis the next morning, I would have insisted on waiting around afterward to try to meet the band.

4.6/5

Our Lady Peace @ The Pageant (10/30/2009)

During the show Raine (OLP's lead singer) claimed that the last time the band was in St. Louis they were going through a rough patch, the show that night sucked, and the show tonight would be much better. I was also at that show four years ago, and apparently I disagree with Raine.

I don't remember exactly why I rated their show back then so highly (4.5). Contributing factors might be: (a) Augustana opened for them that night, and I went backstage to visit with Josiah, and I caught some of the OLP performance from the side of the stage (b) I tend to overrate bands the first time I see them, and then decrease the rating on subsequent viewings. In any case, the show tonight is not getting nearly as high a rating.

When Christy and I showed up around 8:20 (20 minutes after the concert started), we found out that there would be two bands playing before OLP took the stage at 10. Instead of sticking around we headed across the street to grab dinner, where she had her first taste of Thai food (which is surprising for a young, hip, CWE resident). We returned to The Pageant a few minutes before OLP started.

The performance itself was disappointing, especially Raine's vocals. Part of it seemed to have to do with the sound setup, which did not seem to be mixed quite right. More to the point, though, might have been the way that he was "oversinging", as Christy put it. His unique way of singing is part of the band's schtick, but he seemed to be overdoing it with the level changes. We were both distracted during much of the show by the way he tilted his head back as he oversang every few words. It doesn't bode well that this was not the only thing that we were distracted by. We shared a few chuckles watching the dance movements of some of the members of the crowd who were enthralled by the band.

Other criticisms include Raine trying too hard to get the crowd to sing along - I'm not a big fan of the forced singalong...or the forced clap-along...or the forced stand-up. He also ruined one of my favorites of theirs, "One Man Army", by singing it wrong (in my opinion, at least). And they played the first half of "Is Anybody Home?" acoustically, which did not please me.

They played a few songs of their newest album, which I have but had only partially listened to. Unfortunately, the new songs that I didn't know did not inspire me to go listen to the rest of it.

Other noteworthy events included when they threw in a cover of MGMT's "Kids" during the "Naveed" interlude (Christy hated this, but I was fine with it). They also had one of their friends, a fellow musician, fill in for Raine for one song ("Automatic Flowers") during the encore - he did a decent job.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh on the band. After all, I do like a good number of their songs, and I think Happiness...Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch is a great album. So a disappointing show for Our Lady Peace means that they barely fail to make 80%.

3.9/5

Mute Math @ The Pageant (10/23/2009)

Remember the season premiere of The Office where Michael, Dwight, and Andy try to make a Parkour video, and Andy ends up getting hurt? Well, that could be me for the next week or so. Except instead of yelling "Parkour!" like an idiot, I'll be yelling "MUTEMATH!!1!". More on that later.

The show started off on a good note, as the first song by unknown (to me at least) As Tall As Lions appeared to portend a new surprise find. Sadly, though, this turned out to be their best song of the evening. The rest of their multi-instrumental performance wasn't bad, but it didn't inspire me to check out more of their music. A few of their songs had pretty interesting riffs and melodies, but the singer often appeared to be singing to a different song, as his key didn't quite match the music. Perhaps he did match, but I just wished that he had gone in a different direction.

The main performers made up adequately for the misfiring openers. They played a good mix of songs from both the first and the new albums, with their biggest hit, "Typical", showing up somewhere in the middle. It was during this song that we saw the first glimpse of the crazy acrobatics that these guys had up their sleeve, as Paul (the lead singer) started off the song by jumping off the top of his main keyboard stand. Some high moments included "Odds" (my favorite song off the weaker new album) and their first jam session, which was one of the best that I've seen live. It consisted mainly of a danceably furious pounding beat and some synchronized light work. It's too bad that their other jam sessions were more like the typical (pun intended) fare that most bands provide. They also had a few nice props, including a moment when Darren (the drummer) beat the first half of one of their songs on 4 virtual drums set up by the big screen.

By the end of the show, the guys realized that they had to prove that they are totally nuts. First, Paul did some hand/shoulder stands on his keyboard stand during one of the songs. And then on the very last song of the encore, which was announce as "Reset" but ended up segueing into "Break the Same", all hell broke loose. By the end of the song all of the following had happened:
(a) Paul hopped his keyboard stand
(b) Greg (the guitarist) walked on Paul's keyboard stand
(c) Darren took the bass drum to the crowd, had them hold it up, and then climbed onto it and stood up on it. After a few gestures indicating that we could not deny his supreme awesomeness, he hopped off it and back onto the stage.

So it's only natural that after the show I took every opportunity I encountered to hop off a railing, curb, chair, or some other furnishing in a manner that allowed me to practice my own brand of freestyle walking. And each time that I did it, I yelled out "MUTEMATH!!1!" in the spirit of "Parkour!". We'll see how long this fad lasts.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Darren duct tapes headphones onto his head during the show. Crazy, I say!

4.2/5

5 people that I wish had Last.fm accounts...

...and used them...and were my friends on there. In case you don't know, Last.fm is an online social cataloging website that tracks the music that you listen to.

1. Brian George. He basically introduced me (though I had heard one of their songs before) to my most favoritest band in the whole wide world. He's also turned me on to quite a few other good bands.
   
2. Chike Orjih. After living with my bro for almost a year, I'm realizing that our musical tastes are more alike than I had previously thought. I've definitely had a few "Hey, what's that you're listening to?" moments that have resulted in pleasant discoveries.
   
3. Adam Tsacoumangos. Although he hasn't yet given me any referrals, we have significant overlap in our musical collections. We also have a lot of the same interests in general.
4. Jason White. Similar story to Adam, and a top concert companion. I'm still waiting for him to blow my mind with something.
5. Robert Schwartz/Tom Musick. What top-5 list isn't complete without your best buds? So what if that's technically 6 people?
   

There might be a reason that singles are chosen as singles.

Tim Mason once asked me an interesting question along these lines (I am paraphrasing because I don't recall the exact question):
Do singles tend to be people's favorite songs off an album because they're the best songs, or because they're popular (since they are the singles)?

While we pondered this, one approach we took was to consider the experience of discovering a new band. When this happens, I tend to latch on to a song or two that become immediate favorites. These are the songs that I look forward to, and perhaps repeat, while listening to the album. These usually end up being my favorites even after I have become fully familiar with the album (though that is not always the case). We wondered how often these favorite songs, end up having been released as singles (unbeknown to us). A hidden assumption here is that we didn't discover the band as a result of hearing the single, as this would increase the chances of a correlation.

I guess the point of this post is to point out a recent correlation. I have been downright obsessed with the song "My Girls" by Animal Collective (whom I recently discovered) for the last couple of months. It turns out that it is the first single off their most recent album, Merriweather Post Pavilion. Reviews of the album (their 8th) suggest that it is their most accessible to date. I would agree after going back and listening to a few of the earlier ones. I still wouldn't have expected to hear them on the radio since their sound is definitely not mainstream (though I never listen to radio). I was pleasantly surprised when I heard this song on the radio last weekend while visiting in KC. Since then I looked up some info on the band and found out, in addition to the singles, that the album has done fairly well on the U.S. charts (peaking at #13). I will say, though, that the second single, "Summertime Clothes", from the album is not my other favorite - that distinction goes to "Brother Sport".

So is there any real conclusion from this? I guess not. Perhaps I should commission a study to see how often this actually occurs in my music experience...

Coolest remix EVER

This dude did a remix of Radiohead's "Nude" using electronic hardware in a novel way. Check it out on Vimeo or on Youtube. Note that the proper song starts about 1 minute in.

Some people are more fanatic than I am...

...and I'm happy about that fact. Take, for example, the creator of this site. It tracks all the setlists for Radiohead's shows on their current tour and compiles some ridiculous statistics about the songs played (and not played). I'm glad people like him exist.

New Radiohead in 10 days!!!

The new album, In Rainbows, will be released on October 10. Interestingly, it is initially only available for download from their website:
www.inrainbows.com
or
www.radiohead.com

Even more interestingly, YOU decide how much to pay for the download (WTF?!?!), excluding a potential 90 cent surcharge. Of course if you're a fanboy like me, you'll skip that option and buy the discbox (which includes, in addition to the aforementioned download, a CD of the album, an extra CD of new music, vinyl copies of both CDs, a booklet of lyrics, and some artwork) for $80 because it makes absolutely no sense.

Joy!!!

Curse you, USCIS.

I bought tickets to see Massive Attack, one of my favorite bands, in Chicago on their first tour of the U.S. in 8 years. The show, originally scheduled for September 13, has been postponed to September 27, a date I can't make, because they could not get visas from the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service in time. The band released the following statement:

In spite of timely and coordinated efforts, the essential U.S. immigration visas were not issued in time for the beginning of the Massive Attack North American Tour.

Subsequently, the band has been forced to cancel the first four shows (Toronto (September 10), Montreal (11), Detroit (12) and Chicago (13)).

Currently, the rest of the tour remains intact. The band hopes to reschedule the cancelled shows as soon as possible.

You can read a little more here.

Penalized for doing the right thing...

When I placed my newly purchased CD copy of the album Z by My Morning Jacket into my computer at work, I was greeted by an End User License Agreement (EULA) which mentioned the installation of DRM-protection software if I accepted. My immediate response: Uhhhh...no!

After more research with the help of my friend the Internet, I found that "the SOFTWARE" (as they fondly referred to it) was SunnComm MediaMax Version 5. Sony BMG was responsible for this and another DRM software package, First4Internet's XCP, which installed a rootkit on Windows computers. For those who are not up to date on their tech news, XCP created a huge controversy because it opened a security hole when rooted on computers. In addition, Sony's initial uninstall program also had a security flaw.

The MediaMax support website insists that the two software products, MediaMax and XCP, are unrelated. However, I observed that both had similar symptoms and both were initially fixed incorrectly. Hmmm...

Needless to say, I was not happy about this. And neither are many other music fans...a Google search on the topic yields countless blog posts which protest against Sony. Even the artists are quite displeased...My Morning Jacket, for example, has a link to help pages about working around the DRM protection on their website. It's also been reported that they have sent out over 100 copies of burned non-DRM copies of the album to friends and fans who have had trouble with it.

Fortunately, when I ripped the tracks onto my laptop using Yahoo! Music Engine, I was neither prompted with the EULA dialogue box, nor affected by the DRM malware. The ripped tracks play fine, and when I downloaded and ran the MediaMax uninstaller it informed me that the software was not found on my system.

Alas, this brings us to my views on the issue. Though I was not harmed by this malware, I am still enraged. These days, I acquire the vast majority of my CDs through legal means. This is not because I am more ethical than thou...it is actually mostly because I am lazy. I would rather use a subscription service, such as Yahoo! Music Unlimited (shameless plug), to check out what's hot in music and then order albums that I like off Amazon.com, than spend hours scouring the Internet for high-quality versions of songs. The few exceptions to my legal acquisition are when a friend offers to burn me a copy of something he thinks is the fire...this usually leads to me buying more albums by the artist anyway. I think it's a shame that someone who acquires music legally is put at risk by buying the CD. Oh, and Sony is wac.

The readers of Q Magazine love Radiohead almost as much as I do...

According to this article from The Sun, the readers of Q Magazine voted three Radiohead albums into the top 10 greatest albums ever, including numbers 1 and 2. Now if only they would realize that Kid A is better than OK Computer...

Happy birthday, Thom.

Thom Yorke, one of my idols, turns 37 today.

I'm on my way to becoming a rock star like Josiah Rosen.

I bought an Ibanez guitar this evening. It's a black acoustic with electric capabilities. It even has a built-in tuner. I got a black strap with lightning bolts to match. And of course I had to buy the guitar tablatures for Radiohead's OK Computer, Kid A, and Hail to the Thief...I hope to be able to play their songs within the year. Special thanks go out to Lindsay and Kinnari for helping me with my selections.

I can't decide if I wanna see Weezer or not.

I'll go if someone else wants to go...

Extra ticket for Coldplay.

I have an extra ticket to see Coldplay in concert at the UMB Bank Pavilion on Saturday, September 17 at 8:00 PM. Let me know if you are interested.

My new favorite band...at least sentimentally.

Bloc Party. Their lead singer, Kele Okereke, is the son of Nigerian parents who immigrated to England. And their music's pretty good.

Also digging...The Killers, Kasabian, The Bravery, and the rest of the British-inspired dance-rock movement.

RH Top 10.

Phoenix FM and AtEase have teamed up to create a poll to decide the top 10 Radiohead songs, to be played on the radio station.

Deciding my 10 favorites was tough, but this is what I came up with:

1. Paranoid Android
2. Morning Bell
3. There There
4. Pyramid Song
5. Street Spirit (Fade Out)
6. Airbag
7. Optimistic
8. Idioteque
9. I Might Be Wrong
10. Go To Sleep

I haven't been to a concert this good in a long time.

More precisely, it's been over a year and seven months.

The sold-out Interpol show at the Pageant tonight was GREAT. Their performance was spot on...album-quality tightness. The vast majority of the first half of the show was from Antics. In all, they must have played everything off that album except C'mere...my favorite song off the album, and likely their next single. Also missing was Untitled, probably one of the best first songs on any album. Other than those two, though, I was pleased with the setlist...which makes sense since I like all their songs.

I wasn't really a fan of the on-stage smoking, but I'll gladly put up with it for such quality music. Also, Paul Banks turned out to be a bigger guy than I imagined...though not really that big. And it seemed like he was gesturing to the sound guy to raise or lower the volume of his mike or his guitar after every single song. And Blasco, their touring keyboardist, seemed bored at times.

My favorite excerpt from an album review.

metacritic.com has an excerpt from a dotmusic review of The Mars Volta's Frances the Mute. It reads as follows:

An incredibly accomplished record, a true testament to the band’s imagination, intellectual curiosity and outrageous musical talent.... Unfortunately, “Frances The Mute” is also awful.

Other choice excerps from the review:

There may be moments of brilliance (and there are many), but the overall effect is one of gibberish, of Attention Deficit Syndrome with a record company advance.
...
The Mars Volta are to be applauded for releasing an album which is so obviously designed to please themselves. But the rest of us are not obliged to join them.

You can read the entire review here.

Another Radiohead test...

The How Well Do You Know Radiohead Test
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=7849869914232171427


My results:

OK Computer
You know 14 things about Radiohead! Hurrah!

You know quite a lot, but you could know so much more. True love lives in haunted attics, you know.

• Compared to users who took the test and are male and in your age group:
  • 100% had lower knowledge of RH scores.
• With respect to knowledge of RH, users aged 30 to 34 scored highest.

I need to move to Chicago.

Seriously, none of the musical artists I want to see come to St. Louis unless it's part of a gigantic tour in which they also visit Bismarck, ND. But then, why should they? The StL music scene is weak.

I'd move to New York, since everyone goes there, even if it's part of a 3-show excursion...but it's too big and too expensive.