Four artists but just two songs?

It isn’t even an even split.

KKCK:

Eminem w/Dr. Dre and 50 Cent “Crack a Bottle”
Let’s take a look back at initial hits from Eminem CDs for a moment.  The first album gave us “My Name Is…” which was a fun mid-tempo bouncer that had some naughty moments.  The next album stuck “The Real Slim Shady” in our heads for months.  It picked up the pace, had a decent beat, and was utterly quotable.  We’ll skip the 8 Milesoundtrack, but I’ll touch on it in a second or two.  Eminem reached his zenith of wacky but randy lyrics on “Without Me”.  “Just Lose It” wasn’t bad, but it sounded forced in a few spots.  Encore changed things up by dropping a different kind of song from Curtain Call.  “When I’m Gone” was the darker, moodier kind of song that was usually saved for a second single.  The new Eminem CD’s lead track tries to play it both ways in my head.  The chorus sounds like one of his faster songs, but slowed down to fit into one of his darker, slower, moodier songs.  The vibe of the bulk of the song strikes me as one of his slower songs, which I’ve never been a fan of.  That opinion has me in the minority.  Eminem’s darker songs, like “Superman”, “Cleanin’ Out My Closet”, “Lose Yourself” and the rest are the songs that are requested 99 % of the time here.  I often wonder why his less fun songs seem to stick longer and get more attention here, or is it that way everywhere?  The guest stars on the song don’t add much, especially when after being away so long Eminem turns over close to half of his song to people who aren’t Eminem.  I’d argue this is probably the weakest first hit single Eminem has ever had from an album, but it did (temporarily) set a record for most first week downloads, so what do I know?

Utada “Come Back to Me”
At long, long last, Utada is starting to break through.  I’ve been a fan since her first English CD, and I liked it enough to pick up a few of her Japanese CDs on eBay.  Her American releases lean towards a lower vocal delivery and punchier beats, and they don’t make her sound like she’s watering down her sound (take notes on that Shakira).  Her album is a few weeks away, but if you like this check out her last English CD Exodus.  I think you’ll agree there’s just something about her voice that’s…alluring.

Pick to click: Eminem

Sorry for the late posting.  I’ve been borderline-slacking on my 52 Cards blog, so I usually end up writing those the night before they go up.  I’ve also been wrapping up Cliffhanger Theater which is taking a break after a year of daily updates.  There were times I thought I was wasting my time, and other times I wondered if anyone was even reading it.  The views have been lower than I had hoped, but over the course of a year writing it has taught me a lot about writing, and a lot about myself.  I plan to take the story and hack-n-slash it half so it’s about regular novel length, plus I need to clean up a lot of the early entries.  Before then, I plan to start writing something else I can hopefully finish by the end of the year.  I won’t be posting that online, at least not right away.  I might let a few things slip here and there at my recently un-privated-blog 13 Shots (I explain the name in the first entry).  Right now I’m wondering how much I’ll write in March.  Part of me wants to take some time off, and part of me wants to write more.

BSG was BRG last week, as in boring.  Jane Espenson wrote the episode, and she’s the head writer of the upcoming spin-off “Caprica”.  She is way more space opera than science fiction.  I can feel the show building towards a resolution, but I’m not sure yet what that will be, so I’ll give RDM credit for that. 

There were other reasons for this blog being late, but I don’t want to talk about them.  Everything is fine now, and if I want to talk about it, I’ll write about it next week.

General question for any PC gamers out there.  Has anyone reading this used Valve’s Steam service?  How does it work?  How well does it work?  I’m looking at getting Xcom for five bucks, but I’d like to hear from someone who has used the service.

I’m a bit short on time today, so I need to wrap up.  I’ll be around online if you know where to look.

Two new songs for the price of none

You can’t find a better deal! Well, you could…but stick with me here.

KKCK:

Lily Allen “The Fear”
I remember all the hype behind Lily Allen the last time around, and her album, at least to me, was a bit “meh”.  I’ll check out the new one because this song changes up her formula in a way I like.  That and Mr. Dewey liked the album, and more than half the time I’ll agree with him.

Carolina Liar “Show Me What I’m Looking For”
This song reminds me of another time in music, but I can’t think of when.  Maybe it was earlier days of Coldplay, when we were all over Travis songs.  The song is pretty nondescript, but the added bells in the chorus take it to another time and place.  They almost sound British at times, which isn’t a bad thing.

Pick to click: Carolina Liar

Today I was working on a commercial for HyVee, and a Bjork song popped up on my iPod.  It sent me right into a “Bjork mood”.  I haven’t had one of those in a while, and I never know what they mean or why I get them.  Right now I’m listening to my favorite Bjork CD, Post.  The song that put me in the mood was from Medulla, which used to be my least favorite Bjork CD, but over the last year it has really grown on me.  For my money, Postis best listened to one of two ways: on headphones or in a car late at night.  A third way might be while playing “Golf” on the NES in a dorm room, but that’s more a college flashback.

Battlestar Galactica crammed so much information in last week’s episode I felt like taking notes.  Seriously, we want answers BUT NOT ALL AT ONCE.  Damn.  In BSG’s defense, with only five more episodes something like this was bound to happen. 

I’m late to the party, but I’ve found myself hooked on the show “Making Fiends”.  It was a quick hook, since there are only six episodes Nicktoons is showing (supposedly they have 20 done, but aren’t showing the rest for some reason).  The show is based on a web-toon, and I’ll probably start watching those soon.  I never imagined liking anything from a Nickelodeon network, as I’ve been a big Cartoon Network guy for years.  Lately, CN’s new shows haven’t grabbed me.  Nicktoons runs the hell out of a show called “My Life as a Teenage Robot” that I’m borderline hooked on.  Their new “Wolverine and the X-Men” show is turning into the best X-Men show yet, and their new Iron Man show starts in April.  CN gets points for their new Batman show, and for renewing “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”.  This winter they’ll have the new “Marvel Super-Hero Squad”, a show based around those highly stylized action figures you can find in a two pack that look like they’re made for three year olds.  I’m curious to see how that works, and if they use Punisher and Ghost Rider (I have their Super Hero Squad figures guarding my computer). 

Baseball is starting to fire up again.  I could write a rambling screed about A-rod, but I’m trying to focus on the actual playing of the game.  It should be an interesting year around the league.  MLB Network is making me a bit more of a fan, if that was possible.  This weekend they’re rerunning a bunch of games from the 1980s, when my card collecting was at its peak.  One of the games is Ryne Sandberg’s two-homer game against the Cardinals in 1984.  I really hope they use the WGN feed for that. 

I’m starting to worry I’m developing acid reflux.  I’m waking up at night on the verge of vomiting, even when my stomach is empty.  My throat actually hurt this morning, and the feeling was akin to a burning sensation.  I shouldn’t be surprised, as this ol’ bod has 35 years on it.  Things are bound to start going wrong.  I swear I only drove it on Sundays.

I finally watched Joss Whedon’s new show last night, and it left me with a bit of a “meh” feeling.  I’m curious to keep watching, as the episode got better as the show went on.  I’m trying not to get attached, as FOX has it on a Friday night, which is pretty much a death slot.  I’ve started hoping that the guys behind the Terminator show wrote their season finale as a series finale.  The show was down almost two million viewers in the show’s new Friday night slot.  I’d go on a rant like I used to when I was trying to save Veronica Mars, but the demise of that show left me a bit jaded.

Things are going swell at home.  Braeden is starting to wake up more at night, which we’ve read can happen at this age.  He decided to arise at 6 AM this morning, after a nice few weeks of 7:30 AM sleep.  He’s laughed a few times in front of me, and he almost slithered this morning for me.  My brother and I walked before we could crawl, and Braeden looks like he isn’t getting the hang of crawling as much as he loves being in a jumper.  Kate has been such a stellar mom for the little guy.  He reacts to her in ways he never does for me.  Sometimes I still look at him and think to myself I have no idea what I’m doing.  For a long time I’ve wanted children, but at the same time I spent quite a few formative years without a father figure in the picture.  I know I whine about this about once a month on the blog, but I’m still nervous about the situation. 

Has anyone who reads this written a novel or something similar?  My year long blog project is set to end next week, and after that I’ll take about a week break and then start working on a novel I’ve been plotting out.  I don’t have any really specific questions.  Just some general comments about how other people have approached the subject would be helpful. 

On that note, I’ll call it a day.  Have a good rest of the week everyone.

How to go on when the thrill is gone

How to go on…

KKCK:

Miley Cyrus “The Climb”
Well…this is the only new song this week.  By default, it is both the best and words, hottest and coldest, and dopest and illest.  The song is one of those soaring ballads, that starts quiet and sparse but gets loud and full by the end.  Miley’s voice is pushed to the limit (maybe too far) on this one, and that’s how it should be because the song is the lead single from the Hannah Montana movie soundtrack.  So…yeah.  Let’s just wrap this part of the blog up.

Pick to Click: Miley Cyrus

By the way, comments are always welcome.  However, this week I’m going to ask for them on a few topics:

1.  Is it just me, or is MySpace slowly dying on the vine?  I’m still getting a lot of random blog views, but comments are few and far between.  When I have the notice that I have “new blog posts” to read, almost all of them are singers, bands, or some other blog written by a famous person or whomever writes their blogs for them.  I double post the blog now to one of my wordpress blogs, but it doesn’t get the views that my MySpace blog does.  That’s why the MySpace blog is still my main blog, at least in my mind.  I’ve stopped listing it as my “web site” on places like Twitter, and I gave my russ4life blog as a destination in our Christmas letter (er, I mean Weevil did).  I had Facebook set to import my blogs for a while, but it stopped doing it after a while.  That was fine with me, as it usually just cropped it off and made people click on the link to get back to the original post.  I’ve started posting the new music blog at my Last.fm profile, but I only have one friend there.  I’m not sure of the general rule of thumb for adding/meeting people on that site is.  I should have joined it years ago, because I love some of the features it has.  Speaking of features, would it kill MySpace to add some new features to the blog section?  Should I slowly begin the transition to another home, or just keep pluggin’ away here?

2. Between MySpace, Last.fm, and wordpress I have eight places where I blog.  I thought separatingthem by various topic was a good idea, but I’ve been wondering if condensing them into one or two is a good idea.  I’d probably want to keep fiction and non-fiction writing apart.  Any opinions out there?

3. Animal Collective and TV on the Radio: I’m still wondering what I’m missing here.  I keep hearing how great those two bands are, but every time I try to listen I just don’t enjoy or appreciate it.  Anyone?  Anybody?

Now, back to the part of the blog where I don’t fish for comments (but hey, go nuts if you want…I’m in a comment readin’ mood).

BSG didn’t kill my favorite character…yet.  I get the feeling that at least some of the main characters are going to bite it before the end of the show next month.  I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by speculating that the Galactica herself might not make it to the end.  There was a scene in last week’s ep in the engine room, and a character  noticed what looked like either damage or metal stress fatigue.  Either way, the show has done a mostly good job of showing the Galactica getting more and more beat to hell.  Don’t forget, in the miniseries the Galactica was the oldest ship and was on her way to be decommissioned.  Aside from my favorite character (who I don’t mention anymore to avoid being spoilery) my second favorite would probably be the Galactica herself. 

Then, there’s Knight Rider.  Two episodes to go for the first season.  No word on the second, but I’d be totally shocked.  Granted, stranger renewals (Sledge Hammer comes to mind, since they ended season one with a nuclear explosion because they were so confident there wouldn’t be a second season) have happened.

There was more I wanted to type today, but the muse escaped.  I’ll have to build a better cage next week.

We’re just three new songs and one DJ…

…stealing Beastie Boys lyrics without delay.

KKCK:

Flo Rida “Right Round”
This song borrows a bit of Dead or Alive, and his style of rapping on the verses reminds me of some old pop/rock song I can’t think of.  All I can remember is that some store in Fargo used it in a jingle for something, or I saw it on a Fargo TV station growing up.  I’d enjoy the song a lot more if I could remember what old song that is.  I’m not even just saying that, because I am enjoying this way more than any other Flo Rida song I’ve ever heard.  With any luck, it might erase the spectre of “Low” from my memory.

New Kids on the Block “Dirty Dancing”
A band successful in the 80s doing a song that shares its name with an 80s movie, AND the song even rhymes “Patrick Swayze”?  That might just be crazy enough to work.  If you don’t know it’s NKOTB, you might not even recognize it as NKOTB.  I’ve never been a huge fan, but this one isn’t too bad.

My Chemical Romance “Desolation Row”
First, like Usher once did, these are my confessions.  I’ve never read “The Watchmen” so I have no idea what the movie will be like.  I’ve never heard the original version of this song by Bob Dylan.  It wasn’t on the “Essential Bob Dylan” CD I ripped into my iTunes.  So, I can only approach this as the three minutes of My Chemical Romance that I hear on my speakers.  Of those three minutes, I like them all.  I hope they don’t dilly dally too long before their next CD.

Pick to click: Flo Rida

Say, that was a pretty good week.  Dare I say it was our best week so far in 2009. 

No show as ever made me delirious with spoiler fever as Battlestar Galactica.  I had a spoiler window open, and I was ready to scroll down…but I just couldn’t do it.  I just want to know if my favorite character bit it.  It sure looks like the character did, and from the next week teaser at the end they even said the character was dead.  That’s why I’m holding hope actually.  Ron Moore never tips his hand like that, unless he has another plan up his sleeve for said character.  So, I’ll patiently wait for that character’s official fate (I’m trying so hard to not spoil anything for those who may be waiting for the season to finish before watching/buying/downloading).

After tonight there will only be two new episodes of Knight Rider, and then we wait for NBC to put a bullet in it.  I hope they don’t, as the show has shown some promise, and the producers seem willing to do whatever it takes to make the show work.  The show has gotten a lot better since the first episode, but it has a long way to go. 

Things at home are going really well.  Braeden is getting bigger, stronger, faster, and smarter by the day.  Kate’s knee is almost all the way back from her surgery.  Our cats continue both amuse and annoy, as cats are born to do.  We’re talking about where we might like to go for a long weekend once the weather warms up, but so far we don’t have any concrete plans.

Just since I started writing this week’s MySpace/WordPress/Last.Fm blog, Kate called to tell me Braeden was laughing.  We’ve been trying to get him to laugh for over a month, as he was at the age where he should start laughing.  What got him to laugh?  Mac the cat meowing at him.  If cats amuse him, he’s in for a fun filled life.

That wraps things up for this week.  Before I go, I was recently tagged by several people on Facebook to do one of those “25 Random Things About Me” deals, so I thought I’d cross post it for anyone who cares to read it but isn’t a Facebook friend.

1. I would still rather watch a well done cartoon than an above average live action show.

2. When I’m walking my son around to calm him down, I talk about baseball, philosophy, Battlestar Galactica, work, or whatever else is on my mind. Some days I swear he’s actually paying attention.

3. I think I drink way too much soda pop.

4. I might be addicted to the internet.

5. In college, I wanted to work anywhere but in Marshall. I’ve worked in Marshall over ten years, and I’ve really enjoyed it.

6. I bottle up feelings rather than talk about them. I am working on this.

7. When I think back to High School, I remember a lot of good times and quite a few things that make me wonder “what was I thinking?” (mainly my hairdo). I wouldn’t trade my time at VHS for anything though, and I’m really happy to see so many Veblen-ites (Veblonians? Vebleners?) popping up on Facebook.

8. On my iPod, I have almost 200 traditional Native American songs, over 500 Spooncat songs, every They Might Be Giants album, over eighty songs by Glenn Miller, most of my old hair rock, every 10,000 Maniacs, AC/DC, Metallica, ZZ Top, Fiona Apple, Bowling for Soup, Megadeth, Sheryl Crow, No Doubt, Dangerous Toys, Weird Al Yankovic, Daft Punk, and Reverend Horton Heat (those are just the ones I thought of now) album, and about 14,000 other songs. Of the 15,900 + songs, not one is in the genre “country”.

9. Some days I obsess about death, but not mine. I worry about my parents and my old cat, and I can’t stop thinking about how one day they won’t be here.

10. If I could go back to college, I’d major in Creative Writing and History.

11. I’m worried I’ve hit that age where I stop caring about playing video games. However, I still love to watch X-Play.

12. I like to think I’m a knowledgeable music fan. Yet, when other fans who I think knowledgeable gush about Radiohead, I feel I totally missed something. I just don’t hear the big deal. Same for TV on the Radio.

13. I still collect GI Joes and Transformers, but not as much as I used to.

14. In my bookmarks, I have almost 200 webcomics bookmarked and separated into tabs of “daily”, “M-W-F”, “sporadic”, “once a week” and “rarely”.

15. As a kid I refused to wear anything with a hood. Now I wear hooded sweatshirts almost every day.

16. I’ve had the same 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme since 1992. It looks like hell, but it still gets me where I need to go.

17. A great friend of mine tried to get me to socialize more because “I’d never meet the right girl in my apartment.” I met Kate for the first time…wait for it…in my old apartment.

18. The best sleep of my life was when I was working an overnight shift. No joke.

19. I really wanted to name our first son “Ichiro Ernest” but Kate didn’t like that idea for some reason.

20. In high school, my dream was to work at ESPN. During college I realized I just didn’t care enough about football, basketball or hockey (among other sports) to really make a go of it. Baseball is it for me.

21. I might be a borderline pack rat, but my mind really associates memories with objects, and I fear I’ll start forgetting things I don’t want to if I get rid of a few things I don’t need anymore.

22. Kate and I have only been out of the United States once, and that was to Canada. We liked it so much we half-joked about moving.

23. The only “bad” habits I picked up in college were comic books and AD&D (and other RPGs of that nature).

24. While I still collect some GI Joe and Transformers stuff, there are several things I used to collect that I no longer do. Some forgotten collections include baseball cards, matchbox police cars, Red Owl stuff, Super Soakers, and Star Trek stuff.

25. I would really like to be closer to my brother, but we’re 20 years and hundreds of miles apart. I don’t even know how to begin.

BONUS FIVE:

26. Lately I’d rather write than play video games or watch television.

27. My favorite book is There’s Adventure in Meteorologyby Neil P. Ruzic.

28. The first board game I learned to play was Monopoly, and the first card game I learned was draw poker.

29. I used to think I was good at poker, until the Texas Hold ‘Em craze. Whatever happened to draw poker?

30. I saved the best one for last. The night Kate and I got married, I had to go to the lobby for extra shampoo. For the first time, I uttered the phrase “my wife” and I realized I had been at my happiest since Kate and I were engaged, and being married has only made me even happier.

[oh, before I forget...Happy Birthday Alice Cooper!]