I could go ahead and post multiple new entries, but I guess a new notes entry might make sense and be more efficient.
#1) I shouldn't be so shocked or surprised by all negative reviews of the new dredg album. I and many others sort of saw it coming. But its now come to the point of cliche and predictability.
Blah Blah Blah. Haha "Chuckles" is not very funny. haha, dredg sucks. What was dredg thinking? How could dredg become more gay? What faggotty title and even more mailed-in, lazy music. Etc, etc.
I am not great at predictions, but I really am curious what some of these neanderthals (and the ones that I like, but still find it their need to go out of their way to piss on this new album) might say, say in 2 years even about this record.
I mean I went in assuming it would be different, shorter, more stripped down. But it still would sound like dredg. And guess what? IT DOES. The melodies are still there, namely the vocal melodies on many songs, like especially their last 2 records, ARE EARWORMS. For hours really.
Maybe I'll dissect it more thoroughly if/when I ever get the chance this year (which certainly is questionable). But if not before, at least by the time the Album Index is due.
It's a record that FLOWS, it doesn't have any songs I skip. It probably just doesn't have as many breathtaking elements or sections compared to their others. But it still has enough, frankly, MORE THAN ENOUGH COMPARED TO MOST OTHER BANDS, to still enjoy and want to go back to. And I'm rating it at 4-stars, and until I feel any way worse about it, it'll stay at that.
And also, the band may actually receive the most exposure commercially/mainstream ever. Which is ironic, but regardless, still a GOOD THING.
Gavin did say something in this interview about breaking up potentially, but I recall he's said that in the past. But if this is the album that gets them to get BIG like they in many ways deserve, however many pissants have worse diarhea-of-the-mouth than I do about it, it really won't matter. In fact in some ways it'll probably be something that helped them.
Who would have thought, making an album so many fans and non-fans hate would acquire you your most success? Very ironic, but perhaps in a good way.
New music:
Josh Rouse
Michael Nesmith
MarchFourth Marching Band
Spinvis
Fountains of Wayne
new song from The Dear Hunter from the other night in Hollywood.
I'm slowly catching up on television, finishing off Parenthood and Fringe the last 2 weekends. But the gf activity has slowed it up more than I'd like. And I have still yet to watch AMC's The Killing. But maybe in some way that's a good thing, as I did the same with Rubicon last year and it ended up being enjoyable to not have to wait week after week for the next episode. The Walking Dead as well.
But I do need to get going on probably 35 hours or more of DVR cleaning to do. And of course the 2011-2012 network lineup announcements are right around the corner, I think coming 1 week from tomorrow-Thursday of that week.
Message Boards: I am leaving/lurking on them more so than any other time. Why? I'm just fed up with a few bad apples, along with too often topics being buried about an unknown band. Many of those criminally unknown bands will find THIS LIST I'm sure.
You know, someone else can report news and introduce them to new bands. Apparently on the forums, I'm really not all that great at it, at least in terms of percentage. If said readers REALLY still want to know what I am listening to, discovering, and news about new releases only posted on a few sites like last.fm or 1 or 2 forums, then THEY SHOULD JUST READ THIS BLOG. Or the twitter and facebook posts I make.
Especially given I have another factor (a girlfriend) taking up my free time, the posting on the forums are one thing I can at least consider a casualty. This blog perhaps as well, but hopefully not ultimately. In other words, the time I might spend posting about said band or new album on 5 different forums, will be given to this blog and twitter/fb. Which it is for the most part already. But not giving activity to the forums is one tradeoff.
That and, I am really sick and tired of some of the trolling that takes place. It may only be 1 or 2 users, and then may have some others feeding said trolls. But it's enough to not even care to give said trolls and troll-followers the time and energy.
Haters are gonna hate. Kids will act like Kids. And 16-20 year olds will act like petulant children as well. Especially on something as faceless as an internet message board. They can go ahead and do that, while denying others of stuff like news and tours that someone like myself would know about long before the rest of the forum.
And of course bands become popular on said forum after those users that leave/lurk 1st talked about them, in many cases, not even giving credit or even bothering to find the original thread.
The broken record of that process after how many years, really just lends to the idea of the leave/lurk. The web and the boards/forums/last.fm/imdb/facebook/youtube/blog comments gives any douche with a keyboard and mouse a license to embarrass themself in as many ways as they enjoy doing. But ultimately, if nobody feeds said troll, they are more or less talking to themselves and thus their activity deemed irrelevant.
