Albums That Changed My Life

 

It's funny how this video I posted on October 13, 2023, has found 77 views, lol.

And yet a bunch of other channels now are doing this to much more exposure and success.

Again, another reason I don't feel it's fair or worth doing YouTube unless it's for very small and little exposure and success.

Giant Sky III - The Final Record?

This is from the latest email newsletter: Sounds like the next Giant Sky album could be the last, but could be even bigger than Giant Sky II by a lot.

I regret to announce that this could be the end.

It's been a couple of months since the release of Giant Sky II, and the reception has been overwhelming. The CDs sold out, and the vinyls left counts less than a handfull. I am thrilled to see you take part in the journey of GIANTSKY, and I am humbled to have so many loyal followers (I know we are not millions, but goddamn we are high quality! Go Spartans!)
Also, I think this is the time to touch base with my favourite music enthusiasts: The SkyHeads.

Some of you are old school, and merged from the Soup camp, and some of you arrived here by chance. You have been part of my journey as a songwriter, musician and human being, and I am forever grateful. Now, as I am embarking on the final piece of the GIANTSKY trilogy, I am finding myself at a crossroad. What happens next? Will I still be making music? Do I have any more in me? I promised myself that I will never make music out of spite: The moment my inspiration runs out, I will stop. I am not sure what the future will bring, but one thing I am sure of, is that I want Giant Sky III to be as good as it can be. I want it to be the masterpiece. In the case of eternal FOMO, I would love for you to get on board now. And that's why I have come here for help.

Ok, so here's the thing: Even though I make music first and foremost for myself, I am curious about what you like about my music (both Soup and GIANTSKY) and what you'd like to see/hear more of? I would really appreciate some input on this. Also, for GS3, I want to implement even more orchestral passages, and be ambitious to the production of my compositions. This is extremely demanding, both financially and logistically. If you want to support this, and want your name in the liner notes of the vinyl of Giant Sky III, you can do it here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/recording-orchestra-for-giant-sky-iii

On a more culture-political note, the sheer amount of artists calling for attention these days makes it super hard for a project like GIANTSKY to get any reach. If you have any bright ideas to ways of breaking the surface and making a splash, I would love to hear your thoughts too. A kind forward of this email, a sneaky party playlist hijack, nagging your local radio DJ or becoming part of my unofficial promo apparatus are off course all very welcome!
Having your friends visiting the GIANTSKY Bandcamp page would also help. Maybe give them this discount code too, to get 20% off on whatever is left in the shop: skyheads2024

Wow, this became a long one. I hope you're OK with it. I hardly ever send out email newsletters, and when I do, I've usually piled up on things I need to get off my chest. Done. Thanks.

Thank you for sticking around, and for being you, and please stay in touch! With regards from a partially winter depressed eccentric from the far north. The northern lights sends their regards too. All my best.
-Erlend

Sheryl Crow - Sheryl Crow (1992)

 

Never spent much time with this, but Kevin co-wrote "All Kinds of People" at least.

It's unreleased and it has a Christian element which isn't often something I care for. And Sheryl is not typically my thing despite the history with Kevin and my wife loving a lot of her music.

But for the sake of Kevin, this is 1 I probably should get to know better, even if it is unreleased. It does sound very much of a Kevin Gilbert work in a lot of ways. MUCH different than Tuesday Night Music Club in fact.

Is it like those demos and things that the TMC made before they changed? I kind of doubt it since it's not with the other members besides Kevin and Sheryl presumably.

"All Kinds of People" has been covered by many including Tina Turner and Susan Ashton (per a note on the dreamtheaterforums).

Record Store Day Videos Playlist

 Record Store Day Videos (2014-)

.

I just went through and created 1 of several Playlists among the 610 Videos on the YouTube Channel.

I would guess more than half of the videos in this playlist I shared in here, but so be it. It's a 1-stop shop and it's for the most part in chronological order.

edit: I just reordered them to be in full chronological order.

If I felt like it and had the time, I could try editing clips from these into like a 30-45 minute documentary, but who knows I would find it worth doing.

A lot of the videos I did when I started doing YouTube were just these; showing vinyl and from Record Store Day specifically per it was an easy, obvious thing to film.

The clips with Coco our dog and John are probably most of what I get out of these. The stories, sure, we had some adventures and anecdotes to pass along in the whole Record Store Day experience. It might have been interesting to even had filmed them when Joyce and I started going together in 2011, or even further back with the 1st few years. Per, I have gone every single year since 2008. Those early years it was more about getting free food, lol and schwag. Maybe seeing some celebrity there or whatever.

I dunno, the people involved with RSD should chronicle the history in a doc. Maybe around the 20th in 2027?..it would be especially cool if it were done just locally from Minnesota history for myself just for nostalgia.

I suppose I could have even posted about it back in 2008, 2009, 2010, etc..I know I wrote about Record stores back then, but I'd have to look it up in here to remember.

Anyway, here's a screen cap of little Coco and Joyce from 2018.

Chromeo - Adult Contemporary (2024)

Pretty good record. The outro to "BTS" is lit. Orchestral. Regardless if it's a reference to the band, lol.

Better than their last record.

La Roux is on 2 or 3 tracks. I know her name going back maybe 10 or more years. She was compared to Bjork and Imogen Heap I  recall. Although her vocals on the tunes on this album don't remind me of those 2 at all.

Happy the wife and I are seeing them again in October in St.Paul at The Palace Theatre.

Some Blog Traffic Stats per 2/16/24

Just glancing at my Blog's Stats, something up until maybe a few weeks ago, I have not used much the past 4 years, and my blog, allmediareviews.blogspot.com STILL GETS TRAFFIC (well over 12,000 hits in the last month, lol).

It probably gets a lot more than I'd expect. And likely a fair amount more than my YouTube channel does still.

My blog is a RESOURCE, which I wish my YouTube channel was, but what that tells me is the content I create reaches a bigger audience, and maybe the intended audience, on the blog more than on YouTube.

So, that kind of confirms my thought process (Blog vs YouTube).

2/18/24

Just to add to a point. Some of this recent feelings (which are not new, I've thought about for many months or even more actually). Seeing some people unfollow me on Twitter and Unsubscribe to me on YouTube just adds to my motivation. I can't be certain why this happens (it could be them more than me. They want to subscribe to less channels?, follow less accounts just to get their numbers down or ratio of followers to following better? and my account and channel was not a priority enough to keep?) when you only have 342 subscribers, losing a subscriber is more impactful, etc.

Small Leaks Sink Ships - Prison Kitchen (Single) (2024)

New tune from the masters, Small Leaks Sink Ships.

listened 3 times. Really fucking good despite dealing with a jackass neighbor blasting his music and having to run Grey Noise simutaneously.

Judd's vocal performance sounds quite a lot like what he did on "Broken Church Bells" from the Polaroid People EP from 2018.

 But I imagine this tune was leftover from the time they were writing for Low Tide. Although 1 podcast with London suggested much of the initial music for their next record was swapped when things with their record label went South per COVID.

I dunno, it sounds much of the Polaroid People and Low Tide ilk, that I suspect it wasn't written in the last 6 months to a year. But I dunno. I do really dig it, and it will have to tide me over and compensate for the fact they are going on tour and I won't be seeing them.

YouTubers 2014-2024

 Here's Just a bunch of collages I made. I wanted to find a Free Collage site that allows you to include 100's of images, but the 1 I found only allows 25 at a time, so it ended up with 5 separate collages.

Um, I made these in the process of the 10 year thing on YouTube. Admittedly, a lot of these channels are nostalgic, many gone or inactive for years. Some, I do not watch or subscribe to anymore, but I did include per I did.

There's obviously some stuff  I didn't include, but whatever.

Unsure how I want to do this. Part of me would go for talking about these channels in Videos, and that's just it, it would take several videos or a long epic Podcast like video to cover them.

The compromise may be read them all off, and make comments about some. There's over 100.

That's the thing, I have 342 (or 330-ish?) Subscribers and 608 videos. And I subscribed to probably twice as many channels as I have subscribed to me if not more, lol.

Ridiculous and pretty pathetic. But, that's why I'm looking to make changes soon (in the coming weeks/months).

1 should not have almost double the amount of Videos to Subscribers. Most people would have probably quit a long time ago with that being the case.

And 330 subscribers? and how many Views? I looked it up, about 71,000 Views. Yeah, no, I'm talking to 10 people every video, or maybe I'm just talking to myself. I guess if that is a low-bar goal for YouTube, and it's more like a Video Journal, it's not a big deal per I would be making videos 1st and foremost for myself.

But YouTube seems to be about status and reaching people. And I have really not done that much. Not even as much as I did with this Blog. I'm just not that good at it really. Not at this point.

Why I'm thinking: finish up the Projects I'm working on (Thud Songs Videos, Albums of the Year), and it may be on an indefinite Hiatus.

2024 Rock Hall Nominations - Take/Rant

Given my lacking the ability to film videos for YouTube right now per the C-word in my house, impacting that.

I guess I'll offer up some rants about the 2024 Rock Hall Nominations:

2024 Rock Hall Nominations:

billboard.com/music…A Tribe Called Quest Jane's Addiction Ozzy Osbourne Cher Lenny Kravitz Sade Mary J. Blije Eric B. & Rakim Kool & the Gang Sinead O'Connor Peter Frampton Dave Mathews Band Foreigner Oasis Mariah CareyJan Wenner is gone, yet still no Monkees.WTF."Murphy Level Bullshit"

https://twitter.com/Super70sSports/status/1704892123479449994

No Monkees..broken record of course. Wenner's supposed absence didn't seem to mean 

much if anything at this point.

Jane's Addiction I like. Three Days is prog for what it's worth. They were nominated a few years ago but didn't get in. I will be pretty surprised if they do get in, but if they do, I would happy.

Mariah, Sade, Lenny and even Kool & the Gang are all names my wife appreciates to different degrees.
Mary J Blije as well per she did a duet with George Michael among other things.

If any of them get in, I  will be happy to see it. Mariah I kind of think is the most likely. Kool & the Gang has been eligible for decades..pretty egregious..but there's many terrible cases of that like every year and there's a massive list of names who still haven't been nominated either as well (besides of course The Monkees).

Cher, Dave Mathews,..Frampton..Ozzy.

If Ozzy gets in, it is nice, but it is delaying other Metal bands from getting in. Maiden of course. Megadeth, Scorpions, Motorhead among some others. Even extend it out to Hard Rock.

Oasis I honestly couldn't care less about. I don't loathe them as much as some of the other 90's bands, but the 2 brothers have very unlike-able reputations.

Foreigner?..eh, Styx, Boston, or TOTO even ...or even say SUPERTRAMP would mean a ton more to people. I don't maybe mind them. And REO Speedwagon or someone like Loverboy (or Air Supply?) in the sort of Corporate Pop/Rock.

My wife would be all for REO or Air Supply, and by comparison to Styx and Boston, she actually kind of like Foreigner. No care for the fact Ian McDonald of King Crimson was a founding member, lol.

But I guess Foreigner was blackballed by Wenner and maybe others years back, But the same has been said about both The Guess Who and Toto. So, why were Foreigner chosen instead of The Guess Who or Toto? Wenner hated all of them (Toto due Toto refused to be on the Rolling Stone cover I guess).

Cher?..she has said she would refuse induction. Dolly Parton said the same thing, but changed her mind, lol. Cher's been eligible since 1990, lol. I can take or leave her music. It's fine I guess if she gets in. I suppose someone like Barbara Streisand or Olivia Newton-John needs to be considered if Cher gets in. 

But what about Phil Collins?..when they started putting pop acts in about 12 years ago with Madonna..Whitney Janet and George Michael..Phil Collins has the resume to belong in just like those others. I know he's already in with Genesis, but they've had several other 2+ inductions before.

Once filming again on YouTube is possible again, I'll try and follow-up/rehash some of this on camera.

Food For Thought: Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element II with an ORCHESTRA?

New video..likely the last for awhile for obvious reasons. 

Book: Vision Statement

Interesting find..I could just have kept this as just a draft, but I don't follow any huge motivation to have this for safe-keeping if my intetrest to write a book does come back. I can always republish/rewrite it in said (fictional) book.

composed 7/2/2019 12:29AM

I came to love music as a kid, but when I was in High School I developed a larger passion for it that matched and then soon after passed my level of Passion for things like Sports.

I have a lot of words to add about the music I love, which the Internet became an obvious platform to use. At first it was just using email lists/groups and Forums/Message Boards.

Not long after, I started a LiveJournal account which I would often talk about in cryptic or poorly scripted ways, the music I was getting into and enjoying.

But from a literary standpoint, it wasn't an incredibly tangible, useful resource other than giving names and albums/songs, etc.

So in late 2006 I found someone who was looking to keep a Media Blog with other writers. I knew this person through a largely music-based forum, and so naturally it was music I was going to write a lot about.

That blog is the blog I still actively maintain today some 12+ years and 1.1 million hits later:
http;//allmediareviews.blogspot.com

But after keeping it for so long and seeing modest levels of traffic, I concluded I would like to try something else. So I set 2 milestones, 1 being a 10-year anniversary which I reached in December 2016. I then went on to post an extensive personal Questions and Answers to myself or also what could be considered Frequently Asked Questions.

The 2nd Goal to was to reach 1 million page views/hits, which finally occurred in March of 2019.

So, now that those 2 goals were met, the next thing to strive for was something more. And that being, to try and Write a Book. Why? I think partly due to my frequent question about after seeing some others do it, why can't I? And so if/when this ever does become a reality and is in physical three-dimensional form on paper of some kind, than that question will be answered.

What is the Book about? After thinking about it off and on literally for months or even more than a year, I guess maybe one-of if not my biggest passions is for what I refer to as "progressive college rock" (also "progressive alternative rock" or "progressive indie rock").

It seems within the rock and progressive rock/metal/jazz etc styles, there are not many if any works that solely has focused on this relatively new hybrid genre of progressive rock. Especially in English, however the fellow who keeps the blog, http://altprogcore.blogspot.com has published some books about this kind of progressive rock, but in Italian-only. But I certainly am using inspiration from those books, to write this book.

The C word

 Yeah, after almost 4 years..it likely found my household.

What impact it has still remains to be seen.

I do find it almost ironic or telling it happens with everything going on for me on an emotional level..on Marillion's Brave's 30th anniversary no less.

Some recent videos on YouTube I made

 

"Top 10 (11) #dreamtheater SONGS @TheProgCorner's Sunday Prog Stream (2/4/24) #top10list #progmetal"

 

I'm not sure why my list wasn't mentioned or included with the Dream Theater Top 10 Songs here:
Did they or Scot not see my video? Forget? Forget the fact I wasn't able to make the stream per as I mentioned in the chat last weekend during the Kansas Stream (or maybe during the Vander Graaf Generator Stream the week before when Scot announced that and when the Dream Theater stream was happening).

I even replied both on twitter and facebook a few hours before the stream yesterday.

I've been a fan since 1995 and consumed Dream Theater's music religiously for well over 2 decades. I still do. I know their history extremely well.

Anyway, I guess I'm surprised they didn't mention (or play it on the Live Stream actually, it was only 11 minutes).  or my list video. I uploaded it 24 hours ahead of time. But I guess what can you do?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯