The Donnas- yeah, they’re Bitchin’

Finding out the Donnas had parted ways with their record label earlier this year was a big disappointment because it led me to wonder when we’d hear from them again. Thankfully, the answer was soon, and they’ve reemerged with a vengance (and one hell of an album to boot!) The girls are the spiritual successors to KISS and 80’s hard rock/hair metal bands. There’s a sense of familiarity listening to album as though it should have been cranking out of the radio years ago. There’s no bother with ballads or romantic love songs of any type, this is party based, hook-up rock and roll, done better than 95% of bands out there. Allison Robertson is perhaps one of my favorite guitarists around today because of her ability to channel 1970’s Ace Frehley solo licks and then take them farther than Ace ever did. (Speaking of Kiss, the title track does a quick quote of the Love Gun riff- so there’s a pretty clear influence there).

Bitchin’ is a high-octane, fun, party inspiring record that will get your head banging and fist pumping- it’s great for putting the pedal down and crusing down the interstate with the top down and the music blaring. These girls are so much more than their pretty faces, though it doesn’t hurt when Bret Anderson sings, “Don’t bother saying please if you want to ravage me” in Like an Animal. Standout tracks include “Save Me”, “Smoke You Out”, and Don’t Wait Up For Me”. If you like straight ahead rock and roll, but this album. You won’t be disappointed.

Upcoming Reviews 9/14/07

Just a brief update of reviews I’ll be posting over the next week or so.

In music, you can expect to see reviews for the following:

K T Tunstall – Drastic Fantastic

James Blunt – All The Lost Souls

Mark Knopfler – Kill To Get Crimson

Steve Earle – Washington Square Serenade

Bruce Springsteen – Magic

Reba McEntire – Duets

Joe Nichols – Real Things

In books:

Tom Piccirilli’s Midnight Road

Brian Knight – Broken Angel

Greg Gifune – The Bleeding Season

John McClay – Dreadful Deliniations

 In DVDs:

Blades of Glory

Death Proof

300

Robot Chicken Season 2

 I’ll also be reviewing the Flock browser now that I’ve begun playing around with it. I’ll also look for other web sites or web apps to review to try and keep the site better rounded. If you’ve stumbled here by accident, I hope you’ll come back. I promise my ability to review will improve with time. If there’s anything you’d like me to do a review for, feel free to leave a comment and let me know.

There’s still one more…

While 50 Cent and Kanye West have perhaps received the most press concerning their new releases this week, there is one other notable album release that could be the dark horse ruler of the charts when all is said and done….

Kenny Chesney -Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates

Let’s be really clear here, if you’re buying a Kenny Chesney album, you know what you’re in for- Jimmy Buffet in a cowboy hat. Earnest, heartfelt songs delivered in an unmistakable baritone. Just Who I Am doesn’t deviate one iota from the formula that’s made Chesney a country music superstar. The lead-off single, “Never Wanted Nothing More” is Kenny’s journey through life wanting first a car, then sex, marriage and then God that’s raced up the country charts. “Things Change” is a look at growing up and how life seems to happen in the time it takes you to blink. Chesney knows he’ll have to worry about all the adult elements of life, but “Just Not Today.” “Shift Work” brings in George Strait as a homage to working souls and the daily grind. “Wife and Kids” gives voice to a hope for a future family, while “Better As a Memory” laments not being the man his woman needs him to be. In “Scare Me,” Chesney relates the sweet terror of falling deep in love for someone. It’s a song everyone can relate to, and that’s always been party of Chesney’s charm.

“Wild Ride” (with the Eagles’ Joe Walsh on guitar) and “Got a Little Crazy” are the albums party tracks and are sure to become concert staples. “Got A Little Crazy” is the fuzzy head the morning after, while “Wild Ride” is the party the night before (complete with a talk box- I always love the sound of one of those).

Sure to thrill everyone who’s ever seen one of those “I Support Single Moms” t-shirts (you know, the one with the silhouette of a stripper spinning on a pole) is the song “Dancin’ For the Groceries.” Rather than celebrate what she’s doing, Chesney sympathizes with the mother doing what she has to do to provide for her child.

Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates is everything you expect it to be, there are no surprises here. It’s a solid listen that isn’t going to change anybody’s opinion for better or worse. Kenny is what he is, country’s everyman superstar, its spiritual successor to Jimmy Buffet (though thankfully still in the phase of his career where he’s making relevant albums with songs you’ll still want to hear at the shows). Though the beach wasn’t prevalent on this album, Kenny’s still riding that wave. He turns 40 in March, and after 5 studio albums is probably due for a second greatest hits next year. Let’s hope he embraces the chance and records a cover of “A Pirate Looks at 40″ for the occasion.

50 Cent and Kanye West

On September 11th, two hip-hop superstars, 50 Cent and Kanye West are both releasing their new albums. 50 Cent, miffed that Kanye actually moved up the release date for Graduation to match his release date for Curtis, was so confident that his album would outsell Kanye’s that he vowed to retire if Kanye beat him. He has since recanted, but it’s clear that the war for hip-hop supremacy is on.
So which is better? I am not a hip-hop/rap fan in general. I don’t seek it out, and it’s not usually a part of my daily listening. As such, I have no alliances to either rapper and think I may have a better chance to objectively evaluate the two cds and determine a victor. (That also could be a load of crap- who knows). Either way, as the albums drop at midnight I will listen and evaluate each in the hopes of determining a victor. Stick around and find out what I think.

Update: 12:01 PM 9/11/07.

Sorry for the delay, I simply fell asleep and didn’t get to finish the albums or do the reviews last night; however, I have completed both, made my notes, and am prepared to deliver my uselessreview.

Kanye West – Graduation

Starting with Kanye… The Graduation stars with a gradual build up- “Good Morning” is a mid tempo track that allows you to slowly “wake up” into the album. “Champion” feels like it borrowed its beat from “Mo’ Money, Mo Problems” which is not a complaint. It’s a great dance beat and highly addictive. It seems like Kanye wants to believe that he can act as an inspiration to kids because of his success. “Stronger” was probably the best track on the cd- I loved the new wave 80’s electronic voice that plays in the background with the sparse synth. I’m dating myself, but listening to it, I could see kids roller skating to the song at the local rink. “Wonder” is West’s first misstep. The rhyming is to syncopated and doesn’t feel like it flows together very well. Good Life has a party vibe and Can’t Tell Me Nothing bring the feel back and bring you back into the album.

Unfortunately the album hits a major pair of speed bumps when we get to Barry Bonds and Drunk and Hot Girls. Neither seem to go anywhere to me and just killed the flow of the album (Mos Def’s appearance on Drunk and Hot Girls was the only high spot on an otherwise insipid track).

After getting past the psuedo love song that is Flashing Light, West really gets back on track with “Everything I Am” a slow jam where West tells us how he doesn’t measure up to some other artists in some ways, but as a result is able to be the artist he is. The Glory brings back the dance beats (With a Jackson 5 sounding intro). He brings in Chris Martin (doing his best Sting impersonation) to help him with his shout-out to Detroit, Homecoming.

The final track, Big Brother, is a curious track. West raps about Jay-Z’s influence on his career, but also seems to take swipes at Jay as well. West complains about being told he could buy a ticket to a Jay-Z MSG show and decries Jay doing a track with Coldplay after finding out that West himself was doing a track with Coldplay. West also acknowledges his own missteps, having not discussed issues with Jay directly. I guess it is ultimately a tribute because he tells Jay he loves him and bemoans the fact that “people never get flowers while they can still smell ‘em”.

50 Cent – Curtis

Unlike Graduation’s gentle “Good Morning,” 50 comes blazing out of the gates with “My Gun.” 50 makes it very clear that nobody stands in his way and he’ll establish his position at anyone’s expense. There was a “Lose Youself” quote in the track that I found to be a bit strange for someone as established as 50, but it works.

There’s a definite theme to Curtis- hustling, murder, and sex. In man down, 50’s accused of murdering someone he doesn’t know, but everyone knows he has his posse do his murders for him. I’ll Still Kill follows the same theme. In I Got Money, 50 brags about being so rich that “have a baby by me baby, become a millionaire, I’ll write the check before the baby comes, who the f— cares.” And so the album goes with guest appearances by Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke, Mary J Blige and Eminem among others. 50 Cent’s ability to carry a microphone is unquestionable and the album flows from track to track nicely with no miscues.

Comparing the two albums:

50 Cent’s execution is flawless. He’s confident and his ability to control a mic is unparalleled- ignoring anything he’s actually saying, his delivery is amazing. Peepshow in particular illustrates his uncanny ability to integrate really cool vocal rhythms into his raps.

West, on the other hand, isn’t consistent throughout the entire album. His delivery is good, but there are a few times where it seems like he’s forcing the lyrics to meet the rhythm and it falls a bit flat.

Thematically, perhaps 50 is a bit too limited, and that’s where Kanye takes an edge. One 50 Cent track is like just about any other in terms of what you’re going to hear- posturing, money, sex. Kanye is a bit more introspective and with Big Brother, Champion, and Everything I Am manages to go in three different direction, with three different styles and make it all work (though there is definately a clothing theme throughout the album- Mr. West likes his designer clothes).

50 Cent wants to intimidate and scare you, Kanye wants to pat himself on the back but still inspire you. 50 Cent probably takes the nod for delivering the better, more cohesive album with Curtis (he’s definately the better rapper based on these two discs), but Graduation seems to have the more radio and club friendly tracks and will probably get a lot more play. I have a feeling that although 50’s disc is better overall, Kanye will probably win the battle on the charts.

Much to my surprise, I enjoyed both albums quite a bit (I’ll admit that I really didn’t expect to be enthralled with either), so you can plan on seeing more outsider reviews like this in the future.

Mary SanGiovanni’s “The Hollower”

I won’t deny it- I am a fan of debut novels, and for a number of reasons. Partially, it’s getting to discover someone new, to add to the already large list of authors whose work I try to read regardless of genre or publisher. Another main reason is I simply like a different voice with a new song or a different take on an old idea. Mary Sangiovanni has been around in horror circle for a while, but this is her first novel and my first chance to read her work.

From the opening pages, SanGiovanni, sets the tension bar high by leading off with a suicide. After the killing shot is fired, she reveals, empty footsteps trailing out an open door. Her main characters are all broken people- a recovering coke-addict, a barmaid who was  molested as a child, an alcoholic and his mentally unstable younger sister, an emotion-fearing cop, and a young boy whose father died early. The common ground between them is a “man” wearing a black fedora, trench coat and gloves that comes to expose their deepest fears. This man has no face, but instead a smooth, blank canvas where its features should be.  All our characters are tormented by this creature who becomes known as the Hollower and pursue it back to its lair, the home of the novel’s opening-scene suicide. Here, they are forced to fight through their vices and fears to bond together and vanquish their enemy.

SanGiovanni avoids the standard monster-from-another-world horror cliches and turns in a very impressive debut, taking her characters through intense challenges of willpower, resolve, and strength in order to actually fight for their survival rather than curling up and submitting to the terror against which they are faced. The writing is strong, the plot solid, and the characters sympathetic in a realistic rather than exaggerated manner.

Overall, 8.5 out of 10. I find myself looking forward to SanGiovanni’s next project and hope to see it soon.

Frisky Dingo returns tonight!

One of the best new series Adult Swim has produced in the past year, Frisky Dingo, returns for its second season tonight. Full review later…

Perfspot.com – Something Old, Nothing New, Very Borrowed, Left me Blue

My friends over at KnightKnetwork were doing some research on Alexa and noticed that in the past month, Perfspot.com was spiking in terms of its web traffic (in fact, 1.4% of all global users are tracked as viewing this site). So, curious as to what the big deal was, they asked me to do some looking around and churn out a useless review.

At first glance , Perfspot.com looks like a souped-up  ad for the Iphone. The welcome page has a prominent spot in the center of the viewing area for their “Featured Business,” and as a result, the Iphone is right in your face (as though it wasn’t already). Other than that, you are presented with a list of “Channels,” as well as a selection of featured music, videos, news, and blogs that relate to the current page. The channels are just another excuse for more ads and don’t really present anything different from the main page to grab your attention. Just a lot of nothing as far as I was concerned.

After clicking through the channels for a while, I finally noticed the link for “myPerfLife” and clicked on it. Now I was finally able to understand where the hits were coming from. my PerfLife is an almost picture perfect mySpace clone. As a matter of fact, the individual profile pages were almost cookie cutter copies of a mySpace page (the biggest difference I could notice was the presence of photo albums directly on the profile page rather than on a separate link).

Like mySpace, Perfspot has made sure to market itself as a launching pad for musical acts (are there any bands out there nowadays that don’t have a mySpace presence?). As far as I could tell there’s no option to download mp3s if the artist allows it, but there is an advantage in that bands aren’t limited to only posting four songs (though why would you post the entire album for free if you want people to actually buy it?). The problem was that I couldn’t find any bands of note. Perhaps this was due to the relative infancy of the site, but I can’t believe that’s the real reason.

In all honesty, I can’t see how this site can realistically hope to compete with mySpace as a networking hub. Sure, someone will eventually be able to do that (see Facebook), but they’ll have something original to offer, some new wrinkle that mySpace never considered, and they’ll do it in a way that’s so unique that people will rush to take advantage (and effectively join the bandwagon). Perfspot is just a weak copy of an already established formula, not the next big thing. The only thing it has over mySpace is three friends (Ashley, Rob, and Carmen) for your new account instead of just Tom on mySpace, and that just doesn’t cut it. Given that the majority of the hits come from South America, perhaps Perfspot is being more agressively marketed there, and perhaps it will become a viable product for that region of the world, but in my opinion it’s much ado about nothing. If you’re on mySpace already, don’t waste your time, and if you aren’t already on mySpace- you probably don’t care about a site like this anyway.

One Cell in the Sea by A Fine Frenzy

One Cell in the Sea – A Fine Frenzy

7.5/10

I picked up One Cell in the Sea on a whim, looking for something new to listen to and intrigued that the sticker on the album had “Haunting” on two of the three descriptions. So, why not give it a listen?

There’s a definite kiss of pop veneer on the album, just enough to catch your ear, but not so bubblegum that it becomes overwhelming or irritating. Without pigeonholing in a negative way, it would fit well on easy listening playlists. Alison Sudol’s vocals are light and airy and the music behind the vocals is largely subdued. It’s not in-your-face in any way, actually it’s extremely relaxing. I’ve listened to it 5-6 times while at work and it hasn’t distracted me from getting things done. Actually, that could be as much a blessing as a curse. It sits quietly in the background and doesn’t push its way into the forefront of my consciousness.

Sudol’s lyrics are extremely melancholy, focusing on lost love and broken dreams (Exceptions to this rule include “You Picked Me,” taking the point-of-view of a shy girl thanking her love for finding her and presumably bringing joy into her life). “Almost Lover” is easily my favorite song on the album. Singing of a “hopeless dream”, “luckless romance,” and “heartache” Sudol makes you fall apart alongside her. Other notable standout tracks include “The Minnow and the Trout” and “Rangers,” the album’s first single.

Overall, A Fine Frenzy’s debut is a strong one and will hopefully generate enough buzz to convince Virgin to release future albums by them as well. For those who purchase a physical copy of the album, you can visit the band’s website with the cd in the drive to download 5 demo tracks and 5 video files (4 live in-studio performances and the official video for “Rangers”). Definately nice extras.

Everything needs a beginning…

Welcome to the first post from Useless Reviews. In the coming days/weeks/months I’ll be posting my reviews of Books, CDs, Movies, web sites, video games, and practically anything else I can think of to talk about (as long as I feel like I have a valid opinion on the subject). If you have a product you’d like me to, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Useless Reviews