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