Monday, November 21, 2005
New Music
I get music generally in two fashions.
First, through eMusic.com, where for $20 a month I can download a hundred tracks--that's between 8-11 albums a month. Second, through Yourmusic.com, which is run by BMG. Yourmusic is the kindest and most consumer-friendly of the music clubs that I've seen. It functions like Netflix in that you select a queue, and then each month they send you a disc from your queue. The best part about it is that each cd cost only $5.99, and that includes shipping and handling. No hidden costs, and you get just what you want for less than you'd find it at a used cd store.
I'm not meaning to turn this into a commercial--I've just been pleased by both services, and they enable me to acquire much more music than I would otherwise.
So, two new this month.
Van Halen: Van Halen (1978).
I don't know how I managed to not ever get into Van Halen. Perhaps they were a bit before my time, and I'm just now getting around to picking up the stuff that has influenced the stuff I listened to when I first got into music in high school. Regardless, this is absolutely fantastic rock and roll; almost every cut is still played on rock radio today, so it feels like a "Best Of" record, or one that I've always had in my collection and yet forgot to listen to for years. Eddie's guitar is absolutely brilliant: dynamic, alternating between appropriately understated and fiercely turbo-charged. I love masterful electric guitar--so it's about time this is in my collection. I'll pick up the other good Van Halen discs over the next few months.
Dream Theater: Octavarium (2005)
The newest album from the band that got me into music in the first place--so it pairs really well with Van Halen in biographical theme, if not in musical taste, even if guitarists like Van Halen made bands like Dream Theater possible. Reading reviews of this album before I had listened to it I was quite afraid; I had loved Dream Theater's heavier sound in their last release, Train of Thought, so I was disappointed to hear they had backed off from this a bit. I feared a return to the flaccid style of Falling into Infinity, but I'm happily pleased with the album after a couple spins. There are a few songs to which I've not yet grown accustomed, and which do take the more radio-friendly turn (which feels like a belly flop from Dream Theater). Even so, I get the feeling they construct their odd album around a cd-unfriendly 20+ minute cut, which we have in the title track with Octavarium--such long songs have to elbow their way in around other songs, and it makes track listigs a bit awkward no matter what. But I do like this disc quite a bit. For the first time since Awake, Dream Theater feel at home with a keyboardist. Jordan Rudess exerts serious muscle on the album, and his keyboards stand beside Petrucci's guitars as equal in presence, texture, and melody in several of the songs. This is good, because it shows the sonic depth the band has perhaps underutilized in the last few albums--for as much as I like it, Train of Thought really is more a metal album influenced by prog rock than it is a prog rock album influenced by metal. Petrucci's guitar always was the best when settling into a heartfelt solo over a crushing groove, and there's more of that in this album, but prog fans will find even the more listener-friendly tunes filled with amazing flourishes. Great album with great songs that made me consider a band's catalog as more the opportunity to develop different themes and textures rather than as a progression. I wrongly kept wondering how Dream Theater could get heavier after Train of Thought--and Octavarium shows they don't have to.
First, through eMusic.com, where for $20 a month I can download a hundred tracks--that's between 8-11 albums a month. Second, through Yourmusic.com, which is run by BMG. Yourmusic is the kindest and most consumer-friendly of the music clubs that I've seen. It functions like Netflix in that you select a queue, and then each month they send you a disc from your queue. The best part about it is that each cd cost only $5.99, and that includes shipping and handling. No hidden costs, and you get just what you want for less than you'd find it at a used cd store.
I'm not meaning to turn this into a commercial--I've just been pleased by both services, and they enable me to acquire much more music than I would otherwise.
So, two new this month.
Van Halen: Van Halen (1978).
I don't know how I managed to not ever get into Van Halen. Perhaps they were a bit before my time, and I'm just now getting around to picking up the stuff that has influenced the stuff I listened to when I first got into music in high school. Regardless, this is absolutely fantastic rock and roll; almost every cut is still played on rock radio today, so it feels like a "Best Of" record, or one that I've always had in my collection and yet forgot to listen to for years. Eddie's guitar is absolutely brilliant: dynamic, alternating between appropriately understated and fiercely turbo-charged. I love masterful electric guitar--so it's about time this is in my collection. I'll pick up the other good Van Halen discs over the next few months.
Dream Theater: Octavarium (2005)
The newest album from the band that got me into music in the first place--so it pairs really well with Van Halen in biographical theme, if not in musical taste, even if guitarists like Van Halen made bands like Dream Theater possible. Reading reviews of this album before I had listened to it I was quite afraid; I had loved Dream Theater's heavier sound in their last release, Train of Thought, so I was disappointed to hear they had backed off from this a bit. I feared a return to the flaccid style of Falling into Infinity, but I'm happily pleased with the album after a couple spins. There are a few songs to which I've not yet grown accustomed, and which do take the more radio-friendly turn (which feels like a belly flop from Dream Theater). Even so, I get the feeling they construct their odd album around a cd-unfriendly 20+ minute cut, which we have in the title track with Octavarium--such long songs have to elbow their way in around other songs, and it makes track listigs a bit awkward no matter what. But I do like this disc quite a bit. For the first time since Awake, Dream Theater feel at home with a keyboardist. Jordan Rudess exerts serious muscle on the album, and his keyboards stand beside Petrucci's guitars as equal in presence, texture, and melody in several of the songs. This is good, because it shows the sonic depth the band has perhaps underutilized in the last few albums--for as much as I like it, Train of Thought really is more a metal album influenced by prog rock than it is a prog rock album influenced by metal. Petrucci's guitar always was the best when settling into a heartfelt solo over a crushing groove, and there's more of that in this album, but prog fans will find even the more listener-friendly tunes filled with amazing flourishes. Great album with great songs that made me consider a band's catalog as more the opportunity to develop different themes and textures rather than as a progression. I wrongly kept wondering how Dream Theater could get heavier after Train of Thought--and Octavarium shows they don't have to.
Comments:
Hmmm, I had held off on the new Dream Theater because I loved Train of Thought so much, and I feared the return to the overuse of keyboard that made some of the band's earlier albums so much less than they could have been. But based on your review, I may give this one a chance!
As for Van Halen, I ranked the debut album as the second best rock debut album ever in a post last month on my blog. Simply amazing--Eddie took the tapping mastered by Steve Hackett and took it to the next level.
If you like Dream Theater with the new keyboardist, you'll love the two instrumental albums by Liquid Tension Experiment (Petrucci and Portnoy from DT plus the incomparable Tony Levin on bass and ... you guessed it, Rudess on keyboards)! Wonderful guitar/keyboard interplay.
-- david
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As for Van Halen, I ranked the debut album as the second best rock debut album ever in a post last month on my blog. Simply amazing--Eddie took the tapping mastered by Steve Hackett and took it to the next level.
If you like Dream Theater with the new keyboardist, you'll love the two instrumental albums by Liquid Tension Experiment (Petrucci and Portnoy from DT plus the incomparable Tony Levin on bass and ... you guessed it, Rudess on keyboards)! Wonderful guitar/keyboard interplay.
-- david
