Nuts For Music

Before I get back on the horse with the music stuff here, I wanted to just let everyone know that this past Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009, an interview of Alice in Chains by Metallica’s James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich aired on radio stations in a lot of the bigger radio markets. Having just purchased this album today (review forthcoming) and being a huge fan of AIC, it was great to hear 2 awesome bands talk about success, failure, and tragedy. If you haven’t heard it yet, I highly recommend listening in. You can find links on Metallica’s site here. Enjoy!

Yep, I’ve been slacking off this year. I haven’t had the time (or the money) to go to many shows this year. Getting laid off will do that to a guy. But lately, with a new job and some income, I’ve been able to go to two shows in the last week as well as get my hands on some new music. So look for some new posts in the coming days about Our Lady Peace at the Webster Theater on 9/18, U2 at Gillette Stadium on 9/22, and the long anticipated new Alice in Chains album, “Black Gives Way to Blue”.

Metallica is getting their own Guitar Hero game. Yep, that’s right. You can finally rock out to your favorite Metallica tunes and then some without really knowing how to play an instrument. Ok, yeah, playing the drums on the game is definitely a workout, but its probably not as hard as actually ripping off 20 songs in 3 hours if your name is Lars Ulrich. Anyway, this is pretty cool if you ask me. All of the Metallica songs I’ve played either on Guitar Hero or Rock Band have been a ton of fun and challenging. I’ll be looking forward to playing this game when I get the chance. I’ve played Guitar Hero I, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III, and Guitar Hero World Tour and all of them are fantastic. I do have to say I like the guitar controller better for Rock Band though. I’m not sure I’ll get it as I’m selling my PS2, but I might look into getting an XBOX 360 and perhaps will get it for that. Anyway, look for the game for coming this Spring!

Into the city I headed with a couple of friends last night to see Kings of Leon at the Orpheum Theater in Boston, MA. The night didn’t start out all that great as I got stuck in traffic for about 2 hours and ended up late. So we missed the opening act, The Wigs. We did get there just in time to see We Are Scientists though, which were really good.

We Are Scientists played some of their more memorable tunes like Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt and It’s A Hit off of With Love and Squalor. What’s more, they had a little comedy bit (if you want to call it that I guess) in between each song, which was different. They were definitely amusing, though a little odd.

Then it was time for Kings of Leon. These guys tried their hardest to rip the roof off the Orpheum. This band can definitely rock it live. They’re one of the few that I’ve seen that sound almost the same live as they do on their albums. A great feat in my opinion. They kept everyone in the theater on their feet for the entire show.

I don’t recall the play list off of the top of my head, but every song was great and they played their top tracks off all of their albums. You should definitely check them out live if you get the chance.

Figures, right after posting my thoughts on Death Magnetic, I read over at Billboard.com that after just 3 days of sales, Metallica’s Death Magnetic has scored them their 5th straight number one album (wait, St. Anger was a #1? Huh.). They were able to sell almost half a million copies in a really short time frame, which just shows you the popularity the band has among its fans.

It’s great to see a rock band getting a #1 album nod in a day where charts are dominated by Pop and R&B albums. Personally, I don’t think a lot of bands that are due great recognition get it these days.

I’ve been MIA lately with my posts, so I thought I’d start things back up again with one of my all time favorite bands, Metallica. The have finally released their 9th studio album, Death Magnetic. The album has been out for almost a week now and has been getting a ton of air time on the local radio stations here in the Boston area.

It’s been over 5 years since their release of the disappointing St. Anger album, thus there has been a lot of hype and excitement surrounding Death Magnetic. A lot of early reviews prior to its release were applauding Metallica for getting back to their roots, ala the era of Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets. I’ve probably listened to the album in its entirety 5 or 6 times so far. I wouldn’t go so far to say its on the level of Puppets or Lightning, but its way stronger than the St. Anger effort. Then again, the album has only been out a week and those others have been with me for 20 years…

The most interesting thing about Metallica to me is they seem to be able to re-invent themselves with every album. The classic albums from the 80’s were arguably their best albums. The Load/ReLoad albums were a new twist for Metallica, having a more “mainstream” sound. Death Magnetic definitely has a more refined sound to it than St. Anger, which sounded really rough. I’d say every album they’ve released has its own personality which makes them utterly unique.

I will say this about Death Magnetic. It definitely sounds like a culmination of all of the Metallica albums to date, rolled into one. In a way it makes it a unique album and an album that definitely has a great sound. You can hear pieces of the old 80’s songs, the 90’s songs, and yes, even a little bit of St. Anger in the tracks on Death Magnetic. I think this makes it an album that will definitely stand on its own as a a great Metallica album in the future. You can definitely say Metallica is back to its true self in Death Magnetic.

That said, its a decent effort that I’ll keep spinning in my iTunes playlists. Favorite track on the disc? Track #3 – Broken, Beat & Scarred

Note: Also check out the review of Death Magnetic over at RollingStone.com. Definitely on point for the most part with my thoughts.

I was lucky enough to hear about The Black Keys playing at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston, MA last night (5/17) from a co-worker a few weeks back. Even luckier, Kyle and I were able to purchase tickets. We were sitting up in one of the box sections on the left side of the stage, right near the speakers. Even though our view of the drummer was blocked by the pulled back curtain above the stage and nearly going deaf during the show, we had a great time. In fact, I think its one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen.

Dan (guitarist and singer) and Pat (drummer) played for about an hour or so cranking out some of the new hits off of their album, Attack and Release, like Psychotic Girl, Remember When, and I Got Mine. Kyle and I both thought that Dan was probably one of the best guitarists we’ve ever seen play. This guy could just fly with his fingers and get the entire building rocking out. Even though these guys are a two man band, they rock like bands with twice as many members. Though, I can imagine they get really tired since nobody really takes solos to give other band members breaks.

I don’t have an entire set list, but they played about 15 songs the entire night. Some I didn’t know since I don’t have all of their albums (something I’ll be remedying shortly). They’re headed out to Europe for a while (this was their last show in the States), but next time they’re back in the States in our area, I’ll definitely be buying tickets to see them play. Great show!

The Offspring‘s Smash album was one of the first CDs I got my hands onto in high school. I listed the crap out of it for sure, much to the dismay of my parents who classified my choice in music at the time as “noise”. I’m excited though since they have a new studio album, “Rise and Fall, Rage And Grace”, on the way later on this spring (June 17th to be precise). I will definitely be looking forward to this upcoming release.

Like my last post on Trent Reznor releasing his latest album on his web site, The Offspring have released the first single off of their new album on their web site for free download. All you have to do is give them your email address, country, and zip code (if you’re in the U.S.) and you’ll get access to download a high quality (almost 11MB mp3 file!), non-DRM copy of the song.

Like all of The Offspring’s popular songs its catchy and fast paced. The opening riff (which they mix into the song later on) is slower and more melodic than I’ve heard in some of their other songs, but they quickly get into a repetitive crunchy guitar riff which, if you ask me, kicks ass. These guys honestly cease to amaze me because you dont’ hear about them being a great rock band like Metallica, Megadeth, Godsmack, etc. But the consistently put out great effort after great effort. I can’t wait to get my hands on the entire album when it comes out on the 17th of June.

So Nine Inch Nails has released another album on their web site, this time its a freebie. I downloaded it and gave it a spin on iTunes this morning. I didn’t pay it a whole lot of attention because I was busy at work, however, it didn’t blow me away. There were a couple ok songs, but nothing spectacular. I’ll have to give it another spin tomorrow and maybe update my thoughts here, but for now I’m giving it a thumbs down. I definitely applaud Trent Reznor for going to this method of distributing music, even if he charged for it. In my opinion, its great for the music industry. However, I’d hope that the quality of the albums is just as good as if you were doing a typical release through a typical record label. I’m not sure this is up to that level, but I’ll give it a few more spins before completely making my mind up.

I heard this weekend that Metallica‘s Lars Ulrich was quoted in a Rolling Stone article as saying that the band would consider all options for releasing material on the Internet for their next album. Their latest studio album, slated for release sometime this year, is their last which they are under contract for with Warner Bros. music. Apparently after seeing what Radiohead and Trent Reznor have accomplished by releasing their albums online has done, Metallica is intrigued about doing the same sometime down the line. This is rather interesting after their battle with now defunct free music sharing service, Napster back in 2000. What I find interesting here is that really nothing has changed since then other than more people are downloading music online (both legal and illegal) instead of buying CDs in stores. So I wonder what has changed their minds? Maybe the fact that they can’t control their music being downloaded for free so they might as well offer it at a lower price. Like I’ve always said, I find paying $5 for an album fair. $10 and up is a stretch. So, if they do decide to distribute music in this way, I’ll be first in line to pay (though I’d likely buy the CD at the store if they didn’t).