Wah hey! ok... unless you preferred the Pablo Honey sound to The Bends then this album is fucking excellent, guess which I preferred. Um.. ok where can I start.. how about at the beginning... To tell you the truth I think Planet Telex was a better album opening track than this one.. I like some of the later songs on this album better but still no other band comes close to the emotion you can hear in these tracks. Ok, my personal favourites are um.... Exit Music (for a film), Climbing Up The Walls and Let Down. All bloody excellent songs. Radiohead I must say are one of the few commercially popular bands who change their sound so radically from album to album the difference between Pablo Honey and OK computer is only one album but it's completely different, the effect of the computer being obvious on the latter while the former was more guitar-led. Hey.. I think I've babbled on long enough, let's give it a grade.
9/10
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Most of the songs on this album are of the... (what shall I call it..) rock type. Oasis have often been accused of borrowing from other songs and I have to say... Yes.. That is very true, most of the songs make you feel as though you've heard them before however I don't think that this discredits Noel Gallagher's songwriting efforts in any way. This is probably the closest that any of the popular Britpop/rock have come to making an album which Americans would like. Unlike many of their counterparts, Oasis's song aren't hard to enjoy, they rely on you feeling the music rather than understanding it. The songs on this album are plain guitar/drums songs.. typical rock. Live Forever, Slide Away and Married With Children are the main exceptions.. They show the depth of Noel Gallaghers writing.
7/10
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(What's the Story?) Morning Glory (track listing)
Well this CD contains 10 songs and 2 untitled instrumental pieces. This is actually my favourite of the two albums. It is very different from their previous one.. I've seen in other reviews that this is the album where Noel becomes more in touch with his feminine side.... Yeah.. Whatever.. It took me longer to get used to these songs than their older ones but I still after a while I did get used to them. they're are not any better or worse.. Just different. They are smoother than the older ones .. It almost seems as though he has become more mellow than he was before.. more at peace with himself.. Then again it could be just that he's sick of writing the same sort of song. I guess you'd have to ask him to know *smile*
7.5/10
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Ok.. this isn't a CD but I don't feel like reviewing the CD right now... This was a great concert (in Singapore for those who don't know...) not the best I've ever been to but still pretty good... except for the fact that we had to wait about 45 mins in before they came on.. it was also a bit short (about 1hr15) but the wait was worth it.. They looked like they really enjoyed it too.. (Garbage that is) Everyone in the audience was standing from the beginning, quite an achivement as you'll know if you've ever been to other concerts in Singapore, and just when you thought the crowd couldn't get any wilder they played I'm Only Happy When It Rains... and all hell broke loose. It was good fun though.. even though I couldn't really walk the next day :)
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Garbage (track listing)
Amazing CD this! It's not actually mine I suppose, it's my sisters but hey! All the songs are really really good (uh oh.. that sounds stupid... I'll re-do this review later..) What I like the most about this album is that all the songs have some.... class(?) to them. Oh no, what am I writing?! I give up there.. but I will finish this one day. For now.. just look at the number!
8/10
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Well.. I can't quite remember when this concert was.. but I'll look it up for you before long.. This was a good concert, or so I am lead to believe by my friends I was there but I don't know Suede's music very well... In fact before the concert I didn't know it at all. I mean sure I knew the ood song.. it's hard not to.. they play them all the time on the radio *grin* and I liked them so I figured I'd go along... I suppose Suede is good if you don't mind his voice. Personally I don't mind.. but there are people, for example my sister, who can't stand them.. I bought the CD the other day and she won't let me listen to it if she's around. But this is off the track..
Anyway the concert.. The most fun thing about the concert was fooling the guards into letting a friend of mine into the free-standing area. Which is not to say the concert was bad... far from it.. I quite enjoyed the music and the lead singer Brett Anderson does have a certain charisma.. or least he seemed to have a hold over the audience which was admirable. The best part of the actual concert was probably the beginning. They opened with a song off their album "Coming up" called "She". Now this was amazing I don't know how but it just seemed enormous, quite a feat considering it was a song all the guitars and the keyboard, it sounded great!. The rest of the concert.. well I don't want to say it went downhill.. probably if I had know the music better and hadn't lost my friends somewhere in the mad crowd then it would have been more fun.
Ah! The crowd, I haven't mentioned them yet... There was a huge turnout for this concert, far more than I would have expected. Most of the concerts for the popular "alternative" bands have only been about 1/2 to 3/4 full. The Garbage concert I reviewed above was about.. 2/3 to 3/4 full. This one was packed!
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Coming Up
I bought this album after going to the concert because after listening to a load of singles off it I decided it would be worth the money. Well.. I wasn't entirely wrong, it is quite listenable and there are some songs I really like
for example "Saturday Night" which I think is the best on the album is very good, swirling guitar, climatic build up.. very enjoyable! But then there are other songs that seem pretty good at first but then lose their appeal after
a while. Also his voice does begin to grate... not bad though, songs are well written, lyrics make a lot of sense, are socially relevent &c.
Ok, Now it's a little while later and it's starting to sound better again.. so I decided to raise it's rating a bit.. *grin*
Overall I give it:
7/10
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Hey hey! back on the concert scene after an absence due to the lack of decent concerts to go to... Anyway, This concert was really good, much better in fact than I expected, Gwen jumped around the stage, Tony played amazingly well as did all the other band members whose names I have forgotten (Tom and Gabriel were two others I believe...). They played all their hits, well.. not surprising since they have only had one hit album.. *shrug* But they did the show well, they looked natural, like they were having fun. They connected with the audience well, asking us to sing along with them, great fun!
The only thing that really spoiled it was the crowd (here's where I start ranting, you can move on now if you like). You may say I'm only saying this because I had the misfortune of standing next to some complete jerk who couldn't sing without spitting all over me and insisted on sticking his elbow hard into my ribs completely unecessarily (I understand if it's really squashed or something but this concert wasn't as squashed as most I've been to) but this was not the only thing. Ok, there was an opening act, a local band picked by No Doubt themselves which were in fact, in my opinion really good compared to most Singaporean bands I've heard, ok, all their songs sounded somewhat similar but nevertheless they had some talent. I think they were called The Stoned Revivals, though I'm not sure coz they didn't introduce themselves, but hey.. it was their first time playing in front of such a large audience. Fine you may be thinking, but what's this got to do with the crowd. Well.. The crowd were horrible to them.. they actually booed when they came onstage granted they were there to see No Doubt but they could have shown some common courtsey to their fellow man.. given them some support or something, every 30 seconds or so the people around would shout something like "Get off the stage!" or words to that effect, ok.. being fair it may have just the people around me but it really pissed me off and I felt like writing about it here!.
Well I don't really want to leave on such a negative note so.. Yeah! really good concert, not exactly one of the best I've been to though, but maybe I'm just jaded.. I would recommended going and seeing them though if you can!
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Hmm... ok.. just assembling my thoughts about this concert, ok.. This was a really really cool concert :-) I swear! it was really wierd though.. well.. you knew it was going to be wierd from the minute Damon, Graham, Alex and Dave strolled out on stage and started playing "Beetlebum" even before Alex had picked up the bass.. *grin* The music was excellent.. yes.. I really can't complain about this concert.. *smile* the only thing that kind of annoyed me were some people in the audience who obviously only knew "Song 2" yes.. they were very annoying, there were a couple of them behind me who after every song swore at Blur, stuff like "Play Song 2 you f*cking b*stards!" I was like "Shut up you t*ats" then when they did play Song 2 they charged through everyone knocking over people to get to the front...
Hmm.. I'm beginning to think I complain about the audience too much in these reviews.. *shrug* oh well.. what else can I say.. oh.. this concert was not.. um.. how can I say it.. a feast for the eyes (unless of course you fancy the various members of Blur *grin* Alex James forever!!).. ie. no fancy lights, no spectacular effects, nothing of that sort of thing.. also Blur seemed kind of bored but hehe.. I guess that is their image.. :-), On the whole.. Really good live show.. Go See Blur!!
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