Black Sabbath - Greatest Hits

Everything about this CD is a complete disaster. Every so often a friend of mine will argue the Ozzy solo trumps anything he did with Black Sabbath. I completely disagree, but if this is the only albm Iever heard, my opinion may be different. The mastering on this CD sounds like someone held a tape recorder up to a vinyl recording and pushed record. Even the art work looks as if someone used a home scanner and printed it in low resolution. I didn't realize what the cover was until googling the image to include in this review.

There is tape hiss through out and there is no punch to any of the songs. While I dig each and every song on this compliation, this one has to be removed immediately and replaced with a digitally remastered copy.

One last note, why on Earth would you include Laguna Sunrise on a 10 song Greatest Hits album. It's a good song, but when your comp is missing songs like Children of the Grave, you've made the wrong choice.

This album will not be making the final cut, but it will be replaced with a better collection of Sabbath tunes.

Jay Dee - Ruff Draft

I'm always looking to branch out and explore music I'm unfamiliar with. It's too easy to play it safe all the time and pick up a new classic rock or rockabilly album. There are a few genres of music that I'm always trying to break into; rap, techno and country. I've managed to find a few groups in each genre I like and often use that as a starting point to find additional groups.

A few years ago, I began listening to MF Doom and found the albums extremely interesting. One of the tracks featured J Dilla and after reading several articles about this producer / MC, I decided it was time to try out an album. In my searching, I only came across one album in the stores, The Ruff Draft EP. The album opens with "For my real niggas only." While I don't associate this with only black people would enjoy this album, I do believe that you have to be a true fan of hip hop to appreciate this one.

Jay Dee experiments with many of the beats on this lo-fi offering. While I did enjoy the instrumental disc, I just could not warm up to his work as an MC. Unfortunately, I don't often get the urge to put on instrumental hip hop albums and if I do, I will stick with the MF Doom albums I currently have.

I will try another Jay Dee album, but next time I will hunt out one where he was the producer and not the MC.

The Kinks - Lola Vs. Powerman And The Moneygoround

Like many bands, I discovered the Kinks through a combination of oldies radio and Weird Al. I knew the 60's hits and Yoda...I mean Lola, but that was where my knowledge ended. Cut to many years later when I'm sitting in a hosptial bed recovering from surgery, my dad brings me a bag ful of CDs. One of those was The Kink Kronicles. I enjoyed a few songs but never really gave it much thought. A few years ago I came across the movie The Darjeeling Limited and really fround the soundtrack interesting.
There were several Kinks songs and I was surprised to find out they did not appear on the album I had, but were all from the same album. I bought Lola Vs. and gave it a quick listen and quickly forgot about it. Listening to it again, I can see why the album didn't become an instant classic. The style varies drastically and some of the songs are distinctly English (similar to Bonzo Dog Band).
I do enjoy the majority of this album and the songs from the movie, Strangers, This Time Tomorrow and Powerman still stand out as my favorites. This one definatly remains ion the collection.
Instant classics: those mentioned earlier
Songs that make me glad you can easily skip them on CD: the moneygoround

What Happened!?

Well my project took a horrible turn when I accidentally knocked my external hard drive off the counter and lost my entire digital music collection. I was horrified.

What was I doing trying to consolidate my CD collection and move into the digital world? Everything can be lost so easily. To be honest, its been six months and not once did I want to go back and listen to those CDs I sold back to the record store. Out of sight, out of mind. I guess I scare easy.

So with that being said, I'm looking to get back into the swing of listening to my collection and determining which ones will need to find a new home. Also I learned an important lesson: Always backup your music collection. At one point I had all my music in two locations, my MP3 player and my external hard drive. Two years ago, my MP3 player was stolen out of my car and six months ago I broke my external hard drive. I should not have kept putting off getting another backup.

Looking forward to kicking things off again.