I had a very strange day, with Mr. Murphy of the Law peering over my shoulder for most of it, and I'd intended to post about that (seeing as though if my connection is still being a major bitch, I can type offline, nyah nyah), but then I got home and remembered that I had to do my first proper, uninterrupted, total absorption listen of Cradlesong. The post title kind of encapsulates how I feel about it, by extrapolating the self-induced food coma of a Christmas or similar dinner. You might have had some of those vegetables that you're not always that keen on, but when all is said and done, you sit back and think, "Damn, that was good." :D

( Slightly more specific babble under here.Collapse )

Ah... that *was* going to be short. Ha. Also, this was by far the oddest first listening experience I've ever had, considering that my head resident was also hearing it for the first time, even though it's supposed to be his album, so there was a double layer thing going on and it was, well, weird.

I ducked into HMV at five to six on Friday night - all but one of the glass doors were fastened shut and the remaining one was manned so I said, "You're closing now, right?" and he said, "Five minutes, but you've got time if you know what you want." I pointed at the Green Day display with my umbrella and we both laughed, then I went and bought my CD. I did spring for the special edition, despite the mark-up at HMV being horrendous compared to the price at the UK GD site, but I'd already decided not to pre-order because I have problems getting mail here sometimes and my normal method of routing everything I rilly rilly need to get to Jade's is a bit useless when wanting to get my hands on a CD right away!

( Some thoughts on the album under here.Collapse )

Not being able to drag myself out of bed *quite* on time got me to Ticketmaster at almost 9:30 this morning, but I'm pleased with my Rob Thomas tix: second section floors, 1st row. First section would have been better, of course, but only if they were near the front. Front row *second* section is better than the back of 1st if only b/c it means I can move around a bit more to peer around normal-sizedtall people. :D And there won't be Fangirly Boy and his gf PDA-ing like bunnies right in front of me, either. Cuz dear GOD but that was annoying! Anyway, they're fairly analogous to the seat I had for Sarah McLachlan except on the left instead of the right, and I could see her very well indeed, so I'm happy. :)

It was 12°C/54°F and mistily sunny today. (I give up understanding anything about weather at this point. Seriously, dude. Mother Nature is using.) I haven't been able to drive out to Peggy's Cove for months now so I went today, and I was wishing I'd brought the stanza outline for the sestina because if there's ever a place on earth where I could write that, it would be there. I still want to see if I can do something with the poem I wrote there *last* February - I can't believe that was a YEAR ago, where the hell did 2005 GO?! - b/c I think it's probably the best one I've ever written. (It's not and won't be on language_play for that reason; I might post it here locked up tight if anyone wants to see/critique it.) Other than, of course, the one I wrote for my former friend's wedding that I don't have a fucking copy of, and I gave up on her ever sending me one after asking her for like four years. *sigh* I should write her parents, lol. Her mom and I used to hang out some too; I bet she would get a copy to me.

The drive finally gave me a chance to give a proper listen to the In-Flight Safety CD I got at their show a couple of weeks ago, and the verdict is that it's, well, mediocre. They're better live; have a lot more energy. I still enjoy the fluid way the singer moves back and forth between scratchy/deep and smooth falsetto, though. It sounds like a terrible thing to say, but it will make fantastic background music for when I want to have music on, but not have to pay attention to it at all. Which is a valid enough reason to have it, especially since it falls into more neutral territory than the angstier nature of most of the background music I already have. Like The Perishers' Let There Be Morning, which this is somewhat reminiscent of stylistically - actually, it kind of makes me think of a cross between The Perishers and Coldplay. So some of you may love it to pieces, which is why I'm sharing a couple of songs. :)

Letting Go
Coast Is Clear


Also, I promised beelzezuk a bit ago to upload Me First and the Gimme Gimmes's male vocalist punk cover of Natural Woman. Yup, it is the song you're thinking of. :D Absofuckinglutely priceless.

Back to writing, which is what I'm going to actually do now. I wonder if I should be concerned that I didn't misspell "strike" as "stroke" like twelve times for this post? LOL. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that some of the things swirling in my head have girls in them for a change. :-)

I picked up the new Audioslave CD this morning and listened to a couple revolutions of it through the day.  It's good.  There are of course hints of the two previous incarnations of the separate band members but they've definitely formed into a cohesive whole.  The song Dandelion kind of edges more into a pop sound, with an "oh" chorus and all, and I have to say that it sounds a bit strange in Chris Cornell's gravelled voice but I like it.  The contrast works.  Most of the rest of the CD is heavier/faster, which gives it an overall slight impression of sameness.  You do need to listen to the songs to clarify what song you're currently listening to, especially as a new listener who's just hearing them.  I think my other favourite - aside from the already-released single Be Yourself, which I love - will be Drown Me Slowly.  The chorus has this addictive glide to it, like slipping down a waterslide, that works really well with the lyrics.  And Man or Animal, which is, as one might guess from the song title, just plain sexy.

Lyrically, there is a strong redemption kind of theme running through the album; Be Yourself is actually indicative of the sort of messages contained here.  There are exceptions, of course, but taken as a whole I found it surprisingly positive and hopeful.  Which is a nice change from all the emo angst, much as I love a lot of that.  I hesitate to make comparisons because no one ever seems to figure out wtf I mean when I do that, lol, but it's definitely safe to say that if you've enjoyed Audioslave's previous album and you like the current single Be Yourself, you won't be disappointed by Out of Exile.  My one real criticism is that there are a couple of places where Tom Morello, the lead guitarist, goes nuts in a riff and it doesn't entirely fit the song.  A couple of his manic sessions *do* fit in very well, but there are ones that seem very out of place also, and I wish that the producer or other band members had told him to rein it in some.

Interesting things from the credits page of the liner notes: just above the list of who everyone is and what they play, it says, "All sounds made by Guitar, Bass, Drums and Vocals."  I don't think I've ever seen that before, LOL.  It seems rather like a disclaimer, like they're saying, "We didn't use tambourines or any weird shit, just rock instruments."  Hee.  The other thing is, after the paragraph where each band member thanks whomever they wish, there's a space and then another paragraph consisting of one sentence: Audioslave thanks YOU.  Classy. :-)

I haven't looked at anyone else's comments b/c I wanted to get my own thoughts out uncoloured - although I did check to make sure Anne got her tickets, and she did!  WOOHOO!!! :D  Hopefully that's fantastic enough that she won't want to kill me if I did wake her up this morning when her cell phone rang...I forgot that it would be so early on the west coast, lol. *blush*

Anyway, Matt Serletic is a genius.  The sound quality of the CD is phenomenal.  We've been reading everywhere about the slickness of the production, and while that's true, I found that it wasn't done in a way that detracted from the songs at all.  It's very polished but not over-produced; by that, I mean that the songs definitely would stand up to being played live without access to all the fancy playthings.  Which is fantastic, obviously!  I have favourites, of course, but honestly I like the whole thing.  Even Lonely No More, lol.  I was so horrified when Anne first played it for me, and I've never actually heard it on the radio, so I've really only listened to the straight/album version a couple of times, from a poor recording.  It's never going to be my favourite, lol, but I discovered that I can, in fact, play it, listen to it, and enjoy it.  And it has some wonderful lyrics - always the way to my heart. ;-)

It's been a completely, completely obsessive day.  I got up early so I could go by the mall to get the CD, after having a mild panic attack last night that Canada would be one of the "staggered release" countries and I wouldn't be able to buy it yet.  Fortunately, that was a groundless fear.  I went in and there was the rack like right at the front of the store, and the clerk laughed and said that I didn't seem to have any problem noticing where to find it.  Apparently some guy came in earlier looking for it, and instead of seeing what was right in front of his face, or checking under "T" in the rock/pop section, he actually asked, lol.  Hello!  Weirdly, it is not sold as a DualDisc here.  You can buy just the CD, or you can buy a slim double case with one CD and one DVD.  The extra packaging jacks up the price, of course, and Rob-with-DVD can be yours for the lovely price of $20.99 CDN.  Yeesh.  That was annoying.

But it was the only annoying point of the day, lol.  Jeff was laughing at me all day b/c I was higher than a kite.  She tried to tell me several times that it was our break time, and finally gave up and emailed me - from two desks down, LOL.  I noticed the new mail alert; didn't hear a damn thing before that.  Subject of the email?  Single line: Stop bopping to Rob so we can go get your tea!  Hee.  There was indeed much boppage.  It's a very infectious, catchy CD, which is part of why it's firmly planted in the pop genre, unlike MB20 who straddles genres somewhat.

I had some amusing moments listening to it.  About the 4th or 5th revolution, I got to a horn part of Something to Be, and heard Linzee (despite never having actually heard her live) say, "Horns!  Horns in weird places!"  It made me laugh.  I'm sure everyone thought I was a lunatic today, lol.  I giggled over random thoughts like that, and tried not to cry at some of the other songs.  Oh, I had a baaaaad moment with that when I had a better handle on the lyrics for Now Comes the Night.  I thought, oh this song would so perfectly suit the ending of The Notebook.  It was all I could do not to burst into tears at the combination!!!  I settled for crying through that section of the DVD documentary, safe at home. :D  But I think that My My My is going to remain my absolute favourite.  It's the one I immediately fell for when I listened to the samples that one night.

The DVD is nice, but there's really not a whole lot to it.  The 4-part documentary is really the only reason to get it, and that's maybe an hour all told?  The photo gallery is nice enough, but I'm sure they can be seen online, and the Sidewalk Angels thing is just a static graphic ad with A New York Christmas playing.  Which is lovely, and I love that song, but it's not very useful if you wanted to, say, compile a Christmas CD, now is it?  But it was nice to see his old, shaggy hair in some of the doc *sniff*.  LOL.  I think the best part was watching him run around with his dog. :-)  So cute!


On to less-specific but related thoughts...
While coming back from that trip to get tea, I said something to Jeff that really kind of hit me with a little epiphany.  It's been sort of percolating in the back of my head for the last couple of weeks, peeking into the light via discussions with Anne and Angel, but I told Jeff that I thought that I hadn't been this dizzy happy since high school.  And the next thing that popped out of my mouth was that, she is the first friend I've made SINCE high school who has gotten to know me as a happy person.  As ME, how I really am.  That was just so revelatory to me.  I've said recently that I truly haven't been happy like I am now since I got seriously involved with A, and that was around the beginning of my last year of high school.  So it's been years, literally, since I bubbled like a tea kettle.

I'm enjoying the hell out of it.