Lush with supportive strings, lilting vocals and a warm timbre that evokes the imagery describes the lyrics, Christina Martin’s distinctive voice doesn’t so much sing a song as it does paint a picture. The title track, Two Hearts, starts with a solo guitar that leads into her vocals, and later followed by a layer of strings. The instrumentation stays simple through the whole album, letting her voice take center stage. The general timbre of the album feels like the songs make for a perfect soundtrack to a TV drama. I mean this as a great compliment. While I was listening, I could imagine it playing over some scenes from shows like Gilmore Girls, Alias, or even Smallville. The album is very… evocative, almost cinematic in its presentation.

Christina Martin’s album has flavors of folk mixed in with just enough soft rock and country to deserve being on loop while kicking it back at home, or going for a lazy drive. While it isn’t exactly my typical daily listening genre, her album falls into that rare overlap of adult alternative and singer-songwriter that is honest in its poppishness, earnest in its lyrics, unpretentious in its country leanings.

Highlights: I like the first track, Two Hearts, and the last, China Box. You Come Home is pretty cool but its lead-out about a gift that had “better be nice and big” is vulnerable to gutter minds like myself and its unintentional genital humor. Besides that, it’s recommended listening, and way better than the bigger names in the adult alternative genre.

Christina Martin will be playing at Tealove Teavolve in Baltimore, MD on Monday, April 20th. She is also on Facebook. I received a free review copy of this album.

From a co-worker, an MTV ad that traces the chain of Madonna’s shagging, through the years. It’s a great ad; though after careful study, the chain doesn’t include consecutive dudes. For a gay icon, it’s interesting to see that her web of trysts doesn’t include one.

I am, however, very proud to praise Motion City Soundtrack for their new album, Even If It Kills Me, which I got a hold of today.

I listened to the whole album this morning and while there isn’t as much “catch” as Commit This To Memory, it holds its own as an album. The same lyrical artistry that had me hooked since their first album is ever-present in songs such as Calling All Cops and I Fell In Love Without You.

Classified as “pop punk” by most, it avoids the pitfalls of some bands that have been categorized as such, including being overly angstsy,  or frivolous. No, MCS lays on the pop quite unapologetically and pulls in the punk as an ever-present glow.

(Gosh, does that paragraph make this sound like a “music review” now?)

All together, a great album to get, and listen to from end to end.

Here’s a quick review of the new Yellowcard album that came out yesterday: Ocean Avenue, all grown up. In one listening-through, this has become my favorite Yellowcard album among the three major ones released.

I read on a blog somewhere about how back-asswards the Philippines (and most of third-world Asia) is because the long-disbanded Swedish pop band, Abba, remains popular fare in the region. I won’t deny, I won’t tell a lie: I grew up inundated with their songs on the radio and on tape.

I won’t be shy about it either: I like their stuff. It’s not the kind of thing I’d play all day at work, but a little bit of Knowing Me, Knowing You never killed anyone. So, when I stumbled upon this video care of a friend, I couldn’t help but laugh my socks off and enjoy the moment.

It’s a corny self-parody, but it’s good to know that one of the biggest names in Euro-pop can make fun of themselves.

Eminem samples Martika’s “Toy Soldiers” for this one song. Despite the “chipmunk” effect due to speeding it up, it wasn’t that bad, and not as overused as the “Thank You” sample in that other song of his. Deciphering what he rapped about is another matter altogether. But that’s just me…

Is it just me or is the Elton John song, Rocketman, about being a closet case?

I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I’m a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

By the way this past weekend I got introduced to Family Guy and Stewie Griffin’s performance of the song is, well… Awesome.

I just got a hold of two Guster albums, Keep It Together and Lost And Gone Forever, from a friend. I’ve heard of the band before but never got around to listening to anything they’ve done until last night. Theirs is a sound whose genre I couldn’t place, though they strike me as a less polished Maroon 5 precursor.

It’s pop music, the way pop used to be rock, and the way rock used to be before the elitists got to it. Guster, Maroon 5 (yes, that band that rocks despite having four or five tracks on regular rotation on lite rock stations) and Yellowcard, these bands are kickass rock. I don’t care if they’re popular. The stuff is more honest than cookiecutter singing groups and is more earnest than pretentious, elitist “indie” types that populate the indie circuit.

That’s one other thing I dont’ understand about indie freaks. The greatest merit a band has for them to admire is that the band they like isn’t liked by other people. Just how freaking selfish can these folks get? “I like this band because not too many people like it.” I’ve complained about this elitist attitude before. They abandon bands that get popular even if all the band did was to release the same indie compilation under the major label. That’s what being a poseur is all about. Nothing punk rock or indie about that kind of thinking at all.

I’ll leave it to this demotivator to say it best: “Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.”

Making a list and keeping it twice. Michele Catalano has now listed 400 of her favorite rock songs of all time, as a response to Rolling Stone Magazine’s list. I’m not even going to attempt mine, but Lileks’ take on the latter list is spot on:

Anyway – “Like A Rolling Stone” is a rock song in the same sense that “Tommy” is an opera. A rock song rocks, and this is one instance where a tautology comes in handy. To name that tune a rock song, let alone the best, shows how much people have invested in the era, and why: because the music meant something, man. It was heavy, it was deep. Whatever. I remember when it came on the jukebox at the Valli, the air just left the room: oh great, six minutes of ORGAN music and nasally accusations. How did it feel? It felt boring, Bob.

I’m not big on genre snobs, especially the type who have some sort of litmus test for bands before they declare with such authority: “Hey, that band/song isn’t really [insert genre here].” Lileks’ definition of rock, though, is probably the biggest tent pitched in the name of rock since VH-1 took the initiative.

One particular device used by some bands has grown on me lately: the use of classical orchestrations as support for their music. Yellowcard’s single classically-trained violinist is just the tip of the iceberg. I recall the intro of Smashing Pumpkins’ Tonight, Tonight. The interludes of The All-American Rejects‘ The Last Song and especially Too Far Gone (call ‘em cheats all you want for their use of a drum machine). There’s the intro of Guns N’ Roses’ November Rain. And of course, should I leave out Mr. Meat Loaf?

Anyone else know of any good songs that use orchestral accompaniments? Who cares if their use cross the bands over from Rock to Pop, with me, I like what sounds good to me.

Dowingba seems to be on a Star-Spangled Banner roll; my favorite version was sung by Faith Hill in Superbowl 24 (2000). It’ll be up only until I go to bed later, so get it while it’s good.

Faith Hill – Star Spangled Banner (2.01 MB) (Posted as a zip to prevent streaming.)

UPDATE: Tough luck for all who’ve missed it.

The milk’s gone bad.

The man behind some really, really great soundtracks (think Star Trek: Voyager opening credits and Ave Satani from The Omen) is dead. The only other film composer on my deathwatch is Morricone, but by the looks of things, he’s not going anywhere. He’s got work to do: particularly, Leningrad, which was Sergio Leone’s dream project before he died.

I finished watching the VH-1 I Love the 90s marathon yesterday, and one thing that particular retrospective was dripping with was cynicism. Dean Esmay has posted a huge list of what he liked about the 90s. I’ll add this much: it is really a lot of fun growing up shifting one’s musical tastes from elevator-ballads, to hair metal, to grunge, and finally to pop, coming full circle and ditching any semblance of snobbery that I have towards the auditory medium.

Michelle Malkin:

The presumption that children — and particularly inner-city children — can only be stimulated by the contemporary and familiar smacks of lazy elitism and latent racism. These educators, and I use that term as loosely as gangster rappers wear their pants, are clearly more interested in appearing cool than in inculcating a refined literary sense in students. Their aim is not enlightenment but dumbed-down ghetto entertainment. So that teachers and pupils can “relate” and be “down with that.” So they can “keep it real.” You know what I’m sayin’?

The schoolhouse rap peddlers disingenuously argue that Shakur’s puerile scribblings serve as useful tools to engage children in reading. Reading? Deciphering is more like it. Shakur’s volume, ”The Rose That Grew From Concrete,” looks more like a collection of cell phone text messages, teenage hieroglyphics and Backstreet Boys album titles than a collection of poems.

[...] Proclaiming his love “4 Jada,” Shakur pays gallant literary tribute to the object of his desire: “u bring me 2 climax without sex.”

Lord Byron, he wasn’t.

— Michelle Malkin in Townhall: 2 lazy 2 teach

Our tax dollars at work.

UPDATE: Baby say yeah… wait. Ja Rule sang that. Whatever. Miss Malkin is having fun.

Imagine The Corrs boobless and without the Irish flair, and you get the only punk-revival band that gets the 12-hour-album-loop treatment on the OFJ Media Player: Yellowcard.

I suppose the “self-annointed music cognoscenti” (long story here) would scathe at my choice of listening material; at least I’m having fun, and I do some badass web design while working to their music. Ark II was done in a few hours while listening to their music nonstop. I should send these guys a note.

Now, I wonder what’s in Jacksonville that breeds good bands.