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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | DanAbnrml9@aol.com |
| Subject | Random Things |
| Date | Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:11:31 EDT |
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Hey guys, here's a compendium of a bunch of things I want to
mention/ask/talk about:
1) First, congrats to our own Andrea Kremer, who was profiled in this
Sunday's Boston Globe "Your Career" section. She's successfully changed her career
full-time into something music industry related, and certainly seems to love
it. It's somewhat inspiring to me since I'm in my own career crisis (ie.,
I've been in one since finishing college) and am currently unemployed and have
absolutely no idea what to do. I've grown so discouraged in the past few years
that I don't even know what field to go into anymore. I'd be happy with any
job that pays a living wage and is 9-5 and close to home about now.
2) Matthew Sweet's "Living Things", while odd, is actually quite a lovely
record. It doesn't "rock" and there's precious little of his buzz-sawing
power-pop nuggets that graced even his more gentle albums ("In Reverse"). Yeah, the
steel drums are a bit strange, but "Dandelion" seems to capture the sound of
bees buzzing and of being deliriously sun-bleached and heat-stroked better
than anything I've ever heard. This record is really the first one he's done
where there's no obvious single and no attempt to write a big radio-ready pop
song (even "Kimi Ga Suki" had "The Ocean In-Between"!), but it doesn't suffer
because of it.
3) I've noticed that the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" box set is available
in the rewards program for my credit card, and I have enough points for it if
I wish. Now, I realize that asking for BB advice here is going to net me a
lot of "buy the entire catalog, except the last 3!" responses. But here's the
thing... I'm something of a casual fan. I have the two best-ofs that came out
in the mid-90s and that's it. I know that some albums of theirs are much
stronger than others, and pretty much know what those are, but my question is how
good of a job does this compilation do of summing up their career? I saw
that it's missing "Girl Don't Tell Me", which I adore, and that was one major
strike against it, but the fact that it includes a lot of original "Smile"
demos is a mark in its favor. Also, does it cover their 70s material--things like
"Love You" that fans like--well, or no? I see it has "You Need A Mess of
Help To Stand Alone" which is good. Basically I'm just trying to gauge if it's a
good set for someone who doesn't want all the albums or if I should frankly
just try and pick up a few of the proper albums and leave it at that.
I guess that's all for now. Thanks guys!
--Jason
http://www.livejournal.com/users/danabnrml9
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