RPS

So, BuddyAwesome wanted me to poll the populous of EWB and see whether or not we love KISS. As he posted, they are expecting a new album, so KISS fanatics are probably excited. I'll be honest and say that I own Alive and really don't get the hype outside of KISS (except they were great at marketing themselves and put out an amazing live show). For that reason, I'm giving them a 4.

NIN gets a 9 from me. I'm not the biggest fan of his music always, but the guy is overflowing with ideas. He is this generations visionary, innovating and constantly reinventing not only his music, but the music business itself. I think that his music is an aquired taste, but he does manage to balance some pop elements into his music which makes it all the more interesting. I voted With Teeth their best.

NBT, great idea to post this here. I love this list, because it does go with some of the obvious (looking at you Beatles), but it also does go for some less conventional and overlooked protest songs (Two Tribes, Respect). It doesn't seem to discriminate against any genre, and that's why I fucking love this list. You posting the Youtube links makes it worth it... I never was a fan of !!! until I heard that song.

NBT, great idea to post this here. I love this list, because it does go with some of the obvious (looking at you Beatles), but it also does go for some less conventional and overlooked protest songs (Two Tribes, Respect). It doesn't seem to discriminate against any genre, and that's why I fucking love this list. You posting the Youtube links makes it worth it... I never was a fan of !!! until I heard that song.

Get On Your Boots is perhaps the most god awful song released this year. How anyone could think that it was good is beyond me. I know I included it in the poll (mainly because it has charted so high), but it really is like listening to someone scratching a chalk board.

For those wondering, I tried to collect the U2 singles list out of how well they did on the Billboard Charts. Sunday Bloody Sunday only made it to 53.

So U2 released their latest album quite a while back ago, so I figured they'd be a logical band to sit back and reflect. I left off October and The Unforgettable Fire because they were the least selling ones and in my opinion haven't heard a lot of people being gigantic fans, whereas more risky albums like Pop have developed a cult following. I tried my best to objectively collect the best U2 singles, and I think I did a good job although Joshua Tree is overrepresented, but all three singles went #1, so... They are described as the biggest band in the world and one of the best band of the eighties. Me personally, I think that outside of Pop and Joshua Tree, they haven't done anything that great. Pop is a great experiment and I actually loved it. Although I can understand why it would alienate, I think it was a great artistic risk they made and it paid off. Joshua Tree is just an amazing album from first to last and it's place in music history cannot be understated.

The new Yeah Yeah Yeahs has leaked onto the internet and since their new release coming up at the end of the month and since they are quite well liked by the indie crowd, I figured they were the perfect band to do next. Yeah Yeah Yeahs are one of those bands that released one good album - Fever to Tell - and than released complete and utter crap. I haven't liked any of their EPS or LPS. Show Me Your Bones was dull, boring and lacked anything that made Fever to Tell special. Their new album follows in the same steps. It just doesn't capture the beauty that their first album really was. On the singles front - Maps was overplayed and really wasn't that good. Gold Lion is the same story. Date with the Night on the other hand is an apt title. Dirty, sexy and aggressive, the single was everything the Yeah Yeah Yeah's did in a nut shell. They could rock, they could howl, they were loud. Karen O's vocals on Date with the Night are off the charts on how awesome they are.

Here is the thing about the Misfits. I get how they were influencial, they had great personalities, a great fashion sense, the whole thing. I just think they are complete and utter crap. I don't get how anyone would want to listen to the music. And I use to be a diehard punk fan. I just never got the love and admiration for the Misfits.

Hahaha. Oh I get it... a few years ago he was up on child molestation charges. It's a shame we haven't heard anything about that since. For the record, I'm incredibly jealous that he is playing in London and not somewhere I can access easier. Who knows if the guy will be in a state to do his old songs justice, but the guy is a freaking legend and it's good to see him now before he worsens.

Much like the questions on Kelly Clarkson, I'll put up Kanye West for this week and put two new artists up next week. Kanye recently did VH1 Storytellers, has been hyping up 808's and Heartbreaks as his best record, and has often been eclipsed by his larger than life persona. He is really a love or hate type guy (I personally love him). Kanye deserves all the praise he gets, in my view. The guy has released 4 amazing albums and they each got better and better. College Dropout was great, but in my view didn't separate himself from his competition. With Late Registration, the guy began to play with different sounds and really set himself apart. On Graduation, Kanye blew the competition away and basically showed why he is the most important man in hip-hop and arguably, in pop music. 808 and Heartbreak, his most divisive record, Kanye West recorded 11 songs of utter brilliance (the free style at the end is atrocious). Love him or hate him, 808 and Heartbreak was a risky move both in terms of sound and audience. In my opinion, it paid off and really shaped who he wants to be as a performer - a pop star who makes art. In terms of singles, I could only put 10 so I put his highest charting singles. In my view, they are all good. Often times, as well, Kanye is the type of guy who really shines on non-singles (Hey Mama, Everything I Am). However, the best single he has is All Falls Down. Kanye isn't rapping about guns and hoes; he raps about vanity, materialism, and typical Kanye posturing. The perfect introduction for who Kanye is. The Lauryn Hill sample is perfect for the song and perhaps the best use of a sample by Kanye. Just great.

So I thought we'd do something similar to what's being done in the Movies. Every week or so do another band, get people to rate them out of 10, best album, best single, and so forth. Since Kelly Clarkson released a new album this week, I figured she'd be a great place to start. Kelly Clarkson won American Idol, and for most bands, that'd be a strike against them. But there is something unique about Clarkson, I think. She has a strong voice, she is very marketable and she has a back bone (ask Clive Davis). She released My December and it got of tanked a bit, but it was this album that really made me take notice. She was basically standing her ground and telling her record label (run by a bunch of men) that she wasn't going to do whatever they told her. Clarkson stood her ground and released a damn great album - My December, while it lacks the pop nature of Breakaway, is a great album. From top to bottom, not a single song is bad or boring. So Clarkson... love her? Hate her? Indifferent to her? What do you think?

Best song to get over a girl. Period. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyGqtNnH2Kk

I have a similar question for PunkRockPete. I always have and will always love punk. I love everything from the Clash to the Dead Kennedys to Limp Wrist to Black Flag. It was my first true love. My tastes have just branched out since. When I first created the account, I loved punk. Before 1999 - Pop I went through whatever was popular. Didn't really have any definitive tastes. 2000-2003 - Punk I was heavy into pop-punk. I heard Blink-182 and fell in love and didn't turn back. Green Day, Blink 182, Rancid, The Hives, Descendents, the Ramones, New Found Glory, Fenix TX, Saves the Day all that stuff. By the end, however, I was a huge fan of more classic punk bands. DK, Clash, Refused, Black Flag, were probably my favorite, but I loved anything loud, aggressive and completely out of control. I also loved the odd weird band, such as The White Stripes or Outkast. 2003-2005 - Indie/Punk This was my indie and punk phase. I had pretty much ditched the poppy punk in favour of the classics bands - by this point I was done with Blink 182 and purely listening to the Clash, Bikini Kill, the Ramones, Refused, The Buzzcocks, etc. . In terms of indie, I was in love with Broken Social Scene, the Arcade Fire, Elliott Smith, The Hidden Cameras, Le Tigre, Bloc Party and others, but those were the major ones. 2004-2006 - Random I would classify these as my uncertain years; it was just a weird time period. I pretty much had ditched punk by this point. I was huge into Kanye West, Blur, Final Fantasy, M.I.A., The Gossip, Patrick Wolf, Justin Timberlake, Bloc Party, My Chemical Romance, etc. It was just a free-for-all. 2006-Present - Electronica & Pop. Now I've seemed to move almost completely into electronica. I listen to the odd indie artists like Antony and the Johnsons or Vampire Weekend, but for the most part my playlists consist of Portishead, Hercules and Love Affair, Daft Punk, Justice, M.I.A., the Chemical Brothers, Lo-Fi-Fnk, Moby, Klaxons, Girl Talk, Pet Shop Boys, Tiga, the Prodigy, Madonna, Scissor Sisters, Basement Jaxx, Cut Copy, Peaches, Junior Boys, etc. I also have pretty much just given into pop music and all it has to offer. My top 10 overall artists listen to on last.fm pretty much echo this sort of trend - Blur, M.I.A., Final Fantasy, Justice, Antony and the Johnsons, Bloc Party, The Format, Elliott Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Justin Timberlake. A weird mix of indie, pop and electronica.

Rating: 9 Length: Just right. Recommendation: Buy. Exactely after I saw this movie, I was driving somewhere in a car with a group of people. We were talking about something meaningless and at one point a girl in the car turned to me and said "how can you sit there and say that after we just saw what those two children grew up in?" I felt this was perhaps the complete opposite reaction the movie was trying to inspire. Boyle purposefully didn't want us to pity the boys, those who are poor or India. Boyle simply wanted to give us a look at a country that is emerging in the global community. Boyle didn't want us to sit back and say "oh, those people in India. How poor and awful a life they live." Boyle wasn't sending out a PSA and shoving it down our throats (looking at you Brokeback Mountain and Crash). I thought that knee-jerk reaction of "how could they live in that world?" was going against the entire idea of the movie. Maybe it was just me, I just felt like there was something more substantive than "oh pity these impoverished people" but I felt that a lot of people just echoed that reaction.

Where The Streets Have No Names (U2), Somewhere (West Side Story), Love To Love You Baby (Donna Summer), and It's Alright are cover versions as well. I can't remember where It's Alright is from... but it's a cover.

I think it's safe to say that the Pet Shop Boys are pretty amazing at covering songs. I don't think I've heard a bad cover by them.

Pet Shop Boys - "Go West" - A perfect cover. Pet Shop Boys cover the equally gay Village People and turn their disco madness into synth-pop deliciousness. M.I.A. - "Save Ur Soul" - M.I.A. covering Tom Waits. M.I.A. holds her own and actually makes it her own song. Eclipses the original, in my opinion.

That's not my debate. I'm not complaining about foreign films, I'm slightly moaning because the awards are same every year, usually overrated movies, this year more so than ever. I don't want to go on about how much I detest Slumdog Millionaire because it's simply my opinion, but it's honestly things like this that make me not care for these awards one bit. Fucking hell, East is East was twice the movie Slumdog was, yet that didn't start winning Oscars. I just don't get why films like this are so overrated nowadays. East is East is a completely different movie from Slumdog Millionaire and you can't really compare the two at all. The movies orignate from two separate countries as well - Pakistan and India. East is East was a good movie, but not Oscar-worthy movie.

And on top of that, I'd say that the majority of the movie was in English, not Hindi. The first bit of the movie when they are young children is Hindi, but for 75% of the movie it's English. EDIT: Not to mention that Danny Boyle is British, the studio and disturbition behind it were British and American and the producer is British. Not really a foreign film at all.

I just thought I'd point this out... because you CLEARLY have no idea what you are talking about. Firstly, only seven Oscar performances have involved a gay or lesbian character. Milk (Penn), Capote (Hoffman), Monster (Theron), The Hours (Kidman), Boys Don't Cry (Swank), Phildephia (Hanks), Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Hurt). So out of 81 ceremonies in which FOUR acting awards are handed out, seven of those performances involved a gay or lesbian. And really, if you can humor me and tell me why none of those fine actors didn't deserve the Oscar, I'd love to here it. Because I honestly can't think why any of these actors didn't deserve their nomination, because they are all fantastic films. Next, Jew/Nazi. While a lot of high profile Holocaust films have gotten lots of critical acclaim (many of which deserved it), there have been plenty of other films that didn't do as well. For every Sophie's Choice, The Reader and Schindler's List there are lots of films that don't get nominated or win. And your dig at foreign films is so funny. Foreign films RARELY dominate the Oscars. In fact, the opposite is true. Foreign films (ESPECIALLY foreign language films) don't get enough recongition from the Academy. Too even try to argue the contrary is untrue and completely ridiclous. Just looking at most of the major awards, the movies that win are Hollywood films starring Hollywood actors. Slumdog is probably one of the few movies in recent memory that got nominated and won the Academy Award that was even remotely foreign in content and actors. Most of the films that win Best Picture have medium sized budget, established Hollywood actors and well-known directors.

M.I.A. - Kala It seems like everytime I revisit the album, it's a new favorite. At first I thought there was five strong songs on the album. Now, every song has probably been my favorite at one point or another. Even my least favorite album at one point - 20 Dollar - has grown on me and I think it's amazing (especially when played live, because god dammit the bass is CRAZY loud on that song). I'd say it took me about a full calender year before I sat back and said "best album of the last decade" and really soaked it all in. It's immense.

May I ask why? Punk music just isn't my cup of tea anymore really. I still enjoy enjoy it, and many of the bands listed above I do listen to occassionally, I just don't listen to punk that often. I've been four times in the past and each year was amazing, just the last few years the line-up's have sucked really badly. I mean, last year I couldn't even find three good bands I'd want to see.

Although I have no desire to go to the Warped Tour ever again, this line-up is suprisingly decent. A lot of repeat bands - Bad Religion, NOFX, Anti-Flag - mixed in with some half decent bands like Alexisonfire, Less than Jake, Big D and the Kids Table & Bouncing Souls. I haven't seen that many good to decent acts in along time on WT.

Yeah, that's the way I've always seen it spelt by myself and others. I know that there dozens of way to do it - Blink182, Blink 182, Blink-182, etc. but who really cares... EDIT: And Benji, he was asking why I was putting it after the 182, not before.