It’s the last week of 2010 and good riddance, musically speaking. There just wasn’t a lot of really worthwhile new music out this year. There was exactly ONE album that kicked my ass this year. That would be Macy Gray as The Sellout. That was a thing of beauty. If you don’t have it, you should just go ahead and spend the money. You NEED “There Is Beauty in the World” in your life.
Also, you really need the long at last banjo album from Steve Martin, The Crow: New Songs for Five String Banjo. Now there’s someone what can play their instrument – and it has two of the best songs of the year, “Late for School” and “Daddy Played the Banjo.”
Beyond that, I’ll give some props out for Ben Folds Lonely Avenue. A lot of that is for “Levi Johnston’s Blues,” but there’s definitely some points for “Picture Window” and a couple of others.
See you next year.
Here’s the list of last week of the year straggling CD album releases:
Andrew Gold All This & Heaven Too
Ais
Pop/Rock
Dianne Reeves New Morning
EMI
Vocal
Flame Captured
Religious
Formel 1 Die Grossten Hits Amiga International
International Hello International Hello
Holy Mountain
Electronic
Jude Cole Jude Cole
Ais
Pop/Rock
Michael Omartian White Horse
Universal Japan
Religious
Motorhead World Is Yours [Limited Edition]
EMI
Pop/Rock
Paul Williams Phantom of the Paradise
Universal Japan
Pop/Rock
Paul Williams
Life Goes On Universal Japan
Pop/Rock
Pavlov’s Dog Echo & Boo
Disk Union Japan
Pop/Rock
Roch Voisine Confidences
Jive International
Roger Nichols Roger Nichols & the Small Circle of Friends
Universal Japan
Pop/Rock
Ronin Ronin
Universal Japan
Pop/Rock
Rupert Holmes Pursuit of Happiness
Universal Japan
Pop/Rock
Rupert Holmes Partners in Crime
Universal Japan
Pop/Rock
Steve Forde Wild Ride Rowdy Livin Right
ABC OZ
Pop/Rock
It’s a week before Christmas and grisly ghouls from every tomb are closing in to seal your doom! That’s right boys and girls, Michael Jackson has come back from the dead with a new album called Michael. If I’m understanding correctly, the record company has a deal to put out as many as 10 posthumous albums of new material.
Look, the dude couldn’t come up with a decent album his last 15 or so years of having the significant creative advantage of being alive. On the other hand, being dead might have been an improvement over the last couple of albums. This first album would appear to be mostly made up of scraps that didn’t make the Invincible album. That’s starting out at the bottom of the barrel – and you’re going to get NINE MORE albums out of this?
Here’s the complete list of this week’s major new CD album releases:
Ryan Adams & the Cardinals III/IV
Paxamerican
Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock
Diddy/Dirty Money Last Train to Paris
Interscope
Pop, Club/Dance, Contemporary R&B
Michael Jackson Michael
Epic
Pop, Contemporary R&B, Adult Contemporary R&B, Dance-Pop
R. Kelly Love Letter
Jive
Adult Contemporary R&B, Contemporary R&B
Idil Biret Beethoven: Sonatas Nos. 8 “Pathetique” & 29 “Hammerklavier”
IBA
Classical Piano Music
Greyson Chance Waiting Outside the Lines
Contemporary Pop/Rock, Teen Pop
Popa Chubby The Essential Popa Chubby
Blind Pig
Contemporary Blues, Modern Electric Blues
Ciara Basic Instinct
LaFace
Contemporary R&B, Pop
The Damned Things Ironiclast
Post-Hardcore, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Metal, Heavy Metal, Hard Rock
Hawthorne String Quartet David L. Post: String Quartets Nos. 2-4
NaxosContemporary Chamber Music
Mandelring Quartet Janacek: Complete String Quartets
Audite
Modern Chamber Music
Midnight Juggernauts The Crystal Axis
Siberia
Indie Rock, Alternative Dance, Alternative/Indie Rock, Club/Dance, Alternative Pop/Rock
Arvo Part Arvo Part: Tabula Rasa [Special Edition with Book] [Deluxe]
ECM
Contemporary Chamber Music
Phish Live at the Legendary Alpine Valley Music Theatre
Jemp Records
Jam Bands, American Trad Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Alternative Pop/Rock
Shrag Life! Death! Prizes!
Where It’s At Is Where You Ar Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock
Tank Now or Never
Contemporary R&B
Various Artists Mahler: The People’s Edition
Deutsche Grammophon
Modern Orchestral Music
Volbeat Beyond Hell/Above Heaven
Scandinavian Metal, Pop-Metal, Punk/New Wave, Arena Rock, Speed Metal, Heavy Metal, Death Metal, Punk
Nothing worthwhile happening in the new albums, but we’ve got two exceptionally good original Christmas songs from the ever lovin’ Born Again Floozies available for download from iTunes or Amazon. “Blissed Out Christmas” makes a beautiful and melodic contemplative Christmas consideration. I’d call it a melancholy bliss. Very nice stuff.
Then there’s “Who Put the Ho In the ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’?” This account of a rowdy office Christmas party may be the party anthem of the whole year, never mind Christmas. I note that this is labeled “explicit” lyrics, but not very. About the worst of the horrible language would be the opening set up: “At work we got a mile long bitch list, but don’t the staff like to party at Christmas.” I would however, be interested in more details about that “lipstick party trick.” Yes, for just 89 cents you too can have a very floozy Christmas. I’d highly recommend it.
Here’s the complete list of this week’s major new CD album releases:
Natasha Bedingfield Strip Me
Phonogenic
Dance-Pop, Adult Contemporary
Daft Punk Tron: Legacy
Walt Disney
Electronica, House, Soundtracks, Club/Dance, Progressive House, Left-Field House
Deadmau5 4 x 4 = 12
Ultra Records
Techno, Club/Dance, House
Duffy Endlessly
Mercury
Neo-Soul, Alternative/Indie Rock, Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Pop, Soul
Feist Look at What the Light Did Now
Interscope
Alternative Singer/Songwriter, Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock
Plain White T’s Wonders of the Younger
Universal Music
Punk-Pop, Emo-Pop, Alternative/Indie Rock, Punk Revival
Allerton & Alton Black, White and Bluegrass
Bear Family
Close Harmony, String Bands, Bluegrass, Traditional Bluegrass
Anika Anika
Invada
Indie Rock, Indie Electronic, Post-Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock
David Arnold The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Sony Classical
Film Music, Original Score, Soundtracks
Jan Krzysztof Broja Chopin: Chamber Music
Fryderyk Chopin InstRomantic Chamber Music
Imogen Cooper Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 18 & 22
Avie
Classical Music for Piano and Orchestra
Eluvium The Motion Makes Me Last
Temporary Residence
Experimental Ambient, Alternative/Indie Rock
Flyleaf Remember to Live
Octone/A&M
Emo, Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Metal, Heavy Metal
Kevin Fowler Best Of…So Far
Kevin Fowler Records
Contemporary Country, Honky Tonk
Daria Gloukhova Mozart, Hummel, Mendelssohn
Centaur Records
Classical and Romantic Piano Music
Goodees Condition Red: Complete Goodees
Ace
UK Girl Groups, Brill Building Pop
Hedley The Show Must Go
Universal Music Canada
Alternative/Indie Rock, Punk-Pop, Alternative Pop/Rock
Richard Hickox Benjamin Britten: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Virgin Classics
Modern Opera
Hinder The All American Nightmare
Universal Republic
Post-Grunge, Hard Rock
Eric Johnson Up Close
Vortexan Music
Freddie King Texas Flyer 1974 – 1976
Bear Family
Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra Hooked Up Classics
Ubiquity Recordings
Big Beat, Electronica, Neo-Soul, Funky Breaks, Club/Dance, Soul
Robert Lehmann Manuel Ponce: Chamber Music for Strings
Centaur Records
Modern Chamber Music
Ella Mae Morse Rocks
Bear Family
Traditional Pop, Jump Blues, Big Band
Mumford & Sons Sigh No More [Deluxe]
Indie Folk, Contemporary Singer/Songwriter, Indie Pop, Alternative/Indie Rock, British Folk, Americana, Alternative Pop/Rock
The New Mastersounds Masterology
Sundazed
Acid Jazz, Jazz-Funk
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack I’m Here: Soundtrack To The Short Film By Spike Jonze
Chocolate Industries
Soundtracks
Pascal Pinon Pascal Pinon
Indie Pop, Indie Folk, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock
The Remo Four Smile!, Peter Gunn….and More
Bear Family
Merseybeat, British Invasion
Billy Riley The Mojo Albums, Plus
Bear Family
Rockabilly Revival, Rock & Roll
Sufjan Stevens All Delighted People EP
Asthmatic Kitty
Indie Pop, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Alternative Singer/Songwriter, Chamber Pop, Alternative Pop/Rock
T.I. No Mercy
Atlantic
Southern Rap, Gangsta Rap
Shugo Tokumaru Port Entropy
Souterrain Transmissions
Indie Pop, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock
Various Artists Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Hillbilly Music: Country and Western Hitparade 1960
Bear Family
Various Artists Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Hillbilly Music: Country and Western Hitparade 1959
Bear Family
Country Boogie, Honky Tonk, Traditional Country
Various Artists Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Hillbilly Music: Country and Western Hitparade 1958
Bear Family
Country Boogie, Honky Tonk, Traditional Country
Various Artists Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Hillbilly Music: Country and Western Hitparade 1957
Bear Family
Honky Tonk, Traditional Country
Various Artists Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Hillbilly Music: Country and Western Hitparade 1956
Bear Family
Country Boogie, Honky Tonk, Traditional Country
Paul Weller Find The Torch Burn The Plans: Live At The Royal Albert Hall
Island
Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock
Barrence Whitfield & the Savages Barrence Whitfield and the Savages
Ace
Rock & Roll
Charlie Wilson Just Charlie
Jive
Contemporary R&B, Urban
Does America deserve to survive? More precisely, do Americans believe that we deserve to survive? That’s the real question before us in the world now. If you don’t think you deserve to live, you’ll likely end up unwilling to defend yourself, laying with your arms folded like Willa Harper waiting for Harry Powell to slit her throat.
In the current moment, that brings US to Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks site. He’s openly dumping into the public domain hundreds of thousands of classified US documents. Make no mistake, this is a conscious and purposeful act of war against the US. For starters, he’s gladly printing the names of people who have been co-operating with us in Afghanistan among other places. He’s happily signing their death warrants and acknowledges that he has blood on his hands, besides making it exceedingly unlikely that others will now help us.
One of the worser obvious points of specific damage has been revealing our clandestine co-operation with the government of Yemen. They have about the worst active Al Qaeda group in the world now, and not co-incidentally a populace that is very anti-US. So the government has been discreetly letting US smack down their Al Qaeda, and taking credit for their own military. Well, that very important cover has been shot – and right where some of the very worst active players are.
Defenders of this wicked bastard would describe WikiLeaks as a “whistle blower” site, but that’s just flatly dishonest nonsense. A whistle blower exposes clandestine wrong doing. Very little of what Assange has published constitutes any kind of wrongdoing on our part at all. What, we’ve got spies out spying on people? Shocking!
In the truth, what Assange is doing is unmistakably espionage and sabotage. These are open acts of war. What, you think he’s not making war cause he’s just using his computer and not personally firing a gun? He’s purposely getting people killed who are friendly to US, exposing our clandestine operations and making it as difficult as possible for US to defend ourselves. Assange would be doing far less damage if he just picked up a rifle and started shooting people. In the actual practice, at this point Julian Assange’s espionage and sabotage seem to be doing more actual damage to US for his side than Bin Laden, from whatever hole he’s hiding in.
Yet there are fools among US who defend him, including exactly one congressman: Ron Paul, naturally. Rep. Paul really frustrates me, cause he’s so good and spot on sometimes. Yet other times he takes perfectly good ideas and makes them into dangerous and utterly stupid ideological dogmas.
On 12-3-2010, Ron Paul Twittered “Re: WikiLeaks — In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble.” He unfortunately expounded on this nonsense talking to Fox Business. “In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.
This whole notion that Assange, who’s an Australian, that we want to prosecute him for treason. I mean, aren’t they jumping to a wild conclusion? This is media, isn’t it? I mean, why don’t we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?”
Paul has a good point right there at the end. Indeed Congressman, I sometimes ask myself why the New York Times among others doesn’t get prosecuted on a semi-regular basis for publishing classified documents.
A general freedom of speech and right to express your opinions does not in fact give you the right to say and publish absolutely anything at any time, even any true thing. I’m a pretty hardcore libertarian, but any rational human connected to the real world could see in about half a second that there are some perfectly reasonable and necessary limits.
Let’s say, for example, that you managed to purloin a universal list of everyone’s SS numbers from the Social Security administration. Hey, I’ll just throw that up on the web! Good times, huh? Hey, we’re supposed to know the truth. Or perhaps it would be better if you were shot before you unleashed that much chaos and destruction on millions of people. And that’s a relatively mild example of true government information that you obviously have no free speech “right” to disseminate, before you get to life and death military stuff like, say, the names of contacts in Aghanistan helping us fight the Taliban.
Hey, I’m all in favor of whistle blowers, and I might consider a “classified” stamp more of a suggestion than a binding moral commitment under some circumstances, considering the obvious frequent illegitimate uses of classification authority to cover malfeasance. Plus, you might consider whether the open publication of a nominally classified document demonstrably hurts our defense or especially does it expose US or allies to danger. If Assange published 100 pages of legally classified documents showing where Halliburton has covered up some massacre, you might consider the legal point actually illegitimate and defend exposing horrible wrongdoing – even at the expense of breaking the law. That would be different, and involve some different considerations. But that’s little or nothing like what Assange is doing.
In case you are somehow yet clinging to the idea that Assange is not absolutely an enemy with full intent of hurting America and getting people killed, you might note his latest little twist: the “doomsday” download. Premier Kisoff Assange has sent out for downloading by thousands of people a big giant 1.4gb encrypted poison-pill file to be detonated by a simple release of the encryption key in the event of his death or imprisonment or just general displeasure.
So is there a good reason that I have missed that Assange and the traitorous US soldier who has apparently provided him these hundreds of thousands of legally classified documents should not be tried for treason or sabotage and summarily executed? On the good side, this would prevent them from further damaging US security and getting more of our troops and allies killed. Plus, it’d make an example to other people with similarly bad ideas.
On the bad side, killing is not very nice.
Is there some substantially better reason than that to explain why Assange is still breathing?
It’s the last week of 2010 and good riddance, musically speaking. There just wasn’t a lot of really worthwhile new music out this year. There was exactly ONE album that kicked my ass this year. That would be Macy Gray as The Sellout. That was a thing of beauty. If you don’t have it, you should just go ahead and spend the money. You NEED “There Is Beauty in the World” in your life.
