Ke$ha 'Warrior"

Well here goes nothing, I am giving the latest Ke$ha album a listen and I am not sure what to say. I need to be upfront and tell you that this is not my typical style of music at all. That isn't to say that I am against pop music, because I am not but I generally speaking do not choose to listen to this style of music if I am left to my own choices. That being said I sat down to listen to her latest album with an open mind. I honestly wanted to give it a fair listen and I believe I did just that.

The bottom line for me as far as this album goes is that I didn't hate it. I don't think it was great or amazing or earth shattering and I didn't think it was the worst album I had ever listened to either. But it just didn't do anything special for me. Their were two songs that actually made me really sit up and listen. One was 'Dirty Love' and it featured Iggy Pop. I will pretty much listen too anything with Iggy Pop in it at least once and I think that Iggy and The Stooges "Raw Power" is an amazing early punk album. So that being said I was a little surprised that he showed up on her album. Now both of these songs are NSFW unless you have some headphones on or work in a place that doesn't care like I used too.

Now if you got through it and are still with me. What did you think of that drum line? Or the guitar riff after that? Does it remind you of anything? It does me but I am unable to pin it down. It isn't that everything has to be totally original but it is nice if there is some originality. I give her points for getting Iggy to join her. But honestly is he even being used in a good way? I don't think so. It wouldn't surprise me if he just called that in using skype and then cashed his paycheck. Not that I would blame him. She probably paid good money.

The other song that got my attention was 'Gold Trans Am' all I can say is that it is the dirtiest Steve Miller song I have ever heard. Just nasty.

I will give some time to recover from that audio onslaught. I have some friends who I know like and listen to Steve Miller so I just hope that they listened and will take the time to let me know what they thought about this little gem. I can't say that I disliked it. It was kind of fun but it isn't something that I would listen to other then for the novelty of it.

So bottom as far as this album goes...if you like this kind of music and you like Ke$ha then this is just more of the same and you are going enjoy it. But as far as anything new or different it isn't and it is very much derivative of Lady Gaga or Katy Perry or any of the hot new lady singers that are heavily auto tuned. Though to be fair. Ke$ha is not as good as Lady Gaga or Katy Perry. I am not putting her down. I think that is just the reality of her as a performer.

Also on a side note, Rolling Stone gave her 3 and 1/2 stars and I can't tell from the review if that is being satirical or what? So for whatever it is worth. I believe that I liked this album less then the Rolling Stone reviewer whose name is Rob Sheffield. 

Thursday (Film as Life)

I am going to try to do some writing late on Wednesday night since I do not feel all that sleepy. I am not sure why. I did go to bed very early one night this week and I think I may have filled up my reserves due to that. But what I wanted to write about was a movie that I finished watching today. You see I go out in to the garage everyday after work and I sit there for anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. No, I am not meditating, what I do is take care of my two Ferrets. I get them out of their cage and clean it and feed them and play with them for a little bit. What I also do is sit and relax and often if I am not reading I will watch a movie on my laptop from my vast collection of DVD's. So I thought why not use this as an opportunity to let my readers know what kind of films I like and why I like them.

This week I have watched just one film and that was Cameron Crowes Almost Famous now he wrote and directed this film. It is basically a loose autobiography of when he was a teen aged writer for Rolling Stone magazine. This is also a very dramatized version of his first tour experience I believe with the Allman Brothers. Now, I enjoyed the movie in the theaters but when it was released on DVD it was released in a directors cut bootleg version that is 162 minutes long. So I often watch it in a couple of sittings. Not because it bores me because it does not. But I just like to use my time a little better then sitting through a movie that long in one sitting.

I love music. I love movies. When I was younger I worked in a movie theater and I gave serious thought to attending film school. That dream never came true but I still love a good film. (Or even a bad film, I.E. Con Air) But, this movie tied it all together for me. It had music and film and I am a sucker for a good movie that can blend the two. I feel like it is very important for a movie to have the right combination of the two because the wrong music can absolutely destroy a film and the right music can take that film to a completely different plane. I realize that not everyone feels this way and I may be guilty of liking some lower quality films just because I enjoy the music that it is surrounded by. Often if I have enjoyed a film I will also buy the soundtrack because listening to that will often take me back to the place I was when I first enjoyed that film.

I just realized that I have gone on for quite some time just giving you the background of why I like movies and music together so I think I am going to stop here and I will discuss more about Almost Famous on Friday. If any of you who read this think this approach is going to be interesting please let me know. I always like some feed back. Or even if you have some films you might think I would like please feel free to tell me about them.

So I will talk to you on Friday about Almost Famous . I do not know about you but I am looking forward to it.