Kaizen Bits

The fact that songs like Sour Times have been there for a while and I think I have heard them everywhere in the last years, for example, at the Tonka Club last week in Bucharest, does not mean that some of the songs are way too calm or at least, slow for me and I wanna get up the beats.

In general terms, nice album, but I would try harder. After listening Third last year, I definitely think the Bristol trio is getting much better.

I had no clue of the existence of Nick Lowe, but it is much better than what I expected. Same happened with Kingdom of Rust, by Doves. However, it is an interesting sound and I am looking forward to hear more. Actually, now that I had a look at Last FM and I knew that a big media group bought it (turning it into Last.tv), I still would love to have a company like Strands or any other, giving more recommendations.

OK, I must admit it. I never liked Guns’n'roses. In the mid-90s, my friend Jorge gave me as a present two cassettes (yes, we had cassettes, no iPod at that time, yes) for the summer. One was the unbelievable Los Rodriguez album, “Sin Documentos” and the second was Axel and his guys shouting and screaming. I even don´t remember the name of the album. Whereas the first still makes me enjoy life and I simply can´t stop singing each and every brilliant Calamaro lyrics, the second, and most of their songs, give me the creeps.

Well, with this Chinese Democracy, I can´t say that much. It is nice, “listenable”, so to speak. However, it does not transmit me anything, so I listened it once (and not the whole, as happens both with books and songs I am not interested in) and jumped to a much better one: Journal for Plague Lovers, Manic Street Preachers.

I found out this group when in England. Read about it last weekend, Time Out was flattering an English indie rock band and specially their last album, Kingdom of Rust. So I thought of giving them a try and found out a great group. Far from some of my favourite bands, such as Franz Ferdinand, Doves is melodic pop and each song is different. Every song encompasses different topics and the sound is very hard-worked, despite having a common trace.

It´s always good to find new bands to cover the huge emptiness of the typical massive easy pop flooding every radio station these days.

Oldies but goodies, I discovered Metallica very late. It was in the mid-90s and I was starting in college. One of my friends handed me a tape (yes, a tape, I know this is unbelievable, but we exchanged tapes those days, forget about the P2P controversy ) and I listened to it over exams. It was June and the summer was starting.

The really cool thing of Ride the Lightning (recorded in 1984) songs, especailly from Fade to Black or For Whom the Bell Tolls were their melancholy, their dark sound and how they made you feel good. A couple of months later, I listened to Metallica (recorded in 1991) and also loved it (mostly Enter Sandman and the Unforgiven), but definitely, later on, there was nothing like that sound. Metallica vanished for me and they just popped up in newspapers simply because of IP related scandals. That´s why I love old music songs, because they were the past, the glorious past, not the ridiculous present.

Brilliant. Unbelievable. They did it again. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, Pet Shop Boys, released a new album, pure joie de vivre. I am a very big fan, since I heard songs like Always on my mind or It´s a sin, in the nineties and then became an absolute fan when I heard most of their songs while studying at the EPFL, in Switzerland (for some unknown reason, most of their albums were on my laptop and resisted a couple of dangerous backups ).

In Yes, we can find the best of Pet Shop Boys, good feeling and fun in Love, etc, the same sound machine as in their 80s hits in All over the world and simply the usual wish of having good time without aiming at making History in the music. Btw, I was talking about them, when re-listening “Actually”.

Guys, I love you.

I know, oldies but goodies. Actually, it´s not about Actually, but about “It´s a Sin”, one of the best singles of the Synthpop of the 80s.  Also, the lyrics are quite controversial but to me, I don´t care a bit. The melody is simply amazing and brings me a lot of far away memories. This also happens with some songs from Laura Branigan or Double You, I guess I heard them as a child and authomatically, my brain identifies them.

Back in 2004, I heard Clocks for the first time at a pub in Innsbruck. I immediately asked which was performing that song. It was real stuff, one of those pieces of nice work you can stumble upon once in a while.

That was my first experience with Coldplay. Since then on I became a fan and now, with this new album, Viva la Vida, I knew I was right. I never really fancied Gallagher or the akin, neither Blur. So for me, if there is a good pop singer line, there we have it.

Simply glorious. I can´t think of a better way to kick off this list but with the best Scottish band ever. This album jumped on my car player to never step out. That was since July, where I watched them at the Rock in Rio concert and I wouldn´t stop listening to them ever since.

Thanks guys, you are the A!!