In my opinion, a great album. Of course, would have these songs been bad or Axl's voice not cutting it, it would have been weird after all the time, effort and money behind this one. What is great is that it sure feels like the Axl Rose we know from November Rain or Estranged. This means that fans of the heavy blues-rock of old Gn'R will not necessarily have fun listening to this one (which might explain some of the "bad" reviews). The comparison I like to do (and that I am proud of, I admit) is that instead of sounding like a dirty shotgun and an alive and thorny rose, it feels like laser guns and glass roses.
This I Love, Sorry and Prostitute are amongst the songs that challenge any other written by Guns over the years. Throughout the record, Axl's voice is as powerful as ever, and he delivers songs that are melancolic and full of sorrow - clearly, this is not a happy record.
Of course, this did not sold much compared to what the hype would have let us think it would, but who still sells records these days, with the whole industry collapsing?
2. Talking About the Collapse...
Talking about the collapse of the music industry, I had an interesting read from the NY Times not long ago about a heated debate over the phone between Apple's Steve Jobs and Sony Music's CEO. Go Stevie!
It just feels more and more like labels know they are losing this one and that they don't have any leverage anymore, with well-known artists now being able to go direct through online sales, and bypass those blood-sucking guys that are just lost with a business plan that has not evolved in over 25 years.
However, my question remains: how do emerging artists that aspire for big production and to be heard get that help? Trent, what would you do?
3. Pearl Jam's Ten Re-Release
Pearl Jam: A band that does not needs exposure anymore, and that now releases their albums by themselves, after a long 7 records contract with Epic Record/Sony Music.
Now, they are having the re-release to end all re-releases of albums. The ultimate fan package. The Ten album remastered, then re-mixed (by Brendan O'Brien) and re-mastered, then vinyls copies of these things, the MTV Unplugged DVD, a 2-vinyl live concert from 1992, pictures, notes from Vedder and even a copy of the original demo-tape on which Vedder wrote and taped lyrics fo 3 Ten songs. What not? I don't know what else to ask for, and I know that I can't wait to get my copy.
Oh... and by the way, if you can't shelve a hundred and fifty bucks for this deluxe package, they also offer smaller packages that are still quite interesting and affordable.
While we're there, check out the videos on that Amazon.com Pearl Jam Store page.
4. NIN's Gift of 400 Gb of HD Video
Reznor does it again. He will never stop to surprise us, and to challenge the way things are done in this new era, and it has only been 2 years now that he has been pushing the enveloppe, for his and his fans' benefits - there is no doubt a lot more to come.
After an effort to video tape a live concert in 3D which would have been produced by James Cameron, Reznor did not have time to plan the video recording of the last concerts of his amazing tour. However, he apparently found out that 3 shows were taped in their entirety with 7 HD cameras. The amazing part is that he gave away all sources on torrents, a whopping 400 Gigs of unedited, raw footage from these 3 concerts. Now fans with multimedia editing stations are downloading these files (months to get them all, mind you) and getting to work. This means that we will get professional grade videos from these concerts in a short time.
Already, a few efforts have shown up on youtube, and this will be impressive (by the way, it seems that youtube now supports HD content). Here's a few links:
Ghosts 28, from NIN's instrumental Ghosts album, live in Sacramento. This one should appeal to non-NIN fans, as it is a nice laid-back, ambiant jam. The editing is bad though, can't wait to see these with real editors doing the job.
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