Mufan96, a Twitter friend of mine, wrote an intriguing tweet some time ago. He was blogging about who rules his iTunes library, and asked others on Twitter just who rules their libraries. I gave him a couple of answers that day. Recently, I was listening to the iPod and I thought back to that very question. I started going through my iTunes library, jotting down which bands had the most musical real estate in my library. The results are not too unusual, but a little surprising at the end and I thought it would make a cool blog entry. Well, let me take you, dear reader, by the hand and dive into the musical maelstrom…

1) Def Leppard (84 tracks)
— Most played track: “Dont Believe A Word” from Yeah!
— Most played album: Retroactive
— First album in my life: Pyromania

2) Megadeth (75 tracks)
— Most played track: “Blackmail The Universe” from The System Has Failed
— Most played album: Youthanasia
— First album in my life: So Far, So Good… So What!

3) Rush (73 tracks)
— Most played track: “Dreamline” from Roll The Bones
— Most played album: Signals
— First album in my life: Moving Pictures

4) Dream Theater (72 tracks)
— Most played track: “Constant Motion” from Systematic Chaos
— Most played album: Systematic Chaos
— First album in my life: Images And Words

5) Queensrÿche (46 tracks)
— Most played track: “Suite Sister Mary” (Operation: LIVEcrime version)
— Most played album: Operation: LIVEcrime
— First album in my life: Operation: Mindcrime

As you can see, I just touched on the top five in my collection. The real surprise was the sixth band on the list: Rammstein! The reason this German band has 45 tracks in my library is mainly due to my wife’s influence on some of my tastes. Rammstein, while putting out some brutal music, is also just as talented as the above bands and has some very intriguing songs. The first album I got from them was Sehnsucht, but my favorite album from them is their Reise, Reise album, where I got to hear them grow musically in so many ways between the two CD’s.

I’d like to hear from my commenters! Who rules YOUR music libraries? Go ahead and tell me, no matter how different your taste is from my own. I value our differences and I may even be introduced to some new stuff (well, new for me) that I might take a liking to.

Cheers!

For this Esoterik Blog post, I’m gonna borrow Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine and transport myself back to Hanover Park, Il. sometime around 1986. Around the time that I was finishing junior high and entering high school. This was also the time where my musical tastes were starting to transition from Top 40 Pop/Dance to Hard Rock/Metal. I wasn’t buying any albums yet, but I had a radio with a tape player/recorder and some spare recording cassettes laying around. What was a budding music appreciator to do but start recording his favorite songs and shows off of the radio. Those homebrewed mixtapes had some charm to them; little imperfections like the tail-ends to commercials, beginnings of songs accidentally cut off, station DJ blurbs and special show introductions lent the tapes a lot of personality! (Side note: the mixed-format Chicago station WVVX in Highland Park had this kick-ass metal show that aired during the weekends (or on most nights, at one point!). Not only did I tape that show when I had tapes to use, but that show’s intro is still memorable to this day!! I miss it soooo much!)

When I met friends who did their own tapes, we often traded and got exposed to other music that we may not have found on our own. You could say that was the social music revolution of the day, akin to how Last.fm and iLike.com work today (but without the personal touch of trading; you can only look at and sample what others are listening to!). When I started dating, I often made mixtapes of various lovey-dovey songs that were special to me, or that reminded me of the girl I was dating at the time, and of course gave those tapes to them. Some thought it either cool or silly, but… that’s besides the point! Also, when CD’s became the standard album format, that made it so much easier to make these tapes rather than holding the FF/REW buttons on the playback tape to find the right spot to start the music. (I’m 35, so I grew up around the time when tapes were king, the 8-track was all but dead and vinyl was dying a slow (kicking and screaming) death!)

For me, this continued until some things changed in my musical life. Along with getting a couple of portable CD players, I finally could afford a CD writer for Christine’s computer when we were engaged. So, tapes went into permanent storage and the almighty CD became completely standard for me. This also meant… mix-CDs! I mainly made these for myself and Christine. However, as my working relations grew around me, I did enjoy making mix-CDs for my friends and co-workers with whom I talked music with the most (which I still do; I just made one recently for my fellow work partner!)

Now, as of 3 years ago, the iPod and other portable media players have replaced the almighty CD, which has now been relegated to permanent hard-copy use (music) or rewrite-able recording and playback (video). Once Solid-State Memory (SSM, or flash memory) goes way up in capacity and way down in price, that will herald the death-knell of the CD format. I’m sure some who read this will be, like, “Well, DUH!”

So why am I writing all this? Because a new music site just took me back to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when I experienced the satisfaction of making and trading mixtapes. Muxtape.com is a free storage medium that is set up like your own personal “mixtape”. All you do is upload songs to it (a maximum of 12 files, each one with a 10MB limit) and it gives you your own account URL to share your virtual mixtape to others. This is a very simple, bare-bones interface (I think it’s AJAX), that is even RSS-enabled. It only allows for 12 songs on one account, so it’s not like having a bunch of blank tapes to work with, but I can understand this limitation, given the (albeit dropping) costs of online storage. Of course, another difference is that you can skip around to other songs at will, unlike riding the FF/REW buttons on a tape deck. You can pause songs, but not skip or jog to parts of songs, which is somewhat bad IMHO; I encounter lots of songs with lame beginnings that end up being great songs afterwards. However, this is a promising service with some room for growth.

Well, I will share my Muxtape URL with all my readers here: http://chrisw357.muxtape.com/. Not only did I try to use all my favorites, but I also included songs from diverse genres and sub-genres. When you do listen to it, I hope you will enjoy at least one or two selections. It even has a length of almost an hour, just like one of those beloved blank tapes!

Take care, all!

Today, I was saddened by the news of yet another great musician’s passing. Jeff Healey was one of those great guitar players most people don’t really think about. Probably because he wasn’t quite as interested in high profile blues-rock as he was in vintage jazz, which he played in the latter years of his career. Nonetheless, he was an exceptional guitar player considering his unconventional “lap-steel” technique, which he grew into using while learning to play at a young age while living blind.

Jeff lost his sight as an infant due to retinoblastoma, a cancer of the retina. For the last several years, he fought a long and hard battle with cancer, which he lost yesterday evening. His wife survives him; she was sitting by his bedside. He also leaves behind their two children.

I have to thank my parents for exposing me to his music early on. For me personally, his influence in my musical life is as great as Stevie Ray Vaughan’s influence (with whom he shared some performances with, too!). I used to listen to his first two albums, See The Light and Hell To Pay, while living with them. I think now would be as good of a time as any to see about picking up those tracks again to kick out the jams!

Here’s my comment on this video on YouTube: We just lost an amazing musician. Jeff, the good man that he was and the talent that he possessed, will definitely be missed.

God’s roadhouse is in full swing, with the angels all a-rockin’!

Let’s see now… where do I begin to talk about this band?! That is how much high praise I have for them. They’re not the best that is out there, by far. Their lyrics are incredibly cheeseball with overblown fantasy imagery, the music is almost always played at an blistering pace (anything overdone gets boring, even when extreme) and almost every song follows the same content structure.

However, it’s the spirit in which the music is done that I have such a love for. Despite some of the song titles, it’s just in-your-face, happy-go-lucky, let’s-go-slay-evildoers-while-wearing-a-cheerful-grin-and-afterwards-sit-back-and-chug-a-tankard-of-ale type music. Like I said, they may not be the best, but they play with a ferocity and conviction that is just mind-blowing to this hyphen-loving music listener. The drummer plays as if he’s trying to power the Space Shuttle’s engines with his legs alone! The guitarists seem like they’re both trying to mow down a Sequoia forest with their brand of shredding. The keyboardist even interjects with some cross-pollination of rock and techno phrasing that somehow works for their music. Oh, and the singer is surprisingly clean-voiced for music that requires power vocals, but he pulls off that job as well, albeit a but grating at times. The only low point of the group is the bass. I’m sure the bass player is good, too… but you can barely hear it in the mix! I’m sure he’s in there somewhere supporting his guitarists, and you can hear him clearly in some parts of the album, but his bass needs to be more towards the front of the mix.

A bit about the songs before I go into detail. Many of them (if not all!) have the same formula, as I pointed out earlier. However, that’s not to say they don’t make things interesting nonetheless! Some reviewers have slammed DragonForce, saying that “once you’ve heard one song, you’ve pretty much heard them all.” Well, if your listening with half an ear then, yes, they do sound the same. However, I’m one listener that loves detail in music… and they put loads of little touches and details in each song, besides using different keys and such. They make every song sound different with all the little things they put in there, and that’s what puts a big smile on my face when I hear these details. Plus, they’re big on re-creating video game sounds and using those as musical tools in almost every song. As one reviewer pointed out (and I agree wholeheartedly!), Metal and Video Games are like Chocolate and Peanut Butter… and this album is like one big Reese’s Cup! With all that being said, I’ll try to keep my song synopsis brief, seeing as they cram so much content in each one.

Through The Fire And Flames: Ah, the song that made many Guitar Hero players sit there slack-jawed in disbelief. Like many of the songs they’ve composed, this one has some special touches that seem to pop out at the listener. At 2:13, they provide a bit of a breather for your ears before spanking them some more a few seconds later. At 4:58, listen for what sounds like a Super Mario Bros. super-growth sound!

Revolution Deathsquad: If you thought that TTFAF was their tour-de-force for the album, this song will prove you dead wrong! “Revolution Deathsquad” is arguably the shining gem on Inhuman Rampage. If I had a 6-star GIF, I’d have put it up for this masterpiece! There are just too many good things going on in this song and it all flies at you with the speed and power of a japanese bullet-train! The section from 3:17 to 3:36 has the keyboard taking center stage with some awesome riffing between it and the guitars. Also of note is the use of two other vocal effects for every instance of the bridge, with the second one bringing a bone chilling techno-climax to the song at 7:11. I’m a sucker for over-the-top endings, and this one delivers all too well!

Storming The Burning Fields: More face-ripping speed, along with a good sing-along chorus. Not as breathtaking as the last song, but a good track nonetheless. There’s a very interesting interlude at 2:47, with some triplet riffing at 3:12. Watch for that Super Mario sound again at 3:28!

Operation: Ground And Pound: A mid-tempo (for DragonForce!) intro let’s you know to prepare for takeoff. This is their all-around great-but-not-totally-overwhelming song in the first half of the album, and as such was probably perfect for a video treatment. Watch the video, as it has some cool and funny moments in it! However, the song on the album has a great interlude, from 4:20 to 5:13, that was cut in the video version.

Body Breakdown: After the initial intro and subsequent blast-beat shredding, lasting for a little over thirty seconds, were treated to a different sound in the opening verse, full of drums and keyboard effects, with light guitar added for great effect! It’s moments like this song presents that make me wonder about the reviewers who say stuff like “All the songs sound the same!”. Evidently, they’re not good listeners. Listen to the keyboardist and bassist having fun at the 4:12 to 4:33 mark! The ending is a real treat!

Cry For Eternity: Once you get a feel for DragonForce’s songs, you should have an idea of what the “typical” DF song sounds like. This is one such song, and as such, is the first average song of the bunch. Not bad for being more than halfway towards the end of the album! The middle section has some cool video-game-type feels to it (think of the legendary F-Zero!) that bump up my rating from three to four stars. The chorus is especially catchy!

The Flame Of Youth: The beginning reminds me of Iron Maiden. The middle section even has some egyptian-style riffing going on! The opening verse is a treat to listen to. In fact, the whole song seems designed for a crowd sing-along. By this time, though, one may find themselves being worn out by the sheer ferocity of the whole album.

Trail Of Broken Hearts: If you’ve heard their last album, you’ll recognize this as the typical majestic DragonForce ballad. In fact, it’s so typical, that you may just wave your lighter up high out of sheer impulse! Refer back to what I said in the last track; they probably should have put this song in the middle of the album for that much-needed breather! However, it’s not as good as “Dawn Of A New World” from their last album. Still, it’s a decent way to end a great album, albeit a bit anticlimatic.

And there you have it… Whew!! DragonForce may not be for everyone, but for those who like power and speed along with cheesiness and a bit of off-the-wall goofiness in their metal music, this album will definitely fit the need very nicely! Oh… and please, whatever you do, don’t listen to this album while driving. Doing so will virtually guarantee you loads of speeding tickets like the one I just paid out the nose for!

Another video blog entry… this time, I was trying out a beta feature, for editing, on YouTube. It didn’t work out, so I re-did the whole thing on iMovie. It really bites not having the correct processor speed for running both iMovie and a separate cam effects program. I wonder if anyone can point me to a free picture-in-picture plug-in for iMovie?