Some new music listeningFollow

Right atm I'm listening to R.E.M. Live at the Olympia. It's pretty good stuff so far. It's very REM without being the same old REM.

I guess Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are now calling themselves The Swell Season. They have a new album out, Strict Joy, that you can currently still hear HERE in it's entirety. It's likely to be gone soon. I haven't listened to it yet, but thought some might be interested.

Enjoy.










Edited, Oct 23rd 2009 7:19pm by Elinda

The second live album in two years, eh? It sounds like they have reached the point of farming their own nostalgia. I recall the band in interviews years ago poking fun at The Rolling Stones for doing exactly the same thing and saying they would quit before that ever happened.

It doesn't really matter if it's a decent live album. It just screams that they have nothing new to contribute. Now I, a long time R.E.M. die hard fan will find out what it must have felt like to still be a Rolling Stones fan post-'81. On top of that I will be in the similar position of feeling the need to make excuses for still being interested in a band that's well past its artistic prime.

I will probably pick this up used and cheap in a couple years. I'll likely listen to it whilst smoking a few cigarettes and drinking blasphemous decaffeinated coffee. I'll grin and think to myself a few times, "They still have it." I'll be wrong, but my fandom won't allow me to think otherwise. Then it will sit in the rack most likely to never be played again. It will join the ranks of the many redundant copies of the albums from when they were artistically relevant that made me the R.E.M. fan that I still am. When I reach for a live recording of the band, I'm still going to reach for an audience recording, soundboard, or FM broadcast recording from no later than '95 and most likely before '89...just like any other R.E.M. die hard.

Lol. Nice to see an opinion. I've not paid much attention to REM in the last few years, but they were a favorite way back when. I enjoyed what I listened to, but I don't listen to both discs.

I really liked the Swell Season album. Some beautiful sounding guitar melodies and a bit more upbeat and professional than their first stuffs. The two are melding together nicely. I may even consider picking up the cd.

I listen to thefump.com songs I download. They were created (such as they are - mostly parodies) very recently. Much of the stuff there isn't great but finding the occasional song that strikes you just right is half the fun. I'd suggest this song if you ever played the old video game Gauntlet: http://thefump.com/fump.php?id=1193

Other then that, I listen to podcasts while I drive now.