For those of you who are fans of Coldplay, the I guess I’m floating blog has some nice B-sides and Rarities to share. Enjoy !

Few hours ago, someone said to me that the best album in the last 5 years she considers to be Placebo’s latest one, Meds. I found it pretty dull, with most of the tracks having the same sound and not too creative. Plus, it sounds like such a small evolution from previous albums that I really cannot consider it worthwhile. Although, it debuted quite well in the UK, making it to #7 in the charts.

Now, I find it very hard to say which is the best album in the last 5 years (too many of them and too hard to make such an hierarchy), but I would say that the best album of 2006 is David Gilmour’s On An Island. I like it for the great feeling it inspires, along with the excelent sound and performance of David. In my opinion, one of the greatest artists of all times. Also, I was positively impressed by Sepultura’s new album, so this would be another candidate

Which do you consider to be the best album of this year ?

 

It’s about time someone said what we all were thinking. “The thing that’s got it all fucked up now is camera phones – how the hell am I supposed to be able to do a line in front of complete strangers when they’ve all got cameras?” Amen brother. We’ve been saying that for months now. (Vice)

Attention music blog shoppers! Vice Records have realised that keeping security tight on The Streets* new LP is worthless. So they’re letting us ‘ave it. The Streets – When You Wasn’t Famous mp3 (totally legal). Getting a free download is like Vice letting you take a lick of that pistachio ice-cream and then grabbing it right back and proceeding to scamper off into the night. Well not the night but at least a virtual music store for you to download, download, download!

It gets better, our special offer this week can only bring you further satisfaction. Mike Skinner recently co-hosted Zane Lowe’s BBC1 radio show, and here you got two excerpts:

Sitting up? No, standing down m4a

Mike venting about a cash machine m4a

Sorry you can’t stream. Just the file host policy I guess.

And finally Pranging out.mp3. Right click and save y’all. Cos you’re worth(less without) it.

*n.b. you have to go to the site to find out about Tony The Tiger.

Saturday night, around 2 am, as I was watching the Rome marathon on HBO, my soundproof windows must have had a screw loose because I could hear Vama Veche’s Hotel Cismigiu coming from the beer-fumed walls of my neighbour’s house. As I was waiting for the climax- all those chavs howling “Americanii-s de vina, futu-i in gura sa-i fut”, I was beginning to wonder – it’s Saturday night, they’re pissed, it’s 2 am, what could be next in line after cussing the Americans? I had to ask. Manele frate*. I am so not going to be politically correct here. I hate that music being thrust in my ears. I have no problem when they keep it to themselves, because I don’t have to care.
This made me think about how universally liked some songs can be. Hotel Cismigiu as most have figured out is about reading between the lines, not only about swearing. It’s swearing with a reason. People who listen to manele would listen to something totally different like that because it’s just… good.

Recently, as in last week, the UK has made history. Getting to number one purely due to downloads might not be worth a lot of hoop-la to some, but since Romania doesn’t even have an official whatevs chart it sounds light-years ahead to me. No sales, no Arctic Monkeys coming over.

Gnarls Barkley (Cee-Lo and producer-extraordinaire Dangermouse) are therefore also down in history with a dance concoction that appeals to both teeny-boppers and mature listeners that would, as of now, never admit to actually liking it, or skipping around to it in front of the bathroom mirror.

Gnarls Barkley – Crazy mp3
(to download, right-click and ‘save target as’/or ctrl+click and ‘save link as’ on a mac)
buy single

BBC Doc on Gnarls Barkley

bonus Vama Veche – Hotel Cismigiu mp3 buy LP

*Manele is not to be confused with traditional gypsy music.

Phoenix is another band who is in my soul for a long time now and I have the same admiration for them I usually am inspired by bands who manage to play excelent music over long periods of time, despite of the trends and mainstreams that change next to them. So, as soon as I spotted the Baba Novak album – which they released back in the end of 2005, it’s a shame I only managed to see it now – I grabbed it to listen and see how they sound like nowadays

Phoenix managed to release another good album, maybe not as good as their old ones or maybe I am not that keen on this kind of music now and I see it with different eyes. Still, it is a rich music, with complex instrumental parts, with quite the same type of lyrics and a general feeling that inspires.

Quite a surprise for me was to hear them play 2 tracks in English on this album. Maybe it is part of their “quest” to also gain some popularity outside the Romanian borders, although I think they have enough now.

Definetely recomend you to buy it – it really has an affordable price -, and here you are a sample. The first track on the album, called “Zori de Zi“.

But don’t go just yet.

*Grabs the mic* God bless Mihai, and God bless you all as well. Hi I’m Linda and I’ll be your co-host as I write this post and a few others more, fingers crossed.

As I spring to life on The Music Blog, I have to talk about death, and remind you of the darker side of things. It won’t do much good to write about the man that changed the face of popular music (Nirvana did the unthinkable and bested Michael Jackson by throwing him off the top spot in the U.S. way back in 1993). A band that every neo-punk idiot loves to hate nowadays, Nirvana weren’t only grunge, they represented an era, and Kurt killed it the way he bred it.

All this is merely an introduction for an omage, Sinead O’Connor covering All Apologies.

Sinead O’Connor – All Apologies mp3

It’s very tragic to me, how Kurt also captures a quintessential Romanian myth by melting two words, married and buried.
More
Kurt Cobain Journals – buy / read excerpts
Buy the goods chez Amazon.

Remembering Kurt Cobain

This post is to welcome Linda among the authors & editors of musicblog.ro. I trully believe Linda will add a valuable contribution to the musicblog and therefore I invited (and she accepted) her to be one of the authors who will delight you (hehe…) with nice input about music, bands and events.

Welcome, Linda and enjoy !

Meanwhile, please read Linda’s review of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And she also has a song to download.

Roger Waters and The Who are keeping up the headlines of this year’s Hyde Park Calling Festival. Waters will be performing Dark Side of the Moon live on Saturday, 1st of July. I don’t think the album needs any introduction to Pink Floyd fans, but just for you to know, it was released in 1973 and, together with The Wall, it is considered to be one of Pink Floyd’s greatest albums, selling over 40 million copies.

The Who will be playing on 2nd of July, one year after their Live8 appearance.

Other bands playing at Hyde Park are Texas, Starsailor, Razorlight and Primal Scream.

The ticket costs 80 pounds … and I am seriously thinking of attending :)

An interesting article about Music Blogs owners can be found here.

Excerpt: “It’s no secret that if you run a music blog of any note, promotion companies will offer to supply you with the latest news, free CDs, tickets to shows, MP3 streams, contests and other wares. Who doesn’t like free stuff? If you happen to already like the band, even better. You just want to help your favorite bands get heard. Everyone wins. So what’s the problem?”

Well, until now nobody offered me anything for publishind reviews on the musicblog.ro (maybe it is too low-profile till now). Still, I greatly appreciate the fact that the guys from Tapinarii allowed me to put their song for download. But I did it because I like their music, not because they asked me too (I wrote the post before asking them…)

What is your opinion on the issues described by the above-mentioned article? Should bloggers be objective or subjective? Should they accept receiving materials to publish or to review ?