The post below is written by Mihai Seceleanu, a best friend and a musicblog.ro contributor :) 

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on earth. In Internet mythology, it’s the name of a new Web based service that can be compared to your very own radio station. All you do is tell it what kind of music you like and it lets you discover more music like it.

It’s based on the Human Genome Project – http://www.pandora.com/mgp.shtml – a group of musicians and music-loving technologists that got together and built the most comprehensive analysis of music ever, researching songs of over 10,000 different artists. But there are even more good news – Pandora www.pandora.com is continously evolving, by adapting itself to users’ preferences – you can always rate the songs and say what’s ok for your radio station, according to your preferences, and what isn’t. And you can just imagine how accurate Pandora will be when there’ll be 100 million users using it.

There’s no mean to go back and listen a song one more time. But you can buy it either as a separate song from iTunes or as an album from Amazon. What’s the best thing about it – there are no commercials – like on Yahoo! Radio or similar services. You just keep the browser window open and the music plays.

 

When I started listening to rock music, I dived headlong and started straight with Overkill. No mellow shampoo boys with soapy ballads, no cheezy lyrics, I went for the real deal. I can safely say I liked “Elimination” better than any other heartbreaking song. And then I liked “I hate” because of the cocky lyrics, of course. Although an older album, it was early 1991 when “The years of decay” – very inspiring title, innit? – finally grabbed me.

Couple of years after, after getting acquainted with both the mainstream and the underground musicians, after listening to the old as well to the young and emerging, after humming “So fine” (GNR of course) and losing my voice growling over “Sleepless” (by Anathema), I liked discovering tracks that were somehow against the whole trend of an album. I wonder how many of you know this song. If you like it, be warned the rest of “Serenades” is NOTHING like it, so don’t say I never warned you…

My guess is the language is Gaelic.

On 31st of May, Apocalyptica is comming back to Romania, at Bucharest’s “Arenele Romane”, with a nice show as part of their latest tour. The tour is meant to promote their latest album, “Amplified – A Decade Of Reinventing The Cello“. Dana is going, I might be going, what about you? Tickets available here, at 55 RON for until May 30 and 65 RON on 31st of May.

Apocalyptica have been in Romania last year, in Targu Mures, and had a nice success.

[via Dana].

 

I am not a great fan of house music (and related genres) except for some Vocal Trance now and then and some bands which I particularly like for no particular reason.

Like DJ Project for example. I don’t know if it is the music (as I said, I am not a big fan of the genre), the lyrics (they are not too smart or too inspiring), might be the attitude or the looks (yeah, the girl looks great) or all of the above in a certain mix.

What is even more surprising is that I liked quite a lot of songs from them, specially those with less house effects and more lyrics.

The sound is quite a good one, which is easy to explain if you look at Gino, one of the band members, who worked previously (about ten years ago) with bands like DJ Bobo, Fun Factory, Tom Novi and others. It is a certain maturity which you can feel in their music.

As usual, Musicblog is strongly supporting some of the best Romanian artists and is strongly recommending you to buy one of their albums. Just for you to get a feeling of DJ Project, open your radios for some time or listen to this – Soapte.

 

I haven’t personally heard The Arctic Monkeys on Romanian radio (OK I don’t listen to radio that much- I’ll vent in another post) but if there indeed are people who haven’t heard of them then read this post.
For those of you fed up with them being overhyped I’ll have to refer y’all to the same hilarious post regarding just that.

After some fourty years of music and after creating some of the best rock-bands ever, what more could you wish from your career? What more could you bring to the audience and how creative and full of spirit can you be?

Well, after listening to Ian Gillan’s latest album, Gillan’s Inn, it seems that some people are just a neverending source of musical inspiration and artistic spirit.

Gillan, the man who created a band like Deep Purple, played the voice of Jesus in the famous Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera and also had a significant contribution to Black Sabbath, recently released a new album, featuring some of the most significants rock players ever. Having together on the same album people like Joe Satriani, Jon Lord, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Steve Morse and many more, the album is a treat in itself, with the chance to listen to some of the greatest rock players of all times.

Just as an example, (on the DVD) you can chose to listen to “Smoke on the water” with a blend of Satriani, Morse or Halley, whatever you prefer :)

Gillan’s voice is also of the highest quality – I was surprised to hear him scream with the same passion after all these years :)

A strong recommandation to buy the album ! If you are not convinced yet, just view a sample.

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 ?

 

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“.

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.