23:21:12 UTC - Thursday, December 31, 2009 in
Film,
Games,
Misc,
Music,
Social Games
Best Multiplayer: Call of Duty 4/Battlefield 1943
Best Story: Fable 2
Best game song: Daft Punk Vs Gary Numan – Technologic Vs Cars (DJ Hero)
Best demo: Battlefield 1943
Best Innovation: Tie – Proper DLC (Gay Tony)/Retail-quality original XBLA (1943, Shadow Complex)
Best game you probably never played: Shadow Complex
Average game I never completed: Mass Effect (we’ll be seeing you again…)
Film
Best film: District 9
Worst film: Observe & Report
Best film you haven’t seen: Trouble the Water
Best film you might have seen as I mentioned it: Death Race
Worst film I paid money to sit through: – (not much free time this year, with the masters)
Most hyped film, that turned out to be pretty decent: District 9
Music
Best album: Tie - The Who – Who’s Next/Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon/Seán Ó Riada – Ó Riada Sa Gaiety
Best new song: David Guetta – If We Ever/DJ Shadow – Organ Donor (Extended Overhaul)
Best old song: Tie - Pink Floyd – Any Colour You Like/Seán Ó Riada – Iníon An Phailitínigh/The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter
TV
Best new series: Tie - Modern Family/The Good Wife
Best old series: Lie to Me
Worst new series: Tie - Trauma/V
Best series continuation: Dexter s04
Worst series continuation: Heroes s04 (I’ve stopped watching it)
Best final: Dexter s04
Misc:
Best moment: Jan 20 (whole day really)/Mar 20 (hellz yeah)/Oct 16 (phew!)
Best night out: Jan 16/Jan 20
Best book I never finished: Robert Fisk – The Great War for Civilisation (two years, I’m now halfway through it)
Best mindset change: Keep going, it’s only three months (June-September)
Worst occurrence: Pretty much all of May
Biggest disappoint of 2009: D (holy shit, r u srs?)
December 31st, 2009 in
Film,
Games,
Misc,
Music,
Social
23:00:45 UTC - Thursday, December 17, 2009 in
Music Part 2: Songs from August on
Nyle – Let the Beat Build, eventually ripped the mp3 from the HD video, I wasn’t able to find it anywhere else
Pogo – Expialidocious, same style as Alice, same awesomeness
Agnelli & Nelson – Everyday 2002 (C2C Chillout Mix), from the end of the documentary State of Play, suitably epic
John Williams – Hyperspace (from 5:07), often mistaken as Snowspeeder Theme, as it’s the bit that plays when the snowspeeders are out looking for Han and Luke
Sam & Dave – Hold On, I’m Comin’, I most recently heard it on an episode of White Collar, but it’s one of those I’ve-heard-that-somewhere songs
The Who – Baba O’ Riley, Best Song Ever, live from Albert Hall
Nigel Kennedy – Purple Haze, a section of which has been stuck in my head since I saw him in concert ’round 2005
The Free Design – Love You, from the Opel commercial – you’ll know it when you hear it
Orbital – Halcyon + On + On, not quite the Most Beautiful Song Ever (I found it in this thread), but incredibly smooth and relaxing
The Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling (Instrumental), from the single, it’s pretty awesome
Bob Dylan – Shelter From The Storm (Live), it seems Bob does a different version of the song every time he plays it live – this version (’76) is especially good – heard in the Japanese episode of FlashForward
The Rolling Stones – Like a Rolling Stone, I’d heard it before somewhere, but its use at the end of another FlashForward episode (e07?) made me go look for it again – them boys know their music!
Cascada – Evacuate the Dancefloor, title song is great, haven’t really listened to the rest…
David Guetta – One Love, some Best Song of the Year(s) (“If We Ever“), but mostly average
Old Crow Medicine Show – Old Crow Medicine Show, some nice bluegrass stuff, but mostly crap
David Gray – Draw the Line, really haven’t listened to it much (at all)
ATB – Future Memories, likewise, it seems good, but needs more listening
Nigel Kennedy – The Four Seasons, legend of a violinist, legend of a suite
UNKLE – Psyence Fiction, first came to my attention when “Lonely Soul” was used for the first Assassin’s Creed trailer – looked for it again when “Unreal” (which is sampled by Chicane – Come Tomorrow on Somersault) was used in Top Gear
The Black Eyed Peas – The E.N.D., decided to give it a look when I realised I was Youtubing “I Gotta Feeling” and “Boom Boom Pow” whenever I wanted a listen
DJ Hero Soundtrack, some absolutely fucking amazing (second one needs lots of bass) remixes, needs more of the listening
December 17th, 2009 in
Music
22:44:36 UTC - Wednesday, December 16, 2009 in
Music Been way too long since I did one of these, so I’ll have to split it into a few entries:
UNKLE – Hold My Hand (not the original video, but still pretty awesome), from the brief time I spent with Last.fm radio at the beginning of the year, pretty decent, nice loud beats
Amon Tobin – Sordid, Last.fm, brings back memories of walking into college…
Lamb – All in Your Hands, Last.fm, very awesome, great voice, epic sections, it’s all good
RJD2 – Ghostwriter, Last.fm, much like All in Your Hands, some seriously epic sections, some tune
Aim – Fall Break, Last.fm, pretty much an odd one out, nearly a rap song, still decent though
Aim – A Twilight Zone, Last.fm, same artist but totally different style – practically acoustic/light rock
Sukhwinder Singh – Chaiyya Chaiyya Bollywood Joint, from the credit sequence to Inside Man – has the lovely sweeping percussion (I think?) bits
Shanks & Bigfoot – Sweet like Chocolate, heard this on some late-night “Top Songs of 199X” on some music channel, forgot what a class beat it had
Olive – You’re Not Alone, heard on the same late-night program, nice trancey tune
Pogo – Alice, from the video, it’s awesome
Sinéad O’ Connor – She Moved Through the Fair, from the death sequence of Michael Collins
Steve Earle – Way Down in the Hole, from the intro sequence to season five of The Wire. Who loves The Wire? I FUCKING LOVE THE WIRE, IT’S THE MOST AWESOME TV SHOW EVER.
Chicane – Poppíholla, Song of The Summer, probably – lots of beats, lots of leadup, remix of Sigur Rós’ best song – I like!
U2 – Zoo Station, decent song from Zooropa, loud instruments and that
U2 – Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around the World, likewise from Zooropa, nice and relaxing
Otis Taylor – Ten Million Slaves, from the trailer (and film itself) for Public Enemies, lovely banjo music
Ramin Djawadi – Dirt Nap, from that bit of season four of Prison Break, where Bill Fitchner is in court, and Bailey’s husband comes in, and this savage beat starts
U2 – No Line on the Horizon, I’m not really a fan of it, perhaps I’m expecting too much (the last U2 album I listened to was Joshua Tree), but with lyrics like this, it’s hard to like them
Armand Van Helden – You Don’t Know Me, typical best of album, though with a lot more shit than most (only 3-4 good tracks on the whole thing)
Braid Soundtrack, lovely classical stuff, brings back lots of nice memories
Séan Ó Riada – Ó Riada Sa Gaiety, good session music, first (“Marcshlua Uí Néill“) and last (Ríl Mhór Bhaile An Chalaidh) are the most awesome
Moby – Wait for Me, seems to be an album of two halves – the first five tracks are class, the rest of the album is mediocre at best
Buena Vista Social Club – Buena Vista Social Club, very easy listening latino/cuban music, nearly too easily listening/background music
Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon, very awesome, probably one of the Best Albums Ever
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here, pretty awesome, but also quite short
DJ Sammy – The Rise, standard europop rubbish (which I appreciate in the same way I appreciate Transporter), class U2 sampling in “Rise Again” (you only get the end of it in that clip unfortunately)
Glasvegas – Glasvegas, pretty good album once you can get past the moronic drum beats (beats really, there’s about two drums and a cymbal used), the chorus of Go Square Go is great
The Crystal Method – Vegas, the full album from this video (“High Roller“), some pretty awesome tunes (“Trip Like I Do“, “Jaded“), but fairly average overall
December 16th, 2009 in
Music
00:19:56 UTC - Friday, August 21, 2009 in
Humour,
Music Listening to some of David Guetta’s more recent stuff tonight (his new album is out soon). His latest single (featuring Akon, called “Sexy Bitch”, it’s ok, nice beat but meh else) contains Akon’s following hilariously ironic, sexist, lyrics:
Nothing you can compare to your neighbourhood hoe
I’m tryna find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful
…..
I’m tryna find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful
Dahm girl!
Dahm you’se a sexy bitch
A sexy bitch
Dahm you’se a sexy bitch
A sexy bitch
Dahm girl!
Repeat.
Akon, respect for women, fail.
This would’ve worked fine:
Jaysis girl!
Jaysis you’re a lovely girl
A lovely girl
Jaysis you’re a lovely girl
A lovely girl
Jaysis girl!
August 21st, 2009 in
Humour,
Music
00:18:33 UTC - Thursday, August 6, 2009 in
Music Another artist from my childhood I’ve seen live – Faithless are the last one now, I think!
The afternoon started off fairly badly, walking to the bus for the concert we’d to make our way through a few hundred concert goers. Two things dawned on us very fast.
“Oh god, they’re all under 18″
“Oh god, they’re all drinking and/or are drunk already”
The average was probably 18, if even that. Few people were about 14, completely hammered drunk.
Anyway, we arrived to see Calvin Harris (decent, had his own band and all), Fake Blood (grand, standard DJ stuff), Dizzie Rascal (rubbish).
Then David Guetta, who I’d really wanted to see. He was fairly decent, starting off well, but kinda faded into generic techno. He’d an awesome part towards the end though, mixing from Prodigy’s Firestarter to Love is Gone (I think), any of his own stuff his played was great, though he didn’t play enough of it.
Then, Fatboy Slim.
Don’t get me wrong, his studio albums have been fairly decent (You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby being absolutely brilliant), but live, he was pretty shit. I like my dance/techno/electronica to have some sort of melody or music behind it, so it’s just beat after beat after beat – it’s ok to have that as a backing, as long as you have some sort of layers on top. Unfortunately, that was hardly ever the case with Fatboy. Similar or the same beat often went on for far too long, with no backing or melody, after three or four minutes of it, your mind starts to wander onto other things.
As a live performer too, he wasn’t great. He’s obviously completely in love with the music, knowing the words and beats to every song he mixes (his enthusiasm’s only rivalled by Bruce Springsteen), but doesn’t really seem to have much to do on stage – twice he ran to talk to someone off stage, leaving the decks unattended for about a minute each time, and each time, the music continued as normal. He didn’t even seem to really mix songs, my Favourite Song Ever, Right Here Right Now, was just the straight Redanka Mix.
Essentially, he could’ve come on stage, pressed play on a deck, then left, concert would’ve been no different.
The light show was cool, lots of lovely lasers.
Definitely wouldn’t pay €70 again though.
August 6th, 2009 in
Music
