HD DVD / Randomness... : Music

Random Post about Music

ptorr — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 03:32:00 GMT

Armin van Buuren's State of Trance 2006 is a must-have CD for any trance fans.

I recently learnt that the BBC chose the Pet Shop Boys' track Numb for their World Cup Montage [no hyperlink; it was taken down].

And the Pet Shop Boys will be in Seattle on November 5th!

Yeah baby.

Amazing Pet Shop Boys fan site

ptorr — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 02:42:00 GMT

Wayne Studer has on his site "interpretations and analyses of every song written or performed by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant" -- pretty darn impressive! You can catch the goodness at http://www.geowayne.com/psbhtml.htm

Personally, I think one of the most powerful lines they've ever written comes from Jealousy, on the very melancholy album Behaviour:

I wish I'd never met you or that I could bear to let you go.

I'm sure we've all felt that way at some point in our lives :-(

Strange Japanese Television Shows

ptorr — Sun, 21 Mar 2004 06:42:00 GMT

I just finished my last blog entry, which prompted me to visit the PSB website to see what was new. Well whadayaknow, the video to their next killer single "Flamboyant" is on the website. But I'm not just gushing about the 'Boys in this blog entry -- the video is really cool!

A while ago a video of some Matrix-style ping pong players was doing the rounds on the internet, and apparently it comes from a Japanese TV show called Kaso Taisho (I don't read Japanese so that link may be bad...) Well, in the video there are clips of other crazy things happening on that TV show, such as people pretending to be billiard balls on a huge billiard table. So even if you can't stand the 'Boys (shame on you), turn off your sound card and watch the video. But give the music a chance -- it's one of their best "dance" singles in a long time! What a pity it didn't make it onto the Pop Art DVD :-(

Media Player: High / Low

Real Player: High / Low

In other semi-related news...do I have to get cable now?!?! (Horrible Flash-only site; my apologies). Maybe I can convince my friends to TiVo Astro Boy for me and then go watch it on the weekends... ;-)

Gandalf is Dracula!

ptorr — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 04:12:00 GMT

Many of you probably know that Sir Ian McKellen played both Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and Magneto in X-Men. But did you also know he plays Dracula in the Pet Shop Boys' 1988 music video Heart? I didn't, at least until I listened to the commentary on the new Pop Art DVD. You can check the video out for free on the Pet Shop Boys site -- go to the Pop Art Player page, click Videos, and then click Heart. It requires Flash and either Windows Media Player or Real Player.

As for the DVD, it contains all the Boys' videos (except for the newly-released track Miracles which you can see on the same website as Heart). Unlike their music (which is uniformly brilliant <g>), the videos are a bit of a hit-and-miss affair. There are the outstanding ones such as Being Boring, Domino Dancing, Single/Bilingual, and the award-winning Liberation (featured in the 3-D IMAX film Cyberworld (atrocious Flash-only site... grrrr)), but then there are the experimental / artsy ones like Left to my own Devices or Home and Dry that are truly only for the fans (or suitably interested film students). At one point Chris even jokes about how the video must have been designed to get heavy rotation on MTV. Not.

The commentary is pretty good at the start -- although it consists mostly of naming the labels of the clothes Neil is wearing, laughing at their poor dancing / acting skills, and pointing out how many videos feature them in cars -- but by the end the comments are pretty few and far between. The DVD is well worth it though if you are a fan, as it supersedes both Videography and Various and adds some new stuff in to boot.

Now I'm waiting for the Flamboyant single to be released...

OK so I'm a big fat liar

ptorr — Sun, 30 Nov 2003 03:15:00 GMT

All you lucky people in England have probably been hearing this on the radio for a while now, but I just got my little mitts on Miracles (that's a link to a 64k Windows Media stream), the new Pet Shop Boys single. If you must, you can get the sample in RealAudio or even watch the video here. Unfortunately the PSB site insists on using Flash, but I guess I can make an exception for them ;-)

If you're in the US, Amazon has the new Pop Art CD and DVD on pre-order... but be prepared to fork over the better part of a Benjamin if you want them both (and the new Miracle single Part 1 and Part 2). Interestingly, there is a French version of Pop Art that replaces New York City Boy with Paris City Boy...

At this very moment I'm listening to Bunkka... because I know you care ;-)

Avoiding work any way I can...

ptorr — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 08:20:00 GMT

So I promised a while ago not to gush about the Pet Shop Boys for a while, but I never said anything about Ace of Base. Their latest album Da Capo is by far their best effort so far, and if you like their earlier work (or are a fan of dance / pop) then you should go buy this album!

Unfortunately there are no sound samples on Amazon or CDUniverse at the moment (although C89.5 in Seattle is playing the singles from time to time) and you have to pay import prices if you're in the US (grrrr) but it's well worth the cash. You'll be singing along with Unspeakable, Remember the Words and Change with the Light before you know it. Not sure what the song World Down Under is all about -- apparently they believe that there is a world "down under", but I can authoritatively confirm that yes, Australia does indeed exist. :-)

Another recent addition is Pursuit of Happiness by Weekend Players (thanks Elliot!). If you like Zero 7's debut Simple Things (and you should ;-) ) then this is another great chill album. An interesting independent CD to look at is Unearthed by E.S. Posthumous (the site includes some free MP3 downloads). Tracks from this CD were used as music for several movie trailers including Unfaithful and Triple X (don't want to use the "real" spelling in case it is censored <g>) and it has a great "soundtrack" feel to it, even though it's not a soundtrack album.