Soundgarden - "Live to Rise"

Nearly three months ago, I said, "I think I'm finally ready to start posting here again too."  It was a nice thought, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be.  Oh well - I still think of this blog quite often, but the combination of good free music and time to write about it has been rather elusive.  I have a good song for you tonight, though.

Over the last couple of years, Soundgarden have been slowly but surely putting together one of the best reunions I've ever witnessed, although it probably helps that I was a massive fan of them back in the 90s when they broke up.  From a few one-off shows, to a compilation album packed with hits, rarities, and a brand new song (albeit one that was written and partially recorded nearly two decades prior to its release), to their first-ever live album, to their first tour in fourteen years, to a new album that is due to be released sometime this year, they have once again become a musical force to be reckoned with.  Today marked yet another milestone in their return: the release of their first newly written single since they began their reunion.  "Live to Rise" will be featured on the soundtrack to The Avengers and, for a limited time, can be downloaded for free from iTunes.

I hear a bit of an Audioslave sound in most of the song, but in reality I guess it's more of a Chris Cornell sound, since he wrote the song.  The guitar solo is definitely all Soundgarden, though - I've really missed Kim Thayil all these years!  The best part is that this is just a taste of what is to come - I can't wait to hear the new album!

Happy listening!

URL:

http://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/live-to-rise-single/id516435279

Blog Action Day 2010

Today is Blog Action Day, a day during which bloggers all around the world come together to write about a single important topic.  Even though I haven't been doing a whole lot of blogging lately (my reasons for which are summarized in a comment on a recent post on Feedback), I still wanted to participate in this day.  The topic for this year's Blog Action Day is water; this being a music blog, it made sense to have some music about water.

A few months ago, I came across a live version of Pearl Jam's "Amongst the Waves", which was originally released on last year's Backspacer.  That album has actually turned out to be one of my favourite Pearl Jam albums yet, and "Amongst the Waves" is one of my favourite songs on the album; the big, anthemic chorus is something that Pearl Jam really excels at, and I love the upbeat nature of this song.  While the song itself isn't actually about water, I'm going to say that it's close enough for my purposes right now.  I'll get back to more regular blogging someday soon, I'm sure; in the meantime, enjoy the song and feel free to check out some more of the Blog Action Day action - there are quite a few music blogs involved, if you're looking for a place to start.

You'll need to subscribe to Pearl Jam's mailing list to access the download.  If you're cool with that, the download link should arrive in your inbox shortly.  Happy listening!

URLs:

http://blogactionday.change.org

http://www.pearljam.com/widgets/atw/index.php

Bad Religion - 30 Years Live

This will probably be one of my shortest posts ever, as I am simply too unfamiliar with the music to properly comment on it, but at the same time, I realize that it's a big enough deal to be worthy of a post.  Bad Religion have released a free live album in celebration of thirty years together.  The album is called 30 Years Live, and you can download it by signing up for their mailing list.  Once you get your email, it will have a code that you can use on the Bandcamp website to download the album in the format of your choice - the default is MP3 320k, but you can choose lots of others, even FLAC if you want to be able to burn your own copy in CD quality.

My brother Mike (who wrote a post on this blog about Metallica a couple of years ago) is a pretty big fan of Bad Religion, so he's much more qualified to talk about them than I am.  He says that the album has "one heck of a setlist," and that the first and last songs, which are from their debut album, "sound light years better here!"  Also, if you visit the band's page on the Epitaph site, "you can click on the album covers on the bottom of the screen and download 1 or 2 songs from almost every single one of their releases. and that includes a few of their best songs, i.e. 'sorrow' from The Process of Belief. altogether you can download enough for a really nice little unofficial greatest hits record."

Okay, so this wasn't as short as I'd thought it would be, but that's mainly thanks to Mike.  I hope you enjoy the album, and also the free MP3s from the record label's site if you decide to check then out.  Happy listening!

URLs:

http://www.badreligion.com/mailinglist.html

http://www.epitaph.com/artists/artist/5/Bad_Religion

Brian Ray - Mondo Magneto

Brian Ray, who is perhaps best known as Paul McCartney's guitarist, has made his debut solo album, Mondo Magneto, available for free this week.  To get it, all you need to do is go to his Facebook page and follow the instructions (namely, click the "Like" button near the top of the page, which should cause the download link to appear) - just make sure that you do it before Sunday, May 16.

Having never heard of Brian Ray before I read about this offer on Twitter, I didn't really know what to expect from this album.  I ended up listening to the whole thing three times in a row last night before I decided I needed to get some sleep, and it was the first thing I listened to today; needless to say, I think it's a pretty cool album.  The first song, "Good for Nothing", has a cool guitar riff that bends and twists all over the place; I actually get a bit of Tom Petty vibe from the verses, before the hard rocking chorus kicks in.  The lyrics to "Vinyl" make some very creative use of album and artist names to weave a story about LPs that were stolen from the trunk of the narrator's car.  "Soft Machine" is a slow rocker with a bit of a Led Zeppelin feel and some great guest vocals by Etta James.   "All I Know" is a beautiful little ballad with some nice backup vocals.  "If You're Leaving Me" is another ballad, mainly acoustic with a nice string arrangement.

The guitar playing on the entire album is excellent; Ray has a great sense of when to lay low and let the vocals and other instruments do the talking, and when to cut loose with a big, meaty riff or some tasteful slide playing.  Remember, Mondo Magneto is only available for free until Sunday, May 16, so if it sounds like something that would interest you at all, go and download it immediately.  Happy listening!

URL:

http://www.facebook.com/brianrayguitar

Song Spotlight: Trans-Siberian Orchestra - "Believe"

I was a little surprised (but pleasantly so) to see that Trans-Siberian Orchestra have offered another song from their latest album, Night Castle, as a free download; you might recall that they previously offered "Child of the Night" as a time-limited free download.  "Believe" is the latest song to be offered, and what's interesting is that it is actually being made available for a video contest; you can download both the album version and a "radio" version to use as the soundtrack for a video of "something/anything you believe in."  I'm not particularly skilled in video creation, so I doubt I'll even attempt to enter a contest like this; however, for those who are so inclined, it looks like the prize is quite nice, so it might be worth your time.

"Believe" was originally released by Savatage on their 1991 album, Streets: A Rock Opera.  Even though this is technically a cover version, Trans-Siberian Orchestra actually evolved from Savatage, so this song is much more representative of their sound than "Child of the Night" is.  It opens quietly with piano and vocals, which are later joined by drums and distorted guitars; it is a power ballad through and through.  I really like the way the vocals are delivered in this song, and there is a beautiful guitar solo near the end of the album version (the radio version basically strips out all the instrumental sections).

Both songs are available as high quality (320 kbps) MP3s.  If anyone decides to make a video to go along with either version, please post a link to it here - I would love to take a look at anything that my readers create.  Happy listening! 

URL:

http://feature.atlrec.com/contests/tso/believe/

Artist Spotlight: The Machine

The Machine is an excellent Pink Floyd tribute band that allows recordings of their shows to be hosted on the Live Music Archive.  At the time of this writing, there are 22 shows available for download in a variety of formats - namely, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, and VBR MP3.  So far I have downloaded three shows, and they all sound great and are quite lengthy; each of them clocks in at just under three hours.

The Machine covers a huge variety of Pink Floyd material.  All the staples that you would expect are here, like "Money", "Another Brick in the Wall Part II", and "Comfortably Numb", as well as more obscure songs; notably, they play songs from The Final Cut, something Pink Floyd themselves never did in concert.  They even play songs from the two David Gilmour-led albums, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell, which kind of surprised me as those two albums do not seem to be very popular among Pink Floyd fans (The Division Bell happens to be my favourite album of theirs, though).  All of the songs are played incredibly well - to my ear, there's not a whole lot to distinguish them from the real deal, making them very authentic sounding.

This post has been written in memory of my father, who passed away very suddenly last month.  Music was a huge part of his life, something that he passed on to both of his sons, and he was the biggest Pink Floyd fan I have ever known.  I love you, Dad.  I wish you were here, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day.

URL:

http://www.archive.org/details/TheMachineLive

Song Spotlight: Smashing Pumpkins - "Widow Wake My Mind"

Hmm, nice.  Looks like the widget that the Smashing Pumpkins have created for Teargarden by Kaleidyscope (which I added to my post about "Song for a Son" last month) automatically updates when new songs become available. Which is kind of a roundabout way of saying that the album's second song, "Widow Wake My Mind", was released on Monday and can be downloaded directly from the band's official website.  I really like the odd-time guitar riff that opens the song, as well as the different keyboard textures that underscore much of the song.

At the current rate of one song every 41 days, the entire 44 track album should be complete by sometime in October, 2014.  I'm sure that will change as more songs become available, but it's still fun to think about what a huge undertaking this album is.  Happy listening!

URL:

 http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/

Song Spotlight: Smashing Pumpkins - "A Song for a Son"

Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, the ambitious new Smashing Pumpkins album, has had the first of its 44 songs released.  As of December 8, 2009, "A Song for a Son" can be downloaded for free from the band's website.  I've been trying to figure out the best way of covering this album here; for example, do I post an album spotlight of the entire thing, 44 individual song spotlights, or something in between?  Since a lot depends on how the band itself decides to release the album, I'll just post about this song for now and figure out the rest of the details when I know more.  Given the amount of people who come to this blog looking for free Smashing Pumpkins music (my post about Machina II is the most popular single post on this site by a very wide margin), I think that's the best thing to do.

I really like "A Song for a Son".  Billy Corgan has stated that it has "the right epic quality to it that says, ‘OK, here we go on this massive journey!’"  I have to agree.  The song starts quietly, with piano, acoustic guitar, and what sounds like a Mellotron providing the backdrop for Corgan's vocals.  Later on, it moves into more progressive territory with layers of harmonized guitars.  If this is even a taste of what is to come, then the rest of the album is definitely something to look forward to.

You can download the song from the band's website.  They're using a widget that I will try to embed at the end of this post.  If you don't see anything there, then I guess it didn't work.  If you do see something there, please let me know what you think of it, as I generally like to keep my posts pretty plain, but if people find it useful (i.e. it makes it easier to download the music), perhaps I'll try things like that more often in the future.  Happy listening!

URL:

http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/

Song Spotlight: Paul McCartney - "Meat Free Monday"

One of my favourite moments on The Simpsons was when Paul and Linda McCartney showed up to support Lisa's efforts to become a vegetarian.  As Lisa was preparing to leave, Paul asked her if she would like to hear a song, to which she responded very enthusiastically.  Paul then handed things over to Apu, who began singing, rather terribly, "I'm Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Man, I hope I will enjoy my show."  At this point, Lisa began backing quietly away with a nervous (or was that terrified?) smile on her face.

 

Some 14 years later, Sir Paul himself has composed a song about vegetarianism called "Meat Free Monday".  Now, as I mentioned before, I'm not terribly familiar with McCartney's solo output, so I don't know if he's done this kind of thing before.  I'm pretty sure that he hasn't offered any songs about vegetarianism for free before, though.  Well, technically the song can be downloaded for making a donation to the Meat Free Monday campaign, but the site also includes a link to download the song without making a donation; how you obtain it is up to you.

 

"Meat Free Monday" is quite a fun song.  Musically, it reminds me of some Beatles songs like "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "Octopus's Garden".  Lyrically, he's not going for anything terribly complicated, with lines like "Meat Free Monday, it's a fun day, and it's happenin' all around the world," but that actually works in the song's favour; by keeping things simple, the song takes on a certain charm, not unlike something you might hear from Sesame Street or Schoolhouse Rock!  No matter what your views on vegetarianism are, I think it's pretty hard to deny that this is a really catchy song.

 

To download "Meat Free Monday", you need to enter your email address in the widget, and the download link will be sent to the address you provide.  Happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://www.supportmfm.org/donate/

http://www.supportmfm.org/donate/download.cfm

Song Spotlight: Moonalice - "Down The Road A Piece"

Well, that was fast.  The second song from Moonalice's second studio album, "Down The Road A Piece", has been released.  Once again, it can be downloaded directly from the band's website in MP3 and FLAC formats.  The title of the album now seems to be Online Only. Only For Free., at least according to the tags in the MP3 file.

 

The song itself is a very cool blues-based boogie tune that features some awesome solos from the piano and guitar.  I hope you've been enjoying this album as much as I have so far, and I'll be back whenever the next song is released.  Happy listening!

 

URL:

http://www.moonalice.com/music/ 

Song Spotlight: Moonalice - "It's 4:20 Somewhere"

Back in September, when the Smashing Pumpkins announced that their next album would be released for free over the Internet, one track at a time, they received quite a bit of press about it (as well as a big increase in the number of visitors to this blog searching for a "free Smashing Pumpkins album"), and deservedly so - it's definitely a different way of releasing music, and it's nice to see major artists trying things like this.  However, it appears that Moonalice have beaten them to the punch, having recently announced the release of their second album, Free, one song at a time over the Internet.  The first of those songs, "It's 4:20 Somewhere", was just released last weekend, and can be downloaded directly from their website in 128k MP3 and FLAC formats.

 

I first wrote about Moonalice back in June.  Since that time, I have continued to follow them on Twitter and Facebook and have just been fascinated by them; last week, they stated that they "got rid of our manager, publicist, and label in favor of Facebook, Twitter, and [their] website" as an experiment in social media.  I don't think too many major artists would be willing to do something like that, so I support their initiative in as many ways as I can.  Of course, it helps a lot that their music rocks, as all the social media experiments in the world wouldn't be able to help them otherwise.  "It's 4:20 Somewhere" is no exception - it's a great mid-tempo rocker with a laid back feel, excellent guitar playing, and gorgeous backing vocals.  It's a great way to kick off their latest experiment, and I can't wait to hear where they go from here.

 

I hope you enjoy this song; if you do, please stay tuned for more new songs from Moonalice.  I'll most likely be posting about each track as it is made available, although future posts will probably be shorter than this one.  Happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://www.moonalice.com/music/ (for the song, plus lots of other free music)

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2009/06/artist-spotlight-moonalice.html

http://www.facebook.com/moonalice?ref=ts

http://twitter.com/Moonalice/

http://www.moonalice.com

Album Spotlight: Inward Eye EP

It's always great to find music for free, and I'll never stop writing about the lesser known, independent artists that have long been a staple of this blog, but I get a real thrill out of it when the music is something I've actually heard before.  Recently I was just searching for information about The Trews (read more about them, including how to get a couple of free downloads, at Music Musings) on last.fm and came across a couple of comments about a band called Inward Eye, who have an EP available for free download.  Inward Eye have a great song called "Shame" that I've heard on the radio quite a few times now, so of course I had to check out the EP.  To my utter surprise and delight, "Shame" is actually included on the EP!

 

Inward Eye is a trio of very young musicians (with an average of 20) from Winnipeg, Manitoba.  They cite artists like The Kinks, The Clash, The Who, Green Day, and the Rolling Stones as influences, and it's easy to hear a lot of these influences in the 4 songs included on the EP.  I also hear a bit of Alice Cooper in "Shame", with the verse and prechorus having a bit of a "School's Out" vibe, but the chorus launches the song into another dimension entirely, with a staccato guitar riff and absolutely crazy sounding falsetto vocals.  "Blind Paranoia" has more of a punk edge to it, with a great melodic chorus and a bridge that has more out of control vocals and builds in intensity until a couple of bars of hand claps lead back into the chorus.  "You Know I Know" seems to be some kind of "progressive punk rock" song - I've never really heard anything like it.  It starts off very fast and aggressive, sounding like an old Clash song, before going into a somewhat idiosyncratic bridge, complete with whistling, and later into a slower, Led Zeppelin-like jam to close the song; I can easily envision live performances of this song stretching well beyond the 3 minutes and 45 seconds of the studio version.  The final song on the EP, "The Times They Aren't A Changin'", adds synthesizers to the mix to great effect; this is the most Who-like song on the EP, and a great choice for the final song of a debut EP, as it leaves me wanting to hear a whole lot more from these guys.

 

The EP can be downloaded from Inward Eye's official website; clicking on the FREE EP DOWNLOAD graphic pops up a box where you enter your email address, birthday, and country, along with an option to sign up for Inward Eye email updates.  The download is a 25.5 MB zip file containing the 4 songs as 256 kbps MP3s as well as cover artwork.  I hope these guys go far - if this EP is any indication, they have loads of talent and energy to spare, and I'm looking forward to hearing a lot more from them.  Happy listening!

URL:
http://musicddm.blogspot.com/2009/05/free-download-friday-12-trews.html
http://www.inwardeye.com/index2.html

Album Spotlight: Noise Addict - it was never about the audience

From out of nowhere, Noise Addict's it was never about the audience has come along to become one of the best albums I have heard this year, free or not.  This is a collection of 15 songs in various eclectic styles, many of which are very catchy.  After one listen to the album, two songs really stuck in my head, and they stayed there until I listened to it again; I listen to an awful lot of music, so for anything to be this memorable, it has to be pretty special.  One of these songs was "Big Ups", which features barbershop-esque backup vocals ("da doooo BOP!", etc.), a drumbeat that occasionally stutters, and a soaring chorus.  The other was "Lasagne", which features songwriter Ben Lee's 7-year-old stepdaughter on lead vocals; the impromptu nature of the song and all of the laughter in the vocals makes it a joy to listen to. 

 

Subsequent listens to the album have revealed more gems.  The opening track, "That's How It Goes", takes a quirky look at the life of musicians, with lyrics like "Bands keep making music 'cause they didn't go to college, and as people are not suited to working in an office."  The multilayered, lower-register vocals in "Get Well" remind me of Brad Sucks.  "The Faster Side of Normal" adds strings to the mix, to absolutely beautiful effect.  "I Heart Your Band" marries a garage rock sound with lyrics about a fan's undying love for a band, even during such periods when they thought they were U2 or added a horn section.

 

The album closes with "Let's Do Our Thing", which is unlike anything I've ever heard before.  The verses are instrumental, with understated guitar solos taking the usual place of vocals, while the choruses feature layers of vocals, piano, and other effects.  It has such a warm, gorgeous sound, but it really needs to be heard to be believed - it's that unique.

 

it was never about the audience can be downloaded in a variety of formats; the default is 320k MP3, which weighs in at 80 MB, but "Audiophiles and Nerds" may wish to download it in other bitrates (I chose VBR high), or in other formats such as FLAC, OGG, or Apple Lossless.  An email address is required, which subscribes you to the Noise Addict mailing list, but they say that you can unsubscribe from it at any time.  Happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://noiseaddict.net/

Song Spotlight: Janet LaValley - "Unwind"

If you enjoyed listening to Tribe or Janet LaValley's solo song "It's All Right With Me", then you may be interested to know that another LaValley solo MP3 has been made available by Janet herself.  "Unwind" is another song from her still unreleased album Extraordinary Popular Delusions (and the Madness of Crowds), and the 2.65 MB MP3 can be downloaded directly from her website.

 

"Unwind" is another hard rocking song.  The distorted vocals add a touch of aggression to the song, but it's still catchy enough to sing along with (the lyrics are even conveniently embedded in the MP3's tags).  I hope "Unchained" and "It's All Right With Me" are just teasers for what will eventually be a full release of the album in some format, because it sounds like it has the potential to be something really cool.

 

Tribe fans will likely appreciate this song the most, but anyone who loves hard rock (especially of the female-fronted variety) would do very well to check it out.  Happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2008/04/artist-spotlight-tribe.html

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2009/05/song-spotlight-janet-lavalley-its-all.html

http://www.janetlavalley.com/

Artist Spotlight: Moonalice

I was drawn to today's featured artist in a rather unconventional fashion. Shortly before I started using Twitter, I read an article about a band that "Twittercasted" one of their concerts - in other words, they recorded their concert, and after each song was finished, the audio was encoded into an MP3 and uploaded to the Internet, at which time a link was posted on the band's Twitter feed. A pretty neat idea, I thought, but since I had no idea who this band was and I wasn't on Twitter at the time, I didn't think too much more of it at the time. A few weeks later I did join Twitter, though, so I decided that I should look this band up to see what they were all about.

After a bit of searching (in particular, I needed to come up with the word "Twittercast", after which the search was fairly trivial), I found that the band was called Moonalice. I began following their Twitter feed, and I also checked out their website to learn more about them. I immediately recognized one of the members of the band as G.E. Smith, who, among other things, is the former musical director of Saturday Night Live; I used to love the brief snippets of his playing that would be shown before and after the commercials on that show, so that gave me a really good feeling about Moonalice. My next stop was their music page, which lists an astounding amount of studio and live tracks to download, along with the following, extremely cool message:

The music you download from this page is free for your listening pleasure. If you like our music, pay it forward to your friends. Turn them on. It's about the music. If you feel so inclined, let us know who you are.

There are 4 studio tracks available for download. My favourites of these are "Blink of an Eye", which, with its laid back sound and female lead vocal, brings Fleetwood Mac to mind; and their cover of Steve Earle's "I Ain't Ever Satisfied", which is given a wonderful treatment - I love the way the song mellows out in the third verse and then slowly builds back up into the chorus. All 4 of these tracks are available as both 128k MP3 and lossless FLAC files. If you check out the band's iLike page (also available here for Facebook users), you can find a fifth track entitled "Listen to Those Eyes", which is a cool little rocker.

As cool as those studio tracks are, the live tracks are where things really get interesting. At the time of this writing, there are 17 complete concerts available for download, including the first 2 Twittercasts (called "Tweetcasts" here). Some of the concerts are very lengthy - I downloaded one that is more than 3 hours long - and contain a nice mix of original Moonalice songs and cover songs. Some of the covers I've heard are the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash", Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale", the blues standard "Eyesight to the Blind", Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", and the classic truck drivers' anthem "Six Days on the Road". The diversity in their selection of cover songs should give you a hint as to how diverse their own music can be. Another thing that is not apparent just from looking at the track lists of the concerts is that these guys like to jam - a LOT - with song lengths regularly approaching 10, 15, and even 20 minutes. One of the highlights of a few of the concerts I've listened to is "Tell Me It's Okay", which repeatedly builds up and drops back down, and features some beautiful guitar solos from Smith.

If you still ain't satisfied and want even more free Moonalice music, you would do well to check out their Twitter feed, where they are still doing Twittercasts. I have yet to catch a live Twittercast, but I have been able to llisten to a few "Zombie Twittercasts", in which they take a show from their archives and upload the MP3s via Twitter beginning at 4:20 in a selected time zone (some past start times have been on Greenwich Mean Time and Newfoundland time - the latter being based on a suggestion of my own), usually on Fridays. However you decide to check Moonalice out, I hope you enjoy their music. I also hope that Moonalice continue to be as cool, genuine, and accessible as they are now. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://twitter.com/Moonalice
http://moonaliceband.com/
http://moonaliceband.com/music/
http://ilike.com/artist/Moonalice
http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/artist/Moonalice?_fb_q=1

Album Spotlight: Coldplay - LeftRightLeftRightLeft

In case you haven't heard from elsewhere, Coldplay have recently begun offering their new live album, LeftRightLeftRightLeft, as a free download from their website (and also as a free CD if you happen to catch a show on their current tour). To download the album, all you need to provide is your email address and country in the site's form, and you will be given a link to download a 54.5 MB zip file.

LeftRightLeftRightLeft consists of 9 tracks, clocking in at just under 40 minutes. It was recorded at various locations on their current tour and is intended as "a thank you to our fans – the people who give us a reason to do it and make it happen," although I can recommend the album even if you don't count yourself as a fan of Coldplay. Why? Because I myself have never really been a fan of them. It's not that I dislike them; I love the song "Clocks" (and I was quite pleased to find that song amongst the tracks on this album - in fact, it was the only song I recognized, as well as the primary reason I downloaded it at all), and I remember liking a few of their other songs quite a few years ago, but I never felt compelled to pick up any of their albums. After hearing this album, though, I think I can see myself getting into them more in the future. Songs like "Glass of Water", "Viva La Vida", "Strawberry Swing", and of course "Clocks" all sound great, and the responses of the audiences are tremendous (check out the singalong at the end of "Viva La Vida" - if I didn't know any better, I could swear that Freddie Mercury was there directing the audience). As a side note, I was also rather impressed with this interview with Chris Martin about the album.

Whether you're a longtime fan of Coldplay or haven't cared much for them in the past, LeftRightLeftRightLeft is a worthy addition to your digital music collection. Check it out, and happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.coldplay.com/lrlrl/lr.html
http://www.coldplay.com/newsdetail.php?id=401&page=0

Song Spotlight: Janet LaValley - "It's All Right With Me"

While I'm thinking of Tribe again, this would be a good time to mention a great song that first surfaced nearly a year ago in MP3 form (better late than never - especially considering that it was recorded more than a decade ago). After Tribe disbanded in the mid-1990s, their lead singer, Janet LaValley, recorded a solo album entitled Extraordinary Popular Delusions (and the Madness of Crowds). Unfortunately, that album was never released (her official website makes a reference to the record label having its collective head in a rather anatomically impossible position as the reason). However, last May, Janet sent an MP3 of one of the songs from the album to the webmaster of her site, who promptly made it available for fans to download. The song is called "It's All Right With Me", and compared to what I've heard from Tribe, this song is heavier and more aggressive, reminding me somewhat of Hole. Janet's vocals don't soar to the heights she reached on Tribe songs like "Outside", but they are still as powerful as ever. If you've enjoyed listening to what Tribe has to offer, then "It's All Right With Me" is well worth a listen.

If you enjoy this song and somehow missed my post from yesterday about Tribe's Here at the Home album, you should know that you can still download a high quality copy of that album from this link for a few more days.

Happy listening!

URLs:
http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2008/04/artist-spotlight-tribe.html
http://www.janetlavalley.com/
http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2009/05/album-spotlight-tribe-here-at-home-high.html
http://www.stevelathamdesign.com/tribe/mp3/hath.zip

Song Spotlight: Josh Freese: "I Don't Think That's OK"

I've got a free song from a very unique album for you today.  Josh Freese has a new album called Since 1972 coming out later this month, and the pricing scheme for the album is rather... interesting, to say the very least.  I'll let you read the full details for yourself on his website, but basically there are 11 different packages you can buy, ranging in price from $7 for a digital download of the album all the way up to $75,000 for an extravagant package that allows you to go on tour with Josh for a few days, have Josh write, record and release a 5 song EP about you and your life story, take home any one of his drumsets of your choosing... and that's just the start of it.  He insists that these packages are real - I'm waiting to see if anyone will actually take him up on one of the more expensive offers.

In the meantime, the first single from the album has been posted to the website.  In exchange for your email address, you get a free download of "I Don't Think That's OK".  I'm not going to post a detailed review, since it's just one song, but I will say that it rocks.  Go check it out, and happy listening!

URLs:

http://joshfreese.com/

Album Spotlight: Duff McKagan's Loaded - Dark Days

Lately, there has been quite a bit of attention given to Guns N' Roses. The video game Rock Band 2, which was released for the XBox 360 last month, features "Shackler's Revenge" as a playable track; this was the first time in nearly a decade that new Guns N' Roses music was officially released. The movie Body of Lies, which was just released last week, features another new song called "If the World" during its closing credits. And perhaps the biggest GNR-related news of all was the announcement last week that Chinese Democracy, the band's first album since 1993's cover album "The Spaghetti Incident?", will be released on November 23, 2008 - incidentally, this will be exactly fifteen years since "The Spaghetti Incident?" was released.

A lot has happened in those fifteen years. For one thing, the only remaining original member in Guns N' Roses is Axl Rose. The other members have long since gone their own ways and have been keeping themselves pretty busy. Take bassist Duff McKagan, for example: since leaving Guns N' Roses, McKagan has continued to find success as the bassist for Velvet Revolver. That is far from the only band he has been involved in, however. A few weeks ago, one of my favourite blogs, Free Metal Albums, posted a link to an album called Dark Days by Duff McKagan's Loaded. As a longtime GNR fan, I naturally was very curious about this album, so I decided to check it out.

I was very pleasantly surprised with what I heard. Dark Days has a sound that is strongly reminiscent of old Guns N' Roses, which is mainly rock and roll with a good dose of punk rock. Unlike his role in bands like GNR and Velvet Revolver, Duff actually takes center stage in Loaded, singing and playing bass, rhythm guitar, and piano; think of some of the songs that Duff sang lead vocals for on "The Spaghetti Incident?", like "New Rose" and "Raw Power", for an idea of what to expect. But Dark Days is far from being a rehash of old GNR ideas - songs like "Criminal" and "Misery" feature added instrumentation in the form of strings and piano, respectively, which really add a lot of depth to the sound. "Want To" has an amazing outro, and "Shallow" sounds at times like a dark version of The Rolling Stones' "Time Is On My Side". Album closer "Your Way" has a dark, keyboard-driven sound that is reminiscent of Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter".  The entire album has a surprising  amount of depth, and I find myself hearing new things everytime I listen to it.

Whether you're a long time Guns N' Roses fan, a newcomer to the band, or just someone who likes to hear a good, hard rocking record every once in a while, I can't recommend Dark Days highly enough. It makes for some great music to listen to while we count down the remaining few weeks to one of the most highly anticipated albums of all time. If you are at all intrigued by any of this, please head over to the Loaded page at Idol Management to download a free copy of Dark Days.

Happy listening!

URLs:
http://freemetalalbums.wordpress.com/
http://freemetalalbums.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/duff-mckagans-loaded-dark-days/
http://www.idolmanagement.com/duffmckagan's/loadeddarkdays.htm

Album Spotlight: Marillion - Happiness is the Road

My interest in Marillion began about ten years ago, and they very quickly became one of my favourite bands. But as much as I love them, I have to admit that I haven't actually kept up with them lately: the last album I actually purchased was the special edition of 2001's Anoraknophobia, and while I have heard the bulk of their recent material, it hasn't yet found a place in my CD collection. Part of the reason for that is the fact that it been very difficult, if not impossible, to find their albums where I have lived, leaving rather expensive special orders as the only option for obtaining them.

Imagine my surprise and delight, then, when I learned of the innovative way in which Marillion have made their latest album available. The official release date for Happiness is the Road is October 20, 2008, but a digital copy of the album has been available for free from musicglue.com for the last nearly a month now; all that is required to obtain the tracks is an email address. Marillion have essentially leaked the album themselves, but in a manner that gives them much more control than they would have over a normal leak - videos and messages embedded within the files themselves let the listener know about the hard work that went into making this music, direct them to the band's website, and urge them to support the band in any way they can. For a band that has become known for making bold moves (for example, being one of the first bands to utilize the power of the Internet to communicate directly with their fans, and funding the recording of their last few albums from fan pre-orders), this one seems to be exceptionally bold indeed, and it will take some time before its impact will be fully known. At the very least, it has allowed new Marillion music to find itself in heavy rotation in my playlists for the first time in years, and I am doing my part to let others know about it as well.

So, how about the music? I think that anyone familiar with at least some of Marillion's music will feel quite comfortable listening to Happiness is the Road, and anyone who hasn't heard them before may find themselves pleasantly surprised by it. Of the two discs, I have found the first (titled Volume 1: Essence) to be more immediately accessible than the second (titled Volume 2: The Hard Shoulder), although the latter has been growing on me after repeated listens. Some of my favourite songs from Essence are "This Train Is My Life", which has a classic mini-epic sound reminiscent of past Marillion songs like "Afraid of Sunlight"; "Woke Up", which has a beautiful, slow, dreamy sound with gorgeous layered vocals; "Liquidity", a short but very pretty piano-based instrumental; and "Wrapped Up in Time", which has a beautiful, chilled out feel to it. The Hard Shoulder has a pair of excellent pop songs in "Half the World" and the first single, "Whatever is Wrong with You" and an excellent, epic outro in "Real Tears for Sale".

Overall, I am very pleased with Happiness is the Road. It's wonderful to hear some new music from one of my favourite bands, and it's exciting to see that the band is trying new things in order to reach new fans and reconnect with old fans. I can't recommend this album highly enough, so if you're still reading this, I would urge you to head on over to musicglue.com and begin downloading, as it will take some time to obtain all of the tracks. If you like what you hear, then please support the band in any way that you can, whether that means buying a physical copy of the album, buying a concert ticket, helping them to reach more potential fans, or whatever else you can do. Please leave a comment here if you feel so inclined, as I would love to know what people think of this music.

Happy listening!

URL:
http://www.musicglue.com/marillion