This week I've mostly been listening to..

There’s been some awesome new music out over the last week or two.  Here’s my picks of that new music…

Mastodon’s Black Tongue, the first single of their upcoming album The Hunter, is popping up all over the net as a teaser.  It’s not going to please fans of the older, heavier Mastodon sound, but if you were into their last album, and that softer, more melodic sound, then you’ll be well impressed.  They’re definitely continuing to progress and develop their sound.  Can’t wait to hear the rest of the album (out late September).

We only said goodbye with words, I died a hundred times

Amy Winehouse’s death, apart from being tragic and a loss of a great musical talent, has exposed the hypocrisy of a mainstream media who revel in the gory details of musicians’ debauchery but pretend that they had nothing to do with the downfall; in some cases even having the nerve to speak out against those who criticise the behaviour that they by turns glorified and ridiculed.

Others have done this as well but the mainstream media is the worst perpetrator of this – showing every photo of every drunken night out, every video of supposed drug use, and every detail of every fight (usually with members of the media who don’t understand an individual’s right to privacy sometimes).

You pay 10 bucks to see me, on a 15 foot high stage

SPIN magazine posed a question recently to their followers on Facebook – what bands formed after 2000 could possibly go on to sell out a stadium of 95,000 people? I think it had something to do with the size of the stadiums U2 have been playing?

There was a lot of debate on the topic, with no one really coming up with any worthwhile contenders, although plenty of older bands were named, although ineligible due to the “after 2000” caveat on the question.

And that, for some reason made me happy.

Oh well, whatever, Nevermind, 20 years on.

20 years ago this year Nirvana released their sophmore album Nevermind, an album that somehow changed the course of music in the 90’s.  But why did it become such a popular, well-loved album; an album that an entire generation is able to reminisce on?

Let’s face it, it wasn’t the greatest album ever made – musically it was simplistic, Kurt could barely sing, the ideas weren’t original and the band themselves admitted as much.

Regardless of the facts, it did go on to become an album that effected a generation – from their attitudes and values (or at least confirmed those attitudes and values as legitimate), to lifestyle, to clothing.