Dream Drive

“Dream Drive” is another nice SOUL'd OUT song that takes a big pot of a basic but pleasing beat and some mondo magic vocals and then stirs in all this subtle usage of various instruments, mainly piano, slap bass, strings, and even an electric organ here and there. The result is a dish that is tasty, very tasty indeed. The music itself, especially the piano, is uplifting and has parts with a crowd of some sort shouting in unison, a compositional feature that old Goggin has a soft spot for. “Dream Drive” is a song that can be listened to while in almost any mood, whether happy, sad, or something else in between or outside. It reminds one of a car ride down the highway of one's life, a long journey that all take and a journey that must end someday. Are you driving this car alone or is your car filled with passengers sharing your trip? Is your car fast and wild or slow and contently observant? Whatever the answers to these questions you may have for yourself, there is no doubt that your journey will be a better one if SOUL'd OUT is playing from the stereo.

You can listen to “Dream Drive” here.

You must remove the downloaded file from your computer within 24 hours. It is only a sample of a track which you can purchase on a CD. The author of this site cannot be held responsible for the misuse or copyright violation of this song as enforced by any given country's laws.

Another Dylan greatest hits

This past Tuesday, Bob Dylan released a greatest hits CD, simply titled DYLAN. While I myself am a devout Dylan fan, I have absolutely no intention of buying this album. The reasoning behind this can best described by a review of the album on Pitchfork : "Bob Dylan's recording career has been compiled and re-compiled so many times that his new 3xCD box set needed to have some kind of serious reason to exist-- it's got the responsibility to give us some kind of fresh take on him. Instead, it's the same damn songs they've been feeding us over and over for 40 years."

Yes, this new greatest hits album has absolutely nothing new to offer. While all of the songs belong to be on a greatest hits album, every single one of them have already been on one of Dylan's greatest hits albums. In fact, 15 out of the 16 tracks from The Best of Bob Dylan, released in 2005, appear on DYLAN. After finding this out, I have to sit down and just wonder why this album is even being released. Despite this, there is one upside of the release of DYLAN. For promotion of the new album, British producer Mark Ronson has decided to make a remix of the track "Most Likely You'll Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)". The track can be previewed on the official website for DYLAN.

SOUL'd OUT

SOUL'd OUT is a one-of-a-kind band, and also one-of-the-best as far as I'm concerned. Hailing from the Land of the Rising Sun, which is a fancy way to say Japan, their eccentric musical style is a fusion of hip-hop and disco. The group consists of Diggy-MO', the main MC and the one in the middle of that picture there, Bro. Hi, the MC, human beat box and the one on the left, and Shinnosuke, the trackmaster and the one on the right. In many songs Diggy-MO' has a voice unlike any other I have ever heard, a sort of nasal chorus. Bro. Hi is truly a human beat box, once in a while making sounds I couldn't even begin to attempt to immitate. Shinnosuke never says anything but has the loudest and most impressive voice of all through the music itself. Most of SOUL'd OUT's lyrics are in Japanese, with a few bits here and there in English. For me this enhances the music even further, as the sound of the Japanese language is very pleasing to my ears, probably a result of having lived in that country in the days of my early youth. But then again, I enjoy the sound of the Hungarian language far more, and I only went there for about six days.

Anyway, a few of my favorite SOUL'd OUT songs:

• Dream Drive
• To All Tha Dreamers
• 1,000,000 MONSTERS ATTACK
• ALIVE ~Wall5 Remix~
• Love Peace & Soul
• Flyte Time
• Master's Groove
• Diggy Diggy Diggy
• Wekapipo
• Magenta Magenta

I first found out about SOUL'd OUT from the TV show “Yakitate!! Japan”, a cartoon about bread and one of the best shows to ever exist. One of the end credits tracks for the second season was this crazy thumping disco hip-hop sort of song with a CGI rendering of one of the main characters dancing on a pedestal. That song was “To All Tha Dreamers”, and thus SOUL'd OUT was discovered. “To All Tha Dreamers” is an epic song with absolutely fabulous string, brass, and piano, colored whitish-green, a blossoming purple-pink, and pale blue respectively, all accompanying the energetic vocals. It also has a higher percentage of English lyrics than most SOUL'd OUT tracks. Although the song is about five minutes long, it feels much longer yet doesn't get tiring because of its many sections with quite varied styles and feelings. A veritable smörgåsbord of rhythm and sound that fills the listener with an unexplainable sense of energy and goodness in the world, “To All Tha Dreamers” is a truly legendary song and strongly represents the sound of SOUL'd OUT.

You can listen to “To All Tha Dreamers” here.

You must remove the downloaded file from your computer within 24 hours. It is only a sample of a track which you can purchase on a CD. The author of this site cannot be held responsible for the misuse or copyright violation of this song as enforced by any given country's laws.

Mark Schultz-Walking Her Home

These New Guys!

Well I have been out of the loop for awhile about getting you some new music so I have searched the depths of myspace once again and came out with a guy from Greenville, South Carolina. His name Corey Crowder and he might not be all that new, after all he did make his debut on the reality T.V. show Real World. Even so he is really good. His song "Here's Looking at You" is a sure love song that could be played over and over again when you are with that special girl or guy of your choice. The soft-souled acoustic singer has been plucking at the heart-strings in his songs and with a little bit more light could probably make it into the hall of heart-throbs along with Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, and John Mayer. Check him out at his myspace, just type in Corey Crowder in the music section.

How about this guy who is nowhere near as popular as Corey Crowder his name is Mark Webb. He is actually from the same town as Corey, so I am assuming that they are somehow connected, but anyway he is kinda doing the same thing with his music but he is a little bit more upbeat with his songs. They are still love songs and everything but with a little more pep to them. Still a good guy to listen to so check him out also and see what you think. Just search Mark Webb at myspace in the music section.

Now the song I like best, "Walking Her Home", by Mark Shultz. I am going to put this video on the site and you are probably gonna cry if you listen to the words. Yep it is another emotional song and a real tear jerker, too. I don't know much about this guy but I do know that this song is awesome and really true. It shows love in a song and not just the summer love but the unconditional love that you see in the eyes of your grandparents or the old couple on the park bench. This song is just a solid song that shows the true meaning of life and what it is all about. I give this song a solid ten and I hope you guys like it as much as I do.

These are my new guys. Maybe they will soon be your new guys, too.

More Crispy (Crispier?)

At first I found “Licky Licky” to be a decent song, but after a couple listens it began to grow on me. It is a song about tasting exotic fruit, but we all know what this standard metaphor is really about. Of course, because Crispy is a bubblegum dance artist, they just go ahead and slay what would otherwise be relative subtlety with lines such as “Would you like some coconuts? / I got a pair already”. The fruitfulness of the song is furthered by the fruit-salad of the music, carefully creating a delicious bowl of heavy baseline plums, string-counter melody honeydew melons, watermelon synth bits, and apple slice vocals. The awesome computer-flute thing sounds like frozen tofu, except that's not really something one typically puts in a fruit salad. Also, the little fruit men dancing on the table in that video there are kickin' rad and clearly Licky Licky Lady wishes she could dance like that.

A wise man once said, “Songs are ways to say things that sound absolutely stupid when you just say them outloud.” My favorite Crispy song, “Happy King”, is a perfect example of this great truth. For example, the line “I am happy as a king” is the cornerstone of this song. But what does that mean? Can one really assume that to be a king is to be happy? Never mind that since the singer is female, she should be happy as a queen. Nevertheless, the idea of complete happiness is conveyed perfectly. What I also wonder about is why every single line that the male accompanist sings is ridiculously amusing and amusingly ridiculous. Why does he say “and me still get no kiss”? And then he goes on to tell us “I never get no kiss kiss / Kiss kissy, never ever”. Whatever the reasoning behind this, it's lyrics like these that give this song and many others like it their addictive charm. This is especially true with “Happy King” because of its sugary upbeat nature, employing all manner of white and tan synthetic instruments to make a great song with masterful melodies in all the right places.

You can listen to “Happy King” here.

You must remove the downloaded file from your computer within 24 hours. It is only a sample of a track which you can purchase on a CD. The author of this site cannot be held responsible for the misuse or copyright violation of this song as enforced by any given country's laws.

Radiohead's big move

Whenever Radiohead makes any sort of announcement, it is a big deal. The news the British band announced Monday is no different. The band announced its plans for one of the gutsiest moves in the music industry ever. The band will be releasing their seventh studio album In Rainbows on October 10th. The album will only be available for download on the bands website. According to a website made for the release of the album, the only required fee of the album is a credit card processing fee. When I first heard of this news, I immediately pre-ordered the album. Upon checking out, there was a blank next to the album price, with a linked question mark. Upon clicking on the link, I was brought to a page that simply read “It is up to You”, with another linked question mark. I clicked the link again, and was brought to a page that said “No really, It is up to You”. In other words, Radiohead will be releasing their new album ABSOLUTELY FREE!

With the release of their previous album Hail to the Theif, Radiohead completed their contract with EMI-Capital records. The band is releasing In Rainbows entirely on their own, with no label or company. I believe that this is a very good move for the band, and releasing the album for free is a concept that will end up helping the music industry as a whole. Having one of the largest international fan bases, Radiohead will without a doubt turn a profit despite having fans choose how much they want to pay for the album. Almost every track on the upcoming album has been performed live by the band, and can be found on YouTube or multiple bittorrent sites. The success of In Rainbows will prove to the RIAA and record labels that digital downloading is not hurting albums sales. While releasing a new album for free is nothing new, it has certainly never been done at this caliber. Most new and upcoming bands release their albums for free simply to gain exposure, and to get their name into the market. Radiohead, however, is one of the most popular international bands of today. Radiohead is simply paving the way for the rest of the music industry.