If I Could Make A Soundtrack for The Walking Dead

I gave this a lot of thought, and this is what I came up with as a (metal) soundtrack at least for season one. Thirteen is a good number, no?

1. Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train

2. Metallica - The Thing That Should Not Be

3. Korn - Bitch We Got A Problem

4. Marilyn Manson - Sweet Dreams

5. Pantera - Drag The Waters

6. Disturbed - Land of Confusion

7. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

8. Drowning Pool - Bodies

9. Slipknot - Everything Ends

10. Type O Negative - Everything Dies

11. Slayer - South of Heaven

12. Dope - Die Motherfucker Die

13. White Zombie - Children of the Grave

What would be on yours?

Music Review: My Darkest Days ~ My Darkest Days

Music Review: My Darkest Days ~ My Darkest Days


I'd never heard of these guys before, but my cousin recently posted one of their videos on Face Book. I clicked the link and liked the song so I figured I'd give the rest of the record a listen.

Canadian band My Darkest Day's debut album, which is self titled, was released on September 21, 2010. It peaked on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart at number 58.

Porn Star Dancing is a great rock song. What makes it even better are Zakk Wylde's guitar work and a rap from the king of the dirty south, Ludacris. My Darkest Days should consider itself lucky to have one of the premier guitarists in the world and Luda performing on this song. Kroeger's verse in the song seems rather generic. There is a "rock" version of this song on the CD without Luda. (I'm guessing that Kroeger appears on this song because he "discovered the band" and helped them get a record deal.) This song and the video both kind of remind me of Theory of a Deadman's Bad Girlfriend.

The only other really notable song on this album is a remake of Duran Duran's 1993 hit Come Undone, which sounds good with heavier guitar. The singer does not do Simon LeBon justice with his breathy, whiny voice, but sometimes the chorus sounds exactly like D2.

Nothing else on this album really stands out, I used the word generic a minute ago, and I think it fits the rest of the songs. The music isn't un-listenable, but the lyrics and vocals are just not memorable. It's like they're trying to create a hybrid by crossing Hinder, Nickelback and Fall Out Boy. I'm not saying it's a bad album, it's just not great. This and music like this makes me question if rock really is dead?

On a scale of zero to ten stars with zero being the worst, this album gets an average FIVE STARS.

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Watch the video for Porn Star Dancing (extended cut featuring Zakk Wylde, Ludacris and Chad Kroeger) on YouTube.
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Buy My Darkest Days from Amazon. (I did not see any reference to digital files being on sale at Amazon. I don't use iTunes, so I have no idea if the music is available there.)

Music Review: Tech N9ne ~ All 6's and 7's

Music Review: Tech N9ne ~ All 6's and 7's

I heard about Tech N9ne (pronounced Tech NINE) via word of mouth, or word of message board. I have been on a BIG hip-hop kick lately, listening to Royce Da 5'9"'s new CD Success Is Certain, Yelawolf's Trunk Muzik 0-60, Bad Meets Evil's Hell: the Sequel and Jay Z and Kanye West's new collaboration album Watch The Throne. I'm not going to review that particular CD here because I'm afraid my review might be tainted by the fact that I think Kanye West is a giant talent-less douche bag. (To make a long story shorter than it should be, Jay-Z makes it worth the $16.15 for the deluxe edition.)

But Tech N9ne. Holy SHIT. Where do I start? With the mohawk, maybe? AWESOME!

Anyway, a little investigating told me that he is an independent artist, and this album bounced onto the Billboard Top 200 chart at number four on it's debut in June of this year. I went to YouTube and watched the video for He's A Mental Giant, and at first I thought the title suggested that somebody was too big for his britches, but I was quickly proven wrong. He was just being honest. And I had to have the rest of the CD.

He is a lyricist of the highest order with a flow that made me want to continue to put each song on repeat until I'd wrung out every possible drop of poetic insanity that Tech N9ne has to offer. He is an intelligent rapper, clever with words, rhyme schemes and subject matter. Often his message is dark, but this in no way overshadows his talent or comes off as gimmicky. His flow is FAST and the beats that he uses to transport his inner most thoughts and feelings into that extending axon-less grey matter that we call our noodles makes each and every one of our lobes vibrate. Fuck Food is a sick song, and has guest appearances from Lil' Wayne and T-Pain who both have become seemingly ubiquitous presences in hip-hop these days. He's A Mental Giant is a standout here, as is Mama Nem. These are just my favorites from the cd. I'd have to say that the entire fucking thing is good and has an amazing replay-ability factor, judging by the amount of times I've replayed it in the last day or so since I've had it. I will say DO NOT BUY AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS CD. You'll be completely confused as I'm sure half of it will be bleeped or whatever the fuck they do to edit music these days. If you're offended by strong language, you probably need to remove the two-by-four from your donkey-donk anyway.

I've read some really scathing posts about Tech N9ne and his willingness to collaborate with "pop rap" or mainstream rappers to get his album sold. (He fucking collaborated with the Deftones on If I Could from this CD. He gets massive, MASSIVE brownie points from me for even knowing who they are.) I bet anyone who gets this CD is going to be 90% likely to look up his other albums, and I doubt we'll be disappointed. Did he sell out? Probably... every fucking copy of this CD that they pressed. And he deserves it.

On a scale of zero to ten stars with zero being the worst, this cd gets TEN STARS.
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See the video for He's A Mental Giant on YouTube
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Buy Tech N9ne - All 6's and 7's from amazon.com. Album also available in mp3 format. I don't know jack or shit about iTunes, so I couldn't tell you if it's available there or not.

Upcoming Music Reviews

I'm one of those rare anomalies among music fans who will literally listen to any genre. I am not limited to top forty radio or MTV for new music discoveries, or I'd be completely fucked. I'm sorry, but with Beiber's gender ambiguity (does he even have testicles yet?), Gaga's flat out psychotic/schizophrenic bullshit (split personalities - Jo Calderone, anyone? Though I have to grudgingly admit I like the song Yoü And I, though the video may be her freakiest one yet. Somehow she pretty much ends up fucking herself, as herself and Jo Calderone...) and Nicki Minaj's fashion challenged attention-whoring weirdness (and possibly fake bumpers and also her split personalities - apparently Sybil syndrome is hip now)? I'd probably be better off with a full frontal lobotomy than trying to keep up with whatever the tweens are listening to. It's like Eminem said in the song Syllables: "How do we adapt and get TRL votes when thirteen year old's control the remotes?" Is it bad when all pop music really has to redeem itself is Katy Perry's Last Friday Night and LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem? You've got to check out that LMFAO link if you haven't. The song is awesome and the video is clever as hell.

Side note: WTF was Nicki wearing at the 2011 VMA's for fuck's sake? Was that thing she had a chew toy for a giant fucking guinea hog, or what? The Huff Post published an article about her ensemble titled Girlfriend Wears An Entire Toys-R-Us.

Anyway, word of mouth has gotten me some seriously killer music lately, and I thought I'd pay it forward by telling you a little bit about these musicians that you may not have heard of (especially if you're tragically un-hip like me). Some of this music is not new, but it's new to me. Maybe it'll be new to you, too.

Cover Me Part Deux

So, I've given you a list of my fifty favorite cover songs. Here's the list of my ten least favorites... in no particular order. 

Cover Me, Come On And Cover Me

Cover songs are a fact of life. Some people like them, some people don't. With the general public's attention span these days, it's possible for you to not even know that the song you liked on the radio last week might be a cover song.

What's a cover song, asks he who has lived under a rock for the last, oh, eighty years or so? A cover song is a recording that an artist (or a scumbag like Britney Spears) might make of someone else's previously recorded work. 

Can anybody make a cover version? Yes, and no. If you're thinking you might want to make a polka cover of the newest Justin Bieber song (in which case, your version will be a thousand thousand times more noteworthy than the original) you have to negotiate a license with the holder of the copyright for the original song. In some cases, the holder of the copyright isn't even the artist, those deals are made when contracts are signed between the music publishing companies, record labels or any one of a thousand other companies/agencies that get involved in the process of taking money from artists to be able to use their own work. (Gee, Georgie, bitter much? Why yes, yes I am. Too many up and coming musicians never read the fine print and manage to not only get fucked out of their money, but their own music.) In most cases, the copyright holder will need to be paid a "royalty" fee to obtain their permission for your cover. If the copyright holder doesn't like you doesn't want a cover made of their song, they have every right to say no (and some of them probably should have). Don't cry, just pick another song. After all, money talks.

Anyway, after the jump are fifty of my favorite cover songs. Please remember I said MY FAVORITE. I do not care if you do not like them, this is my blog. Go write your own.

Read 'em and weep. (All links go to YouTube.)

Till My Hip Don't Hop No More

I've been on a big hip-hop kick lately. No, I don't know why. But I thought I'd do a detailed list of my current top twenty favorite hip-hop songs. (Notice how I said that? "My favorites." Meaning I don't necessarily give a shit about what rap is the best ever. I like what I like.) My list probably won't look like yours, and that's ok. You might even think mine's wrong. That's ok too. Dance to the beat of your own drum, dude. Mine's taken. These aren't in any particular order. Who needs order? It's overrated. Oh, and all links go to YouTube. Which is ubiquitous. Like Jesus, and the clap.

Now, no bitching. We all know that rap is chock full of questionable lyrics and misogyny. And drugs and drinking and killing people. And hos and blunts and, well, shit, just about everything. I won't get on a soapbox here about people who use any form of entertainment to blame for dirty deeds (Columbine and Manson, anyone?), but people seriously need to get their shit together. Bad parenting is bad parenting with or without a song that says "...slowly she gets in and I begin to lynch her with sixty-six inches of extension cord." If your kid is that damned impressionable then you need to take him to a shrink. And if you bought your twelve year old that CD with the parental advisory sticker on it, knowing damn good and well that your kid isn't ready for that kind of content... well, then FUCK YOU.


Anyway, here's my list. Like it. Or don't.