Keeping Score

Musick

First off, my apologies for going like, a week without updating.

I've been on a music binge for the past week, and with every binge of CD buying, I reach a purge point.

It usually starts innocently enough with one of those omigodihavetohavethis purchases. This time, it was The Crystal Method's Community Service. What can I say about this album? Plenty. It's easily the best mix album I've bought all year. Christ, even the idea alone is fairly innovative: Crystal Method remixes other band's songs; other bands remix Crystal Method's songs. Sure, it's been done before, but I don't think it's been done this well, and then throw into the mix that it's forty five minutes of non-stop mixed together goodness. Crystal Method + P.O.D's Boom or Crystal Method + Rage's Renegades of Funk = Pure Bliss in the Book of Steve. Read also: an extra track (presumably by the boys from The Crystal Method) entitled The Red Pill. It's all about the Matrix, baby. MMmmmnnnn...delicious Lawrence Fishburne as Morpheus samples. ::drools::

Then I purchased the Quarashi CD. I figured I owed them some money for burning the free copy they were so gracious to give to work as a promo copy. I think I was listening to it before the radios even had their hands on it. I've since played it so much that it's become scratched beyond the point of playability (from being tossed on the floor of the CD rack in my car when I'm playing something else). It was time I gave them some money for such a solid effort. So I did.

Last in the list of the wonderful was a mix CD of Crystal Method's, where they have a bunch of bands remix one song of theirs. That one wasn't all that great, but it was good enough for me at the time. Thus ends the delicious binging.

Then came the bitter bile taste of purging.

When you get three hits in a row, it's easy and fairly "safe" to assume that everything must be as musically tasty as the last three things you've bought. After all, you're three for three! So you start making some bad decisions and think to yourself "Hey! I like that one P.O.D. song (Boom), so therefore all P.O.D. songs must be that great, right?!" Wrong! Enter The Fundamental Elements of Southtown, which doesn't have Boom on it. In fact it doesn't have much of anything I like on it. There's an interesting cover of Bullet the Blue Sky on it, but I was so jaded by not hearing what I expected to hear that even that felt underwhelming.

Then we move on to the dry-heave of the selections: Praga Khan's mixedup/remixalbum. "Hey, I liked Praga a few years ago! And look! JunkieXL remixed a song on there! He's the same guy who remixed that insanely popular (for good reason) A Little Less Conversation (or whatever it's titled) Elvis mix! It's got to be good!" No, no it doesn't. Unfortuantely JunkieXL does not have sway over the rules of the universe. Sadly, I somehow forgot how much I hated Praga's last album, and this is a remix of that album, it seems. I guess no matter how many different ways you attempt to repack, scratch, or mix shit, you're still going to wind up with shit. Even if you put JunkieXL up to the task.