• 24Nov 09

  Best album of the decade, my personal picks #6

  #6: Enigma - Seven Lives Many Faces

  

  People who know me, knows that I love Enigma (headed by Michael Cretu), he's one of my favriotue artists and everytime he releases a new album (not counting the very, very recent Platinum Collection), I'm always one of those who gets it quickly. Seven Lives Many Faces was released on September 19th, 2008, and I was very excited to finally get it. The albums certainly more closer to his previous new-age sty|e, unlike his last two albums, which were a mix of electronic and europop/new-age. It's a good album, that mixes lots of vocal samples and a mixture of both cla$$ical and modern elements, it's at least a bit unique, so why only a #6? Well not all tracks are that memorable, dispite me liking the majority of the tracks. They sound good, but dispite having a almost unique ****to it, it doesn't come off as being special somehow. The albums better than the last two previous albums and the 3rd Enigma album, but even though it'll be ranked the 4th best enigma album, some things could have been better.

  • Posted Nov 24, 2009 7:14 am PT
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• 21Nov 09

  Best album of the decade, my personal picks #7 (alternative pick included)

  Sorry I've been away for most of the week, but I was busy with school project. -_-; Anyway, on with the list. Today's edition features a alternative pick. I feature this, because there was more than one contender for the #7 spot and I had a hard time figuring out who should have the spot, and for this one, I had two contenders, so I'm gonna list them, and explain why their so low. Let's move on to #7 first:

  Conjure One - Conjure One

  

  This is one of those albums that I've been listening to for a few years, but never actually had on CD, until this summer, where I finally found it for sale in a danish music store, and it was the limited edition as well. Conjure One is more or less a one man band, headed by Rhys Fulber. The sty|e of music is more partially ambient/electronic, but it's also been comparred to Enigma. There's even bootlegs of the album, fakely made to make it look like Enigma made all the music. Anyway, the songs on the album generally has a middle eastern feeling to it, and it actually sounds pretty good and some of it are also memorable. For me, the standout tracks "Redemption", which has arabic vocals and a very middle eastern drum/trumphet, and "Sleep" which is just very relaxing and one of my favriotue tracks of all time. The double disc edition comes with a bonus disc of 5 remixes. It includes Solarstone's remix of "Sleep", but it criminally excludes their remix of "Center of the Sun" which is one of the best tracks ever made, if you ask me. The album is good, but sadly it also contains some tracks that aren't so memorable and so great either, and that's ultimately the reason why it's on a #7.

  Alterantive pick: Humleridderne - En Genial Gaveidé

  Humleridderne was a danish hip-hop/comedy group, formed in the late 80's, but their first album came in 1996, entitled "Jeg G'ir En Omgang, Hvis Du G'ir To!!" (I give a beer if you give two). Their second album "En Genial Gaveidé" ("A geniue idea for a present"... yea I'm roughly translating with those album names), is one that I've known about since 5th grade (2003/2004), when part of it was played a lot in my cla$$ at the time. The album has a lot of hiphop, but it also has some comedy sketches, including "Verdens Korteste Rap" ("The World's Shortest Rap"), "Min Mælk" (My Milk) which is basically a song about how this guy is in love with milk, you really need to be danish to understand it. The best comedy sketches are called "Operation Blå Storm" (Operation Blue Storm), which is abotu a small unit, going on a mission to kill the smurfs It does have some other good songs that I listen to to a lot, like "Brobygningshysteri" (Bridge Constructions Hysteria), "Kontrasternes Dag" (The Day of the Contrats), "De Små Marginaler" (The Small Marginals) and "Hellere Se Dig Død..." (Rather See You Dead). While the album is good, it also had some tracks, that not only didn't sound so especially good, but some of the lyrics were stupid and didn't fit with the song, so that's why it was to be at number #7. Why didn't it make it on the list? Well I would have been cheating, because the album was actually released in 1997, so that's why it remians a Alternative pick. But personally, it's a album, that brings back a lot of memories for me, so I felt like it should have a mention here.

  • Posted Nov 21, 2009 2:34 pm PT
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• 14Nov 09

  2012 review.

  So the best album of the decade, personal picks #7 should come either tomorrow or on monday, the reason I didn't do it today, was because I wanted to review 2012. I have to admit, the advertising for the movie, was both effective and stupid. The advertising was simply a bunch of trailers and they all had the search "find out the truth" by searching "2012". However while this is effective, it kinda worked too well. Some teenagers actually got frightened because of it, and two boys trying to commit suicide, because they could get a ticket to the ship (some of the virtual campaigns for the movie). Also, if you search for 2012 on google or something, chances are most of the websites present theories that ain't possible and other kind of fake information. When I saw the movie yesterday, some guy from a geografics museum came and talk about how old the planet earth is and how many times it's been on the verge of destruction, but has always managed to come back. I think he tried to tell, that the world won't end in 2012, something that I've always believed won't happen. Did this happen any other places?

  

  The movie starts in 2009, a solar flare erupted on the sun, leading scientist Adrian Helmsly (Chiwetel Ejiofor). He travels to India to meet his friend Satnam (Jimi Mistry), where he is told that the earth's tempature is rising rapidly. Adrian returns to Washington D.C., where he briefs the Chief of Staff, Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), who takes him to the president of USA, Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover) about the whole situration. In the following 2 years, the world's goverments secretly prepares for the end of the world, by collecting various import culture and building ships to save the part of the humanity. The rest takes place in 2012, where we also follow limo driver Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a devorced father who takes his kid out for camp, and when he returns, earthquake happens and when the big earthquake happens, he tries to get himself, his ex wife, kids and ex husband to saftey. He eventually finds a map of where those ships are, with help from Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), a person who rambles on about the end of the world.

  From how it sounds, I guess most people will be able to predict how it's gonna end, I sure did. It's about as cliché as it get's and it pulls most of the clichés from most other movies. It also sufferes from too many sup plots. At the beginning of the movie, there's so many plot points introduced, that it get's a bit annoying, and some doesn't even last half the movie, but given the concept, I can partially forgive this, but only partially. Surprisingly, the movie is kinda hard to take seriously. First, the script is cheesy, so you'll hear some weird and odd dialogue sometimes, and the first half of the movie doesn't take itself seriously either, ranging from some good small jokes (seriously), to some really bad ones (the "feel like we're getting pulled apart joke", which is one of the worst jokes ever made, just watch it and you'll agree), and a really, really bad impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger, because the first half takes place in California. Also the movie have some plot holes. I also has one big problem with it. The only ones who survives in the movie, are people who had enough money to pay for a seat in the ship and politicans, well those and John Cusack's family. It annoyed me a bit, because it kinda tells, that if you don't have the money, you're nobody, it annoyed me a lot.

  The acting, was mixed. John Cusack did a ok job, but he didn't do anything special and he could have been better. Danny Glover does a really bad job as the president. He talks slowly and I just didn't feel any emotions from him. It's like he just had problems just saying the dialouge he's supposed too. Woody Harrelson was actually pretty good, but he's not in the movie for a long time sadly. -_-; The rest of the acting was meh, nothing special and it could have been better.

  So you may be surprised to hear, that after all that, I still liked and enjoyed the movie. Why? Well as I mentioned, some of the jokes did make me laugh, and the action scene were epic. It's one of those movies that has a really epic scope, which it better be, given the world ends. You will get to see a lot of disasters, and almost the entire population of earth dies, and the movie really wants you to see the destruction and see how many dies. It's tragic, but it was entertaining as hell, and it did keep me through the whole movie. It was just mindless entertainment, from start to finish. There were of course moments that were made to show some emotional scenes and they were actually good, although they didn't excalty made me cry or anything, but they were made well.

  So in the end, 2012 has it's share of flaws, but it's one of he most sastifying disaster movies ever made. Sure it has some mixed acting, cheesy script, plot holes, cliché story and some bad jokes, but at the end of the movie, you'll be sastified. It's a mindless movie, switch off your brain, sit back and watch some of the most epic destructions ever put to film.

  8/10

  • Posted Nov 14, 2009 12:15 pm PT
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