Joshua Radin's New Album Simple Times

I love Joshua Radin's first album, We Were Here. Now his second album is out, and for some reason, I'm a little disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high? Maybe my life is too busy these days for his elegant simplicity? I still recommend it, but Simple Times is just a little too sweet for me right now. I am going to listen to it more, and I feel almost guilty that I tend to latch on more easily to music that is just a shade or two darker. Radin deserves to be happy and write happy, carefree songs.

This criticism is especially weird from me since I bet a lot of people would say I can come across as "too sweet/happy".

I do love the song featured live below, "They Bring Me to You" - careful, it tingles.

Nas, The World is Yours ft. Ahmad Jamal Sample

I think it was a week ago or so that I heard an NPR interview of Ahmad Jamal. Dude is 78 years old and still rules the keys live regularly (and has a new album). It was so funny, the guy from Soundcheck was asking him what he thinks about hip hop in general and hip hop sampling his music in particular (jazz piano). He kind of dodged the question saying there is good music and there is bad music, no matter what the genre. Soundcheck played a clip from Nas's classic song "The World is Yours" (from his album Illmatic), and then asked Jamal if that song was "good music". Jamal said something like "Well, he [Nas] chose a great song to sample [I Love Music]" but when pushed on whether he liked the song in particular, he was like "No Comment". For real??? I love Ahmad Jamal's music, and I also love a lot of Nas's music. I was so surprised to hear that Jamal doesn't like "The World is Yours" -- I love that song and love the way the sample was used! Wonder if he's just bitter b/c apparently he has lawsuits out about properly compensating him for sampling...

Like Everyone Else I'm Addicted to this Song Lately

The Daft Punk, Coldplay & U2 influence is of course there, but then I swear there's also a little bit of Beirut when the drums really kick in there right around the 1 min. mark(see below for Beirut's awesome song/video Postcards From Italy):



I also truly admire Kanye's boldness - producer turned rapper turned vocoder-singer with not a rap in there??? He could care less what 50 Cent and the rest think. Inspirational.

Since The IceChewer Misses Me

I will blog, even though I feel out of it music-wise these days. Thank you for missing me, Ice Chewer!

I feel like I have a new life these days - I've been busy trying to find my own rhythms within it. People keep calling me Professor, and I'm always rushing around trying to get prepped for my classes. Any free time I have lately has gone to trying to train our puppy Jasmine (wish I had more time to do that). This is what my days sound/feel like:



I had to put my guitar lessons on hiatus because I have no time to practice. But I will! I will! Things already feel better compared to two weeks ago.

My one major break of the semester comes this weekend, when Rich and I are going to the Austin City Limits music festival. Should reawaken the always-searching-for-great-new-music nerd in me...