Tracks 1. Ponta de Lança Africano (Umbabarauma) 2. Hermes Trimegisto Escreveu 3. O Filósofo 4. Meus Filhos, Meu Tesouro 5. O Plebeu 6. Taj Mahal 7. Xica da Silva 8. História de Jorge 9. Camisa 10 da Gávea 10. Cavaleiro Do Cavalo Imaculado 11. África Brasil (Zumbi) I really trying hard to stick to my resolution of posting at least once a week, so I managed to squeeze this one in amidst the sea of paper work that I am attempting to wade through. This will probably change come summer time, since I getting surgery that will bind me to my bed for a couple months. I will try to post daily during that happy time. Until then, we must content ourselves with rather sparse postings. I really expected to not like this album. I think my favorite part of listening to music is analyzing lyrics (which incidentally is why I can't stand the symphony). However, since I don't speak Portuguese and can't seem to find a decent translation of these songs, I did not have high expectations for Jorge Ben (through no fault of his own I should add). As often happens, though, I was pleasantly surprised. Jorge Ben's songs are really catchy (The Book says insanely catchy; I think they need to take it easy a bit), particularly "O Plebeu". It is just a reminder of how internationally appealing music is (wow, that sounds cheesy; also, how many times can I use parentheses in one post?). Still, I haven't changed completely and would really appreciate it if someone left a link to a translation of the lyrics that I could obsess over. Thanks! RATING: 3/5
Tracks 1. '2112': I: Overture/II: The Temples Of Syrinx/III: Discovery/IV: Presentation/V: Oracle: The Dream/VI. Soliloquy/VII. Grand Finale 2. A Passage To Bangkok 3. The Twilight Zone 4. Lessons 5. Tears 6. Something For Nothing It's been awhile since I have posted. I have been out of the country and since I have been back I have been bogged down by an obscene amount of work. I was only able to fit this album in by playing it while cleaning my pet chinchilla's cage. What a fun break that was. Aren't we past this phase yet? Honestly when I was listening to this, I felt like I was in 1965 again (in a list sense; I am actually a lot younger than that, despite my somewhat elderly tastes). Anyway, the beginning of this album sounds like someone experimenting with the sound effects on a keyboard for the first time. Ooo you can make space sounds! Color me impressed. After that it turned around a little and I actually enjoyed the singing, although lyrically the songs were not that impressive and nothing that we haven't seen before. RATING: 2/5 Sorry for the short and somewhat shallow review. Lots to do and lots to stress eat.
Tracks 1. Detroit Rock City 2. King Of The Night Time World 3. God Of Thunder 4. Great Expectations 5. Flaming Youth 6. Sweet Pain 7. Shout It Out Loud 8. Beth 9. Do You Love Me 10. Untitled So you know how in a romantic comedy the woman will be convinced throughout the film that a guy is a shallow jerk? Then she sees him play with his niece/nephew and she realizes that the jerk thing is just an act and that he is actually a really sweet guy? That is how I felt after listening to this album.
This album starts off with completely useless sound effects. Why would you want to start your album with sounds of what seems like a busy restaurant? I fail to see the relevance. Anyway, we then continue through some pretty generic hard rock tracks that sounded vaguely familiar. This could be because all those songs tend to sound the same to me (I know that is pretty genre-ist) or because Kiss is still referenced a lot in pop culture. For example:
Then we actually hit a pretty beautiful song called "Beth". Finally, I recognized that Gene Simmons actually some real talent beyond dressing up in stupid outfits (which I accomplished all through high school and never became famous for) and yelling into a microphone. It is a wonderful song and one that I highly recommend listening to. However, after that track we get back to more generic rock music that failed to impress me. In other words, Gene put down the baby and made a terrible penis joke. Is anyone else following this analogy? This might only make sense to my romantic comedy obsessed mind. RATING: 3/5 Beth:
