Ooo...yay!

Yesterday, guess what happened?! Only, like, the best thing ever!

After FOUR YEARS Linkin Park finally released their 3rd album. Huzzah! (The remix albums, the live albums, etc. don't count). It was a very exciting day for me. I've been waiting on this CD for a long time. Waiting for Linkin Park to get their silly little solo projects out of the way (Fort Minor? Really? More like Fort Whiner!). So hooray for that.

Well, the CD releasing was exciting. It was actually a gigantic pain in the, um, knee. You see, I am in foreign-land where CDs cost about 3 times the America price. Plus, we were releasing a day later in Japan (boo! Linkin Park). However, I use iTunes to download stuff now and I had pre-ordered the CD like a month ago. FYI, don't pre-order anything from iTunes. They haven't got all the bugs worked out. I was never allowed to download the CD. The pre-order never kicked in (well, not soon enough for impatient me). So I had to cancel my pre-order and just buy it instead. It's weird.

So I got the CD! Hooray! Thanks iTunes! But wait...why can't I put it on my own not-iPod mp3 player? Hmmm...why do all the files have little pictures of locks on them? What do you mean it's to protect against pirating music? You mean, the files that I legally bought and downloaded INSTEAD of pirating them (which I easily could have, btw...it's around and free that way) is locked and not mine to do with what I want? (*cough* I don't think that sentence is grammatical, but shh...it's almost artful!)

Stupid iTunes! You have to have an iPod to listen to the music you bought from iTunes on an mp3 player. Apple has their own file type. They save as mpeg4 instead of mp3 and only iPods will play that. LAaaaaammmeee.

Anyways, this sent me into a bit of a rage. I actually already knew this pre-buying my shiny happy new CD...but I forgot. :-( Chris has an iPod, but it's his and not something I want to carry around. I don't have an iPod. I've been boycotting them, actually. I think it's unfair that I have to have an iPod to listen to the music I legally bought and paid for. I should be able to do what I want with it! I refuse to pay too much money for an mp3 player with a happy little Apple logo on it. It's a scam, is what it is! Chris and I actually had tearful words about my stubborn refusal to buy an iPod. But come on, they are over-priced (not the video ones, but the shuffles and mini ones)! I have a perfectly fine $40 mp3 player that I use. I shouldn't have to buy a $150 iPod because apple is afraid that their customers are going to pirate their crap.

Way to go Steve Jobs! You suck! (Mr. Jobs is the Bill Gates of Apple)

Anyways, there IS a way around this. I could burn it onto a CD. Take the CD to Kisuki and make a tape from the stereo there. Also, if I make a CD, I can rip the music from it using Windows Media Player and get it in mp3 form! Hoorah! Expect...Apple really wants me to have a meltdown before I'm done with things. I searched around and bought a cheap blank CD. I popped it in to burn the music I had just bought onto it. Stupid Apple. It decided my CD wasn't formatted so after 30 minutes of trying, it pops out the disc with a message saying "your disc hasn't been calibrated. Would you like Apple to calibrate your blank discs from now on?" AND! And and and! It ended up breaking my cd! It recorded 48 minutes of silence onto the disc. Nice job guys.

By this time, my excitement of finally having the new Linkin Park CD wore off and I was tired and weepy. The CD that iTunes broke was the only blank one in the house and it was too late to get another one since I had to leave for work. I might have cried a little. What crap!

Life is such a trial sometimes. *dramatic sigh*

Well, today I got the CD burned, re-ripped and put onto my mp3 player. So it's all good today. But still...iTunes sucks!! Well...it doesn't if you are downloading TV shows or movies or you actually own an iPod. It's actually a kickin' program and really useful. Especially for people like us who are in a foreign country and can't get stuff here. PLUS, they tend to release TV shows episode by episode so you can keep current with some stuff in America if that's your fancy (Chris and I prefer to wait until the entire season is released).

Anyways, about the CD. It's....well...different. Oddly different. And not just different from the other two CDs, but there's 12 (13?) different songs on the album but like 5 different genre. In some of their interviews, the band said they were looking to do something completely different than the previous stuff and I guess they achieved their goal.

Only 2 songs sound much like their old stuff. 1 song sounds just like something from the Fort Minor album (the rappy guy's solo project) and is so angsty it makes my teeth hurt. There are like 4 love songs. Love songs! Very slow and poppy. There is a chant song that drives Chris nuts because it was obviously written to be a song played at concerts to frenzy fans. And the rest are combinations of all of the above. So...very different stuff going on.

Chris and I agree that a lot of fans will be disappointed. It's kinda poopy to get a CD expecting to hear a certain sound only to find that it's constantly changing. I am fortunate that I tend to like most music, regardless of genre so I think it's a good CD. But I think a lot of other fans are going to be upset since the songs are so inconsistent. Rock fans aren't going to want to hear the rap songs or pop songs. I dunno...I'm interested in what the concerts would be like. Some of these songs are major downers when it comes to tempo, beat, and excitement. Usually at a rock concert you want music that you can jump around to and stuff. Half of this CD is the opposite.

That being said, I'm not disappointed or surprised. They said they wanted a different sound and that they decided not to be 'trapped by genre convention'. I like the CD. I will probably listen to it too much and drive Chris a little nuts with it.

That being said, I do have one major disappointment with the CD. F-bombs! They are dropping the F-bomb all OVER the place. Now, as saintly as I am, I don't actually mind hearing the F-word all that much, especially not in music. But in their previous records, Linkin Park didn't swear. This was so it was accessible for all-ages and they said they didn't need to swear. That it was artificial emphasis or something. Anyways, they use the F-word in a LOT of their songs on this CD and it's disappointing. It's like they are trying to compensate for the lack of swearing on the other two CDs that they felt the need to put it in every song. Bleh. It's artificial and a little bit disappointing.

In other not Linkin Park but still music news, Chris has been practicing the guitar for a few months now. I am impressed at his improvement. I think it's because he studied music for song long that he's easily able to put things together once he's shown the proper techniques. He actually bought a guitar (which he is going to have to sell in a couple of months) and has been practicing a lot. It's kinda funny because he tends to follow me around the apartment while playing his guitar. Makes me feel a little like Brave Sir Robin (think about it, that's a funny joke!).

He's actually learned some bizarre songs. He plays some Backstreet Boys to get a giggle out of me. He has a nifty Johnny Cash-esque version of Gnarl's Barkly's "Crazy". He also has some more normal songs. He does a very good job playing "One", "Hotel California", and "Country Roads". Heh. Actually, he had to learn Country Roads as his first song. Japanese people really like the song. I think it was in a Miyazaki film (Miyazaki being the Walt Disney of Japan). It's all good stuff.

And that's that for music news. I hope you guys are having a lovely week. Happy Hump Day!