Just recently checked out Coldplay's new album "Viva La Vida (or Death and All His Friends)" and Beck's upcoming (7/8) new album "Modern Guilt".

Both have left me with a warm, good-music-y (music-y not mucous-y) feeling on my face.

I've never really been much of a Coldplay fan.  I think have one or two songs from each of their earlier albums on my iPod and you can probably guess which ones.  That doesn't mean they're bad, it just means that they know how to make a radio playable single, and there's nothing wrong with that.  If people don't hear your stuff, then you don't get to keep making stuff, but as far as sitting and listening to a full album, Chris Martin's high notes get a bit old, just like the typical (watery U2) guitar, bass, drums BUT WITH A PIANO thing.

On this new one though, they are being as experimental as Coldplay can be and it completely pays off.  The first track is this building instrumental (which is revisited with lyrics at the end of the album) which leads into "Cemeteries of London".  This track lets people know this isn't the same Coldplay that put out Parachutes.  Next is "Lost" which has a sad-yet-hopeful choir feel to it.  Later on there's "Yes", which is the most multifaceted Coldplay song I've ever heard.  There's some more good ones on there and only two or three that I tend to skip.  One thing I really noticed that I never noticed in any Coldplay release before is the drumming.  Whoever this guy is, he should get a raise.  I won't be attending any of their concerts, but goodness gracious have they made a solid, utterly listenable new type of Coldplay album.  Bang on, you British fag rockers, bang on.

As for the new Beck, I have had less time with it, but the time I've had I've enjoyed immensely.  This album is produced by Danger Mouse and, Lord Peanut, does it ever show.  More on some tracks than others.  Some of them sound like straight up classic Beck but with a programming twist here or there, but some others sound like Danger Mouse guest starring Beck...but they all fit very well into this project.  Lyrically the whole album is typical Beck (subjects include but are not limited to: dust, walking, bones, the desert, wind blowing, not knowing where you're going or coming from, being confused et al) and I'll never fault him for that, but musically it feels very "The Information" but, like I said, with some really nice new elements.  "Gamma Ray" sounds like 50's surf rock and Beck's blurry vocals are the perfect accompaniment.  "Chemtrails" is a ghostly, echo-y piece that sounds like Beck in an abandoned church but, at the end of church, instead of eating Jesus, you get a kick ass guitar solo.  I'll take that over sanguinism any day.  "Youthless" has great energy and a vocal treatment that makes Beck sound like a malfunctioning robot (although not as much as in some or his earlier work).  "Walls" and "Replica" are the least Beck (or most Mouse?) tracks.  "Walls" has something almost like a reggae beat with a violin attached which is innovative, but not my favorite experiment he's ever undertaken, but "Replica" is, in my professional opinion, The Shit.  A ragged, grinding drum loop (which sounds almost Aphex Twinny) explodes throughout, aided only by a truncated piano sample.  As the track progresses, the piano part is augmented by a beautiful string arrangement that (I can only imagine) was put together by Beck's father and long time collaborator, David Campbell.  The rest of the tracks are, for the most part, solid Beck tracks that are slightly reminiscent of earlier solid Beck tracks, but a solid Beck track is a solid Beck track and don't let ANYONE tell you otherwise.

Meanwhile at the Patent Office, I have returned from my time at BEECHOUZATRONICON XMAX.  It was refreshing and card gamey.  And there were rides...excellent rides. And shitty movies; some shitty because of bootleg quality and some because of George "Destroy My Own Legacy Just Like the Axl Rose of the Film Industry God I'm Such A Fucking Asshole" Lucas.  There were also fire alarms.  Motherfucking fire alarms.  But then again, they do say "better woken up after five hours of sleep by a fucking demonic symphony of smoke detectors that burned to death in your sleep".  I would ask that those who subscribe to that philosophy put it to the test before getting the sampler made though, just a suggestion.

In other meanwhile, I am engorged over Hellboy 2, Dark Knight and (to a lesser extent) Hancock but I am rendered flaccid by the New York movie theater going crowd, so I might do something brilliant and isolationist: see one or more of them alone in the afternoon before work.

Here's why: aside from the army of chattering bastards that seem to ruin every popular movie I've seen in theaters for the past forty years, I have missed two huge movies in theaters because, although I know twenty people who want to see them, they see them on days when I can't go or  are in other states or whatever.

No offense, but shit.

Now, something excellent and unexpected...

So, there's this shitty movie Wanted out now.

It's shitty, don't bother.

But, the guy who wrote and directed it (same guy that did Nightwatch and the sequel Daywatch some years ago) based a large part of it on the Nine Inch Nails song Every Day Is Exactly The Same from their 2005 album.

This song is used quite overtly in the film.

If you hear this song then go to You Tube to see if there is a video, you will find the video that Ray put together from Binding Silence footage for that NIN video contest thing.

Long story short, since this movie came out we've been getting at least one thousand hits per day, sometimes more. 

I'm also getting all the You Tube comment notifications that are (more or less) "I herd this SOng in tHat movie".

But whatever, as of yesterday, we've clocked in over 186,000 views.
Ah coattails.
That double 't' looks weird.