Living in the CD player, October, 2006.

I should have majored in history.

I just spent the better part of the evening writing a blog entry. It started off talking about the man who is so far favoured to replace Tony Blair as the British prime minister, and it ended up being this huge essay on Scottish nationalism. I still need to do more work on it, and more research. How this happened is completely beyond me! It just did. Anyway, I'll finish it and post it on November 30, St. Andrew's Day.

For now, I'll just mention two CDs we bought recently that are living in our CD players.

We Don't Need to Whisper by Angels and Airwaves is a melodic, layered album by guitarist/singer Tom DeLonge of blink-182 and Box Car Racer, guitarist David Kennedy of Box Car Racer and Hazen Street, ex-Distillers bassist Ryan Sinn, and the drummer for Offspring, Atom Willard. Although it is considered Alternative it is a very sublime album. The lyrics are top notch. The musicianship is excellent. I quite enjoy it, though there isn't anything on it quite yet that grabs me as a single. If there's any real problem with the album it is that the vocals are very similar from song to song. I need to listen to it in the house, as opposed to the car. I'm pretty sure it's the closest thing you'll find to a concept album these days.

Thanks to Wikipedia, you can find information about Angels and Airwaves at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_and_airwaves

Eyes Open is the latest album by the Northern Irish/Scottish group Snow Patrol. I was a bit surprised to see that they'd been playing since 1994, though only since 1998 under the name Snow Patrol. This is one of those cases where it takes 10 years to become an overnight success. There album is polished, and the songs are very catchy. There are easily six songs that are single worthy (only "Chasing Cars" and "Hands Open" have made it to U.S. radio, while two others have made it in the UK). I liked it the first few times I'd heard it, but now the album has really caught hold of me.

They are compared to Coldplay in the press. My favourite review, from Amazon.com, says, "Snow Patrol are frequently compared to Coldplay in the press, which seems strange as they write far better songs and do not appear to be quite so self-hating, nor as rich." I have to agree. Coldplay's X&Y was overrated, with one really good song. Eyes Open, by contrast, is solid throughout. So, forget about Coldplay. Get Snow Patrol.

Snow Patrol info can be found on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_patrol