Friday, April 30, 2004
Stopped by Virgin and did some CD listening:
- A disappointing comp. called Pop a Paris / VA (some version of the first disc of this), which includes late 60s French rock song, some of which are too-similar remakes of American classics like "These Boots Were Made for Walking"
- Architecture in Helsinki's album Fingers Crossed, which is pleasant, delicate, sweet and light, but not to my taste--a little dull
- and a new CD by the Gipsy Kings (nice!), and A Boot and A Shoe by a singer named Sam Phillips, both on Nonesuch, which, by the way, just does the classiest looking packaging. But I rather dislike the cardboard boxes their CDs come in. Usually they don't give you any unique artwork, so I suppose they can be thrown away, but they're nice enough that I don't want to, and keeping them makes it harder to get your hands on the actual disc. (Gee, I'll complain about anything, won't I?) The songs I heard were beautiful, stripped down singer-songwriter fare, but the melodies were difficult for me to grasp right away, or maybe it was the chord progressions--something about the musical compositions of the pieces. I wonder if they'd become easier to listen to over time or remain difficult?
I was tempted to pick up (and probably will soon):
- the new Modest Mouse album (Good News for People Who Like Bad News), which I didn't like the first time I heard it but is growing on me quickly
- and the new Tahiti 80, A Piece of Sunshine, a fat EP/mini-album which sounds a lot like the last album, and includes a DVD of videos
