[2006] Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist (Mp3 Download)

Three long years after the Deftones issued their self-titled album to puzzling reviews, the Sacramento quintet is back with Saturday Night Wrist, a recording that will further muddy the waters of categorization and expectation about who they are and what they're trying to do. After the breakthrough metallic-sounding Around the Fur, the band confounded critics and fans alike with the much softer and atmospherically adventurous White Pony. In 2003 they further transgressed the borderlines of all things boxed and tied with their self-titled album, which seemed to walk the line between rockist and "sensitive." But it's Saturday Night Wrist that fills out the portrait, bleeding though textures from one rock & roll type to another and coming up with something else altogether yet definitively "Deftones." The album began with a question and a small conflict in deciding on a producer. Already working with the hip Dan the Automator, after some internal drama the band decided on veteran Bob Ezrin. Ezrin pays off in a number of ways: these songs, as diverse as they are, are utterly disciplined sonically. They have all the tension and dynamic, all the immediacy of yore, but the mix is spacious, and Chino Moreno's vocals soar above it. That said, the vocals were produced by Far's Shaun Lopez. The wall of guitar sound walks a high wire between harder, more metallic rock and angular indie rock, winding them together. Check the opener -- and single -- "Hole in the Earth." It begins with a wall of feedback and thunderously distorted guitars accented by rim shots and cymbal fire before giving way to a skeletal six-string figure that seems barely able to support Moreno's singing, which combines the euphoria of a young, less pretentious Bono with the attack of, well, the Deftones. Guitars echo and whisper all along the backdrop while Moreno hovers there, until they crackle and spit to bring him back.

Popping muddy drums and distorted guitars introduce "Rapture," as Moreno gobs and screams the lyrics. Even here, the attack is straightforward as it turns and twists, all on sharp corners and rhythmic shifts. There are killer digital dub effects put into play on "Cherry Waves," giving the tune a bit of a blessed-out psychedelic effect as the band marries together the hookery of the vintage Smashing Pumpkins, the big chord riffs of Jane's Addiction, and U2's best shimmer while tossing in a bridge of eight bars from the Who's "Overture" from Tommy! It might have been a terrible mess, but it works beautifully. System of a Down's Serj Tankian helps out with additional vocals on "Mein," and Giant Drag's Annie Hardy helps out on "Pink Cellphone" (what a dumb title). The drippy space pop that is "Xerces" finds Moreno breathing a little too close to Billy Corgan for comfort on the verses. The gear-grinding guitars on "Rats!Rats!Rats!" are a welcome textural change, and the crunchy verse and refrain are downright nasty. The most straight-ahead rock attack comes on "KimDracula," with its bass throb and whiteout guitar riff; it pushes Moreno a little further outside the tune to come to terms with it. Ultimately, Saturday Night Wrist is satisfying, though it may take a few listens given all the changes in individual cuts that tend to blur together the first time or two through. To the faithful, the Deftones once again offer up their own brand of blast and croon. As for everyone else, there's plenty here to like, to argue with, and to be puzzled by .

Track Lists
01. Hole In The Earth
02. Rapture
03. Beware
04. Cherry Waves
05. Mein
06. U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,Select,Start
07. Xerces
08. Rats!Rats!Rats!
09. Pink Cellphone
10. Combat
11. KimDracula
12. Riviere

[2002 - 2006] My Chemical Romance - Complete Discography (Mp3 Download)

Based in New Jersey, My Chemical Romance is an alternative pop/rock and punk-pop band that has been compared to Thursday and, to a lesser degree, Cursive. Their name was inspired by author Irvine Welsh (of Trainspotting fame), and while many of their songs are loud, fast, hyper, and aggressive, My Chemical Romance's work also tends to be melodic and pop-minded. My Chemical Romance got started in the early 2000s, when lead singer Gerard Way and drummer Matt Pelissier decided to try writing some songs together. The first tune that Way and Pelissier -- who had been friends since high school -- came up with was called "Skylines and Turnstiles" (a post-9/11 song written after Way witnessed the Twin Towers fall while working at his animation job in New York City). Way and Pelissier both felt good about the song, and Way asked guitarist Ray Toro if he would be interested in working with them. My Chemical Romance's five-man lineup was complete when Way, Pelissier, and Toro joined forces with bassist Mikey Way (Gerard's little brother) and guitarist Frank Iero. With that lineup in place, the band started playing all around the Northeast Corridor and made plans to begin working on their first album.

In 2002, Eyeball Records (the New York-based indie for which Thursday had recorded) released My Chemical Romance's debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. The album was often compared to Thursday -- a comparison that, for various reasons, was inevitable and unavoidable. Both bands were from New Jersey, both had recorded for Eyeball, and both combined punk-pop's musical aggression with introspective, confessional lyrics. Plus, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love was produced by Thursday vocalist Geoff Rickly. But Thursday isn't their only influence; reviewers have cited the Smiths, Morrissey, the Cure, and the Misfits as influences, while the older Way has even cited British heavy metal icons Iron Maiden.

Lyrically, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love is as dark as it is introspective and cathartic; Way has been quoted as saying that the band's lyrics were a great way for him to deal with the problems he had been going through (which included severe depression, drug/alcohol abuse, and a serious illness in his family). The 2002 release included Way and Pelissier's first song, "Skylines and Turnstiles," and many of the album's other song titles were equally intriguing, including "Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough for the Two of Us" and "Vampires Will Never Hurt You." In 2003, My Chemical Romance signed with Reprise/Warner Bros. and released the aggressively slick Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge one year later. Proving to be hugely popular, the album boasted several successful singles on commercial radio and MTV, including "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)," "Helena," and "The Ghost of You," as the album climbed the Billboard charts.

Amid their growing popularity, Pelissier departed from the band in mid-2004, and he was soon replaced on drums by Bob Bryar; they'd previously met while touring with the Used, as Bryar was doing sound for the Utah act. Relentless touring continued to increase their fanatical fan following; the band headlined dates with Alkaline Trio, scored an opening slot for Green Day, and shared bills with Story of the Year, Taking Back Sunday, and the Used, among many others. As My Chemical Romance prepared to enter the studio for their third album, they issued Life on the Murder Scene in March 2006. The CD and double-DVD package extensively documented practically everything MCR, including demos, music videos, live footage, interviews, and more; it sufficiently tied fans over until My Chemical Romance (now boasting a sober and bleach-haired Gerard Way) issued the darkly conceptual and highly ambitious The Black Parade that October. Anticipation for the album could barely be contained at the release of its grandiose first single, "Welcome to the Black Parade," whose elaborate accompanying video looked and sounded like the result of Tim Burton directing Queen. The record went platinum by early 2007.

[2002] I Brought You My Bullets And You Brought Me Your Love
01. Romance
02. Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough For The Two Of Us
03. Vampires Will Never Hurt You
04. Drowning Lessons
05. Our Lady Of Sorrows
06. Headfirst For Halos
07. Skylines And Turnstiles
08. Early Sunsets Over Monroeville
09. This Is The Best Day Ever
10. Cubicles
11. Demolition Lovers

[2004] Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge
01. Helena
02. Give 'Em Hell, Kid
03. To The End
04. You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison
05. I'm Not Okay (I Promise)
06. The Ghost Of You
07. The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You
08. Interlude
09. Thank You For The Venom
10. Hang 'Em High
11. It's Not A Fashion Statement, It's A Death Wish
12. Cemetery Drive
13. I Never Told You What I Do For A Living

[2006] Life On The Murder Scene [Live]
01. Thank You For The Venom
02. Cemetery Drive
03. Give 'Em Hell Kid
04. Headfirst For Halos
05. Helena
06. You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison
07. The Ghost Of You
08. I'm Not Okay (I Promise)
09. I Never Told You What I Do For A Living [Demo]
10. Bury Me In Black [Demo]
11. Desert Song [Previously Unreleased]

[2006] The Black Parade
01. The End
02. Dead!
03. This Is How I Disappear
04. The Sharpest Lives
05. Welcome To The Black Parade
06. I Don't Love You
07. House Of Wolves
08. Cancer
09. Mama
10. Sleep
11. Teenagers
12. Disenchanted
13. Famous Last Words
14. Blood [Hidden Track]

[2006] Arrested Development - Since The Last Time (Mp3 Download)

Sorry, No review available....

Track Lists
01. Since The Last Time
02. Miracles
03. Heaven
04. Sao Paulo
05. Sunshine
06. Strand
07. It's Time
08. Inner City
09. I Know I'm Bad
10. I Got The Feeling
11. Down And Dirty
12. Renee
13. Caught Me
14. Nobody Believes Me

[1996] DJ Shadow - Endtroducing... (Mp3 Download)

As a suburban Californian kid, DJ Shadow tended to treat hip-hop as a musical innovation, not as an explicit social protest, which goes a long way toward explaining why his debut album Endtroducing... sounded like nothing else at the time of its release. Using hip-hop, not only its rhythms but its cut-and-paste techniques, as a foundation, Shadow created a deep, endlessly intriguing world on Endtroducing, one where there are no musical genres, only shifting sonic textures and styles. Shadow created the entire album from samples, almost all pulled from obscure, forgotten vinyl, and the effect is that of a hazy, half-familiar dream -- parts of the record sound familiar, yet it's clear that it only suggests music you've heard before, and that the multi-layered samples and genres create something new. And that's one of the keys to the success of Endtroducing -- it's innovative, but it builds on a solid historical foundation, giving it a rich, multi-faceted sound. It's not only a major breakthrough for hip-hop and electronica, but for pop music.

Track Lists
01. Best Foot Forward
02. Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt
03. The Number Song
04. Changeling/Transmission 1
05. What Does Your Soul Look Like, Pt. 4
06. [Untitled]
07. Stem/Long Stem/Transmission 2
08. Mutual Slump
09. Organ Donor
10. Why Hip Hop Sucks In 96
11. Midnight In Perfect World
12. Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain
13. What Does Your Soul Look Like, Pt. 1: Blue Sky Revisit
14. Midnight In A Perfect World (Late Night Groove Mix)

[2006] Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson - The Dutchess (Mp3 Download)

Through all the twists and turns taken by Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson during her 20-year career as an entertainer -- including a stint on Kids Incorporated, background vocals for Martika, two albums with adult contemporary/dance-pop group Wild Orchid, and superstardom with Black Eyed Peas -- she has always sounded as if she is trying really, really hard. That has been the lone consistent characteristic of her output, and it remains in effect throughout The Dutchess. An endurance test like few other pop albums issued during the early 2000s, The Dutchess has all the characteristics of a release fronted by someone who has been itching to go solo and prove herself, once and for all, as a versatile force all her own. Fergie does cartwheels and handstands, juggles three objects at once, balances books on her head, hangs upside down, rides a unicycle with her hands in the air -- all these things while wearing different outfits. The whole process, produced mostly by fellow Pea will.i.am, is mildly entertaining but tremendously taxing. There's throwback hip-hop ("Fergalicious," done to the tune of J.J. Fad's "Supersonic"), throwback soul ("Here I Come," done to the tune of the Temptations' "Get Ready"), reggae ("Mary Jane Shoes"), ska-punk ("Mary Jane Shoes"), scat ("Mary Jane Shoes"), vaguely torchy midtempo fluff ("Velvet"), and a classy string-drenched ballad (the appropriately titled "Finally"), among several other passable switch-ups, but none of them has any lasting (or even immediate) value, with the possible exception of the inexplicably asinine "London Bridge" -- which is terrific, provided you can block out the lyrics or prevent yourself from trying to decipher its meaning. Somewhat ironically, one of the more convincing songs on the album, "Big Girls Don't Cry," sounds exactly like a 2006 version of Wild Orchid, with Fergie's Taylor Dayne kid-sister act in full effect.

Track Lists
01. Fergalicious feat will.i.am
02. Clumsy
03. All That I Got (The Make Up Song) feat will.i.am
04. London Bridge
05. Pedestal
06. Voodoo Doll
07. Glamorous feat Ludacris
08. Here I Come
09. Velvet
10. Big Girls Don't Cry
11. Mary Jane Shoes feat Rita Marley and The I-Threes
12. Losing My Ground
13. Finally
14. Get Your Hands Up [Bonus Track] feat The Black Eyed Peas
15. Wake Up [Bonus Track]
16. Paradise [Bonus Track]

[2006] Busta Rhymes - The Big Bang (Mp3 Download)

The hard-working Busta Rhymes feels he wasn't handled properly by the J label. He might have a case: 2002's It Ain't Safe No More was the first album he released that failed to reach the Top Ten of the Billboard album chart, and it didn't come close -- it didn't even see the Top 40. Now on Dr. Dre's Aftermath, which is sort of a story, he also chopped his hair (as evidenced on the cover of an XXL issue and throughout the booklet of this album), and has had to deal with the death of his bodyguard, Israel Ramirez, who was shot on the scene of his video for the "Touch It" remix. It's not a good sign for your career when people are apparently supposed to talk about your hair or your new label, and it's even worse when people are instead talking about a tragedy not directly involving yourself. Lead single "Touch It," released months ahead of the album, did well despite being a very polarizing -- i.e., either bangin' or, for example, piercingly aggravating -- club record. For the most part, Busta's acting like everyone's idea of Busta ("This is what I'm supposed to do, right?"), retracing old steps and not doing a very convincing job at that. A handful of hot beats are wasted here, including a couple from the boss of his label and one from the late J Dilla, and "New York Shit" is a blown opportunity if there ever was one, a mindless and empty quasi-anthem instead of a true rallying call to reclaim the spotlight stolen by the South. There's also Stevie Wonder, who drops in to sound like Wyclef Jean impersonating Bob Marley, as well as the late Rick James, who is sampled so heavily that he's given a feature credit. In fact, there's an average of just over one guest spot per track, and Busta does happen to remain the dominant voice. Though he's as loud as ever, he has never sounded more tired. The title of the album's last track? "Legend of the Fall Offs."

Track Lists
01. Get You Some
02. I Love My Bitch
03. Touch It
04. This Is How We Do It
05. New York Shit
06. Been Thru The Storm
07. In The Ghetto
08. Cocaine
09. I'll Hurt You
10. You Can't Hold The Torch
11. Money Like Back In The Days
12. Don't Get Carried Away
13. The Out To Get Me
14. Get Down
15. I'll Do It All
16. Legends Of The Fall
17. Rough Around The Edges
18. Where's Your Money

[2006] Hans Zimmer - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Mp3 Download)

The always dependable Hans Zimmer took the wheel from Klaus Badelt on 2006's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, the sequel to Disney's surprise blockbuster smash Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. The Curse of the Black Pearl score was a mishmash of several composers, and its weaknesses were derived from the resulting lack of focus. While there is little that positions the Dead Man's Chest score anywhere near the esteemed Spielberg-esque mantle that it strives for, Zimmer adds much-needed zest and characterization to the franchise. "Jack Sparrow," a cello-led waltz that perfectly encapsulates Johnny Depp's cartoonish antihero, finally gives the character the musicality it needs, and the occasional burst of Celtic folk brings a warmth and whimsicality to the series that was sorely needed the first time around. Zimmer, who brings his usual blend of percussion-heavy keyboard orchestration to the action sequences, could do this in his sleep, but it's the kind of mediocrity that dispels negativity. Lastly, the embarrassing "He's a Pirate [Tiësto Remix]" sounds like an outtake from a Project Runway/Zoolander "pirate week."

Track Lists
01. Jack Sparrow
02. The Kraken
03. Davy Jones
04. I've Got My Eye On You
05. Dinner Is Served
06. Tia Dalma
07. Two Hornpipes (tortuga)
08. A Family Affair
09. Wheel Of Fortune
10. You Look Good Jack
11. Hello Beastie
12. He's Pirate (tiesto remix)

[2006] Cascada - Everytime We Touch (Mp3 Download)

Track Lists
01. Everytime We Touch
02. How Do You Do
03. Bad Boy
04. Miracle
05. Another You
06. Ready For Love
07. Can't Stop The Rain
08. Kids In America
09. A Never Ending Dream
10. Truly Madly Deeply
11. One More Night
12. Wouldn't It Be Good
13. Love Again
14. Everytime We Touch (Yanous Candlelight Mix)

[2006] Christina Aguilera - Back To Basics (Mp3 Download)

When Christina Aguilera released her garish, sexually charged sophomore effort, Stripped, in 2002, it seemed that she pushed her obsessions with tweaking taboos just a little too far. Sure, she could still sing, but her music was now driven entirely by skeletal club grooves and explicit carnality. It was a bold break from the teenybopper persona she was desperate to shed, but it was overcorrective steering, taking her a little bit too far down the road toward a grotesque caricature, particularly in her ugly video for the album's lead single, "Dirrty." All this grandstanding provoked an intense reaction, not just among fans but among her collaborators, who also wondered if Christina was going a little too far, but she managed to keep from sinking largely on the strength of the ballad "Beautiful," an empowering statement of self-love that managed to dampen "Dirrty"'s impact even if it didn't erase it. It also set the stage for the next phase of her career: as an outright old-fashioned diva, much like Madonna or Cher. Smartly, she followed this path for her third album, the sprawling, deliriously entertaining double-disc Back to Basics.

The title alone on Back to Basics is an allusion that perhaps Christina herself thinks she might have gone a little too far with Stripped; she stops short of offering an apology -- she even has a song where she proclaims she's "Still Dirrty" -- but this album's emphasis on songs and singing, along with the fixation with the big-band era, does suggest that Aguilera is ready to be once again seen as a world-class vocalist. Nevertheless, Back to Basics also makes clear that Stripped, for as flawed as it is, was also a necessary artistic move for Christina: she needed to get that out of her system in order to create her own style, one that is self-consciously stylized, stylish, and sexy. As the endless series of pinup photos in the album's booklet illustrates, Christina is obsessed with earning credibility through association: she dresses up as a big-band vamp and drops allusions to Etta James, Billie Holiday, and Aretha Franklin, all under the assumption that listeners will think of Ms. Aguilera as the heir to that throne. While she may have the vocal chops to pull it off to a certain extent, Back to Basics doesn't quite feel like it belongs to the classic soul and R&B tradition, even if the second disc is designed to be an old-fashioned jazzy R&B album, complete with bluesy torch songs and occasionally live instrumentation. Aguilera's instincts are too modern to make the album sound classic. She remains stubbornly autobiographical -- she disses departed producer Scott Storch on "F.U.S.S.," again addresses the abuse inflicted on her mother by her father, spends much of the album detailing her love for her new husband, Jordan, and always filters everything through a very personal filter that makes this seem like a journal entry à la Alanis Morissette (even "Thank You," subtitled as her dedication to her fans, isn't about the fans; it's about how Christina has inspired them, saved their life, or kept them going while stationed in Iraq -- all stories recounted in the voicemail that runs throughout the track). Her lyrics remain bluntly direct, particularly when she talks about sex: "Candyman" makes her cherry pop and her panties drop, while the "Nasty Naughty Boy" will receive "a little taste of the sugar below my waist." That combined with the slick, precise computerized production means that even when Christina tries to sound classic, she winds up sounding like the present.

But that's what's good about Back to Basics -- even though she strives hard to be a classic soul singer here, she can't help but sound like herself, and surely there is no other big-budget pop album in 2006 that bears the stamp of its auteur so clearly. As she did on Stripped, she has gotten to indulge herself here, but where she was more concerned with sound than structure last time around, on Back to Basics she spends just as much time on song and structure, often coming up with strong, memorable ballads and dance tunes on both the dance-oriented first disc and the slow-burning second. Of course, she reveals more than she intended through her indulgence. Try as she may to sound like a classic singer from the '40s, she really seems to have learned all of her moves from Madonna in Dick Tracy; whether she's shaking her hips to a canned brass section or breathing heavily into a microphone, every move seems to have been copped from Breathless Mahoney -- and that's not just on the campily retro "Candyman" (which sounds like a rewrite of "Hanky Panky"), but it's also true on the deliberately modern numbers like "Ain't No Other Man," whose stabs of sampled brass sound straight out of early-'90s jazz-rap. When Aguilera does stray from the Madonna template here, it's to wander into Fiona Apple territory on the second disc -- with its loping piano, "Mercy on Me" is a dead ringer for anything from When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King. There are hints of a couple other artists here -- some echoes of Norah Jones on the torch songs -- but the fusion of Madonna and Fiona Apple is so inspired and unexpected, it sounds original because nobody else would have thought of it, or put it together in such wildly weird ways as Christina does here. Sure, Back to Basics is way too long at two discs and some of it doesn't work quite as well as the rest, but it has far more hits than misses and it holds together as an artistic statement (certainly more so than any other album made by one of her teen pop peers). It may be all about style, it may be a little crass and self-centered, but it's also catchy, exciting, and unique. It's an album to build a career upon, which would be a remarkable achievement by any measure, but coming after the near career suicide of Stripped, it's all the more impressive.

Track Lists
CD 1
01. Intro (Back To Basics)
02. Makes Me Wanna Pray
03. Back In The Day
04. Ain't No Other Man
05. Understand
06. Slow Down Baby
07. Oh Mother
08. F.U.S.S.
09. On Our Way
10. Without You
11. Still Dirrty
12. Here To Stay
13. Thank You (Dedication To Fans...)

CD 2
01. Enter The Circus
02. Welcome
03. Candyman
04. Nasty Naughty Boy
05. I Got Trouble
06. Hurt
07. Mercy On Me
08. Save Me From Myself
09. The Right Man

[2004] Britney Spears - Greatest Hits: My Prerogative (Mp3 Download)

Greatest Hits: My Prerogative appeared at the tail end of a year where Britney Spears was married twice, canceled a tour, injured her knee, lost the movie role of Daisy Duke to rival teen pop diva Jessica Simpson, was a punch line in Fahrenheit 9/11, and had countless paparazzi shots of her drinking and making out in public. It was enough high-profile shenanigans for a career, and it was par for the course for Britney, who hadn't been out of the pop culture headlines since she released her debut album, ...Baby One More Time, in January 1999. In the nearly six years separating that debut album and the release of Greatest Hits in November 2004, Britney was omnipresent, representing both the entire teen pop phenomenon of the turn of the millennium, plus the teasing, Maxim-fueled sexuality of the time; it's not for nothing that Tom Wolfe name drops Britney Spears, not archrival Christina Aguilera, in his 2004 novel I Am Charlotte Simmons -- Britney alone captured the era, which in turn is captured on this 17-track hits collection. If Bob Dylan had a hard time being a voice of a generation (which he does acknowledge in his autobiography, Chronicles), imagine the weight put upon this simple Louisiana girl who just wanted to be famous and became a cultural icon instead! During those six years, she kept turning out product, selling herself with increasingly racy photographs, all the while being used as an example of everything that's wrong with pop culture, or even worse, as the subject of cultural theses explaining pop culture. No wonder that after six years of mind-boggling fame she wanted to abandon her career for motherhood -- it's exhausting being in the limelight, even for a shameless pop star! So, Greatest Hits arrived at a perfect time -- just as her star was fading, just as the teen pop era grew to a close, and just as she readied herself for retirement.

As a time capsule, Greatest Hits does its job well. It has all of her hits outside of "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart," a largely forgotten ballad from her debut released just before her second album, Oops!...I Did It Again, and it contains two very good previously unreleased tunes, including the In the Zone outtake "I've Just Begun (Having My Fun)," an infectious spin on No Doubt's "Hella Good" that betters most of the songs that were featured on the album (it also has a useless remake of Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative," which seems to exist solely for its video). Clearly, this is the album not just for the casual fan, but for any fan of Spears, because like most teen pop singers, her albums are notoriously spotty affairs, memorable largely for the singles themselves. What is surprising is that those singles -- all presented here in their hit forms, which means this has the "Stop Remix" of "(You Drive Me) Crazy," not the album version -- are somewhat less than the sum of their parts when collected together. The similarities in Max Martin's clanking, insistent writing and production become blindingly evident, and Britney's thin, squeaky voice wears thin over the course of 17 songs. Also, the song selection and sequencing emphasize keeping the perfect beat over chronology, which not only makes it a little harder to listen to as an album, it puts the focus on the individual songs, which seem neither as hooky or catchy as they did when they were initially on the radio. There are exceptions to the rule, of course -- "...Baby One More Time" still retains its punch, "Oops!...I Did It Again" is so silly it's hard to resist, "(You Drive Me) Crazy" is fluffy dance-pop at its best, and "Toxic" is a delirious, intoxicating rush -- but they're all better as individual moments, even if when taken together, they do illustrate the cacophonous monotony of her music and, yes, her time quite well. So, even if it isn't a great listen as a cohesive album, Greatest Hits does perform the valuable function of offering all of Britney's hits in one place, and it does work as a portrait of the time when Britney Spears was the defining figure of American pop culture. But if you compare it to The Immaculate Collection, which captured the time when Madonna was the defining figure of American pop culture and does work as an album, it's clear that a cultural artifact isn't necessarily the same thing as great music.

Track Lists
01. My Prerogative
02. Toxic
03. I'm Slave 4 U
04. Oops!...I Did It Again
05. Me Againts The Music feat. Madonna
06. Stronger
07. Everytime
08. ....Baby One More Time
09. (You Drive Me) Crazy [The Stop Mix]
10. Boys [Co-Ed Remix] feat. Pharrell
11. Sometimes (Radio Edit)
12. Overprotected (The Darkchild Remix)
13. Lucky
14. Outrageous
15. Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know
16. Born To Make You Happy (Radio Edit)
17. I Love Rock N Roll
18. I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman
19. I've Just Begun (Having My Fun)

[2006] Original Soundtrack - V For Vendetta (Mp3 Download)

Composer Dario Marianelli's (Pride & Prejudice, Brothers Grimm) soundtrack for director James McTeigue's controversial adaptation of Alan Moore's best-selling comic V for Vendetta is a sensuous blend of bombastic action cues and atmospheric vocal pop. With a main theme that riffs on everything from Batman to Gladiator, Marianelli paints a taut, futuristic London with a sea of tympani and brass. Quieter woodwind and string sections help build character but are equally menacing, keeping with the bleak subject matter. Julie London, Cat Power, and Antony and the Johnsons provide some moody lounge moments, but it's Marianelli's show, painting a totalitarian government in the deepest blues he can muster.

Track List
01. Remember Remember
02. Cry Me A River
03. Governments Should Be Afraid Of Their People
04. Eveys Story
05. Lust At The Abbey
06. The Red Diary
07. Valerie
08. Evey Reborn
09. I Found A Reason
10. England Prevails
11. The Dominoes Fall
12. Bird Gurhl
13. Knives And Bullets (And Cannons Too)

[2005] Original Soundtrack - Pride And Prejudice (Mp3 Download)

One reason why it is better to be a music critic than a film critic is illustrated by this album. The poor film critic may be left to ponder why filmmakers have chosen to do so many screen adaptations of Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice for both theatrical release and television broadcast, especially in recent years, and to weigh the competing talents of, say, Laurence Olivier, Colin Firth, and, now, Matthew MacFadyen in portraying the character of Mr. Darcy. But the music critic isn't really called upon to compare Herbert Stothart's score for the 1940 film with Carl Davis' music for the 1995 TV mini-series, and, now, Dario Marianelli's. They are entirely different entities and can be treated separately. As stated in a producers' note, the intention of the creators of the 2005 theatrical film Pride & Prejudice was to have Marianelli compose music that conceivably could have been heard at the time the story is set, in the late 18th century. Thus, he has come up with a couple of dance cues ("Meryton Townhall," "Another Dance") that actually recall the dance music of the period, as well as a march ("The Militia Marches In") that a military band actually might have been expected to play at the time. But the main scoring, calling upon Beethoven's sonatas for its inspiration, finds Marianelli providing music for pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, sometimes accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra, that has a strong Romantic flavor to accompany the familiar romantic plot. No doubt Stothart and Davis (among others) also did their homework in preparing their scores, but they may not have been as concerned as Marianelli with essentially impersonating an 18th century composer

Track List
01. Dawn
02. Star And Butterlies
03. The Living Sculpture Of Pemberly
04. Meryton Townhall
05. The Militia Marches In
06. Georgiana
07. Arrival At Netherfield
08. A Postcard To Henry Purcell
09. Liz On Top Of The World
10. Leaving Netherfield
11. Another Dance
12. The Secret Life Of Daydreams
13. Darcy's Letter
14. Can't Slow Down
15. Your Hands Are Cold
16. Mrs. Darcy
17. Credits

[2004] Original Soundtrack - The Phantom Of The Opera (Mp3 Download)

Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical adaptation of Gaston Leroux's 1911 gothic mystery novel The Phantom of the Opera proved to be at least the composer's second-most successful project, behind only Cats, and with the potential to outdo even that blockbuster. The musical opened in London in October 1986 and in New York in January 1988, and both productions were still running (along with many others around the world) when the film version finally premiered in December 2004. Because the same starring performers, Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, moved from the West End to Broadway, there was no original Broadway cast recording, the original London cast album serving to represent both stagings. In line with the success of the show, that album, a double-disc set, was also a hit, selling four-million copies in the U.S. alone by 1996, with another four-million copies of a single-disc highlights version as well. Although there was also an original Canadian cast album (not to mention foreign language versions from such countries as Japan and Austria), the movie soundtrack represents the first major re-recording of the score since 1986. Again, Lloyd Webber has opted to issue it in two versions, but this time, the 63-minute single CD is considered the standard release, with the double-disc set (housed, for a limited time, in a cardboard booklet with numerous photographs) billed as the "special edition" version. Even fans of the show and the film may want to stick with the shorter one, however. The two-hour special edition is that rarity, a soundtrack album which actually contains the complete, unedited film soundtrack, including dialogue, incidental background music, and sound effects. This, of course, makes it something of an odd listening experience, especially because there doesn't seem to be any reason why some dialogue is spoken and some is rendered in sing-song recitative. Lloyd Webber has written some extra background music here and there, as well as one new song, and that's an oddity, too. Minnie Driver, who plays the prima donna Carlotta, had her singing dubbed by Margaret Preece, but she turns up at the end and, over the closing credits, sings "Learn to Be Lonely," an irrelevant and musically out-of-place song clearly composed just to have a new tune that would be Academy Award-eligible. The film's other singers are adequate but no competition to Crawford, Brightman, and their colleagues, and the initial recording remains the one to buy.

Track List
01. Overture
02. Think Of Me
03. Angel Of Music
04. The Mirror
05. The Phantom Of The Opera
06. The Music Of The Night
07. Prima Donna
08. All I Ask Of You
09. All I Ask Of You (reprise)
10. Masquerade
11. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again
12. The Point Of No Return
13. Down Once More/Track Down This Murderer
14. Learn To Be Lonely

[2005] Original TV Soundtrack - Desperate Housewives (Mp3 Download)

Apart from Danny Elfman's score, music doesn't play a big part on Marc Cherry's runaway television hit Desperate Housewives, but any show that's this popular gets a soundtrack anyway -- hence, the fall 2005 release of Music from and Inspired by Desperate Housewives, just in time for the DVD release of the first season and the debut of the second. Since there's not much music in the show, that means that the 13 songs here are all "inspired" by the series -- which, in turn, means that they're all songs about marriage or girl power, all performed by female artists. Instead of relying on previously released material, the producers have commissioned new recordings, which helps give this a fresh feel even if there are no less than six covers of well-known oldies about marriage and motherhood. At first, the artist lineup looks rather diverse, since it contains everything from Shania Twain and Martina McBride to Liz Phair, Joss Stone, Gloria Estefan, Indigo Girls, and Macy Gray, but it doesn't take long to realize that everything here is firmly within the confines of adult pop, fitting both adult contemporary and adult alternative formats quite nicely. This is classy and clever, well-produced music that is not without a few missteps (chief among them Liz Phair's flat-footed "Mother's Little Helper" and Macy Gray's jazzy "Boom Boom"), but is heavier on the highlights: Anna Nalick belts out "Band of Gold," Shania Twain's "Shoes" is sublimely silly, Joss Stone's "Treat Me Right (I'm Yours for Life)" has a nicely mellow groove, and Sara Evans' treatment of "One's on the Way" may be faithful but it's still a lot of fun. These are of such a similar mind set that the snippets of dialogue from the show are not only not needed to tie this together, but they get to be a little irritating (and Mary Alice's voice-over narration has never sounded so smug and cloying as it does here, separated from the visuals). All the same, Desperate Housewives is a surprisingly entertaining soundtrack, especially for a show that doesn't really feature pop music in the first place.

Track List
01. Mary Alice
02. God Bless American Housewives - SheDaisy
03. Edie
04. Shoes - Shania Twain
05. Band Of Gold
06. Lynette
07. Mother's Little Helper - Liz Phair
08. Mrs. RobinsonIndigo Girl
09. Harper Valley PTA - Martina McBride
10. Bree
11. Running Out Of Time - LeeAnn Rimes
12. Treat Me Right (I'm Yours For Your Life) - Joss Stone
13. One's On The Way - Sara Evans
14. Gabrielle
15. Boom Boom - Macy Gray
16. Young Hearts Run Free - Gloria Estefan
17. Susan
18. Damsel In Distress - Idina Manzel
19. Dreams Of Everyday Housewife - KD Lang
20. Mary Alice
21. Theme - Danny Elfman

[2006] Shakira feat Wyclef Jean - Hips Don' t Lie [Single] (Mp3 Download)

Track Lists
01. Hips Don't Lie [Wyclef Remix]
02. Hips Don't Lie [Wyclef Mix Show Mix]
03. Hips Don't Lie [Wyclef Remix Instrumental]

[1995] Bjork - Post (Mp3 Download)

After Debut's success, the pressure was on Björk to surpass that album's creative, tantalizing electronic pop. She more than delivered with 1995's Post; from the menacing, industrial-tinged opener, "Army of Me," it's clear that this album is not simply Debut redux. The songs' production and arrangements -- especially those of the epic, modern fairy tale "Isobel" -- all aim for, and accomplish, more. Post also features Debut producer Nellee Hooper, 808 State's Graham Massey, Howie B, and Tricky, who help Björk incorporate a spectrum of electronic and orchestral styles into songs like "Hyperballad," which sounds like a love song penned by Aphex Twin. Meanwhile, the bristling beats on the volatile, sensual "Enjoy" and the fragile, weightless ballad "Possibly Maybe" nod to trip-hop without being overwhelmed by it. As on Debut, Björk finds new ways of expressing timeworn emotions like love, lust, and yearning in abstractly precise lyrics like "Since you went away/I'm wearing lipstick again/I suck my tongue in remembrance of you," from "Possibly Maybe." But Post's emotional peaks and valleys are more extreme than Debut's. "I Miss You"'s exuberance is so animated, it makes perfect sense that Ren & Stimpy's John Kricfalusi directed the song's video. Likewise, "It's Oh So Quiet" -- which eventually led to Björk's award-winning turn as Selma in Dancer in the Dark -- is so cartoonishly vibrant, it could have been arranged by Warner Bros. musical director Carl Stalling. Yet Björk sounds equally comfortable with an understated string section on "You've Been Flirting Again." "Headphones" ends the album on an experimental, hypnotic note, layering Björk's vocals over and over till they circle each other atop a bubbling, minimal beat. The work of a constantly changing artist, Post proves that as Björk moves toward more ambitious, complex music, she always surpasses herself.

Track Lists
01. Army Of Me
02. Hyper Ballad
03. The Modern Things
04. It's Oh So Quiet
05. Enjoy
06. You've Been Flirting Again
07. Isobel
08. Possibly Maybe
09. I Miss You
10. Cover Me
11. Headphones

[2005] Husky Rescue - Country Falls (Mp3 Download)

The initial gentle slide guitar invokes memories of Pink Floyd's "A Pillow of Winds" from their classic album Meddle, but as the gentle, wispy vocals of Reeta Korhola make their entrance, so end the comparisons between Floyd's sorely overlooked ballad and Country Falls' opener, "Sweet Little Kitten." With a slew of EPs and singles released in 2004 on Catskills, Helsinki-based Husky Rescue quietly established their little place on the mantle next to Air, Stereolab, and Architecture in Helsinki (the latter band Finnish in name only). However, unlike the aforementioned bands, the group places an emphasis on the laid-back elements of country & western motifs in place of vibrant analog synths and chic, stylish lyrics. While the results are not groundbreaking, Husky Rescue have crafted a slow, lazy record that is ideal for background listening and relaxing from start to finish.

Track Lists
01. Sweet Little Kitten
02. Summertime Cowboy
03. New Light Of Tomorrow
04. Sunset Drive
05. My World
06. City Lights
07. Gasoline Girl
08. Rainbow Flows
09. Sleep Tight Tiger
10. Mean Street
11. The Good Man
12. The Man Who Flew Away