In My Humble Opinion

As you can see we finally got some snow in the Lou.

Okay, I half-watched the Grammys as I worked Sunday night. I just went to their website to look over the list of winners. I must make a few comments.

The Dixie Chicks won too many awards and Gnarls Barkley didn’t win enough. Don't take that as Chick-bashing, the album was okay.

I am surprised that Dani California won an award.

I love that Wolfmother won in the Hard Rock category.

I was moved by Mary J. Blige’s performance. It was truly her night.

Both Christina Aguilera and Beyonce’s performances were unnecessary.

Glad to see The Police on stage all smiles, ready to announce the world tour. --J

Pete Yorn - Nightcrawler

This week sucks. I just can’t seem to get it together. I’m listening to the new Pete Yorn CD, Nightcrawler, which came out Tuesday the 29th. Am I officially lazy or just forward-thinking because I no longer care to go to a store and buy a CD? It’s so nice to sit in my bathrobe, have a cup of coffee and download a new CD on Tuesday morn.

The first single, For Us, has grown on me. Yeah I admit I gave it a little more thorough listening when I heard Pete’s podcast and he said he had to call Dave Grohl in to do the drum fill because he couldn’t get it quite the way he wanted it.

By far, my favorite song on the album is The Man. It’s a beautiful song and Pete’s vocals are so seductive that even a straight man or two might fall in love with him. I can see said straight guys at the concert, yelling “Dude!” and punching their best guy friend in the shoulder when Pete begins to sing this live. Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks sings backing vocals on this track and Martie Maguire plays fiddle. It’s funny that my favorite song off of this CD is Dixie Chicks-related since after a few listens of their new CD, Taking the Long Way, the standout track on that is the song Baby Hold On, which was co-written by Pete. Another favorite is Undercover.

I’m gonna give this record a strange UNFORTUNATE/UNEXPECTED review. There are a few tracks that I really love but the odds aren’t good when there are fifteen on the record. These are unfortunate odds. However, I’m throwing in the unexpected because I never thought I would consider myself a fan of his. My interest was piqued because of the album cover of Musicforthemorningafter. It probably says a helluva lot about me that I’m shallow enough to pick up an album just because of the front pic, but we all do it. Don’t judge, if we weren’t sometimes attracted to musicians because of their looks, no one would buy anything by The Pussycat Dolls or Fergie, but instead our music shelves would be packed with Blues Traveler and Edgar Winters records. --J