Early Buzz

-Footage from Michael Jackson's This Is It! rehearsals will be released in theatres on October 28th. Seems like an odd Halloween flick.

-That great painting of the Breakfast Club is from Gallery 1988's "Monsters of Pop" art show, which opened on Tuesday in Los Angeles; it was painted before John Hughes's death.

-Ready for new TV? Here's a list of when new seasons begin.

-In the meantime, My So-Called Life is now available on Hulu.

-Watch the entire pilot for NBC's new comedy "Community" for free on Facebook.

-Activision is offering Guitar Hero: Van Halen for free with the purchase of Guitar Hero 5. You'll even get it before it hits stores.

-Here's a great read on the strenuous life of a B-movie zombie.

-A man was arrested for punching a police horse at Lollapalooza. Along with the naked wizard at Coachella and lovemaking couple at Sasquatch, it's been an exciting festival season.

-Check out The Ballad of G.I. Joe on Funny or Die. Come for the insane cast, stay for the funny.

-MTV is not planning to renew the lease on its Times Square studio. Apparently it costs ten times as much as it did 12 years ago. Sheesh.

-After Transformers and GI Joe, here's a list of 10 toys that should be turned into movies.

-This might be a major Lost spoiler. If only we knew what it meant.

-I wish I had grown up with a Y-Wing themed bedroom.

Can Major League Baseball and Topps save baseball cards?

Elton John will sing on the new Alice in Chains album.

People are playing more video games than ever.

This hilarious Harrison Ford "My family!" compilation video may be my new ab workout. Get it? Because I'm laughing so hard. I'll be here all week. (via Videogum)

Snap Judgements

Time to do some quick record reviewing. I'll use this as an opportunity to say how much I love MySpace Music. Their collection is amazing, and being able to stream entire albums before they come out makes me feel much more law-abiding. It's a wonder the music industry didn't start this years ago. Like, when Napster came out.

Anyhoo, let's get down to it:

Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak

Yeezy gets down to his emotional side. After a year in which his mother died and he split with his fiance, he was feeling some pain, and this is the result. Whatever one thinks of Kanye West, he's anything but conventional.

The album's an intriguing mess. In the event you live in a box and don't know, there's no rapping here, no samples, and barely more than a few instruments per song. The result is a cold, methodical, haunting sound that doesn't change enough to be truly great. A few of the tracks, including the initial singles "Love Lockdown" and "Heartless," really swell up and attach themselves to you, whether you like it or not. But on a whole, the album's a bit one-note, repetitive and uncompromising in its bleak outlook. It's nothing great, but it's still something special.

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The Killers - Day And Age

The Killers are a band made for the modern era but desperate to have been from the '70s. That is to say, they make great singles, but ultimately would rather make great albums. The problem is, they're painfully unaware that they're incapable of this.

Hot Fuss featured classic songs "Mr. Brightside," "All These Things That I've Done," and "Smile Like You Mean It." The album sucked. Sam's Town featured classic songs "When You Were Young," "Read My Mind," and "This River Is Wild." The album sucked.

This one features a few solid tracks, particularly "Losing Touch," the album opener and high point. It's a soaring rock track that belongs right up there with the aforementioned songs, but the rest of the album can't live up. Maybe one of these days they'll get that cohesively great album that lives up to the potential of their singles, but I can't help feeling they won't achieve that until they stop trying to.

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Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy

If Kanye's new album was a rushed, small, introspective album, this is the opposite. It took nearly two decades, and it's bombastic as hell. But it's just as much if not more of a mess.

Then again, I'm not the world's biggest GNR fan, so the most I can say is that there's nothing here I see myself listening to in a year or two, no classic songs on the level of "Sweet Child O' Mine," but it's not particularly bad. It just doesn't stand out at all. For any other album, that'd be just fine. For this one, I'm left thinking "we waited fifteen years for this?" Sorry, Chuck Klosterman, I just don't get it.

Amazing

Bruce Lee playing ping pong with nunchucks.

There are no words.

The Wrestler - Hell Yestler

I am SO excited for The Wrestler. Darren Aronofsky's a director who's missed once for me (Pi), hit big once (Requiem for a Dream), and fell somewhere in between a third time (The Fountain).

But this seems like the perfect fit for me. A down-to-earth, normal, human story with no sci/fi or drugs or insanity involved.

Plus, it's got an original song by Bruce. Instant awesomeness cred.

Movie Release Insanity

Usually by this point in the year, a number of movies have come out that are at the least hyped (pre-release) as Oscar contenders. Lost in Translation, No Country For Old Men, Little Miss Sunshine, and countless movies that competed for but didn't recieve Oscar noms were released by October. That's when Oscar season is supposed to start.

But not this year.

Here are the Oscar-bait movies still to be released, or only just recently starting their limited releases:

Slumdog Millionaire
Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
The Wrestler
Rachel Getting Married
Synecdoche, NY
Milk
The Road
Revolutionary Road
Doubt

I mean, as far as movies released before November go, the only real potential Best Picture nominee seems to be The Dark Knight (which I'd admittedly love to see). That's strange. 6 weeks to cram in at least 11 Best Picture contenders (you can knock Syncechdoche, NY off that list, though). Highly unusual, and it'll make for an expensive next month or so.

Here We Go, Here We Go Again

I'm giving it yet another shot. SMBL returns. Random musings of whatever the hell I want to write from here on out. It might be politics, because Barack Obama is So Much Better Live. It might be sports, because NBA Basketball is So Much Better Live. It might be movies, because...uhh...seeing movies in the theatre...LIVE...instead of on DVD...is So Much Better Live.

But it'll still be mostly music. Lots of individual songs, videos, reviews, etc. I hope, anyway.

So here's one from my fun last weekend: it's Maritime, with "Young Alumni."

Download: Maritime - Young Alumni

The album's a bit one-note for me, which is to say I haven't listened to it enough for the tracks to really stand out from each other, but this song does every time. Such a great, zippy-chill guitar riff, the kind of song you want to bob your head to in a coffee shop. The band actually reminds me a lot of a less-quirky Belle and Sebastian, or even moreso of Minus The Bear. Enjoy.

Looking back...

I always like to look back at what my favorite albums were in the past, so I dug up my list from 2006. Ultimately, I'm pretty happy with it. Based on my opinions of the albums after a year, I think the only major change I'd make would be to pop Phoenix into the top 5, replacing Gnarls Barkley (more a reflection of how much I've come to love the Phoenix album than of Gnarls getting any worse in my mind).

Rather than retype the list, I'll link you to me (ha!) livejournal. Maybe it'll offer hints at this year's list.

http://braundiggity.livejournal.com/180326.html

And having just started listening to Jay-Z's American Gangster, gotta say, it sounds pretty great.

Bienvenidos!

Welcome to my single viewers from Spain, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Greece! Though I don't expect much, I hope you'll come back again!

¡Bienvenidos a mis nuevos visitantes de Mexico y Espana! ¡Espero que usted regrese!

Best Live Acts of '07

I've seen a ton of live acts this year, too. Have you? Here's a brief rundown of those I can remember, including anyone I saw for at least a half hour at Coachella. I'll be counting down my favorites as the year rolls to a close.

Coachella
Arctic Monkeys
Arcade Fire
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Rage Against The Machine
Manu Chao Radio Bemba Sound System
Regina Spektor
Silversun Pickups
Kings of Leon
The Jesus & Mary Chain
Sonic Youth
Third Eye Blind
Willie Nelson
Kaiser Chiefs
Rodrigo y Gabriela
The Fratellis
The Cribs
Grizzly Bear
Lupe Fiasco
Mika

Individual Shows
The Police
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Spoon
Hanson
Arcade Fire
LCD Soundsystem
Jamie Cullum & The LA Philharmonic
The Hold Steady
Art Brut
Manu Chao Radio Bemba Sound System
Dave Matthews Band

I may have missed someone, but I don't think so. Seen any of these acts, in festival or otherwise? What'd you think?

Top Albums of '07

Yeah. Everyone knows why I restarted this blog. Three words: Best Of-Lists.

The cream of the crop being, of course, the best albums of the year. So this time I'm gonna reach out a bit more. What follows is a list of all of the albums I've gotten this year. All seven or eight of you out there, let me know what your favorite albums of the year are. If they're not on my list, suggest them, and I'll try to listen to the album(s) before I finalize my list.

So without further ado, these are the albums I have from 2007 (in random order so as to not suggest my preferences):

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City
Bright Eyes - Cassadaga
Amy Winehouse - Back in Black
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Radiohead - In Rainbows
The Go! Team - Proof of Youth
Art Brut - It's A Bit Complicated
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Ghostface Killah - The Big Doe Rehab
Jay-Z - American Gangster
Common - Finding Forever
The Hives - The Black and White Album
Interpol - Our Love to Admire
Manu Chao - La Radiolina
The National - Boxer
Ozomatli - Don't Mess With The Dragon
Hanson - The Walk
Kanye West - Graduation
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Ryan Adams - Tiger
Rilo Kiley - Under the Blacklight
Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist
White Stripes - Icky Thump
The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace
The New Pornographers - Challengers
St. Vincent - Marry Me
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
Wu Tang Clan - The 8 Diagrams
Feist - The Reminder


I think that's everything. There you go. Eat your hearts out.