4. Blitzen Trapper - Nights Were Made For Love
This is one of those bands who I've heard good things about for a few years now but never really paid much attention to. But two things happened recently which gave me the opportunity...
Firstly, as mentioned previously, I rejoined eMusic. I used to be a member a few years back but belt-tightening and a sense that I'd exhausted all the good music on there caused me to put my membership on hold. I gave the site a trawl again recently and was pleased by how many desirable records I saw... either they've enlisted a bunch of new artists or my tastes have broadened. Although I'd always prefer to have the CD, the fact I can download a full album for under a fiver (half that if they're having one of their booster pack sales) was enough to tempt me back. The belt gets ever tighter (and not only because of middle-aged spread).
Secondly, I heard Bob Harris play a great track from BT's latest effort, All Across This Land on his late night / early morning show a few weeks back. When I saw the album on eMusic, I hit download... and it's quickly turned into one of my favourite albums of the year (although, as with many of my favourite albums this year, it was actually released in 2015).
All Across This Land has a classic American rock sound - a couple of the tracks could well be Tom Petty at his best, while the one I've chosen today is Bob Seger doing Springsteen. I'm at the age now where there's no bigger compliment of a record than to say: you thought they didn't make them like this anymore. Well, think again...
All the boys sit on the fender
As they watch the sun go down
And the lights shine like the end of things
On the darkest side of town
Where we grew up here in Oregon
Raking fields after the rain
And the west was all the world was
Now the west just fades away
Yeah the best of friends
The worst of luck
It never turned our hearts to stone
We were stupid, strange and young at heart
And all we wanted was to rock and roll
Yeah all we wanted was to rock and roll
Hi Rol,
ReplyDeleteIs the sound quality of the e-music downloads as good as elsewhere? I meant to check it out a few months ago, but heard something on another blog and didn't bother. It might just have been the actual recordings themselves.
I'm taking my blog private again so that I can activate all of the old box links. If you're interested, just leave an email address in a (moderated) comment (that won't be published) and I'll send you an invite (actually, it will come from blogger.) Don't worry, I never contact anyone personally.
I have to admit my ears are pretty shot so I'm probably not the best to ask about audio quality. To me, there's no difference in sound quality from an album I download from emusic to one I rip from CD. I listen to all my music that way these days - the dream of being a vinyl junkie was a nice one but not practical / affordable, and I hate the way the vinyl revival has been seized by record companies as a new way of selling the same old product back to music fans at even higher prices. There's a huge irony that they tricked people into buying all their old vinyl again on CD at a higher price and now they're flogging them new pressings of the vinyl again (availabe in bloody supermarkets!) for even more money...
DeleteBut I digress. I should probably save that for a post one day...
I've sent you a comment so I can keep in touch!
I agree with you completely, Rol. How many times must we be expected to cough up our hard-earned money? I was a serious (make that obsessed) 45 rpm collector in the '80s, but eventually sold my collection. I'm quite happy now with mp3s, thanks to receiving my first ipod in 2008. I've just found that purchasing songs on itunes requires some risk-taking. I've been lumbered with tracks that skip or fade out early or worse, sound as if they were recorded inside a tunnel.
DeleteI'd still rather listen to a nice clean track (preferably in mono, if it was originally released that way) than continous pops and clicks on the originals. There's some vinyl snobbery out there, but my take is that it's the music that counts, not the shellac or vinyl on which it was issued.
Quite. I like the physical object, and still try to buy the CDs of my favourite artists for completist's sake, but more and more I'm just happy to own the songs. (Can't really get my head around spotify and such though... I like the idea that artists are getting at least SOME money from me.)
DeleteI've always hated iTunes because it makes my computer crash and so have long ago vowed to never use it to buy music. I do occasionally buy downloads from Amazon, but haven't noticed any drop-out problems there. Certainly nothing like that from any emusic purchases I've made, although I have noticed the occasional bit of commentary on the site from people who have encountered problems with the odd track here and there... nothing I've ever bought so I can't say if that's the case, but there's never been an issue with any of my downloads.