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Site Diary----- ----- September 22, 2007New Reviews: Neil Young: American Stars 'N Bars (1977) 11/15 Rewritten Review: Madonna: American Life (2003) 2/15 So, it seems that I reviewed Wild Life, American Life and American Stars 'N Bars back-to-back. Sort of humorous. I have one more review to go with PiL (Psycho's Path), another Madonna rewrite (Confessions on a Dance Floor) and two more Dire Straits reviews to go... I can't believe I'm actually going to finish pages! (I guess that's a benefit of keeping only seven or eight "active pages" going at one time... That Can page I have in an exception, I'm deliberately working on that one slowly... though except an Ege Bamyasi review sometime in the near future.) --M.L. September 21, 2007New Reviews: Joan Baez: Come From the Shadows (1972) 11/15
Re-written Review: Paul McCartney: Wild Life (1971) 10/15 Actually I'm doing six McCartney re-writes altogether... I almost forgot about Red Rose Speedway, and I should also re-do Chaos and Creation. As soon as I finish these Dire Straits, Madonna and PiL pages (all verrrrrry close) I'll replace those with three new pages. Two will definitely be The Police and Iron Maiden. The third will probably be The Kinks (more rewrites)! --M.L. September 20, 2007Converted Reviews: The Go-Go's: Beauty and the Beat (1981) 11/15
Something I didn't know before: One of The Go-Go's played Joan of Arc in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. I'm still working writing and rewriting new reviews! Although my free time yesterday was mostly spent listening instead of writing. I actually have a review of Neil Young's Zuma in the can, but I want to rethink some of it... I am much more underwhelmed by it than I thought I should be (it looks to be a '10' ... I probably shouldn't second guess myself too much). Actually, I might do more Iron Maiden reviews instead of Tori Amos. Of course that all depends on how consumed I'm going to be with school starting next week... --M.L. September 19, 2007New Reviews: Rush: Moving Pictures (1981) 12/15
Rewritten Reviews: Paul McCartney: McCartney (1970) 11/15
Converted Reviews: Rush: Rush (1974) 10/15
Update!! The only other McCartney rewrites will be done for Wild Life, and Band on the Run. Everything else was done recently enough to not warrant rewrites! Only five days left of summer. I'm not sure how much I'm going to work on this site during the school year, but assuming I get to work on it a little bit, I'm going to start The Police page soon and possibly (because I need more '90s stuff) Tori Amos. I'm already gearing up for both of them, actually! --M.L. September 18, 2007New Review: Neil Young: Tonight's the Night (1975) 12/15 Re-written Reviews: Madonna: Ray of Light (1998) 5/15
That Neil Young album seemed like it should have been achingly close to a 13, but really it was closer to an 11. Oh well. Regarding my post yesterday, I can't write songs anymore... I'm just not in that mindset. I really just want to spend this last week of "summer" reviewing albums. I go into work for three hours, but the rest of today will surely be spent doing that (it's 8:30 a.m. where I'm at)! Nearly done with the Barry White page (just have one album left that's available on Rhapsody). Expect the next update to include a Paul McCartney re-write, a new PiL review and possibly that review of Moving Pictures I was promising. --M.L. September 17, 2007Just updating to toot my horn! The song I wrote last month called "Topaz" got an overall first place at midi-contest.com with a score of 8.78 (the amateur composer's site that I've been participating in since spring 2006). My next highest score was an 8.23, so you can see how big this is in my world... A few deciding factors on this was that a few reviewers who tend to score my songs lower didn't participate this month, and a few of the most talented composers on the site wasn't present, which eased the competition. At any rate, I'm in such a good mood that I couldn't bear to finish that Rush review I started... Maybe I'll work on writing a new song before the school year finally hits, since I'm suddenly in that mood. Don't worry, I'm still going to write reviews! After I'm done with Dire Straits, I'll probably start a new Police page, since that has been a popular request. I'd imagine this'll happen next month sometime. Already I'm starting on resurrecting the McCartney page. My reviews of his first five albums will be re-written! The other reviews are very recent. --M.L. September 16, 2007New Reviews: Dire Straits: Alchemy (1982) 12/15
Converted Reviews: The Blue Nile: Walk Across the Rooftops (1984) 12/15
I had a great trip! We went to the touristy Seaside, Oregon... School starts in exactly a week, and I'm getting excited! (There's my nerdiness for you.) I do expect my attitude to change about when midterms start. --M.L. September 12, 2007New Reviews: Neil Young: On the Beach (1974) 12/15
I'm going on a short trip, so there won't be anymore updates until at least Sunday! See you then!! --M.L. September 10, 2007New Reviews: Joan Baez: Blessed Are... (1971) 10/15 I have more reviews to update, but I have to go to work soon. The next update will be Neil Young, PiL and possibly other things (who the heck knows what I'm going to get around to doing). Also, I've been working on that Odds & Sods page... and I have a number older reviews still to put on there. I've also been playing with the notion to start a page just dedicated to hipster music... That would surely satisfy everyone who asks me to get out of the 20th century, but I think it might be a good idea anyway. Also going to revive the Rush and Paul McCartney pages... --M.L. September 9, 2007New Reviews: Neil Young: After the Gold Rush (1970) 11/15
Rewritten Reviews: Barry White: Just Another Way to Say I Love You (1975) 9/15
Converted Review: Barry White: Is This Whatcha Wont? (1976) 6/15 Unfortunately, Rhapsody no longer carries Is This Whatcha Wont? on its database, and I'm not in any position to pay for albums that already know I don't like. So, I slapped a disclaimer on the original review and put it on the page. I've already listened ahead in the Neil Young discography, and I really enjoy the next two albums he would do. I think I'll have another update tomorrow... though probably not this big of one! --M.L. September 8, 2007New Reviews: Everybody who thinks I'm a jerk now has a reason: The Evita soundtrack is the highest rated Madonna album. I'd imagine the next update will include a small handful of Neil Young reviews. --M.L. September 7, 2007New Reviews: Public Image Ltd: Flowers of Romance (1981) 14/15
Thanks for reading, everybody! --M.L. September 6, 2007New Reviews: Dire Straits: Love Over Gold (1982) 12/15
I'm pacing myself a bit better now, which is probably a good thing. I imagine that I'll have another update tomorrow. Cheers! --M.L. September 4, 2007New Reviews: Can: Tago Mago (1971) 13/15
Re-written Reviews: Barry White: Rhapsody in White (1974) 8/15
Converted Reviews: Can: Delay 1968 (1981) 11/15
Well, I've been enjoying myself! I've actually written more new reviews than I updated here, but I think I've unleashed enough for now. I'm going to continue working! --M.L. September 3, 2007New Reviews: Public Image Ltd.: First Issue (1978) 11/15
Somehow, I managed to get away with only posting brand new reviews this time. I'll probably review Tago Mago soon which'll give me a good excuse to convert the Can reviews. Also, more Barry White rewrites are on the way along with more Public Image Ltd., Neil Young, Joan Baez, Dire Straits and whatever else I feel like working on. (How did I get along so far in this life without hearing Public Image Ltd. albums until now? It's the sort of thing I live for!) --M.L. September 2, 2007New Review: Buffalo Springfield: Last Time Around (1968) 9/15 Re-written Reviews: Barry White: I've Got So Much to Give (1973) 7/15
Converted Reviews: Buffalo Springfield: Buffalo Springfield (1966) 10/15
Yesterday's update, fortunately, wasn't an isolated incident... I'm also going to review Public Image, Ltd., Neil Young and continue working on those Dire Straits reviews. See you tomorrow. --M.L. September 1, 2007New Reviews: Never Mind the Bollocks... Here's the Sex Pistols (1977) 13/15
I spent more than a week writing a new computer-generated song, and it was the most bloated, unfocused thing I ever worked on! Anyway that indirectly inspired me to start listening to professional music closely again... So here I am! I'm also going to work on these new reviews in the same scatter-shot method that I used to. I can't do artist pages in huge bulks like other reviewers, unfortunately. It makes my head explode. So, I did three very related reviews today: I finished that Baez review I started last July, I rewrote a Barry White review (too lazy to create the new page just now) and The Sex Pistols! Everyone's going to think that I overrated that album, but I don't care what you think! Half of you send me nasty e-mails, anyway!!! Not sure I mentioned this, but I abandon the notion of being a teacher, and now I'm going back to school to be an engineer. As I e-mailed to a friend about it recently, I'm good at math and teenagers depress me. (Still have to go to school since my bachelors degrees in print journalism and geology are utterly useless. Also, I'd be something like a fourth-generation engineer...) So, there it goes. School starts Sept. 24, and I already started doing homework! (I'm scheduled to take Calc III, Statics and Physics ... I took physics already, but it was the wrong kind. Assholes.) --M.L. July 29, 2007Grrr... I am so inconsistent! I'm still only halfway through with the review I was working on when I wrote that message below. Oh well; it looks like the site is going on a hiatus for now. Might as well work on it when I get into the "mood" again... The good news is that I picked up songwriting again after four months away from it. You can even listen to my latest creation, if you want. (For the record, that song title isn't final... I have a hard time coming up with good names.) Outer Space Steven (4:04) I probably shouldn't post this one since it's pilfered from another source. (I won't tell you where, if it isn't obvious.) I just wanted to de-construct another composer for my "education." Hmm... there seems to be a problem with the mp3, but this thing was pretty unpolished anyway. Fond Remembrance (2:38) --M.L. July 23, 2007I am writing again. I'm going to take it nice and easy so that I don't get burnt out again. --M.L. July 16, 2007Much apologies for the inactivity lately. I underwent a sort of personal crisis... Right before I was supposed to submit my information to the school of education, I got cold feet and decided to switch to engineering! Well... you're not the only one who doesn't know what I'm doing! Now that personal crisis is over, I'm going to try to get myself back up to working on this site. (I think I might try to conquer Joan Baez... I sort of failed on that one. Then I might go back and finish Dire Straits.) Well I sort of needed that break anyway! I was on a Civ III kick, but I must stop doing that because it's such a waste of time! Today, I took away all of the track listings and album summaries. George Starostin's site did inspire me to start my own site, but I guess I don't want to rip him off too much. (The fifteen point scale is staying ... even though I'm not planning on assigning artist ratings. Some of the artists would get negative ratings if I did that anyway!!) --M.L. July 1, 2007New Reviews: Dire Straits (1978) 12/15
Sorry for the non-activity. I'm not a big fan of "wasting time," but I did seem to spend an awful lot of the past few days doing nothing. Unfortunately, I wasn't inspired to write anything dreadfully unique about Dire Straits, so I didn't particularly enjoy writing those two reviews. Nonetheless, I still plan on finishing them...... but I'll have to take those relatively slowly! Now, I'm going to concentrate on re-writing the Barenaked Ladies reviews, and I believe they have two new albums for me to review as well!! --M.L. June 26, 2007Converted Pages: New Reviews: Joan Baez (1960) 11/15
The original plan was to review 12 Baez albums (including rewriting the four that were already on the site), but I'm Baez-ed out. I might even have to re-look at the David's Album review sometime, because I was feeling TIRED. ... Well, I'm surprised I made it this far, actually! Now I get to go onto creating a new page. Hopefully it won't take as long, because they didn't do too many albums. After that, it's Barenaked Ladies time... --M.L. June 23, 2007Converted Pages: New Review: Arabesque: Arabesque VIII (1983) 5/15 I didn't re-listen to any of the Arabesque albums on the new page, but I copy edited it a little bit. I will probably re-listen to them one day, but not anytime soon! Naturally, the Association reviews were brand new so they didn't get rewrites, but I did update their 1969 album review (without listening to it again). However, the Aztec Camera review is completely changed from the original review. I would love to review more Aztec Camera albums some day, but I don't have any of their other albums. Now, I'm onto Joan Baez. She has a ***much*** more extensive discography than what I reviewed; I only scratched the surface. At least, I'm going to cover her first two albums that I skipped originally (thus making the earliest album reviewed on this site 1960), and depending on how much I feel like it, I could also review the rest of her '60s albums. After that I'm thinking about starting a completely new page (just for a change of pace) and actually reviewing a whole discography from scratch!! Which band am I thinking about? It's a surprise!! The only hint is someone asked me to review them a few months ago, and I'd really like to do it. So........ yup. Now it's time to tackle Joan Baez. And I hope I break that big nose of hers..... (OK not really.) After that new page is done, I'll work on a few more pages of rewrites, and then I think I'll review a soul artist since that's a common request. I'll be thinking about which one. Cheers. --M.L. June 23, 2007New Review: Marc Anthony: When the Night is Over (1991) 7/15 It must be the mathematics related job that I have now that's keeping my brain completely engaged. I don't think I've ever worked this hard on the site. The bad news about it is that I still need to go through and copy edit. Frankly I'm so sick of those two pages right now that I'm not too keen on going back --- However, I was making sure that I was being genuine with the critiques. I finished re-doing the Marc Anthony page, and I COMPLETELY rewrote everything plus added one new review. I probably only agreed with five percent of what I originally wrote, which suggests that the idea to rewrite everything was STRONGLY needed.... Geez........ The links I posted earlier are no longer accurate. I decided to lump all the review pages into one folder. So I'll give you the new links! Updated Links: Obviously, next is Arabesque. There might just be a day when I will rewrite even those, but not just yet. I think it's best to take those slowly. Besides I have to review the final album of theirs I have. --M.L. June 21, 2007Artist Page Converted: New Review: ABBA: Live (1986) 9/15 I spent quite a dang while the past few days working on that ABBA page, and it still really needs a go-over with a fine toothed comb... Not to mention the Kate Bush reviews I posted yesterday. Right now, I'm a bit tired of looking at it. Most of the reviews are completely re-written. The Chess review was written in 2004, but I'm going to leave it alone for now. I was being genuine with it at least! I'm going in alphabetical order. I'm going to re-listen to every Marc Anthony album now and pick up a few of the ones I skipped. Wish me luck, burritos and your lent-out ears! --M.L.
Extra Special MessageA few things happened recently. Firstly, I was suddenly possessed to try out a new format for my reviews, which incorporates all the album overviews on one page and all the track reviews on another page. Secondly, this new format converts all the ratings to a 15-point system instead of the current system, which makes no sense, as many readers have been happy to point out! I tested it on the newly completed Kate Bush page (done separately to the one that was already there), and for the most part I like it! Obviously, if I'm going to do this to all my pages it'll take some time... FURTHERMORE, I'm going to want to rewrite all of my crappy old reviews with somewhat less crappy new reviews. (And possibly fill in discography gaps along the way.) This would obviously take quite some time, because that would basically mean rewriting (or revising) my first 500 reviews. But then a weird thing happened. I opened the mail and found out those buttheads at the community college canceled the one and only class I was going to take this summer. Taking this as a sign from the gods that I'm doing the right thing, I'm going full-steam ahead with it. The drawback of course is that I'm not going to be adding a whole lot of new reviews, but the good news is that I'm going to, once and for all, make this horrible site less horrible!! Hurrah!! I am keeping the old pages intact, and I won't actually erase them until everything is done, so you don't have to worry about things not making sense. I'll keep posting updates here, and revised pages as they come. The review queue is closed now... I'm going to be working as fast as I can... Roughly speaking the scores translate as follows, but keep in mind that the current scores are extremely subject to be changed when I rewrite them: 9.9-10plus - 15
I'm still using mathematics to calculate these scores, so my method isn't changing. These artist and album rating did need to go. Also those joke album titles have been getting pretty forced lately (as opposed to obnoxious when I first started ... I used to think that was funny). I would like your feedback on this change, if you have any. Please send me an e-mail or a message board. If you would like to see another feature, then now is the time to do it... June 20, 2007Artist Page Converted: New Review: Kate Bush: Aerial (2005) 13/15 June 19, 2007New Reviews: Gary Numan: The Pleasure Principle (1979) (9.2)
Rewrites Blondie: Plastic Letters (1977) (8.9) +.6
The original plan I reported on the queue was for me to finish the Kate Bush and Alice Cooper reviews that I'm in the middle of before this update, but I'm extremely tired right now! Zzzzzz... Hey, guess what? I just completed a page. The Association! It seems like I never finish pages, but there's one right now as it lives and breathes. They did have another album in 1972, but I don't have it. The next time I have $25 to spare that I have nothing better to do with than purchase an album I'll never listen to, I'll definitely review it. Until then, that page is finito. :-) The next pages I have tagged for rewrites are Barry White and The Moody Blues. I'll try to be nicer to Barry White. I guess The Moody Blues reviews aren't horrible, but I still want to go through them again... --M.L. June 16, 2007New Reviews: The Blue Nile: Peace At Last (1996) (8.8)
Rewrites The Go-Go's: Beauty and the Beat (1981) (8.6) +.9
Yeah, those two Go-Go's reviews really needed to be rewritten. I'll also go through the last two Lauper reviews sometime soon except I'm finally getting sick of listening to so much pop music!! I'm popped out!!! I should start reviewing Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath or something. Hm. Well I love pop music. So sue me!! Thanks for everyone who's visiting the site. I had an average of 80 hits a day over the course of the last 30 days, which is unprecedented. So thanks everyone. I'll continue to try to update regularly. Maybe not always at such a maniacal pace... I can't promise crazy-fast updates all the time, you know! --M.L. June 14, 2007New Reviews: Macy Gray: On How Life Is (1999) (9.0)
Rewrites Cyndi Lauper: She's So Unusual (1983) (7.6) +.3
So I felt the sudden desire to re-do the whole Cyndi Lauper discography, and I'm already half way done with it. There was a huge jump in A Night to Remember, but that score is still less than adequate. Right now I think there'll be a similar jump in Hat Full of Stars if not an even greater one, but that's difficult to tell until I actually write the review. (I wrote a message on the review queue indicating that there would be a "complete" turnaround in the score, but that didn't quite materialize when it came to writing the review.) I think I'll probably spend the rest of tonight and most of tomorrow writing reviews, 'cos I can!! Also, I should do something about all those site comments I have racked up. I think that picture of Basil Fawlty actually worked in derailing the flamers!!! Well that's good news at least. I'm also re-understanding calculus. That's more good news. --M.L. June 12, 2007New Review: Paul McCartney: Memory Almost Full (2007) (9.2) Yay! I uploaded a review of a brand new album! So, the job is still going well. I really have to go through and reteach myself upper mathematics, because I'm so rusty that it isn't even funny. Tomorrow is going to be spent mostly doing that, but I think I can afford to write a few reviews as well. I'm also going to start taking a class in a couple weeks (astronomy)! ... Not that I don't enjoy working on this site, but it's nice that I finally have a *life* for once!!! Later! --M.L. June 11, 2007New Reviews: Os Mutantes: Os Mutantes (1968) (9.7)
So, I'm in the middle of reviewing the brand new Paul McCartney album and I'm giving it an extremely positive review (I mean, it's up there with Chaos and Creation). I meant to post it today, but I'm quite sleepy, so I'll probably finish it tomorrow morning. Also, I should review more Os Mutantes albums. I'll probably give them their own page one of these months... Hopefully there'll be an update tomorrow with the new McCartney album. --M.L. June 8, 2007New Reviews: The Turtles: Happy Together (1967) (8.8)
Rewrite The Kinks: Arthur (1969) (9.7) +.4 To celebrate Paris Hilton being sent back to jail, I decided to update again. And I corrected one of the great injustices of this Web site... I gave a 9.7 to that great Kinks album. My new job is going great. Once that turns into a routine, I'm sure I'll begin to make updates more regularly... Well, I hope... --M.L. June 1, 2007New Reviews: T.Rex: Unicorn (1969) (9.1)
I think it's pretty obvious that I have a weird fascination with female singers. Maybe most guys do... Honestly, I'm to the point where I believe nothing I do or think is considered normal. Well, I seem to have a very part-time job now! This came just in time, because I almost started putting ads on the site. Running this site is very cheap, but my funds are draining pretty quickly. Plus, I have to pay for college and gas and stuff. Well it's all OK now, though! I also realized that I cannot go on in the CSN discography until I review all the Neil Young solo albums until 1971. They did a live album and Neil covers some of his own songs... But that's OK. I have just one more Buffalo Springfield album, and then I'll go on with NY... A new update soon, hopefully! --M.L. May 30, 2007New Reviews: Booker T. and the MG's: Hip Hug-Her (1967) (9.2)
Whew! Today was a pretty hot day. Well, it's Seattle, so it wasn't really hot, but nobody around here has air conditioning! That odds and sods page seems so liberating, because it was always my dream to review Pearls Before Swine. (Actually I reviewed that album a couple years ago, but it was completely worthless ... so I basically rewrote it completely.) About the rewrites, I was looking back to what I have, and I'm probably going to rewrite everything I did in 2005 as well, so that means 80-85% of this site will have to be completely revamped. Some will obviously be done sooner than others. Even if I manage to keep up with this at a respectable rate (which I somehow doubt but there's always that chance), it would take years... And when that happens, I'm probably going to want to start from the beginning again. So it goes... I'm still concentrating on new things though! Rewrites should be just a fraction of the updates. --M.L. May 29, 2007New Reviews: Chicago: Chicago Transit Authority (1969) (8.8)
Rewrites: ABBA: The Visitors (1981) (9.0) +.2
700 reviews! Yay for me!! It seems like every day, I'm announcing a new change. I just thought of this, literally, a few minutes ago. The 1-3 live album ratings are going to change to star ratings one through five. Five is the highest, one is the lowest (with the vague possibility of a zero), and I'm allowed to use halves. OK, that should be less confusing. Also, the live Association review I just posted contains an example of what the reviews could look like if I were to redesign everything... If not, that's a still pretty good way of doing live album reviews, which are wide open anyway. I've decided that I'm just going to rewrite pretty much everything I wrote in 2003-2004, which is probably half of the site. I've already been doing that, but I'm going to try to get the extremely sub-standard stuff off of here... I'm just going to keep doing it at the same rate. Most updates contain new reviews, but there'll be some rewrites sprinkled in... Yeah, I'll probably even re-do Kiss. The one thing that changed for me in 2005 and 2006 was that I seriously gave efforts in songwriting. I'm better able to dissect music properly as a result. I also wrote reviews and feedback for amateur compositions, which forced me to judge aspects of music that I wasn't really seeing before --- so hopefully I can lend that to the artists I've already reviewed. In case you didn't notice, I've been reviewing like mad this Memorial Day weekend, and I'm going to slow it down now. On Saturday, I think, I wrote SIX reviews. That, my friend, is my new record. But now I'm feeling a bit hazy, and I should back off a bit... --M.L. May 28, 2007New Reviews: The Monkees: The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees (1968) (8.5)
Rewrite: The Byrds: Younger Than Yesterday (1967) (9.1) +.3 Now I'm going to contradict what I said in the previous entry. I am going to start new review pages, but with a twist. You see, I have written several reviews for the epinions site that aren't on this site, because I don't feel like completing their discographies very soon. It's such an old idea in the WRC that I'm surprised I didn't consider it sooner: An Odds & Sods page. For the most part these reviews are already written, so you won't get any warning about them on the queue page --- If you think the artist pages I work on are random, these are COMPLETELY random. You can't get more random than today's entries: A mid-career Monkees album and Melissa Etheridge's debut. This way, I won't feel any pressure about finishing the discographies, and I can upload whatever the hell I want to. (I also got rid of the "artist count." That has gotten fuzzy anyway now that I've started doing Crosby, Stills & Nash.) Also, I thought of a way to re-score these reviews, but I'm still not sure if I want to do it. I'm only using 5% of my allotted Web space anyway (even with all those mp3s I have), so I could just work on changing the scores on a different page. Well that answers that problem anyway. ...... I still don't think I'm going to do anything though. --M.L. May 26, 2007New Reviews: Paul McCartney: Tug of War (1982) (8.5)
Gary Numan marks the last new page I'm going to make in a long while. I'm seriously "working on" about 25 artist pages at the moment!!! Others I can still work on (for example Fischer-Z, Jars of Clay and Joan Baez), but they're sort of in hibernation... A few new changes. First, and obviously I started a new site diary page! Secondly, I brought back the Review Queue, which you can find at the top of this page. I'm going to try to keep that as updated as possible. (And honestly, it's not much to ask... I like to fiddle with things or surf the 'Net while I'm listening to music.) I decided that there's no way I'm going to change the rating system. You're going to have to deal with it I guess! Besides, the current system gives me many more numbers to play with even considering almost everything usually scores in the 6.0-10plus range. Besides and album would have to be pretty horrible to score in the 0minus-5.9 range, and some of them are obviously worse than others. I should try to figure out how I'm going to reorganize the front page... At least sometime in the near future. It's getting pretty cluttered... --M.L. ----- |