Music

These are the albums I listened to most, at least according to last.fm

Kosheen - Resist 303 tracks listened to

D'espairsRay - Mirror 294 tracks

Delain - Lucidity 284 tracks

Kaiser Chiefs - Yours Truly, Angry Mob 264 tracks

Amy Winehouse - Back To Black 249 tracks

Dir en grey - Withering to death. 222 tracks

Nightwish - Once 220 tracks

Nightwish - Tales From the Elvenpath 211 tracks

Linkin Park - Minutes To Midnight 208 tracks

Nightwish - Century Child 207 tracks

Marilyn Manson - EAT ME, DRINK ME 200 tracks

Kaiser Chiefs - Employment 191 tracks

Tarja Turunen - My Winterstorm 191 tracks

Duffy - Rockferry 190 tracks

Within Temptation - The Silent Force 189 tracks

Hoobastank - The Reason 173 tracks

Dir en grey - Vulgar 171 tracks

Nightwish - Angels Fall First 160 tracks

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication 153 tracks

Within Temptation - Mother Earth 152 tracks

Evanescence - The Open Door 152 tracks

Kosheen - Damage 152 tracks

浜崎あゆみ - MY STORY 138 tracks

D'espairsRay - [Coll:Set] 138 tracks

A Fine Frenzy - One Cell in the Sea 134 tracks

Placebo - Sleeping With Ghosts 133 tracks

Shakira - Laundry Service 129 tracks

Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway 129 tracks

浜崎あゆみ - (miss)understood 125 tracks

浜崎あゆみ - A BALLADS 118 tracks

Robbie Williams - Rudebox 116 tracks

Christina Aguilera - Back To Basics 111 tracks

The Cranberries - Bury the Hatchet 105 tracks

Within Temptation - The Heart of Everything 103 tracks

Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory 103 tracks


Alas the statistics are wrong in at least three cases (Two albums by D'espairsRay and Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers must be in there.)

My goal for this months open mind index was to reach 110, instead I have achieved the unbelievable score of 121.

And all this just from listening to less Nightwish and less regular Rock or Pop.

The downside is that now I don't have a goal anymore.

The new OMI (Open Mind Index) has been calculated and I have actually managed to improve mine from 97 to 101. My current goal of getting at least 100 was reached.

It was achieved by mainly reducing Rock and Pop. No new genre (like Industrial Metal) has entered the "My Musical Taste"-diagram yet.

I always considered myself open minded, when it comes to music, then I met the OMI on last.fm.

Apparently you need an OMI of 120 to truly join the Open Mind Index group, which I don't have yet, damn.

I quickly found out how the OMI works:
Apparently it takes ones top 50 artists and looks at the genres they are in.

Unfortunately I have a loooooot of artists who are either in the rock or pop category. How helpful. Well yes, I know I should get for example Genesis and Robbie Williams and some other main stream artists out of there as they do not really reflect my musical taste, but what can I do. Also my "female vocalists" part of the pie is rather large. This is a really silly tag to take into consideration if you ask me. About 50% of my playlist are female artists, but most of them are nothing alike when it comes to their music; like Tarja Turunen, Christina Aguilera, Katie Melua and Mary J. Blige for example.

Well, well... to improve my rating I have been listening more to artists who have not been tagged as rock or pop so much, like Metallica, Linkin Park, Amy Winehouse, John Williams and Kaiser Chiefs.

My OMI for April was 97, I am now anxious to find out what it will be in May.

I think I have good chances to get the genres Nu Metal, Trash Metal, Industrial (Metal), Indie, Soundtrack, RNB, Soul, Electronica and Trip Hop, maybe even Reggae into my rating, sooner or later.

Nightwish has a new album, "Dark Passion Play", the first without Tarja Turunen. Are they still Nightwish?

My first answer would be "yes", but when listening to their new album closely, I am starting to have my doubts. While some songs are great, and in case of "The Poet and the Pendulum" fantastic, others do not match my expectations at all. Too many of the new songs are a bit boring or have annoying bits (especially lyric-wise). It is not so much the new voice that had ruined some of the songs...

The Good Songs
The Poet and the Pendulum (5/5)
I love the song and it is by far the one I've listened to most. It is very long with almost 14 minutes but never gets boring.

Bye Bye Beautiful (4/5)
Another good song on this album, however the background story behind it ruins the song.

Amaranth (4/5)
Amaranth is another song I like.

The O.K. Songs
These are the songs that are ok to listen to, they reach (3/5)
Cadence of her Last Breath
Sahara
For The Heart I once had
7 Days to the Wolves (even through this tends to annoy)
Last Of The Wilds

The Not So Good Songs
Master Passion Greed annoying lyrics
Eva plain boring
Whoever brings the Night repetitive, annoying
The Islander horrible, annoying, boring
Meadows of Heaven annoying lyrics

I was browsing last.fm, when I saw that the most popular songs of any artist (from the last 6 months) aren't always the same as my favourite song of this artist (based on how often I have heard it and the rating I've given it on i-tunes). So here is a comparison.

I only picked the artists that made it into my top 50 on last.fm. There are some problems when it comes to artists like Madonna, where new songs are at the top of the list... but nevermind, my song preferences are also "recent", and in some cases I might have given a "newer" song (e.g. Elevation) although I have a lot of older songs by the same artist I also like)

Here's my profile by the way:
http://www.last.fm/user/tombraidergirl/


1. Ayumi Hamasaki
Obviously I've been listening to a lot of Ayu since I joined last.fm...

Last.fm #1: evolution
My #1: Rainbow (no rank on last.fm)


2. Dir en grey

Last.fm #1: THE FINAL
My #1: THE FINAL
1st match


3. Robbie Williams

Last.fm #1: Angels
My #1: Advertising Space (9 on last.fm) / Let Me Entertain You (4 on last.fm)


4. Nightwish

Last.fm #1: Nemo
My #1: Dark Chest of Wonders (7 on last.fm) / Sleeping Sun (5 on last.fm)


5. U2

Last.fm #1: With Or Without You
My #1: Elevation (#10 on last.fm)


6. Red Hot Chili Peppers

Last.fm #1: Californication
My #1: Californication / Otherside
2nd match


7. Hikaru Utada

Last.fm #1: Simple And Clean
My #1: ... hm difficult choice. I like Simple and Clean, but I also like some of her other songs a lot... The fact that none of her songs made it into my top 50 although she's number 7 proves it, I guess.


8. Shakira

Last.fm #1: Underneath Your Clothes
My #1: Dónde Están Los Ladrones? (43 on last.fm) / La Tortura (of the more current songs) (23 on last.fm)


9. Evanescence

Last.fm #1: My Immortal
My #1: Whisper (11 on last.fm)


10. Placebo

Last.fm #1: The Bitter End
My #1: Every You Every Me (#2 on last.fm)

I have found the following on wikipedia:

The 22 Greatest Voices in Music

1. Mariah Carey
2. Freddie Mercury
3. Whitney Houston
4. Bono
5. Christina Aguilera
6. Alanis Morissette
7. Kurt Cobain
8. Björk
9. Celine Dion
10. Tupac Shakur
11. Michael Jackson
12. Chris Cornell
13. Eminem
14. David Bowie
15. Alicia Keys
16. Steven Tyler
17. Jewel
18. Thom Yorke
19. Mary J. Blige
20. Michael Stipe
21. Sade
22. Bruce Springsteen

See full Wikipedia Entry

Well, well. Björk????? You must be joking and I won't agree on Freddy Mercury either.

Michael Jackson you can argue about, he has an interesting voice, but he sounds horrible, when live. Bono on the other hand sounds just like in a studio recording. The only other male artist I have seen live (ignoring Snow Patrol and Kaiser Chiefs, who were both support acts for U2 in Berlin) is Liam Gallagher of Oasis, well they suck live - never ever am I going to an Oasis concert again. His voice isn't that great in general...


Here are my favourites (remember - only voices), in no particular order (well ok, alphabetically ):

Christina Aguilera, Bono, Rea Garvey (Reamonn), Ayumi Hamasaki, Chad Kroeger, Kyo (Dir En Grey), Shakira, Steven Tyler & Robbie Williams

It might be known, that I despise softer songs. One reason, why I cannot stand "Peace on Earth" by U2.

Now here is a list of softer songs, which I like. Although in some cases it might be a bit daring to call them "soft".


What it Takes by Aerosmith
Humpty Dumpty by Aimee Mann
Novemberrain by G'N'R
Sweet Pandemonium by HIM
Break Me by Jewel
Unwell by Matchbox Twenty
Star by Reamonn
Run by Snow Patron
Wild Honey by U2

I am using I-tunes, since I found it preinstalled on my notebook. Nice program, although I think that the sound with Winamp is slightly better. It is a bit dull and not enough bass - for my taste - and even fine tuning wouldn't really change that fact.

So far, I have only played my own music. And since Jan and I fill two of these "Benno" CD towers from IKEA with our CDs, that's a looooot. Looking for an I-Pod, I found the U2 Ipod and learned about "the complete U2", which is available in the store.

I had a look around at the store. But I think I won't buy anything there.
1. Quality is not that good (128kbp) sorry, but you have to have bad speakers and/or ears if you don't hear the difference between this and let's say 256kbps.
2. Prices are far too high.

An example: The Joshua Tree (9.99 €) - You must be joking. We bought the CD for 9.99 at Saturn. CD, with booklet, case - not a bad quality m4a.

Originally we went into town (Bonn in this case), because Jan wanted to see, if he could get a new mobile phone. He is trying to get the Sony Ericsson 750i, but it's currently unavailable.
We also walked into an electronic store (Saturn) and looked at the videogames, CDs and DVDs.

There I found the U2 Album The Best of 1990-2000 plus B-Sides and DVD for 16 Euros. Amazon wanted 22 for that.

I also bought the Man in Black DVD Box as a small additional present for Jan, in addition to the Memory Stick I will get him, when he's finally gotten the phone.

Don't aks me how I got this idea, but I was sorting my mp3s yesterday and I've got a lot U2 (basically because Jan has got allmost all the Albums) so when I was sorting them I had to think about what was good and what wasn't.

Best Album: Achtung, Baby
Worst Album: Pop
Best Album Title: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb


Best Overall Single (non movie ): Mysterious Ways & With or Without you
Best Overall Non-Single: Zoo Station
Best Movie Theme: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me & Elevation
Best Song Title: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
Worst Overall Song: Peace on Earth (edit: Actually I start to think that "In a little while" might be even worse... Oh my, I think Elevation really elevates "All that you can't leave behind" )


Favourite Guitar Play: Vertigo
Favourite Howling by Bono: Elevation


Best Song "Boy": (will be filled in later)
Best Song "October": (will be filled in later)
Best Song "War": New Year's Day & Sunday Bloody Sunday
Best Song "The Unforgettable Fire": The Unforgettable Fire
Best Song "The Joshua Tree": I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Best Song "Rattle and Hum": Angel Of Harlem & All Along The Watchtower
Best Song "Achtung Baby": The Fly (well, actually have a look at overall Single and overall Song, but everyone on Achtung Baby deserves a chance.)
Best Song "Zooropa": Zooropa
Best Song "Pop": Staring at the Sun
Best Song "All That You Can't Leave Behind": Elevation
Best Song "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb": Fast Cars & Vertigo



As a side note: I found out that "the complete U2"costs around 150 Euro or so. I think that's not worth it, concidering that I myself am not such a big fan of rare songs, live recordings and whatever else will fill the space of 200 Songs that I don't have yet.

Today Jan, his brother + wife and I went to Berlin for a U2 Concert.

Normally I wanted to go to the Gelsenkirchen Concert on June 12th but it was sold out and we got tickets for Berlin instead.

(However, when I come to think about it, the journey would have taken us almost as long by car, as it took to Berlin by plane + check in. And the cost would have come close at current petrol prices. And we were in Berlin, everyone knows Berlin. You don't? Well you should pay more attention in history lessons. But who knows Gelsenkirchen? They have a football (soccer) team that imho sux.)

Boarding Time was 8.55 am.

Jan and I stayed with a cousin of my mothers in the south of Berlin and they picked us up at the airport.


After dumping our bags and stuff, we set off to meet Jan's brother at the Alexanderplatz (where they stayed in a hotel). Before that, we've heard that there was a bomb explosion in the London underground. But nothing was known about any casualties back then. However, we even expected the concert to be cancelled, especially since the whole of Berlin was suddenly in uproar and they doubled security at every major train station. I mean, come on, there were 50 people in one train, there were… I cannot tell how many there really were… but somewhere between 70.000 and 100.000 people at the concert this evening. If anything in Berlin was a target that night… guess. But that's paranoid if you ask me. My problem was rather, that my good mood was down, thinking that such terrible things are happening in the world, the killing of innocent people…


Anyway, let me get back to Berlin. So we were at the Alexanderplatz. The place is one big building lot. The department store Kaufhof was renovating their building in a very strange fashion and they were repairing the roof of the underground station.

We bought something to drink there. Plastic bottles, since we thought, we could take them inside, 1,5 litres. Then we took a walk and it started to rain and thunder…

Admittance to the concert was at 3.30pm. So we took the U2, the underground line we had to take should I mention that Zoostation ("Zoologischer Garten") is one of the stops, to the Olympic Stadium ("Olympia Station").

Suddenly the weather was nice again, we didn't get wet once, after that, since we had a seated place in the stadium.

At the entrance we then learned that only plastic bottles till 0.5 litres were ok, so we had to drink it all up or throw it away.

The next 2.30 hours we spent eating pretzel and hot dogs buying a T-Shirt and checking out the seats. The seats were ok, but not as good as I had hoped. The stage was a bit away and we had the left lighting/speaker tower blocking our view to the right screen.

"Kaiser Chiefs" started their performance as first support act at 6 pm. We had never heard of them before, but they were quite good. Very noisy. They played for 45 minutes. (They played -among others- Every Day I love you less and less, I predict a riot, Na Na Na Na Naa, Born to be a dancer )


At around 7 pm "Snow Patrol", the second support act took over the stage. The singer had some guitar trouble but besides that, they were good too.
(They played - among others - Run, Chocolate, How to be Dead ... )
They were much softer than "Kaiser Chiefs" and I would have found it better, if they had played the other way around.

At around 8 the stage was empty and all equipment was taken off, especially the colourful umbrellas.

U2 started their show at 9 and Bono lost a shoe lace.

Here's what they played:

Vertigo
I Will Follow
Electric Co
Elevation
New Year's Day
Beautiful Day
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
All I Want Is You
City Of Blinding Lights
Miracle Drug
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
Love And Peace
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet The Blue Sky
Running To Standstill
Pride In The Name of Love
Where The Streets Have No Name
One

First Add-On:
Zoo Station
The Fly
With Or Without You

Second Add-On:
All Because Of You
Yahweh
Vertigo


And I think that they should have ended it with Fast Cars instead of Vertigo, which we already had at the beginning.

Amazon had another special offer. The Aerosmith CD "Permanent Vacation" for under 10 Euros. I had to get that.

Two of my favourite songs are on that.

Dude looks like a lady - which reminds me of Lee and Rag Doll.

It arrived today. (Even though they said I would have to wait about a week longer.) The rest of the order (Spaceballs 2 DVD Version and a Terry Pratchett book) arrived yesterday. Poor mail man

Anyway, now I can add Permanent Vacation to my mp3 collection, as well as the three U2 CDs we got last week.

I was very frustrated, when last week we tried to get a ticket for the U2 concert in Gelsenkirchen. Alas they have only three concerts in Germany, although they could sell tickets for at least 20.

The website offering the tickets was overloaded just a moment after sales startet, and I couldn't get online, till all tickets were sold. So in desperation I tried Berlin or Munich - both far away from where I live. No chance, they were sold out as well.


But this Friday, they suddenly had tickets for Berlin again, that had been returned, and yes, we might have gotten them. They take a few days to confirm it, but hopefully soon we might get them.

Better Berlin than nothing.

Besides, I am a very sad person, this would be my fourth concert. The other three were - please don't laugh - Michael Jackson, Melissa Etheridge and Oasis (<--they sucked, by the way).

It's been a while since I posted anything in here. I just couldn't get around.

I have bought the new CD from Utada Hikaru, as it seems just Utada now...

1.Opening
2.Devil Inside
3.Exodus '04
4.The Workout
5.Easy Breezy
6.Tippy Toe
7.Hotel Lobby
8.Animato
9.Crossover Interlude
10.Kremlin Dusk
11.You Make Me Want To Be A Man
12.Wonder 'Bout
13.Let Me Give You My Love
14.About Me


She has released her first English album "Exodus", but I must say, I liked the Japanese more. Well nevermind, the new one has some great tracks. I especially like Devil Inside (although I prefer the Richard Vission Experience Mix), Exodus '04, Kremlin Dusk and Let Me Give You My Love.