Blender Worst Songs
Feb/110
We Built This City
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Blender Magazine May 2004 Courtney Love 50 Worst Songs $2.99 |
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Blender $17.95 Blender |
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The Worst Witch $8.76 Rated: NASynopsis: Based on Jill Murphy’s book, this charming movie is set in an English boarding school for witches–complete with orange and black school uniforms, broom-flying exercises, and potion assignments for lab. The incompetent student of the title, Mildred, is played by a fetching young Fairuza Balk. Diana Rigg is the nasty head teacher, Tim Curry the (oddly) idolized Grand Wizard, and TV’s Facts of Life maven Charlotte Rae does double duty as the school’s kindly dean and her evil witch twin, who’s bent on taking over the school. Directed by Robert Young, this 68-minute video features less than state-of-the-art effects and several songs that stop the action–most bizarrely an outdoor assembly performance by Curry that turns into a weird music video. Still, preteen girls will identify with the beleaguered heroine who overcomes her wickedly snooty rival, a teacher who doesn’t believe in her, and a band of dastardly witches and, of course, saves the day. (Ages 6 and older) –Kimberly Heinrichs Made in 1986. Like hocus pocus a bewitching tale of broomsticks and goblins. A family fantasy for all ages. Bfs Ent & Multimedia Limi Release Date: 08/24/2004 Starring: Diana Rigg Charlotte Rae Run time: 70 minutes Rating: G Director: Robert Young Iii |
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Favourite Worst Nightmare $12.78 Breathless praise is a time-honored tradition in British pop music, but even so, the whole brouhaha surrounding the 2006 debut of the Arctic Monkeys bordered on the absurd. It wasn’t enough for the Arctic Monkeys to be the best new band of 2006; they had to be the saviors of rock & roll. Lead singer/songwriter Alex Turner had to be the best songwriter since Noel Gallagher or perhaps even Paul Weller, and their debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, at first was hailed as one of the most important albums of the decade, and then, just months after its release, NME called it one of the Top Five British albums ever. Heady stuff for a group just out of their teens, and they weathered the storm with minimal damage, losing their bassist but not their sense of purpose as they coped in the time-honored method for young bands riding the wave of enormous success: they kept on working. All year long they toured, rapidly writing and recording their second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, getting it out just a little over a year after their debut, a speedy turnaround by any measure. Some may call it striking when the iron is hot, cashing in while there’s still interest, but Favourite Worst Nightmare is the opposite of opportunism: it’s the vibrant, thrilling sound of a band coming into its own. The Arctic Monkeys surely showed potential on Whatever People Say I Am, but their youthful vigor often camouflaged their debt to other bands. Here, they’re absorbing their influences, turning their liberal borrowings from the Libertines, the Strokes, and the Jam into something that’s their own distinct identity. Unlike any of those three bands, however, the Arctic Monkeys haven’t stumbled on their second album; they haven’t choked on hubris, they haven’t overthought their sophomore salvo, nor have they cranked it out too quickly. That constant year of work resulted in startling growth as the band is testing the limits of what they can do and where they can go. Favourite Worst Nightmare hardly abandons the pleasures of their debut but instead frantically expands upon them. They still have a kinetic nervous energy, but this isn’t a quartet that bashes out simply three-chord rock & roll. The Monkeys may start with an infectious riff, but then they’ll violently burst into jagged yet tightly controlled blasts of post-punk squalls, or they’ll dress a verse with circular harmonies as they do at the end of “Fluorescent Adolescent.” Their signature is precision, evident in their concise songs, deftly executed instrumental interplay, and the details within Turner’s wry wordplay, which is clever but never condescending. Indeed, the remarkable thing about the Arctic Monkeys — which Favourite Worst Nightmare brings into sharp relief — is their genuine guilelessness, how they restructure classic rock clichés in a way that pays little mind to how things were done in the past, and that all goes back to their youth. Born in the ’80s and raised on the Strokes and |
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The Best Worst-Case Scenario $11.18 Christian indie rockers Fair are the new project by singer/songwriter Aaron Sprinkle, whose previous band, Poor Old Lu, and ongoing solo career are much beloved by folks on the somewhat edgier side of the CCM marketplace. Fundamentally, The Best Worst-Case Scenario is of a piece with Sprinkle’s earlier work; the Seattle native has a distinctive vocal style — a winsome, boyish tenor with just a hint of twang — that’s his most appealing attribute, and also one that would be difficult to downplay. But The Best Worst-Case Scenario lacks the emo-tinged heaviness and distortion of much of Sprinkle’s earlier work. This album is filled with moody guitar pop songs not at all dissimilar to fellow artists of the Pacific Northwest like the Shins and the Decemberists, but with a more slickly commercial edge, as if Sprinkle was approaching this album with an ear toward the alterna-rock radio mainstream. This would also explain the considerably more oblique lyrical style on this album; songs like “The Attic” and “The Dumbfound Game” couch Sprinkle’s spiritual side in lyrics so allegorical that listeners who don’t know of his beliefs may well not be any wiser after they’ve heard them. More doctrinaire fans of Poor Old Lu or Aaron Sprinkle’s solo albums might be somewhat put off as a result of these shifts toward the musical and lyrical mainstream, but the resulting album is melodically satisfying enough to make lyrical disagreements somewhat beside the point. ~ Stewart Mason, Rovi Performers: Matt Carter – Stomping; John Davis & the Georgia Sea Island Singers – Pedal Steel, Vocals; Phil Peterson – Cello; Aaron Sprinkle – Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals, Percussion; Brian Sanchez – Vocals; Brynn Sanchez – Vocals; Erick Newbill – Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards; Jesse Sprinkle – Vocals; |
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The Worst $11.18 Reissue of the second album from the underground rapper, originally released in 2000, The Worst doesn’t disappoint in its lethal combination of Bay Area Swang and Midwest Bang! Featuring numerous guest stars including Yukmouth, this release vaulted Tech from his rabid Kansas City fanbase all the way to his major label debut. With Tech’s inimitable style and thumping production of Don Juan and Quincy Jones III, The Worst became an instant classic which has long been out of print until now. |
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Blender Drinks $7.16 Blender Drinks |
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The Blender Bible $13.96 The Blender Bible |
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Blender Foundations $23.74 Blender Foundations |
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The Blender Gamekit $28.17 The Blender Gamekit |
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Beginning Blender $44.99 Beginning Blender |
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The Essential Blender $23.81 The Essential Blender |
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Animating with Blender $24.26 Animating with Blender |
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Worst Case Scenario $27.99 About the only thing wrong with dEUS’ full-length debut is that the band put its best foot forward right at the start with the great “Suds & Soda.” A tense, energetic rip with Klaas Janzoons’ violin the final touch that sends everything over the top, it has all the wired energy of early-’90s rock, but with its own arty edge. The only thing quite like it might have been PJ Harvey’s early efforts, but with more feedback throughout the mix and a fine organ break. From that great start, the five-piece spent its time exploring its own interesting rock zone, referencing back to classic rock influences and jazz pioneers as much as any of its many frazzled contemporaries. It’s a bit facile to say that if Tom Waits were a young guy in 1992 he might have formed this band, but there’s something agreeably impassioned and rough about Worst Case Scenario which calls to mind Waits’ own avant- garage jazz efforts in the mid-’80s. Having songs that sample Frank Zappa (“Little Umbrellas,” surfacing in the slow burn of the title track) and Don Cherry gives an idea of both the members’ backgrounds, and the desire to see what to do with them rather than simply be reverential. Tom Barman’s singing hits both loud, full-bodied shrieks, and low-and-slow as needed, while the band in general strike a great balance between straight-ahead performance and subtle studio trickery, especially courtesy of percussionist Julle De Borgher, playing everything from drums to “gas heating.” When the quintet turns in a sassy, snarling performance, as on “Morticiachair,” it’s not too hard to see them as European cousins of Girls Against Boys or even Rocket From the Crypt. Alternately, for songs like the “Right as Rain,” dEUS become the best late-night, last-drink band out there, while the building crunch of “Hotellounge” finds them able to combine the two extremes just so. ~ Ned Raggett, Rovi Performers: Crime Doctor D. – Voices; Dave Porter – Piano; Didier Fontaine – Drums; Jules De Borgher – Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Guitar; Klaas Janzoons – Violin, Vocals; Mark Meyers – Guitar; Rudy Trouvé – Vocals, Guitar (Electric), Piano; Stef Kamil Carlens – Bass, Guitar (Acoustic), Vocals, Guitar (Electric); Tom B |
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Favourite Worst Nightmare [Bonus Tracks] $34.39 Breathless praise is a time-honored tradition in British pop music, but even so, the whole brouhaha surrounding the 2006 debut of the Arctic Monkeys bordered on the absurd. It wasn’t enough for the Arctic Monkeys to be the best new band of 2006; they had to be the saviors of rock & roll. Lead singer/songwriter Alex Turner had to be the best songwriter since Noel Gallagher or perhaps even Paul Weller, and their debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, at first was hailed as one of the most important albums of the decade, and then, just months after its release, NME called it one of the Top Five British albums ever. Heady stuff for a group just out of their teens, and they weathered the storm with minimal damage, losing their bassist but not their sense of purpose as they coped in the time-honored method for young bands riding the wave of enormous success: they kept on working. All year long they toured, rapidly writing and recording their second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, getting it out just a little over a year after their debut, a speedy turnaround by any measure. Some may call it striking when the iron is hot, cashing in while there’s still interest, but Favourite Worst Nightmare is the opposite of opportunism: it’s the vibrant, thrilling sound of a band coming into its own. The Arctic Monkeys surely showed potential on Whatever People Say I Am, but their youthful vigor often camouflaged their debt to other bands. Here, they’re absorbing their influences, turning their liberal borrowings from the Libertines, the Strokes, and the Jam into something that’s their own distinct identity. Unlike any of those three bands, however, the Arctic Monkeys haven’t stumbled on their second album; they haven’t choked on hubris, they haven’t overthought their sophomore salvo, nor have they cranked it out too quickly. That constant year of work resulted in startling growth as the band is testing the limits of what they can do and where they can go. Favourite Worst Nightmare hardly abandons the pleasures of their debut but instead frantically expands upon them. They still have a kinetic nervous energy, but this isn’t a quartet that bashes out simply three-chord rock & roll. The Monkeys may start with an infectious riff, but then they’ll violently burst into jagged yet tightly controlled blasts of post-punk squalls, or they’ll dress a verse with circular harmonies as they do at the end of “Fluorescent Adolescent.” Their signature is precision, evident in their concise songs, deftly executed instrumental interplay, and the details within Turner’s wry wordplay, which is clever but never condescending. Indeed, the remarkable thing about the Arctic Monkeys — which Favourite Worst Nightmare brings into sharp relief — is their genuine guilelessness, how they restructure classic rock clichés in a way that pays little mind to how things were done in the past, and that all goes back to their youth. Born in the ’80s and raised on the Strokes and |
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Fear the Worst $12.13 Fear the Worst |
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