I had a great time at my brother's house, giving him a Lucina plush and a fridge magnet of the Mighty Nein from Critical Role's second campaign, as well as giving my Dad the Highwomen CD. It was a fun, much-needed breather, though recently, my county's been getting flooded. My relatives are safe, but I can no longer think about natural disasters without thinking about how we wouldn't be dealing with them if we weren't dumping pollutants into the atmosphere like crazy, which we only are because of politicians who feel oil workers are more important than anyone else who has a job in this country, because they're paid to feel that way.
Anyway...Jim Peterik's album wasn't really anything too special, the real highlights of the week of 11/5 were the Billy Idol Christmas album (it's actually a re-release, but several of the tracks were worth picking up), and the unexpected early MP3 release of an album on my Christmas list, Bukimisha's The Spiritual Voices of Akira Ifukube, where a men's a capella group did the soundtracks to the original Godzilla and Rodan films. Sometimes it veered into silly territory, other times, it was delightfully fun, and other times, especially towards the end of the first Godzilla film, it was haunting, reminding me how uncomfortable that well-made film is, the feeling that you created this thing through carelessness and now it is trampling innocent civilians and incinerating them alive. It shows nuclear weaponry as destructive as it is, and in this day and age, we could also see parallels to the increased racism against the AAPI community, creating a monster that doesn't care what your life is, it has decided you must die because of where you come from, where your ancestors come from, the shape of your eyes and the color of your skin. I follow voice actresses of Asian descent on Twitter, so this issue has been fairly close recently. I also felt during the reckless days when it seemed loaded missiles would fly from North Korea to the west coast of the U.S. that if Un and Adolf Flappyhands Von Combover had seen Gojira, perhaps they would think twice.
Amanda Shires had an okay Christmas album on 11/12, but it didn't live up to the hype. There were still some good songs, though, so I'll buy them next month. Jake Shimabukuro won the weekend with a ukulele-powered version of "Something" (originally by The Beatles) sung by Vince Gill and Amy Grant. It feels appropriate to honor George Harrison with his biggest song on his favorite instrument. Glam Metal band Enuff Z'nuff also released some great Beatles covers, doing fine work on "Revolution," "Helter Skelter" and "Eleanor Rigby," their version reminding me of a cover by an electric guitar band I saw with my Dad in Akron, Ohio outside a minor league baseball game. Nirvana also released their 30th Anniversary Super Deluxe versions of Nirvana and I heard recordings from a Tokyo concert in 1992 that were good if you're into the band.
This week's biggest release is the reunion of Robert Plant and Allison Krauss with T-Bone Burnett producing, releasing "Raise the Roof" as a sequel to "Raising Sand" in 2007. This is also on my Christmas list. Also releasing this week in K.Flay's second EP of the year, "Outside Voices." With her clever lyrics, lack of fear of being vulnerable and alternate rock attitude, she's a fun artist and one of my favorites, I'm really looking forward to seeing her in March at the Showbox. Blackmore's Night is also releasing a new Christmas album.
Also of note, Amazon has made it difficult to access its MP3 preorders, so I have to go off their CDs for the time being. As such, I'm probably going to change the day I update from Thursdays to something else, this worked fine, but I likely won't update again until after my family's vacation in Maui. Write to you later.
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