Episode 19

I was kind of in a “P” mood today. I went through a few artists that start with the letter “P”. I wanted to hear something from Pillar and in the search I realized that I had wanted to hear the Passion Pit album. Then I thought that I wanted to hear some classic rock and I hit on the closest thing Pink Floyd.

Pillar – Where Do We Go From Here

This is the third album from the group. This was their second album with secular crossover singles. The songs Bring Me Down and Front Line were also featured in a couple of sporting videogames from 2006, although the album was released in 2004. It is a hard rock Christian album so if you are not into the loud screaming that takes place in hard rock this album may not be for you. The song front line is a great anthem for young Christians. The song really gets you up with a desire to do all you can for God. The other single, Bring Me Down, hits the point that Christians are for God no matter what happens. There isn’t anybody that can change a Christians mind about this. That is the idea anyway. This album doesn’t quite measure up to its predecessor, Fireproof, or their competitors, Switchfoot. Who are also a great Christian themed crossover group as well. The album holds up on its own very well, it did manage some great crossover hits after all.

Passion Pit – Manners

This group started as a 1 man band. I found out about them through the SXSW podcasts from 2008 but didn’t make note of them until a year later. They were about to release this album and I heard a couple other tracks than the primary single, Sleepyhead, and loved it. The album has lots of sugar coated synth tracks. Listening to it over and over is not advisable. There is almost nothing mellow about this album. Although I can’t listen to the album continually I still love the album. There is nothing that really comes close to the light and airy sweetness of it all. You would probably know the single, Sleepyhead, from the commercial for the Palm Pixie. I would encourage anyone to at least listen to that song. If you can’t handle that track then don’t bother getting the album as it is all in that style. I would recommend the album to anybody that likes synth/electronic rock.

Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon (DSOTM for short)

This album has been reviewed millions upon millions of times. I am not going to do so here. Instead I will tell you about how I cam across this album. I knew the popular tracks from my youth. As I have stated before, my father liked the classic rock station in our area. This is how I got to know the band. I forgot about them for a long time until my first marriage. I started lightly looking at classic rock albums. I knew I wanted something but there was so much to choose from out there. I ended up getting this album and the wall on CD as a birthday gift from my wife at the time. I listened to them and they were good. They mainly brought back a nostalgic feeling from when I was under the age of five. It was very cool. It wasn’t until recently that I found The Wall on vinyl for cheap at my favorite used book store. I then found DSOTM at my father-in-laws house. Actually I found he had both the original and the 30 year anniversary copy on vinyl. He gave me the original copy. I was very happy. I would rather have the original than the new copy anyway. I would like to compare the two but it would be difficult to do so as I would need two of the exact same turntable in order to do so. This makes it difficult since my main TT is a MusicHall mmf-7.1, a $1200 unit. Ah well, such is life.

Pizzicato Five – The Sound Of Music By Pizzicato Five

This is such a great album. It is based on the 90s retro pop feel. They are a Japanese duo. They are s female vocalist and a male musician/DJ. They make use of popular samples sped up and slowed down. Sometimes these samples set the tone for the song and others it is the live instruments that make the song. All through out the album the vocalists voice remains light and airy to the ear. There are even some guest rappers on a couple tracks. The album starts out with a group of children chanting, “We love you P5, oh yes we do.” This is done in the usual way with a group of children singing. It is not quite right but it is close enough. Then it goes straight into some real fantastic pop. The lyrics are sung in a combination of English and Japanese. In some cases English over the top of the Japanese. The liner notes are in both English and Japanese as well. They knew that they would have a lot of fans world wide. I believe that this was also an album specifically designed with English speaking fans. I can not confirm that though. One cute thing that they did was to include a credit card style membership card with this CD when it was new. It is a cute collector’s item really.

Signing off.