an AVALANCHE of music! har har.

in the last few weeks i've been the happy recipient of a deluge of new music of all kinds: folk, electronic, rock, and then some that doesn't fit into any of those categories. when i get a new cd i like to have at least two weeks to listen to it obsessively. if it's good, i mean. when i got the new dashboard cd, dusk and summer, a few weeks ago, i didn't really need to spend a couple weeks on it. i listened to it a few times, really forcing myself to try and like it because--let's just call a spade a spade--i want to have chris carraba's babies. after this cd, though, he's just going to have to keep quiet while we try to conceive.

anyway, i've gotten so many new cd's lately--should i keep calling them cd's even though i've stopped buying cd's? since i sold my car i have literally no use for hard copies of music; i've finally given in and just started using itunes music store--that i decided to log a few of them here to share with all of you, my legion(s) of dear, faithful reader(s). so, without any further ado, here's my extremely-short-and-not-at-all-official-as-i-reserve-the-right-to-change-any-of-these-opinions-at-any -given-time-or-upon-any-number-of-further-listenings review:

Patty Griffin: Flaming Red

i just got this record (that's right, bitches, i said record) last night (while i slept, no less), so i haven't really been able to listen to it yet. just listening to the first three tracks, though, has already blown my mind. if you're familiar with patty griffin's other cd's, you'll know that they're all really, um, acoustic guitar-y. the first three songs on this cd, however, are like patty griffin "plugged." but it's not annoying plugged like, say, when dashboard confessional decided to flesh out their (his) sound. it just seems like a natural progression. the songs are the same as her first album in structure and content, but the cd "rocks," as they say. and c'mon, you get lyrics like this:

Hey Tony, what's so good about dying
He said I think I might do a little dying today
He looked in the mirror and saw
A little faggot starin back at him
Pulled out a gun and blew himself away

whoa.

Sufjan Stevens: The Avalanche

as all the reviewers have already said, this album really could've just been called illinois 2. but that's kind of ok, because the original illinois touched me in places that i don't let many people touch me. but it's still a b-sides album, which means that it lacks the coherency and flow of the original cd. i guess that i wanted this cd to reprise some of my favorite moments from the original ("the predatory wasp of the palisades," for instance, which somehow transports me in time back to a fall in indiana every time i hear it), but it never really does. it uses the same wonderful palette to create songs that are nearly as good as the ones that beat them out for inclusion on the album. but they're still b-sides.

Ani DiFranco: Reprieve

ani's latest cd came out just a year after knuckle down, which surprised me since she just announced last year that she had been diagnosed with tendonitis and would be forced to stop playing the guitar for a while. now, this woman puts out a cd literally every year. she has since 1991. this prodigious output means that inevitably every cd's going to have a few duds. knuckle down was an exception to this rule, i thought, so i was expecting a lot out of this new work. i was a little disappointed, though, because i think that the intricate song and melodic structures she was fleshing out on knuckle down kind of disappear on this cd. it's almost like she's taken a step back, after her last cd was so perfectly, slickly produced, each song streamlined and poingant. of course there are some standouts, most notably "shroud:"

I had to leave the house of television
To start noticing the clouds
It's amazing the stuff you see when
You finally shed that shroud

that's right, i'm leaving the house of television. sorry, food network.

Christina Aguilera: Back to Basics

i can't really give a full review of this cd because i've only listened to ten tracks. the ten tracks, specifically, that scott decided should've comprised the album. somebody should go over to the met, pluck him from his cubicle, ahem, i mean corner office, and make him a music producer. or at least a christina aguilera advisor. because the ten tracks he picked are each pretty incredible pop gems, all of which follow her new "look at me i'm going to call myself baby jane and make everything sound big band-y!" plan, without sounding repetitious or cloying. the beats are fresh and make me shake my small, scrubs-clad booty on the subway. and let's just not beat around the bush anymore: a few of the songs feature a gospel choir. anything with a gospel choir is going to get my vote, be it christina aguilera or "i don't like the drugs." after a while i did want to scream "I GET IT, CHRISTINA. YOU LOVE YOUR HUSBAND!" but maybe that's just because i'm a jaded asshole. she won me back, though, with the lyrics "he's a one stop shop/make my panties drop" and "he's a one stop shop/with a real big *uh*" oh, christina. how dirrty.

so i've gotten more cd's but that's seriously all i can write today. and i'm sure none of you have even read this far. let's just see if that's true: the holocaust is nothing but a fiction made up by jew-owned hollywood! whattdya think of them apples?