7: Tubular Bells Vol.1: Remastered [Original recording remastered] - Mike Oldfield

Theme from the Exorcist starts this one. For the most part this recording sounded a little "Academic" to me. It had enjoyable parts and some nice relaxing music. Combined with some interesting progressions. However for the most part I found it slow moving and the only having two tracks (I'm guessing originally "side 1" and "side 2") made it difficult to move back over interesting parts.

I enjoyed it but don't see myself revisiting the recording often. I guess that's why it is a record featuring in many collections but rarely played except in soundtracks (abridged of course). I'm glad I found out "what all the fuss was about".

Now on with: 8: Greatest Hits [Original recording remastered] - Joan Baez

6: The Best Of - Jeff Beck

One thing I'm doing here is keeping track of the weeks. No more:

SELECT WEEK(cdListenStartDate) FROM albums

Anyway, back to things music.

Jeff Beck - The best of


This was similar to the Yardbirds which I enjoyed but felt it was missing something. The performance with Jeff and Eric was one of my top gigs of my life. WOW is all I can say. And Joss Stone joining Jeff... I'm getting his new album when it is released.

This one didn't inspire me the way I thought it should. Like the yardbirds most of this was "early" material. I'd recommend anyone looking for a more contemporary (and more like he played at the gig) sound from Jeff to listen to: You Had It Coming
You Had It Coming is a far more invigorating recording and (in my opinion) made for driving to. Not that I didn't enjoy his best of, just that it didn't excite me like "You Had It Coming".

5: Shallow Life - Lacuna Coil

This was a must listen to before I saw them at the end of the week. Yes I was under a time constraint.

Thank god I got into it fairly quickly, from the get go it got me (perhaps I was just in the need of RAAAAWWWWWWWK!). I got to track 4 "I'm not afraid" fairly quickly and then stayed there. This is the first time that has happened with one of my albums.

It also wasn't long that in my car I was calling out (while flying along the motorway) "I've been burnt so bad but I still play with fire" something that appeals to me. A powerful line from "I won't tell You".

This album unlike everything else I have listened to isn't one of those "must hear before you die" or "Top 50 albums of all time" entries. Sorry Lacuna Coil, I like you, the gig was awesome! This just happens to be a very good heavy rock album. No boundaries are being pushed, no political upheaval, no virtuoso guitar. Just plain good heavy rock, emotive, invigorating, bouncy and fun. Given the busy few weeks I have been having just what I needed.

Will be playing this again and again. In fact this week it went back on in the car as I needed something to fit the fact that I wasn't in a jolly mood Tuesday.

4: Ultimate - Yardbirds

It looks like I haven't kept up doesn't it... Well I have :-) I managed to listen to the music but didn't have the time to blog about it.

Sadly this is going to have to be a quick one. Another busy evening ahead (This may include some computer games). I have given up with the links. Google will do just as well for anyone who cares.

This was another 2 CD monolith A lot of tracks to get through. In nature of the fact that I'm seeing two of the Yardbirds on Feb 13th

In all honesty, this wasn't the awe inspiring album I thought it was going to be. There is a lot of nice stuff, a lot of interesting stuff and a lot of clever stuff. Bucket loads! The development of music and artists progressing. Big names growing infront of your ears...

I can't find anything wrong with it. Truly I enjoyed it. It just didn't grab me like some other albums have or inspire me like I had been looking for.

The one thing I'm sure of is that I'll keep coming back to it as it is interesting. Some good Bass lines. Funky guitar and Jeff Beck knocking out some nice slide guitar.