Today I reached the point where the 60GB of memory in my Jukebox was just 100MB away from being totally used up. I had reached a total of almost 13,000 tracks and around 1,250 LPs...
So I've cleared out the jukebox and am now back down to 11,182 tracks and 1,037 albums, having deleted 1,818 tracks from 163 LPs. This has free'd up 7GB of memory...
During the day I listened to and rated the following albums, currently on the hard drive:-
Rooster : Roster - good
Killers : Hot Fuss – good
Maroon 5 : Songs About Jane – not good
Keane : Hopes and Fears – not good
Kasabian : Kasabian – not good
Scissor Sisters : Scissor Sisters - OK
Green Day : American Idiot - good
Kings of Leon : Aha Shake Heartbreak – OK
Depeche Mode : Playing the Angel – good
Magic Numbers : Magic Numbers – not good
Kaiser Chiefs : Employment – good
Neil Young : Prairie Wind – good
I will burn some soon to add to my collection..
While listening to Depeche Mode I checked out the review of the album on Pitchfork (see links) and found the following interesting point of view, regarding "Band Adulthood":-
"Band adulthood is where you've settled into enough of a groove that your core fans know who they are, and everyone else happily ignores your continued existence. Band adulthood is where you make perfectly fine and increasingly subtle and sophisticated new albums, and your members embark on highly touted Significant Solo Projects-- neither of which anyone can really work up any enthusiasm about.
Band adulthood means reviews that are a big swirl of stock phrases like "return to form" and "just may be their best since [insert classic here]"; it's a world of die-hard fans politely trying to convince everyone that actually, this new album, it's interesting, you should give it a listen.
Give any songwriter a couple decades, and the same things will happen-- the writing gets progressively more subtle, more sophisticated, until eventually it's curiously free of spark, always skirting the obvious old hooks in favour of something too professional to even notice. It's all here: the arch, wandering melodies; the methodically constructed key changes; the weirdly formless slow-and-quiet epics; the standard lyrical stew of religion and lust and fragile, innocent, faithful things in a dark, dark world.
The end product, then, is one of those signature artifacts of the Adult Band: an album we hardly even need to review. The core fans will flip for it; it's the best thing they've released in a long while. Everyone else? It's pretty okay. And these days, well, you already know which of those two camps you fall into."
This is why bands like Depeche Mode and Oasis are being outsold by Arctic Monkeys...
The Euro 2008 draw made today once again almost guarantees England's qualification while dooming Scotland to probably fourth place at best...
There are around 17 extra countries in the competition since the break up of USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia....
I'd humbly suggest to UEFA that the "minnows" haven't a snowball's chance in hell of ever qualifying for the finals as long as the qualifying groups are so large (7 or 8 teams) and the finals so small (16 teams - this time including TWO hosts)....
So - I would suggest qualifying be amended to 12 groups of 4 teams with the top two in each going to a 32 team final stages (just like the World Cup) being joined there by the two co-hosts and the six best third placed teams...
I know this would mean the elimination of only 18 countries in the qualifying stages, but it would make the finals more of a spectacle....
The way things are at present, it's almost pointless having the qualifying matches because of the seeding....
But, in a four team group with two qualifiers and everything to play for for third place, every single game would be meaningful....
And more teams at the finals would boost the TV audience hugely, not that we should be concerned with marketing of course....
I've already seen comments in the media that Scotland, while not having a chance of qualifying, will get good TV money for games against France and Italy....
Great, so we're not playing to win the competition but just so as to get as much cash as possible....
The whole thing stinks!
Anytime UEFA want me to organise things for them, they can contact me via this diary....
Finally, today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart...
I finished off the day with the lovely sound of his Mass in C Minor on the old headphones...
Highlight of the Day : Anne's Pasta Bake for tea
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