With the success of 2006's Eyes Open, Snow Patrol backed themselves into a corner. The album went platinum primarily on the strength of "Chasing Cars", and that song saw a lot of its success as a result of an appearance on Grey's Anatomy. So you can understand the potential pressure for a successful follow-up. But this Tuesday the Irish rockers (with normal names) release their fifth studio alb...
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Review: Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns
Review: Snow Patrol - A Hunded Million Suns
Post pulled again. Fucking hell.With the success of 2006's Eyes Open, Snow Patrol backed themselves into a corner. The album went platinum primarily on the strength of "Chasing Cars", and that song saw a lot of its success as a result of an appearance on Grey's Anatomy. So you can understand the potential pressure for a successful follow-up. But this Tuesday the Irish rockers (with normal names...
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Review: Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns
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With the success of 2006's Eyes Open, Snow Patrol backed themselves into a corner. The album went platinum primarily on the strength of "Chasing Cars", and that song saw a lot of its success as a result of an appearance on Grey's Anatomy. So you can understand the potential pressure for a successful follow-up. But this Tuesday the Irish rockers (with normal names) release their fifth studio alb...
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Now You've Done Gone and Pissed 'Im Off...
First things first: Viva La Mainstream on the ARC October 21, 2008 Now, I've got some good news and some bad news. Good news : People are reading the blog. Great Success! That's what a blog exists for, right? Bad News : Some of the people reading this blog work for record labels. In one 30 minute period earlier today, six posts from the last 3 months got taken down under DMCA violations. ...
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Today's Show; Kanye, Snow Patrol, Smashing Pumpkins...
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Today on the VLM Radio broadcast at 3PM on the East Coast, I've got two of the new songs from Kanye West, Holding Mercury (as discussed here ), Deas Vail, David Cook, new Fall Out Boy, Apocalyptica, and more! Plus IM me any and all requests to TheArcRequests. That's Today from 3PM-5PM on the Viva La Mainstream radio Show at radio.arcadia.edu==TJ==PS: I'll post the show once it's finished someti...
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Re-Post: Kanye West Does Something Different, Artistically Interesting; Music Snobs Turn Up Noses
Reposted without mp3s this timeI have no idea what Kanye West's plan is with 808s and Heartbreak. Right now he's got "Love Lockdown" out on the radio and up on iTunes. But by the time that song hit iTunes and was available for sale, the blogs had it up for free for over a week. Now there are three songs making waves on Hype Machine; the aforementioned "Love Lockdown", "Heartless" (the mastered ...
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Kanye West Does Something Different, Artistically Interesting; Music Snobs Turn Up Noses
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I have no idea what Kanye West's plan is with 808s and Heartbreak . Right now he's got "Love Lockdown" out on the radio and up on iTunes. But by the time that song hit iTunes and was available for sale, the blogs had it up for free for over a week. Now there are three songs making waves on Hype Machine; the aforementioned "Love Lockdown", "Heartless" (the mastered version of which hit the web l...
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Repost: In Which We Discuss The Merits Of The Remix
Re-posted without mp3 linksWhat does it take to make mashups and remixes good?I've pondered that question a couple times since starting this blog a year and a half ago. As a general rule I haven't been a fan of either form of twisting a song. When it comes to remixes, too often I feel like they go on too long and end up being a lame way for some overactive GarageBand user to get his name on the...
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Playing Catch-Up For The Millionth Time
So if you've gone looking for a track that was once posted here only to find it gone (ie the new Fall Out Boy song and some of the new Chris Cornell stuff), feel free to check out my mp3 archives at SaveFile. All the mp3s that haven't been pulled due to inactivity are still available there (Silly Blogger; you pull the offending entry, but take no steps to pull the actual links that cause an upr...
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Holding Mercury Begin Their Ascent with a Downfall
I'm backlogged on my Album A Day project, but I assure you it's still active. Friday's album came to me by way of a recommendation from reader Beth. It's from a band called Holding Mercury, the album entitled Downfall of an Empire.Holding Mercury sound like they got sandwiched between the electronica-fueled rock of the 80s and the smoother, everyman rock of the 90s. Imagine, if you will, what O...
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In Which We Discuss The Merits Of The Remix
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Album:Tommie Sunshine Presents :Ultra.Rock.Remixed
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Track:Dance Dance
What does it take to make mashups and remixes good? I've pondered that question a couple times since starting this blog a year and a half ago. As a general rule I haven't been a fan of either form of twisting a song. When it comes to remixes, too often I feel like they go on too long and end up being a lame way for some overactive GarageBand user to get his name on the internet. These remixes ...
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Rambling Through The Cracks
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Album:Rarities And B-Sides
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I was originally going to post a very simple, quick musical ramblings to catch you up to speed, but then 2 posts this week got taken down (both are back up) which slowed the process down. As much as it tickles me to know that I'm drawing the ire of the RIAA's copyright trolls, the whole mess gets a bit frustrating when there's stuff to be done. So instead this post is part ramblings, part stuff...
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Fall Out Boy Get (Even More) Postmodern
The DMCA struck this post down, but luckily my MOG feed saved the text, so here it is sans MP3In their continuing quest to get people to give a crap about Folie A Deux , Fall Out Boy released a third track from the album (now slated for release on December 16) yesterday. "What A Catch, Donnie" is certain to become a crowd favorite at shows, with a glorious singalong to end the track (featuring ...
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Fall Out Boy Get (Even More) Postmodern
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In their continuing quest to get people to give a crap about Folie A Deux , Fall Out Boy released a third track from the album (now slated for release on December 16) yesterday. "What A Catch, Donnie" is certain to become a crowd favorite at shows, with a glorious singalong to end the track (featuring the voices of a number of FOB's friends, among them Elvis Costello, Gabe Saporta, Brandon Urie...
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Album A Day: Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul [The Director's Cut]
[Thanks to my brother and his google reader for rescuing this post](FYI I posted something after this entry, but it's timestamped for before this one, so there are actually two new entries you should read. ~TJ)An Album A Day: Oasis, Dig Out Your Soul (2008)They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But when you're Oasis and you've made a career out of shameless mimicking of your idol...
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Album A Day: Oasis' 'Dig Out Your Soul' [Redux]
So apparently something prompted the removal of my Oasis piece from yesterday without my knowledge. This bothers me.Basically the long and short of the entry was that the new Oasis record sounds great musically (the kind of thing I want to hear out of a good bar band), but the lyrics were forgettable. Overall it was a step up from Don't Believe The Truth. Oasis still makes a living mimicking th...
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An Album A Day: Oasis Realize They've Outlasted the Beatles; Start Scratching their heads
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(FYI I posted something after this entry, but it's timestamped for before this one, so there are actually two new entries you should read. ~TJ) An Album A Day: Oasis, Dig Out Your Soul (2008) They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But when you're Oasis and you've made a career out of shameless mimicking of your idols' music, that imitation starts to look more like a severe lack...
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The Closest Thing To A Podcast I'll Ever Do
So I've come to a realization that people aren't often able to listen to the Viva La Mainstream Radio Broadcast because, well, its on the interwebs at a time when people are either at work or leaving work, making listening impossible. So I finally found a purpose for the archives of shows I keep on the station computer. Effective this entry, every Tuesday night I will post that day's radio broa...
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Viva La Mainstream Presents an Album A Day!
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I mentioned in a post last week that I have a metric ton of music sitting idly on my computer, never listened to, doing little more at the moment than taking up space. Much of this music is actually made of full albums that friends or band managers give me. So in an effort to expand my musical knowledge, increase the breadth of sound that this blog covers, and to give meaning to countless gigab...
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Amusement at 1AM
Today's XKCD comic (didn't know that XKCD updated so quickly...good to know) For the record, the title of this one is "Steal This Comic", so go ahead and ask how my conscience is feeling right now. Expect a piece on some of the ideas behind this comic later this week, as well as something that might become a new segment for awhile. ==TJ== PS If you don't read XKCD you hate America.
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