My musical radar reappears

Loose Fur's first, eponymous disc shows the side project of Wilco in a much more, well, loose form than their second disc (which I reviewed a while back). It's also a lot less fun, more meandering. Where the second Loose Fur project had some decently tight songs that just sounded tossed off, this one sort of wanders all over the place, drifting back and forth through some of the songs. Even the one great song - "Laminated Cat: aka Not for the Season" - has sounded better on other recordings as it's become more focused.

The album isn't a total wash, but it's probably one that'll only be interesting to Tweedy or O'Rourke completeists - kind of like the recent Tweedy live DVD that I'm kind of surprised I haven't gotten around to reviewing yet. I number myself in the former, so I'm all good with it.

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Oh, wow...

I've been ditzing around and not listing to Sufjan Stevens for a year or so since I first heard about him and his wacky 50 states in 50 albums project. It was just weird enough to pique my interests but not enough to get me to ride along with him. And then the reviews came...excellent...outstanding...great...best of the year...wonderful...

Nary a negative review in the bunch, and all glowingly positive...

Plus Kyle liked it, so along I went to grab it from the library. Thankfully, the album didn't disappoint in the least.

It's full of weird instrumentation and quirky hooks that should sound over the top and bombastic but that work perfectly when put together. It's easily one of the best things I've had a chance to listen to in the past few years, and it's probably going to drag me down the Sufjan slope. Hopefully I'll land safely...

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I screwed up and read a couple of the reviews of Tonight, Not Again, Jason Mraz's live album from a year or two ago. Either I agreed with them totally because they were right, or my opinion was poisoned enough that I went in already colored.

The reviews mostly said that Mraz's stuff is pleasant enough but that it's too polished, too smirky to work as being casual. Mraz's attitude throughout the whole concert is a bit of a wink and a nod while thinking about how cool he finds himself, and it turned me off from the whole album. I joke that I'm the funniest guy I know - only that funny to myself, though - but Mraz seems to really feel that way about himself. He seems to find himself so cool, so neat that his stuff just ends up a little off-putting to me.

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Watching watery tarts prance about on PBS probably isn't any way to choose music for listening pleasures, and my attempt at a listen to Celtic Woman should be all the reminder I need of that for a while.

The music is too clean, too pretty, too sterile to have any of the heart or interest to me. It's kind of entertaining to see the bombast and pagentry on the little screen as long as you've got somebody to chickle with, but when all the visuals are gone, so is the goodness.

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Listening to The Ultimate Collection from Michael Jackson is like watching a really gorgeous afternoon over a hillside and then having the whole thing ruined by a trainwreck.

Discs one and two are knockouts - full of the best of early and mid-career Michael...stuff from the Jackson 5 and Thriller and even Bad. We're talking about some of the highest heights of pop music in the past few decades, real knock outs.

And the weirdness dials get turned up to eleven, and the perfect pop train goes right off the rails. We end up in the land of HIStory and Dangerous - both interesting with moments but clearly nothing but shells of the previous greatness that was Michael, the perfect pop candies taken too far and ruined by the extra schmaltz and sugar and just general fillings of shinola.

As a document of Jacko's career, the five-disc box set (including concert DVD which I, admittedly, didn't watch) is a solid retrospective. It's missing some of the best music from the early/mid period, but that's the nature of the beast. In order to leave room for the later crap, some of the actual quality music had to be left on the cutting room floor.

All in all, this is worth grabbing from the library if you don't want to go out and buy the entirety of Bad and Thriller and some Jackson 5 greatest hits album, but you'd probably be better off dropping the bucks for the three separate purchases rather than the one massive incomplete document.

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I don't know that I'd ever taken the time to listen to much more than a song or two from Sammy Davis, Jr. A take of "Mr. Bojangles" here and a "Candyman" there, but never a full disc. Turns out that four discs was too much for me. For me, I enjoy Sammy more as an entertainer - on screen, joking, singing, maybe a little dancing - that I do as a straight out singer.

If you're a Sammy fan, then Yes I Can is probably for you. Me, I think I dig him as a member of the Rat Pack more.