Viva La Vida

Extremely limited special edition of their 2008 album packaged in a gatefold wallet sleeve. Viva La Vida is the Britpop act's fourth studio release. The album comprises 10 brand new tracks, recorded in London, Barcelona and New York with producers Brian Eno and Markus Dravs. Viva La Vida follows the hugely successful album X & Y, which has sold 10 million copies since its release in 2005. EMI. 2008.
Customer Review: Why did they paint on the Delacroix?
As with most all uber-hyped pop albums, this one doesn't go deep and raw enough to be fantastic (if it did, it would make too many enemies). However as chart toppers go, this one is straight from the heart, and will remain on my playlist for a long time. Chris Martin singing 'you didn't get to heaven, but you made it close/you didn't get to heaven, but you aaa.... (almost?)' is hard to forget. all songs have a crunchy revolutionary anthem feel that fits Martin like an old leather coat. One that i'll be wearing for a while.
Customer Review: If it wasn't so overhyped, I might be less critical...
Coldplay is good. They're better than most. Most rap, most country, most rock and DEFINITELY most pop. But Viva la Vida is extremely overexposed, and Coldplay have long been riding a tidal wave of mediocrity over the heads of the consumers. Regarding their most recent release, the lyrics are interesting, the melodies pretty, the songs epic in scope, but rather pedestrian when all the synthesizers are stripped away. Chris Martin has a nice voice, but not an inspiring one. But, then again, the same might be said about U2, and look what they've accomplished. At least Coldplay aren't a ripoff (well, yes, they do bear more than a passing nod to U2, but I mean ripoff in the "you've been robbed" kind of way)...at worst you might feel like you spent too much on the CD - you won't be wondering why you bought it in the first place. I probably wouldn't be so critical had I not been expecting considerably more from their new CD. The song "Viva la Vida" was stuck in my head by about the fifth time I saw the stupid iTunes commercial. It's arranged in a way to make it a depaparture from typical pop/rock drivel, and I like its bass pulse: solid without being bombastic. Nice layering of sounds, but it sounds canned overall. There are a couple of tunes that sound like they borrowed a page from Sgt. Pepper (but who HASN'T borrowed a page from Sgt. Pepper?), and a few that suggest to me a hasty trip from concept to final mix. HOWEVER, if you think I'm being overly critical, you should hear my rants about 99.9999999% of the rest of the music that I have been subjected to and tortured with over the years. Overall, I'm pleased by Coldplay's latest. I give it 7 points for every single track being worthy of repeated listens, 1 point for the single "Viva la Vida" having the incredible capacity to get stuck in your head, minus 2 points for the CD as a whole not living up to the hype, but I'm giving those 2 points back as extra credit for still being better than most of what else the recording industry attempts to shove down our throats. 80%. That's a solid B. Good effort.

Mosquitoes bite, such the blood out of you, but really do not harm you, until you get malaria, then watch out!

Supremely casual she lit a cigarette, put it in her mouth, talking around it, the music inside the bar is real loud, you can hardly hear yourself talking.

"What is it you're thinking?" she asked me.

"Nothing," I said.

"Ok," she says with a smirk, looks through the doorway into the nightclub from the hallway.

The girl next me, sees her girlfriend now, whom was at another club with her, she has arrived, and to her she says "You came back all this way back from 'Barney's?"

"Not enough guys there," she tells the girl I'm talking to, a lovely dark eyed tanned girl with blond hair.

"You were not there very long," she replies. (Her face averted from mine, she's looking at the tall blond haired guy doing his thing with two girls on the dance floor. (Her girlfriend peremptory yet quiet.)

She now has a cigarette between her lips, the cigarette and her head bobbing with the music that is seeping out into the hallway. I tell myself, chasing her, is like her chasing that blond haired guy, whom is slain to the lusts of his accomplishments in the bullring there. She is insanely immersed in grief over this guy, he is her quest for the evening, her challenge, so I tell myself, and so it look to me.

I sense she likes my company, and I am comfortable to be with, so I've been told, but when the it comes down to the end of the night, she'll be with him, if she has to hogtie him, or strip for him in front of everyone. And I thin she'll do it. I saw that once happen in Germany. When a gal gets a fixation on a man, it doesn't matter if he is surrounded by a hundred naked men, she will pick that one out every time, until the challenge is over, then, put him out to roost in some empty field in the cold.

"Thanks," she told me for lighting her cigarette, "Where you from," she asked, and I replied, "I'm on leave from Vietnam, the war...."

"Oh, yes," she comments, "we have some of our boys over there also."

"So you've evidently been following this guy all night, is that correct?"

"Yes, from one bar to the next, and I'll end up with him one way or the other." (She now puffs rapidly at the cigarette, staring into the crowed dance floor.)

In life I would find out, women like her had the determination, but not much sense, and in the long run, well, to be honest, they were not looking for anything for the long run, it was now or never. It didn't matter what I knew, or what might have happened between us, because she didn't want it, all she needed was an affidavit for him to be hers for the evening. So I was wasting my time. But everyone likes to keep a second, in place, they look good to others to have men standing around you with their tongues out, and I simply said, "It's too late," and started to walk away, my back to her, actually, it was an insult to her, and she knew it, for I did not look back. She was enjoying what I called Dead Reality, the best of all reason to make love, no commitment.

"That's right!" I told myself, listen to the voice inside of you; it will tell you when to avoid the execution forth coming.

I did meet another girl that night, I got drunker than a skunk, and when she woke me up in the morning, she wanted me to take her to the park, and we did, and I then left her alone. She came to my hotel room a few days later, asked me why I did not call her. And I was honest, I said I had only a week in Sydney, and I wanted to do all I could, and I was then heading back to Vietnam, and who knows. And she understood.

5-25-2008

See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

dance music 2007

Gipsy Kings Fuego! The Videos

It is that phase in the economic cycle when people do a reality check. Uncertainty looms ahead, and managements drive themselves crazy figuring out where the next big check is going to come from to keep the wheels of the organization running. Cowering in our own cubicle or workbench, we never know when they will hand us our proverbial pink slip and bid us goodbye.

There are two alternatives to handle this economic condition. The first is the tried and tested. Dignity in one pocket and resume in the other, we knock at the doors of the other companies whose outward facade conveys an impression of everything being hunky-dory inside. And get rejected by the people who aren't sure when they themselves will get the boot.

Let us consider this alternative from a different angle. When we were born, we used to be cleaned and washed, fed and clothed and generally taken care of. We used to look up to somebody to do all that for us. Haven't we continued with the same pattern, of looking up to somebody, of expecting a job to become available that we can perform, which will feed us and clothe us and generally fulfill our material needs? Isn't it time we grew up?

As kids, we were given an extra dollop of ice-cream for being good. Remember the visits of the Santa Claus every year? Now we expect somebody to pat our ego and nurse our pride with lofty-sounding designations and nifty little perks - the corner office, that special parking space, the vacation with the family, the topped-up bonus and that ESOP handout, the promotion that gives us the opportunity to look down upon people who once were peers, thank you. And when these goodies are not forthcoming, we sulk and we pout and we go look for another Santa Claus. Tell me really, have we grown up at all?

And so let us see what the second alternative looks like. Here it is!

Which is to use the season of doom and economic gloom to go inward and realize that this actually is an opportunity to get out of the rat race once and for all and do our own thing. Set up our own shop. Be our own boss. Hoist our own flag. I am running out of symbolism, but you get the idea.

Returning again to the kid analogy, remember the things that we enjoyed doing when we were young and not yet entered the rat race, the things that thrilled us the most? When we did what we did because we liked doing what we were doing, and not because we had to do what we ended up doing because that was what the boss wanted us to do. Or else. There is money to be made, you know, in doing things that we enjoy and are passionate about. It is only a question of figuring out how. Let me also tell you, that the figuring out how happens only during times of economic recession, and not when the going is good and everybody is smiling and doing the rumba.

"Realize your own potential" becomes a cliche when the HR boys and girls use it while dangling the golden cage before us. It becomes a mantra when we use it to really understand how far we can go when we are on our own. Have we forgotten life outside the cage? Have we forgotten - or worse, never ever known? - what it means to be free and to do our own thing? To set our own goals, to make our own targets, and to soar as high as our wings and our ambitions can take us?

Or have we become rather addicted to our inner child's needs being taken care of by that neatly-suited-booted HR manager and his / her team of cohorts and headhunters and detectives, spying on every move we make outside the office and trying to figure out what must be going on in our mind, so that we can be, uh, appropriately manipulated?

Or have we rather come to enjoy the performance reviews where the senior takes malicious pleasure in nitpicking the omissions and commissions that we may or may not have indulged in throughout the year? Like the stern teacher handing over the grades in class. The armpits used to sweat the same way then too, didn't they?

Or have we rather come to relish the politics and the backbiting and the gossip and the bitching in the office and the workplace? The latest news about this affair and that, the latest news on who is in favor and who has fallen out of favor, the devil who is badmouthing about us behind the back ... oh, won't we miss them all?

Let's step out of the world we have immersed ourselves in and become comfortable in. And step into the world of freedom. Let's find the vocation that we enjoy the most. Let's learn the right skills that are needed to survive and thrive in the market. And take the plunge with faith and belief in self. Success and prosperity are waiting to be ours, if only we reach out for them. Let us be brave for a change. Let's reach out! Now!

Sanjay Agrawal is a writer and self-development enthusiast. Enjoyed reading this piece? Find more on his blog here: http://success-nirvana.blogspot.com

Copyright 2008. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way, and give author name and blog name credit.

90's dance music