Couldn't Have It All

In the past two days I managed to get into an all out fight on ElectroNode over reviews. Breye, the main force behind the band Provision, (who's name and band I'm including only because in the course of the thread it came to light that he constantly searches ebay for his own band's material so he's probably vain enough to search this out and why shouldn't he find this blog thing that I don't link to from any of my many online hangouts) posted a two-page long rant about how he hates Jason who reviews the bulk of the material at synthpop.net with the original title of "are synthpop.net reviews biased". This was the starting point and what he hammered in at the end, but what he missed is that all reviews are biased. All of them. It's the sad and simple fact that humans with biases create reviews. Basically he was furious because Jason had reviewed three of his cds and gave them all recommendations but didn't fill every sentence with meaningless praise but some actual criticism where he implied that the sound design was a bit monotonous. As someone who has some experience with synths, even though my own music sucks, I got what he was saying, but Breye took this as an insult and it was said that it should only be discussed in production circles. Who are we making music for anyways? Other producers or listeners?
It was frustrating to find myself accused of a number of things I never said the course of the thread while being told I was not reading his posts. Still stranger was that he didn’t engage anyone else other than Si and ignored other people who were harsher than me in pointing out what he was proving about his character. Earlier tonight he sarcastically renamed the thread “thanx” or something in response to my pointing out that he was ranting about positive reviews that recommended his albums and said for the second time that he has nothing more to say to me (he didn’t mention the other half dozen people who challenged him) so hopefully this is over. We’ll see I suppose, but picking on people who always back down (as Jason does often when challenged, he’s a nice guy who avoids fights) is a pathetic bullying technique that kids figure out in kindergarten and using that against someone who went out of his way (and in the course buying at least one cd) to promote your band is spineless and someone had to stand up.
Of course this whole thing might stem from something more personal. Previous to this album a member of Provision Alex left to join the group Ctrl, who Jason gave a perfect five star review of their album. Anyone jealous that their album didn't get the same grade?

Municipalities

So my life is as boring as ever, but I've picked up a couple of new albums in the past few weeks.
The new Fatboy Slim album is a bit of a disappointment on the first few listens, but I haven't been a "Fatboy" mood as late, so that might help explain my feelings. "Don't Let The Man Get You Down" has been featured in some commercial even before the album was released and I thought it sounded tired then, so finding it opening "Palookaville" wasn't a good sign. Most of the album is along the same tempo and mood of the lead US single "The Joker," and seems to lack the drive that made the previous FBS albums so much fun. Still "Wonderful Night" is a great track, and apparently will have a video shortly. That's a good thing.
The new Client album "City" snuck up on me, because I think it got a US release a week before the UK (when does that ever happen?). It's different from the debut album, it's almost less layered but has a fuller sound (I know that doesn't make sense, but work with me). "Overdrive", the track with Martin Gore on backing vocals was an instant favorite, but I've probably overplayed it so it's lost a little of it's charm. However, the album is solid, tons of great tracks and they even added strings on a couple of tracks. Definite worth your attention if you're interested in electropop.