Hell YEAH, Still A Clapper!

Subject: Transition: From AOL to Google Blogger
Time: 11:21:44 PM CDT
Author:  taintedprince

As you may already know, AOL Hometown and AOL Journals will permanently close. In light of this new information, AOL has partnered with Blogger to ease the pain of blog transition. Using your AOL screen ID and blog address, you should easily be able to transfer your existing entries and data.

This blog has officially relocated to Google Blogger.

Visit my new home at http://hysac.blogspot.com


t



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Subject: Music Review Edition
Time: 4:10:30 PM CDT
Author:  taintedprince
Mood:  Adventurous

Lady Gaga - The Fame

      The Fame sticks to the tried and true dance party formula that made Just Dance one of the most addictive hits. Gaga's voice glides and slips through every track with ease. Allmusic is right about Gaga honing in on the slick clever power that made Gwen Stefani, the "Hollaback Girl" she is. The Fame is front loaded with the hit first. Just Dance sets you up, and then you go right to Love Game, which reminds me just a bit of Gwen Stefani's Don't Get It Twisted.

     The milder twin of Just Dance is Beautiful Dirty Rich. Horray for catchy lyrics, a snazzy bass line and a dose of attitude. Eh, Eh, is cute to listen to. That's about it! The track is just filler for the album. Paparazzi, has a great beat... that follows the album as a cheap thrill. In the middle of the set, you get knocked over the head with "Poker Face" which really makes you go Gaga for the chorus. It's a combo of funny ma ma ma ma ma aaas and an insane Salt and Pepa worthy bridge to the final minute and change of the song.

     The title track, The Fame, is another take on another Stefani hit. This time Luxurious gets bludgeoned. Fame hits luxury with a nice guitar line, some electro effects, and funky guitar. Money Honey, is also like Just Dance, but for Gaga, that's not such a bad thing, because her personality on record adds some spunk to the formulaic sound. The ballad is Again, Again. It works decently with a collage of mostly mid-tempo tracks. The other track that notes some mention is I Like It Rough. It's an excellent way to close the album. There's nothing wrong with milking your strength for what it's worth. After all, it's a debut.

Final Verdict
    The Fame works, in that it does what a debut is supposed to do. It's clever, smart, direct, and buzzing. Just when you think, the overall sound is getting tiring, Gaga offers something extra to make you stick around just a bit longer. This is a dance album. One more dance track wouldn't have hurt. 

3/5

Neyo - Year of the Gentleman

Neyo once again makes an album that ever so slightly nudges respect to dance music, in that there's just a little less of an R&B feel starting off, and more of an overall dance / pop balladeer feeling. Can't you hear it in the headliner track, Closer? Of course, you hardly notice that ever again.

Nobody is just slightly more pop than usual due to the instrumentation.  Single seems like that Love in This Club feel good romantic song that Neyo was dying to make. Many of the other tracks are cool poppy tunes that just glide through your ears. Wait a minute, pop doesn't glide!! This is an R&B record. It's really a pleasure to hear this record because it's one that you can walk away from and leave playing, and you may forget that it's still going. Back to What You Know, screams retro. There's this Dru Hill / Boyz II Men sound that I pick up when I hear it. The vocal harmony that drops in during the chorus is just golden. Lie to Me, is as cold as ice. It's very Icebox (Omarion and Timbaland). Neyo does all the work on this track and sells it just as Brian Mcknight does on "Used to Be My Girl"

Stop The World is Neyo's "rafter track". He sings here like he wants the world to here... like he wants this track to be his own "moment in time" And it is just that.


Final Verdict
    Year of The Gentlemen is a tad softer than the previous cut. Yes, it could've have been softer! Look at the titles: Mad, So You Can Cry, Back To What You Know, Lie To Me. This is some serious sounding stuff.  As much as Neyo wanted to make a dance record, it's still R&B with a splash of pop elements here and there.

4/5




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Subject: News you might use
Time: 3:24:22 PM CDT
Author:  taintedprince
Music:  AOL music - Top Dance

Leaf-Turning for Wally World

Wal-Mart Online Music Stores plan to "turn over a new leaf" and kill their DRM system. That's right! Wal-Mart will begin offering music free of Digital Rights Management software officially October 9th. Wal-Mart also plans to support the firefox browser in the next iteration of the website.

Note: Amazon Digital, Real Networks Rhapsody, and ITunes both offer music without DRM attached.

ITunes Music Stores still offer songs with Apple Fairplay attached. ITunes Plus is specifically limited to content without DRM. Apple is facing a battle in Norway over it's music selling practices. Norway's top consumer watchdog wants Apple to make its music playable on its competitors' music players according to the Associated Press.

  Also, major media outlets report that the "bailout" for the nation's economic trouble failed to pass. The votes didn't add up.

By party, Democrats led the voting charge with more than half of the vote in support of the 700 billion dollar plan. Republican support for the measure is ultimately what led to failure. Only 33% of republicans favored it. 

 228 against ------------------------------------205 for
                          13 votes shy of passage

Republicans blame Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but Representative Barney Frank spoke the truth, the republicans want to "punish" the nation because the speaker "hurt their feelings". Republicans call Pelosi, partisan for speaking the truth about the president and his mismanagement of the economy.

IE may need to mean Iffy Experiment

Today, as I made my way to the shut down Walmart Music Store, on my computer that runs XP, I was not able to get a home page on my Internet Explorer 7. It's not like I hate IE so much that I want it crash. But lately, accessing Math online resources and just the average website, is really difficult. I had to reinstall the browser today, to get the functionality back, and that's not on Vista, that'son XP.

Today's track pick of the day is "Let it Rock" by Kevin Rudolf and Lil Wayne.
  
   I rarely ever like anything Lil' Wayne makes but I can manage his appearance on "Rock". This is a simple rock song with an electronic overlay. The lyrics are simple and direct and call for a stadium of followers to gird up their loins and fight or in the words of the song, "ROCK!" The rock base of the track isn't really botched with the inclusion of Wayne's rap verse.

      Planetout Inc. in a few short days will unveil a new gay.com,  anyone with a membership knows what this site. It's like match.com for the GLBT community only without the bulls***. Gay.com will be cleaner, faster, and much more streamlined in terms of navigation, chat, and other social functions. Users of the site can look for the changes to mirror popular social networking destinations like facebook, myspace, or bebo. You'll also see AJAX technology in specific content areas, to make the retrieval of information, and messaging functions easier.

AOL Unveils Digital City... AGAIN

AOL Digital City. That name sounds familiar. If it looks like deja vu to you, it's probably because it is. AOL Digital City used to describe what is now AOL CityGuide, a local information outlet that shares user, location, and service information about hot local businesses in a given area. Digital City was the previous installment of CityGuide which was part of the collective AOL Local. You still there?

Ok. The new AOL Digital City is still apart of AOL Local. However, http://www.digitalcity.com is a trendy, lifestyle and entertainment blog/site that goes after dare I say it, another niche audience. I hope this site holds up, it has a bit of curbside appeal.

Well Let it ROCK folks... til next time, PEACE = -)








 
 






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Subject: Are you a "Womanizer"?
Time: 6:42:38 PM CDT
Author:  taintedprince
Mood:  Adventurous

The question is...

Are you a Womanizer? Well, Britney Spears apparently thinks that you might be. I must say, a less processed Britney sounds "refreshing". "Womanizer is the first single from the much anticipated album following "Blackout"--which she named "Circus."

What's different about "Womanizer"?

      Britney is a snappy smoldering lady on this track. She seems as if she may be trying to seduce a Vegas high-roller. You say she's crazy, she's got your crazy. It's not slow like "Gimme More", this song is quick fire, hit or miss. I think that's the big reason I like it. The tempo is faster than you'd expect and the vocals are a touch cleaner.

You , you you ah... you got me goin'

Of course, this single is not the best thing since Britney sliced "Oops" on MTV, but it may indeed be gritty and confident enough to turn more than just a few heads.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1595671/20080925/spears_britney.jhtml

Follow the above link to MTV to listen to "Womanizer"




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Subject: Clay Aiken Finally Confirms What We Already Knew
Time: 9:04:43 PM CDT
Author:  taintedprince
Mood:  Lazy
Music:  Temposhark - Joy

   On the cover of People, with his new baby boy in hand, Clay Aiken finally says... Yes, I'm Gay. Of course, the average Joe who paid any attention to Mr. Aiken during American Idol, figured that he was gay already. Anytime you avoid questions about your sexuality as much as he did, the normal thing is to assume that you're gay until you prove otherwise. Here's the bad thing:
   
   In order to get to the realization, did he have to be a diva and nearly collapse his loyal Claymate fan base all because he was trying to lie? I think not. Some people will say to that... why tell us you're gay now? When we cared, you lied!

 Of course, this sexual confession reminds me of someone that I knew in high school who immediately lashed out at me when I said he was gay. Of course, I knew he was gay, before he realized he was.

Years later, after high school, I got a message from one of my friends that confirms what I knew. And as an added bonus, I get to see some of the gayest pictures in the universe.

  The gay community will always have a strangely familiar intuition or instinct. We recognize our own kin much more readily than one might believe. I'm happy for Clay, and I'm happy he found himself. Of course, he isn't the first pop singer to take down that closet door. Just ask Lance Bass. I wouldn't be surprised if Aiken's next project gets a surplus of gay listeners that are happy that he's "happy".


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Subject: Absence
Time: 5:10:01 PM CDT
Author:  taintedprince
Mood:  Cranky

I've been absent for a long time from my therapeutic release...

this blog...

for quite a minute. Not to mention, mother nature, God and whatever else it is... has been keeping me really busy. Hurricane Gustav tore my area up. The city of Baton Rouge weathered through Hurricane Gustav with mild to moderate damage in the city. As a result, it has taken at least a week and some extra days for power to be restored to most of the parish (East Baton Rouge) and communities within the area. Of course, keep in mind that a storm that big also hit other parishes around the state. There was vast wind damage and downed trees scattered throughout the area. I missed about a week of school and most of that weekend was spent hot, without power, and crazy as hell. God, spades, and a dose of family got me through it.

Baton Rouge, is now characterized by sporadic instances of blue tarp. So far FEMA's been really helpful :) NOT!!! The Fed is cheap as hell. Louisiana isn't worth that much to the Fed.


   Recovery projects such as debris removal, power restoration, and other cleanup continue.

  My school just decided to add a week to the academic schedule to replace the week of school that everyone missed. What a really great way to start our semester!

Now, Ike is out there. So I have to get ready for more wind and rain. AWWWWWWWW CRAP!

   This is why these crazy motherFLAYHAs in the political system need to move wetland restoration to the front of the agenda.

The South Gulf Coast is such a bi***, and the government just goes to the bank on it. Natural resources central, we are, and yet we get the short end of the proverbial stick...

Well, that's all for now. I've clapped enough.

LAterz


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Subject: Song of the Day - So What
Time: 4:31:10 PM CDT
Author:  taintedprince
Mood:  Enlightened

Pink - So What

Pink's newest single is as sing-songy as it gets. It's her trademark defiance in a key that rivals that of The Veronicas. It's like when Goodbye To You has a fight with Untouched and get hit --folding chair style--with a new set of Oohs and Aahs. If you don't get these references i'm making sample the sonic textures of the brilliantly produced Hook Me Up, The Veronicas latest album. Listening to So What all the way through makes me wonder if Pink is planned to head in the same direction as the fore-mentioned album. If so, I'm sure Pink's romp with the soundboard with indeed be extremely playful, extremely mischievous, and much more ADULT than the almost clean but not quite efforts of those feisty sisters. I also hear echoes of MCR's "Teenagers"

I like So What. It makes me laugh, nothing like a rowdy party song for those not-so-fabulous days when you wanna put a pair of socks in your best friend's yapping mouth, and then make that "you were saying" face. 


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Subject: Review - Solange Knowles - Sol-angel & The Hadley St. Dreams
Time: 4:06:52 PM CDT
Author:  taintedprince
Mood:  Chillin'
Music:  Cosmic Journey - Solange Knowles feat. Bilal

Album Review – Solange Knowles

Album Name – Sol-angel & the Hadley St. Dreams

Solange Knowles is Beyonce Knowles’ sibling; furthermore there are a few reviewers that were critical of her choices from the jump simply because of that. Moreover, when you got Rolling Stone reviewers spouting Beyonce this… and Beyonce that... all-over you it’s hard to win for trying. Solange starts her record, declaring that everyone remember that she is NOT her sister. She makes her case in God Given Name.

There are some bright vocals on T.O.N.Y., a lamenting number that croons about that guy who doesn’t call, and forgets about that girl he saw the other night. Dancing in the Dark takes a page from Lily Allen and Amy Whinehouse. It’s a throwback ballad about self-esteem.

Another choice cut is Sandcastle Disco, it’s a colorful and charming song about finding a man that’s not a player. She wants to be taken without being taken advantage of. It’s a great summer or fall love ballad.  I Decided may be Neptunes produced however, it’s got that sing-song soulful color that makes it hard to forget. It reminds me so much of Where Did Our Love Go?

Cosmic Journey featuring Bilal is serious, romantic, and cool at the same time. Many of the tracks on this album are solid productions because they hearken back to the days of Diana Ross and Motown while still managing to come through as contemporary.

The biggest gripe by some critics of the album will be the simple fact that Solange isn’t the powerhouse vocalist that her sister is.

To this I say, Take a good look at Justin Timberlake. I love his music. However, he’s no Johnny Mathis, or Luther Vandross, or Michael Jackson, when it comes to singing. He knows how make a beautiful sound that sounds effortless. With regard to his range, it’s basically Tenor 2, or Tenor 1 with falsetto. I know this because I’m also a tenor. It’s the highest male voicing. With vocal training, you can control those notes and make them flow well.  

Some people are so used to hearing Beyonce on record, that when they hear Solange sing they wish they could copy her voice to these tracks. Well, SORRY! Solange’s sound on record is self-assured enough for me.  Overall, this album is a really fun and enjoyable effort.

For $8.71 at Best Buy, I’d say it’s money well spent if I can listen to it all the way through without skipping a track.  

 

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Subject: Top Albums of 2008
Time: 9:37:10 PM CDT
Author:  taintedprince
Mood:  Mellow

Here in no order are my top releases for 2008

Special Spot - Special recordings/albums that deserve major recognition either based on production value, or artist merit.

Vanguard - Artist or Album that is boundary-challenging, and forges a special contemporary style.

10. The Veronicas - Hook Me Up
9.   Temposhark -    The Invisible Line
8.   NIN -                The Slip
7.   Nas                   Untitled
6.   Weezer              The Red Album
5.   Erykah Badu      New Amerykah, Pt.1
4.   Madonna           Hard Candy
3.   Solange              Sol-angel and the Hadley St. Dreams
2.   Estelle                Shine
1.   Coldplay            Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends

Special Spot  - Armin Van Burren - Imagine

Vangard - Apocalypto - The Presets


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Subject: Song of the Day - T.O.N.Y.
Time: 8:26:26 PM CDT
Author:  taintedprince
Mood:  Bitchy
Music:  Song

      Solange Knowles' looks to distance her musical ambition from that of her sister, Beyonce Knowles. Determined to prove her own chops, she's records T.O.N.Y.

      T.O.N.Y. thoughtfully explores feelings of stagnation, regret, dissatisfaction, and the forward motion that pretty much follows when a man broadsides a woman, citing a possible one-time tryst or one-night stand.  From a universal perspective, this track illustrates the rejection factor that comes when potential mates, women and men play with one another emotionally.

You know how it is! We all get critical about a man or woman we dig them, so much so that we all at some point drive ourselves bonkers, worrying, Will he call? Does he still dig me? She was a fly girl--I hope she liked me... and so on.

On the upside, T.O.N.Y's wax on and wax off sound, is a hint that if taken literally, tells us that the whole (questions) phase by one or both parties is a normal part of any budding romance.

 Tony doesn't call no mo' don't care no mo'...love this song, it's enjoyable, fun, and it's reality.

You'll find this song on Solange's sophomore release Sol-angel and the Hadley St. Dreams.


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