Review Neil Finn's Song of the Lonely Mountain

At the end of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as the credits roll by a song called Song of the Lonely Mountain plays. The song is performed by Neil Finn. The song tells of the dwarves quest. Finn states in an interview with Rolling Stone (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-finn-reaches-epic-heights-on-song-of-the-lonely-mountain-song-premiere-20121112) that it was developed from the singing bit the dwarves sing in Bilbo Baggins home at Bag End. The song has excellent vocals, chants and someone pounding away at an anvil which goes well with the dwarven theme. Peter Jackson told Finn to get into "a dwarven state of mind" (Source: same Rolling Stones article referenced earlier in this post) and in my opinion, he succeeds.

Overall, I think Finn wrote and sings an excellent song that ties in well with the movie and, it's theme's. The only downside I see is the song isn't played till the credits start rolling. Would be listeners may be tempted to skip this fine tune in their rush to leave the movie theater. For those who want to listen to the tune, the referenced Rolling Stone article has a link that will bring up a Rolling Stone flash music player that will play the song for free. I've played the song a number of times on this flash player and, it works great. I would definitely recommend this song to Hobbit and Lord of the Rings fans. It goes really well with the first Hobbit movie. Happy listening all!

Music Review

On November 22, 1977, John Denver recorded the album John Denver - Live at the Sydney Opera House. It was originally intended purely for Australian audiences. Later, it was released in the U.S. with a few changes. In the U.S. version, the album producers included the songs Today, Calypso and Me and My Uncle. The album showcases why Denver was a favorite in concert. Easygoing and appreciative of his fans, he encouraged them to sit back and join in on any songs they felt like joining in on. Combine this with some great songs like Rocky Mountain High, Today, Annie's Song and his signature songs Thank God I'm a Country Boy and Take Me Home, Country Roads and his fans were assured of a magical night.

The album has a superb set of songs. It starts off strong with Rocky Mountain High and keeps a pleasant tempo throughout. For U.S. fans, there is one song that may throw them. For his Australian audience, Denver performed Moreton Bay which tells of the terrible treatment of an Irish convict banished to Australia. Early in its history, Australia was used a dumping ground for convicts by Mother England (as the U.S. was until the American colonists complained). The album also features It's A Sin To Tell A Lie which apparently was a favorite of Denver's mother. Denver tells of when he first performed the song for mother at Carnegie Hall as she and his Dad sat in the audience. For me, Take Me Home, Country Roads was an early Denver favorite. My Grandmother Wilkes lived in a trailer in the backwoods of Bowling Green, Indiana. It was thoroughly country. I remember visiting my Grandmother, hunting for crayfish in a stream nearby, nearly jumping out of my shoes one time when I saw a large black snake in another creek I was exploring as well as fishing for catfish in a lake about a mile away. The song resonated with my memories of the visits to my Grandmother.

Overall, the album is excellent and a pleasure to listen to. It makes me wish I could've seen Denver in concert. Sadly, I never did. If you would like to experience what John Denver was like Live as well as relax to some of his best songs, this would be an album for you.

Music Review

When BMG had a special where you buy one CD at regular price and get 4 free, I looked for music I'd never listened to. One artist I decided to try was David Arkenstone. His music is new age and is put out by Narada. The CD I ordered was The Best of David Arkenstone. It turned out to be a very nice CD. Arkenstone creates various acoustic pieces of beautiful music. Some have nice beats like Under The Canopy while others sound use bells a lot as with his Night Wind. Some, I don't understand how the music ties into the title of the sound such as the song Temple of Vaal. Still, the music is beautiful and easy to listen to. I felt the CD finished strongly with the piece The Southern Cross (not anything like the Crosby, Stills and Nash hit).

Overall, if you like New Age music, I think you'd like The Best of David Arkenstone. It's a very nicely done CD. It is great music to sit back and relax to (to my embarrassment, I fell asleep 3 times while listening to this CD so I had to listen to it repeatedly so I could give a proper review on it). My only complaint with the CD is I wish he'd included more music on it. The entire CD lasts just 49 minutes 18 seconds which seems short compared to other CDs. Price wise, I believe it would cost $18.98 plus shipping and handling through BMG. You may be able to find it cheaper if you shop around. Cheers!

Music Review

Recently, I listened to the London Palladium Cast recording of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." The soundtrack is from Jason Donovan played the lead of Joseph. It's a nicely done soundtrack and that has all the main songs from the show. The show itself is about Joseph who was sold into slavery by his brothers and rose to be 2nd only to Pharoah in Egypt. The soundtrack is interesting in that it features 4 different types of music. You get to hear country, pop, rockabilly and choir music. The show featured the coolest Pharaoh I've ever seen. Imagine a rockabilly Elvis Presley Pharaoh and you can get the idea. There are clear references to Presley in the songs the Pharoah sings. I remember seeing the person who played Pharoah on stage throwing a lady in the audience a royal scarf. It was hilarious.

Overall, the soundtrack is nice. I think it would be enjoyed more by someone who has seen the theater production of the show. You would understand the music better in that case. Still, if you're a fan of Webber's music, this is one you'd want to buy. Unlike other Webber musicals which seemed to concentrate around one song, this soundtrack has a number of nice songs as well as some funny ones. Cheers!

Databasing

I finally started databasing my CD and DVD collections. By doing this, I'll know what I have and stop myself from buying the same CD or movie twice. To my embarrassment, I've done that four or five times. I found out a month ago that I bought the CD The Beach Boys Live in Concert twice. I also discovered I have the Best of the Rippingtons. What's embarrassing about the Rippingtons CD is that I've had it for over a year, didn't know I had it and haven't listened to it yet. I'll have to put that in my stack of music I plan to listen to. I have 5 or 6 CDs in that stack already. You can expect to see some new Music Reviews in the future on this blog.

Music Review

I finally got around to listening to one of the CDs I bought a while back. The CD is "Borrowed Heaven" by The Corrs. I've liked some of the stuff the Corrs have done. I think their songs "Breathless" and "So Young" are particularly good. They also did a great instrumental version of "Paddy McCarthy." Sadly, I found their "Borrowed Heaven" to be lacklustre. None of the songs were particularly good. It seemed on some of the songs that the lyrics didn't seem to fit the music. The Corrs did include one instrumental called "Silver Strand" which I thought was nice but not enough make the CD worth buying. In my opinion, this is one CD you can pass on. It isn't a stinker but it isn't worth spending your money on either. I found out from the Corrs website (http://www.corrs.net) that they've come out with a greatest hits. I plan to buy that and see how it is. I'll let you know what I think of it once I've bought it and listened to it. Cheers all!

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Soundtrack

The movie The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (LWW) is a movie that I've very much enjoyed. I liked it so much that I bought the soundtrack for the movie. This review are my thoughts on the soundtrack.

One of the main reasons I bought the soundtrack is because I wanted to music to where they introduce the title to the movie. I found that particular piece of music enchanting. I thought it did an awesome job of introducing the movie title. It turned out the score is called Evacuating London. Like the music in the movie, the score on the soundtrack is really nice BUT I would swear it's shorter. This was a real disappointment for me. Another disappointment is the score Only The Beginning Of The Adventure which has its good moments but seems to be a conglomeration of bits. I feel some of them should have been developed further. Some music they put on the soundtrack was a total waste. In my opinion, Tim Finn's Winter Light is a total dud.

Overall, I thought the soundtrack nice BUT I wouldn't rush out and buy it. I found it disappointing though perhaps part of my problem is my standards have gone up since the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) music. I still listen regularly to a CD I made of various scores from the three movies. I love the scores Concerning Hobbits, Evenstar, Hope and Memory, The Return of the King, The Grey Havens, The Breaking of the Fellowship and Annie Lennox's song Into The West. The LWW soundtrack doesn't come close to matching the beautiful music of the Lord of the Rings movies. Hopefully, Disney will produce a better set of scores for the next LWW movie Prince Caspian. We'll see in 2007.