Shaking Things Up

"I'm sick and tired of waiting for dreams that never come." Walk on the Moon by GBS

"The hardest part of life is to live while you're alive." Here And Now by GBS

I just finished listening to Fortune's Favour by Great Big Sea for the first time. Wow! As I stated in an earlier post, the sample songs had a me a little worried about how pop-py the songs sounded. And the album is probably the most pop-oriented one they've ever done, including Something Beautiful.

There's a maturity here. While there's still some melancholy--the predominant emotion on SB--it's tempered with a "but isn't life still cool?" attitude. Not surprising when you think that all The B'yes are right around 40, married and at least two of the three have kids now. What is surprising is that given that, being in the game for 15 years and their past success they are so willing to shake things up.

We still have the three traditional songs: England, Banks of Newfoundland, Rocks of Merasheen. They still play tin whistle, bodhran, bouzouki, banjo, etc. on the pop songs. There's the mix of uptempo offerings and ballads, etc. Even a couple songs that stray into the realm of country (Sean's influence, I'm sure). But the production is much more sophisticated than anything we've heard from them. This one may be at the top of my favorites list.

One little quibble is that there isn't an a capella song on the album. However, they made up for it by giving one as a bonus if you pre-ordered from their website. So I'm good with that.

You may have a hard time finding it at your local record shop, but it's worth the effort because of the bonus DVD that shows them at work in the studio. Come on, we all love to see the creative process, don't we. But it's also available on iTunes for just $9.99.

Another Week...

And another week behind.

You don't want to hear about no time.

You don't want to hear about how other things crowd in and my time goes away.

You don't want to hear about getting a few minutes and then not having the energy to do anything.

Hell, I don't want to hear it.

Maybe I should just go make something happen.

I'll let you know how that works out.