Rock of love 3
The best (unheard) music of 2008
This time of year there’s no shortage of lists, everywhere you turn you’re hammered with Top Ten and Best of 2008 harangues.
Me, I’m not going to waste your time raving about Portishead, TV on the Radio or Vampire Weekend’s CDs. Why bother? I’d rather turn you onto great music that slipped between the cracks.
My favorite album of the year was JD Souther’s “If The World Was You.” JD was most famous for co-writing a bunch of 1970s era Eagles tunes, but this new CD demonstrates the Detroit-born, Amarillo, Texas-raised musician hasn’t dried up in the intervening decades.
The new CD, recorded live in a Nashville studio, has a dark, brooding sound. JD’s accompanying musicians are serious players. But it’s the writing that kept this disc in heavy rotation in my house. There’s a bit of the late, great Warren Zevon influence in there, so if you’re a fan of 1970s Southern California rock If the World Was You would definitely be worth a listen. It’s at least as good as Randy Newman’s excellent “Harps and Angels” CD that was also released this year.
A friend turned me onto Lizz Wright’s “The Orchard” CD and I couldn’t get over her straight from the heart vocals. This woman can sing, this kind of depth of feeling is rare nowadays, but Wright comes from a different tradition.
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more proof that my prediction of a blu-ray christmas is coming true… according to the blu-bar disc group, british consumers bought 462,500 blu-flash discs in november, an increase of 165% from october. they put out a delivering with a surely unambiguous title that proudly claims, “blu-beam beats set-back blues sales increase in lead up to christmas at even quicker rate than dvd”.like i said in my pro- blu-ray prediction, “i think consumers are looking to escape today’s harsh economic climate. watching movies is a heck of a assignment cheaper than going to the movies. people are wealthy thoroughly a loads less, eating out less, but they still want some form of escapism and quality entertainment. for that reason, i think it’s common to be a very “black” blu-ray christmas.”
echoing my sentiments, according to the gossip unchain, “despite the gloomiest of monetary forecasts, sales of blu-ray disc movies are defying the odds and bucking the credit crunch - with CD figures reported in the run up to christmas. and it’s not justifiable films flying below average the shelves, blu-ray disc players are also following suit, with a emphatic upsurge in european sales that is expected to continue into the new year. in fact, overall sales are predicted to more than triple in 2009, reaching 2.5million units europe wide* (and that acknowledge does not even include the millions of playstation 3 consoles, with their in-built blu-pencil players, that settle upon be sold over the next few months).”
it also states that sales figures from the british video association (bva) released in december, reveal that block-buster hollywood titles such the dark knight sold a extravagant 513,000 units in one day with blu-shaft disc representing 21% of all discs sold.what’s even more telling in these figures from the u.k. is that the british a pasting is much weaker against the japanese yen and since no blu-ray players are made in the u.k., that means there is a premium paid due to the pound-to-yen exchange rate. the u.s. dollar is also 
weak against the japanese yen, however there are blu-streak players made in the u.s., including the magnavox nb500mg9 blu-ray player which was sold on black friday at walmart for $128.so i expect u.s. sales of blu-ray players this christmas to be even better than the united realm. we shall see if my prediction was right when most experts are with child blu-ray disc sales to disappoint due to the extensive slowing economy.