Nik Gomez

Björk – Volta

Björk’s new CD… For me, Volta has been the most anticipated album by Björk. Hyped press and intriguing interviews combined with her show stopping performance at Coachella really put me on end for Volta to be released. The first few leaked songs gave me hope that it would have the feeling of Homogenic with the pop sound of Debut, something that I feel Björk needs to reinvent. So in a nutshell, how does Volta make me feel? Half-fulfilled.

I was so ready for a more accessible album by Björk; something that I could show my friends and not get the “I don’t get it” looks Björk instills in so many people. From what I heard at Coachella, Volta would be exactly that. Her old greatest hits with “Earth Intruders”, “Innocence”, “Wanderlust”, and “Declare Independence” thrown into the mix gave the impression that Volta would be a more “up” album than the murky Medulla. Even Björk’s interview with Pitchfork has her saying that it would be a “fun” and even “poppy” record; this is not the case.

The album does feature a heavy dosage of brass; I’m not too sure that it’s beneficial. Because so many of the tracks do rely on the horns for their warm ambient tones, it limits the sound that I have come to know as Björk. One plus side of the brass is that they make their tracks seem fairly immediate. In one of her video interviews, Björk describes Volta as being fairly spontaneous; the brass section contributes quite a bit to this end.

Here’s a paragraph dedicated to my favorite song on the album: Innocence. But first I must admit my guilt at enjoying the two Timbaland collaborations the most. Now that that’s out, Innocence packs a major punch. In case you don’t believe me, just listen to the track; one of the samples used sounds like a guy getting punched in the gut. The beat here is insane. It is very repetitive, but that is something that I like about the track. In addition to the sweet but short beat, the main synth is sweet, if not sweeter than the beats. It is a very wobbly tone to it and its high pitched distortion give it a unique sound that I have never heard before. To me, its what an Asian synth would be if someone took it and applied every kind of degrading effect on it (and if there were synths for difference places of the world). The lyrics are very nice as well, but the music is what I love about it.

As you can probably tell, I have very mixed feelings about Volta. The slower tracks don’t grab you like “Hidden Place” or “Unravel” do, but the more upbeat tracks are unforgettable. I give Volta a slight-medium thumbs up (that is a technical term in case you aren’t familiar with the nikgomez.com rating system…)

Spiderman 3: A laughing matter

Talk about a letdown of massive proportions. Yesterday I went to go see Spiderman 3 with fairly high expectations. I figured that they were justified seeing as this currently rumored to be the highest costing movie ever (around $500 million). Boy was I wrong.

As the theater experience began, I had nothing to complain about; the previews were sweet! Pirate of the Caribbean 3, Shrek 3, and other great movies had me in a good mood. The beginning of the actual movie wasn’t bad either. A nice love scene and success for MJ opened very nicely. Then the depression hit. She was fired, Peter was being just stupid, and Harry was screwing everything up.

It was around this time that the writing (screenplay) went to hell. Parker got “emo”, and my friends and I couldn’t suppress our laughter at the absurdity of what we were seeing. Died black hair? Eyeliner? On the world’s best superhero? I don’t think so. Everything just seemed so very cliché; there was nothing new or unique to be seen. The whole idea of a villain coming back to life was overdone, and the “other worldly poison” moved too much like a high-tech Hexxus from Fern Gully (one of my favorite 90′s kids movies).

The abundance of Spiderman-swinging-around-the-city scenes were overbearing. The fight scenes, while sometimes cool, were either too short, long, or unrealistic. I understand that saying that a movie is “unrealistic” is fairly ridiculous to say, but to have someone’s face ground against the side of a moving train and be unscathed is even more ridiculous. While one might argue that Sony was trying to stay true to it’s key demographic (young boys), why the PG-13 rating?

While Spiderman 3 gave me a good laugh, lines like “wicked cool” made it impossible for me to take it seriously. My verdict? $500 million wasted.

The Coachella 2007 Experience

Here is the short version of my Coachella Experience. I’ve tried to organize this in chronological order from Friday to Sunday.Bands

• Friday Favorites: the Noisettes, Silversun Pickups, Arctic Monkeys, Björk
  • the Noisettes were spectacular, very unique… same goes for Silversun Pickups (sweet drummer)
  • Tokyo Police Club=huge letdown, dissappointing
  • Arctic Monkeys need to move around a bit (physically), but great music
  • Interpol needs to never play music again
  • Björk needed to play forever, I was starstruck
• Saturday Favorites: Hot Chip, Kings of Leon, the Arcade Fire, the Red Hot Chili Peppers
  • the Cribs needs a wardrobe change, good music
  • Hot Chip wins the “Funnest Show” award
  • MSTRKRFT (and most DJs) need to move around a bit, I know that your Macbook is sweet, but there’s a crowd to entertain
  • Kings of Leon brought the hard rock
  • the Arcade Fire needs a new sound guy (maybe that was Coachella’s fault)
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers needed more BloodSugarSexMagik, amazing light show though
• Sunday Favorites: Lupe Fiasco, the Roots, Rage Against the Machine
  • Mika should be the lead singer of an 80s hair metal band
  • Lupe Fisaco wins the Grammy (or he should have at least)
  • Against Me! brought some pure punk to Coachella
  • The Roots almost made me cry, up there for best all weekend
  • Willie Nelson should sing more about pot, that one song was hilarious
  • Crowded House should have left the stage after the water bottle incident
  • Manu Chao was overly repetitive, extremely high energy
  • Rage Against the Machine never left, they play as if it’s still the 90s. Amazing. Amazing…

It really is hard to believe that it is over. This event that I have obsessed over for three months has come and gone. It was so worth it, and I will be there next year rain or shine.

Digg’s one mistake might take it’s life

In case you don’t use digg.com, it’s a social news site where users can “digg” the articles/webpages/anything they like to push it to the front page of digg.com. It’s every website’s dream to hit the front page of digg because it means thousands upon thousands of page views within moments. Digg has over 1 million users now, and they have turned on the digg management faster than anything I’ve ever seen.

What sent the diggers up in arms? The removal of a story submitted that had hit the front page about the 32 digit hexadecimal code that is used to unlock the encryption on HD-DVDs. This code is similar to the “illegal prime”number that was used to crack DVDs. The number is illegal to publish and copy because it can circumvent all of the copy-protection put on HD-DVDs, which means that HD-DVDs can now be pirated. Digg removed this story immediately because its moderators said that it was a legal matter for digg, and that it could not be responsible for such content on the site.

Diggers are viewing this as a persecution of their right to free speech, and rightfully so. Another little fact that enraged diggers is that reddit and other large social news sites didn’t immediately take down the posted links to the code. It has become an issue of standing up to the MPAA and RIAA (two groups which the digg crowd would lynch, burn and the stake, and mutilate if they had the chance); this is something that digg did not do. Rather than trying to put up a fight to battle DRM, digg bent over and acted like a little baby.

Finally, it has come to surface that Diggnation, a podcast done by digg owner Kevin Rose and his friend Alex Albrect, have been sponsored by HD-DVD in the past. Conflict of interests? I think so… Continue reading…