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Hello hello hello!

This entry marks the start of a modest little project that I've always been meaning to get off the ground. The idea is far from new, or original, but I hope that nonetheless it will prove interesting. At the very least it will be satisfying as part of my own records.

This blog has two main objectives, one of which is for you (or us, I suppose) and the other more or less exclusively for me. These objectives are:

1. Musical review and commentary (Us- myself, and you, the reader). Artist, album, song, past, present, future... the whole deal. What I liked, what I didn't like, and why. I aim to be as level-headed as possible in my reviews and will try to be as very thorough in describing the rationale behind my thoughts. Of course, I admit that like anyone else I bring my own tastes and musical prejudices to the table, so this will in no way be a completely impartial blog. Even so, I will say that my tastes are vast and varied, and it is genuinely difficult for me to say I actually hate something. I imagine that this blog will contain a lot of "it's alright", "decent", and other such neutral terms. That's just how I am; even if I don't expressly like something I doubt I'll go as far as to say I hate it. Even when I dislike something I'll probably speak of it's merits in some way or another. Essentially, this blog is not meant to be designed just so I can hate on what I don't like and glorify what I do.

2. Motivation (Just me). Over the years I have acquired a rather large amount of music, and my collection continues to grow through the efforts of myself and people I know. At the rate I get new music I don't believe I could ever keep up and listen to all of it at a casual rate. I have a habit of getting caught on a particular song, album, or artist for weeks at a time. In itself this is no big deal, because just about everyone listens to music in this way, but I hate when someone is looking through my collection and says "Oh I love so-and-so" and I have to embarassingly admit that while I own the artist's entire discography to date I have no idea if I like them or not. I believe that running this blog will motivate me to keep up with my collection and give all of my songs the attention they deserve.

Some facts:
-My mp3 player of choice is the Microsoft Zune (30 Gigabytes, original release, affectionately referred to sometimes as the "1970's iPod") and so I use the Zune player software to organize and play all of my music. I harbor no hatred for Apple, Macs, or the iPod, but rather I simply prefer Zune, its interface, and its software.
-Though my Zune holds up to 30 gigs, my collection far exceeds this number and is ever-growing. Thus, my Zune serves more as a collection of favorites and in doing so further discourages me from listening to new material.
-The blog will vary between reviewing entire artists and individual albums, depending on factors such as how much time I've had to listen to an artist, how many albums they've released in total, etc.
-The blog will begin in alphabetical order according to the arrangement of artists in my Zune player software, but soon will break down into something more random as new artists are added to my collection and artists already reviewed release new material.
-Though I've already stated that my tastes are very wide, there are some things I just cannot bring myself to like. As a general rule, I don't enjoy music that has a lot of screaming or growling vocals. The screaming begins to annoy me after a time, and I have a hard time taking growling vocals seriously because of how ridiculous they sound. As this blog goes on other trends in my dislikes will make themselves apparent, I'm sure. Keep in mind that I've genuinely tried to get myself to enjoy the things I don't like in music, but failed.
-If forced to name a favorite artist, I will generally answer with Modest Mouse. They are among the most thoroughly-documented groups in my collection, and their album Good News For People Who Love Bad News was the first CD I ever bought, so they occupy a warm place in my heart. Still, like any band they have their place, and I would say I have several favorite bands rather than just one.
-I am a bassist, and so you might find that I pay more attention to the bass than the average person would. I love all instruments, though. That includes you, kazoo.
-I'll do my best to post examples of songs and music videos, or at least provide links to places to find such things.

Again, hello and welcome!