Three till Seven

Holycrapholycrapholycrap! Portishead, one of my all-time favorite bands, has not released an album for eleven years. When I first stumbled across them back in high school, I bought all their albums, I bought their t-shirt, and I thought for sure I’d never see anything else from them. The lead singer, Beth Gibbons, did a solo project a few years back, I think, but it had a completely different sound from Portishead. Now, I just found that they’ve released a new album, Third, just this year. I’m previewing it now on Amazon, which is where I’m probably about to buy the MP3’s. I’m so very excited about this because I think their music is uniquely jarring (see “Cowboys”) and creepy (e.g. “Mourning Air”).

Once again, iTunes is hardly putting up a fight. I can get the album for $10.99 there and it’s not iTunes Plus, so it’s DRMed AAC’s. Whereas Amazon MP3 has it for $8.99 in DRM-free 256 kbps MP3’s. There’s an obvious choice here, and Apple needs to wise up about this competitor.

Brent informed me at lunch today that Nine Inch Nails is giving away a new album entirely free (and legal) on their web site; it’s called The Slip. I’m about to download it now, and am so excited because I loved Year Zero. I thought it was a much better album than With Teeth, and even its remix album is awesome.

Also, my dad took some photos of a turtle that my brother found while mowing their field. It’s a heck of a turtle, as you’ll see if you scroll down to this photo of my mom holding it.

I’m back from D.C. and had a great time, and I’ll have a big post about it once I get the energy worked up. That’s one thing about traveling: it leaves me dead tired. I slept 11.5 hours last night and still woke up tired. I’m doing much better now, though, but all I want to do is sit around, reading or watching TV. I’ve been catching up on my TV shows that I missed while I was gone, one of them being American Idol. I’ve gotten all excited about several of the performances I’ve seen this season, and these are my favorite Idols:

1. Carly Smithson
2. David Cook
3. Brooke White
4. Michael Johns
5. Chikezie

I downloaded several songs and a couple of videos from American Idol on iTunes just now, and I’m really loving the video version of Come Together by Carly. I tried listening to the single that was released but it, weirdly enough, doesn’t sound anything like Carly. She sounds higher pitched and it really just doesn’t sound like her on the show or in the other singles. If you like her performance on American Idol of Come Together, I’d really recommend getting the video, but skip that single. David Cook’s Eleanor Rigby performance is also a favorite of mine. I think he and Carly stand to be the top two when it’s all said and done, and they’re certainly my pick for being the top two. I’d love for Carly to win this season, though.