What's the Deal With Album Ratings?

You probably wouldn't agree that The Wombats are worth a 7.8, Humbug is an 8.4, or the next album I'm going to review is worth a score of 4.9; yes, there is a bit of bias in my reviews, but its not that there is no rhyme or reason to it. Considering the hundreds of albums released every year (most of them being crap), to a typical listener and without any regard to their own tastes, a score of 8 is just "worth giving a chance". A 7 is also worth a chance, but it kind of depends on your taste. A 6 is alright, but it REALLY depends on your taste. Basically, I'm not saying that you have no musical taste if you don't agree.

The Wombats: The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation

The Wombats are a band from Liverpool that have been around since about 2007 and just now, their second album should be available in the U.S.; their single "Tokyo" getting a little airplay every now and then. In the beginning however, it was no keyboards, but air-guitar jams like "Moving to New York" and "Let's Dance to Joy Division"; that is, if you've heard of those songs. The music is simple but very well put-together, The Wombats have always been a band that deserves exposure but just never got it.

Dept Heaven

News on the new Sting RPG "Gungnir" has come right out of nowhere and will be released next month after about 3 years in development. It better be damn good, cause from what it looks like, I'm not sure if its truly worthy of the "Episode IX" moniker. Its the fourth game in Sting's RPG dynasty "Dept Heaven", but why is it called "episode 9"? That number is supposed to indicate its level of originality: on a scale from one, meaning "stands out from the crowd", to ten, meaning "well over twice as original as a turn-based-real-time strategy board-game-like shooter game", Gungnir is at a nine.

2008 U.S. Presidential Election

Hey, its time for you guys to review my homework. Basically, I'm a political science major and for one of my projects, I examined the 2008 election. I'm not going into stuff like multi-variate regression or crazy graphs or any type of sciencey-technobabble, just going to tell you what I found out in my study. Now, in case you're still following this story, skip ahead, because I'm going to spoil it: Barack Obama won. Okay, now there are a ton of books out there explaining how Obama won and stuff like that, but for this study, I'm focusing not on why Obama won, but rather why McCain lost.

The Virgins: The Virgins

In your face low-brow hipster white trash and proud of it, The Virgins can't help but put a smile on your face. When asked "Are you really going to call yourselves The Virgins?" they were like "yeah, that's who we are, we're The Virgins." That's kind of the attitude that this band brings to the table, nothing to prove, nothing to lose, they are just in it for the fun (and possibly the money). As it was released to great critical reception, I guess this attitude kind of works out.

Length of Games

I like to get more for my money, so I like longer games. If a game takes 10 hours to complete, very linear, and has no multiplayer, I really don't see why I should pay fifty dollars for it. In the past, this would be okay, after all, games were much simpler and the goal was just to rush through the 7-10 levels in one sitting. Nowadays, more is possible and so we expect more. There is a difference however, between "too little" and "too much".

Everything Everything: Man Alive

Released in 2010, Everything Everything has been the focus of critical acclaim for years ever since the release of their first two singles "Suffragette Suffragette" and "Photoshop Handsome". Critically, the album did pretty well, especially among BBC and NME (both helped hype the band immensely); Pitchfork, however, gave the album a very low score. And I guess that really goes to show that this is a type of music that you either love or you hate. Between rapid key changes, shifting tempos, and rapid-fire lyrics that take a scientist to decipher, Everything Everything might be exactly the kind of "original music" that you are looking for. Or it could just be annoying as hell. There seems to be no middle ground on this album.