Out today is the newest album from Sinead O'Connor. She has been busy the last decade or so putting out albums in every possible genre. After her first two amazing albums "The Lion & the Cobra" and "I do Not Want What I Haven't Got," she released an album of standards, "Am I Not Your Girl." The next album "Universal Mother" would be the last of the signature style she had created with the first two. After this was an amazing gospel style album "The Gospel Oak EP" which she had an amazing tour behind. After the mediocre "Faith & Courage" came an album of traditional Irish Songs "Sean-Nos Nau." Her next studio album was a reggae album "Throw Down your Arms." Not being anything close to a fan of reggae, I actually really liked this album. So now we have her newest album "Theology." The album consists of two discs. An acoustic "Dublin Sessions" disc, and a full band disc "London Sessions." The album does not really fall into any category. But it is for sure a Sinead O'Connor album.

There is nobody really like Sinead. Her amazing voice and style have always been one to make people love or hate her.
I have always been on the love side since I first heard "Mandika." I put it on the first make your own cassette compilation that I bought at the mall in the late 80s.  She has never hidden her political views and has often got into trouble because of it . I would love to see a documentary of her much like the one of the Dixie Chicks. Most artists seem to keep their beliefs to themselves in order to sell more records. Sinead is the second biggest selling artist in Ireland. Next to Enya of course.

I don't know if any of you have seen my new favorite show yet,  but you need to check it out if you haven't. The Flight of the Conchords just premiered on HBO this last Sunday at 10:30 pm. These guys have been around for a couple years performing as Flight of the Conchords. HBO recently picked them up for a new 12 part series. The show is basically about them trying to get a record deal and success in New York as a folk pop duo. Jemain Clement and Bret McKenzie are semi famous in their native New Zealand. They have a couple albums out already and have performed at South by Southwest and Bonnaroo. They are basically making fun of singers such as John Mayer and James Blunt. But do it brilliantly. They even just signed a deal with Sub Pop and will be putting out a single in a couple months.

The show reminds me of the brilliance of another one of my recent favorites, The Sarah Silverman Show. It is a situational musical comedy. They two boys are roommates in a small flat in New York city. The other characters are a horrible manager and an obsessed nerdy fan neighbor girl. It has a bit of the uncomfortable humor of shows like the Office. It's just brilliant. I have only watched the first episode but I am already obsessed. The first episode is about Jemaine's search for a girlfriend and the shooting of their first video. Each episode has a couple musical numbers. But don't be scared. It really works.

You might recognize Jemaine from the Outback Steakhouse commercials. But he is really much more than just another Paul Hogan. He is also starring in a new movie called "Eagle vs Shark" which is out in August. Check out the preview on the website for the movie. It is destined to get compared to Napolean Dynamite. But I have been really needing another Napolean Dynamite in my life for a while.

Today is the big exciting day of the new White Stripes album "Icky Thump." I am going to let my fellow blogger Miss Ess review that one. I like what I have heard so far. But that girl is like their number one fan. Not in a creepy Kathy Bates Misery kind of way. But almost. I will spend some time today talking about two smaller albums coming out. First up is the new album by Maps called "We Can Create."

Maps is basically James Chapman. He is from Northampton, England. He has been releasing singles for a while now, slowly gathering his fans. This is one of those albums that I was immediately drawn to and liked right away. But I also knew that it would become one of those albums that my love would continue to grow for. Now listening to it for the 4th or 5th time I am quickly falling in love. It is kind of amazing that he used no computer or fancy programs to make this album. I can already hear people complaining that the album is too electronic and computer generated sounding. But like I said, no computers. He did it mostly himself with tape loops.

The album feels very warm and fuzzy. He is obviously influenced by some of the shoe gaze of the 90's like My Bloody Valentine and Lush. But also by the early electronic groups of the same period. And on some of the songs I even hear a bit of Beach Boys. Which is weird for me to even notice, since I happen to hate the Beach Boys. But I do hear it. However, it does not ruin the album for me. You can also hear a bit of Sigur Ros or Album Leaf or maybe some Postal Service. The album is consistently good. There is not just a couple good songs. It consistently works. James is bound to find his fans in the U.S. just as he has abroad. He has sort of a nice soothing pop voice. Kind of like Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service. It mixes nice with the electronics. It is less cold and distant than you would expect with this sort of electronic instrumentation. He will quickly make his way into your heart. I think.

I am a bit obsessed with making lists of things. As a small child I remember making lists of everything. It might have something to do with my need to organize my life. I just like to remember things and to organize them into nice little lists. So this will be the first of my lists that I offer to you. There was recently a list of movies going around on myspace. It was a random list of mostly blockbuster movies that you were to check off the ones you had seen. This got me thinking about what would go on my list of movies. So I decided to go through that list inside my brain and write down my favorite movies of the 80's. A very formative period for me and many others. It was a decade of many great movies. Movies that simply can't be made now. Most of them are great simply because of the memories attached to them. Many of them seen in theaters and then many more times on TV. Many of them rented from one of my favorite video stores. Most of them watched late at night with my friends. Some of them watched again in the theater at midnight screenings. Many of them watched with directors commentaries on DVD years later. Many of my favorites were made in the late 70's and 1979 specifically. Alot of the great horror movies like The Omen and The Exorcist came out in the 70s. David Cronenberg and John Waters made some of their best films in the 70s. 1979 was not only a great year for music but for film as well. 1978 was the year of Halloween, Dawn of the Dead, and Piranha. In 1979 came Aliens, The Warriors, Over the Edge, Amityville Horror, and The Brood. But it was really all about the 80's. I don't know where I would be without these movies. It was really hard to put them in order. But they are roughly organized starting with my favorite.

top 100 movies of the 80s

I am a big fan of the 80's horror movie. I spent many hours in the video store making sure I had seen every bad 80's horror movie. However it seems that I missed one. Troll 2 is the name of this amazing movie. I had already seen the original Troll movie starring Sonny Bono and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Which is bad in its own special way. But nothing really comes close to how bad this movie is. To start with, it has nothing to do with Troll 1. There is not even a Troll in the movie. It is about goblins who live in the town of NILBOG.
My friends Josh and Andrew were kind enough to share this movie with me last night. The movie was released a couple of years ago on DVD as a combo pack with Troll 1 and Troll 2. This movie is listed on countless lists as the worst movie of all time and has developed a crazy cult following. They show this movie around the world at midnight screenings. This little horrible movie has somehow become one of the best worst movies ever.
                                                                                                                                                                   
I seriously can not stop thinking about how amazingly horrible this movies was. It is basically about a regular family. A clueless
dad and a slightly crazy mom with their 2 kids. One, an exercise crazed daughter who refuses to let her boyfriend have any friends. The other an awkward son whose only friend seems to be his dead grandpa Seth. For their vacation they switch houses with a weird family in a very small town. The town is basically all goblins but they are able to disguise themselves as humans. Or they are simply both human and goblin. They seem to be led by a Jim Jones type cult leader as well as a witchy sorceress type old lady who is played by a 12 year old girl. The towns people/golbins are all vegetarians and make the guests of the town eat weird green food which turns them into trees which then allows them to remain vegetarians and eat the humans. Somehow, someone thought this would make some sort of sense