Bought a couple of new CDs over the weekend: Anthology by Alien Ant Farm, and The Hour of Bewilderbeast by Badly Drawn Boy. (Neither of these was on my wishlist. I was very tempted to go for Virgin’s 5 CDs for £50 instead of their 2 for £22 price to catch some of the ones that are on my wish list, but I tried to be moderate.)
Bewilderbeast is brilliant album, just bursting with memorable tracks and beautiful melodies. Anthology wil probably take more time to work its charms on me. I love the two singles AAF have had out so far, Smooth Criminal and Movies, bot of which feature some amazing drumming by Mike Cosgrove, but the rest of the CD hasn’t jumped up and grabbed me by the throat just yet.
And then on Monday I also picked up Alanis Morissette’s new album, Under Rug Swept. The single Hands Clean is fantastic. It is one of the best tracks on the album, but there is plenty of other excellent material there. There are only two tracks that seem duff right now: That Particular Time and Utopia, both of which are slow numbers. The up-tempo tracks are all either immediately memorable, or are “growers”. Pretty good stuff!