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Top 10 songs listened during April, 2009.#10. Nine Inch Nails - The Perfect Drug
#09. Utah Saints - Something Good (eSQUIRE remix)
#08. Ноггано - Дурка
#07. Anathema - Restless Oblivion
#06. A. R. Rahman - Ringa Ringa
#05. Shocking Blue - Beggin'
#04. Modjo - Chillin'
#03. Mr. Mister - Broken Wings
#02. Avril Lavigne - How Does It Feel?
#01. Hall & Oates - Out of Touch

Top 10 albums listened during April, 2009.#10


Anathema
The Silent Enigma
(LP, 1995)

The last doom metal album by Anathema seems to be the best of their heavier releases, because such a wonderful mixture of romance and metal is difficult to find: bands usually get either too mellow for metal or too harsh for romance. Restless Oblivion and A Dying Wish are undoubtedly the most shiny stars, though it feels like the album doesn't contain a single bad track. A masterpiece.

#9


A. R. Rahman
Slumdog Millionaire
(Movie Soundtrack, 2008)

Beside stunning camera work and acting, the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" has another serious virtue: it is the soundtrack. Most of the songs sound less appealing without action on the screen, but O... Saya, Ringa Ringa and Jai Ho are precisely wonderful hits which comprise indian folk music and modern electronic rhythms.

#8


Yeong-wook Jo
Oldboy
(Movie Soundtrack, 2003)

It's hard to differentiate what's specific about this soundtrack. Perhaps, for those who didn't see the film it would be of no interest, but when I listen to it again and again, I recollect particular scenes from "Oldboy". Some Asian movies are just killing.

#7


Ea
Ea Taesse
(LP, 2006)

The mystery enveloping Ea is as absorbing as their extremely qualitative funeral doom metal. Shape of Despair comes to mind at once, especially because Ea have the same high-level production - the sound is somewhat wonderful here. However, Ea are slower and more sinister, and, perhaps, it was pointless to divide the album into three tracks, because all these sound like one long song.

#6


Sepultura
Nation
(LP, 2001)

Of course, I do agree that after Max's departure Sepultura mutated into something disgracefully different, but I think that Nation stands out of the line of the-next-one-is-worse-than-the-previous-one albums. It has nothing to do with earlier Sepultura, and presumably should be critiсized as something separate. To my mind, as a separate, non-Sepultura's CD this album is quite interesting and nice. Sepulnation and Who Must die are wonderful groove metal hits, meanwhile short-n-energetic Revolt and Human Cause remind of Sepultura's death metal roots. Derrick Greene doesn't possess a good voice, especially for such a band, but on Nation it garmonizes with the rest of the stuff pretty well.

#5


Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects
Sol Niger Within
(LP, 1997)

If it seemed to you that no thrash metal could be more experimental than Meshuggah, Fredrik Thorndendal's single solo effort proved to you that you were wrong. It's extremely weird, technically complicated and lyrically illogic. Perhaps, one of the brightest examples of the so-called avant-garde metal.

#4


Black Sun Empire
Driving Insane
(LP, 2004)

These guys present a better variant of such a drum and bass trend as darkstep. In simple phrase it's moody, fast, technical and extremely noisy d-n-b. Apart from that, BSE is one of the few drum & bass projects which release full-length albums comparatively regularly and which make their albums interesting to listen to.

#3


Longing For Dawn
Our Symbolic Burial
(LP, 2009)

It was quite clear that LFD have chosen their style and the third album wasn't to be something different. Four songs: same guitars, same keyboards, same tempo, same vocals and same lyrical topics. Such bands don't change, because they are unusual from the start. So what did you expect it to be then?

#2


Burzum
Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
(LP, 1994)

Many idiots accuse Varg of evident primitivism and vocal disability; it especially concerns his ambient works. Well, I'm not an idiot, and I don't confuse primitivism with deliberate minimalism which is the main merit of Burzum's music. Hvis Lyset Tar Oss is obviously Varg's best album, though many fans incline to Filosofem. Well, Filosofem is clearly a piece of art, but it's different in many respects and, above all, it doesn't contain Det som en gang var.

#1


Modjo
Modjo
(LP, 2001)

There is nothing really to tell about Modjo's only self-titled album, because it's neither special nor outstanding. It just contains a dozen of gorgeous dance hits, and when it feels like listening to something totally different, but still decent, Modjo is just the right CD.

I found this statement some days ago on this blog: Mainstream Isn't So Bad...Is It? and it is a wise device as I think. "A guilty pleasure is known as a something one considers pleasurable despite it being mainly received negatively or looked down on by a majority of society." A guilty pleasure is something you like, but you hide this affection, worrying about being uncool in the eyes of your environment. I looked at the guilty pleasure tag on Last.fm and found 87 of the top 100 songs in my iTunes. That makes me to the most uncool person here, doesn't it? Our friends, acquaintances, community, social life, whatsoever defines what a guilty pleasure is. Without doubt, everyone has some favorite songs that he/she listens, feeling inadequate, defining this to be a guilty pleasure makes it a bit more acceptable, doesn't it?

What are my (musical) guilty pleasures? I my youth it was listening to Bridge over troubled water by Simon & Garfunkel, because it wasn't psychedelic enough. Later, in the folk scene, it were the songs of The Dubliners, outlawed for being too commercial. Times changed, friends too and I concealed my addiction the disco sound of ABBA's Super Trouper because this wasn't as seriously as listening to blues and rock. Funnily enough, it was quite uncool to listen to Er gehört zu mir by Marianne Rosenberg as the song climbed up to the #7 of the charts in 1975, but during the 90s it became essential to join in the chorus whenever it was played. In 1996 I declared my addiction to Blümchen's Herz an Herz to be a guilty pleasure.