Can’t anyone write a good song anymore? I’ll get to that shortly.
I downloaded Windows Media Player 10 a short time ago. I think it is fantastic. I eliminated both PowerDVD and MusicMatch Jukebox from my computer. That makes two fewer applications I have to have installed because Windows Media Player now incorporates a DVD decoder and a solid, easy, and not-fufu-looking ripping component that will rip to MP3 at astonishing speed. So far so good.
It also comes with the option of hooking to several of the new Internet music pay-per-download sites. Also cool. I took the liberty of registering with Wal*Mart’s offering and, using my trusty Capitol One VISA, previewed both Jason Boland’s and Pat Green’s new singles. They both suck. I’m used to suckiness from Pat Green ever since his last shipwreck of an album to which, by the way, I can’t help thinking he alludes subconciously in the title track from that album. But Boland? Sure his vocals at live shows aren’t on par with, say, Bob Dylan, but the fact that one of the best songwriters to come from the red dirt movement has anything to do with the lackluster lyrics and pop-country, Down-on-the-Farm-ripoff music of “Somewhere in the Middle” is disheartening. I’m merely hoping that the rest of the tracks off the CD fare better than the title track.
