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Cool Album Covers Still Exist

Over at Funk's House Of Geekery (have I mentioned I love that website?) someone commented that in our digital age, the art of cool album covers might be dying.

He's right, in a sense.  Most "artists" don't put much effort into album covers anymore.  People can go to Amazon.com and download individual songs and pay no mind whatsoever to what that band put on the cover.  There's no need to make an eye-catching cover so that it pops out at you among the racks at the record store...

But he's also wrong.  It is a dying art, but there are bands out there that still take it seriously, thankfully.

Here's a few of my favorite album covers at the moment from some of the more creative bands out there.  Some of these bands have disbanded (hehehe) but most are still creating some amazing music...represented by some amazing artwork.

AMD Video Drivers Windows Automatic Update

This tip isn't exactly rocket surgery, but it's still something that I've really learned to love.

AMD has a program that automatically checks your video card drivers against the latest driver release and notifies you if there's an available update.

AMD Driver Autodetect makes updating your video drivers seamless and even easier than it's ever been.

You can simply download it and run it whenever you want, but I'm all about saving mouse-clicks and shortcuts.  I have the file stored in my "C:\Program Files (x86)\" directory.  Then I created a shortcut to it and placed that shortcut in my Quick Launch directory.

By the way, if you're new to Windows 7 and you're wondering where that Quick Launch directory disappeared to, you can find it buried in:

C:\Users\Your User Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

So, right click your taskbar, go to "Toolbars" and where it used to be in Windows XP you now need to select "New Toolbar".  Once you select that, navigate to the above path.  Then you'll have your  Quick Launch bar into which you should then place the shortcut to the AMD application.

My Windows 7, 64-bit Ferrari 599 GTO 

I simply click it once a week and I'm always up to date, driverwise. I like that word. Driverwise.

Download the file here.

Top Ten Worst Album Covers of 2011, 2012

11.22.12 Update: Go over to the terminally cool http://houseofgeekery.com/ and check out their "Coolest Covers from my Vinyl Collection" post. Combined, these two posts make beautiful music together. HA! Did you see that?

I'll probably catch some grief over this, because some of these are great bands.  Some are bands I listen to on a regular basis.  Some are bands who's covers I noticed while looking through AllMusic or Last.fm.

But here they are, nonetheless, the top ten worst album covers thus far.  All of these albums are music I listen to with the exception of two.  So for the most part, it's no knock on them...it's a knock on their album artwork.

10.
Rush is one of my all time favorite bands.  In high school, us geeks listened to them. Neil Peart is, was and will forever be my favorite drummer. They are innovators, far ahead of their time. Their music holds up against the test of time - Permanent Waves will forever be a prog masterpiece.

Their album covers have always been so freaking cool.

Perhaps in reflection of their music, even their singles and interiors have had amazingly stunning, innovative, thoughtful incredible artwork.  Yes, I had to be extra wordy to pack in all the awesomeness.  To quote Jack Black, "Rush is just one of those bands that has a deep reservoir of rocket sauce". He ain't wrong.

I remember my friends and I would go get their newest album and examine all the little hidden things they would pack into the covers.  Then listen to their music and hear all the cool puns and metaphors referenced on the front cover.  That's what album covers were, and are, supposed to be all about.

And they've got plenty of albums...they are one of the greatest bands of all time. I'm even taking into account they're Canadian.

Then they gave us their newest album, which is none of that other, you know, good stuff.

Entitled "Clockwork Angels" so...yep, there's some clouds, but they're red...so what kind of heaven or angels are we talking about? Wow, that's mystical.  Yep, there's a clock as well.  But this is no ordinary clock. This is a clock with strange beveled and embossed symbols...what does time represent? Oh my God! What time is it? Obviously it's almost quarter after pitchfork.  What will happen when it's quarter past pitchfork?

We will never know.

Rush - Clockwork Angels

9.

Here's Haste The Day's newest album cover for their greatest hits.  I'm guessing they had to put together some kind of greatest hits album to satisfy their label...or they simply found themselves in a slump.  I'm gonna go with the latter because if this cover is any indication they weren't feeling very creative.

So they have the Photoshop grunged out background behind some bird crest type thing.  Unable to think of anything that'll make people think...they just relied on the "mysteries" surrounding the US dollar bill.

"Here...throw some stuff in it's claws.  But make sure they aren't the same things that are on the dollar...we have to make them think about it...and stuff".

I honestly can't see this album cover because it's so boring.  It doesn't make me think.  It makes me want to go to sleep.

Haste The Day - Best Of The Best

8.
Scale The Summit is an absolutely incredible instrumental band.  Their music is incredible.  That's twice I said incredible.  And that's because they're incredible.

They are at the forefront of Progressive Metal and one of the best bands delivering a fresh, soaring sound that I can't really characterize other than the standard terms used to describe Prog Metal: technical, guitar-oriented, augmented with innovative compositions and extremely complex arrangements.  You just have to listen to them.

 Maybe that's what they wanted to get across in this album cover: complexity. But I don't mean to sound arrogant when I say that Prog Metal fans are smarter than that.  As are most people that have used Photoshop to make their Deviant Art wallpapers.

Can you tell me what this means?  Other than the fact that their band name is lost in the cliche spiral thing behind it.

I usually like oranges and browns when making an abstract piece...but these boring browns and oranges.

It's just...well...pointless.

Scale The Summit - The Collective

7.
Now we're starting to get to the good stuff. LOL SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!?

This is a band called Django Django and the cover to their album called...wait for it....Django Django. Mind=blown.

I have to try real hard to describe this one because this is pretty bad.  No...this is really bad.  Who made this?  Honestly, it looks like a freshman from an online agricultural community college had to take a graphics design course and, since he had a stolen copy of Photoshop at home he figured he'd be OK.  So while Django Django was on tour in this kid's town, they saw it hanging in one of the local coffee shops and said, "That is our album cover! It's GORGEOUS!"

Desert? Check.  Obscure shape? Check. Plausible deniability when asked what they hell it represents? Check.  "We leave it up to the viewer man...this is art".

No. Django Django.  This is shit.

Django Django - Django Django

6.
YES!  I'm in 1988 and I just beat Legend Of Zelda and found the Seal of The 15 Sun Diamonds!

Your Demise The Golden Age

5.
The Beastie Boys have been resting on their Ill Communication laurels for about 75 years now.  Their newest album, which is crap, is represented by crap on the cover.  Such a shame, too because Licensed To Ill is one of the best all time covers.

Ill Communication is a great album...but everyone needs to admit that, when listening to it in private, you skip over the instrumental songs...because they ARE ALL THE SAME!

"Dude, screw it...just put some 8 bit colors together in some shape.  We say it's art, that means we don't have to explain anything.  I mean, the album sucks anyway...so what does it matter?"

You are correct Beastie Boys.  Your Hot Sauce Committee Part Two sucks and so does its album cover.

Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

4.
I don't really know what to say about this.  As you can plainly see, there's an ethos in the music industry to just put a bunch of crap together and call it an album cover.  Album covers used to mean something man!  They used to relate, in some way, to the album's general feel or story.

Now, they are this:

"Hey, we're a death metal band.  So, like, put something dead on the cover".

What is the bird carcass breathing?  Death Breath?  Take note that the valley in which this undead bird is operating is very much vibrant and alive.  So what is it doing?  Spreading more death across the very alive valley in which it's sprung back to it's undead state?  I mean, there's working power lines. Beautiful evergreens covered with a pristine dusting of fresh, clean snow.  Granted, the sun is blacked out by something...but it the undead bird's breath is strong enough to kill the actual sun.  If so, why didn't it affect the snow and trees?  Is the undead breathing bird trying to spread its death onto those trees?  If so, it's failing.  Perhaps that's why some other birds are making their way onto the scene.  They see that their leader has picked a failure.

And if you're going to spread undead bird death to a nearby community (I'm making the assumption of a nearby community because of the power-lines) wouldn't you first cut off their communications before calling in your other undead birds and killing the sun?

None of this makes sense. And it's ugly.

Katatonia - Dead End Kings

3.
War is bad....mmmmkay?

The three makings of a bad cover:

Free downloadable font? Check.
Simple Photoshop drop shadow? Check
Bevel and Emboss? Check.

Lamb Of God - Resolution

2. 
This is art.
Pure art in the sense that, as I've mentioned they (whoever the hell Simone White is) have plausible deniability.

"Just put a bunch of shit on the cover, especially a naked woman because that's never been done before.  Hide her face because nudity is really, really taboo here in the 1400s.  Also, put...uhm...put a big slice of cake on the beach. No, a Mexican. Yeah.  Also, I heard back in art school that there should be three things in an image because it, like...does something to the viewer's eye or something.  So, in front of the cake, I mean Mexican, put a girl laying down.  We don't have to explain what it means. This is art".

If this album is any indication of whatever shit they put on this record as music I would rather get my leg caught in a bear trap and be required to saw it off with my cell phone then listen to this...I don't care if they're the second coming of Pink Fucking Floyd.

I'm not listening to this.

This band can go straight to hell.

Simone White

1.
This...this...this asshole is apparently named Ilyas Ahmed and his stupid record is called With Endless Fire.

Holy shit how original!  With Endless Fire!  See how it's coming out of his head!?  He has an endless amount of "fire" coming out of his head.

I believe, truly, that he commissioned a blind child to make this album cover.  Ever see those puzzles that you have to put together to make a square or a bird or a boat?  This asshole gave some poor blind child a bunch of pictures and said, "Just spread them around. You stupid blind child...I have art to make".

Happy with the results they slapped it into pressing and recorded an album with this as it's representation.

This album cover fills me with rage.

Asshole.

Ilyas Asshole - With Endless Asshole

Honorable Mention:
Jack White is really, really emotional and filed with money...I mean pain.

This album cover proves it.  His sister/bed-partner has left him.  His only friend is a big buzzard.

Look how downtrodden he is.  No one will hang out with him other than buzzards. He hangs out near transformer clusters because...well, just because.

Plus, having a buzzard as your wingman (see what I did there) makes you even more emotional.

He can't escape it...it's circular, this emotional turmoil of his.

Jack White and whatever shit he made now.

How To Convert Digital Copies For Android Devices

I usually review a cool product out there every now and then.  But I've found one of the best software solutions out there.  We live in the Times Of Handheld Devices.

How many BD movies have you purchased that come with Digi-copies you simply can't watch on your Android device because everything in the world revolves around iTunes?  Probably a lot of times.  The Android community has long been frustrated by the lack of options available to us due to many reasons too long to list here, but what I believe to be the most egregious is the Digital Copy problem.

From TechCrunch: (emphasis mine)

According to new figures released from analyst firm IDC, Android shipments reached 136 million units in Q3 2012, which accounts for 75% of the 181.1 million shipments during the quarter. Or, as IDC puts it, “the Android operating system was found on three out of every four smartphones shipped during the third quarter of 2012.

That's a lot of people that can't watch their movies on their Android devices.

Adding to the frustration is the amount of information out there that, really, tells us nothing. Believe me, I've tried nearly everything people out there have suggested and, frankly, none of it works.  Until now.

Rejoice, Android users, rejoice.  For there's finally being a solution that does what it says it's supposed to do.

Android users, meet Pavtube and their product: ChewTune.

From their overview: (emphasis mine)

...this converter software is able to convert iTunes video and audio files like .mp4, .wmv, .m4v, .asf, .mov, .wma, .mp3, .m4a, etc. to many other commonly used A/V formats, which makes it possible for you to freely enjoy the converted files on almost all multimedia devices, such as iPad, the New iPad3, Apple TV 3rd Gen, Motorola Xoom, HP TouchPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Nook Color Tablet, WD TV, PlayBook, Samsung Infuse 4G, Lenovo IdeaPad K1, Acer Iconia Tab A200, Vizio Tablet, PSP, PS VIta, Droid X, Samsung Epic 4G, and more, so your iTunes Store movies and music are not restricted to iPad, iPod and iPhones any longer.

Pavtube has many, many different solutions...and if their sound and robust ChewTune is any indication of the quality of the rest of their products, these folks are on the right track:

So, let's get to it. You bought your Thor BD and you transferred that Digicopy to your computer.

Open up ChewTune and import your Digicopy by clicking on the "Add Video" button that I've circled in the picture below:

ChewTune's GUI

As you can see I've got my Thor Digicopy loaded into ChewTune and it's ready to go.  Choose your Output directory down at the bottom there that I've highlighted as well.

Press the big circular "Start Conversion" button to the right and let it do its magic.

It truly is as simple as that.  Go ahead and transfer your newly converted movie onto your Android device and enjoy...as you should have been able anyway.  No loss in quality, audio is fantastic.

However, Here's where ChewTune truly makes its mark and sticks out from the muddled mess of conversion software out there: flexibility and options.

Above "Output" and to the right of "Format" press "Settings".  Think you're stuck to only one format?  Think again:

Dozens upon dozens of formats at your disposal. PavTube has pulled no punches. This is a complete solution at its best.

That's what people want and that's what people need.

In my opinion and, frankly, in the opinion of every Android user I know...this is a solution that is welcomed.  As the statistics I stated clearly show, Android is the platform the majority of people are using...and those people have been rightly frustrated with this perceived snub.

Now, go ahead and purchase ChewTune and get the most from your movie purchase that you deserve.

Thank you PavTube.

Bands You Need To Be Listening To If You Aren't Already

I'll start all this out by stating the obvious: The music industry in America is a joke.  Talent means nothing. It's the American Idol generation and whatever looks good on TV is what's marketed.  Not to mention forgotten a year afterwards.

Back in the 60s and 70s you had better be good, you had better be able to put on a live show and kick ass. From The Grateful Dead to The Allman Brothers to Hendrix to Vaughn to Black Sabbath to The Who to Zeppelin etc etc. The list just goes on and on. These bands were all innovators and actually, you know, played instruments.

I'm always amazed when I see a "band" performing on some television show and you don't see any equipment. None of their instruments are plugged in yet you hear music. Doesn't the music consuming public notice this? Or is the better question do they care?

Today, people are told who's good and to whom they should be listening and whose albums to buy.  Back in the day, if you sucked you didn't make it.  Talent just doesn't mean anything anymore. Today it's all what all about looking the part.

So let's get started, shall we? This list is in no particular order at all.

Animals As Leaders
Yes.

Yes that man, the self taught Tosin Abasi, is playing an 8 string guitar.  A custom, headless Strandberg 8-string.

He and his band are playing music so densly polyrhythmic and technical it should be illegal.  These guys are so enormously talented it makes me sick.



The Aristocrats

Paul Gilbert, along with Marco Minnemann, released this incredible jam session called "Spaceship One".  To put it perspective Marco tried out for the vacated position in Dream Theater left by Mike Portnoy's departure.  He was too good. Dream Theater needed someone that sounded more like Portnoy...not someone that had his own style.

Here's just a taste called "Jackhammer". The entire set can be seen on Youtube here.

But this isn't The Aristocrats. After this video will be The Aristocrats.  I just had to share this with ya.



Now, onto The Aristocrats:

Marvel Movies And Their Release Dates

Every geek I know is enjoying the current comic book movie Industrial Revolution.  And it isn't over.

What makes these movies great (except for Spider-Man) is that they're made with the comic fan in mind (except for Zombie Hawkeye in The Avengers).  The Avengers was the perfect blend of that. People that weren't even into comics loved it because it was a good damn movie. And geeks loved it because it packed full of stuff aimed right at us (except for Zombie Hawkeye).

 I left out the Spider-Man franchise and the Fantastic Four franchise because I think those movies are horrible.

With that said, take a look at what we've been able to enjoy over the course of the last few years and the years to come:




 And that's just what's been released, and not even every title!

 Here's what we've got to look forward to:

Iron Man 3 2013
The Wolverine 2013
Thor: The Dark World 2013
Captain America: The Winter Soldier 2014

Yeah, that's ALL good stuff!

Click on something and buy it...I get a little sumpin' sumpin.

Iron Man 3 Trailer

In the ongoing badassery that is comic book driven movies over the last few years, the latest is Iron Man 3.  Hopefully it will deliver in the action department a bit from the slight gab-fest (yet still completely awesome) Iron Man 2 was, but I don't expect this to be anything but awesome.

Here's the trailer and some screen-caps...

Free Kindle Books

Just wanted to give a head's up...there's some really cool Kindle books I downloaded for free today on my Transformer

Some GREAT free kindle books I downloaded today:

"Omaha Beach: D-Day, June 6, 1944" by Joseph Balkoski

"The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2", "Laughing at Obama: Volume I" by Scott Ott

"The Book of Biff #1 Target Practice" by Chris Hallbeck (If you liked The Far Side, you'll like Biff)

"Tigers in the Mud: The Combat Career of German Panzer Commander Otto Carius (Stackpole Military History Series)" by Otto Carius and finally

"Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything" by Frank J. Fleming.

 A bit of humor to gritty Russian tank battles.

Something for the whole fam damily.