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Reviews (7)
12 Sep, 2008
He's NOT Elton John! He just borrowed the hair, clothes
Ben Folds Five for this album were THREE (well, it worked for the Thompson Twins, after all). This album was the upturn in Folds' career and established his as a solid storyteller as well as a swinging Eltonesque piano player without any funny suits. Okay, he seems to like big square glasses and loungewear and now he's a tad bald like Elton but he's still not on the same plane.
The title of the album comes from The Battle Of Who Could Care Less and features many varied and delicate tales of life meets the dump somewhere. there's One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces (getting beaten up all the time), Steve's Last Night In Town (an angry breakup), Song For The Dumped (his breakup this time) and then there is the OPUS...Brick (finding out the girlfriend is dying and feeling even more separated than before).
Ben Folds is above all a JAZZ musician--the LANGUAGE strays a word or two every few songs. It isn't filthy but it isn't Christian Rock. Ben has been on Austin City Limits as well as several talk shows more than once and is an ARTIST, truly enjoyable and probably something to impress the ladies. The dude is muy sensitive.
Even if you never catch the meanings of the songs, you will find yourself listening over and over as it just make you relax and smile.
This was an album I had never owned before. I would recommend others based on his performances on TV. I highly enjoy Ben Folds.
07 Mar, 2008
Kraftwerk-Oddfathers of Dance Music in Peak Form
This is the ultimate, if not ONLY live package of music by the legendary German band and it's immaculate in form and function, as you would expect. It's a 2 DVD set in a trifold carrier placed in a sleeve, which is German and minimalist as you'd also expect yet I have to say it's not very resistant to greasy hands, being paper based so you'll want to have cleaner hands for more than handling the discs. I have not had the chance to hear the stereo mix OR the 5.1 Dolby setup as I used an old 1980 19" Trinitron and the quad is not hooked up at the moment but both the audio and video are fine for the vintage set I use. You might have a better picture on a DTV but I can't say and I didn't note any defects I could recognize during playback, just the odd format EMI chose so that it started first THEN presented a menu at the end. My Pioneet DV-C603 does not have a MENU button on the face nor chapter skip FOR THIS FEATURE. Leave that to German sensability I guess.
Kraftwerk does not perform with any conventional instruments nor have they in nearly 30 years, thus early compositions such as 1970's Runkzunk (which you may know as the 'theme' to Newton's Apple, although the producer of that show didn't appear to have asked originally) and the innovative aluminum drum pad kit that was years ahead of it's time has been retired as the performance is controlled by the four members' podiums/keyboards/sequncers.
Really, 61 year old men don't HAVE to run and jump and posture to be awe-inspiring! The graphics, the glow in the dark grid suits and the performances themselves are the star of this show. No exhorting the crowd with "HELLO GERMANY" and no massive jams with cartwheeling guitar strumming. You will not yearn for any of it. Kraftwerk is complete and lives up to the name and legacy of Ralf and Florian. They haven't always toured, choosing to do more early in the decade and they will only have a small itinerary in the US this year as I understand (one such date will be this spring in Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California in late April 2008 so if you cannot--I can't : ( --get to a concert I would urge you to find a copy of this concert. There are many clips on You Tube currently but you deserve your own record of the band that made the late 20th century what it is...
Kraftwerk helped invent the forms that became Techno, House and other Electronica styles from the beginning in the predecessor band Organization and with people like Conny Plank and members of Can and Neu! Ralf is proud of that contribution it is said and it can be said that the music and culture of the 1980's would not exist as they did if not for Kraftwerk.
This is a landmark and with the release date of "The Catalogue" still in limbo one of few official video releases available currently.
Worth every penny.
26 Dec, 2015
A really nice changer indeed!
3 of 3 found this helpful First of all, YES, it's nearly 18 years old (c.1997-8, the Pioneer logo changed before 1999). Mine is still going strong though. the mechanism is a jukebox style turntable with vertical disc insertion (label side to the left) and a pick arm that load's it on a vertical drive. The slowest part is really, by design, the turntable mechanism, but it was that way for most every brand with this type of large capacity storage. It does have 25 and 50 disc sisters in the lineup and the basic player is offered in differing cosmetic forms over several years as it's a good mechanism...if a little underisolated from vibrations (like your speakers)...mine is on a shelf 5 1/2 feet off the ground and performs well there. The remote control is a feature packed one but you only tend to need the basic controls and the nice thing is that several Pioneer remotes for multi-disc players can operate it fairly well or you can program a universal unit for it.
It's not reliant on a remote at all, however...all functions are covered on the face.
While it is true that, by design, the loading and acquisition of the disc information and playback startup seem fairly slow to those who are perhaps used to hard drive and solid state memory devices, the search functions are NOT. Hold down the scan button to advance within the track or disc advance - and + and it will take off rapidly, in fact rolling through the entire 100 + 1 positions in mere seconds. Furthermore, the programming features (other than random track playback, which takes several seconds to complete, disc then track) are also rather fast enough. You can program selected tracks in any order, random order on one disc, random disc and track (you must hit play to stop the random picks on one song/CD), in fact there are several ways to choose from as to how you want to play your music. It is quite versatile in that respect. There are no doubt more options than you'll ever think of using.
Loading and unloading are very simple. Advance the turntable until you reach the slot number you need comes directly in from. There are two buttons that both stop the playback, one to open t door and one that returns the disc in play to the loading position. Use the disc advance controls to rotate the turntable for loading and unloading. Unlike slot loading changers, the wide aperture of the door allows you to load or remove more than a dozen discs at a time, quickly and easily. Again, the loading involves inserting the CDs with the label side to the left. Close the door and the turntable moves to place the number you just advanced to the loading position.
Sound quality: A lot of people will suggest that you get a CD drive unit and a D/A converter as components to build a really good CD player...this is not necessarily needed with this Pioneer. The 1-BIT DLC (a quality linear converter of the kind that were fairly well-developed before the mid 90s) yields excellent sound all around with clarity and the definition you really want. The output options are simple: RCA jacks for stereo analog and an optical digital out port.
Like I said earlier, you might want to keep it isolated from sound vibration and shockwaves from heavy footsteps like many older players, but it tends to recover and return to normal play quite well. Disc read errors are much the same as for any other player and are determined mostly by the surface quality of the read surface, CD-Rs play fine barring poor quality discs, I've never had an RW disc to try in one and no CD + text, MP3/other format playback or other more modern features are supported by the PD-F907. It does play CDs nicely and the 100 + 1 capacity is certainly large enough for many. Keep in mind that there is no bus controller setup for this model so it wouldn't lend itself to music automation very well without internal surgery.
Working, they usually are a great value for the price.