The Offspring Then and Now

The Offspring have had a nearly twenty five year career but over time they have changed quite a bit. The Subject of this THEN and NOW blog is mainly Smash and Rise and Fall Rage and Grace.

Lyrics

THEN: Old Offspring lyrics are very topical they are what they are you don't have to read much into them.

NOW: The Offspring have taken a more conceptual take on their lyrics its gone from being straight forward to being well hidden Rise and Fall getting a majority of the argument due to it having a sound similar to American Idiot and talking about sell outs.

Music

THEN: The Offspring were simplistic punk with a few riffs that's really all to say.

NOW: They have gotten harder as they have gotten older they went from 90s new wave punk to pop-metal.

The Look

THEN: Dexter had long hair noodles wears backwards baseball cap.

NOW: Dexter has short hair noodles wears a backwards baseball cap.

In summary The Offspring has changed quite a bit and I personally don't like the change I think Smash and Americana rock and that RFRG is not nearly as good they have lost their angst and their new style of "light" metal doesnt have the same raw sound of their past.

21st Century Breakdown First Listen

This is my first kind of blog like this I hope you enjoy me observations

1. Song of the Century is a great opening song eerie and wax sounding

2. 21st century breakdown has a Warning sound with a lot of early 90s influence that breaks down into late 70s early 80s power ballad sound

3.Know your Enemy is similar to St Jimmy with the hard hitting beat and the guitar Riffs

4. Viva La Gloria! Is a love song it starts as very pop sounding and moves into an Extraordinary Girlsesqe pop rock style.

5. Before The Lobotomy The American Idiot Album meets the 90s Ska Style of Vocals and Guitar another 70s or 80s rock ballad part at the end

6. Christians Inferno Henry Rollins, Bad Religion, and new Backstreet Boys if that even makes sense but it’s a good song

7. Last Night On Earth Beautiful love song that doesn’t get ruined by making it punk rock, This makes me cry and no I’m not gay its just a touching emotional song that feels attached to some real emotions. This song will be played at every prom from now on learn to slow dance people.

8. East Jesus Nowhere we go from lovey dovey to a hard, rough, dark U2ish song

9. Peacemaker a sublime style song with that is like a track from Warning called Misery.

10. The Last American Girls I don’t know how to Describe this one it is sorta a mix Between Bowling For Soup and one of Green Days first hits Redundant.

11.Murder City it’s another early 90s punk song style very much like Sublime Bad Religion or The Offspring (Pre 2001 not their new reinvention…This is for another blog)

12. Another Misery style song like Peacemaker

13. Restless Heart Syndrome This reminds me of One is the Loneliest Number I have no clue why it’s a very calm but dreary song.

14. Horseshoes and Handgrenades Kid rock meets 1970s British punk maybe a little Violent Fems like

15. The Static Age reminds me of Church on Sunday not lyrically but melodically lyricly it reminds me of Macys Day Parade.(This album is A LOT like Warning but it’s a little bit heavier)

16. 21 Guns An Adult contemporary song about depression and guess what how they don’t like the war ZOMG. Its very Weezer like. There is also a Power Ballad type thing in the middle. BUT VERY WEEZER sounding.

17. American Eulogy Kinda Homecoming or Jesus of Suburbia style Except its 2 songs in one not like 5 or 6 in one. The second half being my favorite part that reminds me of Minority (My Favorite song from warning)

18. See The Light the last song on the album it ends the album with a bang of some pretty cool but not complicated solos reminiscent of The Who with semi-religious semi-rebellious lyrics.

Altogether I have to Say this is better then Warning, Nimrod, and American Idiot combined I am going to buy this album on may 15th but until then go to Rhapsody and listen there. I give this album a HONEST 98%, If they didnt add the few political lyrics in it would be a 100%

A Movie Review of Watchmen

After my review of the graphic novel you knew this was coming.

The first area I want to talk about is the cast. The main cast is Billy Crudup (DR. Manhattan) Patrick Wilson (Nite Owl) Malin Akerman (Silk Specter) Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach) and Matthew Goode (Ozymandias). I have a few problems with the cast such as THE FACT THAT Malin Akerman CANNOT ACT, Jackie Earle Haley's voice can be a bit to crackly, and Matthew Goode's inability to show emotion when needed.

Another point I want to touch on is the cinematography. While this movie is literally dark you can make stuff out usually and its not depressingly dark. The green screen works with the actors while never seems out of place. The best piece of film comes from the intro where it combines slow motion shooting with exposition in the background and foregrounds of the environments.

The script has flaws a perfections. The positive's are how true it stays to the graphic novel, The great dialog(sometimes misdelivered by Malin), and the character development. There are really only two negatives I can think of the lack of moral ambiguity and the love scenes that were just there to say WE ARE R-RATED SCREW YOU BATMAN.

-----------------Spoilers IF you haven't read the comic book or dont want to know the changed ending-----------------------------

[spoiler] The ending is better in the movie then it is in the GN. The ending is changed to make people think that Dr. Manhattan is the worlds new enemy thus the world unites way better then the RETARDED OCTOPUS in new york i mean wouldn't Russia just think we were faking if the Octopus was only in New York. I think the world would be morelikely to unite if they thought Dr. Manhattan was watchingf them like an overlord. [/spoiler]

-----------SPOILER ENDS HERE--------------------

Altogether I have to say this is a GREAT Superhero movie better then the overated Dark Night dont take your kids unless they like blood and blue penises but besides that altogether I recommend this movie to everyone except kids under 11 (sorry no blue penis for you). I give this movie a 96%

The So Called Music Experts

The experts as they like to be called are the people who usually cannot objectively look at a band and for the most part cannot make a good review, point, or opinion. We all know at least one of these people the ones that say Metallica was never metal, the band you like sucks, and all indie band are the best. These people like to say outrageous stuff that other critics say such as American Idiot was a bad album without any rhyme or reason. What I say is F**k'em they dont know jack about anything. There opinions come from what others say not fro closing their mouths opening their ears and truely listening to the music.

Batman Cacophony Comic Book Mini-Series Review

Batman Cacophony is a three part mini series written by famed director and comic book writer Kevin Smith and penciled by Walt Flanagan.

I will start off where I started my Watchmen review with the story summary. When none meta-human hero hunter Onomatopoeia breaks The Joker out of jail Batman has to chase him them down. Batman Cacophony supposedly takes place in the Bold and the Brave universe but very few references are made to those comics. What this book does reference (and in bulk) is the rest of Batman's cannon. When none meta-human hero hunter Onomatopoeia breaks The Joker out of jail Batman has to chase him them down. One of the more disturbing plot elements is when The joker talks about killing batman and preforming necrophilic acts upon that dead body. Altogether the story is great and does a great job at balancing dark with a little bit of funny.

The illustration is good in parts but the cover art is my favorite. This comic book had three people working on the illustration Walt Flanagan (pencil) Sandra Hope (inker) and Guy Major (colorist). With three different artists working on it you can tell there are areas where there are a few flaws, the most annoying of which comes in issues 1 where there a is a strong epidemic of Youngbloods Disease (LINKARA REFERENCE ALERT) where eyes are either not there or missing. I don't know who to blame for these problems but with theses being minor its not a big deal. The important part to focus on is the sure awesomeness of some of the full page spreads and bigger frames. I would hate to say it but the art work in spots is better then that of Watchmen.

Writer Kevin Smith does an excellent job of keeping you interested in the story. He brings Onomatopoeia over from the Green Arrow issues he worked on to create a great villain that I hope to see in more comics more often. Smith does write a lot making the story wordy more like one of his films then a comic book, but still very enjoyable. No Grammatic errors make this book very easy to read but make you wonder "Why does The Joker say poo and not shit". Looking past that I say that I want Kevin Smith to write more books and I do hope his does.

In a full look back I truly have to say that Cacophony may not become one of the greatest comic books ever, but it is a good book worth reading for comic book readers a Kevin Smith fans alike. I give Batman a 90% and a pony.

Review of The Watchmen graphic novel.

Before I can give an appropriate review of the Watchmen graphic novel I must first tell you how I discovered it.

It was about November 2008 when I heard about Watchmen for the very first time, It was on G4 (I know I watch G4 still but I wished I lived in Canadian so I could watch G4 Tech TV) Attack of the Show was exclaiming and raving over this as if it was a master piece of art and fiction and how they were anticipating the theatrical release based upon said graphic novel. another two months passed and I was sitting down watching one of my nightly shows when I watched the first real trailer for Watchmen. Needless to say I was amazed by it. One more month passed and I decided I could no longer wait to see the movie but no pirated or otherwise versions were out there so I read the graphic novel even though I am not a comic book fan. This takes us to know I can now start my review of the Watchmen graphic novel.

1986's Watchmen focuses on the idea of what if superheroes were real? What Events would be changed in world history? Where would we be? It answers these questions in this epic 411 page graphic novel full of dark, gritty, and sometimes disturbing moments.

The story follows the exploits of former "Masked Adventurers" (some still active) as they try to stop World War 3. This book rivals Tom Clancy's stories of conspiracy while maintaining a a love story the likes of which no soap opera or teen drama could even come close to.

This finally wrapped package of drama, action, fear, life, and a million and one other things combined is aided by the use of in universe news articles, scrap books, books, and documents teaching you about how the world got where it was. One of my favorite quotes from the novel is from the fake book Dr. Manhattan Super-Powers and Superpowers; I never said, "The superman exists, and he's American." What I said was,"God exists, and he's American."

On the subject of this book looking like fine art I cant agree more. Artist Dave Gibbons manages to make a dark world that isn't to dark and dreary to be off putting. The character design is probably the best I have seen in a long time. If you look in the backgrounds you can truly see the amazement about how much you can learn of the universe of watchmen just by looking around. My favorite drawing in the book is Archie Nite owls aircraft/submarine/awesome mobile. One last thing to comment on in the art direction taken are the panels from Tales of the Black Freighter just excellent is all I can say.

The next person to talk about is Alan Moore famed writer of Watchmen. Moore is single handedly responsible for creating the dark age (named that way for two reasons) with Watchmen and ending it via Youngblood Judgment Day, Leading way for the modern age of comics. With watchmen Moore created a story so excellent and well rounded it launched most of today's newer comic book writers. My opinion is that the story is amazing the only issues I have is that at some points near the end you don't get enough development near the end as if he was rushed. Some minor grammatical slips happen in a few issues but nothing to bad. I loved when Dr. Manhattan is on Mars and he tells is story it sounds so...haunting so...dark so...amazing.

I am overwhelmed by how good this Graphic Novel is. I recommend you buy it now hell I recommend you buy 10 copies and give the other 9 to your friends and family its worth a read if you are a comic book fan or just a fan of good literature altogether. I give Watchmen a 97%

2009 and 2010 could possibly be the best years in music since the 80s

In the upcoming years you have many bands and artists releasing there latest projects all at the same time. Just a small list of these artists would include: Green day,Blink 182,Eminem,U2,Bowling For Soup,Good Charlotte,Micheal Jackson,Goo Goo Dolls,ZZ Top,Black Eyed Peas, P Diddy or Diddy or W/E he goes by now,and MANY MANY MORE.The reformation of bands and artists going back to work is all converging at the same time something we haven't seen since the Regan era. But what do the Regan Era and now have in common A financial deficit the likes of which we have never seen, a president people like after a president people hated, and a need to hear and feel something that isn't in the now. All of these may be theory's but the biggest thing to keep in mind is the fact that in these hard times people need symbols and musicians are excess something America hell even the World cherishes as a major value and there is nothing more excess then rockstars and rappers. If you look back at 2008 can you really name more then 3 major albums that came out...now think about 2007 and 2006 hardly any good music came out in those three years. Metallica and Guns and Roses were the only releases anyone cared about. We should enjoy this time of musical expression and bliss because it could be the last time we see it for 20 years maybe longer. With this odd combination of musical releases in our head lights it might be just what we need to boost the economy right now. Pure consumerism and capitalism the building blocks of what we need as a world now. All I know is that I have expressed my thoughts thoroughly and hope you can see things my way and remember "Arguing on the Internet is like competing in the Special Olympics.
You might win, but you're still retarded."