Monday, August 15, 2011

Moving Forward, Falling Behind

Tumultuous: Marked by tumult: loud, excited and emotional.

That's pretty much the way I would describe my move back to Massachusetts. Without going into too much detail, it's been four months since I left Denver, and I can still hardly believe it. But between raising Xander, figuring out a routine with two new jobs, trying to get even more additional freelance work, getting the house packed up, moving back in with my parents, dealing with some serious family medical issues, moving out of my parents' house, getting settled in a new apartment and exploring our new surroundings, I somehow fell behind on my music purchases.

Two weeks ago, I was trying to cajole a friend on Instant Messenger into buying tickets to the "Rock The Bells" show in New York that I'm heading out to in a couple of weeks, and he mentioned that he probably wasn't going to that, but that he was working on getting "Watch The Throne" tickets. I stared at the screen blankly, not knowing what "Watch The Throne" was. When he explained what pretty much the entire planet already knew -- Jay-Z and Kanye West made an album together and are going on tour together to perform it. I knew if this had slipped past my radar that I really needed to redouble my efforts on the music front.

I had been saving a couple of Amazon gift cards, and I tore into them a little bit last night. I picked up Adele's "Rolling In The Deep," Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass," the Bad Meets Evil album and "Watch The Throne." I haven't listened to Bad Meets Evil yet at all, and the others have only gotten one listen. I'll be back (hopefully) later with comments on all of them. I also have made a lengthy list of releases that I need to catch up on since the start of the year (I think the only other album I've bought all year was the Raekwon "Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang" disc -- which, while solid, was underwhelming when compared to Only Bulit For Cuban Linx II and when you take into account how much he hyped it on his Twitter account).

I've always told myself that I would never fall out of touch with music, and after getting my first taste of being out of touch I can tell you that I did not care for it one bit -- even if I had valid reasons for falling behind. But now that we've moved forward, fear not selfless reader, I will not fall behind again.