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Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Adult Contemporary
by: Coldplay

June 12, 2008
I've always liked Coldplay and previously bought Parachutes and A rush of blood to the head. However I didn't rush out to the buy this one as I wasn't overly impressed by the single Violet Hill but Viva La Vida does not disappoint. I feel with this album they have grown and evolved, it is creative, full of feeling and depth, gentler than A rush of blood to the head. I love so many tracks especially 42, Reign of Love, Lovers in Japan, and Death and his friends. There is only one track that I skip - Yes. It's the type of album that gives you goosebumps. People assume that Coldplay are dull and pretentious but IMO they are talented and provide something different from the rest. Give it a try and I'm sure you'll grow to love it!

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Forth

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Adult Contemporary
by: The Verve

August 25, 2008
The Verve are back with a very strong album, maybe a classic. To me its one of the best releases this year of music, a year with Coldplay already delivering a defining album.

The core of Forth can be best be described as 21st century shoe gazer, very distant from the sparce production of A Northern Soul and A Storm in Heaven (their first 2 albums) these songs are action packed to say the least. Wind instruments have been cast out for disco beats, drum machines and lots to technical trickery. Just listen to Love is Noise for a hint of a new direction.

This is very much a Verve record, nothing here could be considered a ballad and nothing here has the laid back acoustic vibe of The Drugs Dont Work or Sonnet or the infamous ... Read More:

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Gold

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Adult Contemporary
by: Abba

April 05, 2004
This compilation album needs little introduction as it has sold a zillion copies or something ;), and there is a reason for that. Nobody, not even The Beatles have created a finer collection of pop songs. Pop is often sneered at by some hoity toity music lovers, but there is no need. A finely crafted 3 minute pop tune can be just as meaningful and exquisite as any other piece of music. The tunes Bjorn & Benny created will live on forever, and the girls singing stays in your mind so very easily.

For me this is not their ultimate collection, as I liked more of the bitter-sweet songs they did like Eagle and The Day Before You Came. But that's a personal preference. This compilation contains all the biggest hits, including some of the camp/hi-nrg ... Read More:

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Monkey: Journey to the West

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Adult Contemporary
by: Damon Albarn

August 18, 2008
When I first heard Albarn and Hewlett were doing this project I was looking forward to the end result so when the album was released got it straight away. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't any good, but what I will say is I don't think it works as an album. For me I think it would work better with the visuals, the show. Some nice pieces of music on there, with little interludes inbetween the tracks which in places I wished went on to become songs only to find it fade of into something else! A great Idea though.....now Jamie Hewlett should do nice long animated version, with this as a soundtrack.

Nice Idea, some nice music, doesn't work as an album.

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Lessons To Be Learned

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Adult Contemporary
by: Gabriella Cilmi

March 31, 2008
loving this album,
can't stop listening to it,
she is going be be HUGE!

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ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Adult Contemporary
by: ABBA

June 24, 2002


Nineteen of ABBA's best songs are plenty, but you won't tire of them. It is amazing that four Swedes (Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus as writers and Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog as the main singers) could take such simple English cliches and turn them into pop music magic. Despite sometimes maddeningly simple lyrics, the song arrangements were unnervingly catchy and the multi-level layered compostions are fascinating. The keyboards and synthesizers were used in some of the more ingenious ways during the seventies to produce that unmistakeable ABBA sound. The energy and nearly anthemic enthusiasm eminating from each song marked them all as instant classics, no matter how jaded or synical the listener. It is doubtlful if you read the song list ... Read More:

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Raising Sand

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Adult Contemporary
by: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

October 29, 2007
Sadly someone obviously suggested to Robert Plant that this would be a good idea....recording a (mostly) countryesque album with Alison Krauss. They were wrong!! I have no problem with Plant (or anyone else for that matter) trying new things, but please..... this was a bad idea that should have stayed just that.... an idea!! Why on earth so many people feel the need to heap praise on this album is beyond me - it has no redeming qualities to my ears whatsoever - even if Robert Plant is involved.......come to think of it that old story of the Emporer's new clothes comes to mind!!

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Somewhere

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Adult Contemporary
by: Eva Cassidy

August 25, 2008
I was introduced to Eva Cassidy in the late 90s and have purchased every CD of her work released since then. This new release caught me by surprise, discovering it in Amazon's New Releases section on the very day it was released. Boy am I glad I didn't miss it! Despite Live At Blues Alley being one of my all-time Top 10 albums, this is in great danger of becoming my favourite Eva album to date.

It is certainly better produced than previous works (not over-produced) with the luxury of Eva's own backing vocals now being added into the mix, along with retrospectively recorded instrumental parts. The light and shade of the album, therefore, shows greater disparity than ever before. Eva's cover of Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colours is sung in her trademark mellifluous style, ... Read More:

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This is Alphabeat

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Adult Contemporary
by: Alphabeat

June 02, 2008
This "band" dropped from space, or have been trapped somewhere for over 50 years, these is the only logical reasons i can think of that they must have travelled many many miles from their home planet still thinking that everyone on earth still dress like a 1950's sitcom. Then try and set a style when they land with some of he worst music i have ever had the misfortune of listening to.

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The Essential Leonard Cohen

Childrens Toy Shop > Music > Adult Contemporary
by: Leonard Cohen

April 25, 2005
This is as fine an introduction to the works of Leonard Cohen as could be imagined. The track list, selected by the man himself, covers almost every period of his recorded output (Cohen is not prolific in the way, say, Bob Dylan is, or Neil Young), but I do feel some truly great stuff has been overlooked, i.e. the hushed, but haunting version of 'Story Of Isaac' from 1973's LIVE SONGS, which is one of the most profound things that anyone has ever written, the great live recordings from FIELD COMMANDER COHEN: Tour Of 1979, which admittedly was not released until after THE ESSENTIAL LEONARD COHEN appeared. Of those songs, I feel the title track is as good and epic a song as any he's recorded, and the version from NEW SKIN FOR THE OLD CEREMONY would have sufficed over e.g 'Take This Longing' ... Read More: