Mia Doi Todd - Mixed reviews

Gea Mia Doi Todd Release Date: February 19, 2008 Genre: Alternative ℗ 2008 City Zen

Last night while John and I were talking, he sent me this new album from Mia Doi Todd as a gift through iTunes. I clicked the link in my e-mail and redeemed the album. Although I transferred it immediately to my iPod, I didn't listen to it until this morning when I walked Beau.

Upon my first listen, I might call it contemplatively boring. Individually, the songs are pretty and pleasant, but in a way that is ignorable and that lets you focus more on the world around you. During a long walk or a weekend drive (if you can afford the gas!), this music lets the senses do what they will without interruption. The coherence of the album comes from its repetitiveness, but if you're looking for upbeat pop or rock, it's not here. Mostly the singer and her guitar, there is little harmonic invention, and an ear hoping for teases and tricks will find none.

Work out music it isn't, unless the work out is slow yoga, and then this album might be perfect. I've no familiarity with any of the rest of Ms. Todd's opera, so I make comment only on Gea. The sound isn't original because there are many other artists that fit this genre of plaintive singer/songwriter on the verge of clinical depression (Nick Drake for example), and some might do it better (Nick Drake for example, except he's dead because he went past the verge into suicidal depression). But there is a place for Ms. Todd somewhere in my music collection, and I'm glad to add her to my almost-chock-full-of-music iPod. (I'm running out of space for my favorite podcasts! Help!) She may very well accompany my next yoga routine. Sometimes icy and scalding are extremes that cannot exist if there is no lukewarm, and Ms. Todd's lukewarm folksy-pop might provide better perspective of the soundscape around her.

My own criticism aside, reading the reviews on iTunes is its own comic relief. No one has anything musical to write about the album. The 33 reviews listed at the time of this writing are nothing more than a restaurant wait list of lovers and haters and a few feeling apathy with an attempt at a favorable review. Even the NY Times review that a fan copied & pasted to iTunes wasn't especially clever or helpful. The first review was little more than a moronic "yeah, I'm first". The haters are more than likely too video-game-quick-click-attention-span to be able to listen to the entire album or perhaps to read an entire novel of more than a couple hundred pages in order to give a substantive review. The lovers are mostly in love with their own fawning text. The rest gave middle-ground ratings and could provide little detail as to why. In the end, with all the audience and performers that exist, there's a match for everyone, I'm sure.

(album artwork for Gea and color layout as distributed through iTunes)

The old Sony Walkman has died

Alas, 'tis true. The old yellow and black cassette player with AM/FM Radio and TV & weather bands has died....sort of. The radio still works, but the cassette motor has ground to a halt. Actually, this one was about the fourth I had of its type before I switched to CD players then finally to an iPod.

It served me well. I used it the entire time I was walking then running off the pounds from 250 down to 180! Two years ago, the little diva helped me convert my 80's cassettes to MP3 so I make get my audiothèque as digital as possible and fully enter the 21st century.

Today, it gave up the ghost. I was converting some AP French language study cassettes to MP3 to make easier to use CD's for my one student using the accompanying workbook. After the first successful conversion, the motor in the 10-year old Walkman died. Poor thing. I haven't the heart to get rid of it. Whatever shall I do?

How dumb am I?

Don't answer that! I guess that I'm just forgetful, and maybe kind of a dork.

Anyway, I've really taken a liking to Sara Bareilles (pronounced /buh reh lis/, though I think it should be /bah rey/* since it seems to be a French surname). I downloaded her single "Love Song" from iTunes only to discover that I had downloaded a slightly shorter version of it from her EP a while ago, so now I have it twice on my iPod. The versions aren't even noticeably different despite a difference of 20 seconds in length. Next time, I should check my library before clicking OK on the purchase confirmation button. Thinking back a bit to the days of vinyl 7" singles and cassingles, ,I sometimes bought songs from an artist whose album containing the single I already owned. There's no accounting for sense despite education.

*Forgive the phonetic transcriptions; I couldn't get all the IPA symbols to work as I hoped.