Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Music Roundup for 5/21/08

This week is a biggie for the Music Roundup with three albums and more.

I'll start off with a highly anticipated album of mine for the year, which is Usher's Here I Stand. This one is out next week and for Usher, how can he really top his last album, Confessions? That is something tough to pull off especially and his new one is not as good as his previous hit album with all those banging hits from "Yeah," "Burn," and "Confessions Part II." Even though it is not Usher's best, it is still pretty good. Of course, his current hit single, "Love in This Club," is the jam these days and the remix, or Part II, featuring Beyonce and Lil' Wayne is actually better even though I don't know what is the big deal with Weezy and why everyone likes him. I'm currently a fan of the up-tempo stuff in Here I Stand with "This Ain't Sex," "Moving Mountains," "What's Your Name" featuring Will.I.Am, "Best Thing" with the Jiggaman, "Before I Met You," and "What's A Man to Do." I'm not so much on the slow songs yet, but "His Mistakes" is the decent one I like so far. Usher's latest album would likely not have the same success Confessions had with that platinum debut, but it is still pretty good to check this out and not as disappointing as others expected.

Next up this week is We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things by Jason Mraz. Sure, his first two albums had that mainstream appeal, but it is more Jason Mraz and that's fine by me. This is just a chill album to blast because of his style of sound still staying the same. Even though I listened to this one once so far, it is also a recommendable album to check out.

Lastly is Death Cab for Cutie's Narrow Stairs and it has received numerous critical praise. The album definitely lives up to all that praise being more Death Cab with their style of rock. This also is worth a download or purchase.

That's it for the Music Roundup and next month is going to be nuts with albums from Coldplay, Ne-Yo, and N.E.R.D. out at that time, so maybe music will be good again...

Let's do the Warrior Pose!!! (I caved in for Wii Fit)

So I bought Wii Fit today at my nearest GameStop (didn't pre-order it) and let's just say I fell into the mainstream hype. Yeah, this thing is selling bonkers right now at the United States and we have to wait till probably next week for Nintendo to give out sales numbers, which is likely in the millions if they shipped out a lot of them even though there were rumored shortages. With all that coverage in talk shows, advertising in buses, and the above average reviews from some sites, Wii Fit is not that bad.

Keep in mind I only played it for a hour, so I had to try at least one of each activity. So far, I'm digging the strength exercises and yoga for now rather than the mini-games. It does suck I have to play more and more of these activities to unlock the other stuff as in Wii Play, but it seems better this time with the Balance Board. At first, I was skeptical that this thing would work, but it surprisingly does and it is pretty accurate with the balance obviously (I don't know about BMI and weight yet). Sure, you can BS the exercises to a certain point and they do a good job of keeping stats for everything u have done so far. Of course, I don't want to reveal my stats such as BMI and other things, but it does want to motivate u to keep doing this on a consistent basis. I'm not a fan of the mini-games yet since I suck with them and the aerobics, but it does put the Balance Board to good use other than the yoga.

Personally, when I bought Wii Fit, it felt like an impulse buy because of all the mainstream hype and the fact being a first-party game on the Wii. I'm not sure if trading three 360 games (Orange Box, Mass Effect, and DMC4) seemed worth it for this one, but I do see the potential in the Balance Board being a special peripheral while alpha-moms go crazy buying this today and the rest of the week. A review might happen for this one next month since I have to beat GTA4 first (Assault Heroes 2 review is still pending too), if I do write one, expect it before Ninja Gaiden 2's release.