.:Confessions of An Information Junkie:.

Okay, I couldn't think of anything 'nice' to post about and won't be for the next two days. Will be leavin for the IIT Madras Cultural Festival(Saarang) tonight. Should be a repeat of the previous year's one, but they got two kick ass bands coming this time and that is the primary and only reason I'm going for this year's fest. Oh yeah and the two bands that are coming are Orange Street, who are this mega techno rock band and Moksha, one the bands that were there from the start of the revolution of the Indian Metal Scene. The show should be pretty good though.

For more info:

Saarang

Okay, I admit that my loyalties have shifted towards heavy metal. I listened to so much hip hop that I could have written a 100 paged thesis on it. One day, me and rap had a falling out of sorts. I couldn't take it anymore, the bling blings and hoots of biaatcchesss..
I still hate all people who have this complete disliking towards this genre of music, especially cause they don't know why they do!!. I have grown up to listen to so many friends of mine expressing their distaste to this form of music. "Rap Is cRap", being the regular war cry. I haven't given up on it totally. I still listen to the ocassional good album and follow the scene, but its definitely toned down.

So, Its been ten minutes since I heard the new Eminem album "Encore" and I have come to one conclusion. This man is God! He is the best thing that has happened to hip-hop ever since the uneventful death of the Godfather of rap Tupac Amaru Shakur. I got this short biography from one of his fan sites :-

Eminem, born Marshall Bruce Mathers III,17 October 1973, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. This white rapper burst onto the US charts in 1999 with a controversial take on the horrorcore genre. Mathers endured an itinerant childhood, living with his mother in various states before eventually ending up in Detroit at the age of 12. He took up rapping in high school before dropping out in ninth grade, joining ad hoc groups Basement Productions, the New Jacks, and D12. The newly named Eminem released a raw debut album in 1997 through independent label FBT. Infinite was poorly received, however, with Eminem earning unfavourable comparisons to leading rappers such as Nas and AZ. His determination to succeed was given a boost by a prominent feature in Source's Unsigned Hype column, and he gained revenge on his former critics when he won the Wake Up Show's Freestyle Performer Of The Year award, and finished runner-up in Los Angeles' annual Rap Olympics.

The Slim Shady EP, named after his sinister alter-ego, featured some vitriolic
attacks on his detractors. The stand-out track, "Just Don't Give A fuck", became
a highly popular underground hit, and led to guest appearances on MC Shabaam
Sahddeq's "Five Star Generals" single and Kid Rock's Devil Without A Cause set.
As a result, Eminem was signed to Aftermath Records by label boss Dr. Dre, who
adopted the young rapper as his protege and acted as co-producer on Eminem's
full-length debut....

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I checked up album reviews at Amazon.com and found that many customers were disappointed with this release. But, the quality of music in generally has been degrading exponentially(Okay thats an issue I will be adressing later!!). But, Eminem still managed to release a pretty good album.Okay, I agree he hasn't done anything revolutionary with this album like he did with the past two. But this album is definitely in par with his previous effort "The Eminem Show". When "The Real Slim Shady" started to 'grace' the radiowaves, I wasn't a big fan of this man from Detroit. It was a bad time for the hip-hop community as this song spawned a whole new generation of wannabe rap fans. But, upon hearing the whole album and found there a couple of stand-out songs "Stan" and "The Way I Am". These songs did not 'stand-out', I knew they were instant classics the moment I heard them. This man had potential and I was hoping one day he would realise it. Oh yes, he did!! "The Eminem Show" brought with it a more mature and controlled Eminem. The album shed some light on the other side of the new phenomenon. This album showed us that Em was a man who was torn apart and is still deeply tormented by the fact that he cannot be a role model father to his only daughter.

This Eminem album comes at a time when music and especially hip hop is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Rap/Hip-Hop songs have become hilarious. Rappers only rap about bitches,hoes and jewellery certainly does not find a liking with me. Gone, are the glorious days of West Coast gangsta rap with 2pac ruling the scene along with his other Death Row artists and buddies - Snoop Dogg and Dr.Dre . But, the rap scene has taken a hard hitting after the untimely deaths of the two greats - Pac and Notorious B.I.G.

"Encore", has definitely not deviated from the successful formula used in 'The Eminem Show' ,which I am sure his minions of fans will see as a step back towards his progression to being a hip hop legend. But what many fail to see is that the man has already achieved the status of a hip hop Titan and he has nothing more to prove to anybody.

Other news Today:

Today, Gillian Anderson, 36 married some long time boyfriend of hers who was 42. Gillian Anderson sure was a hottie in her early days with the X-Files. She was also voted as the 'Sexiest Woman On the Planet' by some magazine in 1996. I can't believe I could recollect all that!! Here's the CNN link 'X-Files' star Gillian Anderson weds.