Since we're being accosted by the pitiful excuses for music that come out of the overly-patriotic country music genre (except the fat little c*** from the Dixie Chunks) like that "Iraq and I Roll" song, or the friggin LEE GREENWOOD sonic abortion known as "Proud to be an American" (I almost went into a coma while they sang that f'ing song on American Idol... they used to torture us half to death by making us sing this song during boot camp, and I don't think I'll ever recover...) These songs suddenly coming out of the woodword during times of war is almost enough to turn me into a war protester... almost. ;-0

But I've lost focus. This was supposed to be about the good music I've heard recently...

Norah Jones - Come Away With Me. Just like Santana's "Supernatural" the grammy's got this one right. This is an amazing, perfect album. Great easy-listening from an incredibly talented musician.

Tori Amos - Scarlet's Walk. Ever since "Little Earthquakes" I've bought every Tori album and hoped that it will be anywhere near as good as "LE" and been disappointed every time. Scarlet's Walk, while lacking the great memorable moments of Little Earthquakes, does contain almost all of the elements that made that album great. If you liked Little Earthquakes, you will like this album.

Linkin Park - Meteora. It's about HUGE FRIGGIN GUITAR RIFFS and Chester the "Little man with the Big Scream." Hybrid Theory was a pretty much flawless album, with the one problem of it being a bit over-produced, and way too short. Linkin Park seems to be a bit lacking on new ideas on this album, but the old ideas still work as well as they did the first time. This album lacks a "One Step Closer" song to stand out and really give the album something distinctive. For the most part, Linkin Park is a pleasant way to shake the pictures off the walls and annoy the neighbors, but they rarely achieve the bite of "Closer" in any other song. This is a small criticism, because the music is near perfect, even without that one little element that would push it over the edge into classic album status. It's still too short, too. 36 minutes? It's a CD guys, write some crappy music to fill in some space or something...

That's it, gotta wait for Limp Bizkit and Godsmack for something else new, high hopes waiting to be dashed on the rocks of reality, with those two....