You can preview tracks from To Be Continued's albums Creston Drive and Core Pop on Amazon Japan

Note that these are pictures taken from currently active Buyee auctions. I haven't seen my copies in person yet.

In just under two weeks, I will finally be seeing my copies of To Be Continued's albums Day Break, Creston Drive and Core Pop, and I will be able to hold them. Depending on how long I take a little cooloff period and absorb all of the music waiting for me, and depending on how I structure my writeups after that period is up, it could be a week or two after that before you see my full writeups on them.

As I was perusing the internet searching out how to obtain some of To Be Continued's several non-album, single-only tracks, a search for a CD single for "Last Order" from Core Pop took me to Amazon Japan, where I ended up finding out that both Creston Drive and Core Pop's listings come equipped with modern Amazon MP3 preview systems. When I went to check the listings for Day Break and frontman Kohki Okada's solo album Hip88, both were equipped with a much more antiquated system that didn't allow you to buy MP3s of the songs being previewed.

Why the different systems? Well, the answer is simple as pie: different record labels. Day Break was To Be Continued's last album through Sony, which Hip88 was also released through, while Creston Drive and Core Pop were released after To Be Continued switched to Toshiba EMI. And normally, I wouldn't consider a digital music distribution platform worth writing about, because as a collector of tangible music formats, I personally hate them and wouldn't pay for music I would obtain solely digitally. However, it is very possible that I won't be able to post YouTube uploads of songs from either album because the songs are logged under this system, so this could be the only way to listen to these songs online at all that I could personally support.

Preview the songs of Creston Drive here.

Preview the songs of Core Pop here.

(On both pages, scroll down until you see the Amazon MP3 platform. I have absolutely no idea at all if non-Japanese readers would be able to buy these MP3s, but again, I wouldn't support doing so.)

Having listened to both preview sessions in full, it's interesting how much their sound changed after the record company switch, far removed from the music they made with Sony, more mature-sounding and diverse in musical influence. (In the interest of full disclosure, I did also preview Day Break and Hip88, and they sound closer to Bitter Sweet Love or Beyond The Light than either album mentioned above.) I will be able to provide fuller thoughts once I actually have said albums in hand and am able to listen to them completely, of course, but I can definitely say I'm excited to hear them.

Rodeo Tandem Beat Specter

Unlike Chicken Zombies, I had the foresight to predict this would eventually show up with an obi strip in my searches, and through patience, it eventually did. Let it be known that I absolutely adore this album more than I adored Chicken Zombies, and it will be interesting to go back and listen to what I haven't heard of Gear Blues and Casanova Snake when the time comes to get a sense of what I missed. My all-time favorite track from TMGE, "The Redhead Kelly", closes the album, and it's a perfect song to close an album on.

The packaging for this album is pretty nice. It has an opaque disc tray that has a smooth tab instead of the ridged opaque tabs we Americans are used to with older CDs. The inside of the album has a pretty dope foldout featuring the band members on both sides, one segment of which serves as this album's cover. I'm not sure if I prefer this to the back cover image, which served as both the LP version's cover and the cover for the American CD release... hell, I like them both pretty equally. Get this album in any way you can.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. The Loneliness Of The Citroën

2. Alligator Night

3. The World Exposed

4. God Jazz Time

5. Baby Stardust

6. Rita

7. Beat Specter Buchanan

8. Turkey

9. My Heart With Its Brakes Broken Loose

10. Margaret

11. Bird Land Cindy

12. Beat Specter Garcia

13. The Redhead Kelly

*On the US release of the album, a bonus track, "Mona Lisa", is placed between "Beat Specter Buchanan" and "Turkey".

Chicken Zombies, or (The Obvious Virtue of Patience)

There are always those times when it sucks to be a collector, especially one in the Internet age, when the attitude of "get it now or never" is amped up to an even further degree in spite of the exponentially increased availability of pretty much anything. The decision to purchase my first copy of Thee Michelle Gun Elephant's excellent 1997 album Chicken Zombies resulted as one of those short-sighted decisions. In my defense, and the defense of many who make this mistake, it was the only available option within my demands at the moment (i.e. having the obi), and I had no clue when another opportunity would surface. (It did quickly afterward.)

My first copy of Chicken Zombies was an ex-rental CD, a bizarre concept to the West, but one that held sway for a while over in Japan. While we had rental shops for movies and whatnot, Japan had those as well, but there were also music rental shops. The reason this concept didn't carry over to the West is simple: the copyright holders of our music are paranoid, short-sighted, money-grubbing weasels. This short article will give you more information on the industry than I possibly could, honestly, it's a very interesting read.

But numerous problems manifested in grabbing an ex-rental, as they always do to the total dismay of a collector (unless you're in the VHS collector scene, where they're seen as badges of honor)-- the obi had irremovable stickers, the liner note booklet was destapled, with all but two pages of the liner notes gone, the CD was scratched and stickered, and the jewel case was covered in stickers, with just about every component of the jewel case cracked to some degree for good measure.

I felt defeated, and like a short-sighted idiot. The CD ripped surprisingly fine, at least. It worked until I could find a better, complete copy, with an unmolested obi.

Cut to a couple weeks after getting my rental copy and sure enough, a better, complete copy, with an unmolested obi, shows up on Buyee, for about the same price I paid for the first copy. I snatched it up in a heartbeat, and frankly, it's beautiful. Let that be a lesson to you fellow collectors-- if it seems like one in undesirable condition is your only choice, wait and see what pops up later, and don't forget to keep tabs on other channels to keep looking for a more desirable alternative.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Russian Huskey

2. Hi! China!

3. Mongoose

4. Get Up Lucy

5. The Birdmen

6. Boogie

7. I've Never Been You. (Jesus Time)

8. Cow

9. Culture

10. Sunny Side River

11. Bronze Master

12. Romantic (Broiler Dinner Version)

13. I've Never Been You. (King Time)

Golmaal 3 soundtrack

Golmaal 3 was subject to some pretty scathing reviews in India, and really hasn't had much exposure outside of it and Indian communities in other countries who might've gotten it theatrically. When I got the movie on Blu-Ray, I was pretty scared of coming out of it without even cracking a smile, since if there's any genre of film that translates the worst to foreign countries and cultures, or to different periods of time, it's comedies, as they often rely on heavy cultural perspective. Alas, I ended up laughing pretty hard at a lot of this film, although I haven't seen, or had much desire to see, its two predecessors. This is mainly because my personal draw to this film was the presence of actors like Mithun Chakraborty and Johnny Lever, who I've liked a lot in movies before.

And hey, the movie had a pretty good soundtrack. It wasn't the most consistently memorable of soundtracks, but it was good nonetheless. I especially loved the new rendition of "I Am A Disco Dancer" (shortened here to just "Disco Dancer"), so much so that I actually prefer its arrangement over the original version. It also has a pretty awesome reveal in the film, harkening back to Disco Dancer, the original film that it showed up in. The soundtrack was overall fine, but the packaging...

...is some of the absolute worst I've ever seen.

I don't know if other T-Series releases are like this (I've seen a copy of the Chennai Express soundtrack that looked like it had much better packaging), but man, this is horrible. The initial slipcover is neat, but the accordion sleeve that holds the disc is an absolute pain to pull out without feeling like you're treating the disc like garbage, and the disc itself is housed within a rough-feeling LP/LD-esque plastic protector. It was a good decision on principle, but when I was getting ready to rip the CD, the data side of the disc looked like it was sporting some serious rot. It ultimately ended up ripping fine, and whatever I saw was gone when I came to take these pictures, but for that moment, I was scared out of my wits.

Oh yeah, it came with mobile download info I won't use.

Granted, while it is one of the worst packages I've ever witnessed, it's not THE absolute worst (wait until I talk about the deluxe edition of the soundtrack for The Amazing Spider-Man 2), so I can give it that, at least. It also houses a pretty damn good soundtrack, although the weird manufacturing standards that must've been in place while putting this together resulted in a package that feels gross to pull out. The soundtrack to its immediate predecessor, Golmaal Returns, was placed in a proper jewel case, so I really don't see why this couldn't have been. At least it was cheap.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Golmaal

2. Apna Har Din

3. Ale

4. Desi Kali

5. Golmaal (Remix)

6. Apna Har Din (Remix)

7. Desi Kali (Remix)

8. Disco Dancer

9. Yaad Aa Raha Hain

There's a recurring joke about this dude chronically breaking people's fingers. I dunno if that carries over from the first two movies, but it was pretty funny to me here.

Katamari Fortissimo Damacy

If you have played and don't love Katamari Damacy, you don't have a soul. If you didn't find yourself jamming out to the vast amount of music contained within the game at any point, you're just as guilty. Every fan of Katamari Damacy should have a copy of its soundtrack in their collection, and this CD, Katamari Fortissimo Damacy, is the best way to get it without ripping it directly from the game. I'll get the equally brilliant soundtrack to its sequel, We Love Katamari, at some point, but for now, this is all I have in this series.

My personal favorite tracks on this album are "Katamari On The Rocks", "Lonely Rolling Star" and "Que Sera Sera", but all of the songs in this collection are brilliant. There's no limit to creativity within the soundtracks of this franchise, and that much is apparent from its first installment; it leans a lot toward jazz, J-pop, soft and hard rock, and the occasional mixing of hip-hop, but you'd be hard-pressed to name a genre that didn't manifest in some fashion in this soundtrack. I got this for about 2000 yen before shipping, but people on eBay tend to price it at the $50-60+ area. I would recommend checking Japanese sources before even considering going to them, as it can save you a lot more money than you'd think.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Katamari Nah-Nah

2. Katamari On The Rocks ～ Main Theme

3. Overture

4. The Moon & The Prince

5. Fugue #7777

6. Lonely Rolling Star

7. Walking On A Star!

8. Katamari Mambo (Katamari Syndrome Remix)

9. You Are Smart

10. Gin & Tonic & Red Red Roses

11. Wanda Wanda

12. Que Sera Sera

13. Angel Gifts

14. Roll Me In

15. Katamari☆Stars

16. Cherry Tree Times

17. Lovely Angel

18. Stardust Fanfare

19. The Last Samba

20. Katamari Of Love ～ Ending Theme

21. Katamari March Damacy

The lyrics to "Que Sera Sera".

High-Individual-Side Tour T-shirt

It's the only Mad shirt that I currently have, but it is probably THE Mad shirt to have. This shirt was made for their High-Individual-Side tour which blazed through 1994 and 1995. I first saw this shirt in its full form on the ever awesome Tak Mad's blog, where I noticed its coolest property...

...this bad boy can glow in the dark! It's also a drawing based around the drawing on the front cover of Video, Mad's newest home video compilation at the time, so to couple that with being able to glow in the dark is rad as hell. While it is marked as an L, which is my size for shirts, this shirt is just too tight for my fat self at the moment... but that makes rocking this shirt in public the ultimate inspiration for losing weight.

One other dope tidbit about this shirt is that it was featured during the short intro of the music video to "Kami-Uta", the first single from the followup album 4 Plugs. Feast your eyes.

Dhoom 3 soundtrack

Dhoom 3 is not well liked in its country of origin, but there is a rather violent contrast between critical reception for this film in India and in Western countries (for example, this glowing review on Roger Ebert's website became the subject of predominant scorn in the comments section). I personally found a lot to love in it, although it is a vastly different film from its predecessors. As opposed to being a distinctly Bollywood action movie, it's a Hollywood action blockbuster through a purely Bollywood perspective-- most of it is shot in Chicago, but it doesn't feel at all like a Hollywood film... and considering the current shape of Hollywood blockbusters in this vein, that's for the best. Also, whereas the first two films split focus 60%-40% between their villains and the heroes (Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra) respectively, in this installment, 85%-15% would be a more accurate estimate; a startling majority of its nearly three-hour runtime is spent on the always-charismatic Aamir Khan's performance.

The songs this time around aren't as memorable as the first film's, but they are more consistently memorable than the second film's. Of particular note, in my opinion at least, are "Tu Hi Junoon" and "Bande Haim Hum Uske", although the new version of "Dhoom Machale" is pretty good, despite the filmmakers not finding a way to actually get it into the film except for the end credits sequence. The troubling aspect of this disc, however, is the abhorrent compression, thanks in no small part to the notorious loudness war. While the soundtrack for Dhoom 2 had been showing a little too much compression over the soundtrack of its predecessor, this CD shotguns the dynamic range to hell. Another unfortunate victim of this terrible, terrible plague.

The packaging here is pretty large, a bit taller than your usual jewel case, which makes it a bit of a pain in the ass on a shelf. Unfortunately, my particular copy isn't in great condition-- a bunch of cracks happened throughout its odd case, part of the back jewel case insert is slightly crinkled in the spine, and the front cover is also victim to a couple serious crinkles as well. This packaging isn't totally unique, but the last time I saw something in this packaging at a retail store was a Miley Cyrus tour DVD, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend money on that garbage just to replace a case. It still functions well, so I don't feel any particular need to replace it.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Malang

2. Kamli

3. Tu Hi Junoon

4. Dhoom Machale Dhoom

5. Bande Hain Hum Uske

6. Dhoom Tap

7. Dhoom 3 Overture

8. Dhoom Machale Dhoom (Arabic Version)

Dhoom 2 soundtrack

Speaking strictly about the film itself, I would say that Dhoom 2 is the best of all three Dhoom movies. The action and acting performances are well above the first film, and it still maintains the distinct Bollywood feel that the third film seemed to be intentionally straying from. Speaking in terms of its songs, however, the second film has the least memorable songs. The only song that really stuck with me from this one was "Crazy Kiya Re", whereas the other two got me with at least half of their output.

However, this one does have the best packaging of all three original soundtracks. (There is a sweet edition released around Germany of a combo pack with the first two films' soundtracks plus bonus tracks, but I don't have this edition.) It's in a digipak that within its three folds contains a card for mobile download, the main CD, and an awesome pack of autographed cards of each of the main cast. My copy didn't come with the mobile card, but the collectible signed cards were there, and in excellent condition.

The CD, unfortunately, was covered in scratches, and the spine of the digipak was bending down the middle. It was a miracle that I could get the CD to rip without a hitch. It's also a shame that because of its unique packaging, I'm pretty screwed when it comes to trying to replace any component of the packaging short of just tracking down a copy in better condition. It is the crappiest thing about grabbing digipaks, regardless of how awesome they are. Oh well.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Crazy Kiya Re

2. Touch Me

3. My Name Is Ali

4. Dil Laga Na

5. Crazy Remix

6. Dhoom Again

Dhoom soundtrack

I've recently fallen in love with the Dhoom franchise from India, a trilogy of high-octane blockbuster action flicks. In India, these movies were not respected all that much by critics, the third film in particular, but they are mostly acclaimed among the few Western critics who have reported on them, and I think there's a lot to love for fans of similarly huge blockbuster franchises like the Fast & Furious series or the Taxi series. The songs throughout this film, a staple of Bollywood in general, are the consistently catchiest and overall best of the entire trilogy, I think, particularly "Dhoom Machale" and "Dilbara".

The packaging isn't really all that much to write home about. Standard jewel case, disc tray, yadda yadda yadda, all the same stuff you'd find on typical CDs pretty much anywhere. When I first got this CD, it had a holographic sticker that I sadly wasn't able to salvage when I had to do a full replacement on the cracked jewel case. Out of all of my copies of the Dhoom soundtracks, however, it is now easily in the best shape.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Dhoom Machale

2. Shikdum

3. Dilbara

4. Salaame

5. Shikdum (The Bedroom Mix)

6. Dilbara (Reprisal) Edit

7. Dhoom Dhoom

Digidogheadlock promo pin

This was a pretty random and sweet grab on Buyee. It's a small pin meant to promote Mad's album Digidogheadlock, released by a company called Hustle Promotion, according to their small and difficult-to-read logo. It's barely bigger than a quarter, and I don't really have any use for it, but it was a dope grab all the same.

Back Drop Bomb - Venometeoric

Here we are at the last Back Drop Bomb album I will be covering for a bit. It will be a while before I can grab my copy of The Ocracy, and it might be a while longer than that before I can reach for copies of 59days Preface and Loftinaction. In any case, this is the last album that BDB released under Toy's Factory, and how does it stack up to their awesome comeback album Breakdawn? Well, it might be a bit unfair to call this the Nipsong to Breakdawn's Micromaximum, since it isn't nearly as bad as Nipsong, but it is another somewhat unfocused album after an excellent and cohesive album. I really hope that isn't the case with The Ocracy and Loftinaction...

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of things to like about this album, whether it be from the sweet guitar solo that "The Light 'N' The Dark" rides out on, or the great instrumental that is "The Knight", or "Great View", which is an excellent track to open on. But throughout the album, there's a recurring feeling of incohesiveness and a lack of focus that draws up flashbacks of Nipsong. It's awesome that BDB continues to get more eclectic in their musical output, but there are times when it can get too eclectic for its own good, and those times happen pretty frequently on this album. What I can give this album credit for in spite of this, at least, is that the album doesn't feel barren in its mixing, so those bits of reduced focus come off smoother.

The packaging is something I really love about this album, though, and made me a little disappointed that graphic design this awesome wasn't housing an album that quite matched it. Just about all of the printing on the front cover/liner note booklet, back cover and obi strip is holographic, and printed on an extremely glossy, semi-thick paper stock. It feels great to hold them, but it does make them a pain in the ass to photograph. Thanks to my usual flash photography, the covers and obi all come off less colorful and less bright than they actually are, as I've seen occasional cover scans look. But rest assured that every bit of this CD's packaging is gorgeous.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Intro

2. Great View

3. Tokio On The Horse

4. Don't

5. Nobody Gets It -The Beginning Of Conga-

6. The Light 'N' The Dark

7. Far To Go

8. The Knight

9. World Wanna Be

10. Not Never

11. Anything

12. Losin'

13. Outro