… from transsexual Transylvania! I finally caved in and i started watching Glee – i am now a full blown Gleek. I was watching the Rocky Horror Glee Show and great as it was – still not a patch on the original so i downloaded the original onto my iPad and cracked up laughing the minute i started watching. Tim Curry is just amazing! As is the blond Adonis.

Something i wanna get off my chest – i find i’m spending my time online a lot differently now. Not bothering with forums so much and i’m not investing as much time in new online pals either apart from a couple. I was thinking – is it wise to invest too much time in purely online pals? You could spend months or years on your friendship for one of them to turn around and at the click of a button completely erase you.

I’m speaking from experience. I’ll not name names (but if you’re reading this then yes, i’m talking about you!) but the person in question took umbridge at the fact that i told her friend i didn’t like him and she then went on to completely block me (after a rather large dramatic rant about stoning the poor man in public…..okaaaay). VERY annoying, not to mention childish.

What else … oh yeah, GaGa! Kinda like her Express Yourself clone but i was expecting a lot more from her especially after all of the hype she gave her own song. It’s a catchy tune but hardly groundbreaking. I miss Madonna, the true Queen!

The other half says he just doesn’t get it. I love it, as someone on youtube commented “The greatest track from the greatest ambient/chillout album of all time”. Aint that the truth.

Oh and although this massive library is online, you can actually download the tunes to your pc/ipod/phone in case you’re out of range of wifi or don’t want to eat up your mobile data plan. What you can’t do is have mp3 files that you can burn to a CD, not unless you buy the song. You can listen to radio and share friends playlists too.

Read more after the jump…

Here’s an iPhone demonstration:

The free version of spotify only works on your pc and you have to listen to an advert every half an hour or so. The premium version costs £10 a month (about the price of 1 CD), has no adverts and can be played on portable devices. It can also scrobble to Last.fm so your Last.fm account will keep updated with what you’re listening to on Spotify.

I usually buy at least 1 CD a month but after a month or two it sits gathering dust so for that £10 a month i now get albums galore! Oh and another thing, some albums surface on Spotify before they are released in shops and best of all, it’s toally legal. Most of the big record labels are on board. Check it out: https://www.spotify.com

Celebration.mp3

This is the album cover to Madge’s new greatest hits album which is due out on September 28th. There will be a 2 CD and a 1 CD version along with a DVD. Looks like True Blue and Who’s That Girl aren’t on it though if this is the genuine tracklist (Click Read More to see it). And i gotta say i’m surprised Human Nature was chosen over a song like True Blue?!

2 CD EDITION
CD ONE
Vogue
Express Yourself
Into The Groove
Papa Don’t Preach
La Isla Bonita
Everybody
Lucky Star
Holiday
Like A Virgin
Borderline
Material Girl
Crazy For You
Open Your Heart
Cherish
Like A Prayer
Justify My Love
Deeper & Deeper
Erotica
Rain

CD TWO
Celebration
Music
Get Together
Frozen
Hung Up
Ray Of Light
Beautiful Stranger
Don’t Tell Me
Hollywood
Human Nature
Secret
Take A Bow
American Life
Die Another Day
Sorry
4 Minutes
Give It 2 Me
Revolver

1 CD EDITION
Vogue
Express Yourself
Into The Groove
Papa Don’t Preach
La Isla Bonita
Lucky Star
Holiday
Like A Virgin
Material Girl
Crazy For You
Like A Prayer
Erotica
Music
Frozen
Hung Up
Ray Of Light
Don’t Tell Me
Take A Bow
Sorry
4 Minutes
Celebration

1984 marked the high watermark of the “New Music” of the Eighties (see 1983-The Year in Music), and the British invasion was still a force to be reckoned with. In March, 24 of the Top 50 singles in the U.S. were by British acts. It was also a year when soundtracks produced one big hit after another; the Footloose soundtrack was the biggest of these, with Kenny Loggins, Deniece Williams, and the duo of Mike Reno and Ann Wilson all having Top Ten hits off the album.

Prince scored several hits, and reached the pinnacle of his career, with songs from the Purple Rain soundtrack, and Ray Parker, Jr. enjoyed a #1 hit with the theme from Ghostbusters — as well as a plagiarism lawsuit filed by Huey Lewis and the News. Tina Turner made the biggest comeback in rock history, Madonna introduced herself in her first (but certainly not last) incarnation as a “boy toy,” and Phil Collins and Steve Perry — of Genesis and Journey respectively — discovered just how successful you could be in a solo career if you followed a few simple guidelines: make your music danceable and MTV-compatible.

Critics, of course, deplored the paucity of “message” in the New Music, and many blamed video. But there could be no denying that the music industry, suffering so grievously in the late Seventies, was healthy again. And even people like Bruce Springsteen and Hall and Oates, while initially scornful of video’s importance to their careers, jumped on the bandwagon — and profited greatly for the compromise.

Stand-out songs of 1984
Karma Chameleon (Culture Club), Girls Just Want To Have Fun (Cyndi Lauper), Somebody’s Watching Me (Rockwell), Footloose (Kenny Loggins), Here Comes The Rain Again (Eurtyhmics), Thriller (Michael Jackson), Automatic (Pointer Sisters), Hello (Lionel Richie), Hold Me Now (Thompson Twins), Let’s Hear It For The Boy (Deniece Williams), Against All Odds (Phil Collins), The Reflex (Duran Duran), Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper), Borderline (Madonna), When Doves Cry (Prince), What’s Love Got To Do With It (Tina Turner), Missing You (John Waite), Drive (Cars), Ghostbusters (Ray Parker Jnr), Lucky Star (Madonna), I’m So Excited (Pointer Sisters), Purple Rain (Prince), Wake Me Up (Wham), I Just Called To Say I Love You (Stevie Wonder), The Wild Boys (Duran Duran), Like A Virgin (Madonna), Never Ending Story (Limahl), Smalltown Boy (Bronski Beat), Radio Ga Ga (Queen), Together In Electric Dreams (Georgio Moroder with Phil Oakley), I Want To Break Free (Queen), White Lines (Grandmaster & Melle Mel), Do They Know It’s Christmas? (Band Aid).

Maybe everyone says this when they get older but don’t you think music today is a load of shit compared to what it was? I mean there are some great songs out there but everything seems so sterile now and overly polished and perfect and gleaming. I can make lists galore of my favourite songs all through the 80′s and 90′s but once we get to the 00′s i start to struggle. I mean most dance tracks are songs lifted from the 80′s and 90′s anyway and nobody seems to have any uniquness anymore.

Well, this old fart is glad that he grew up and discovered music in the glorious 80′s! Click Read More for a list of the Top songs of 1984.