Seeing as I had all of this damn revision a few weeks ago now, I think I should write something about the music that I listen to as I revise.

Firstly though, I’d like to point out that you HAVE to listen to music to revise, there is no other possible way. The music does not have to be distracting, it just has to be there, for motivation and so you don’t go insane with the sound of pen scratching away on paper!

You can’t listen to anything when you revise either, and the kind of music really has to match the kind of mood that you are in, otherwise you will just spend ages looking for the right song to play next and that would just waste time! For example, concerning the putting on of the wrong kind of music, you can hardly listen to the Borat Soundtrack or Esma Redzepova when you revise unless you are crazy!

So, the right kind of music… Personally I think that it is best to listen to complete albums rather than listening to to random or playlisted songs. The main reason for this is that with albums, if you’ve heard them more than once, you know what the next song is and thus puts your mind at rest from wondering and worrying about changing the track. The other advantage is that on most albums the songs will be of roughly the same genre and so not alternating between Frank Zappa, Rachmaninov and Kate Bush. It helps also to listen to concept albums in the right order, in that way they seem to make most sense!

I’ll try not to do too much of a list, so here goes:

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium I listened to this album loads when revising for my AS-levels last summer, this was for a few reasons. Firstly, it was fairly new then and seeing I like their music greatly and I was seeing them just after the exams I thought I should get to know the new album. Secondly, as its a double album, its a very very perfect length (at a spot over 2 hrs) to revise for. So you just put on the album, listen to it as you revise, and by the time its over, you’ve done 2 hours of revision. Voila! Just like that. I ended up listening to thia album a lot, especially when bored with other music, as I find it fairly hard to get bored with it. All in all its an amazing album…

Radiohead - The Bends The pre-OK Computer masterpiece. Although this album got nowhere near as much attention as OK Computer when released because well face it, Radiohead were not that big a band until 1997, it is still a very great album. Personally I think it is incredibly more chilled out than their other albums. Pablo Honey was a more raw indie rock almost, whilst OK Computer was heavier and Amnesiac and Kid A are fairly different altogether. It was down to songs like “Fake Plastic Trees”, “Bulletproof… I Wish I Was”, “(Nice Dream)” and “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” to make this a great relaxing album to listening to whilst doing work… Although this album does have some notably great rock songs like “The Bends” and I quite like “Black Star”, this is another very very good revision album if there ever is or was one!

Ocean Colour Scene - Songs For The Front Row Although this is technically a ‘best of…’ album, I had just got into this band and so wanted to hear their best songs without having to buy lots of cds. It is a great album as they have some really good songs, all definitely worth listening to. On hindsight, I really like “Mosely Shoals” one of their albums that has a considerable amount of its tracks on this ‘best of…’ cd. Anyway though, they’re really great.

Muse - Black Holes And Revelations This may have been released at roughly the same time as Stadium Arcadium, but it should not be overlooked. Why was that last sentence relevant btw? Its fairly short which I suppose is its worst quality, but other than that it is a great Muse album, which is considerably different than the other Muse albums in some respects. It sounds slightly more mainstream with the general beats etc. But its still Muse and they are still very great and not to be overlooked. Songs like “Assassin” have immense drum lines and make for solid work (hopefully!)

Sister Hazel - Absolutely, Chasing Daylight, Fortress, Lift, …Somewhere More Familiar Although these are mulitple albums (well noticed I must say), they work very well in shuffle, or just one after the other as all of the msuic is of a similar ballady rock/country style that is just generally appealing and fairly chilled. Great songs include “Truth Is” on “Absolutely”, “Everybody” on “Chasing Daylight” and “Strange Cup Of Tea” on “Fortress”. They are just fairly easy to listen to and if so inclined, one could even dance along!

Bob Dylan - Desire It may not be one of his most popular albums, but it sure is great. The opening song, “Hurricane” is very good, especially if you listen to the lyrics. Actually all of the songs are really good, I suggest that you get this album if you like Dylan, but also if you don’t like Dylan so much as it is very different to some of his other albums.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way Although I have already mentioned a Red Hot Chilis album, this one is also very good and is almost as chilled out. It too is long which may be good for revising so its worth a go. “Tear”, “Venice Queen” and “Don’t Forget Me” really stand out!

Radiohead - Hail To The Thief This is a fairly new (actually the most recent at the time of writing) Radiohead album and as a result it is fairly electronic in parts. But, unlike Kid A and Amnesiac (which are great albums too, just not as easily listenable), it is more toned down in the electronic side of things. As a result there are some really really great songs scattered throughout the album, especially “Scatterbrain”!

Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde This is one of my all time favourite albums, it is just sooo great and really gets you into Bob Dylan. It is remarkably easy to get into aswell, which differs slightly from some of his other works.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - The Ultimate Collection This is another ‘best of…’ album as I like to call them, but Creedence are a really fun band that I have really just found out about. Fogerty is a genius and as a result there are some amazing songs here…

Well it seems like I have gone through a few albums here, there are more of course, and I may be putting up a more comprehensive list next time I revise, but for now, these are just the basic essentials. Enjoy!

Well I honestly thought that since I finally finished my exams I thought I should say something…

I don’t know what I may say, but I spose one could say that exams are fun if you know the stuff in them. But if don’t then they are still fun. As someone I know once said (in roughly similar words…)

Exams are like general knowledge quizzes, and I like them, so exams are fun!

That may be someone’s opinion which is really quite groovy, so there you go.

Oh and by the way, my band has a gig, well we’re playing at a Battle of the bands, dubbed “The Battlefield” (more info at www.myspace.com/thebattlefielduk). It shall be very good fun as we get 15 mins to play whatever we wish, so maybe expect a bit of Muse, possibly Radiohead and of course some great original songs by the one and only Starfish Extravaganza. And its Feb 24th at Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh. Be there or be square! Tickets £5 available from me!

Well they make sweet guitars, but electronics now, this is odd.

As the Macworld as passed us by this year leaving some surprises, but not too many. A big surprise is that Apple released nothing to do with iWork or iLife (let alone any computer based things at all, did he even mention Leopard?)

What has become of iLife and iWork ‘07? Will they just become silent updates? I was looking forward to a new Pages, maybe even a Excel replacement, but no!

Well to say that I have been busy wouldn’t really be much of a lie. I had my first real A-level exam yesterday, oh wait maybe on Wednesday then! It really wasn’t too bad. It was a Mechanics 2 exam and was glorified Physics called maths, and has something to do with this, but seeing as its fairly late I can be bothered going into the specifics. It just had questions on frameworks, centre of mass, power, work and energy and impulse and momentum. Honestly though if one does do sufficient revision, it makes the exam pretty easy and in extreme cases almost fun.

Although one exam may be over, not all of them are! I still have 5 others which can’t really be that bad, that’s if I do revision (which I most definitely will!).

One good thing about exams is that you need to relax afterwards, and as a result I find myself going to Fopp and impulse buying things which I probably could live without at the time, but are very nice and in most cases not too expensive. So yesterday, I mean Wednesday, I purchased a copy of The Band’s second album - The Band, Boston’s second album - Don’t Look Back, a cheap Ocean Colour Scene album - North Atlantic Drift, and the novel - Starter For 10 by David Nicholls, which is turning out to be a very awesome read, as its written in such a monologueish sort of way that I find appealing, especially with all of the hilarious wit and sarcasm! All that for only £16! A very fine deal I tell you!

On another note, the Macworld took place in San Fran, and the iPhone does look very very appealing, but it doesn’t come out for so long which is such a pity as I would happily put down any amount of money to replace my ageing Nokia 3510i with a phone made by Apple! I especially liked the bit in the Keynote where Steve said “And boy have we patented it!” Its just a bit of a shame that Cisco had the name iPhone before, just have to see how the cookie crumbles. AppleTV looks fairly cool too, especially with the hard disk, but it can’t really be that good, as I would use something like that to watch TV shows that I have missed which I would download form the internet, and thus would probably not be in MPEG4 H.264 format and instead in XviD or the reverse, both of which are unplayable. O well, there might be a nice firmware or codec hack on the horizon… I might just stick with my Media Lounge thingy, its just a bit big in that wooden box of its.

Now, I’m tired so I’m going to bugger off to sleep.

Well I haven’t really posted anything since new year, and that’s probably because I’m failry busy.

I got this nice letter from Cambridge University saying that they will let me go there if I get 4 A’s at A-level (which isn’t exactly the easyist thing) so as I really want to go there, I may aswell work that bit harder. I could maybe talk more after the exams.

Another thing I realised is that this blog may be getting fairly boring to read (some people might be saying something along the lines of “No shit sherlock” or “Really?”) but the fact of the matter is, I should really make this more worthwhile to read. To be honest, anyone can go anywhere to find out news about something, so there is really no point in me telling everyone about it unless I say something. I think I should start a links section with useful things which I have discovered recently and find interesting etc. But maybe that’s what some of these social bookmarking things are about? Anyhoo, I will living up this section over the next year to make it just more fun!

By the way, I got an Arduino which is very cool and surprisingly simple to program (its like C, but I don’t even know C and I can do it). I think I’m going to make a midi drum machine kinda thing with it once the exams are over!