Thank God for Scotland...

Politics bore me. They really do. There's only so much time I can spend discussing the topic before I want to find better ways to occupy my time. I'd much rather discuss music. I learned something today. If you're Collective Soul, don't expect me to know that you've released a new CD if you've make it exclusive to Target and iTunes. See, there are those of us who don't shop for music at Target and think that iTunes is the Devil. So when Collective Soul, one of my all-time favorite bands, released a new CD a couple of months ago, I just plain didn't notice. Oh, have I mentioned that I also don't listen to the radio? It used to be that Chicago had good radio stations, or possibly I just want to pretend there used to be good ones, but now there's no reason to listen to the radio in Chicago. They don't play what I want to hear, anyway. I manage to get by just fine, though. My mp3 player hooks up to my car or a nice pair of headphones when I'm out and about and Winamp does a fine job of playing on my home compy. None of it is iTunes, either. I'd rather have control over my own music and use ID3 tags to catalog it. Plus, I use Creative Labs products, which means I can connect to any computer and on- or offload files at will. It's a thing of beauty. I'm at the point where I buy a CD, rip it and load it on to my mp3 player before I actually listen to it, even when I'm at work. Which brings me to the subject of why I'm a big fan of Scotland. If it weren't for that country's apparently inexhaustible supply of musical geniuses, I probably would have given up on the whole music industry this year. Evidence: Idlewild, Make Another World, possibly their best CD ever. And that's hard to do, since The Remote Part was excellent. Ballads of the Book. Scottish bands doing songs by Scottish poets. The awesome doesn't stop at any point. The Waterboys, Book of Lightning. I like to describe The Waterboys as, "U2 if they were fronted by an insane Scotsman and not an Irishman with a Messiah complex." They've been around in one form or another for over twenty years. It took me a while to appreciate the new disc, but now I seem to listen to it once or twice a day. It's just that good. The Fratellis, Costello Music. Enjoyable from the beginning to the end. Really. Don't take my word for it, go get some. The View, Hats Off to the Buskers. Just got it (and loaded the mp3s...). It's a debut album and so far so good. Meanwhile, I don't like the new White Stripes' CD much, am somewhat disappointed by the new Chris Cornell, am pretty happy about the new Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers, will probably like the new Bad Religion once I've had the chance to listen, and love what I've heard off the new Collective Soul. Without the help of a large collection of Scottish artists, 2007 would be decidedly disappointing musically. And, hey, it turns out that Kate Rusby released a CD. She's a great English folk singer I only learned about last year when she provided backing vocals for Roddy Woomble's (Idlewild) solo CD. A couple of months ago I figured I wouldn't be getting more than four albums in 2007, which saddened me. I like music and I like finding new music. I've been proven wrong. I owe a debt to Scotland...