Review Apple iPod

You have to have one of these, you really do. A superb modern necessity. However, you do need to know the following before making it the hub of your audophile world:

Rule 1: Encode everything at a bit rate of 192.

Rule 2: Don't buy anything from the iTunes website unless its iTunes plus - anything that kills freedom and responsibility is beyond me and Digital Rights Management is vile. And stick to MP3 as a format.....don't get locked into Apple's proprietary format or the DRM version of MP3.

Rule 3: You need to buy something to normalise the volume of tracks across your collection. The best free software to do this is MP3Gain. Tip: stick with the default volume settings on MP3Gain and adjust volumes per album, not per track. Get MP3Gain.

Rule 4. You need something to boost the volume of the iPod (for those frustrated with the default volume restrictions). euPOD Pro 1.6 is free and excellent software to do this. Get euPodty)

Playlist 2007 Number 1

Revised retrospectively. The Fetish track, Lipstick, has them doing what they always did best and flows from the Remains album. The Nelly Furtado track is worth a listen, quite melodic in an acoustic way.

Starlight	-	Muse
Nothing In My Way	-	Keane
Forbiden love	-	Madonna
All Good Things	-	Nelly Furtado
Lipstick	-	Fetish
Don't Dream It's Over	-	Sarah Blasko
We Dug a Hole	-	Kathryn Williams
Walked Her Way Down	-	Crowded House
With steel part II	-	Fetish
Christine	-	The House Of Love
The End	-	Angelfish
Smile	-	Lily Allen
Change	-	KT Tunstall
Fall At Your Feet	-	Clare Bowditch

Elliot Smith album review

Elliot Smith - New Moon
Discovering Smith late in my musical world was a travesty averted. I began consuming all his albums together, which meant by the time I encountered the posthumous From a basement on the hill I found it too much to handle. But some time has passed.... New Moon is his second posthumous release, containing tracks written before the depression that would see him take his own life. These songs could easily have been on any of the previous albums, yet unlike the previous posthumous album, this collection doesn't bereave your soul of everything that is safe and sound (er, but remember, this is a relative comment: it's still Elliot after all).
Overall review ****