“Discipline” isn’t weighed down by tons of samples or prominent background noise like in The Downward Spiral or the textures in some of the cuts on The Fragile. Instead the song is a light mix of vocals (lead and background), club like beats, piano, fuzzed out bass, and some very subtle atmospheric effects which only appear toward the end of the song and are pushed way back in the mix. The track reminds me of the song “Only” from the With Teeth album, in that both have roughly the same beat and that fuzzy and distorted bass line that seems to have become more common in Nine Inch Nails’ songs. With hi-hats signaling every beat, the song sounds like something you might hear in a club, leading me to think that this song has a lot of remix potential for dance DJs.

Surprisingly, the track has a raw and under-produced feel to it — there are a couple of unintentional sounding false starts in the vocals. It’s actually pretty interesting, in my opinion, that it was released (even if it was only via the web) with those quirks, since I’ve always read and heard that Trent Reznor is quite the perfectionist. Maybe now that he’s freed himself from the binds of contractual agreements, he’s loosened up a little bit and feels like instantly sharing his creations, even when there are little, Bob Ross inspired, “happy accidents” in them. I’m all for this, it’s better than the past alternative: waiting years for a single, tightly produced, label “OK’ed,” track.

Overall, this new offering by Trent and company is a pretty straightforward pop song and a nice teaser of what is, hopefully, to come.

Speaking of limited releases, The Black Keys album “The Big Come Up,” is now available as 2 sets of limited color pressings via Alive Records. The 2 albums are pressed in pink and yellow and each is limited to 500 copies.

I’m slowly getting away from the whole colored vinyl thing, because it’s been my experience that most albums sound pretty crappy on colored vinyl — my copy of The Beach Boys’ limited edition Pet Sounds LP set was horrible and that made me very sad. However, a few of the colored pressings I’ve gotten from Southern Lord records sounded pretty damn good. Maybe’s it’s just the luck of the draw.

The album is a series of covers, which can usually be a pretty hit or miss affair, but not in this case. Each song is a showcase of her singing and guitar playing. The album just about covers the litany of musical styles one can think of from standards to modern pop. The songs never sound trite or forced and her voice is soul crushing at times — I mean that in a good way. Check out this audio clip at LastFM of the song “Autumn Leaves.”

Her rendition of “Over the Rainbow” is the best version of the song I’ve ever heard performed; it’s simultaneously haunting and upbeat, that dissonance sets it apart. I’m still blown away that anyone can naturally sound that good without ProTools or vocoders. If you still have doubts, watch this live clip of her perfoming the song:

So if you like bluesy female vocals, with a slight jazz edge to them, check out Eva Cassidy. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

I bought this camera to replace a Nikon Coolpix which, unfortunately, was stolen over the holidays. I’m always hesitant to purchase items based on online reviews, but this Canon seemed to have such glowing reviews on every site that I figured I couldn’t go wrong. So far, that’s been true.

Things I like about this camera:

Decent zoom – 4x Optical and the digital zoom is not bad all.

Flash control – I like controlling the use of the flash (and battery power), so it’s nice to have this ability conveniently located on the back of the camera.

Intuitive design – The system menus are very easy to figure out and utilize. The overall design of this camera lends itself easily to those intimidated by newer technology, while still having plenty of tweakable options that more advanced users like to play around with.

Manual and Auto Shooting – Both have their pros and cons, but it’s nice to have a choice in how you want your image shot.

Speedy!! – In good natural light, this cam snaps a pic, processes it, and displays the image very quickly…more importantly, it captures what you saw when you pressed the shutter button. Using the flash there’s usually a slight delay in capturing what you see in the viewfinder, but this true of most digital cameras.

Perfect size – Some digital cams can be clunky and odd shaped. This is perfectly sized to fit in a pocket, purse, or back pack.

Macro feature – Always nice to have, especially for people that will use this for business purposes or people who need a cam to take close-up, detailed pics.

Rechargeable battery and charger – I was little hesitant about using a proprietary battery — since my other cam used AAs that you can buy cheaply anywhere — but so far the battery hasn’t even gotten close to needing a recharge. That said, if you’re planning on taking this on a trip overseas you might look into buying an extra battery or buying a converter/adapter for using the recharger with the different shaped outlets in another country.

To help avoid not being able to take enough pics, since I always try to use the highest settings, I also purchased a SanDisk 4 GB memory card…which I doubt I’ll ever fill. I’ve had this camera for about a month and I’ve taken close to 300 pictures and I’ve been impressed with most of them. This camera is awesome!