Shop Junction Blog» Music

Mamma Mia! is now the topselling UK DVD

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:58:22 +0000

Well, the Christmas and New Year celebrations are over and it’s time to get back to work! I spent the New Year period with friends and during this time, we watched Mamma Mia! on DVD. When this was first suggested by our host, the idea was greeted with a chorus of “Oh No” by the men in the house who wanted to watch The Dark Knight or similar action movie. However, after watching the ABBA musical, even the most sceptical had a smile on their face and were secretly humming an ABBA tune or two!

I have to say that it’s an entertaining film and something for the whole family to watch. It’s no surprise that Mamma Mia! is now the largest selling DVD in the UK and 1 in 4 households now own a copy. Pretty impressive for a DVD that was only released in November.

Amazon MP3 Downloads is a new Apple iTunes rival

admin — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:30:30 +0000

Amazon UK has just launched its MP3 Music Downloads service. At first glance it looks very good. There are songs and albums from every genre and with albums from just £3 and songs from only 59p, this looks like a big competitor to iTunes from Apple. Key features of the Amazon service include:

Can be played on all MP3 players, including iPods
Can be loaded (via PC or Mac) into most media-enabled mobile phones
Downloads instantly to iTunes, Windows Media Player and most other Mac and PC music players
Free from DRM (digital rights management), so you’re not restricted in how you use the music you buy

I have bought some songs from Amazon MP3 Downloads and the purchase was very easy. The low prices might be an opening sales ploy but if they continue, I think Apple might have to revise their own pricing policy. I mostly buy single tracks and Amazon undercuts Apple by between 10p and 20p. At the same time, the MP3 songs at Amazon are encoded with a higher bit rate which normally means higher sound quality, particularly if you play the tracks through hi-fi equipment like I do.

It’s all good news for the music-loving customer as far as I am concerned!

Duffy hits the right notes with Rockferry

admin — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:52:31 +0000

I was a bit of a latecomer to the Welsh pop singer Duffy. Sure, I’d heard the eponymous first single from Duffy’s debut CD Rockferry but initially it did not grab my attention as much as it might have. Subsequently, the second single Mercy hit the charts in a massive way and this was followed by another single Warwick Avenue. I started to listen a bit more!

After this, it was only a matter of time before I bought Rockferry and I think it’s a great album. Most of the song styles are heavily influenced by the 60s. That’s not normally my kind of thing but I have been converted! There have been comparisons made between Duffy and Dusty Springfield. Perhaps, but those kind of comparisons don’t tell the whole story. This is a modern CD that highlights a great vocal talent.

Even though the single Mercy is probably the biggest hit from the album so far, the rest of the CD is closer in style to the singles Warwick Avenue and Stepping Stone than the more foot-tapping Mercy. That’s a good thing in my view because it really suits Duffy’s voice. For example, the song Distant Dreamer is a favorite of mine and the chorus really emphasizes Duffy’s vocal.

Duffy has a great future and I’m looking forward to her second album already!

More: Duffy on Wikipedia · Duffy official website

Lessons to be Learned

admin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:43:14 +0000

I don’t buy as many CDs as I would like but those that I do buy usually become favourites pretty quickly in my CD collection. That’s certainly the case with Lessons To Be Learned by Gabriella Cilmi.

It’s a great album from a relative newcomer who is being groomed for bigger and better things. I really like her voice and, although there a few echoes of Amy Winehouse and Duffy about Gabriella Cilmi’s singing, on the whole it’s a voice that you can easily recognise. Usually that’s a good thing!

Lessons To Be Learned contains the catchy title track but I like most of the songs because they are all quite different. From the slow piano and haunting melody of Safer through to the upbeat Got No Place to Go [my second favourite track after the title track] and the Echo Beach cover [the opening soundtrack for the recent ITV soap], the more I play it, the more I like it!