When you listen to music, you want to hear everything from the first drum beat to every guitar lick and lyric in between. In recent years music has been getting louder (in terms of production) and its making music sound less and less pleasing. This recent article on RollingStone.com (”The Death of High Fidelity”) confirms that  “the loudness war” is real and in full effect. Making music louder on the mastering level can degrade the quality of dynamics on a song and in turn make it sound like just noise, maybe thats the reason our parents always think we listen to “noise” because they were use to the full dynamic sounds of yesterdays music. On top of albums being produced with louder instruments and vocals, the increased use of headphones and small computer speakers on top of compressed music (mp3’s) makes todays music painful to listen to sometimes.

Adam Weidman

Top 10 Albums
1. Motion City Soundtrack – Even If It Kills Me
2. The Actual – In Stitches
3. Straylight Run – The Needles the Space
4. All Time Low – So Wrong, It’s Right
5. Limbeck - Limbeck
6. Foo Fighters – Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
7. The Starting Line - Direction
8. Your Sweet Uncertainty – Your Sweet Uncertainty
9. Alkaline Trio – Remains
10. Four Year Strong – Rise or Die Trying

Honorable Mention
Sherwood – A Different Light
Mayday Parade – A Lesson in Romantics
Boys Night Out – Boys Night Out
Jimmy Eat World – Chase This Light
New Found Glory – From Your Screen to Your Stereo Part II
Coconut Records – Nighttiming
The Spill Canvas – No Really, I’m Fine
Treaty of Paris – Sweet Dreams, Sucker
Scenes from a Movie – The Pulse
Dashboard Confessional – The Shade of Poison Trees
Steel Train – Trampoline

Have you ever been, or are you confused by audio bit rates? Does the word “Bit Rate” kind of scare you? Well this is just a brief dive into seeing what it is and how it affects you as a digital music consumer.

With my sunburn finally starting to show signs of subsiding I sit and reflect on my Warped Tour experience. Now I must admit I’m not big on festivals and haven’t been to Warped in many years. To be honest I wasn’t even planning on going until a couple days before, but I’m truly glad that I gave in and went.

Hey DFO community-
I’m out on the warped tour with the band Bayside, representing the organization To Write Love On Her Arms! We’re on our thousand mile drive up to Vancouver for our first two Canada dates, and we just finished the first three in California. I cannot tell you how incredible this tour is. I’ve been able to see about 1/4 of the bands so far, and not one has let me down.

In Pomona, I dropped by Cute Is What We Aim For’s set, and regardless of what you think of them, the addition of Dave Melillo on guitar/vocals adds even more to this band’s incredibly addicting music and sharpens the live show, performing tighter than I’ve ever heard them.

Has 2007 proven to be better then last year? That is the question and we are looking for an answer, but a full year in review will have to wait another 6 months. The second half of the year looks promising with releasing from Paramore, The Rocket Summer, Motion City Soundtrack, Jimmy Eat World and more coming in the next few months. But what has the first half of the year done for our endless music craving? Releases from Anberlin, Relient K, Sherwood, Fall Out Boy and more hit shelves with lots of fanfare, but did they live up to the hype? This year is also filled with lots of sophomore albums from bands like Sullivan, The Fold, Paramore, My American Heart, Circa Survive and many more. Did these releases fall into the sophomore slump or are they destine for greatness.

Well the stars aligned and everything fell into place like it was an accident but things like this don’t just happen. On July 17th the kids will come out from hiding in the hills and descend on unknowing retailers to pick up one of the records that’s bound to be a 2007 favorite.

MxPx – Secret Weapon
Motion City Soundtrack – Even If It Kills Me  [Now Sept. 18th]
Rooney – Calling The World
The Rocket Summer – Do You Feel
Sound The Alarm – Stay Inside
Yellowcard – Paper Walls

Internet radio is this sleeping giant of sorts. Most people have at one time listened on the internet to a radio stream, and some make it a daily habit to tune in online. While having millions and millions of listeners, internet radio still has an underground feel it. That may be partly because that there are a lot of independently run “start ups”. When The United States Copyright Royalty Board proposed a rate increase in the royalties payable to performers of recorded works broadcast on the internet it caused a grassroots movement of sorts to stop the seemingly greedy injustice.

It can be a daunting task to take an album, that a band most likely poured a lot of themselves into and tell people it’s no good and not to buy it. In the same way not everyone is cut out to be in a band, not everyone or anyone is able to be the one to judge music for the masses, Simple as that.

Sometimes you encounter things that just stop you emotionally and force you to confront them. A lot of times I don’t think people do and thus never really move on. Of course moving on doesn’t mean forgetting, it just means dealing with it and being ok with it.

I know that may be kind of vague and not mean much. I had a loss recently that seems to have stunted the way life had been going and it didn’t make me question things so much, because I know what I believe, but the loss seemed to slow time down and make me deal with it.