iTunes is currently giving away U2's new album Songs Of Innocence for free. Apple received a lot of flack for automatically placing it in the "purchased" section of every iTunes account holder.

Though I can understand the upset at such a presumptuous move, I am thoroughly enjoying the music. Amidst all the outrage and assumptions that something free can't possibly be any good are glowing reviews like the one below from Rolling Stone.

I have to say I think the album is their best in years! It's consistently good throughout, not at all spotty...lots of beauty shines through the Innocence.

No other rock band does rebirth like U2. No other band – certainly of U2's duration, commercial success and creative achievement – believes it needs rebirth more and so often. But even by the standards of transformation on 1987's The Joshua Tree and 1991's Achtung! Baby, Songs of Innocence – U2's first studio album in five years – is a triumph of dynamic, focused renaissance: 11 tracks of straightforward rapture about the life-saving joys of music, drawing on U2's long palette of influences and investigations of post-punk rock, industrial electronics and contemporary dance music. "You and I are rock & roll," Bono shouts in "Volcano," a song about imminent eruption, through a propulsive delirium of throaty, striding bass, alien-choral effects and the Edge's rusted-treble jolts of Gang of Four-vintage guitar. Bono also sings this, earlier in a darker, more challenging tone: "Do you live here or is this a vacation?" For U2, rock & roll was always a life's work – and the work is never done.--David Fricke

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/u2-songs-of-innocence-20140911#ixzz3DnYW6xLp
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

"Song For Someone" is especially wonderful...it's just so lovely I can't stop listening.

"Song For Someone"

You've got a face not spoiled by beauty
I have some scars from where I've been
You've got eyes that can see right through me
You're not afraid of anything they've seen

I was told that I would feel
Nothing the first time
I don't know how these cuts heal
But in you I found a right

If there is a light
You can always see
And there is a world
We can always be
If there is a dark
That we shouldn't doubt
And there is a light
Don't let it go out

And this is a song
A song for someone
This is a song
A song for someone

You let me into a conversation
A conversation only we could make
You're breaking into my imagination
Whatever's in there is yours to take

I was told I'd feel
Nothing the first time
You were slow to heal
But this could be the night

If there is a light
You can always see
And there is a world
We can always be
If there is a dark
Within and without
And there is a light
Don't let it go out

And this is a song
A song for someone
This is a song
A song for someone

And I'm a long way
From your hill on Calvary
And I'm a long way
From where I was, where I need to be

If there is a light
You can always see
And there is a world
We can always be
If there is a kiss
I stole from your mouth
And there is a light,
Don't let it go out

I was very wary of downloading the recently released iOS8 on to my iPhone 5s tonight, but now that the process is over I have no regrets. It took over an hour and a half to get it all working, but I didn't lose a thing (this has not always been the case with previous updates) so that's a huge plus right there!

What I like most (so far) is the Podcast app that automatically appeared. I've never done Podcasts before and became curious right away. I chose one with an Anjelica Huston interview from the Pittsburgh Hear and Now Show. (She's such a neat and nice lady and strikes me as very genuine and very intelligent. And when she talks of her late husband you can so hear the love in her voice.)

Then I discovered a Podcast all about Todd Haynes's cult film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. I'm listening to it right now and it's not just about the movie itself (made with Barbie dolls in the late 80s and so eerie and sad I find it almost unbearable to watch) but about Karen herself...and her voice.

That podcast is called The Lost Picture Show with two British gents named John and Julian, one of whom loves the Carpenters as much as any Carpenters fan possibly can and the other for whom there could be very few tortures worse than listening to their music.

http://thelostpictureshow.com/

It may be nice to have podcasts to listen to late at night when it's hard to keep your eyes open, but  you're still awake anyway and the sound of a soothing voice gives you the illusion of not being alone.

I can't wait to discover and learn more.

Mondays are universally tough, or so it seems to me. Even the most upbeat of people sometimes want to postpone them. For me, even though I almost always love where I'm going to be going when I wake up on Mondays, I still need something to make me smile.

Mariachi bands make me happy, think of better times and futures ones I hope will happen someday. I don't care if it's authentic mariachi or samples of it in OMC's 1996 "How Bizarre," I get pretty much giddy, going on vacation in my mind since it's much cheaper and the chances of things getting out of control much slimmer.

Here are some bands to check out now:

http://www.mtviggy.com/lists/7-mariachi-bands-you-need-to-know-now/

Thank you, Shuffle...

I'll take my smiles any way I can get them these days and for some reason whenever I unexpectedly hear "Got A Hold On Me" by Christine McVie I feel better. Not only does it have lots of feel-good vibes, it's just so darn bouncy you can't not smile. :)

I've always liked Christine McVie. Her voice may not have the character that Stevie Nicks's has, but it's still a very nice one (not bad "nice," but real nice) and "Songbird" (one of the prettiest Fleetwood Mac songs...prettiest songs, ever, really) is all in her court.

According to Songfacts:

Christine McVie penned the song in half a hour after she woke up in the middle of the night with the song in her head. She recalled to Mojo January 2013: "I got up and I wrote it on the piano."

I love the comments about the song. One Songfacts user writes that she sings it to her three-year-old to help her get to sleep at night.:

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2182

And, as much as I love Stevie, it doesn't hurt to remember that Christine contributed a lot of good to the band too (so glad she's back for the current Fleetwood Mac tour!):

http://thewildheartrocks.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/10-great-fleetwood-mac-songs-that-are-written-or-sung-by-christine-mcvie/

 

Sunday paper snippets...

From this section of the New York Times Book Review ("Sara Paretsky: By The Book") I discovered another "new" author, whose books sound very intriguing:

Which do you consider the best detective stories of all time, and why?

Anna Katharine Green, for defining the consulting detective for the 19th century; Wilkie Collins, for playing with the form and transforming it; Dashiell Hammett, for reinventing the form for the 20th century; the Holmes oeuvre, for making detective fiction popular in both Great Britain and America; Amanda Cross and Lillian O’Donnell, for opening the door that enabled Marcia Muller, Linda Barnes, Sue Grafton and me to challenge the form in new ways.

 

What makes a good detective novel?

Believable characters first, a good story, an understanding of how to pace dramatic action. I like commitment by a writer, to the form, to the story — there are lots of slick writers of crime fiction who aren’t writing out of passion, but for the market. They write good English sentences, but for me, the lack of commitment makes them uninteresting.

for the rest of it, just jump here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/books/review/sara-paretsky-by-the-book.html?_r=0

 

To get a free copy of The Leavenworth Case for your ereader go here:

 

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Anna_Katherine_Rohlfs_The_Leavenworth_case?id=JQ0GAAAAQAAJ