Sunday, February 3, 2013

Music Review: Bruno Mars - Unorthodox Jukebox



Bruno Mars’s new album Unorthodox Jukebox has been dominating my music time the past few weeks. Bruno Mars’s last album Doo-Wops & Hooligans was great. The singles Grenade, Just The Way You Are and The Lazy Song spent a lot of time on the charts. I personally enjoyed most of the songs on the disc though only about half of them remain on my Ipod. With this new album the song Locked Out of Heaven was the first single released and while it is quite catchy it made me a bit weary of this album. I wasn't sure I would like it as much as the first because I didn't really like this song as much as my favorites from the first album. When the disc was finally released I hesitated to purchase it. After about 2 weeks I stopped fighting my desire to hear the album and bought the whole thing. After the first time I listen through the disc I wasn't overly excited or blown away by what I heard. But I wasn't willing to simply shelve the album as a failure. I tend to find that I need to listen to an album at least three times to discover what songs I truly like, if any. By my third time through Unorthodox Jukebox I found myself singing along (at least the choruses) with almost every song. That’s how I know I really like a song when I feel I just have to sing along no matter of poorly my voice lines up with the actual singer’s voice and I must say my voice certainly doesn't not measure up to Bruno’s.  

So here’s the actual song order on the album.
(all the songs are linked to videos so you can hear the songs)
  1. Young Girls
  2. Locked Out of Heaven
  3. Gorilla
  4. Treasure
  5. Moonshine
  6. When I Was Your Man
  7. Natalie
  8. Show Me
  9. Money Make Her Smile
  10. If I Knew

And here are my rankings of the songs. I actually put the songs into groups rather than an actual list ordered 1 to 10 because there is no real distinction for me between many of the songs in each group. There is no number one song for me but there is a number one group of songs. I have three groups of songs on this disc from those I listen to the most to those I listen to the least.

Group One:  When I Was Your Man, Moonshine, Natalie, and Treasure
Group Two: Young Girls, Locked Out of Heaven and Show Me
Group Three: Money Make Her Smile, If I Knew and Gorilla

So overall I would recommend this album to anyone particularly if you like Bruno Mars’s first album then you will certainly like his second one. 

-Zach

Friday, February 1, 2013

Where to? - Honeymoon Help



Priya and I are getting married next week and are trying to determine where we’d like to go on our honeymoon. Obviously, the honeymoon itself will not be happening next week but in the near future, still it’s fun to dream a little now. 

So we come to anyone and everyone with a fun question. Imagine you are going on your honeymoon and you could go to one place in Europe and one outside of it, where would you go? And what would you do there? Also if you think there are destinations to avoid based on personal experiences please feel free to share that with us.