Non-Random Two

Ya know, I'd do one of those "Random 10" posts, but quite frankly, my listening has been absorbed by two CDs as of late:

Derek Webb: The Ringing Bell ... just great songwriting from start to finish.

Lincoln Brewster: Let the Praises Ring ... new to me, in terms of the 6-month old disc and the artist himself. As a one-time guitarist, this stuff just floors me. It's so unusual to hear a praise & worship song intersected with two guitar solos that just rip. The instrumental version of "Here I Am to Worship" is far and away my most-listened-to song of the week. If you're a fan of Eric Johnson, this guy won't disappoint. A bit less esoteric than EJ, but the hints and traces are still there.

I'm still having a little fun testing the MyStrands plugin. Need to install it for WMP at home, though. The charting ability of it is kinda cool, but I've already run into a limitation or two. Although the service will track the obscure stuff I have and show it in the "Recently Played" section, it won't track it in the "Top Music" section unless the CD is cataloged by MyStrands. Derek Webb's new release wasn't catalogued when I started spinning it, so "This Too Shall Be Made Right " doesn't chart despite being in "insanely heavy rotation" at the day job. Now it is cataloged, though. My box set of Hollywood Rocks? Outta luck ... not cataloged apparently and I prefer to alter the IDs on the files anyway so it shows up better in my MP3 player. Tradeoffs for ya. Adding to the confusion is that Brester's material shows up as if it's from the original album the song appeared on, not the Greatest Hits release. And my old Rough Cutt material shows up as being from a recent re-issue of the band's first two albums rather than the standalone first album (granted, I had to shell out top dime for a Japanese import to get that prize ... so it's a rarity).