Ultraelectromagneticjam

I have been listening to the album “Ultraelectromagneticjam” for more than two weeks now and must say this has been a mixed bag for me. Honestly I’ve never really been a huge fan of E-heads, but I did enjoy most of their music, especially it was also a start of my college years back then and quite memorable. Even had a “CutterPillow” cassete back then. But hearing these new versions of their songs was a mixed of refreshment and “What the hell did they do?”

So what I did is to rip my CD and just chose tracks that’s worthy filling the limited space of my Nextbase MP3 player. So here are the tracks I chose:

• Imago – Spolarium
• Sugarfree – Tikman
• Francis M – Superproxy 2k6
• Radioactive Sago – Alkohol
• Brownman Revival – Maling Akala

Spolarium is one of the lesser known songs from Eheads but I remember this song reaching number one then in NU 107’s midnight countdown. It’s one of my favourite songs from the band and Imago didn’t disappoint me. Their version of Spolarium is just so addicting that I can’t help playing it again and again. Sugarfree is just perfect for Tikman (Remeber that “Burger machine” commercial), as Ebe’s voice is somehow similar in tone as Ely. Then there’s the souped up version of Superproxy from FancisM and the Hardware Syndrome, with ELy Buendia doing the rapping chores this time around. Also probably the hardest rocking song in the album. Radioactive Sago covered another lesser known song, Alcohol, which is just perfect for them and very original.

Now for the songs that I thought never lived up to the original:

• Paolo Santos – Magasin
• South Border – With a smile
• Kitchie Nadal – Ligaya
• Cueshe – Hard to believe

Now Paolo Santos is just awful here, really awful and I wonder why he was put on track 2 since his version of Magasin is the worst song in this album. As for South Border, it seems their “With a smile” is out of place in this whole album. As for Kitchie’s Ligaya, she seemed a bit off here, almost lazy to the point of sleeping. Hard to believe is really hard to listen to, probably because Cueshe seemed to play this just for the sake of playing and at times out of cue.

As for the rest of the tracks I think the others did fairly ok but doesn’t really stand out. I love Isha‘s Tori Amoesque sound but she seemed too trembly here with Torpedo but managed to pull it off ok. Barbie is cute here with Overdrive which is perfect for here but at times she’s seems trying to hard. Now Rico J. Puno is a surprise but he did do a good job with Huling El Bimbo. I guess Eheads have great respect for him since he was mentioned in one of their songs. MYMP is well…MYMP with Huwag mo ng itanong. I’m sure the pop scene would feed on their version. Para sa Masa is a nice closing for the album though, it’s amazing how the producers were able to pull up many artist to collaborate here.

Now on end, the album “Ultraelectromagneticjam: A tribute to the Eraserheads” is a good solid album not without flaws but enough to keep most people satisfied on what’s there.