GOOGLE: World's Most Valuable Brand

In a strong blow to Microsoft, UK based Millward Brown recently announced in their BRANDZ SURVEY that Google is the most valuable brand in the world; the Google name being worth $66.4 Billion, which is about 77% more than it's estimated value in 2006. Within one year, Google has surpassed long established brands like Microsoft, Coca-Cola,Walmart and General Electric.

While this may come as surprise to many, I don't really think it warrants one. I mean, c'mon, think about it--You BLOG with Google, you SCRAP with Google, you TAG with Google, you TALK with Google, you SHARE with Google, you TRANSLATE with Google, you gMAIL with Google and most importantly..you SEARCH with Google and there are many more. Three cheers to Google team, keep up the good work guys:).

Coming back to the Millward Brown rankings; many other big names have joined Microsoft in the losers section viz. IBM(-7%,$33.6Bn), Cisco(-10%,$18.8Bn), Intel(-26%,$18.7Bn), Dell(-24%,$18.9Bn) andYahoo(-6%,$13.2Bn). The winners include Nokia(+19%,$31.7Bn), Hewlett-Packard(+27%,$25Bn), Apple(+55%,$24.8Bn) and Sony(+22%,$11.4Bn). Microsoft lost about 11% of its value last year and now stands at $55Bn; it also lost the #2 spot to General Electric. At number 4 stands a company called China Mobile, valued at $41.2Bn, while Nokia languishes at #12????...pheww!! times really have changed.

Internet 2: Speed Demon!!

While most home users living in India tend to be satisfied with the "broadband" speeds of 256Kbps(that too shared), upto 2Mbps in case of BSNL lines, our friends in Japan and other developed countries seem to have different needs altogether.During my 1 year stay in London I had experienced a 10Mbps speeds on our University LAN/T1 connection and about 8Mbps(BT Broadband) when I moved into a separate apartment with one of my friends. Home users in Korea and Japan have 80Mbps connections!!! While TRAI feels proud of classifying 256Kbps as broadband...and our service providers are busy robbing the poor customers with silly data limits("plans starting at 250 with a 200MB data limit", can you friggin believe that???only the downloading of virus definitions, windows updates and OS elements as DirectX,.NET FRAMEWORK can eat it up in ONE SITTING, broadband revolution my ass!!) and crappy bandwidths, the people at the University of Tokyo have given us something more to drool over.

The Internet 2 consortium just announced that scientists working at the University Of Tokyo slammed gigabytes of information on an around-the-world path at more than 9 Gigabits!!! per second....phew!!!! This was done in early December and January.

The path started in Tokyo and stretched 20,000 miles going through Chicago, Amsterdam, Seattle and then back to Tokyo. The initial try on December 30th achieved speeds of 7.67 gigabits per second. After some tuning, the scientists reached 9.08 Gbps on New Year’s Eve.The theoretical limit of the Internet 2 is 10 Gbps on a single link.

Year Zero--Nine Inch Nails

A friend of mine, an NIN follower and a Trent Reznor fanatic, recently asked me to put up a review for this album. Before I begin, I'll be honest with you and tell you that I've never really warmed upto NIN's music, or any sort of Industrial music for that matter, save for some early works of Fear Factory. I do, as many of you would, enjoy a couple of their songs like 'closer' and 'hurt' though. In fact, I have never listened to any NIN album through and through--they BORE me quite frankly. Well...that has changed now....and as per the request of my friend, I have finally heard an NIN album in its entirety...much to my dismay though...lol...just kiddin...read on!!
I don't know much about NIN's history, except for the fact that 'The Downward Spiral' is considered as a seminal release in Industrial Music; so I won't/can't compare Year Zero to their earlier works or even The Downward Spiral. So what I'll do is give you an unbiased(I'll try my best) opinion on the album's music. Did I just say music???Apparently, it's not music--now before you go judging me on how I also listen to death/grind and talk about "music", please have patience..and read further. If you(except NIN followers) are to perceive this as a piece of music, then you're in for a big big disappointment, coz it's not. What it should be seen as is a piece of art, a piece of art coming straight from the heart of an artist; his angst, his depressions, the misery. I, however, had a tough time putting the pieces together to find the hidden art:). It's very noisy with all sorts of sounds haphazardly thrown in throughout the album--now for some, this may be innovation. Of course, innnovation it is, but then again --what the hell were Pink Floyd doing on The Dark Side Of The Moon?? Didn't all the clicking watches, the tinkering coins, the laughing men and women seem to complement the music there??The answer is a resounding YES. But with Year Zero--it's a no, with a capital n and capital o. That's not to say that the entire album is rubbish though; it does have it's fair share of radio friendly tunes and then some interesting ones. There's Survivalism which has a very catchy chorus, it gets into your head actually; Capital G has a catchy beat and a very pumped up chorus; Meet Your Master has some groovy bass lines and Trent delivers some really great vocals on In This Twilight.
Anyway, the fact is that it's a concept album--something to do with the year 2022 when the world ends or something, and it has some political lyrics(I'm sorry I didn;t go deep into them). As I've said before, I listen to music to listen to music. The message, the social impact, the blah blah can go to hell, if I wanted some intellectual stimulation I'd sit down and have a political debate with my wife or friends:). So, as always, I was not very impressed with what NIN have to offer, some of the songs could get a replay once in a blue moon though; but then they'll be lost in oblivion for me for sure. As for die hard NIN fans, I'm not sure--but I'll still say that you'll most probably love it. And the goth inspired 15 year kids will also add to the 'star power' of Mr. Reznor. To sum it up, if you're one of those who find what goes around in the making of an album, the experiences(read pretensions) of the artists, the self proclaimed junkie/goth status more stimulating than the music itself then you'll love it(Disclaimer: I'm not judging you) coz as they say..to each his own. As for me, I find this a poser effort. And Trent, you're no Roger Waters and never will be.Oh! and stop the silly goth/junkie act and go find a dustbin to live...lol...I just couldn't help myself...sorry:)

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Rating: 6.0/10

HITACHI Goes TERABYTE!!!!

I remember the moment when we had our first PC installed at home. It was a PIII 650 Mhz machine with an HD capacity of 4.7 GB;I was thrilled to my bones. Those were the times when all we would save on the PC were word documents, wallpapers!!!! and sometimes games which required a maximum of about 150 MB, a la Quake or Unreal. When Seagate announced the first 20GB hard disk, almost everybody laughed"who would ever need so much of space?" It seems that within less than a decade's time people's needs have grown a 100 fold!!! Up untill now Seagate was again the innovator with it's 750GB line of hard drives; and now Hitachi has come up with a 'first' in it's Deskstar 7K1000 line of hard drives with a whopping 1 Terabyte of capacity.

Apart from the massive storage, the drive carries a huge 32MB of cache memory,runs at a fair 7200 RPM and also uses PMR(Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) technology; first time for Hitachi in the 3.5' segment. The drive benchmarks well against similar hard drives in the market and clearly outperforms the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB. For the detailed benchmarking results of this drive please visit here.

UNSUNG CLASSIC: Heartwork--Carcass

Carcass, along with Napalm Death are reponsible for giving the world what we call grind/grindcore/ or death-grind or whatever you wish to call it. Now that's that, but there's more to Carcass....read on!! When we talk of revolutionary/influential bands in metal, bands that have released albums that started/defined or epitomized a particular genre, names like Black Sabbath, Venom, Metallica, Death, Slayer,Queensryche,KoRN, Helloween,Iron Maiden,Dream Theater come to mind. How many can boast of doing this more than once in their careers?? Maybe Metallica....so this might come as a surprise to you that Carcass, in fact, have done so twice in their short career of 5 albums.With their debut album, they invented grind and with Heartwork they invented Melodic Death Metal. Yes!! you read that right, not At The Gates, not In Flames, not Dark Tranquillity, but it was 1993 when Carcass released this gem of their's that MDM was born!!Coming on to the music--the album has elements of traditional death metal, grind,groove and classic hard rock!!!!!Yes, yes, yes, listen to all the solos, they might very well have been on all the great Kiss,Motley Crue,Whitesnake,Poison songs. The music is beautiful from start to finish...tracks are mostly mid to fast paced....original/unique riffs(for it's time) and blistering yet melodious solos. I won't get into the deep track by track review as each song here is great, with the possible exception of No Love Lost, which just seems out of place in this otherwise perfect album. Highlights include the title track, This Mortal Coil, Buried Dreams, Arbeit Macht Fleisch, Doctrinal Expletives and the masterful Death Certificate,which might very well be the best death metal song ever!!! Get your hands on this revolutionary album now, you won't be disappointed.

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Rating: 9.5/10

UNSUNG CLASSIC: The Jester Race--In Flames

In Flames are the pioneers of a style known as Melodic Death Metal along with the likes of Dark Tranquillity, At The Gates etc. This is the first full length album from these lords of Gothenburg. If it wasn't for Metallica's Black album and Megadeth's Rust In Peace, I would go as far as to say that this is perhaps the best metal album of the nineties!!! Harmonising guitars..pulverizing riffs...insane drumming..immaculate solos. Never has the amalgamation of so many different types of music sounded so good. For the death metal fan there are the blast beats and the cookie monster vocals....for the classic hard rock listener there are sweet solos and melodious rhythms...for the power metal fan there are harmonising guitars played at breakneck speed.It has everything for everybody. Listen to the opener Moonshield and you'll know what I mean...it starts off with a folksy acoustic intro and then goes on to bombard the listener with progressive/death/melodious bliss. Straight up rockers like Artifacts of the Black Rain,Lord Hypnos and Dead Eternity will provide instant gratification to any riff-monger out there. The Jester's Dance is an instrumental which could have very well been on Master of Puppets!! Even after all this, if you thought they are just another band who just know how to riff..listen to the solo on December Flower. It's soooo emotionally melodious you'll feel like crying(and that says a lot for a death metal band..so what if it's melodious death metal)..definitely one of the top 5 metal solos ever..in my opinion. The Jester Race might very well be the greatest metal album not to reach the platinum status. So do yourself a favor and get it now. Even if you don't like the growling death metal vocals..listen to it for the sheer beauty of the instruments(it's an acquired taste actually and might grow on you)

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Rating: 10/10

Unsung Metal Classics

When people talk about rock/metal music and the classic albums that these genres have produced, the names Metallica, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden,Judas priest, Guns n' Roses, AC/DC, Slayer, Megadeth come to mind.....don't they? Black Sabbath gave the world what we call 'heavy metal'..the song Iron Man was the first ever 'metal song'. Iron Maiden perfected and epitomized what we know as NWOBHM or New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Judas Priest walked this path aongside Iron Maiden and were among the first bands of NWOBHM. AC/DC gave the world rock n' roll metal, Back In Black remains the highest selling rock/metal album to date. Gn'R gave metal its mass appeal again in late eighties when it was supposed to be dying. Metallica are the mighty lords of thrash metal and arguably the most important band in metal history. Megadeth; contemporaries and an offshoot of Metallica have also given the metal world many a masterpieces. Slayer's Reign In Blood is responsible for whatever we hear in extreme music today.

Master Of Puppets, Reign In Blood, Rust In Peace, Number Of The Beast, Back in Black etc etc have been reviewed and hailed soooooooooo many times. What I'm gonna do in the next few posts is review a not so well known album which I deem to be a classic...let's see where that goes:)

Introduction Of Links

Since i have been on a metal reviews/lists frenzy..I thought it would be good to give you guys some links from where you can download and preview some good metal music you havent listened to. Please do not keep any of the music you download from these sites or the links provided there for more than 24 hrs. If you like the music..buy it! I've put up links for 4 good blogs...and will add more in the future. Hope you guys enjoy the music. If anybody has any problems with these links being on the blog...contact me..and they'll be removed. Cheers

100 Greatest Metal Songs Of All Time Pt.5--20-01

Ok...time for the BIG 20...the songs which,in my opnion, are the 20 best metal songs ever...shall we begin?

20. Tornado Of Souls--Megadeth(Rust In Peace)
Another song from RIP, yeah I love everything about this album. This was one of the first metal songs I had heard, I was into Gn'R, Bon Jovi, Led Zep and stuff but this song is responsible for introducing me to metal music along with many of Metallica's works. Great thrasher this one, godly riffing!!!

19. The Trooper--Iron Maiden(Piece Of Mind)
A fan favourite....this song truly depicts what IM are about...a legendary song this one.

18. Creeping Death--Metallica(Ride The Lightening)
My favourite song off this album...'lica were at their ferocious best on this one. Godly guitar work.

17. Cowboys From Hell--Pantera(Cowboys From Hell)
Dimebag at his nastiest best!! on this one. The opening riff to this one is worth many albums by some other good bands.

16. Eyes Of A Stranger--Queensryche(Operation Mindcrime)
Queensryche's greatest song to date IMHO. Everything about this song is perfect..the atmosphere...the build up...and the chorus is....well, for lack of a better word...HEAVENLY.

15. The Divine Wings Of Tragedy--SymphonyX(TDWOT)
EPIC....POWERFUL...25 minutes of musical madness. It's not one of those casual listens though....best enjoyed late in the night right before going to sleep...listen to it with a pair of good headphones..close your eyes and turn the lights off.

14. Hangar18--Megadeth(Rust In Peace)
What can I say that hasn't been said before.....the solos on this one are definitely among the top 10 of all time.

13. Symphony Of Destruction--Megadeth(Countdown To Extinction)
One of the highest charting metal songs ever made...not too technical..not too fast as Megadeth should be...but still one of the most entertaining ever made.

12. Smells Like Teen Spirit--Nirvana(Nevermind)
Hmm..I go grunge again:) I remember the time Nevermind was released, I must have been 12-13 years old...it was Nirvana everywhere...we sang the songs in classrooms...blasted their songs all the time at home....of course..my tastes have changed over time...and I hardly listen to Nirvana anymore....but this song still has a special place in my heart. When I first heard it, I thought..nothing could get angrier and heavier than this....the angrier bit applies till today:). RIP Kurt Cobain.

11. Enter Sandman--Metallica(Metallica)
To borrow from what I said above...some songs will always hold a special place in my heart. The Black Album single handedly turned me from a classic rock/ hard rock listener into a metalhead....and I'm pretty sure it applies to many others in my age group too. I don't judge the quality of music for how much airplay it gets on MTV and Radio. I don't believe in the term "sell-out". Even if I did..I would say "sell-out" is when you conform to already established gimmicks/standards of success, did Metallica do that? Instead..they made a standard themselves...if songs like Enter Sandman..Sad But True..Through The Never...The Unforgiven..Wherever I May Roam..Nothing Else Matters are sell-outs...then damn!! every band on the planet should sell-out!! I listen to the likes of In Flames..Dark Tranquillity..Dismember..Soilwork..Carcass...Obituary..Cryptopsy etc now...Metallica gets play-time very seldom..but it was..is..and forever will be my DEAREST!!! metal album of all time. Pheww!!..glad I got that off my chest...lol

10. Angel Of Death--Slayer(Reign In Blood)
Infamous...Butcher..Angel of Deaaaathhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!Everything sounds messed up...for most parts you can't even figure out the notes Hannemann and King are shredding...the solos are totally screwed up...Araya's vocals are laughable when he hits the high notes....BUT!!! This is as good as speed/thrash can get....go figure:)

09. Hallowed Be Thy Name--Iron Maiden(Number Of The Beast)
Legendary band..legendary song...one of the most covered songs in metal history. Gigantic...epic..mammoth....ummmm..u know the rest..lol

08. Cemetery Gates--Pantera(Cowboys From Hell)
Never have harmonics been used so menacingly in all of metal. A complete metal song...heavy..beautiful...technical....and might I add one of the better "singing" performances by Phil Anselmo. RIP Dimebag

07. Highway Star--Deep Purple(Machine Head)
Do I need to say anything here? No, I guess...you can laugh at me for this choice or you can completely agree with me.

06. One--Metallica(...And Justice For All)
This song was my introduction to the land of double-bass mayhem. When the shredding/double bass kicks in aroun the 3/4th mark, you feel an adrenaline rush you never imagined could be attained by music....of course now the art has been mastered by many pounders but at that time...Lars Ulrich was THE man.

05. Paradise City--Guns n' Roses(Appetite For Destruction)
I know, I'm crossing the limits of aggravating the "true" metalheads; but I am what I am. This song, this album, this band...all are so dear to me that I just couldn't resist. I know, it's not metal...but it's heavier than atleast 20 songs on the whole list..and has one of the most infectious rhythm riffs ever. Don't agree? Sue me

04. Sad But True--Metallica(Metallica)
Refer to no. 11..lol..I'm getting lazy.

03. Fear Of The Dark--Iron Maiden(Fear Of The Dark)
Yes..yes..and yes. This is indeed my favourite IM song. I don't care for nostalgia and I don;t believe in the conception that older is always better. Yes, Trooper..Number of the beast..Hallowed Be thy name are all great songs...but this one takes the crown, for me atleast. If you've watched Iron Maiden live or seen their shows..you'll know what I mean.

Hmm...so the list is finally coming to an end; now we'll see the top 2 greatest metal songs of all time. To some..one or even both of them might be surprises!! I think I need to take a break....see you later:)

Ok....I'm back..so here they are........

02. Holy Wars...The Punishment Due--Megadeth(Rust In Peace)
Well well well....I was really confused between this and No. 1...I just couldn't decide, but given the fact that No.1 is actually 4 years older and is still considerably heavier and faster and technically better than this one, I made the choice of making this No.2. I won't go into the details...but the last two minutes of this song kick more A** than the wholoe discography of thrash bands like Anthrax(Why they are included in the "Big 4 of Thrash", I'll never understand), Exodus, Kreator etc(these are good bands too).

Hmm...so the moment we(or I rather..lol) have been waiting for. The greatest metal song of all time...you know what...I'd like some people to take a guess first. It's been quite sometime I've been putting up this list and only one good soul, list-a-maniac, has posted a comment. I'll put up the greatest metal song ever made after I get about 3-4 guesses from some people..lol. I know, it's a bit selfish....but that's the way it is:)...untill then adios amigos.

UPDATE--List-a-maniac got it right in the first guess!! So it's no use keeping it hidden now...the greatest metal song, IN MY HUMBLE OPINION, ever made is......

(1) Master Of Puppets--Metallica(Master of Puppets)
If you've read the TOP 100 METAL ALBUMS OF ALL TIME by Martin Popoff or seen any other Album lists, you'll know that Master Of Puppets, almost always claims the top spot. This song is THE reason. Battery, Orion, Sanitarium, Damage Inc.(none except Battery figure in my list..did you notice?) are also very highly regarded...but this song singlehandedly helps the album to rise above the competition. You replace this song with any other great Metallica song....One..Enter Sandman..or something else, and Rust In Peace...Reign In Blood will beat it to the top spot,heck even their own Ride The Lightning will beat it....that's my opinion though. Anyway coming on to the song; This song is, and forever will be the yardstick by which every other Thrash Metal band on the planet will be judged...that's including Metallica!!!The opening riff is the BEST EVER, I don't think even Metallica can better it in their lives; the breakdown through halfway....the solo..and then the bulild up again is an energy monster; Hetfield's vocals are the best he's ever done..I could go on and on and on...so I'll just say that it is the COMPLETEST!!! metal song ever made, and there's about 00.01% probability that any band(including Metallica) will ever be able to better it.

100 Greatest Metal Songs Of All Time Pt.4--40-21

Sorry for the long delay...had been busy with Holi. Here are numbers 40 to 21.

40. Painkiller--Judas Priest(Painkiller)
Great riffs...great vocals...this song was so influential on the newer extreme metal acts that death actually covered it in one of their albums.

39.This Mortal Coil--Carcass(Heartwork)
The classic song off what is arguably the most influential death metal album ever. This is like Morbid Angel meets Megadeth meets Iron Maiden meets Judas Priest meets Obituary meets Metallica.

38.Blind--KoRN--(KoRN)
Who doesn't know this one....aaaaaaaarrrrreeeee you readyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???One of the greatest headbangers ever.

37. The Enemy Within--Arch Enemy(Wages Of Sin)
Blistering..bludgeoning....hard as steel!!! Pure metal mayhem this one. Angela Gossow may be a woman but she can scare the pants off many a death metal growlers.

36. Welcome To The Jungle--Guns N Roses(Appetite For Destruction)
Me and my friends grew up listening to this stuff....Axl's voice has never sounded so menacing!! It has what is probably the greatest hard rock vocal performance ever.

35. The Four Horsemen--Metallica(Kill 'Em All)
I was actually confused between this and Mechanix(killing...good--megadeth) but this wins hands down in the end. This is what started the whole thrash metal revolution in the true sense.

34. Death Certificate--Carcass(Heartwork)
Is it heavy metal..is it thrash...is it grindcore..is it death metal....or is it classic hard rock?? This was the beauty of this Carcass album released in 1993. This was actually the FIRST MELODIC DEATH METAL ALBUM recorded. In flames, Dark tranquillity, At The Gates...and newer acts like Trivium..Killswitch Engage owe a lot to Carcass. The opening riff of this song will tell you how Papa Roach make their insanely unoriginal, insipid,stupid, bogus music. Without doubt the best death metal song I've heard....except one!..you'll see later.

33. Pull Me Under--Dream Theater(Images And Words)
DT's most "metal" song to date..insane riffing patterns this one has. I'm sure you've heard it.

32. Black Is Black--AC/DC(Back In Black)
AC/DC's crowning achievement...this is rock n' roll metal at its best!!

31. December Flower--In Flames(The Jester Race)
How can death metal be played so tastefully??? Of course, it has the growling, screaming vocals, but the music on this one is pure bliss!! and the solo is definitely one of the 5 greatest metal solos ever.

30. Sweating Bullets--Megadeth(Countdown To Extinction)
Menacing Mega-Dave Mustaine never ceases to bombard us with vintage metal. Blazing riffs....immaculate solos...typically classic Megadeth.

29. Breaking The Law--Judas Priest(British Steel)
Short and sweet doze of classic heavy metal this is. My favourite as well as one of the most popular Judas Priest songs.

28. Aces High--Iron Maiden(Powerslave)
You can't really go wrong with Iron Maiden..everything they touch seems to be pure gold. The legendary intro guitar lick and then the galloping rhythm...this one has one of Maiden's best choruses.

27. Wherever I May Roam--Metallica(Metallica)
Purists can go to hell....no matter what all the pseudo-hardcore kids say..the Black Album was a classic and this song is one of many classics it had...period.

26. Smoke On The Water--Deep Purple(Machine Head)
No need to say anything here. This is probably the most covered/played/requested song in hard rock/metal history.

25. Raining Blood--Slayer(Reign In Blood)
40 seconds of speed metal mayhem....then about half a minute of atmospheric sounds and lightning..and then what has to be one of the most memorable riffs in thrash history. This songs just kills!! RIB is arguably the most revolutionary album in Metal history..second only to Black Sabbath's debut I guess.

24. Number Of The Beast--Iron Maiden(Number Of The Beast)
Everything about this song is legendary..I'll just stop at that.

23. Black Dog--Led Zeppelin(Led Zeppelin IV)
Snarling vocals by Robert Plant..and one of the grooviest and unorthodox, if I might add rhythms ever. Led Zeppelin's best song IMHO

22. Chalice of Blood--Forbidden(Forbidden Evil)
One of the most adrenaline pumping Thrash songs ever. This one has like.... 800 riffs in it!!

21. Crazy Train--Ozzy Osbourne(Blizzard Of Ozz)
Legendary opening riff this one has...one of the cathiest metal songs ever!!

well ...that's it for now...see ya later