Mixed Bag CD Blog Intro

I’ve mentioned this Chris "Lefty" Brown Mixed CD thang (May 23) I’ve been doing with some two dozen bloggers. I even reviewed one whole CD. But I’ve been negligent in recent weeks. And since I can't file them into the collection until I review them, I'd best get to it.

Before I do any specific reviews, I should make some general observations:

None of them I hated, as in "Get that thing out of my stereo," though my wife looked askance at me when I was listening to a couple of them. Some folks did some fancy graphics, while others were a 5" X 5" piece of paper, and while that didn’t matter much to me, a couple covers were particularly outstanding.

Thank you to those who indicated that some of the material may not be suitable for the office. I mention this because I played every single one in the office first, just to get a feel. (Kudos to Tony and Eddie, who put warnings on the package; also, Fred indicated same in an e-mail to the group.)

I’m reviewing these in a particular order: as of July 27 - first the folks that listed their CD tracks on their blogs, then the folks that Lefty listed their CD tracks on HIS blog, then everyone else who had tracks listed by others, then the ones where the tracks aren’t listed anywhere. Within those categories, I’m reviewing these in the order in which I received them.

I developed a matrix by which I’ll address each of the discs, more for my ease than anything. I was discussing with Fred Hembeck a while ago how difficult CD reviewing can be, because I don't always know the lingo, so at least the formula will allow me to touch on certain aspects more or less consistently. (You'll be able to tell a librarian did this.)

The first pair of reviews tomorrow.