Backstab's Recommends

This page contains a whole list of shit that Backstab would recommend you to get, from your basic necessities to total junk.

Music Albums (mainstream)

Massive Attack - Mezzanine (9.5/10)

This album owns. Need I say more? This is trip-hop at its best. I love listening to this CD at night because it's so chilling. Each tune has sick melodies accompanied by sweet basslines and vocals. Usually there's always 1 or 2 songs in a CD that I don't like, but not in this one. I like every single track on this album. My favourite would be "Risingson", "Dissolved Girl" and "Black Milk".

Fatboy Slim - You've Got A Long Way Baby (9/10)

I think this is one of Fatboy's best album.  Some will disagree and say that Better Living Through Chemistry is better, but honestly, this one has a lot tighter production and the stuff is a lot more complex.  Loved every track on this album again, except for Right Here Right Now.  The tunes that really stand out to me were, "Soul Surfing", later became one of those adidas commercial tune, the soulful "You're Not From Brighton" and the house influenced, stab-happy "Love Island". Not to mention the overplayed songs "Rockafeller Skank" and "Praise You"... ugh, enough said, a must have.

Crystal Method - Vegas (8.5/10)

Back in 1997, Crystal Method were actually good!  Yes, none of that Tweekend, Name of the Game bullshit.  You'll know what I mean when you listen to tracks like "Busy Child", "Cherry Twist" and um I forgot what that vocal tune was called, oh and "Keep Hope Alive", that was absolutely HUGE tune.  My personal favourite, is the chillout tune "Bad Stone", nice piano stabs there, really. This is one of my favourite big-beat/techno/breaks album.

Lo Fidelity Allstars - How to Operate a Blown Mind (9/10)

This is a weird album. I first heard of this band from browsing through the Skint Recordings website (Fatboy Slim's label). Anyway I was a bit curious, so I downloaded the mp3 "Battleflag" on some guy's FTP. I couldn't believe how much I loved that song, I actually quite like the lead singer "says" his lyrics, sorta like rapping but not really. THen two days later I saw the video on Much. Enough said, in a month or so, I downloaded the entire album and I was quite impressed. My favourite tunes on this album would be "Kasparov's Revenge", "Vision Incision" and the somewhat chill-out "How to Operate a Blown Mind". You really should check this one out if you're into big-beat, and if you don't mind the guy's "rapping".

Beatles - White Album (9/10)

I have to put this one in here! Maybe because Beatles were really the only old rock band I liked. Ok maybe I am really narrow minded, I know there's tons of good stuff out there, but the Beatles were the only band that I was into and actually took time to listen their stuff. The "White Album" is considered a classic to many people, and I have to agree. This one is not the Beatles teeny-boppish stuff, but it's actually quite a mixture of styles, tons of weird influences from hard rock to folk. My favourite songs on this album would be "Dear Prudence", "Martha My Dear", "Cry Baby Cry", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"... anyhow, tons of good stuff, probably not a Beatles' starter album, but yeah, this one is a classic.

Artful Dodger - It's All About The Stragglers (8.5/10)

Now I have to say, I'm not so easily influenced, but if not for Liston, I don't think I'll ever put a 2-step/R&B-ish album up on this list. The first tune I heard on this album was Rewind, and at first I really didn't like it because the R&B-ness was just a little too much for me. Didn't really get into the whole album until I started to listen to it during the summer as I was trying to get away from drum and bass. Anyway, quality tunes/production in tracks like "Think About Me", "Twentyfourseven", "Rewind", "Outrageous" are opening up my mind into the world of R&B. Pretty good stuff.

P.S. I will put tons more albums once I feel like :P

Software

Cool Edit Pro

This is a very, very simple audio editing program which has huge capabilities.  I absolutely love their filters and distortions!  I use Cool Edit Pro for all my tunes, I use their filtering, distortions and compressions.  That's how I can get those nasty filtered stabs.  Plus it takes up so little memory, it's not even funny, and it hardly ever crashes.

Audiogalaxy Satellite ( IT'S DOWN NOW THANKS TO RIAA =[ )

This is the ultimate program for getting new MP3s, every since Napster got owned by the government.  Nowadays, you can find just about any song on Audiogalaxy.  I know it's hard to find "commercialized" songs up there, but it's great for drum and bass and breakbeat stuff in general.  Lovely lovely MP3 sharing software.

ACDSee

An extremely nice program for viewing all kinds of graphic files.  Takes up little memory, awesome for browsing through multiple graphic files.  Thanks to Guru Mike for introducing this program to me.

WinAmp

Hahah... need I say more?  If you're using Windows Media Player, you're deprived.  It really kicks a llamas ass.

CuteFTP

Simple FTP program created for Win95.  The thing I like about CuteFTP is that, it's virtually bugless, takes up little memory, and best of all, you can open up like 5 of those at a time.  Isn't that just great?

SoulSeek

Yeah, great little program for drum and bass MP3s. This is my replacement of AudioGalaxy for now and it's serving me quite well. Sleek design with wish list/buddy list options. And the best has got to be the ability to browse other people's files.

TextPad

This thing ROCKS. My goodness, this must be the best text editor for Windows that has ever been built. It uses up so little system resources and it's simply great. It can save files in UNIX/PC mode and hilights keywords for you if you're coding Java. Also it has a document selector thing that lets you go open up multiple textfiles. I didn't even know I had this thing sitting in my harddrive until one day I opened my CS241 shit with this. (Liston I think you installed this during Oktoberfest) Definitely recommended.

Miscellaneous

Ecko

I'm not trying to advertise and be thug-like or gangsta like or whatever the hell you wanna call it because I'm not one of those people, but Ecko is probably the nicest Urban Wear clothing company that you can get.  Their stuff might be a little bit on the expensive side, but I'm telling you, it's quality. An Ecko hoody is a must have, as Knobody and Alyssa have already learnt...OH WAIT, AND SO DID GURU MIKE!  And so has Etheral!! Yup, him and his Ecko puffy jacket! (p.s. no it's not mine Alyssa, you've been had)

Casio fx-991MS Scientific Calculator

Awesome calculator.  It helps me cheat, as it tells me all the constants, like epsilon-0 (absonote™), mass of an electron etc.  It has memory of your previous inputs, so you can sorta correct your errors by going back up to your old expressions.  It also does definite intergrals, and finds you the tangent points (I believe it uses Simpson's Rule and Newton's method) Pretty smart calculator, for a pretty decent price. 

Creative Nomad Jukebox 6GB

This is the MP3 player I got before my 2A term. Awesome little thing, can store up to 6GB of stuff. Has 2 line outs and 1 headphone out. Lots of customizability with playlist control. The USB transfer is pretty fast, I'd say about 1.2MB/sec on average (I have no idea how fast it's supposed to transfer). But anyway, definitely recommended, it's only on sale for $149.99 US right now on the Creative store. EZ.