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I think this album is destined to be divisive. The folks who love it are really going to love it, and vice versa. I see it becoming a cult/ fan favorite album in the vein of Christina Aguilera's album Bionic. There are other Bionic parallels as well. Like that record, I think this one will be misunderstood. It has a more upbeat, experimental first half and a personal, more organic second half. And, for me, it's great. I respect Lady Gaga's restless energy and the fact that she tries different things on her albums. Her ideas don't always work, but I love her creativity and her willingness to give new things a try. Her new approach on this record works very well and she may win herself some new fans with this personal intense record. Listen with an open mind and you may find that you like it too. Highlights for me would be Joanne, Diamond Heart, John Wayne, Come to Mama and Million Reasons. Get the deluxe version for the excellent song Grigio Girls. A Wonderful pop record from the Lady.

I was one of the masses that followed news about Spore online for the past few years, anticipating a great game with a great deal of depth and opportunities for creative evolution. Unfortunately, it did fall short of expectations. One of the first letdowns I found was that it doesn't matter very much how you customize your creature in the second phase of the game. You won't "evolve" with different skills based on the number of limbs or orientation of head/arms/weapons at all. It all comes down to a ranking system based on the individual parts included. If a set of hands has +1 health and +2 damage, that just all adds up to an overall ability to cause more damage per attack. It doesn't matter at all where on the body the items are placed, just so long as they are there somewhere. Also, you can change your creature 100% at any time in the first or second phase of the game. There's no evolution of more powerful limbs if you use them for multiple generations. They're the same limbs as any others you could pick from the creator program. Finally, when you leave phase two and move to the Tribe and beyond, you can't modify the creature further. Instead, you have the ability to add or remove items of clothing in one phase and the look of vehicles in another. The creatures themselves don't change again.