Latin is the main flavor of the season.  I went ahead with filling out my Gloria Estefan collection; fans and first-time collectors alike will want to pick up the remastered Essential Collection, which is an amazing representation of Miami Sound Machine and Estefan, balancing both the very best of their pop ballads and dance hits over two beefy discs.

I'm also partial to Shakira these days.  Laundry Day is still her best album, but there are some real gems on the Oral Fixation CDs; the rockin' "Animal City," in particular, is much too addicting for its own good.  And of course, I've gotten accustomed - no, BRAINWASHED - by the infectious "Hips Don't Lie."  A bit more of a stretch as far as Latin-based music goes is Los Lobos, where I picked up their Acoustic En Vivo and Wolf Tracks: The Very Best CDs, both of which meet the high musical standard of Los Lobos.  Highly recommended.

David Arnold's Casino Royale score has been on constant rotation for the past two weeks, since I've seen the film.  There's a great balance of just about everything on the soundtrack, but I find myself gravitating toward those bombastic set piece action cues, like "African Rundown" and "Miami International."  Vesper and Solange's themes are beautiful, though, in the most elegant way. 

And Metal Slug 5.  The Slug scores always got progressively better as the series moved along, but Toshikazu Tanaka really nailed it with MS5.  Combining just the right amount of varied ethnic styles along with a harder-edged rock sound, the score is an absolute blast to listen to again and again.  Hail "Windy Day," as it's far and away the most awesome track in the entire series.   

For the rest of spring, I'm looking forward to the start of the big summer movie CD releases; Young and Elfman's Spider-Man 3, Gregson-Williams' Shrek The Third, and Zimmer's At World's End.  On the VGM front, Mitsuda's Armodyne, Gyakuten Saiban Meets Jazz Soul and Okami Piano Arrange are just around the corner.

more and more Oshare kei for shana and I, Although she gets a little upset when i keep playing my An Cafe cds over and over,, heh-heh.. 

Ive seen the video for the new gackt single on youtube and im majorly disappointed. If its another album of sappy ballads like love letter i think ill pass...

L'arc should be due for another cd somtime this summer.. i wish theyd tour the US, i mean they film half of their videos here already... 

And jerold if youre still out there,, lemme know if you come across a Siam Shade X boxset for a decent price,, although im starting to lose hope because the going price is close to 50,000yen
:'(

I've been listening to everything I own here at the moment since I'm doing some hardcore sorting of my music archive on my computer. VGM music has been my main course for about the past two years since releases from the European metal bands I like have been few and far between for about the same period of time.

While there are a lot of VGM soundtracks I'm still interested in 2007 looks to be a great year for Euro metal with new releases from Nightwish, Stratovarius, Sonata Arctica and many others so I hoping my interest will be somewhat revived this year compared to the "wait and see" approach of the last few.

With VGM, I've been listening to a bunch of Rockman and Castlevania music lately - nothing too fancy.

Aside from the shitty indie rock music I had to listen to at the bar I was at last night, I've been listening to the following albums that deserve long descriptions and a mini-review that can be easily paraphrased into "I love this soundtrack".

Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War
an cinniùint
killer7
Parasite Eve II
Shadow Hearts
Shadow Hearts II
Tekken 4 (disc 2, mostly)

New stuff:

Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
65daysofstatic - The Destruction of Small Ideas
Kaddisfly - Set Sail the Prairie
The Mars Volta - Amputechture

I had the pleasure of seeing EitS live recently... twice.  Absolutely amazing.

You know, this thread has made me realize my listening habits have had absolutely no rhyme or reason in the past month or so. It's all either random albums or completely random shufflings of my favorite tracks on the iPod. A couple that have stood out:

After Burner Climax - Didn't like this a great deal at first. It sounded like fairly generic rock and lacking in the melody department. But heh, that's what 2nd and 3rd listens are for. I love it now and it carries over the great 80's feel of its' predecessors, except with largely new content. "Volcanic Islands", "After Burner Climax" and "Sleepless Sanctuary" are all some of the finest VGM rock I've come across, now that I've become more familiar with them. Now we just need an OST for the new PSP After Burner...

Brave New World (Iron Maiden) - My "current favorite IM album", it's a real grower and the first instance where the sheer length of their newer material hasn't been a hinderance in enjoying it ("The Nomad" and "Dream of Mirrors" are both amazing) not to mention the first time I've been sold on their new stuff being as good as the mid-80's stuff (see: The Mercenary, Brave New World and The Wicker Man).

Legend of Heroes IV - The original, not the remake or the Midi Special (which I think actually sounds far worse than the PC-98 version). Classic Falcom stuff. Not so much noted for its' rockin' (which it does quite well), but the melodies on this one are still leagues ahead of so many RPG soundtracks.

Megaman X1 - It's funny that this never stood out before to me, but it's probably my favorite X OST at the moment. Sigma Stage 1 is just sick (and it got trashed royally by the remake) and Storm Eagle...Yeah, Storm Eagle. <3

Fortune Quest -Roll the Dice- - This is one of those albums...I'm not sure if I like it or its' 'meh', but it's so damn creative, it's hard to dislike it. I thought it was an album for a casino-styled game just from listening to the music (very jazzy and upbeat), but it's surprisingly some kind of RPG.

Bloody Chronicle -append disc 2- - Apparently another product of the mysterious Jill project, this is mostly arranges of "Melty Blood" music (very popular material on the doujin scene). Funny thing is, I wasn't able to pick out the individual pieces until I listened to this about the 3rd time. The originals are hidden very cleverly in there.

And then, both my "Cool Stuff" and "Real VGM" playlists (random tracks I love and a folder full of mostly nostalgic chiptunes I've converted to mp3, respectively) have seen much action as well. NES "Wacky Races" and "River City Ransom" (see: the boss music) are still amazing stuff.

I have to second "Metal Slug 5" as well..."Ruins Excavation" and "Intrigue" are still daily rituals for me.

I have to argee there. I actually pay more attention to the game version of this track now that I've heard the paino driven arrangement on the Rockman X Arrange disc - it helped me realize what a great track it is. Have you heard that version? Your a big rockman guy aren't you so I would think so. If not I'd suggest checking it out, I really dig the X Arrange album.

But you're right, the Rockman X1 soundtrack is a important OST since it lays the ground work for the ones that follow.

My CD collection has become pretty unweildly (originally everthing was nice and pretty on racks, but the racks filled up and now I have stacks of boxes next to the racks), so I have generally only been listening to what I can reach without having to dig something out.  So, that's been mostly newer stuff at the top of piles.  That said, I did dig out the Tales of Legendia OST, which I am listening to now.

Usually a hodpodge of stuff. I'm not a person who can listen to a soundtrack straight through because well, usually only a handful on songs on a soundtrack are listenable for me.

But...
songs by Deb Talan and The Weepies (indie pop-folk)
pretty much all of Yasunori Mitsuda's kiRite
selections from Baten Kaitos II OST
selections from Iona's Open Sky, The Circling Hour (newage/rock)
most of Gordian Knot's Emergent and Gordian Knot

Metal Slug 5 over MetaSlug 4??
Blasphemy!

The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan And Push Me Along

'Blue Orchid' on SingStar Rocks Volume One really caught my attention.

CAKE - Fashion Nugget

'Going The Distance' live performance on The Chris Rock Show in '97 came back into memory after hearing this song on 92.3 recently, still confused why it is the second track on the album instead of the opener? Awesome nonth'less.

hedkandi - hedkandi 63

Got this on vinyl at Virgin-Mega, some pretty cool Yuzo/Danni Minoguesque-sounding stuff here, the cd edition is a tad pricier but I'll definitely be looking into her (their?) other albums down the line.

Got a neat small ipod shuffle as a present, (predictably) filled it with so far ~40 hours of Sakuraba arranged/live/streamed stuff, need to add more of his anime and mega cd stuff next... ^^

Hitobito no Tanjo/Birth of People by Yuzo Koshiro

Spring's here, seems like the time for it. Also seems like the time for Nintendo of America to move it butts and release Actraiser on Virtual Console since Japan got it last week...

Wild Arms Rocking Heart has been getting some playtime as well as those arrange tracks from Enthusia (still dominating my playlist over at Last FM). The season is directing me back towards game music-centric listening.

Also been inching into Sonic music (not quite Secret of Seven Rings, not yet Heroes since that's more mid-Spring/Summer oriented). Not quite the time to feel Metal Slug 5 again either...

Sounds like you've been dipping into my cd collection.   Two essential groups for any fan of VGM and good music. 

For me it's been a lot of metalcore:

As I Lay Dying - "Frail Words Collapse" and "Shadows Are Security" - 2 killer records.

Killswitch Engage - "As Daylight Dies" and "Alive or Just Breathing [Spec. Ed.]" - 2 killer records.

Norma Jean - "Redeemer"

Misery Signals - "Mirrors"

Some Prog-metal:

Pain of Salvation - "Remedy Lane"

And some Art Rock:

Bloc Party - "A Weekend in the City"

Editors - "The Back Room"

hooray for Norma Jean!

Yeah, Norma Jean rocks, they pretty much got me into Metalcore.

Not taking much time to listen to music these days, apart from the old Mp3 player, of which I have lost the software so I can't actually add any music anymore
Well, time to get meself an Ipod perhaps.

Anyhoo, when I AM listening to music, it's mostly Blue Dragon (kinda late to that party too), and I love it!
I had kinda lost hope in Uematsu, but he definitely proved me wrong here, the man's still got it!