#red table talk

[thebrandonross]

If i never hear another thing about The Smith’s love life again it will be too soon.

[xtrablak674]

New Vinyl New Artist

It would be a whole-ass lie to say I am some kind of music aficionado, when listening to streaming music I listen to the same five playlist on Spotify. When it comes to my vinyl I spent most of my collection restoring records I had back in the 90s. Then I focused in on certain artist I like, like getting Janet Jackson's entire discography on vinyl.

I am not closed to new music, but am not always exposed to new artist even though I listen to alt.latino on NPR. I am picky about the vocals of my artist, and I really prefer to BUY new music on vinyl. I know a lot of these artist stream their work, but why have a vinyl collection if you're not always adding to it?

Another way I hear new music are artist interviews on NPR, soundtracks from television shows or maybe something played in a podcast. I decided to put together a listicle of five of my favorite vinyl albums of artist I had never heard of and or never heard music from.

Amythyst Kiah - Wary Strange

I don't even know how to pronounce this artist name, but I heard her song "Black Myself" in an artist interview on NPR, and before it was even over I started Googling her artist website.

I am also not really sure how to categorize her maybe alternative folk rock? To be honest I have to be in the mood for this album, its doesn't get played as much of some as some of my other new music, not because I don't like it, but because its hard for me to pair it with other music.

Usually when I am listening to music, I like to think of other albums to play after it, and this is a stand-alone album that its hard for me to pair. I could do some Tracey Chapman or maybe some Lenny Kravitz, but she really has her own sound and she really changes up the tracks on the album.

But as I said in the intro, I love her vocals a little reminiscent of Dionne Farris from Arrested Development fame, she was also a very alternative artist who I find hard to pair with, even though I love her debut album "Wild Seed – Wild Flower".

Conan Grey - Superache

Wow, I couldn't even remember Conan's name as I was typing him into this listicle I was searching for Connor Grey! This aside I was very moved by a track called "Family Line" a song about alcoholism and familial physical abuse/violence, I found this very relatable.

I couldn't tell you what Conan's race was or sexuality, but I could tell you I love his smooth tenor vocals and very personal lyrics about his love life and friendships.

This is an album that has a more upbeat tempo but sometimes very sad subjects. I enjoy singing along with the young Mr. Grey. I can't overstate how when it comes to music, I am really just about the music.

I have a Led Zeppelin album and I couldn't even tell you if that is a single person or multiple people or what any of them look like. I wasn't remotely interested in seeing any of Conan's videos or seeing interviews, I just love this album!

bells atlas - the mystic

This was my first time buying an album from Bandcamp I don't think it gets anymore farm to table than that, meaning I really try to buy albums directly from the artist websites as opposed to other secondary markets like eBay or Best Buy.

I think I heard on NPR that buying music directly from the artist sites puts more of the money in the artist pocket. And I do genuinely want to support the artist, as an artist I understand how its important to get a bigger portion of the pie yourself not getting your monies diluted by agents, managers and in their case record companies.

Now I can't recall if this was the site where they let you choose what you want to pay, but I did have one of these smaller artist have that option and I paid the standard thirty-five bucks which to me is the standard for a single vinyl album.

I clearly recall where I heard a song from this "group" I think, remember I am not studying that kind of details. But Glenn Washington the host of Snap Judgement used the end of one of their episodes to play a track from bells atlas. I used Shazam and Google to quickly find who this frenetic music was from and ordered the album immediately!

I am pretty sure the lead vocalist is a Black woman, what I loved is the music, it wasn't R&B, maybe alternative club rock & roll music? I don't know why we feel the need to label music can't we just enjoy the sounds based on their own merits?

I love the fast-paced high energy music paired with the round and robust vocals, its totally pick-me-up music. I love pairing it with my Eric B & Rakim "Paid In Full" album they both are very upbeat and have lots of beats and rhythms. This is the kind of album I put on when I need to go outside and want to get energized before I leave the house!

José González - Local Valley

Mr. González be all up in my mentions, I love using that term, that isn't quite true but I seem to keep encountering his music on my television shows that it seems like he is following me. I first encountered him on NPR in a music interview, and I loved the soothing quiet tones of his vocals and accompanying music.

Primarily I use José's music to relax, calm down or get ready for bed. He seems to be able to magically take my anxiety and reduce it to a dull-ache and not a explosive-burst.

I heard something else of his recently looked up the album which was from a soundtrack of a 90s film and the album was like fourteen hundred dollars. Now I did sometimes put out a couple of hundred dollars for my Janet albums but I am not paying thousands of dollars for an album that I will only play during certain times. I do have an eBay search looking for a cheaper version.

Mr. González is a mix of two cultures what we used to call a bi-racial child, I think part is Mexican and the other part something Northern European, please fact-check me cause I wasn't studying any of these details. The only other personal information I recall about him was that he was in a group before, because I was looking for another song of his and found it under another name.

Right now he's hanging out in one of my tabs for consideration of me buying another one of his albums. Some artist end up having several albums in my collection sometimes surprising even me. I didn't realize I was such a big Alicia Keys & Lenny Kravitz fan I have about five albums from each of them.

Willow Smith - Empathogen

Okay okay okay, yes I know the fame of young Ms. Smith's family hardly makes her an unknown factor and I am not even gonna fix my face to lie that "Whip My Hair" wasn't a bop that was on high rotation in my home. But none of that was driven by her, her family wanted another pop-star and were seeking to create one. She clearly rebelled cutting off all of her hair showing that this isn't who she is.

I also watched this young woman who could easily be my niece hold her own with her very beautiful and formidable grandmother and moms Mrs. Jada Pinkett-Smitth at the red table. So I clearly know who she is, but I don't or didn't know who she was as an artist and this album gave me the opportunity to get into her head a bit more.

Full disclosure I am not one of those people who study lyrics or muddle over musical bars trying to find hidden meaning in the music. Half the time I don't even really understand what folks are saying, music is something that fills the background in my studio apartment. I am usually either writing, reading or doing something else around the house when I feel the need to bump some tunes. Unlike everything else on this list YouTube served up one of her videos to me, don't ask me which one, all I remember is she was laying down for the entire thing and it was shot from above.

YouTube knows my heart and knows I love Black artist and they didn't get it wrong sending me the young Ms. Smith. After the video ended I was already on her artist site looking for her new album.

It was on pre-order and after the Aaliyah experience I wasn't doing any more pre-orders, but the release date was only a little over a week away so I would just wait till May to cop it. There were a few technical bumps with the site, but then I finally got my copy and it was love at first listen.

Frankly not one album on this list I hated, I do have an album from a trans artist Beverly Glenn-Copeland called "Transmissions: The Music of Beverly Glenn-Copeland" where I wasn't crazy about two tracks, the opening one which has an operatic beginning and this other at the end of the first side that has this call and response.

Mx. Glenn-Copeland's speaking voice isn't my favorite thing, so the call and response is a bit grating to me. Otherwise I LOVE the album. I love their vocals and song choice, I love where they sing in their voice. I am thinking I should maybe attempt to look at Ms. Smith's lyrics and see what else she's trying to express, but I am NOT-THAT-PERSON, I'm the one who gets an album and only listens to the album, doesn't read liner notes, doesn't even open any included booklets with the album.

Ms. Knowles-Carter's Renaissance album came with I think two books which haven't as much as been cracked. I am one of those odd folks who just want to hear the music. I have now reserved my loud-time for Friday nights and Ms. Smith will be bumping Ms. Knowles-Carter out of her spot as my Friday night dance party album. But Beyince Act II will pair quite well with Empathogens's kinectic youthful and fun energies!

[Photos by Artist]

[beiyuanism]

clarissa suzanne is such a 2000s romcom character to me she's sooo the always busy local journalist main character with frazzled hair and mismatched clothes that surprisingly work together anyway and a full planner under her arm and a cute little flip phone always next to her ear and she's desperately trying to juggle work and taking care of her dying mother and going out with her boyfriend and still making time for her best friend and she's a bit overdramatic and a little too much of a hopeless romantic for her own good and still so so optimistic despite life always working against her

[kagooleo]

riley may have fallen first but lance fell even harder 😳👀

[logicallyblind]

i’m at a ball right now and i’m ngl i’m writing a batfam civilian au in my notes app as we speak cause i’m getting both a) heaps of first hand references for how galas work and b) if i have to discuss the political climate one more time tonight i’m going to lose my mind-

[twilightakiishi]

made that template for three :3 venchiya rundown!!! more in tags if u care

[tiger-grace]

family dinners got a whole lot awkwarder for the batfam in the injustice series

[child-of-the-cosmos]

He workin'.

Drabble I made > here.

[always-amity]

Quick traced ref study of my favourite Big Mean Queen in all her beautiful iterations.

[lunearobservatory]

based on a true story! and click for better quality lol

[jane-lynndrake-t]

Thinking about dream-baby (I really can't keep calling him dream-baby) to distract me from the frankly horrific nightmare :)

Laughs with his whole tiny body and slumps into me to hide his giggles.

The little pout he does when he can't see something from where he is... curious tiny creachur...

Big blue-grey eyes that invite kisses to his brows.

Liddol giggles when he gets his kisses.

there isn't any universe that I wouldn’t name him after my brother <3 I love and miss you, JT.

[ranchwamen]

My sister and I filled out a poly ship chart by tumblr user magpiepaws :D Except we modified some stuff because the characters featured are all rather normal, rather serious 35+ year-old adults that don't steal each other's clothes or get into hurt/comfort scenarios (and also because we are silly and wanted to modify some stuff)

This ship is called Red Thread, not as a reference to the red string of fate, but as a reference to the common thread, the common theme in a piece of writing ("red thread" in Finnish) and also the string that detectives and cops and crazy conspiracy theorists use to connect different things on like a detective clue board. It's an expansion of our shared ship Smoking Guns which is between my sister and I's serious detectivecore sorta-kinda-almost-nonhuman characters, the Man and Isaeas Sharp! Red Thread also includes their respective love interests if they were all in one polycule :)

[daikon-dimes]

He cooked them dinner first, at least

[superstar49]

if mclaren sharing an analysis of the incident is cringe and is considered 'encouragement to hate on max' then what do christian and helmut's comments about lando fall under? hungover, over-ambitious, and pathetic are some of the things they called him

Nothing can be changed about the situation and no one will agree but no reason to be mean and nasty

red bull and mclaren, or more specifically christian and zak, are two sides of the same coin. when their number one driver is involved in a racing incident, their first instinct is to whine and point fingers and throw a fit. but this weekend i think it really came down to how the drivers themselves responded to the incident, and fans are always going to match their drivers’ energy. lando’s fans are hating on max because lando was hating on max. obviously max’s fans are getting defensive, and this is where we find ourselves in a catch-22. lando’s fans are being accusatory toward max, max’s fans are defending him, which leads to more aggression from lando’s fans and aggression from max’s fans in response to that and so on. i don’t mean to villainize either fanbase btw, i just think both sides have gone a bit too far. obviously the root of the problem here is how the teams responded to it. there was no need for christian and helmut to say those things, and lando’s team should have told him not to say anything about it. but the fans for sure have not helped the situation.

send your f1 hot takes

[dad-friend]

yall ever see a post correcting disinformation but the correction has a lot of red flags that suggest its also either mis- or dis- information? its like the "net zero information" thing but instead there is information, the information is just "theres a lot of unreliable sources on this entire topic"