#also I have a gripe about vocals ‘following’ the music | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moondancer35 · 1 year

Text

Soooo I watched the Miraculous movie.

I have some thoughts.

(Spoilers under the cut)

First, my pros:

1) The animation. Oh my god the animation. It felt too good to be true in all honesty. It took me a minute to get used to it, but once I did, I was in love.

2) The character designs of Adrien, Marinette, and Gabriel are all BEAUTIFUL and so are their hero counterparts. Plagg and Tikki are also adorable and I love them.

3) Ladybug’s yo-yo is gorgeous. All of the gold detail work makes it look so much more alive and charming. I fell in love with the promo featuring it the second it came up on my feed.

LIKE LOOK AT IT ITS GORGEOUS WHAT EVEN?? If they ever make a display yo-yo that looks like that I’d lose my everloving mind. I love the yo-yo :)

4) Canon footage of Gabriel actually caring about Adrien’s well being??? No way!!! When we saw that hug, me and my friend freaked the fuck out because Gabe was actually being a good dad?? But seriously, the Gabe rewrite was very necessary in my opinion. He shows real, genuine remorse for his actions for one of, if not the first time in the entire cinematic universe and having him regret what he did in the movie was very, very needed. Especially with the shorter run time.

5) Fu is a weirdo and I am living for it. The way he chases Marinette through the street after she saves him is hilarious to me. He was an absolute delight to watch and he managed to make me laugh more than once.

6) The sparring scene on the rooftop? Best scene in the entire movie and I will fight someone if they try to argue with me. You can practically taste LB/CN’s chemistry as the scene unfolds. The way they’re fighting against one another yet still working together?? Ugh. Brilliant.

7) The instrumentation was amazing. All the little motifs and parts tying the music to one another? Absolutely brilliant. I wasn’t a huge fan of the singing, nothing against Lou and SQVARE, it was just jarring to hear the Marinette voice drop. Thank god Bryce didn’t do the vocals for Adrien though I would have cried.

Now, it’s time for my issues (oh boy)

1) The entire movie felt rushed, ESPECIALLY the second act. They should have just committed to 2 hours in my opinion. Just 20 more minutes would have helped IMMENSELY with the pacing.

2) The character designs, overall, were quite jarring. Especially for background/minor characters. Something was always off. There are a few of the design choices that became sort of running jokes with my watch party. (Alya’s eyebrows, Gabriel’s chin and his long hair.)

3) A couple of the character rewrites were great. Some of them? Not so much. My specific gripes are as follows… Marinette falling for Adrien because he helped her up and called her weird. Same goes for Ladybug reluctantly helping Chat up during the fight. They could have done so much more with both of those scenes but they had to be rushed because of the cut run time. Also they butchered Plagg’s character and I am NOT here for it.

4) Most of this movie felt like a montage. It kinda was since they were trying to fit the entirety of the Gabriel arc into an hour and 40 minutes. I keep saying this, but they needed that extra 20 minutes in all reality.

5) I love the fact that the movie belongs to LadyNoir, we needed some good LadyNoir content because we get none in the show. What I don’t love, however, is that Adrien and Marinette didn’t really have any screen time at all. Just showing them interacting a little more would have been nice.

6) They cut The Wall Between Us. This is just a personal bias. I’ve been in love with this song for literal years. I’ve learned how to sing it in French simply because it brought me so much joy. I’m so upset they cut it but I don’t fault them for it. (At least it’s still on Spotify 😭)

Final thoughts:

This requires a bit of a storytime. My sister isn’t that into Miraculous. She watched the movie with me (and one of our friends) last night and she overall liked the movie. She brought up a good point about it though. “I feel like you have to know the show to see the movie but if you’ve seen the show it’s a little underwhelming because you expect it to be a certain way and it’s not.”

I fully agree with this sentiment. The first time Adrien’s name is even said is around 30~ minutes into the movie and that’s not really good storytelling for people who haven’t seen the show. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adored the movie, I can tell it’s going to be a comfort film for me. There were just a LOT of plot issues, story inconsistencies, and overall just weak writing. But that’s okay! The plot is really simple compared to the show and that’s also okay! My gripes with the movie are just because I want the best for these silly little animated superheroes.

Overall, this movie will always be a 10/10 in my heart, it makes me so freaking happy that the movie finally released, but if I’m being fully objective it’s gotta be a 7/10. The pacing issues and some of the awful characterization really drags the movie down, but that’s just my opinion.

#miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous #adrien agreste #gabriel agreste #miraculous awakening

9 notes · View notes

mistwraiths · 2 years

Text

3 stars

Overall, I think Blood Scion was done pretty well to showcase the horror of child soldiers, anticolonialism, the eradication of a people and culture, and more. For me, this book was hard to get through.

I would have really loved learning more about the Yoruba culture and religion, and I assume there will be more in the next book. I would have really liked seeing Sloane train with her magic but unfortunately it is really just glossed over. I found the aspect of each Orisha having a music really cool and that shower scene was very good. As for the rest of the worldbuilding, I struggle a bit to understand everything. We also get thrown more names of organizations like Blades, Shadow Rebels, Black Wolf without really learning much about them.

Again, there is so much that this book covers with children being forcibly conscripted into the war and forced to fight their own people. On top of that, there's so many assaults and near assaults, on top of killings and horrific acts. Sometimes they feel like their constantly happening so much that we don't get time to actually sit with the emotional and devastating impact. However, in situations such as these, odds are they do not have any choice but to continue on. This book absolutely doesn't shy away from the brutality and horror. We watch Sloane continue to grapple with her guilt and horror.

The pacing felt really slow to me too and the timeline in the book really didn't fit well to me with all the things happening. I don't understand why they'd only train them for a month. And Sloane was whipped over 30 times at least so I don't understand how she was still able to train. It briefly mentions she reopens her scars but then how can it even heal if you're constantly reopening them. She's being starved, healing from her wounds, fighting with her magic, planning to steal and break into the Archives, and constantly training and fighting for her life. It's a LOT for barely a month. The reveals are pretty easy to spot too and it's a shame that they make the book a bit predictable.

I didn't find Sloane all that likable, and that's okay. I don't think we really got to really know her as character as much as see her try to survive a horrific time. A character doesn't have to be likable and honestly I don't think she had a chance to really shine except slightly in the beginning. I do think however she was a bit irritating in her constant assumptions that no one could possibly be like her, a Scion, and everyone is quickly following in line during the training by verbally saying the creed or doing things they have to. It feels like she doesn't consider that other people are just trying to survive too? They have no power so they just have no choice. That maybe not everyone wants to kill their own people or allies. Sloane is constantly shocked when she comes across situations where people are doing what they can or actually think the same way as she but they're not vocal about it, or other Scions like her. Or the spies, she's furious that one of the spies allows terrible things to happen. And its like yeah they have to, how else are they going to spy??? Honestly, my biggest gripe was that Sloane acted out too much in the Fort when it's stated like little dissents gets you killed so it kind of was jarring.

The romance happened super out of the blue to me and I didn't understand why nor did I like it. The whole male character paying too much attention to the female character making him the romance option, despite not being all that personable or good never made much sense to me. I really could have gone without it.

I kind of did like the ending. I think a lot of people didn't. I do think it dragged on in two different parts. Like sorry, a declaration of how they are terrible isn't needed. Just burn them down. I liked that things didn't work out. The book kind of just ENDS, I don't remember them really fleeing or saying we're going to go here. I assume since it's hinted at they're going to the Shadow Rebels and maybe meet her aunt.

Again, this was a good book full of dark themes and brutality.

#deborah falaye #blood scion #steph's book review #book review #steph reads

1 note · View note

obsessedwvampbois · 3 years

Text

𝐑𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐋 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬

Oh boy so this is gonna make people really mad. I have listened to a total of 52 songs from the Diabolik Lovers franchise (that I could find) and ranked them for the hell of it. For this ranking I will be including all character songs, openings (both anime and game) along with the remixes. I will not be counting solo versions of songs (eg. Gin no bara), soundtrack bgm or the endings themes.

My ranking is based on these things:

how well does the song fit the character/s or game, both in lyrics and aesthetic

the overall production and performance of the song

is the song a bop? would I willingly listen to it again?

Couple of disclaimers: I do not speak Japanese so I will be crediting the translations of each song as I go through them along with any think pieces / essays that I come across. If there is any song I missed, please let me know and I’ll slot it into the rankings, its hard to find one source that has all the songs recorded. Finally, just a reminder because I know I'm gonna make someone mad, this is my list! If you don't like it make your own or ignore mine, I'm only one person and my opinion is not final!

With that in mind, my rankings are below the cut

*Least Best*

These are the songs I will probably never listen to again. I have a few gripes with them that I'll talk about in my explanation.

52. 誓いのカンパネラ (Chikai no Campanella)

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

This song is just super underwhelming overall. The guitar is my favourite thing about the song but that's it. There is so much build up for a boring chorus. The lyrics don't have much for me either.

51. 血戦のDies irae (Kessen no Dies irae)

Tsukinami Brothers

~translation~

On the opposite end, this song is so overwhelming. There are so many elements to follow and its hard to keep up. This is the first time I'll bring it up but the volume of the voices is so quiet compared to the backing track, its frustrating. The lyrics is what brings it up a notch as it talks about the day of wrath (dies irae) as the day the founders take over. I was also low key hoping to hear some version of the dies irae song hidden in the background but I couldn't hear any.

50. S.O.S-ΑtoΩ-

Tsukinami Brothers

~translation~

This song just feels so forgettable, I just feel like there isn't much to comment on. There are some interesting lyrics sprinkled out like comparing literal self mutilation to abstinence. Also the actual delivery of 'S ah O ah S ah', I can't take it seriously.

49. Dystopia

Kino

~translation~

This had an interesting start because I hadn't heard anything similar for DL but then after a few lines the tone change was just a nope for me. Again, Kino's voice is super quiet and the constant barrage of all these instruments that don't really gel together its confusing. Overall, it didn't leave much of an impression and I couldn't really visualised DL in the song.

48. 吸愛ラビリンス (Kyūai Labyrinth)

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

Praise for the saxophone! Props to that because it shines here and is really the only memorable thing besides that final line of the chorus. The song does give the vibe of the Vandead Carnival with its more playful energy though. The lyrics feel really typical, like there are so many times I read lyrics about drinking blood before I get bored.

47. 極限(UNLIMITED) BLOOD -Remix ver.-

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation w/ original ver.~

I don't think I really need to hear EDM/dubstep and Diabolik Lovers again thanks. It feels super dated and the vocoded singing is a little much for my taste. Good source material and the stripped back vocals at some points is quite nice.

46. 愛しきPain (Itoshiki Pein)

Subaru

~translation~

First off please never let me see Subaru near a fedora again thanks. Overall I felt bored with this song, like its nice, but that it. There are similar sounding songs that just hit home similar themes a lot stronger later on. The best part of this song is the spoken word but it feels weird for Subaru to be singing such a slow song.

45. Luv Apple Juice

Ruki & Azusa

~translation~

Yes, I am counting Ruki's spoken word, its my list. Lyrics are a must read with references to Adam, Eve and Eden throughout. Again, the voices are super quiet and with how fast paced the instrumentals are its annoying. The tempo also backfires because these are two of the more 'chill' characters. The last complaint is that the speed of Ruki's speaking compared to Azusa's singing just isn't right.

44. DIE IS CAST

Kou & Yuma

~translation~

This has to be my least favourite opening to a song, the staccato is just really grating to me. The way I'd describe the chorus is loud, the same note over and over again isn't appealing. The lyrics are an interesting read but nothing feels super important. The highlight of the song is the pre-chorus, thanks production!

43. カレイドナイト (Kaleido Night)

Kanato & Subaru

~translation~

This song is just generic, like overall. The sound, the lyrics, the production. There just wasn't must for me to listen to without zoning out.

*Average*

These songs don't leave too much of a lasting impression on me, but I still enjoy them.

42. 苺の罪 (Ichigo no Tsumi) (strawberry sin)

Reiji

~translation~

First of the generic rock songs! I couldn't really find much in the lyrics of note I think the actual performance of the song is my favourite element here.

41. 真夜中の饗宴( MIDNIGHT PLEASURE) -Remix ver.

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation w/ original~

One the best part of the original is that opening section with the steps, it creates some nice anticipation for the coming song. The chorus this time round feels a little low energy after the hype of the pre-chorus. After watching the actual opening with the remix, I kind of wish they had the voice over, the song is so chill the last chorus could have it to make it feel more grandiose.

40. ZERO

Subaru

~translation~

Second generic rock song, this time it actually suits Subaru's brand! The lyrics do have some hints to Subaru as a character which is better. My sustaining thought is that this sounds like an off brand Arcadia.

39. Bloody★Mayim★Mayim

Sakamaki Brothers

~translation~

This has to have one of the strongest hooks for DL. For how many people sing in the song, it's easy to keep track of and the chemistry between them all is in sync. The main issue is that it feels like its missing some element to make it shine, the lyrics aren't in-depth too which brings it down another peg. The bridge/interlude is the best part though as I can visualise some mini story within the song here.

38. ADDICTED (2) PHANTOM

Ayato

~translation~

This song would be so much higher if I felt like it was more memorable cuz the lyrics here really shine. My interpretation is that this is Ayato questioning where his love stops and his sadistic nature to satiate his desires begin, can he separate the two? He both loves and despises the idea of draining his s/o dry. Another gripe with the song is that its not quite Ayato's aesthetic sonically.

37. Kindan no 666 (Three Six)

Kou & Azusa

~translation~

What puts this song so low is the majority of the instrumental, it takes a backseat here when I feel there could be more added. Props to percussion, drums are great though. After watching the MB opening so many times its hard to not see DL. Lyrics match with this one line here describing Kou in a nutshell:

"Sin spread from mouth to mouth, saying 'I’ll be gentle' pulls the trigger on a casual disaster!"

36. Iolite (アイオライト )

Shu

~translation~

I don't know why the producers associate electro-pop with Shu, I can't really see it much. I think they should have gone full glitch-pop instead considering how the song does a deep dive into his mind and thought process. Again, I think the voice is also quiet here but the instrumentals have some great moments, especially the strings.

35. 常夜KNOW UNDERSKIN

Sakamaki

~translation~

Well this gives Sakamaki vibes, nice guitar! Again, I like how it isn't overwhelming despite the amount of people involved. Lyrics aren't super impactful but super catchy.

34. 冷たい血 (Tsumetai Chi)

Ruki

~translation~

You have to read the lyrics while reading this, please! Its surprisingly wholesome and emotional overall. Again, there is the issue of the voice being way to quiet as the instrumentals swallow him whole after the second clock tick. The delivery is really well timed and production does a great job adding elements that works with the lyrics. There is a subtle echo to the voice that feels super enchanting as he comes to terms with the fact that he has fallen in love. Biggest drawback obviously is that this is just spoken word.

33. KISS♥MARK

Shu

~translation~

This song delves into the more perverse side of Shu, but we haven't really reached the level of Laito (we'll get there). The phone feels a little out of character but it suits that narrative. The straight cut out of music for the intermission was a bit abrasive but the transition back to music makes me forget about that with how slick it is. At least its better than a generic rock song.

32. カモフラージュ (Camouflage)

Shu & Laito

~translation~

What a great match up for subject matter, my interpretation is a denial and inability to accept oneself, ultimately using a mask to hide. So please look up the lyrics for some gems. However, after the 'against the blood' nothing really hit that same point sonically, furthermore its not the most aesthetically fitting for the two characters.

*Great*

These songs I actively enjoy, think about and do listen to occasionally and would recommend you check it out too.

31. >REDRUM<-

Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

This song is full of anagrams in the lyrics, I mean look at the song title. Its super catchy and is hard to forget about. The bridge is the weakest part of this song but it is made up by the distortion of vocals after the final chorus.

30. Fanatic of Night

Sakamaki Brothers

~translation~

Well time to party, talk about a bop and a half! Its just so fun, even though its to exactly DL to me, but that's Lunatic Parade for you. Shout out to the guitarist and percussion once again.

29. Bad Howling

Shu, Ayato & Kou

~translation~

This is super catchy, its nice to hear Kou in the opening song this time round, it spices things up. Theres some really nice elements played with the vocals as they sing over one another that is really well balanced. The biggest peg down is that I don't get super DL vibes and the lyrics aren't the deepest.

28. I.M.I.T.A.T.I.O.N. G.A.M.E

Kino

~translation~

Overall this song is a little generic and doesn't sound like DL but! There is a lot to love here too. Starting off with the performance, I really like the vibrato in his voice and the decent of notes at the end of the chorus is just, yes. It a nice hook and the lyrics are pretty good too. My only other complaint is that the drums mask some smaller elements in the background of the song which would have been nice to hear more in the forefront.

27. 極限(UNLIMITED) BLOOD

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

This is where the rankings get pretty hard cuz I wish this was higher but oh well. the dramatic shift from the opening piano to the song is so abrupt but it gets you pumped. The intermission does a good job of changing things up without cutting tension. The lyrics themselves seem to be from the view of the Adam project during more blood and the unquenchable thirst they get in the story.

26. アルカディア (Arcadia)

Ayato

~translation~

Immediately I get Ayato vibes from this song and the rapping does help too with a nice flow that isn't too jarring from the rest of the song. These lyrics are basically Addicted2Phantom on steroids, I can't see anyone else other than Ayato in them.

25. Kekkyoku Night

Ayato

~translation~

Don't know why but the guitar melody just seems like I had heard it before but I can't put my finger on it. The bass is super slick here and I really enjoy it. The vocal distortion at the start of the verse sets a scene for him to hunt down this person and its a narrative choice. The main issue is that I wish there was a little more pizzaz to the chorus.

24. Kaikan DEATH-TRUCTION

Kanato

~translation~

Spoilers but I have placed both a Kanato's songs pretty high up so this was a little bit of a let down after the other two. The main issues here is that I don't really get too much of Kanato in the song and the yelling before the chorus is a little much. This, to me, is a self reflection from Kanato which is a good switch up from his last two songs. Overall, the song is abrasive in a good way that isn't overwhelming and the 8-bit section is my fave.

23. 血濡れた密会 (BLOODY SABBATH)

Laito

~translation~

Oh boy, look these lyrics up for a good time. This song is about his hook up with a women with the song getting progressively darker as it goes on. Nice psycho reference but I don't know if it does much in the end. Really catchy hook and the escalation of the final chorus is just so good. Also I'm just going to leave this line from the song here:

“You wend all out with the rodeo girl play? So then, let’s grind!!!”

22. 幻日理論-Parhelion Logic

Ayato

~translation~

This song is meant to be kind of an open letter to Cordelia and my word these lyrics are haunting. It fits the vibe of Haunted Dark Bridal so well, super strong overall. I just wish there was a stronger performance vocally.

21. 暴言シンドローム (Seiron Syndrome)

Yuma

~translation~

Yuma, to me has some pretty good observation skills and its really highlighted here. The first line just hits the nail on the head in terms of how rough he is both in and out of the bedroom. This song is the best of the 'generic rock' with production being really smooth despite the high energy, it matches him really well. First line:

The pain of your sprained neck won’t subside

20. 蠱惑のParade (Kowaku no Parade)

Reiji & Kanato

~translation~

We got another catchy banger here! This song just screams 'the two of us are here to hunt you down and we won't stop till we get a taste.' I mean this song is super pleasing aesthetically and great lyrics to boot!

19. KILLYOU,AGAIN

Azusa

~translation~

The strings are an immediate attention grabber and its hold it throughout the whole song. Super catchy, and these lyrics are Azusa, especially this chorus. Id be interested to hear what people think about the second verse in particular cuz there's a lot to read into:

"In a worn out state of mind, no matter how many nights we question it... We’ve idealised too much."

18. SQueeze…

Subaru

~translation~

Okay before anything else, the squeeze at the start is goofy, I can't take it seriously. Anyway, I can't help but tap my foot to this song. Third times the charm, finally hitting Subaru's aesthetic to a T. The voice is a little quiet on the track but what takes over just sounds so good. The contrast of the bell and the guitar is just, yes thank you. The pre-chorus is a nice mix up to the status quo and these lyrics are great too.

17. 愛の檻 (Ai no Ori)

Ayato & Laito

~translation~

The opening is a nice tone setter for a haunting head bopper. These voices work together so well, just like how the sirens work with the strings. The singular violin during the bridge is great, praise to anyone who can do that my god. The string motif climaxes at the final chorus and it creates an awesome song!

16. 月蝕(Eclipse)

Kou, Yuma & Azusa

~translation~

Well we have a nice build up ballad here. The opening is a little out of place but I forget about it as it builds to this final chorus with the tempo getting faster and faster. The stripped back production also ends up aiding the song in the end with its punches and message. Speaking of which; I get the idea this is about watching some either currently or in retrospective how their personality changes after turning into a vampire; a loss of innocence. How fitting for the Mukami's.

“Despising the sunlight that filters through the blinds is only inevitable, I suppose”

*Faves*

This is what I think the best of the best is. It reflects the themes, ideas and characters of Diabolik Lovers in the best way possible. When people ask me what music from the franchise to listen to, I point to these songs.

15. Count off

Kino

~translation~

There is so much to talk about here, this is a mix of singing and spoken piece and it works so well for me. The delivery over this contagious beat I can't help but get hints of a k-pop vibe here. The movement to singing then vocoded voice are interesting and fun. The bridge switch up too is great, my only wish is that the choir hand a little more presence in the final chorus cuz its fun the first times round, it would be a nice call back.

14. A Certain Prophet's Fate [とある預言者の、運命 Toaru Yogensha no Unmei]

Reiji

~translation~

I can visualise a Nutella Kookie moodboard with this opening alone. To me, this is Reiji explain his views on women with allusions to Faust too, not the Ikemen version relax. there are some cool allusions to his mother in the lyrics too. The bass is so cool to listen out for and the guitar nodding to the chorus at the end is a nice way to end. I was just hoping for a little continuation to the opening like Reiji finding this person escaping on horseback.

13. CHAOS☆PARTY

Laito

~translation~

Aaaaaand another innuendo song from Laito, what a surprise! The jazzy, circus-pop vibes are super fun and catchy, I love it. It's like an upgraded version of Bloody Sabbath to me. The distortion on the guitar is also great to listen out for.

"Don’t decide where’s the critical point, grind as you feel it,

Till the moon oh, mockingly"

12. Mr.ButterflyMask

Reiji

~translation~

The opening may be cliche but it works so well, this is such a deep dive into Reiji's psyche; his mother, inferiority complex and village burning to name a few. The actual song is easy to remember which makes it even better here, the descending notes at the end of the chorus is a highlight.

"Burnt black, that awful land mark"

11. 真夜中の饗宴 (MIDNIGHT PLEASURE)

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

The song to start it all, thank god it's such a highlight. I get so hyped from hearing the opening footsteps; mirroring the prologue with You stepping into the mansion for the first time. I feel so nostalgic for this and I'm hyped to play the game every time I hear this. The spoken section is the high point in terms of the HDB aesthetic but these lyrics maaaannn:

"With a scream that shatters the moon itself I’ll give you this extraordinary pain called “love”!"

10. Guilty×Guilty!!!

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

I'm gonna get crucified for putting this above midnight pleasure but my list and this is my fave game op. The only peg down is the lyrics but it makes up so much for the actual sound variation. The unnerving energy from this scifi-y noise, it screams danger with the Tsunami arrival. The variation between the two verses in robs what places it high and the bridge is excellent to boot.

9. Farewell Song

Shu

~translation~

If I had to make one song recommendation outside of DL with this list it is this song here. The lyrics and melody match up the same way and both are strong in their own right. Onto the song, these lyrics really shine wrangling with ideas and the thought process of depression; something that hits close to home for me. With the inclusion of the destructive nature vampires its truely impactful. The sound of the song aids these lyrics too while all sounding like Shu.

Without pause, the drops of a drizzle had begun to weep...

...Comforting the screams of the things you’ve touched"

8. Mr.SADISTIC NIGHT

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

This is my favourite opening of all the games and anime and it is the most on theme with the DL franchise, not just the one game. The guitar rifts at the start are just sooooo iconic. The actual line "Mr Sadistic Night" is delivered so well too. I mean the song speaks for itself. I will make the observation though that this song is the epitome of kids unknowingly singing a song with dirty lyrics.

"If I’m so aroused by the snare of your enticing blood

Tonight, as I thrust deep into you, a lust for death awakens from within you!"

7. 悪魔的（Devil's）Spire!!!!

Kou

~translation~

This song is just Kou at his best, I can imagine him singing this at a concert as a debut single. It has all the elements of a catchy pop song with some sinister elements that just reflects his personality. Production has my praise here too. The song seems to be a friends with benefits situation Kou has as he recounts the tale. Also, more innuendos:

"In the deep red velvet sheets, Do you want to taste my forbidden syrup?"

6. Operation X

Tsukinami Brothers

~translation~

Haven't seen these guys in a while! You can tell production had fun adding all these medical sounds in the back like the sirens and heart monitor. The song itself is super catchy too, that bass just hits you at the core! The lyrics look like the Tsukinami's observation of You as she has become entangled with all these vampires and the situation just seems to spiral even more out of control.

"The risk spreads further the deeper you get involved...

...The more you give up, the more that guy mocks you"

5. GRATEFUL★DEAD★MARCH

Kanato

~translation~

Production had fun again, you can tell. It's more upbeat there is still a sinister vibe here. The constant switch ups within the song all flow so well. I feel genuine despair listening to this chorus, like Kanato is mocking or toying with me before going in for the kill. My only complaint is that the slowing down at the end is a bit of a mood killer.

4. 切断★舞踏会 (KIRISAKI CARNIVAL)

Kanato

~translation~

In terms of character aesthetic, this is sheer perfection. There is a narrative within this song that you need to look at the lyrics for the best experience. The sound effects act as a good way to heighten the story as they match the lyrics. One moment to note it both the chorus and pre-chorus as they act as the extreme ends on Kanato's personality and it creates a great dichotomy when placed together.

3. Q.E.D.

laito

~translation~

My favourite solo song, and the one I constantly visit the most. Laito is a complex character and this song does a self reflection in the best way possible.I would also recommend reading this great analysis by everything laito because I can't do a proper analysis justice. For the song itself, the piano is a great mood setter as it acts as if we are approaching Laito as he plays the piano about to go into one of his many monologues to himself. The intercut from the piano to the guitar is abrupt but it works so well as if there are crack in his facade showing through. The change back to the piano is great too and isn't distracting in any way. I also think this is such an emotional performance, like I can feel the sadness and despair along with almost a self deprecating humour to the delivery. Top notch stuff

2. 罠-If You’re Diablo- (Wana -If You’re Diablo-)

Mukami Brothers

~translation~

I want mention first off that the spoken word from Ruki is such an aid here, the pace is slower, more haunting and despair-inducing in tone. The speaking adds a nice break to the vocals. The chorus in particular packs such a punch its kind of nice to lie on the ground and just let the song envelop you. The lyrics give the impression that there is a mutually destructive relationship here with the Mukami's mentioning of betrayal yet they suck the blood of this person. There is also a feeling of hopelessness that the Mukami's know they can never achieve their goal of becoming Adam.

"I'd been resigned to become Adam since who-knows-when...

I continue to hate this fate, my prayers in zero"

1. Gin no Bara

Sakamaki Brothers

~translation~

And we're finally at the end! This song encapsulates everything that Diabolik Lovers is. Vocally, it's really catchy with such a somber vibe, because that's what DL is. It's a dark series but you can see that darkness with each backstory, the actions these characters take and just the overall hopelessness in this one song. The Sakamaki's all singing together packs such a punch too. There are so many gems in these lyrics, to literally acknowledging the pain and suffering their mothers' caused and coming to terms with the actions they have committed as they fall in love.

"The proof remains on your neck while you sleep quietly Even if an eternal curse awaits me beyond those overflowing tears

I now hold this love and pain in my chest"

*SHOUTOUTS*

I want to give a huge shout out to the following people. They have helped immensely with translation and just overall accessibility to the songs because they would be 1000 times more harder to find without them.

Silvermoon249 (Live Journal)

Asyqin98 Creator (YouTube)

S I s o v o l i (Youtube)

DIABOLIK LOVERS (YouTube)

Dialovers otaka (Tumblr)

Starlight voices (Tumblr)

Cannonette (Tumblr) @canonette

The Precious Sugar Chan (Tumblr)

One final note, I would recommend listening to these with headphones because the audio sometimes does that thing where it jumps from ear to ear and it creates the best effect to be more involved in the atmosphere.

#diabolik lovers #dialovers #sakamaki #mukami #ayato sakamaki #sakamaki shu #reiji sakamaki #laito sakamaki #kanato sakamaki #sakamaki subaru #ruki mukami #mukami kou #mukami yuma #mukami azusa #tsukinami shin #carla tsukimami #kino sakamaki

64 notes · View notes

marvelbbyx · 4 years

Text

Hell Hath no...Envy? (Envy Adams x Fem! Reader)

Request: @anon “hi love!!! wanted to please request a envy x reader? following the league on the other one where nobody knows you’re together and she’s your softie BUT.... she’s also possessive??? some other band lead manager or singer trying to flirt with you all night and she’s DONE WITH IT? mine??? (of course smut if you’re comfortable only!!!)”

Author’s Note: Part two to Your Sweet and Sour Girl!!

Warnings! SMUT!! Lucky Y/N...😭

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The night was long and arduous, but everything eventually went as planned and the concert was a raging success. Not that it came as a surprise to you of course, and in your opinion, you felt that it was the best one so far. So did Envy, because the second that the concert ended she took you to the tour bus to do some ‘warm-up vocals’ on her 10,000 thread count satin sheets. And the “I love yous” that were exchanged earlier only fueled the fire.

You were on the road to a gig in San Francisco, and you had a meeting first thing in the morning with another band manager for a tour plan—but at the moment—you were more focused on the way Envy’s lips tasted. You were on top of her, clothes forlorn and scattered haphazardly around her room; because neither of you couldn’t wait any longer and needed to have each other at that moment. Breathless moans escaped between kisses while your hands traveled each other’s bodies, exploring and memorizing every inch of each other. You freeze mid-kiss when you hear Todd call out for you,

“Y/N! You got a phone call!” You heard him bang on your door.

“Shit!” You hiss pulling yourself off of Envy, the both of you scrambling out of bed and rushing to put your clothes on.

“These people have a Spidey sense whenever we’re alone,” Envy murmured sourly as she pulls up her pants. “It’s starting to get annoying.”

“I know, we can never get any time to ourselves.” You say sliding on your leggings and then your bra. You hear Todd call you again, banging on your door like he was a police officer. “Fuck, where’s my shirt?”

“I think it’s under the bed,” Envy whispers. “It’s okay I’ll give you one.”

“Don’t you think he’ll know?”

“No, he can barely remember his cues let alone what you and I wear.”

It was true, the last time you got interrupted you slipped on Envy’s signature white jacket, practically parading around in it as you were talking to him. To which he never noticed.

“Well, maybe if you didn’t act like a spoiled brat things would be different!” You shouted at her mouthing after for her play along.

“I can act however I want! You’re the one that has to do whatever I say!” She shouts, quickly catching on to your plan.

“I don’t have to do shit you say!” You retort.

“Then why are you still here? Last time I checked you can leave whenever you want!” Envy hands you a Clash at Demonhead t-shirt, you go to pull it over your head but a part of the shirt gets snagged on your bra.

“Babe—I’m stuck. Oh god,” You croaked in a panicked whisper, your arms caught in an awkward position above your head. “If you don’t want me here so bad, then fire me!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, relax.” She moves behind you and tries to pull the shirt down from your bra only to get it tangled even more. “Damn, this thing’s on there really good -ahem- I mean...I would, but then you’d probably never find a better job!”

“Wow! Not like I haven’t heard that empty threat before!” Envy manages to get the shirt free, you pull it down; smoothing out any wrinkles before you would speak with Todd. “I love you.” You whisper only for her to hear.

“I love you too,” She plants a small kiss on your nose before moving to your lips.

Your fingers found the door handle, angrily storming out the room and meeting the white-haired band mate outside of your room, he was holding the landline in one hand while his eyes scanned you up and down curiously. “Were you wearing that shirt before?”

“Yes,” You answered quickly, snatching the phone from him. “I changed after the concert.”

“Ookay, it was just a question, Y/N.” Todd raised his hands in surrender before heading off to his room.

You breathe out a sigh of relief, then answer the phone in your best professional voice. “Hello, this is Y/N L/N, manager of The Clash at Demonhead, may I ask who’s calling?”

“Hello, Miss L/N, this is Caroline Briggs band manager for Heroines Of Hiking.”

“Ah yes, H-O-H, I’m a big fan.” You giggle.

“Yes, about our meeting tomorrow morning, was there a specific time that you wanted to meet?”

“No, I’m pretty flexible and comfortable with whatever time you wanted to meet.”

“Oh good, and also if it wasn’t too much trouble, do you think that Envy would be opposed to meeting Amber?”

“Umm...”

The answer would be yes. The answer would ALWAYS be yes. Amber was the lead singer to Heroines Of Hiking and she had the same temperament as Envy when she didn’t get her way. Maybe even worse. But like The Clash at Demonhead, Heroines of Hiking was a top-grossing band and this tour was very important to both music lovers and the bands. A highly talked about conversation over the past year.

You weren’t worried about the income from the tour, you could care less about that. But what did concern was whether or not your lover would get along with the other HBIC from a different band.

“I know how you feel,” Caroline spoke up before you could finish. “I feel the same way, I kinda didn’t want this tour to happen myself.”

“I’m just worried about the fire and gasoline situation.” You admit with a breath. “I’m not sure how it’ll affect the tour.”

“If stuff gets too out of hand then we can cancel it?” She suggests.

“I wouldn’t want that though, and I’m sure Nat—I mean—Envy wouldn’t either.” You say.

“No, of course not.”

“But what I do think is that we should keep them apart as much as possible so that there isn’t a chance for problems to start.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” Caroline acknowledged.

“Great, is there anything else that you wanted to discuss?”

“No, no, I think we’ve settled it.” You can hear the smile in her voice.

You smiled back. “Alright, then I’ll see you tomorrow at...”

“9:30.”

“Perfect, see you then.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Next Morning [9:31 a.m.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I hope you know what a terrible idea this is.” Your girlfriend huffed.

You were in an elevator leading up to Caroline’s office for the meeting, Envy had been griping the entire way. More now than ever. As if the second that the bus touched Californian soil, she grew tense and agitated like an animal before a storm.

“Sweetheart,” You tried to soothe her nerves by placing a hand on her cheek. “I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re not the one performing with a stuck up bitch.” Envy bit harshly.

You laugh toying with a lock of her hair, “Hearing you say that is so weird.”

“And you’re not making it any easier for me...especially when you’re wearing that outfit.” She says, her eyes raking along the curves of your body. Her hands gingerly finding their way to your waist.

You wore a white collared blouse, accompanied by a skin-tight black pencil skirt and a matching blazer, the final touches were your black suede Louboutin heels and gold hooped earrings. You looked good, making you feel good too. Envy certainly seemed to think so—seeing as she couldn’t keep her hands off of you.

“Behave, Nat,” You tell her.

“But, Y/N,” She whines.

“If you act right during the meeting, I’ll give you a reward afterward.” Your voice was subtly sensual and smooth, a velvety whisper which got Envy’s attention fast. “And we can do it in this building, where we can be alone.”

Your lips covered hers in a long warm kiss that left her short of breath, slowly gaining momentum and passion but ceased when the elevator dinged to a stop. You pull away quickly once the doors slid open, Envy whining at the loss of your touch. Caroline waited for you on the other side of the metal doors as well as Amber, who looked like she never wanted to be here.

You felt like a mother bringing her child to a play date and expected said child to act appropriately so that you wouldn’t embarrassed. But the thing with Envy was that she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind or stand down for anyone WHATSOEVER.

Caroline walks up to you with a grin, holding out her hand for you to take. “Hello! And good morning, Miss L/N and Miss Adams, I hope the drive wasn’t too terrible.”

“Oh, no not all,” You smile. “Trust me, after being in a tour bus for a while, no drive is that bad. Then again, I’m not the one driving.”

Caroline breathes out a laugh. “Well, I can’t argue with that, and how are you, Miss Adams?”

Envy forces a smile. “I’m great, thank you for asking.”

Amber stood by not saying a word, instead, she smiled, but not at Envy...but at you and not just a regular smile either. Of course, you were too caught up with Caroline to notice the girl staring at you like you were the last meal she’d ever receive. Even though you didn’t notice, your girlfriend did and it made her see red—or was it green?

You extend a hand out to Amber with a smile, “I’m a big fan of your work,” You began. “Not as much as Demonhead, but around there.”

She takes your hand. “Oh, I’m not worried, but I have a feeling you’ll be a Heroine fan after the tour.”

“We’ll see,” You chuckle. As you tried to let go of her hand, Amber kept a firm hold of it.

“You have soft hands.” She says, her thumb caressing the top of your hand.

“Thank you.” You say meekly.

A pang of jealousy struck Envy’s chest like an arrow to the heart, followed by a firm hand clapping on top of your shoulder, pulling you away from Amber. In turn, made her angry as well.

“Umm, follow me...my office is right this way.”

~~~~~~~~~

Throughout the duration of the meeting, Envy’s hand was placed protectively on your thigh the entire time. She didn’t even hear a word you or Caroline had exchanged, all she was worried about was someone moving in on her territory. And you weren’t just up for grabs either, that whole stunt with the ‘soft hands’ made her go feral. Holding/touching you as you made your way to Caroline’s office and after the meeting, you were good on your word. Giving her her reward for holding her tongue.

Although the same couldn’t be said for you, Envy couldn’t wait any longer and pulled you into the nearest office, making you scream as she brought you nirvana over and over and over again. Oh, how your legs quaked afterward...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was the first night of the tour, and Heroines Of Hiking was the first to go on stage. You were backstage helping out the band, you couldn’t afford anything to go wrong tonight. No wardrobe malfunctions, no faulty stage lights, no sound booth problems, absolutely nothing could go wrong.

Envy couldn’t say the same.

All day long, she would hear: “Y/N, you wanna share a pack of skittles?” or “Y/N, come watch me sing!” or “Y/N, what do you think about this outfit?” And she was livid. Fortunately, you wouldn’t give Amber the time of day, claiming that you would be busy or had something else to take care of. But the more you said no the more driven Amber was. And what really drove her crazy, was when you had to be around Amber.

If Caroline was busy or had to take care of business elsewhere you had to step in and take care of things on the Heroine side, one of them was helping Amber squeeze into a lace corset. Your hands were meant for Envy and her alone, everything about you was meant for her.

“She’s been bothering you all day.” Envy says through clenched teeth. “Doesn’t it get annoying?”

“It does, but I don’t pay any mind to her.” You reply as you finish sewing a button on Envy’s dress.

“I would hope not.” She grumbles.

You set down your sewing kit, draping your arms around Envy’s shoulders. “Baby, you have nothing to worry about, you’re the one I love.”

She wraps her arms around your waist. “Sweetie, I know, it’s just she’s being annoying with you.”

“Super annoying,” You laugh. “But come to my room after the gig, I’ll show you how much you really mean to me.”

Envy breathes deeply, her eyes fixated on yours, the hazel orbs darkened with every heaving breath that she took. Every nerve ending in her body tingled with excitement as she pulled you in closer, “Show me now then.”

Your eyes widen. “You have to go on soon.”

“I don’t care.” She says breathlessly.

“Nat—“ She silenced you by grabbing your hand and shoving you into Todd’s dressing room. Thankfully he wasn’t there otherwise he would’ve been in for one hell of a show.

Envy’s soft lips pressed aggressively against yours, knocking the wind out of your lungs as she kissed you with every ounce of passion that she had. Running her hands down your body, not like how you would normally make love but better. Hungrier.

“Nat—“ You mumbled against her lips. “Nat, wait—“

She pulls away, allowing you to catch your breath. “Envy. You know that.”

“E-Envy,” You stammer.

“Better.” She says lowly before moving her lips down your neck. She stops at the base of your neck placing a soft kiss to your soft skin. Envy looks up at you through her lashes giving you a smirk, “You’re so pretty, baby.” She cooed. “It’s no surprise that people would want to be around you, but Amber...she needs to know not to touch things that belong to someone else. But she doesn’t know that you’re mine. So we have to fix that, Y/N.”

“Envy, wha-what are you—aahh!” You cried out as you felt her teeth sink into the base of your neck. Latching onto the skin violently.

You squirmed and writhed underneath her, whines of pain and pleasure erupting past your lips. A familiar warmth boiled in the lower pit of your stomach, that same warmth pooling between your thighs. God, this was so hot, especially with it being in Todd’s room. Her teeth detach from your neck with a loud pop, leaving behind a perfectly bruised bite mark.

“Beautiful,” Envy husks. “Now she’ll have to leave you alone.”

“Fuck me,” You breathe. “Fuck me right now.”

“I haven’t even gotten to the foreplay, baby. You want me that bad?” Envy rasps.

You nodded vigorously. “Yes, Envy.”

With that, she pushes you back onto Todd’s bed, your pants barely made it past your hips before two of her fingers delve into your soaked pussy. You throw your head back with a loud moan, gripping the back of Envy’s shoulders as she thrusts them deeper. The pad of her thumb finding your clit and rubbing slow circles. You ground your hips into her touch, releasing throaty moans from deep within.

“You’re so wet, honey.” Envy grunts. “Feel so fucking good on my fingers.”

You moaned lewdly at the huskiness of her voice. She grabs onto your waist while her fingers slam into you, in a brutal and punishing pace, your ears were filled with wet, squelching sounds of her quickly moving in and out of you.

“Mmh—fuck!” You whined, feeling your walls contract against her fingers.

“You’re gonna cum, aren’t you, Y/N? Go ahead and let go, baby. I wanna smell you while I’m on stage.” She pants.

“Fuh—I’m cumming!” Your walls clenched and fluttered as she continued her pace, eventually leading you straight into your orgasm. You went to close your eyes but Envy gripped your face to look her in the eyes.

“Look at me when you cum, and only me.” She demands.

Your entire body twitched as you released into her hand, your breath sparse and labored as you came down from your high. Envy withdrew her hand, shoving them into your mouth. You sucked eagerly, the sweet yet salty taste of you flooding your senses.

Envy looks down at you, a sweet smile gracing her lips, she cups your cheek gently before leaning down to peck a kiss to your lips. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You whisper.

“Good,” She stands up from the bed. “Oh, and this is far from over. Stay right there, because that was just the beginning.”

Envy walks out of the room only to meet with Amber who had just finished her show.

“You’ve seen, Y/N?” She asks.

“Mm-hm, we just finished up some warm up vocals. Oh man, you should’ve heard her really reach those high notes. She was just screaming.” Envy smirks, making Amber’s eyes grow large. “Well, I have to go get ready, thanks for warming up the crowd for me.”

Not even a second after, you walked out. Your fresh love mark on full display.

Fuck.

#brie larson #envy adams imagine #envy adams x reader #envy adams #scott pilgrim vs the world

135 notes · View notes

mintchocolatechipnut · 4 years

Text

the boys but they’re idols

ft. bakugou katsuki. midoriya izuku & todoroki shouto

Note: yes, I missed prime pun opportunity to write ‘the boyz’ in the title. Anyway, I’ll be general enough to not include any real-life names and music, but I’ll get specific about other details. (Besides, if you squint real close you can see where I got my references from.) I’m thinking of a follow-up part, but we’ll see. Hope you enjoy!

* These headcanons are detailing each of the boys as a member in a hypothetical idol group, and not that they’re all in the same group.

** For context: the difference between main and lead positions is that main is the position that gets majority of the activity e.g. song, dance, rap, etc. Lead is more of a supporting role, but still important nonetheless.

Tags: idol!au, no x reader for this one, unless??, as you can see from the word length I think you’ll know who I’m partial to

Word count: 3.3k

BAKUGOU KATSUKI

Obviously an all-rounder. He can sing, dance, and rap, though his forte is definitely dancing.

Bakugou obviously has some mad hand-eye coordination if he can play the drums, and I haven’t even brought in his utilizing it through his quirk and fighting talent. He’s also very flexible when twisting through the air and extremely precise with his explosions

Thus, I’d say that his moves are the most on-beat and precise. He’s got very solid moves when dancing; imagine his limbs cutting the air in sharp, refined movements, and his flexibility leads him to be an overall powerful dancer.

Bakugou is a HUGE stickler for technique. Sure, he’s not above improvisation, but technique’s where he excels the most. He’s looking far ahead enough to not want to jeopardize his health by doing some dangerous moves that could potentially hurt his body, so he always takes extra care when going about them, such as taking advanced dance classes.

He works wonderfully as a center, because not only does he have this charisma that makes people unable to look away from him, his perfected balance between his fierce dancing and his emphasis on technique lead him to be a picture of refined strength, and an absolute delight to watch on stage

His facial expressions are definitely the best when he’s performing powerful songs, probably because he’s naturally angry lol. His worst concept has got to be cute, but while he dreads doing it, it’s not like he can’t pull it off. He’s an idol, dammit.

Bakugou’s that one member who wears a headband or bandanna during cutesy performances and sticks with it, because that’s the closest the stylists are ever gonna get to his hair

God forbid if he ever has curly or straight hair

He’s not against dying it though, but he still cares about the repercussions it has on his body, so he tries to refrain from dying it too often. (Which could be inevitable if his managers require him to, I know that. But I’m going to give the boys a little more leeway here to showcase their personalities.)

Anyway, a bandanna suits him just fine, and now he’s the trademark member with the bandanna haha

Some things that don’t change from canon are obviously his schedule. Boy still wakes up at the crack of dawn, probably goes for runs or do sets in the gym, make himself a healthy breakfast, then get down to work

Now I’m conflicted as to what position he would take in a group; I’m leaning towards main dancer

Then again, he IS an all-rounder, so really you could get him to do anything and he’ll be just fine

It’s not in his nature to fail, after all

He can sing, but since his voice is kind of gravelly he’s not the first choice for a main vocal. Strong lead vocal material, I’ll bet, because his voice adds a lot of color and diversity. It’s not something you’d usually hear in a song, that’s why.

He can rap, but again, his voice is gravelly and hard to hear, so I don’t think it would be too good a fit for fast-paced raps. Though, throw him one or two iconic rap lines in his natural ‘I’ll punch you in the face’ tone and you’ve got yourself an icon (and a meme) for days.

I can also see Bakugou being leader of the group, since in canon he’s actually the oldest in class 1-A. One thing though is his outward persona isn’t all that pristine; he has trouble switching gears into idol mode. As we know Bakugou doesn’t lie, regardless of circumstances, and he’s not about to start doing that just to be liked better. If any of these extras are going to be his fans, they’re going to have to recognize real talent, without all the fake smiles.

But because he knows what it could do to the group’s reputation if he came out to look like a big bad bully, he usually keeps his mouth shut during publicity events

He’s probably one of the first idols to have a not-so-sunny media persona, but fans mostly see him as this brooding, sulky kid that’s prepared to put 100% into everything he does

Which is why they still like him

Suffice to say, his fan-base is very similar to the BNHA fandom lmao

Cue all the memes on him being a jerk and everyone liking him anyway, but they know he’s fully committed to the group and wouldn’t want to do anything to risk its image

But over the years, and with the amount of events he’s been involved in, Bakugou’s learnt to let out his true personality one step at a time

He’s considering things carefully because he doesn’t want his fans to be jarred by his personality change all of a sudden, and also because he’s tired keeping up appearances

Jokes on him because the fans already know how he is and are just waiting for him to be more comfortable around the group to showcase his true feelings

And you know what? It sells!

His members also see him as some inspirational figure because his determination and commitment is truly unparalleled

And while he isn’t the easiest to get along with, they know that he’ll do anything within his abilities to push the group to greater heights

While that’s cute and all, it also means they have to suffer at the hands of Bakugou’s tough love. Tough luck

Besides being leader, I could also see him having a hand in producing as well

Remember when I said he was a stickler for technicality? Well, yeah, exactly this

If he feels something isn’t up to par he’d rather do it himself. I think he’d dabble in mixing for a bit and realize he actually has an ear for it, to which he’d then go on to producing whole songs that just awe his members and they’d be like ‘yeah let’s go with this’

And one more thing. Bakugou’s actually got an eye for fashion

Yeah, gripe all you want because all this boy ever wears in the dorms is skull shirts and black tanks but seriously, when he gets down to it, he knows what looks perfect on each member and can make little adjustments to change up a whole style

Courtesy of having designer parents lmao

Overall Bakugou is nothing if not capable. While it means he could definitely go solo at some point, he’s formed bonds with his members and knows he’s grown as a person as a result. And at this point he can only get better

In a leader position, he’s got the charisma, and is not afraid to push for changes if he thinks the status quo isn’t doing enough to ensure the members’ well-being

His weaknesses are obviously teamwork and perfectionism, but he’s been learning how to get along with others better, that it’s not all just a rat race for fame and influence, and he’s able to form some pretty lasting relationships (see: Kirishima)

Not perfectionism, though. He sees it as a strength and not for one second will he compromise. He wants nothing but the best quality, not just for himself, but for the fans

MIDORIYA IZUKU

Looks like the maknae but isn’t. That’s it, that’s the post

He has a really sweet voice so I can see him going for vocals. So imagine when he turns around, holds a mic in his hand and starts RAPPING

You got it, he’s a rapper. Look at the speed that kid goes when he’s mumbling and muttering to himself all the time

Cue Deku’s origin story where he’s mumbling to himself on the street and a talent scout hands him his business card asbfajgfsa

His enunciation is also clear, and his sweet voice makes for a very refreshing rap. That and he also writes his own rap, because if he’s going to be saying anything on that stage, he’s going to want it to mean something.

His raps are always soulful, with hard-hitting lyrics that serve to encourage and motivate anyone who hears and vibes with them.

Basically, his gap moe game is STRONG. Dude be spitting fire up there on stage but once he’s come down, he’s a timid, sweet, shy boi, with overreactions and exaggerations that just make him all the more endearing

He’s also a big fan favorite because he nails every concept well, and has a very down-to-earth personality which he doesn’t hide from the cameras

You want him to act cute and youthful? You’ve got it. You want him to go for something sexy? Um yeah, he’ll have his reservations, but he’ll still do well. You want him to be angry and powerful? The strength in his gaze has got you trembling from the pit.

He’s not just a fan favorite but also that of the staff. Seriously Deku deserves all the love in the world and in this world, he’s going to get it

He’s in the position for main rapper, but I could see him going for lead vocals as well. He’s got a sweet, clear voice that immediately tugs on anyone’s heartstrings the moment they hear it, and he’s usually given more lines in ballads. His vocal range isn’t bad, he can reach moderately high notes, but sometimes his voice undergoes strain. He’s training for that, though!

As for his dance style, Deku probably goes for freestyle! He’s got this easy-going, totally relaxed style going for him that’s full of swag (omg outdated word alert) that makes his movements very smooth. He’s also reasonably flexible, though not as flexible as Bakugou or Todoroki, so he still can pull off certain dance moves.

Unpopular opinion, but it’s Deku, not Todoroki, who looks good in EVERYTHING. Literally his stylist is squealing backstage because they can go ham on dressing him. You could put him in a gold chain and ripped jeans OR an oversized hoodie and rompers, and it’d just go. The only thing is his hair though; he’s thinking of selling it as his charm point (not his freckles!) so he’d prefer if it could stay green. He doesn’t mind if they style it different ways though

The fans would go ballistic if they saw Deku with an undercut, and chances are they’re going to get to see it

He’s definitely one for improvisation! He’s very flexible with these changes, much like how he considers his growth in canon. He’s always looking to try out new styles or moves and see if it fits for him

Besides, I also see him producing! It’s because he’s so immersed in his idol career that he’s always studying new trends on the scene and making them into formulas for the group. He’s also thinking of marketing strategies in his free time

Everyone better be afraid of businessman Deku because he’ll be stealing those bucks from right under your nose

He’s also got mean leadership skills, but I don’t see him in a leader position

Rather, he’s like the second-eldest-but-co-leader kind of guy! He assists the leader in any way he can, and always serves to inspire and motivate the younger ones to work harder together as a team

Deku’s still got that shounen-protagonist charm, even in this world

But for all his good points, Deku still worries he isn’t enough

He knows how cut-throat the industry can be, having studied it inside and out, and he doesn’t want to lag behind

Cue him getting up at odd hours of the morning to use the practice studio (without waking up the others, of course) and other instances

Whenever his members realize he’s been overworking, literally everyone turns on him

He used to be the mom figure, but the moment he’s ushered into bed, a cooling pad on his forehead and thermos at his bedside desk, and the members even station one person to be in the living room so if he tries to leave his room to practice by himself they’ll see him

Jokes on them because Deku practices in his room

He practically moves in his sleep as if trying to get the muscle memory down

Precious boy must protecc!

In sum, Deku’s a great teammate to have and a valuable asset to the team

He’s also the best of friends and is never one to let a fellow member down

Probably the first to burst into tears if the group ever disbands

With his talent and fan-base, he could definitely go solo. But more than that, he wants to cherish the time he has with his members and achieve greater milestones with them every day

TODOROKI SHOUTO

High-key a visual. I mean, everyone wants to look like him!

Like. Everyone stops to look at him whenever he enters the room. Staff, producers, backstage crew, everyone. Even his members, sometimes.

Man’s just too pretty not to stare at

That's not to say he isn't talented, oh no. He's much like Bakugou, an all-rounder, but he's gone through rigorous training from when he was young to get there

Definitely not because of genes, no offense to Rei

As much as Enji is a major shareholder in the industry, anyone who sees Todoroki strut his stuff and still says he got in because of his father has got to be blind. Or deaf. Or plain stupid.

Sure, he had all that training courtesy of his dad. But the moment he enters as a trainee, it's all him from there and no one else.

He's a lot withdrawn at first, still is, but he's improved a lot from when he first joined. It's because of the support he's gained from both his members and fans that he's able to push himself to be the best version of himself everyday

He definitely doesn't come out and say it, but he's probably the most grateful for his fans. As in his family isn't the only lifeline left for him anymore

Todoroki has an amazing voice; while his speaking voice is low, he can reach higher notes without much difficulty. His tone is deep, somber and perfect for ballads, but the training he's undergone has made his technique immaculate. He's got excellent control, he can do runs and riffs effortlessly and he's even perfected his growl. Fans won't even see it coming

His dancing on the other hand is a lot about technique; but unlike Bakugou, Todoroki probably did classical and contemporary dance training as opposed to hip-hop or popping. Because of that, his movements are smooth and elegant, and he always carries himself with the grace of a dancer

That's not to say he cannot be an absolute beast on stage, of course. He's just more in his element when it comes to melancholic ballads, and he's had a hand in choreographing contemporary routines before

That experience and knowledge easily make him a capable choreographer for the group

After all those years of not being able to properly express himself, Todoroki learnt to let his dance tell a story in itself

He's also a fast learner, so any hip-hop techniques he easily picks up and incorporates into the routine

This makes me think he’s going to be a main dancer and a lead vocal, maybe even main vocal

I don’t see him in a leader position because while he has the charisma for it, I think he’d lack in communication, like Bakugou. They’re both a bit too used to doing things on their own that they 1) can’t trust anyone else to do it right and 2) as a result have never consulted other people about how they do things

The difference is Bakugou is a little more observant and far-thinking enough to be a leader, but it doesn’t make Todoroki any less important

If anything, he’s the mom friend, and always makes sure that the members stay in line and out of trouble

Also, for some reason, he's got exceptional charisma on stage and he doesn't even know it

Like, a sexy song comes on and then there’s Todoroki's smoldering heterochromatic gaze

Fans: omgomgomg how is he so hot what the—

Him: ??? This is my normal face tho

It's a strange feeling. One moment, he can be humping the floor and another moment he's got dimples in his cheeks from smiling. It makes him look like a totally different person, even though he's the same guy

His fans don't know why either

As much as he has a creative outlet in dance, Todoroki thinks he has no talent for songwriting or producing. He doesn't consider them his areas of expertise and if he was asked to write lyrics he'd have a hard time because he rarely expresses himself with words. He'd fret on it and eventually not get much done, so why try?

He does help out though, in offering suggestions on how to proceed, but he won't take the lead for any of these. Only dancing

That and his growing up with a businessman father leads him to also know the industry rather well, so he can offer some insights as to what image they could go for and how to market their discography

When it comes to styling, Todoroki is an absolute Mess. The things he likes and wants to wear doesn't suit him all that much, and the stylists usually have a hard time picking out clothes that really accentuate his look and figure. The myriad of colors in his hair and face lead to color clashes, but they find that red and blue are usually the go-to colors.

Did I mention that Todoroki doesn't mind dying his hair as long as they don't dye the white part? Enough said

They've done rainbow on him before!

He also doesn't cover up his scar, and over the years he's learnt to make it his charm point

It serves to make him a noticeable figure in the industry (as if his heterochromia weren’t enough) but it also makes him easily recognisable to fans

It’s not like he doesn’t like interacting with his fans, but sometimes some of them get a little too close, or ask questions that are way too personal

During those times, he’s at least got his members to relate and support him through it

The cutest thing about this man has got to be when he interacts with fans

Like, he’s pretty expressionless most of the time, but he always makes sure that his fans know that he’s extremely happy to have them here, and that he’ll continue doing the best he can for them

If you’re lucky and catch a small smile from him when you’re at a fan sign, I guess you could die peacefully

To summarize, Todoroki is a sweet bean but hardly ever shows it

When people praise his looks, he’s humble about them (though it’s more because he doesn’t know or think he’s attractive… baby just doesn’t see it)

And to top it all off, he’s a charmer on and off stage with his quiet, sensitive nature and calm demeanor

He’s also the one that’s most likely to have a modeling career outside of his idol work

He can’t act for the life of him even though he’s got the expressions right on stage

Like Deku and Bakugou, he could always go solo, but his reason for not doing so is mainly because he’s found a new family, here with his members, and he doesn’t want to lose it

He doesn’t even mind if they don’t produce music anymore. As long as everyone sticks together and has a good time, he’s willing

A/N: Thank you for reading! If you haven’t checked out my other pieces, you can find them on my masterlist; if you have, thank you for your support! I’m trying to post something new every week, so stay tuned :)

#bnha headcanons #mha headcanons #bnha idol au #mha idol au #bakugou katsuki #bakugou headcanons #midoriya izuku #midoriya headcanons #todoroki shouto #todoroki headcanons

175 notes · View notes

sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 3 years

Text

Cyprus brings shampoo to Rotterdam 2021

youtube

I FELL IN LOVE, I FELL IN LOVE, I GAVE MY HEART TO PRODUCT PLACEMENT.

Though I do see where they come from. Everyone from Panik Records, from her to Eleni Foureira featuring Perfectil on the “Fuego” MV, gonna need that sweet sweet money all of the time. But has Greece’s economy not really recovered for them to constantly need to advertise products on music videos or am I just losing my mind overthinking things?

Eitherway, this review may or may not appear before or during their rehearsal day, so see how do I make a fool of myself by trying to estimate Cyprus’s chances!

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

This year we have a 26 year old Elena Tsagrinou from Greece here (the way they were last represented by a somewhat Cypriot on 2017?). She did music early on in her age, also participated in the Greek version of Got Talent. Though, before breaking out as a solo pop sensation in ways you cannot imagine, she used to be in a pop band OtherView. Strangely enough, I’ve heard of them because of this song below but I could’ve NEVER estimated it was her and never could have I predicted she would land herself a Eurovision entrance all alone:

youtube

The band has had quite a few successful enough singles with her, she did some music shows participation and hosting, her band switched labels midway through (guess into which one they eventually landed, hint: some of the screenshots in this review have this peculiar logo), and in 2018, she had to “withdraw” from the group to go ahead and pursue the aforementioned solo career, somewhat. She continued doing a lot of shows (particularly seen on the MAD music channel related events), and doesn’t have as many singles as she had with OtherView right now, but she’s possibly well on her way to blossom as an artiste. Some of those reading (lol who am I kidding who even reads these) may be familiar with this little song of hers:

youtube

You’ve heard way too many things about “El Diablo”, her 2021 entry, so idk if I feel like explaining the technical side of things all by myself or you already know everything. But in these reviews I repeat everyone else regardless, so let me just say that “El Diablo” is an obvious pop song, with a lot of Swedish related touches to it, because at least one person on this song also worked on Alvaro Estrella’s Melodifestivalen 2021 entry that glorifies at least a handful of the same cliches that “El Diablo” does lyrically. Dear Eurovision lyricists, you can use more foreign languages than Spanish for your obligatory foreign language incorporations, thanks~

Although I’m not sure about whether it is more Laurell Barker’s fault as much as it is Joker Thörnfeldt’s, but it’s easier to blame them equally, because the former probably came up with “ta-taco, tamale” and the latter couldn’t get enough of the word “mamacita” they used for the aforementioned Melodifestivalen entry. Anyway, the lyrics, from what I get, is that she’s in love with an eeeevil guy because he’s sweet talking her, they do some sexy stuff together (presumably), pour sauce on their bodies for no explicit reason other than “obligatory-foreign-reference-itis”, she’s breaking the rules (and idk if it was “mama-mamacita” telling her to do it), got the icy edges that the spicy is melting for her, throws eyelashes on the floor when she’s got no wigs to throw (but that doesn’t matter because even without a wig, she can flip her hair and make him look twice), and there’s as much as you need to know about the song’s lyrics as I feel like I should show to you, because eh. Eurovision has suffered from worse cookie-cutter lyricism through the years, “El Diablo” is painful but not the worst.

REVIEW

But I do like the song somewhat!

“El Diablo” was initially compared to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” upon release, and I totally kind of see why, because in all the right spots you can absolutely hum over the chorus to that over the one of “El Diablo”’s, it just exchanges gratuitous French translation of one of the already sung lines on the bridge for obligatory inserted Spanish terms just for the sake of being trendy with the crowds of the nowadays, because as we learned nothing these days, having a lot of Spanish in your song is apparently trendy. And Elena does nothing absolutely batshit insane on the music video (other than advertising) - no lapdance for the devil Lil Nas X style, no being forced into a bath, no person to sell her body to (not even the titular diablo), no dancers that rise out of their Christian sleep pods. Just Elena singing behind lots and lots of trash bin bag wrap.

Honestly the bigger issue for me than the song being “sAtAnIc because it is called “the DEVIL!!!”, aside from the lyrics, is that the MV does not come with any forewarning whatsoever for the people that are seizure prone when they see strobe lights? And that happens for some extended periods of this clip? I know you are indulged in your advertising and good for you but don’t just care for the companies that pay you if you use their products, do care about people’s wellbeings too, sometime.

But enough about the MV.

The song is decently sounding. It has interesting uses of what sounds like hi-hats during the verses (e.g.: a moment when this happens for the first time on the song is after Elena sings “tonight we’re gonna burn in a par-tY” the second time, and then there’s something that sounds soaring - that’s what I think that the hi-hats did.). It also has some sort of a synth piano on the second verse to boost the song’s sound rather than just relying on 808s and beats. I quite like how the chorus is so instant somehow, idk why but it is for me. Might have a gripe with that childish choir singing “I LOVE EL DIAB-LO” in the tune of standard kindergarten children teasing tune (aka ”NA NA NA BOO BOO”), as well as the constant breathing sounds, but they don’t distract me from generally “fucking” with this song, lol. It’s just that likeable imo.

I just can’t cope with the fact that Cyprus can’t seem to dare to go at least a little bit original with their song, yanno? Ever since 2019 they were called out as being a ripoff of something... hell, everyone since 2016 except Eleni was a ripoff of something. Alter Ego? “Somebody Told Me” by The Killers. Gravity? “Human” by Rag’n’Bone Man. Replay? “Fuego” itself. Running? “Lose Control”, Meduza x Becky Hill. Now we have a Lady Gaga song wannabe that even caught the attention of another singer that the music video looked like it was ripping off, and the Eurofandom caught up in hysterics:

Heads up, folks: not EVERY short haired blonde with messy hair, silvery tank top and shortpants that writhes on the floor is a Zara Larsson clone. And I don’t know who stirred controversy first - her or the fans - but this was ridiculous to see, even for me.

Although for a second I saw where they were coming from.

Now see why I want Cyprus to go original for at least once? Because I guess that the way “Fuego” was conjured up, it brought Cyprus so much success with how the package was, how Eleni sold it, and how the song sounded. You know the first thing of everything potentially going wrong for you later on is if you find the formula you’ve been looking for, but you proceed to be using the exact same formula that got you this far in the first place, without realizing what was it in the formula that you needed to bank on to further to make it click, but instead proceed to copy everything like it was an easy, fill-in-the-blank form. You can and should do better than that.

Though that doesn’t stop me from ranking it 11th this year.

Thing is, I really expected it to be the one female pop song of the year I would have the constant impulsive need to replay, replay, yeah. Ever since the chaotic entry MV drop that occured on some random-ass Cypriot TV show where three guys talked a lot (and before that, we got a cooking show), and kept growing increasingly agitated that no one is liking their show, until at some point one of them erupted in “IN TWU MEENETS... EL DIABLO... ON UR TEEVEE”; I was really devastated I couldn’t be able to break the replay button because of Panik Records deciding to rather benefit for themselves to have the MV on their app, then on Youtube, THEN on Spotify in that order. So I listened to a few video rips that I received / had for myself, and it was a fun time... until I realized the desire to play it declined much faster than I thought it would when it actually dropped on Spotify, oops. So I can’t really let myself rank it higher, when there are at least some catchier female bangers with better overall sound, better lyrics, and better multiple-replay factor. But I can’t really settle for a much lower rank for her than 11th, anyway. Girlbanger 2021 power y’all!

That and vocally she’s actually not that bad, even if she has shown up singing her song drunk in a handful of Instastories for some event of some party house, and at the time people overreacted, but I think that at least a large audience of those same people has collectively dropped their “Cyprus obvious NQ” talks come the pre-parties.

youtube

Panik Records, when will you put the yeehaw El Diablo on streaming? Now THAT’S a version that has replay value, and I might never get bored of it instead :(

Approval factor: Yeah, there exists some for me in it Follow-up factor: CyBC did one of the nastiest in terms of following up their 2020 arc of “Bring Your Artist Back for Revenge Year” that was 2021, straight up ditching Sandro probably right after Eurovision was done (well it doesn’t look like the case because CyBC published a statement later, but I sense that it might’ve been the case), because “Running” wasn’t doing so well with the “YAS QUEEN” branch of the Eurofandom. Which sucks because Sandro would’ve actually been down to be asked again for Eurovision, as he revealed it to NikkieTutorials during many of her interviews with last year’s class of. “Agreement from both parties” my ass, unless Sandro secretly realized that like Tom Leeb, he was too busy for 2021 Eurovision, which I doubt. It actually sucks imo that Sandro can probably be considered as even a forever non-returnee, because Sandro is more of German roots than Greek, and if we learned anything about the Mukuchyangate 2021, is that Germany will never send a returning artist, at least one that didn’t represent their country first and foremost. So Greece could only ask Sandro nicely only if the contest comes on to Germany, I guess? How do you think they decided on getting Stefania, who still ever so regularly appears on Dutch music, to represent them this year? So on that regard the follow-up from CyBC stinks, eventhough I think that entrywise the follow-up was rather decent, at least in the usual Cypriot way of sending female pop (going from “Replay” to “El Diablo” which I like more than “replay”), and eventhough I’m falling out of the hype for Cyprus I once used to have, their 2015-2021 entry streak had entries that I largely feel positive for overall, so in that regard, the follow up is decent. Qualification factor: In a year of Semi 1 Female Banger Slaughterhouse, Elena goes out in my eyes with several scratches, but not enough to completely kill her chances. If anything, given the divisiveness of Ireland’s rehearsals, Elena is likely to obliterate any last memory of Lesley Roy any first time viewer has ever had, except for her stage graphics. Even if Elena’s staging will not be as mindblowingly cartooney as the last, once a bop comes on, everyone forgets the slower song and gives into the bop, at least that’s how the draws work when choosing what insignificant song to put on 2nd and wedge in between the opening banger and some lesser-key banger, right? I know that “Replay” barely qualified, but I find “El Diablo” slightly better, and it all goes well, it will barely just as qualify as well. Because in a Semi 1 Female Banger Slaughterhouse, she can’t be the losing one, really.

INTERNAL CORNER

I already told everything that was noteworthy about Elena’s journey in previous sections, honestly.

• That I said that CyBC likely ditched Sandro right after cancellation just like Hooverphonic ditched “Release Me” should they have had a chance to keep or toss their entry. It doesn’t present itself as the case, but I just feel like it is.

• That the song was revealed on a Cypriot talkshow where three dudes were aware that we were waiting for “El Diablo”, trying to throw some gratuitous English our way, hating that we didn’t like our show, but promising that “El Diablo” MV will be shown in “TWU MEENETS”, which wasn’t but worth the wait eh?

• That people were cackling at Zara Larsson joining in the talks of Elena’s MV having aspects of her own song’s MV plagiarized.

• That Elena performed her song in a private-ish event when drunk and having heaps of fun and people cried that it was gonna be a NQ.

And do I really need to elaborate about the local Cypriot church scandal? It just so happened that a bunch of people read into a song’s title so much, thought it was rude of their country to sing about the devil (eventhough the bigger offenses made here is the gratuitous Spanish more than anything), and hoped that the broadcaster will disqualify the very song they okayed to be internally chosen because they are displeased with it - and if it’s not disqualified, they even threatened to burn the headquarters down. No, really. That’s like the most amusing part of that whole spectacle. Imagine burning a broadcaster headquarters down for a song... if I did it for every favourite of mine that lost to other broadcasters, the broadcasters would run out of locations to rent, because everything else good is pre-occupied or the ashes of their lost headquarters staring back at them.

Imagine being toxicly Christian in 2021... How long until Elena’s face gets photoshopped on the main protagoniste of The Unholy?

ANY LAST WORDS?

Even if I’m with this song, part of me kind of wants me to fail to make Cyprus realize that their formula is starting to wear thin and they got to be somewhat of a versatile nation in Eurovision if they want to be on the radar of not just one specific niche. But then again, they learned nothing when they flopped with Tamta, because she sneakily qualified as opposed to failing even harder than Tulia, ah well. Will they ever learn?

But why would I openly wish this to a top 11 song of mine, oh dear. Good luck Elena, may God be on your side, I guess. :P

#eurovision #eurovision 2021 #rotterdam 2021 reviews #cyprus #elena tsagrinou #el diablo

5 notes · View notes

patricksmusicblog · 3 years

Text

J. Cole- The Off-Season(Album Review)

The Off-Season is the sixth album from Carolina rapper J. Cole. This is following up is album KOD, one of my favorites of 2018 and the predecessor to his forthcoming album The Fall Off. The album is something of a warm-up spurred on by J. Cole finding inspiration in reaching new heights creatively. J. Cole being amongst the most prominent rappers of the 2010s, it's good to see him still hungry and eager to reach new heights. The Off-Season displays that in different ways. J. Cole is known to produce a good chunk of his music(KOD was nearly 100% produced by Cole). I never minded that; still, others have pointed out that J. Cole was beginning to sound a little too comfortable over his beats is in turn not pushing himself in the booth. Taking heed, The Off-Season features production from Timberland Boi-1da, T-Minus, DJ Dhai, Tae Beast, etc. The change gives this Cole album a sense of fluidity yet unpredictability his previous LPs didn't have. The album starts with the Boi-1da produced "95 South" starts things out triumphantly; it's a grandiose beat that makes for a great start to the album. Introduced by Cam'ron and featuring Lil Jon, it's random, but it fits. "Amarie," produced by Timberland, has a thumping beat that features skittering hi-hats and a flute sounds background that creates the canvas to get on with a melodic flow. "Pride is The New Devil" is a trap-flavored beat with a tinged of melancholy to it that creates the perfect space for J. Cole and Lil Baby to go in on the dark side of being overly prideful. You can sense Cole's willingness to get out of his comfort zone and rhyme over beats that are generally more exciting. J. Cole vocally/lyrically sounds sharper here. Particularly in terms of flow and cadence. I love tracks like "Applying Pressure" and "Punchin' the Clock" for one, they're hard, and they have the pure spirit of the project in that they sound like lyrical exercise for him. You can hear the work he's putting in on his craft. "My Life" ft 21 Savage is another excellent track; they both had great verses, and 21, in particular, had a very strong verse. There's more braggadocio here and which exemplified by "100 Mil" it's good to see Cole bask in his success a bit while still looking forward. You also get tracks where Cole displays a sense of being grounded and introspection. On "Let Go My Hand," Cole shows maturity and vulnerability, speaking to raising his son to be better than him and regarding insecurities and walls built in youth to create protection.

There isn't a track amongst the 12 I don't like. It's consistent and production-wise. It's probably the best production J. Cole's had on a project in a long time(If not ever, really). If there’s anything negative about the album is that some tracks are a bit short particularly in the top half of the album there are moments I wish he’d put one more verse on a track but it’s a small gripe. It's a mixture of lyrical showcases, bangers, thoughtful/ introspective tracks. It brought a different energy, it's another great J. Cole album. So I'm looking forward to The Fall Off; I'm interested in seeing what comes from it.

Rating: 9.0/10

By: Patrick Griffin II

#J. Cole #The Off Season #Album #Music #Rap #Hip-Hop #Album Review

2 notes · View notes

wyattvsmusic · 3 years

Text

H.E.R. - Back Of My Mind ALBUM REVIEW

Within such a short amount of time, H.E.R. has done so much. It was only 2017 when she put out her first series of short EPs of R&B vibes under her mysterious pseudonym. These EPs eventually were collected onto a compilation album that was nominated for album of the year that the Grammys. The same goes for her subsequent compilation of her I Used To Know Her EP series that was also nominated for multiple Grammys. H.E.R. has made such an impact with these EPs without technically putting out her actual debut album even though she has quite the catalog and has all kinds of accolades under her belt. I think she is so talented and amazing at what she does but my biggest gripe with her music has been that although it’s great, I was always looking for a bit more variety. I’m not expecting H.E.R. to change her sound entirely with each release and I really don’t want her to either but I just have been wanting her to showcase multiple sides of her talents because we see her on TV performances singing her heart out and absolutely shredding on the guitar but that hasn’t really actually come up on much of her music and I was definitely looking for that on her debut album which seemed promising from the beginning of the rollout for this album which has been quite odd. For an artist that has gained so much in a short span of time and is a huge artist on a major label that is so big without an actual album, the rollout was odd because for a while, H.E.R. was just putting out random loose singles without any promotion. Some of those songs ended up on this album and some on movie soundtracks while the rest are just standalone tracks that are still great. The variety I was looking for was there in those singles and it is here on this album like I wanted (to a degree). Right from the jump, H.E.R. starts singing really well and we finally hear that guitar that she sounds so great over on We Made It. The way she and Ty Dolla $ign’s vocals sound stacked on top of each other on the following track made it an instant favorite. From there, this album goes in a lot of different directions, mainly because it is so long. The length of this album is also the main issue that I have with it. It diminishes its replay value as well as the variety in its standout tracks because a lot of the filler tracks sound very similar. There are a bunch of songs that are still good but not favorites while some others don’t really resonate with me, such as Find A Way with Lil Baby and Slide with YG. Those songs are just not what I want from H.E.R. What I do think is good about this album being so long is that we do get to hear a lot of different sides of H.E.R. like how her compilations are usually sequenced where there are different tones and subjects throughout the tracklist. We see the more hurt side of H.E.R. on songs like Trauma and Cheat Code, which sound so different from each other. Cheat Code is easily one of the best songs on the album. Like I said, there are different kinds of H.E.R. songs and Cheat Code is the kind of H.E.R. I like the most. The same goes for Hold On and Don’t which are two incredible songs that make the last leg of the album the strongest. She doesn’t try many new sounds on this album which I like because she’s so great at what she does but there are some different moments that do work very well such as Bloody Waters with Thundercat. It taps into a different era of R&B that we are used to hearing from H.E.R. as she often leans into this new 2010s/2020s sound that she’s known for. One track that surprised the shit out of me was I Can Have It All with DJ Khaled and Bryson Tiller because of how great it was. H.E.R. and Bryson have made good songs before but the songs on Khaled’s new album that have H.E.R. on it were really bad so I was expecting more of We Going Crazy but I Can Have It All was amazing. She sings the hook with a certain conviction in her voice that sounds even more powerful when the beat comes in, making it a clear album highlight. Back Of My Mind may be a very long album, which has it’s major weaknesses and a lot of strengths but H.E.R. really did give us a bit of everything that makes her great and while I may not love everything about it, she gave us different parts of herself and her sound which is exactly what I was looking for.

Fav Tracks: We Made It, Back Of My Mind, Bloody Waters, Cheat Code, Hold On, Don’t, I Can Have It All

#H.E.R.#Back Of My Mind #Ty Dolla $ign #cordae #lil baby #Thundercat #Chris Brown #Yung Bleu #DJ Khaled #Bryson Tiller #YG

1 note · View note

falleninlove-archive · 4 years

Text

(does a funky little dance) OFFICIAL! LEAN ON ME! TIMELINE! HERE WE GO

1986 - carly, the oldest of the ruro siblings is born and months later adopted by grace (a former broadway actress and manager of a small local cafe) and arthur ruro (a former guitarist who now owns a local music shop), a couple living in the tiny town of misky, arizona who can’t have bio kids but want a large family regardless

1987 - cameron, the second oldest of the ruro siblings, is born and months later adopted into the family

1989 - kayleigh and mary, fraternal twins, are born and adopted at two days old

general childhood information, spanning about 1990 thru 2000 - all of the girls receive musical education and are pretty much constantly surrounded by music, whether it be around the house thru their parents always having some kind of vinyl record on or helping out at their dad’s music shop

all the girls love it but kayleigh takes to it like a fish to water and starts learning violin at just age 4, and her mother begins giving her vocal training soon after

the girls discover alternative music and subculture through the magic of the fledgling internet, and carly, kayleigh, and cameron pretty much all become baby punks at like, 10-15 years old

2001 - kayleigh is invited to a music competition for Prodigious Youth at 12 years old. she is paired with Blue Scott, a shy, lanky kid from chicago who is also a massive music nerd like her. they win the competition and over the course of the week that they are working, they become best friends

over the course of the following years, they are constant pen pals, and see each other 2-3 times a year in person

2002 - when carly and cameron are teenagers, they decide to start a punk band, except in order to use all of their parents music equipment their parents FORCE them to include their younger sisters (kayleigh and mary). there is much griping and groaning about this

2003 - hey wait, that band is actually pretty good despite kayleigh and mary being only 15. they play their first show that isn’t at their local community centre without the knowledge of their parents and officially christen the band poison pop

carly graduates much to the chagrin of her parents, she gleefully declares she is not going to college

2005 - cameron, against her own better judgement, takes a gap year because the band starts recording their first album at home with their own equipment, and also starts playing more and more shows. at this point their parents know but are trusting cameron and carly to keep 16 year old kayleigh and mary in line and safe

blue introduces the girls to his friend ryka, a teenager a year younger than kayleigh and mary, who is shockingly good at guitar. she takes up kayleigh’s guitarist spot and leaves her free to do vocals only

they get lucky and happen to play a show at a large alt rock festival in phoenix, catching the attention of rising chicago-based label dissociation records who immediately offer them a record deal. they take it on the spot and dissociation flies them out to chicago a month later to sign the paperwork

2006 - they drop their first professionally recorded single, poison killed the prom queen. it shoots to the top of the charts, making poison pop one of the biggest bands in the nation overnight

they release their album of the same name that year as well, and with their continued success with the other singles, they cement themselves as the first truly household name in emo

2007 - they tour with another emo band called watch the skies, who quickly rocket in popularity, and immediately begin work on their next album. meanwhile, the girls are dealing with their first tastes of fame and they’re not dealing with it well <3

kayleigh and blue start fake dating to get the press off kayleigh’s ass about her love life. this..................is going to go exactly how you think it’s going to go. they move to LA together <3

2008 - batwings and crowbeaks drops to another massive success, and they continue touring. dissociation records, by this time, have taken almost complete control of their image and discography, so despite the record itself being quite good, it is nothing like what poison pop originally tried to make, and they’re starting to get fed up with it

not to mention dissociation has them on a near-constant work schedule, and they can’t take any significant breaks, abandoning their family and friends and almost any social lives they mightve had outside the music world

the only good thing to happen this year is mary getting married to her highschool sweetheart, mark. it is a nice wedding and probably the last time the girls will be happy together for a long time.

2009 - kayleigh and blue “break up” and stop talking to eachother completely. six months later, as they’re working on their third announced studio album bruises, the band (except kayleigh) decides to break up. upon hearing about this decision, kayleigh has a minor mental breakdown and cuts off contact with the entire band

bruises is never released, and the band is officially broken up by the end of the year, breaking out of their contract with dissociation through a legal loophole

2010 - kayleigh begins to find a life outside the band, and starts doing songwriting work with what remains of her connections in the industry, which she’s really good at and she really enjoys.

she finally fucking gets mental health help. jesus christ my gal. im so glad u are finally getting better

2011 - kayleigh makes up with pretty much everybody, including blue, but it’s a slow process. they spend their first christmas together as a family in 2 years

kayleigh and ryka discuss the fact that they still yearn for the stage, and an idea begins to form

2012 - ryka forms sparrow records, her own record label, and its first signee becomes half-dead, a two piece band consisting of kayleigh and her.

ryka moves to LA with her boyfriend rowan, and invites kayleigh to room with her. kayleigh, who knows blue is looking to move to LA and properly start his music career, invites him to room with them.

this is an idea that absolutely won’t backfire or dredge up any old feelings i’m sure

(just kidding. they’re dating by christmas <3)

2013 - half-dead releases its first album, at which point i have to admit i do not know anything abt half-dead’s release schedule fJSDKFHSDF.

what i do know is that they tour that year with long shot for speedy as their opening act and they instantly become band moms to them despite literally only being five and six years older than them at most. they just have that energy having been in the music industry for much, much longer than they have

2014 - blue releases his first album, wallflower, to shocking success!

2016 - half-dead is relatively successful, but kayleigh and ryka are not going to make the same mistakes this time round and they take a break in 2016. ryka n rowan move back to chicago, and kayleigh and blue buy their first house together!

2017 - the girls all get together on new year’s day and talk about poison pop. this discussion leads them to decide to finally bring back the band.

2018 - jetlag life, poison pop’s first album in over a decade, drops that summer, and they begin touring immediately afterwards with watch the skies!

2019 - blue proposes to kayleigh after 18 years of knowing each other and 7 years of dating. <3

2020 - blue and kayleigh FINALLY get married and nothing bad happens because this is my timeline

also poison pop, around the end of year, start dropping hints at another album.... 👀

#dakota originals #lean on me #WHAM BAM THANK YOU MAAM #IT ONLY TOOK ME NEARLY AN HOUR #honestly that's a record for poison pop timeline infodumps #there's so much that happened that i didnt even mention #carly has a girlfriend #cameron gets married at some point #mary has a baby #there's so much #SO MUCH #but i focused on kayleigh and the bands for this one #this thing is 1.3k words #it's full fic length #i go so fucking feral when i infodump lean on me man

5 notes · View notes

skimblyshanks · 4 years

Text

If you want all of my problems with Sideways’ video in a more articulate-ish post, here you go

basically, he had me for a good while, then lost me when he started making some implications in Part V and falling into a trap he tends to fall into when he gets heated abt the treatment of the orchestra and that’s ultimately forgetting the time it can take actors to learn and polish numbers vocally before heading into rehearsals with live accompaniment. when you title a part Dance Rehearsal I expect some more talk abt the full range of actors’ rehearsal for a movie musical, especially when there were many new faces, wholly new choreo, and a system of on-set accompaniment that was inconsistent and meant to follow the actors more than actually provide them that accompaniment. He barely brings up the rehearsal process in this part of the video which was ???? like he raised a good point tho, which was that all the weird tempo changes could have been discussed with the orchestra in rehearsal, but then kinda seemed to blame celebrity actors for the orchestration being weird? Like I think I get what he was trying to play at, which was more in the way of Hooper not structuring things effectively? But it’s like, he effectively pits Jason and Steven against the rest of the soloists and I’m not here for that. Even if he only really meant to pit their performances against Wilson, Corden, And Sir Ian, I can’t really say I like the implications he made. I’m also quick to bristle at “They came onto se not knowing the music” when it’s rather common knowledge how little time Francesca had to learn Beautiful Ghosts, on top of oh, idk, learning how to sing, period.

Again, I don’t think the implications were intentional, but this part didn’t need to be in the video. Also, he makes a point about how long the orchestra were working on the movie which yes, absolutely it’s insane, but the thing is that everyone involved in post were working up to the deadline, especially VFX who had to keep working PAST the premiere. Everyone in the production was crunched.

Basically, part V was like. Unnecessary, lmao. It really only serves to highlight his bias towards the orchestra alone, and kind of threw most of the cast under the bus, accidental or no. The strongest aspects of the video were the parts looking at how the movie missed the mark on the show’s score; how the false attempt at what we assume Hooper thinks is whole-show rubato damages the structure of the songs; how the inserts mess up the pacing. He had a really good argument going there; one that didn’t explicitly go after the actors, and I wish he had stuck with it, and ended with the further discussion of Hooper’s on-set methods and how they’ve increased in part IV.

Other gripes:

In his breakdown of the show, he left out the Macavity fight even though there are returns of excerpts from the jellicle ball, and it shows that they need Mistoffelees to bring deut to them.

he was doing so well in looking at the show’s score and what it communicates, then essentially went “They should have gone with the upbeat M+R arrangement bc it’s what most ppl know and I think it sounds better.” And that just. That annoyed me a lot bc mate. You talk abt the instrumentation and intended atmosphere of Gus: The Theatre Cat, did you not notice the jazz influence on Macavity’s number in the stage show? There could be an argument made abt the reinstrumentation in 2019 but it’s like, it’s still a jazzy piece. You can see them clearly working for Macavity. They are meant to be more morally ambiguous in the movie. I know you watched the 98 film all the way through at least once and they are v much not working for macavity there.

What annoys me even more with the M+R overlook is that there are still issues with the re-arrangement of the version they went with. He explicitly mentions that Danny gets stuck with a lot of movement during his solo lines in the song that work against his performance, but like. He looked at the stacked harmony in Gumbie cat and how they stuck Rebel on a solo that isn’t the top voice (what some ppl hear as the melody voice for that segment), and if he looked at the OL composition for M+R he’d have seen that the first two verses are meant to be sung almost entirely in unison, and with a harmony on “Rove” which Danny had to handle alone and while moving.

3 notes · View notes

hippriestess · 4 years

Photo

Part 2: Cherry-picking

Cherry Red had been releasing The Fall's new music since 2011's “Ersatz GB” and we already knew that Smith had signed a further deal with them to look after what portion of the group's catalogue he owned. They had already made a start with the handsome seven disc “Singles 1978 - 2016” box set they had released late in 2017 (alongside a cut-down three disc “A Sides” collection). The set had originally been scheduled for release in 2016 but the production deadline for the all-important Christmas market was missed and the set was held back until after “New Facts Emerge” - from which no singles were taken - had been released. Following Smith's passing, the seven-disc edition sold out and was unavailable for a short time before Cherry Red did the decent thing and made a few more.

A reissue of 1997's “Levitate” had been in the works for a while; Smith had signed off the tracklisting and there had been a trailer of sorts with a Record Store Day-only 7” of “Masquerade” in 2017. Given that the album had been in contractual limbo for quite some time with original vinyl copies fetching 3 figures on the open market, Cherry Red's first posthumous release felt like a public service, doing the right thing both by Smith and by the fans. Released towards the end of May 2018, the new 2CD/3LP edition was justly well received and some kindly reviews appeared with mostly positive re-evaluations of one of their most awkward albums. Hindsight benefits the record; if it sounds like they were falling to bits, it's because they were and now that we know not just what happened next but how the whole story of The Fall continued for another 20 years, it has context. For the record (Portugal), yr present author is no more fond of the album than she was 7 or 8 years ago but “Ol' Gang” has clicked into focus and the second disc puts those great b-sides from the “Masquerade” CD singles back onto the shelves so it would have to be considered necessary.

Less impressive was “58 Golden Greats”, released at the end of 2018. A 3CD set in a clamshell box, this was, in essence, an extended version of the classic “50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong” collection from 2004, extending the tracklist to cover the remainder(er) of the group's career. It actually expands on the original in other ways, adding several songs from the era covered in the original version; the puzzling omission of “Big New Prinz” is corrected for one thing and other singles are added such as “Oh! Brother” and “Dead Beat Descendent”. Perhaps Beggars Banquet were more co-operative this time. Whilst one could always quibble with any attempt at a Fall “best of”, yr present author was not taken with this one and my purse remained closed. 58 was an unwieldy number (why not a round 60?), the cover artwork – a spoof of a different Elvis Presley sleeve – was far from appealing and the entry-point value of “50,000...” was lost, a 3 disc set at £17 being too big a serving at too high a price for the merely curious. However, it looks as if I'm just flat-out in the wrong. As we'll continually see, Cherry Red aren't just experienced, they are also smart and do not lack savvy. I'm sat here keyboard-griping while “58 Golden Greats” is sold out. Enough said.

In 2019, Cherry Red announced the beginning of the Fall Sound Archive, the title of which gave the air of a mission to preserve The Fall's work for future generations. Inevitably, they were starting with 40th Anniversary editions of “Live At The Witch Trials” and “Dragnet”. There was early disappointment. The 3CD edition of “Live At The Witch Trials” contained the exact same music as the 2CD edition from 2004 but spread over three discs. Any thoughts that the decision at least preserved the sanctity of the original 11 song album were hampered by the 3CD edition of “Dragnet” containing, as disc 1, the exact same running order – with single and outtakes – as the 2004 CD edition. The other two discs were 2 of the little-loved “Live From The Vaults” series (of which, more later, sort of..). The archive was perhaps, not so deep.

However, the plus points were the vinyl editions, which had been hatched with obvious care. Using the rare US edition of “LATWT” with an alternate sleeve and revised running order was a clever touch and one that acknowledged that the Fall's audience would need something more than just a nice colour of vinyl before they indulged the album yet again. Similarly, “Dragnet” came with a reproduction 7” of “Rowche Rumble”, a record which originally came with the thinnest paper sleeve in the history of music. That's not to say that we didn't get coloured vinyl, oh we did - “LATWT” came of red vinyl to match the US sleeve and “Dragnet” on black and white “splatter” vinyl. These both sold well, sold quickly and sold out, now being tricky to score except on the Discogs etc market. But perhaps more to the point, they suggested that Cherry Red's experience and nouse would, at minimum, keep things interesting.

Later in 2019, the Kamera catalogue came under Cherry Red's microscope and it was another mixed set of releases. For CD buyers, a 6 disc set called “(1982)” was developed. This contained “Hex Enduction Hour”, “Room To Live” “Fall In A Hole” various single and live tracks and the “Live To Air In Melbourne” album which had previously snuck out in the late 90's when MES was broke. There was no new music to be had here at all – everything had previously been released. As such £40 was too rich a price tag for many and the edition is still easily available. The new vinyl edition of “Hex” was well particularly well presented. For the first time, the 60 minute LP was cut onto 4 sides of vinyl – a long overdue move, this did the album real justice on the format and would have to be considered an essential for those who insist on twelve-inch slabs of wax for their music. A pleasing, sturdy fold-out sleeve showed that corners were not being cut, the vinyl again matched the colour scheme of the artwork and it also came with an excellent reproduction of the sterling “Look, Know/I'm Into C.B.” 45. What spoiled it a little bit was the inclusion of a third LP with Peel Session #5 on one side and some of the live tracks from the 2005 Sanctuary 2CD on the other. All this really did was drive up the price – a double LP with the 7” would have been perfect and would have been less heavy on the purse *NB – this didn't stop me buying it – that's my copy in the picture...). “Room To Live” was given a vinyl reissue too, this time as a double LP with sides 3 and 4 being the live tracks from the 2005 Sanctuary edition. Again, this didn't quite feel like the right choice – an alternative idea would have been a single LP with a 7”. Given that the classic “Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul/Fantastic Life” single had been added to the popular, widely owned German pressing, why not add a repro of that instead? It would have cost less and added more value to the package.

Despite these whinges “(1982)” would have to be considered an elegant, practical solution to a latter-day problem and demonstrates why Cherry Red remain a market leader in catalogue reissues. Can you really sell compact discs of these albums yet again? How else do you present the music in this format? The answer to parcel the whole lot together and present it as a “year-in-the-life” was a smart one that was only hampered by an optimistic £40 price tag (which translated to as much as £58 in stores) and the artwork being based on “Hex” which could have given a more casual customer the notion that the set was Hex and 5 discs of “other” material. The bottom line here is that there is nothing else in the cupboard; as with the IAKO ballet and the Hey! Luciani play, fantasies about things like the unedited “Winter” and the full 20+ minute “And This Day” ever appearing are exactly that – fantasies. Were they ever preserved, they're gone and anything that did turn up, almost 40 years hence would likely be in such a state of degeneration as to be unlistenable. From now on, all that can be done is to keep this material out there and try to present it with a fresh angle. That's precisely what Cherry Red have done here.

Come 2020, come the challenge of reselling what is not just one of the most widely-distributed but also one of the worst Fall albums: “Reformation Post TLC”. Cherry Red stuck to type with a double LP pressed into blue and red coloured vinyl, again matching the colour to the sleeve. Undoubtedly a handsome package, this version was snapped up with some enthusiasm although it does seem that sales were likely harmed by coinciding with the early, uncertain, often panic-stricken days of the Covid-19 pandemic reaching the UK. The 4CD edition was daunting: the whole album and 2 CDs worth of outtakes and rough mixes, followed by the “Last Night At The Palais” CD. The “Last Night At The Palais” DVD was not included. Time has passed, time has healed and it is clear that RPTLC is a terrific EP stretched out beyond the energy of the participants. There is even a strong 40 minute single LP to be had within its contents but, hey it was what it was. With almost all of the unreleased mixes having no vocals, interest wears off before we got to the excellent live disc but, on the other paw, Cherry Red have done exactly what we want; it is highly unlikely that there is anything left from the album sessions; this is the whole lot, every scrap. Up to us now what we do with them.

****************************

Now, if you're thinking I've skipped something, you're right but the story of The Fall's posthumous discography is difficult to tell in a linear fashion. So I invite you, friends, to join me in a diversion. Cast your minds back to Record Store Day 2019.

Cherry Red played a good hand by releasing a new vinyl edition of the superb “Imperial Wax Solvent” album. As with “Levitate”, vinyl copies were going for silly money, Universal having allegedly pressed a mere 500 for the world. It was a shame that Cherry Red therefore added only another 500 copies, this time pressed into yellow vinyl. These were almost entirely snapped up on the day and copies of this edition are routinely offered at £50-60. “IWS” had, of course, been out of print since 2008, having been deleted less than 6 months after its release. As such the RSD edition of “IWS” could be said to have undersold the record somewhat. Unless, of course, a properly “available” edition, maybe with that unreleased original mix of the album was to follow at some point...more on that later.

Sadly, we must also wade through the other Fall releases that were curled out for RSD 2019. That will take us into Part 3...

#the fall #mark e smith #hex enduction hour #dragnet #live at the witch trials #reformation post tlc #1982 #room to live #craig scanlon #steve hanley #paul hanley #marc riley #karl burns #imperial wax solvent

7 notes · View notes