#hence. all the other music i listen to. is typically about murder.

[berryunho]

it's only when normal people give me music recommendations that I realize what strange and inexplicable music taste I have like wtf is wrong w me

[concerthopperblog]

Favorite Americana Albums of 2022

Every year, trying to nail down my favorite Americana albums of the year is a chore. This year I didn't get a chance to listen to as many albums as I usually do, hence a Nigel Tufnel approved 11 instead of my usual 20, but that didn't make it any less difficult. Weeding down to 11 left out some stellar albums like River Whyless' 'Monoflora', Marcus King's 'Young Blood' and Erin Rae's 'Lighten Up.' They're all worthy, but just got pushed out by albums that just clicked for me slightly more.

This year's list is notable for the number of smaller acts on it. A lot of America's heavy hitters (Isbell, Yola, Giddens, Jarosz) didn't release albums in 2022, which let some artists who might have gotten pushed down the list to shine.

Like always, this isn't a list of the “best” albums, but just my favorite. The ones that spent the most time in my shuffle. Where I reviewed the album I've included a link to the full review. Where not, I've included a Youtube link to a standout song from the album.

11. Jake Blount- The New Faith The genius of Jake Blount's 'The New Faith' is that it's a concept album made up in large part of songs written by other people across a wide range of times. To tell a tale of a people navigating a world devastated by climate change, Blount found the apocalyptic potential of songs like Rosetta Tharpe's “Didn't It Rain” and made the most of them with just his vocal inflection. Bonus points for being the latest to incorporate a rapper into Americana music, an increasing trend that I am totally behind.

10. Leyla McCalla- Breaking the Thermometer The last of Our Native Daughters to knock it out of the park with a solo album, Leyla McCalla also went semi-concept with her Breaking the Thermometer. The result of a commission by Duke University involving Radio Haiti, the pirate radio station broadcasting messages and traditional music to a nation beset by oppressive regimes, McCalla uses clips from the station to set the tone for an album that traces her own Haitian roots. As would be expected from McCalla, the instrumental aspect is near perfection.

9. Aoife O'Donovan- Age of Apathy Aoife O'Donovan is as consistent as any artist in Americana music. The gentle fingerpicked melodies and almost fragile sounding voice match perfectly with the themes of Age of Apathy, an exploration of the devices and means we have to become more connected than ever, and how they took away the quiet spaces where contemplation and peace happen. A guest sit in from Allison Russell certainly doesn't hurt.

8. Keb' Mo'- Good to Be Keb' Mo's blues has been pulling tinges of Americana and folk music in for over a decade now. The mix fits Keb's style, which has always been much more bright and positive than your typical bluesman. On Good to Be, Keb' Mo' bounced between his current home of Nashville and his childhood home in Compton (literally. He bought his childhood home and turned it into a studio). The result is an album that touches on old-school blues (“All Dressed Up”, “Good Strong Woman”), breezy California soul (“62 Chevy, “Sunny and Warm”), and the album's highlight, “Louder”, Keb's channeling of David Bowie's “Changes” in which he assures his fellow boomers that the young are ready to assert themselves. “It's about to get louder. It's about to get real,” he croons, sounding like a proud papa.

7. Secret Emchy Society- Gold Country/Country Gold California's Secret Emchy Society is a leader in the increasingly public Queer Country movement. But SES doesn't rep Queer Country with preachy message songs. Instead, they endeavor to out-sing, out-booze, out-fight, and out-party the best of the outlaws and dare you to tell them they don't belong at the table they just drank you under. Take “I Murdered Your Bourbon” with its “Well they say ole Jesus turned water to wine. If he'd tried a bit harder, could have turned it to rye.” It's not subtle. It's not a gentle exploration of the human condition. It isn't supposed to be. This is a jumping honky tonk in CD format.

6. Colin Hay- The Now and the Evermore Former Man at Work Colin Hay has always been known for his comedic timing, enough so that he once played the comedy tent at Bonnaroo. So when he says he's releasing an album dealing with themes of mortality, my immediate thought was “this is Colin's pandemic album. It's going to be dark. But it's still going to be fun.” I was right. There is a melancholy that persists on The Now and the Evermore that is mitigated by Hay's gentle croon and eternal optimism. Throughout he faces mortality, both of friends and his own, with a sly sense of humor that seems willing to invite Death in for tea before chatting up the mysteries of the ever after.

5. Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway- Crooked Tree I've seen some people say that Molly Tuttle's new bluegrass band project, Golden Highway, is her true form. I'm not ready to go that far because I still love Molly's more Americana output but there's no doubt that Tuttle's having fun with the project and she shines here. It's not something you can feel on studio albums often but Tuttle's joy is in every note and her status as a monster of acoustic guitar remains. I've give the hot take here and say Molly is a better guitarist than Billy Strings.

4. Miko Marks and the Resurrectors- Feel Like Going Home Miko Marks was my find of Americanafest 2022, her performance just before her new album Feel Like Going Home was released. Lucky me. Like her performance, the album is impressive. Marks is the best since Yola at mixing country, gospel, Memphis blues, and Muscle Shoals soul sounds into one cohesive vision. Throughout, Marks' voice soars above gospel choirs while her band, the aptly named Resurrectors, throw rock and roll licks that could raise the dead.

3. Regina Spektor- Home, Before and After Nobody does a balance between wistful and playful like Regina Spektor. Both are prevalent throughout Home, Before and After, whether on the schoolroom rhyming “Loveology” or the epic journey that is her almost 9 minute “Spacetime Fairytale.” Her exploration of the nuances of relationships leaves no stone unturned, delving into obsession, devastating loss, and even love of convenience (the last delivered with chuckle-inducing frankness on album standout “Sugarman”).

2. John Moreland- Birds in the Ceiling John Moreland has always been an artist who mastered the art of the understatement. You won't find strident calls to action or snarling protest songs on Birds in the Ceiling (somewhat ironic considering Moreland came to Americana from the punk scene). As is his wont, Moreland takes on a divided nation, the loss of friends to cultish political demagoguery, and late stage capitalism (on the album's best song, “Cheap Idols Dressed in Expensive Garbage”) with an even and rough hewn voice that makes lines like “I told you the truth and you told me it was treason” all the more impactful. This is easily John Moreland's most mature, most cohesive, and most well-produced album of his career.

1. Tami Neilson- Kingmaker Most years I have a pretty solid idea of what my favorite album is, but the gap between it and #2 is rarely so wide. 2022 was the year of Tami Neilson and it wasn't even close. The New Zealander by way of Canada had an entire pandemic to process the #metoo movement that immediately preceded it and answered with Kingmaker, an album full of feminist ferocity. The adage may go “behind every good man is a good woman” but Neilson makes it clear that the women who populate the songs on Kingmaker are not interested in being behind anyone. From “Mama's Talkin'” with its “he cries cancel culture anytime anyone calls him out” to album standout “Careless Woman” which finds Neilson looking at the kind of woman warned against in all those '50s educational films and admiring her, noting that “I wanna care less.” But it's not all rockabilly feminism as Neilson and Willie Nelson duet on a touching tribute to family lost on “Beyond the Stars.” It's a particularly topical song in a time when tens of thousands lost loved ones to a pandemic. Taken as a whole, it's an album that would be a career album for most artists. Neilson shows no intention of slowing down, though, so who knows what's to come?

[uwumessenger]

random headcanons i have for each om! character teehee

hi it's been a while since ive posted some hcs bc uni has been kicking my a$$! luckily i only have a few papers to tidy up and im done. here r some hcs for each obey me character that ive accumulated over the past few months wink wonk

most are random but some constants you'll find are what i think they smell like, languages they can speak (other than their native (demon/angel) and eng/jp), and music tastes !

lucifer

i have a strong feeling that he showers twice a day: in the morning after waking up and at night before going to bed

his cologne is probably the type that will last in an elevator for like a week after he uses it once. i dont think this mf ever smells like anything other than his cologne

has a secret folder on his phone of semi-nudes and other scandalous pics from when he felt sexy at the time omg

aside from demon language/eng/jp he can speak french and knows latin

listens to classical stuff yea but he also listens to diavolos mixtapes (re: diavolo's section)

not a fan of sweets but will eat sweet things when craving

really bland sense of humor...borderline cringey 😭✋🏻

mammon

has gone to google images and searched for "inspirational quotes tumblr" "gold aesthetic tumblr" & "relatable crush post tumblr" then reposts it onto his socials or just taps thru them and giggles bc he relates

his cologne doesnt last as long as lucifers and probably smells common. he has to reapply a lot but it's a people pleasing smell. it's cheaper hence the constant reapplying

he probably does have an expensive bottle but is the type to totally overspray...eek

he is canonically a car guy 🥲 and probably tells the one in his room good morning & good night + kisses the hood every once in a while. has tons of car magazines

he doesnt really speak other languages but has attempted to learn spanish before

listens to whatever is on the radio. doesnt rly stan anyone but he eventually will listen to mc's playlist and mc's playlist ONLY

levi

lurks on mc's socials ALL THE TIMEEEE like he will rewatch ur stories and scroll thru ur feed and overanalyze ur tweets/rts or blog posts. if ur mc isnt the type to use sns much he still googles ur name all the damn time just to find any sites u might be on fjdjdjdjskks

probably streams on whatever youtube or twitch devildom site equivalent there is, but only has like 40 or so followers. which he is okay with!

until he sees someone else who gets more attention than him. then the envy starts kicking in bad. especially if they suck 🧍🏻‍♀️

classic gamer boy smell. you know, sweat, tears, must, and (sometimes) axe deodorant. lucifer has to do a scent check before he goes out to any event & lets him use his cologne. how sweet!

kpop stan!! more girl groups than anything and his ults are probably GIRLS GENERATION, wonder girls, twice, loona, & red velvet

cried when ioi disbanded and refused to leave his room. the only thing u could hear was downpour on loop at full blast

can also speak korean & communicate in echolocation like dolphins 😏

satan

listens to country music you cant change my mind

smells like whatever environment he is in. he doesnt really have a designated smell just throws some deodorant on and goes about his day.

he's sooooo bad at driving...gets road rage way too often so his license has been REVOKED

but hes totally a backseat driver. needs to be sedated on long trips

do not let him watch finding nemo when luke asks to watch it. it's not worth it. he will cause mass destruction.

if he was a human or lived long term in the human world he totally has the ability to be a doctor

is studying as many languages as possible, but he mostly knows latin & french & german etc etc. wants to learn all the dead languages out of curiousity

asmo

dont think this mf has ever held down a relationship. ever

he doesnt compromise much & is not willing to change his lifestyle to fit an s/o into it. you keep up with how he lives or it just isnt meant to be (but dont worry! he'll eventually learn...maybe,,,,)

has the hardest time out of everyone when it comes to breaking bad habits

his smell varies bc he uses a variety of perfumes (whatever is the most popular at the time) but he probably sticks to floral and fresh scents. he never uses generic people pleaser scents like mammon

listens to electropop, mainstream pop, & some alternative rock

as for languages he too knows french, spanish, italian, etc. in general, if it's a romance language he knows it!

opposite of lucifer in the sense where he loves sweets and will refrain from eating too many bitter things

i think we all know that asmo is the biggest rockstar of the group! he's probably been in a boy band at least once, but now he makes his own music

has tried to teach mammon how to sing once. ended up in a broken piano and bleeding ears...

beel

i feel like he is SO SHY

like unless ur close to him he will not start conversations or anything

i think he listens to r&b a lot ! and jazz 😎 maybe rock as well

smells like ur typical athlete with undertones of wet wipes. he carries them around bc he likes to clean his hands before he eats & is prepared for when theres no sink nearby

he can drive and he drives really well. no rough turns, parallel parks perfectly, and never has problems with merging

driving with beel is probably really soothing. left hand is steering the other is gripping ur thigh 😫

dont think hes really fluent in any other language but hes probably semi fluent in korean because levi wanted beel to help him out

definitely know how to order food in practically every language tho HAHAHA

belphie

he reminds me of randall from monsters inc

smells kinda musty IM SORRY but not the way levi does hes more like the kind of musty u feel or smell when it's a shitty morning

but that's only because hes so lazy, when he cleans up hes like satan

has definitely murdered multiple people before. mc is not the first 😐✋🏻

with that being said belphie has been put into prison at least twice when visiting the human world, the mf had such a strong hatred for humans theres no way he never got into trouble before

lucifer probably broke him out and they used the pen thingies from men in black to erase everyones memory of that 🙄

dont think he listens to anything other than music that'll put him to sleep. really likes lazy song by bruno mars but thinks that bruno mars put too much effort into the song. should have been one acapella verse and then finish

similar to beel hes only semi fluent in one language, probably french bc of lucifer. doesnt remember much but knows a couple of lullabies and bedtime stories

the sandman used to be his bff until they drifted. they do, however, like and comment on each other's sns posts.

diavolo

once he found out who nicki minaj was he became her #1 stan

def an ariana grande stan too 😌

choreographs dances when hes stressed...idk just seems like a diavolo thing to do

also makes rly bad soundcloud rap music sometimes. turns to poetry when hes feeling emo but only lucifer knows this. barbatos is suspicious of him but doesnt have enough evidence to confirm.

his dad is like hudson abadeer from adventure time aka marceline's dad? something must have influenced him to want to unite the 3 realms + he would need the approval to do so, so his dad must be more chill than all the others before him 🧍🏻‍♀️ IDK ok anyway

currently going through his hamilton phase bc of mc. whether mc's intent was to get him hooked onto it or just to explain it bc of something he saw online, he tells everyone that he found out abt it bc of mc!

this man cannot drive his skills are only second to jumin han

not too fond of many languages but knows the widely spoken ones like spanish, mandarin, etc. if it's taught in high school he knows it

smells like a las vegas casino. not sure why but i feel like he does. but there's also an interesting & nice smell to him if he embraces you. it's a smell you cant quite identify. but it smells nostalgic, it's mysterious, and it's tempting.

barbatos

very calm demeanor but underneath hes WILD hes probably done everything at least once oof

he just has a lot of control and stability over himself (must be nice!)

on a more angsty note i feel like he might have had his heartbroken sO BAD IDK he is hurting and maybe that's why hes so willing to obey diavolo and not abuse his time lord power thingies bc he learned his lesson the hard way

mans is so smart he knows every language you could switch languages mid conversation with him and he wouldnt be thrown off. he'd probably start speaking it too.

BUT HE SPEAKS VIET P E R F E C T L Y

listens to the same stuff as lucifer but also likes eminem. likes the movie 8 mile but criticized it heavily

have you ever been to a chinese herb shop? naturally, he smells like that. his room probably smells like it too. he doesnt really have a significant smell like some of the others

when he bakes he smells like whatever hes baking tho

one of the few out of everyone listed to have been able to travel to literally everywhere

solomon

was probably on kitchen nightmares once, but only to get feedback from chef gordon ramsay. then he used his magic to prevent the episode from airing...

was in an orchestra, one of the best times of his life. played the violin. asmo watched him in the audience once, but didnt approach him until well after that performance.

he CANNOT sing. he can, however, rap.

doesnt listen to music. he listens to podcasts! but every now and then he turns on background music, but prefers it to be instrumental stuff

never wears sunglasses. also does not have a driver's license. cannot drive a regular car. could maybe fly an airplane.

due to his immortality he has learned almost every language to exist, but finds himself speaking mandarin the most. knows most dialects too

similar smell to barbatos but u can also smell some sunscreen on him too. like, generic beach day suncreen

he has a lot of pact marks, so he once had the idea to match foundation to his skin. it took him two weeks but he eventually perfected a combination. yes he will help u find ur perfect shade if u ask him to

simeon

another country music man. has also made a tiktok or two to that one song that goes "he cant even bait a hook." they are private tho

angel country music exists and simeon invented it

if he visits the human world and wears more causal clothing he probably tucks his shirt into his pants

wears a speedo at the beach i tell u, speedo at the beach

he can speak german...i can feel it

uses his pointer finger to type and holds the phone like 2 inches away from his face so sometimes his nose will push a key hence all his typos

has no signature smell. he simply smells like your favorite scent all the time. if multiple people are around him at once, everyone smells a different smell. it's pretty rad

"what does he smell like to himself?" u may be asking. hmm...a church? 💀

luke

his first pet was a goldfish and a few months before the exchange program happened, he was given a koi pond!

secretly likes hanging out with levi sometimes just to play with henry. makes him miss his pet fish back home

so his favorite movie is probably finding nemo and he threw a fit when nemo touched the butt

luke is probably learning german bc of simeon, though he'd like to learn more of the dead languages just for fun

i dont think he listens to music often or has any preferences, he just listens to whatever is playing on the radio

but he finds himself listening to the music mc listens to

smells like freshly baked goods all the time. or fresh laundry. but like, not combined. just depends on the day

[abduct-me-helen]

Class 108's Apocalypse Field Trip | Chapter 6.

If Sydney was anything other than cautious, she would consider herself observant. Partially because of the caution, she knew, but she chose to separate those traits when thinking about herself. It was for this reason that she began to notice Tabitha changing.

It was the little things, really. The way her hunger for knowledge had now manifested as ferocity. She didn’t like that look on Tabitha, who was usually so carefree.

Well, Syndey thought, maybe not carefree as much as good as putting on a persona.

It didn’t come out often, but what Sydney was really the most wary of was the statements. Rosie hadn’t told her about why she’d wanted to listen in on the Buried statement but Sydney had decided to mind her own business. It wasn’t as if it was a danger.

Or was it?

If it was, she decided, she’d deal with it when the time came.

“Lost in thought?” Katie came up behind her, raising an eyebrow while maintaining her token blank expression. Sydney and Katie had always got on fine, but Katie didn’t really seek anyone out for conversation. Except for Eva.

She didn't think about Eva.

Sydney gave a shrug in response, and Katie narrowed her eyes. “You’ve noticed too.” It was a statement, not a question, and Sydney nodded warily.

“It’s hard not to. Do you think we should say anything?” Sydney asked her. Katie shook her head.

“No.” She answered shortly.

Sydney raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

Katie shrugged, and her eyes seemed to be glassy for a few seconds before she sighed. “I just wanted to check. Anyway, Martin and Mr. Sims are calling the rest of the class. Apparently, they want to say a few things before we continue.”

They hadn’t been resting for long, but time didn’t truly exist in this new world, Sydney knew. She nodded Mutely, and followed Katie’s trace.

-

“Marcy’s what?!” Tabitha shrieked, eyes wide. Her stomach felt loopy, and her vision began to blur in a mix of relief and fear. All she could think off was Marcy’s limp body being puppetted by spiderwebs, the scent of blood and the sound of her own laughter. She shivered, hands curling around herself.

Rosie put her hand on Tabitha’s shoulder to steady her, applying pressure just forceful enough to ground her without being painful. Tabitha seemed to steady some, digging her nails into her palm to focus.

“How…how do you know this?” Cal asked quietly. They’re eyes were fearful, but a dullness had seemed to set in that made Sydney uneasy. Apathy wasn’t good, even if it hurt less. She just wanted everyone to be okay.

“Annabelle Cane.” Martin answered, beginning to explain who she was. Sydney tuned him out, looking up to the sky and scowling at the Eye. The others could joke, and hell, she did too, but she loathed it with a passion.

Not just because it was evil, enjoying their suffering, but because it was in the sky. She’d always loved the sky, more than most things really, and the Eye had the audacity to take up so much space.

“So, she’s a spider lady, basically.” Elliot simplified, and Sydney thanked him inwardly for explaining since she’d tuned out what Martin had said.

Tabitha looked pale, but she nodded slowly, eyes filled with terror. Sydney felt for her.

Jon spoke up, looking around at the class and meeting all their eyes. “It’s complicated. We don’t know how she’s alive, because she was dead and Oliver didn’t bring her back. He’d have no reason to. He suspects the Web is involved, but Annabelle said she didn’t know what was going on.”

“That could very easily be a lie.” Rosie mused, biting her lip in focus.

Jon nodded. “Hence why I’m telling you all to keep your guard up. There’s obviously something going on here and I don’t trust it one bit.”

There was a brief silence, before the smell of heat wafted into Riko’s nose.

“Is that…fire?” She said, trying to get a glimpse of where the smell was coming from. Jon’s eyebrows raised in surprise.

“You can smell that?” He asked incredulously.

She raised an eyebrow. “What, you can’t?”

The rest of the class warily shook their heads. Jon sighed.

“We are near the domain of the Desolation…” he mused aloud, and Tabitha seemed to perk up in surprise. Sydney eyed her warily, and she glanced over to Katie who seemed to have a similar expression of reproach.

Riko shrugged, but something glinted in her eyes. “That’s the burning one, right?”

“Destruction, pain and fire.” Martin listed, thinking to himself. Jon nodded, gesturing to him in agreement. Riko narrowed her eyes and her face fell into an expression Sydney couldn’t decipher.

Raphi chimed in with a helpful- “those are the guys who like wax play, right?”

Jon choked, coughing, and Martin patted him on the back.

“Mhm!” Tabitha said, seemingly unfazed and coming back to herself. Sydney was glad to see the color return to her face.

“That’s hot.” Elliot said, grinning at his pun and giving finger guns at Raphi. Rosie groaned, and Raphi snickered. Katie’s face was notably blank, but Riko’s had raised an eyebrow incredulously, before shaking her head in an attempt to forget about Elliot’s terrible joke.

“Hi hot, I’m dad.” Jon deadpanned, turning to Raphi, and Martin’s eyebrows raised comically.

Tabitha snorted, and the rest of the class grinned, (minus Katie, who had never smiled in her entire life, or so Tabitha said).

“Is Martin mom then?” Sydney joked sarcastically. Tabitha’s eyes lit up, and Sydney groaned, already regretting her jest.

“…Tabitha?” She asked warily.

Tabitha just batted her eyelashes, and didn’t say a word. Rosie looked amused, but chose not to comment, and Jon cleared his throat.

“Anyway, we’re going to be…smiting this avatar.”

The class began to cheer.

“PENUT MURDER JELLY TIME!” “LET’S GET THIS BREAD!” “CEASLESS WATCHER, TURN YOUR GAYS UPON THAT WRETCHED THING!” “Gaze?” “Gays” “MURDER! MURDER! MURDER!”

The class began to chant, and Jon began to get a headache.

-

On the walk to the Desolation’s domain, the kids pestered Jon with questions.

“Where’d you get those scars?” Tabitha asked, grabbing his arm and wobbling it a bit. He rolled his eyes, and sighed.

“Which one?” He raised an eyebrow dully.

Tabitha wasn’t fazed. “The circles.”

“…Worms.” He said, grimacing. Martin had the same expression on his face.

“Worms?” Riko said incredulously.

“What kind?” Tabitha asked, before he could answer Riko’s inquiry.

“The kind that hate me.” Jon said simply, and Cal laughed softly.

The class’ eyes widened, and they all looked around, silently communicating as if a hive mind. Martin and Jon shared an apprehensive glance.

It was unnervingly silent.

They continued their walk in silence for the next few minutes, but then Cypress started to hum. It was a childish toon, but Martin could recognize that he’d heard it before.

The rest of the class began to hum, before Tabitha started to sing.

“Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll go eat worms.”

Martin’s eyes widened comically and Jon choked. Christ, what had he gotten into?

“What-”

“Big fat juicy ones-” Elliot continued.

“Eensie weensy squeensy ones-” Sydney chimed in lightly.

“See how they wiggle and squirm!-” Raphi sang, grinning.

“Down goes the first one, down goes the second one. Oh how they wiggle and squirm! Up comes the first one, up comes the second one. Oh how they wiggle and squirm!” The class now sang in unison, privy to Jon and Martin’s growing horror at the situation.

“Wait a second now-” Martin started, but Raphi cut him off with a grin.

“I bite off the heads, and suck out the juice, and throw the skins away!” He jeered, singing loudly.

Jon facepalmed, horrified and uncomfortable at how the class seemed to work as a hive mind just to taunt them.

The class once again began to sing in unison.

“Nobody knows how fat I grow on worms three times a day! Nobody likes me, everybody hates me I think I'll go eat worms! Big fat juicy ones, eensie weensy squeensy ones; see how they wiggle and squirm!” They were a cacophony of voices mixing horribly against Jon’s ear.

He was reminded of Grifter’s bone, and decided that their music couldn’t possibly be any worse than this.

Martin was still open mouthed, and Jon had his head in his hands.

“That was so smexy!” Tabitha said dreamily, referring to the song. Martin balked.

“No-no, wha-okay, you know what, lets keep walking, yeah?” Martin grabbed Jon’s hand and began to speed-walk ahead, tugging him along. Class 108 snickered.

-

“Hey, can your boss hear us right now?” Cypress asked, and Jon raised an eyebrow.

“I suppose so. Why?” Jon answer cautiously, not liking where this was going. Cypress grinned, his teeth glinting in the green light of the eye.

He turned around and started pointing at the coward in the tower. “HEY! YOU! PISS BITCH! EYEBALL DADDY’S SUGAR BABY LITTLE BITCH VOYEUR! I BET YOU’RE GAY!”

“Cypress, aren’t you gay?” Cal asked, trying to told back his laughter.

“That’s not important. What is important is that-,” Cypress stopped, pausing to think before turning to Jon, “what’s your boss’ name?”

“Jonah Magnus, but I really do not think you-”

“JONAH MAGNUS? MORE LIKE JONAH MAGNET, BECAUSE YOU REPEL ALL THE POSITIVE PEOPLE WHEN THEY SEE YOUR AWFUL FACE YOU UGLY REGENCY LOOKING ASS BITCH!” Tabitha shrieked, going to join Cypress in his epic pursuit of victory.

“How-how did you know he was from the regency era?” Martin asked, confused.

“He just gave me those vibes, ya know?” Tabitha asked, though Sydney sensed that she was a little off-put at where she’d gotten that information.

“…those vibes?” Jon deadpanned, noticeably off-put as well.

“Mhm. What do you mean he was from the regency era though?” Tabitha questioned, tilting her head curiously.

Jon sighed, and Rosie noted in her head that this was the eighty-first time he’d sighed in response to Tabitha’s questions. Typical.

“He’s a body snatcher-” Jon started, only to be interrupted by Raphi.

“Like Koh?” he asked, and Riko snickered

“Who-you know what, never mind. Sure. He basically put his eyeballs in other people’s sockets to steal their bodies and continue running the institute.” Jon explained, and a look of mild horror crossed his face as Cypress began to grin.

“So what you’re saying,” Cypress began, and Cal groaned, putting his head in his hands, “is that he put his balls in other people’s holes?”

Tabitha keeled over, snickering, and Riko flipped him off. Katie, who was as stoic as ever, sighed, but Cal could tell she looked amused.

Jon and Martin wore twin looks of horror in response to Cypress’…interesting sense of humor.

They knew it would not be the last time.

-

[sassmill]

1, 8, 9 and 11 for the lizzie asks

1. When and how did you hear about the show?

Okay I remember this SO vividly—in 2014 when Lifetime made Lizzie Borden Took An Ax (the movie they made before they did The Lizzie Borden Chronicles, side note Christina Ricci was on some queen shit in every second of the movie and the show) I was totally in love with how they used rock music to score this bloody period piece, so I was on the app 8tracks because somebody had made a playlist of the movie soundtrack. Lo and behold, in my suggestions for “other playlists like this” was a playlist somebody had made of the LIZZIE soundtrack. I fell in love with it (listening totally out of order because without a premium subscription it plays everything shuffled), and then I looked into the show hoping there would be YouTube videos (hello watching every single available clip on repeat for an entire summer) and I read the entirety of the about page for the official website learning about the development of the show since the 90s and then I saw how GORGEOUS the two disc cd was and ordered it and oh my it has literally been my favorite musical since. There was a time in high school where I definitely listened to the entire cast recording at least once a day if not more for over a month. Like not to be a mentally ill dyke with trauma and mommy issues but this musical has gotten me through a lot. Also I feel weirdly attached to the Borden trials as a whole because my name is Emma and my birthday is the day before Emma Borden’s? I also have two best friends born on August 4th. But actually the birthday thing was how I learned about the case in the first place because when I was like 8 we had a school assignment to look up famous people we shared a birthday with and the website showed the day before and after as well and since my name is Emma I saw Emma Borden and obviously clicked and uh. Yeah. A random school assignment 15 years ago gave me the special interest that forms 75% of my personality. Hence the incessant oversharing.

8. Dream cast?

I don’t really have a dream cast (not just for this, I just don’t really have dream casts for shows in general which is odd because I am also a director and really love the process of auditioning and casting people, it’s like playing god but in a highly specific uquiz personality way; I digress) so much as this question just made me think “what actresses with good rock or pop vocals do I think would be really interesting in this?” And yeah I’m not gonna lie not much comes to mind because I guess it’s just not how I typically engage with a show/fandom but the two people that did come to mind are Katrina Lenk and Taylor Iman-Jones. And uh lucky for me because Taylor Iman-Jones was in the @roltheatre production that’s being streamed online in January (check out their page or any of my recent reblogs for a ticket link)! So I’ll get to experience that little brain blast of mine (my thought process was literally hmmm lesbian rock musicals that I know of other than this. Head Over Heels. Hm. Mopsa hot. Hm. Taylor Iman-Jones. Oh wait, she WAS in it a couple years ago.) The Katrina Lenk thought process is just I’m in love with Katrina lenk and I’m positive she has the range. Margo Seibert might also be really interesting? I’ve never seen her perform live but her performance of “Refresh” on the cast recording of Dave Malloy’s Octet should explain that choice for you. She’s got A VOICE! And the ANGER!

9. Have you listened to the other Lizzie Borden musicals?

So hear me out, the only other Lizzie Borden musicals I’ve been able to find information about were produced in the 90s and aren’t online in any capacity that would allow me to listen to them (I’m sure if I searched hard enough I’d find some 240p camcorder bootleg from 1995 but that’s more work than I’m willing to commit to) but I did manage to snatch up the last cd copy of the cast recording of Lizzie Borden the Musical from 1998, so when that arrives in the mail you can fully expect me to make that available for your listening pleasure via a google drive link. Other than the two 90s musicals, LIZZIE is the only thing that comes up. If you like classical, though, I highly recommend Morton Gould’s Fall River Legend Suite, the score for Agnes de Mille’s 1948 ballet of the Borden trials. It sounds absolutely wonderful on vinyl.

As for other theatrical productions about Lizzie Borden, I had the opportunity to read David Foley’s play Nance O’Neil which was really interesting. And yes, even though it’s named titled after Nance, it’s really about Lizzie, and the play does suffer a bit from that considering it’s framing relies on Nance being the main character. It wasn’t poorly written, but Nance as a character didn’t feel whole—I could talk so much more about this, but assuming you haven’t also read it (it’s not actually published anywhere to my knowledge) I fear it’ll bore you. I did enjoy it though. There were some very tender scenes between Lizbeth and Nance despite Nance’s weaknesses (you can hardly fault Foley for that, considering the vast bulk of surviving information about Nance O’Neil was only documented because of her brief connection with Lizbeth Borden. Or her career with McKee Rankin, the other non-Borden character in the play. Again, totally tangential to what the actual question was but GOD I just find it all so fascinating. Honestly, Lizbeth’s life after her acquittal was far more interesting than the murder trial itself).

11. You’re the only other person in this fandom can we be friends?

YES of course! Please! If we don’t become friends I have no choice but to continue screaming into the void (and sometimes screaming at my 1901 Australian Nance O’Neil antique postcard when I’m really losing my mind)!

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 28/11/2020

Huh... I expected a busier week this week but I probably got what was ahead of me just a bit earlier this week instead of anything that feels contemporary or currently relevant. I mean, yes, we do have three top 10 debuts but that’s as far as our stories go in terms of the big singles and albums I expected to have some kind of less muted impact on the chart. The big issue here is that I didn’t consider how much of a chaotic mess 2020 has been, so people really want to get straight to the festivities, if you catch my drift. Hence, with four weeks until Christmas, and a Christmas that for a lot of people will be a lot different thanks to you-know-what, we have a lot more of the holiday stuff crashing in earlier and harder than I or anyone expected. It’s still November, guys, calm down. Anyway, Ariana Grande’s “positions” spends a fifth week at #1 and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

As always, here’s a brief rundown of what’s going on. Most of this rundown for the UK Top 75 will be holiday music, so I might as well run through the returning entries and climbers first. We have “One More Sleep” by Leona Lewis at #72, “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade at #69, “I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday” by WIzzard at #61, “Driving Home for Christmas” by Chris Rea at #55, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee at #52, “Step into Christmas” by Elton John at #49, “Underneath the Tree” by Kelly Clarkson at #46, “HOLIDAY” by Lil Nas X up to #42 off of the debut, the horribly racist and despicably awful “Do they Know it’s Christmas?” by Band Aid at #38, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Michael Bublé at #35, “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens at #33 and then some big gains for the Christmas songs that were already here, like “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues featuring the late Kirsty MacColl at #26 having the biggest rise of the week (there’s always controversy surrounding that song each year so it tends to surge high – also it’s an incredible song), “Last Christmas” by WHAM! at #20 and “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey already up to #14. That doesn’t mean there weren’t other gains and returning entries of course, in fact, we have some big ones, those being “Plugged in Freestyle” by Fumez the Engineer and A92 inexplicably making its way up to #39 because Irish drill is always good for the holidays I suppose. Speaking of drill, “Whoopty” by CJ is at #12 and “Loading” by Central Cee is at #34. “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd also enjoyed continued gains up to #24. Thanks to BTS releasing their umpteenth album Be, the lead single “Dynamite” is back at #37 – more on them later. Oddly, thanks to the PlayStation 5 of all things, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” by Post Malone and Swae Lee returns to #30. I mean, okay, sure, it could be a worse song at that spot. Naturally, however, we have some big fallers and drop-outs because of this, so I’ll list them off starting with the fallers. Nothing survives Christmas music, and especially with UK chart rules, streaming cuts and a BTS album, everyone suffers, but especially hip-hop and R&B. In no particular categories, here’s our mish-mash of fallers: “Lemonade” by Internet Money featuring Don Toliver, Gunna and NAV at #22, “Giants” by Dermot Kennedy at #28, “What You Know Bout Love” by Pop Smoke at #29, “i miss u” by Jax Jones and Au/Ra at #31, “UFO” by D-Block Europe featuring Aitch at #32. “Holy” by Justin Bieber and Chance the Rapper at #40, “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion at #41, “Princess Cuts” by Headie One featuring Young T & Bugsey at #43, “Looking for Me” by Paul Woodford, Diplo and Kareen Lomax at #45, “Lasting Lover” by Sigala and James Arthur at #47, “Come Over” by Rudimental featuring Anne-Marie and Tion Wayne at #50, “Ain’t it Different” by Headie One featuring AJ Tracey and Stormzy at #51, “Holiday” by Little Mix at #53 (Wrong type of holiday), “Chingy (It’s Whatever)” by Digga D at #54, “Come Over” by Jorja Smith featuring Popcaan at #56, “Tick Tock” by Clean Bandit featuring Mabel and 24kGoldn at #57, “SO DONE” by The Kid LAROI at #58, “One Too Many” by Keith Urban and P!nk at #59, Jason Derulo’s “Take You Dancing” and “Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)” with Jawsh 685 at #60 and #62 respectively, “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles at #64, “Mood Swings” by the late Pop Smoke featuring Lil Tjay at #67, “Deluded” by Tion Wayne and MIST at #68, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi at #70, “Lighter” by Nathan Dawe and KSI at #71, “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals at #73, “Papi Chulo” by Octavian and Skepta at #74, and “Confetti” by Little Mix at #75. Honestly, I can’t find much to complain about here, other than maybe “Lemonade” or “Princess Cuts”, but a lot of these were either some of the biggest hits of the year or just songs hurt prematurely by the festive season. Oh, and there’s also drop-outs from the UK Top 75 ranging in degrees of importance. Here’s just the notable ones: “Straight Murder (Giggs & David)” by Giggs featuring Dave, “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac, “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” by BBC Children in Need off the top 10 debut last week and some over major hits from the Autumn-Winter season in 2020, like “Put Your Records On” by Ritt Momney, “Daisy” by Ashnikko, “For the Night” by the late Pop Smoke featuring Lil Baby and DaBaby, “Laugh Now Cry Later” by Drake featuring Lil Durk and three genuinely massive #1 hits and songs that will represent 2020 on a wider historical scale: “ROCKSTAR” by DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch after 31 weeks, “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi after 52 weeks and finally, “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I after 67 weeks. Okay, so “ROCKSTAR” is the only good song there but I’ll talk about these tracks in my end-of-year lists, if those happen. Now we’ve gotten through all of that, let’s discuss our new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#66 – “Blue & Grey” – BTS

Produced by Ji Soo Park, Levi, V and Hiss Noise

No, I haven’t listened to that new BTS record, even if it’s just six new songs, “Dynamite” and a skit. I don’t mind BTS or K-pop as a whole but I do like my pop music with a bit of personality that I find a lot of these idol groups kind of lack. That doesn’t mean they can’t have infectious and good songs, however, and that also doesn’t mean that they can’t display actual emotion because this song is directly about anxiety, depression and especially artist burn-out, which is a topic of all bands BTS should know well. Reading the English-translated lyrics, despite a clear language barrier, some of these lyrics are pretty poetic and I do like the use of colour imagery. Some of the lyrics seem odd, probably because if I were a Korean speaker I’d pick it up more naturally, but SUGA’s first verse is pretty concise and effective, using this metaphor of a blue question mark over his head, and J-Hope gets into some unexpected biblical territory and goes on this admittedly emo-pop trajectory that I kind of vibe with. The song itself is actually less sonically interesting than I expected, being a mostly melancholic acoustic guitar-based ballad that sure, has some pretty nice acoustic pick-ups, but doesn’t really lay an interesting enough foundation in the verses for them to flow over, especially with the awkward 808 bass and strings that are honestly a lot prettier than any of the instruments further to the front of mix. The boys sound mostly fine, and the chorus is really nicely sung, but J-Hope’s aggressive delivery and charismatic inflections, as well as some clever mixing, make his verse the clear stand-out here, at least in my opinion. For what it is, this is a damn good attempt at tackling these subjects to a young audience and I respect it, even if its meaning gets lost in imagery and could be a bit skewed thanks to how the song’s written. Otherwise, yeah, this is nice.

#65 – “Move On” – Lil Tjay

Produced by Avery on the Beat

You know, it’s odd that we have such scattered new arrivals this week and they all seem to be concentrated in little bubbles at opposite extremes of the chart. These first three are damn near consecutive and in the top 10... Well, you’ll see. For now, we have Lil Tjay of all people debuting on the chart with what seems to be the biggest single from that upcoming second record. I’m not a big fan of the guy, in fact I think he kind of ruined Polo G’s “Pop Out”, but the lead single, “Losses” was pretty okay, and I haven’t looked far enough into his work to really make a judgement. Also, despite being a typical New York Auto-Tune crooner kind of on the same level as A Boogie wit da Hoodie, he has a connection with the drill side of New York, and has collaborations with people like Fivio Foreign and the late Pop Smoke. This doesn’t really show any of that, however, rather going for a break-up track where Tjay feels like he’s going against his deeper instinct to move on from his ex-partner, even if he admits the relationship was toxic. It doesn’t help Tjay’s narrative that the song is borderline unlistenable, though. He decides to sing the ad-libs and some parts of the chorus in this tedious and nasal cadence even worse than his usual whiny voice, which is mixed way too high and he’s still somehow completely unintelligible under the layers of ugly Auto-Tune and reverb on the echoed background vocals. Also, this beat is based on a cheap acoustic guitar loop with a stiff trap skitter planted on top and bass mastering so terrible Lil Baby would be jealous of it. By the time the beat brings in some interesting electric guitar riffs, it’s fading out, and it is absolutely a sensory overload in the verses. I don’t mind the content here at all, but yeah, this sounds awful in almost every regard. Also, since this is our only “rap” song here, where’s Megan Thee Stallion’s album on the chart? Not even “Body”? Huh, I guess that’s why you shouldn’t release in the holiday season.

#63 – “This Christmas” – Jess Glynne

Produced by ???

Jess Glynne produced a cover of the Donny Hathaway classic and uploaded it as an exclusive to Amazon Music for no reason other than potentially driving up sales for that Christmas #1. It worked with Ellie Goulding’s “River” last year (which wasn’t even a Christmas song, just a Joni Mitchell cover), so let’s hope she doesn’t succeed this time. It is on YouTube, so I won’t protest that much, but honestly, why would you want to hear Jess Glynne’s cover over the Hathaway classic, with his smooth, buttery voice, soaring strings and lest we forget the pianos, bongos and that gorgeous horn section that make the relaxed single an absolute classic and one of the best options for Christmas pop, especially in the more R&B sector. With her recognisable but generic smoky-indie-girl voice, plastic-ass production on the horns, strings and especially the digital production, Jess Glynne’s cover isn’t modernised or revived, it just feels gentrified. It tries to go for a guitar solo but it’s in the back of the mix and lasts for like five seconds so what’s even the point? Lil Tjay’s song may have been terrible but this offends me more on a personal level for whatever reason, probably because I am opposed to how commercialised and cultural Christmas is nowadays, which makes the best, more grounded and down-to-Earth Christmas songs the best written and those with the most longevity... at least I think so. This won’t last, though, it’s “I Love Sausage Rolls”-tier Christmas track, and I hope it fades away soon enough.

#48 – “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” – Justin Bieber

Produced by honestly, who cares?

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and (censored)ing end me. At least Jess Glynne can convincingly sell a Christmas track with her smoky, warm and powerful voice, and, you know, at least the woman can SING! Justin Bieber making a Christmas song is completely expected after his born-again-Christian ass got married and settled down with his new family, and this is pretty obvious in his songs. I mean, “Holy” is practically already a Christmas song, and even with that, it takes a more interesting Christian angle and is mostly about marriage and relationships. Bieber has made Christmas music before, yes, but as a Disney-like child star just to sell records for his big conglomerate... and wow, how Bieber hasn’t changed, since THIS is a soulless cover of the Brenda Lee classic exclusive to Amazon bloody Music. It’s not even on YouTube in full so what’s the point of listening to this all? What is the use of this? It’s not going to charity, it’s less widely-available than the original and as far as we know, it’s not connected to a wider Bieber Christmas release. When Katy Perry pulled this schtick last year, at least she had an original song – and a good one at that – to back it up. If you’re going to sell your soul to the industry devil to attempt to get a sappy Christmas song out to the public so your name creeps back into the household, at least be upfront about it, and not hiding behind your Amazon Music subscriptions. The worst part is how this is actually charting higher than Brenda Lee’s rendition. Bieber, you soulless industry puppet, put your Goddamned song on Spotify or Apple, or just don’t make it at all. You already have a Christmas standard in the form of “Mistletoe”, and that one actually kind of bumps in the sleigh, so why are you doing this? God, I’m praying for an actually good song on this chart any moment now.

#10 – “Life Goes On” – BTS

Produced by Pdogg

You could describe BTS in a lot of ways, but “alternative hip hop” isn’t what I would have expected. Thanks for that, Rolling Stone India. Anyway, this is the big album-release single from the record, and it’s about you-know-what, but more specifically finding comfort, safety and happiness during chaotic world events. They made a speech at the 75th United Nations General Assembly, because of course they did, and this was their main message: “Life goes on, let’s live on”. Honestly, it’s not a bad message and something that people do need to hear right now, even if it is more of a blanket statement than anything too specific or meaningful, and, you know what, that will definitely help this song’s longevity. I mean, that vaccine’s on its way... right? Either way, this song is pretty good. I do like that chipmunk vocal sample playing against the slick acoustic strumming – I understand this sound is all over the album – and both the falsettos from members like Jungkook and RM’s deep rap cadences work pretty well over a beat that, whilst lacking the punch you’d want for a song like this, does a good job at expressing that wish to find serenity and be calm when... you know, 2020 is happening. SUGA’s verse is short, pointless and kind of just there to get all the boys on one track, especially since he’s not really flowing that well here. It reminds me kind of how they want all of the Backstreet Boys to get on the big single to appeal to each and every fan, even if the clear stand-outs of personality will have the most success. For BTS though, I don’t see that, and I think they pretty clearly work best together when they compile all of their ideas into a mellow albeit pretty motivational track like this. I absolutely love those harmonies from Jimin and V in the outro, and whilst I don’t see this sticking around on the charts, I’ll stick around in my playlist, which is more than I can usually say for whenever the Korean lads pop up on the chart. This is our first of three consecutive top 10 entries this week though, so let’s keep going.

#9 – “Monster” – Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber

Produced by Frank Dukes, Kaan Gunesberk and Matthew Tavares

Oh... he’s back. Well, okay, Shawn Mendes sounds pretty nice over this trip-hop-adjacent steady drum beat and the really pretty, cloudy guitars, as well as some of the harmonies they end up having and the distorted guitar by the end and... man, I know “Wonder” flopped but I don’t see this sticking around either. It’s just a nothingness track and while I do like the more specific content about the uncertainties of fame and the music industry, even from the Biebs, Sure, this is pleasant but it’s clearly just radio filler and since radio doesn’t factor into the UK’s charts, I see this as a pretty profound refusal of wanting an actual hit from both Shawn and whoever that guy is next to him on the cover art. I was wondering on how to actually write this segment since I really have nothing to say about this song at all other than that. I was thinking of ignoring Bieber’s presence but that would actually give me less to talk about, so... “Monster” by Kanye West is one of his most hard-hitting tracks and definitely one of his best brag-rap bangers, with an iconic verse from Nicki Minaj and admittedly middling input from JAY-Z and Rick Ross, all stuck together by the minimal, tribal percussion that lets everyone go off and be a bit more unorthodox, as well as Bon Iver’s eerie voice caressing this beat in the intro and outro. Let’s get even newer for a song from this year, like King Princess’ beautiful piano ballad “Monster” that does a damn great job at representing the characters it was made for, those being Marceline and Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time. I’ve yet to watch Distant Lands because I want to re-watch at least the essential episodes from the original series before, but I am excited to see these characters again and in a different light. 21 Savage’s “monster” featuring Childish Gambino is a pretty damn good trap track, with an unexpected rap verse from Gambino, Paramore making a song called “Monster” for the Transformers soundtrack is the most late-2000s thing that has ever occurred – in 2011, no less, uh, I like the “Monster Mash”. I think there’s an Eminem song in there somewhere, I don’t know. Look, you get the point, I hope that’s enough stalling. Let’s get to that final song.

#8 – “Prisoner” – Miley Cyrus featuring Dua Lipa

Produced by the Monsters & Strangerz and watt

So, Miley Cyrus was a Disney teen pop star and has since been trying to carve out her musical identity to varying degrees of success, but most transitions to styles have been largely unsuccessful in terms of creating a long-term sound. You have the dance-pop, club and hip-hop-adjacent party tracks on Bangerz, the psychedelic “avant-garde” era of Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz, the soft country-pop ballads on Younger Now, the ugly alternative R&B-trap-RuPaul-featuring garbage on She is Coming and finally her new, new wave sound, which can be seen in his most polished form on Plastic Hearts and its two singles, “Midnight Sky” and “Prisoner”. Miley is getting a whole bunch of sounds from a lot of different genres and styles going around in the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as the hard rock, pop rock and even punk rock styles all gaining a lot of popularity at the time, and has fused them with disco and modern production to make what is basically a Blondie album if they still had their stuff together in 2020. She has got legends on this album though, like Joan Jett, Billy Idol and even Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac, and honestly I really like how she’s making a female-fronted rock album that is written and performed really well and honestly should probably be her style going forward if she wants to stick with the longevity. I mean, look at “Midnight Sky”, it’s literally still at #7 staring in the face of its successor, “Prisoner”. Much like Lipa’s own “Physical”, this track interpolates Olivia Newton-John’s classic of the same name (that kind of sucks in retrospect), and does a better job than “Physical”, where Dua Lipa has much more of a presence over the drum machines and that minimal bassline that runs through the chorus really well alongside the strings and swells of guitar. This is dance-able, sure, but it’s more of a showcase of Lipa’s swagger and Cyrus’ raspy tone that really works on this album. That pre-chorus is great, especially the second time where Lipa goes solo for that last line. Honestly, my only complaint is the bridge / outro, which feels pretty under-cooked, and that there should be more inter-play between the characters on display here. Other than that, yeah, this kicks ass, and I’m just grateful this song is here and as high as it is, especially on a week like this.

Conclusion

Now, is it completely fair to give Worst of the Week to a song I can only legally listen to 15 seconds of? Yes. Absolutely. It’s going to Justin Bieber’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” on pure cynicism alone. Dishonourable Mention goes to Lil Tjay for “Move On” being an earache, with the Honourable Mention going to “Life Goes On” by BTS for just being solid all around. It’s pretty obvious where Best of the Week lies, though, so yes, it is going to “Prisoner” by Miley Cyrus featuring Dua Lipa, and it really wasn’t even close. Here’s our top 10 for this week:

Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank if you want to give me more undeserved clout and I’ll see you next week.

[mediabasedlife]

2017 Year in Review

     This past year was, to put it mildly, rather tumultuous. For every high point of the year, there seemed to be low points all around it. But now the year has ended, and hopefully, this next one brings more good and a hell of a lot less bad than its predecessor. However, as said; 2017 wasn't all bad, and this is what I've decided to write about today. Finding myself inspired by the myriad of posts about people's top five or ten games, movies, shows, and so on, I've decided to continue that trend and catalogue the media I found to be exceptional, the media that helped me through the ups and downs of these twelve long months we just experienced. Some I may have written about before, and some will be new, but all of them deserve praise and recognition abound...at least, in my opinion. So without further ado; here are my most enjoyed pieces of media I experienced in 2017.

     We'll start this article off by discussing a category I haven't really discussed on this blog before - music. The reason I don't usually write about music is due to how disparate my preferences can be for this particular media medium. Some days, I'm all about hard and the heavy, while others I'll dip into instrumentals, jazz, or video game soundtracks. Hence, the music I'll be listing here won't have much of a comparable flow - I just thought it was all pretty good.

     This first album ties into one of my favorite games from 2017, easily a contender for my choice for Game of the Year; the soundtrack to the superb indie game Night in the Woods, as orchestrated by Alec Holowka. The soundtrack is beautifully mellow, pleasantly tuned for ambiance. In the game, the music accentuates and emphasizes all of the game's themes, emotional depth, and down-to-earth feel. Out of the game, the soundtrack is perfect for chilling out, studying, writing, or any such easy-going activity. I frequently found myself playing it in the background whilst reading or doing the few articles I wrote, or using it to relax after a particularly trying moment. Continuing the theme of game soundtracks, another that caught my fancy was the Persona 5 OST, composed by Shoji Meguro. An eclectic mashup of genres, the soundtrack bounces between somber piano, energized guitar, and jazz compositions, with a handful of excellent vocal tracks thrown in for good measure. This album is great for a variety of moods or activities thanks to the numerous tones and tempos the music flows between. And with nearly four hours worth of music to sift through, it stands to reason you'll be able to find something you like.

     Moving from video game music, another album I found myself enjoying through the year was Alestorm's No Grave but the Sea. If you're unfamiliar with Alestorm, they fill a rather particular music niche; Pirate Metal, a fusion of piratical slang and heavy metal. Alestorm further accentuates their distinct sound with frequent usage of brass and string instruments, as well as a synthesized accordion. I found myself intrigued by their music several years ago when the band released the album Back through Time, and have followed them since. No grave but the Sea is relatively short, coming in at under an hour across its ten tracks. If you're a fan of niche genres, or just a metal fan looking for something new, I'd recommend you give it a listen. Closing out the music section is Linkin Park's One More Light. OML released only a few weeks after Alestorm's No Grave but the Sea but usurped it in my music library almost instantly for a brief time before the unfortunate suicide of Chester Bennington. In fact, I would call One more Light one of Linkin Park's best albums, despite it being the starkest departure from the band's hard rock sound to date. That isn't to say the album isn't heavy, though. One More Light is heavy in tone, as opposed to sound; If you want an example, listen to the premier single "Heavy" or the titular "One More Light", and you'll get a firm grasp on how the album feels. One more Light clocks in at a short but sweet thirty-five minutes, and I would wholeheartedly recommend taking the time to sit down and listen to it in full.

     TV shows take the second slot, though I'll be honest; I definitely don't watch a lot of television. Not live, anyway. Most of what I watch is through streaming services, so a few of these aren't technically from 2017, at least not in full. But since I first watched these shows in 2017 it counts. Without further ado, here are my favorite television shows I started or finished in 2017.

     Kicking off the television roster is Twin Peaks. If you're unfamiliar with the show, Twin Peaks was written and directed by David Lynch. It stars Kyle MacLachlan as the charming and amusing Special Agent Dale Cooper, a federal investigator sent to the enigmatic small town of Twin Peaks to solve the murder of local sweetheart Laura Palmer. Not much can be said about the plot of this show without spoiling it or just plain confusing somebody, but suffice it to say that all they appear to be. Everybody has a secret, and the show doesn't take too long to spiral into the surreal in typical Lynchian fashion. Twin Peaks initially debuted in 1990, earning two seasons and a cult following that lasted the 26-year gap until its third season released in 2017. Long story short; the show is great - It has intrigue, comedy, a wide cast of interesting characters, and a story that will keep you guessing until the end and beyond. The show isn't without its faults and can be flat out baffling at times, but despite all of that the show and its story is a fantastic experience to behold.

     The next show on my list both compliments and contrasts Twin Peaks; Broadchurch. Broadchurch is a crime serial taking place in the fictional (and titular) town of Broadchurch, starring David Tennant as Detective Inspector Alec Hardy, and Olivia Colman co-stars as Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller. The series kicks off by investigating the murder of local youth Daniel Latimer, before moving on through its three-season run to investigate another murder case and finally a sexual assault, all the while weaving a compelling tale of a small town trying to cope with and move on from these horrible crimes. Broadchurch is a heavy experience, with very little levity to break up the tension of each investigation. That being said, It's still an excellent show with a genuinely compelling narrative backed up by the top-notch acting of the cast.

     Setting aside the crime drama, we come to the next show - Voltron: Legendary Defender. Technically, the series' first season debuted in 2016, but 2017 saw the release of the second, third, and fourth seasons, meaning it was a pretty Voltron filled year. Legendary Defender is the latest in the long line of Voltron adaptations, following the Paladins of Voltron as they fight to defend the galaxy from the evil Galra Empire. Now I've never watched any of the other Voltron shows, so I can't speak for their quality (or lack thereof). As far as first impressions to a series go, Legendary Defender couldn't be better. Helmed by DreamWorks and Netflix, and written by the creative minds behind Avatar the last Airbender and its sequel Legend of Korra, Legendary Defender was probably the best-animated show I watched all year. In terms of quality, the show is top notch. Excellent voice acting, great animation, and a fun but serious story that has me eagerly anticipating wherever it goes in 2018.

     Wrapping up this section are the many, many Netflix Marvel series. This includes Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and finally The Punisher. I had already seen some of these before but went in for a rewatch in preparation for all the new stuff coming out in 2017. If you're not familiar with these shows, however unlikely that is, I'll summarize each show in a sentence or two. Daredevil follows Matthew Murdoch who, after losing his sight but gaining superhuman senses as a child, fights crime in hell's kitchen on two fronts; as a lawyer, and as the vigilante Daredevil. Jessica Jones follows former street hero turned private-eye, Jessica Jones, as she tries to deal with the aftermath of a traumatic incident in her past while an old foe comes back to haunt her. Luke Cage follows Ex-Con and titular character Luke Cage as he tries to clean up the streets of Harlem and free it from corruption. Iron Fist follows Danny Rand, boy billionaire and sworn defender of Kun Lun as he tries to combat a mysterious organization known as The Hand. The Defenders finally unites these four heroes for the first time, as they all come together to battle the aforementioned Hand in an attempt to stop them once and for all. Finally, we come to The Punisher, which follows war veteran turned vigilante Frank Castle as he hunts the people responsible for the murder of his wife and children. I won't go into an extended review here, so to keep it simple; Daredevil is amazing (though its second season has some flaws), Jessica Jones is great, Luke Cage is great, Iron Fist is fine, The Defenders is amazing, and the Punisher is fantastic...to summarize, pretty much all of these shows are worth a watch.

     Now, as I said at the beginning of this article, 2017 was a pretty shaky year. A lot of ups, and a lot of downs. Many of these ups, at least for me, are in the next category; 2017 was a pretty great year for movies, in my opinion. It was a busy year for movies, but when isn't it? For every one movie I watched, there were three more I had to wait on, but pretty much every film I watched in 2017 knocked it out of the park. From comic book films to horror flicks, each one of these movies takes the cake.

     The premier movie for this article is Get Out, one of the contenders for my favorite movies of the year. Helmed by Jordan Peele, Get Out is a genuinely uncomfortable horror/thriller about a black boyfriend meeting the family of his white girlfriend. It tells a heavy but undeniably compelling story, one that keeps you guessing and inspires a fair amount of thought after the fact. I won't go into too much here, but I will say that if you haven't seen this movie, you absolutely should. Speaking of movies that make you think, Bright is up next, the new racially-conscious Netflix movie starring will smith and....no, not really. Actually, The Lego Batman Movie is up next; a goofy, charming, and stark contrast to all of the gritty DC movies that have been churned out over the past few years. This movie was genuinely funny and felt fun to watch...something that can't be said about some of the more recent DC films. I've written about this movie before, and my thoughts today still echo that review; This was one of the best Batman movies I've seen. Following The Lego Batman Movie, the next film on my list is John Wick: Chapter 2. There's not much to say about this movie other than the fact that it's a top-notch sequel that keeps all of the pros of its predecessor, and in some cases, improves on them. It isn't a terribly different story than its predecessor; Somebody messes with John Wick, so John Wick messes back by going on a vengeance-fueled spree. It's an action-filled thrill ride that doesn't disappoint.

     Another action-filled thrill ride takes the form of Logan, and....wow. Logan is another contender for my favorite film of the year. The movie serves as equal parts finale for both Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman as Charles Xavier and Wolverine respectively, and it does so perfectly. Logan is a shining example of what Comic Book films should aspire to, with an outstanding script, Oscar-worthy acting, and a top-notch story to close out this era of the X-Men cinematic universe. Finally, we come to one of the last movies released in 2017; Star Wars The Last Jedi. I'm sure if you're reading this, you've probably seen this movie. Maybe you liked it, Maybe not. I, however, thought this movie was pretty damn good. One of the better Star Wars films, I think Rian Johnson did well at what he set out to do. I won't say it's the best movie of the year, but it makes my list of favorites.

     Finally, we come to the last section of this year in review: Video Games. I actually got to play a fair few of these this year and liked basically all of them. But, this isn't "Year in Review, things I thought were passable". This is "Year in Review, my favorites", and so what follows are my favorite games of 2017. From AAA titles to simple indie games, each one of these had the right amount of fun, charm, and entertainment to keep me hooked and keep me coming back to them time and again.

     We'll kick this list off with a game that embodies charming simplicity; Slime Rancher. This game debuted back in 2016 as an early access title but finally released in an official capacity in August of 2017. I didn't think much of it when it came out, just grabbed it since it was free through Xbox Live's games with gold program. Color me surprised, then, when it turned out to be one of my favorite games of the year. I previously wrote about this so you can see my full review here, but what I'll say here is that Slime Rancher is a surefire recommendation on my part. The next two games are anything but simple, at least in terms of story; Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5 HD (PS4). I had played these games before, on the PS2 and PS3, but what can I say? Kingdom Hearts is one of my favorite gaming franchises out there, and the ability to play it again on modern consoles was a treat. With the release of Kingdom Hearts III on the horizon (hopefully), going back to experience the franchise in full was a fantastic refresher. If you've never played Kingdom Hearts before, getting the modern gen remasters is your best way to experience these games right now. 

     Following Kingdom Hearts is Persona 5, one of two games I would strongly consider as Game of the Year. I had never played a persona game before this, at least not in full, and this game almost made me regret that. Persona 5 is near perfect, with a great story, smooth and snappy gameplay, and a top-notch aesthetic balanced between its visuals and its sound design. Atlus has a history of making quality games, and Persona 5 is no exception. Continuing from there, we come to Night in the Woods, the second of my two Game of the Year contenders. In fact, were it not for Persona 5, Night in the woods would be the winner for 2017, at least in my book. This is another game I've written about in full and I would recommend reading that review here because I had a fair amount to say. Night in the Woods saw two releases in 2017, once at the start of the year, and once at the end of it. Because of this, the game both kicked off and closed down my 2017 year, and I couldn't have asked for a better game to do so.

     That about wraps up my Year in Review. 2017 was a full year for media, and I have a lot to catch up on, but luckily I was able to experience just about as much as I missed. Not everything I did this year appeared in this review, but these were the things that elevated themselves above the competition and took the titles of favorites for 2017. I extend my thanks to anybody who stuck with this blog, or even read just one of my articles in the last year, and hope that the new year is kind to all of you. This year promises to be just as good, if not better for media purposes, so I eagerly await whatever comes next. Here's to a great 2018, folks.

[mizuurei]

Im sorry, but I need to geek out over the music in WKM for a hot minute.

Cause like HOLY SHIT. DAN. OMG. There is some good shit in there. I’m mostly going to talk about the songs that Dan’s posted tutorials for to his YouTube channel because I can actually look at all the notes and chords and do some theory analysis (and forgive me if any of my analysis is wrong; I’ve only taken a few semesters of theory and I’m trying my best to remember everything we ever talked about).

BUT BEFORE I GET TO THAT, HOLY HECK DOES THE UNDERSCORE HELP SET THE MOOD.

I mean, I’m just looking at the very beginning of episode 1. The transition when the DA enters the house, the climb up and around the A-major chord creates this sense of being swept up into Wonderland. AND GUESS WHAT? THANKS TO MARK’S EXPLANATION LIVESTREAM, WE REALIZE THAT OH HEY! THAT’S KINDA WHAT HAPPENED. As soon as we entered that house, we were sucked into it’s “realm” so to speak. And the music reflects that.

AND THAT’S PARTIALLY WHAT MAKES AMAZING SOUNDTRACKS AMAZING. There’s a reason certain soundtracks are more memorable than others. Memorable soundtracks not only have big, catchy, main themes, but they are also able to communicate ideas and themes in both the main tracks and the underscore. AND DAN DOES THIS IN SPADES THROUGHOUT WKM.

I’m going to look at episode 1 again. The music almost acts as our emotional and verbal response to characters. Jazz piano in the background for Damien reinforces his sophistication, charm, and trustworthiness. We’re happy to see him and fully prepared for a fun night playing poker.

The sudden modulation to heavy low notes and the tense, quiet tremolo when we meet the chef immediately classifies him as scary, intimidating, and quite possibly explosive.

Then the change to the Butler. The immediate threat seems to be gone as we no longer have a large, angry man thrusting a ladel in our face, but that residual shock is still there (hence the ringing bass notes). And then we get these high pitched dissonant chords when the Butler hands us our drink and tells us to “enjoy our stay.” This sort of musical cue is typical in a murder mystery setting, but it works so god damn well. It immediately makes the Butler untrustworthy even though he hasn’t done anything particularly suspect yet (you know besides a slightly ominous line and eyebrow raise, but even that’s questionably ominous). And that makes sense considering the trope of “the butler did it” in murder mystery stories.

It’s so easy to write off how important the underscore is in big projects like these! Because it isn’t necessarily obvious (by design of course), but credit is due where credit is due. AND DAN DESERVES A LOT IF RECOGNITION! He created such an appropriate atmosphere for the entire mini-series.

NOW TO THE POINT THAT MADE ME WANT TO WRITE THIS ENTIRE POST IN THE FIRST PLACE: the ending song to the entire series.

(Again, forgive me if any of my analysis going forward is wrong; it’s been two semesters since I took a theory course that had to do with tonal music, so I’m kinda rusty in my analysis. Also fair warning, lots of Roman numerals ahead.)

Oh my god. How fucking appropriate. This piece (EDIT: known as “Who’s There 2” composed by Peter Sanberg with a section arranged by Dan (thanks to @corruptedmetadata for reminding me about this :D)) really helped elevate the ending of WKM to new heights emotionally. The song is so effectively simple. It’s mostly arpeggiations and sustained chords in minor. So we immediately recognize this scene as a somber, tragic moment (but it’s also a little bittersweet because there is a major chord or two in there).

But do you want to know what my favorite part of this entire piece was? The last chord.

Oh. My. God. The last chord is simply two Cs an octave apart plus the fifth of the scale, G. This is called an open fifth chord. A “proper” chord is supposed to have at least three different notes, normally the root of the chord, the third and the fifth. The open fifth has two: the root and the fifth. The lack of a third in the open fifth leaves the chord feeling hollow, albeit powerful. Our ears still recognize the notes as a chord, but it sounds like something is missing.

In WKM, this open fifth chord also acts as the final chord of the final cadence of the song. This is the chord that is supposed to signify the ending of the song. And it does! Sorta. The cadence seems to be a plagal cadence (IV-I instead of V-I). The plagal cadence does provide a form of resolution, but not a very strong one because it lacks a leading tone. Normally a plagal cadence is a device used to extend the tonic chords (which it does slightly earlier in this same song; the IV chord goes to the I chord before leading back to a VII chord). But by ending the song with a plagal cadence, it makes the resolution weaker, leaving the listener unsatisfied and thinking “there has to be more than that.”

So this last chord is an open fifth chord and part of a plagal cadence. So why does that get me so excited? Why does that make it my favorite part of this entire beautiful last song? BECAUSE IT FITS THE ENDING OF WKM SO GOD DAMN WELL! The fact that the song ends in a plagal cadence reflects the ending. While the story of WKM was technically finished, the audience was left with a plethora of questions and the sense of anticipation. A plagal cadence technically ended the song, but the resolution was so weak that the audience got the sense that this wasn’t the end. If I were to use one word to describe how I felt after watching all four chapters of WKM it would be hollow. Hollow in the sense of being emotionally drained and sad beyond all belief. The open fifth chord is a hollow sound.

TL;DR- The WKM ending is sad enough as is. But the ending music and the theory behind it adds an extra layer to the ending that just makes it all the more sad. AND I LOVE IT.

So everyone just take a minute to recognize what an AMAZING job Dan did with the entire soundscape of WKM. I highly doubt that Dan was writing/picking the music he wanted to used based on any of the music theory that I prattled on about above this (“Ah yes, let’s find a song that ends with an open fifth chord; that’ll really make things sad!” No. That’s not how it works; you find/compose stuff you think sounds appropriate). But nonetheless, he picked the music he did and performed it gorgeously. Having the theory reflect the ending is just a cool added bonus for me that I thought others might find interesting too.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 22nd September 2019

Our episode of REVIEWING THE CHARTS today seems to be particularly focused on British hip hop as we have the fall-out from a busy week amongst five new arrivals, a good majority of them being from UK trap artists... as well as Ariana Grande, clearly my favourite grime MC. Without further ado, let’s review the charts.

Top 10

For a fourth week, “Take Me Back to London” by Ed Sheeran featuring Stormzy, and remixed by Sir Spyro, Jaykae and Aitch, has a stronghold on the charts and honestly I haven’t bothered to listen to the song or its remix since it debuted; if it weren’t for the team-up of Ed and Stormzy this would be pretty unremarkable.

At our runner-up spot is the massive collaborative single, “Don’t Call Me Angel”, from three of 2019’s most interesting pop girls, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey (All of which have released albums of varying quality this past year), for the soundtrack of the blockbuster reboot for Charlie’s Angels, debuting at number-two, just shy of Sheeran. Bear with me as there are a lot of arbitrary figures here: This is Grande’s 23rd UK Top 40 hit and her 15th Top 10, Cyrus’ 17th UK Top 40 hit and her fifth Top 10 as well as Lana Del Rey’s tenth UK Top 40 hit and fourth UK Top 10 hit – in fact, it’s Lana’s highest-peaking song ever, and first song to hit the Top 10 here in the UK since the remix of “Summertime Sadness” peaked at number-four in 2013. The UK loves these three, it’s a movie soundtrack single with a video, I’m not surprised it’s reached these heights of success – I’m just shocked it couldn’t hit the top spot, if I’m honest.

Now we can run through the rest of the top 10 pretty quickly: First of all, we have three consecutive songs with identical falls on this week’s chart. Down one space to number-three is “Taste (Make it Shake)” by Aitch.

Also down a single position at number-four is “Higher Love” by Kygo and Whitney Houston.

At number-five, similarly down one spot this week, is “Ladbroke Grave” by AJ Tracey.

Standing still since last week is the non-mover of “Sorry” by Joel Corry, featuring uncredited vocals from Hayley May, which at this point has probably surpassed initial Love Island fame at number-six.

Also not moving this week is “3 Nights” by Dominic Fike at number-seven.

At number-eight, down three spots thanks to alleviating hype for the Hollywood’s Bleeding album with impacted last week, is “Circles” by Post Malone, although this definitely won’t be the last we see of him this week.

At number-nine, down a spot from last week yet not down soon enough, is “RAN$OM” by Lil Tecca.

Also down one position, finally, we round off the top 10 with “Strike a Pose” by Young T & Bugsey and Aitch.

Climbers

There is one notable climber this week, and that is “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I up five positions to #14, very quickly gaining from its debut three weeks ago. “Outnumbered” by Dermot Kennedy is only up three spaces so wouldn’t be all that notable if it weren’t Kennedy’s first ever entry into the Top 20 of the UK Singles Chart. Otherwise, there’s nothing to speak of here.

Fallers

This category is a lot more plentiful. In reverse order of where they stand on the chart, we have “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus making its way out down six spots to #38, “Ritual” by Tiesto, Jonas Blue and Rita Ora perhaps prematurely making an exit down eight to #36, “Buss Down” by Aitch featuring ZieZie dropping down 14 spaces off of the debut to #35, “Sounds of the Skeng” by Stormzy also taking a hit immediately after debuting high up as it’s down 11 spots to #31, “Senorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello slowly winding down five spots to #19, and finally, also down five spaces to #15, we have “Goodbyes” by Post Malone featuring Young Thug, taking less of a hit than I expected off of the album impact last week.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

First of all, we have quite a few drop-outs considering there are five new songs debuting, the highest being “Hollywood’s Bleeding” by Post Malone off of the debut at #11. This is due to an arbitrary UK chart rule that only allows three songs by one artist on the chart at one time, and these have to be the highest-performing singles, hence, since the title track got trumped by another single in terms of popularity, it’s gone and probably won’t ever for another week as the debut from Post this week is already showing more longevity. Our drop-outs here are actually mostly massive smash hits that have been losing steam for a while and have just now dropped out after weeks on weeks of high performance. The first anomaly to this rule is “Lover” by Taylor Swift, after only five weeks on the chart, dropping out from #31 but it’ll probably be back soon enough. Otherwise, we have “So High” by MIST and Fredo out from #35, “You Need to Calm Down” by Taylor Swift out from #36, “bad guy” by Billie Eilish out from #37 and “Hold Me While You Wait” by Lewis Capaldi out from #39... as well as “Slide Away” by Miley Cyrus off of the debut last week, not picking up any steam at all which has me worried.

Uncommon for the UK Top 40, we have two returning entries. The first is “Lalala” by Y2K and bbno$ as I predicted, back to #40 after a particularly busy week pushed it out off of the debut. The second is “Panini” by Lil Nas X, propelled by both a futuristic, wonderfully cheesy video set in space as well as a remix with a feature from DaBaby, which honestly adds so much to the song and with the benefit of hindsight, his verse should have been there from the beginning. There’s also an “Official” music video for the remix featuring characters from Chowder which may or may not be legal but it’s hilarious.

Oh, and I feel I should add that Hypersonic Missiles by Sam Fender, the #1 album on the UK Albums Chart this week, has three songs outside of the Top 40 similarly to Lana’s last week, with “Will We Talk” up 15 spaces to #43, the title track re-entering the chart at #48, and a debut for “The Borders” at #59. Anyways, onwards with the show.

NEW ARRIVALS

#37 – “Wiley Flow” – Stormzy

Produced by EY, AdotSkitz and Illmind

Stormzy is releasing a fourth single from the still unnamed and unannounced album, the week after “Sounds of the Skeng”, with a second throwback-type single, which has me worried for the album in all honesty as it’s looking somewhat rushed so far and I loved Gang Signs & Prayer but it did suffer some filler, which “Wiley Flow” may just be an example of. Regardless, it’s his 18th UK Top 40 hit, and don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad at all, but it does feel like a re-tread of “Vossi Bop”. It starts with a menacing synth loop that may be a sample, but it has a pitch stretch at the end of the loop which seems like a cop-out as it does not add to the beat really, it doesn’t work as hypnotic as Stormzy’s stilted flow here isn’t exactly catchy, relaxed or even smooth, relying on more typical Western trap flows while the loop cuts out for more bass-rattling trap but... the ”hook” of sorts is boring and repetitive, doesn’t end properly but sounds really off rather than effective. The second verse is slightly better, I mean—

If you ain’t got more than five top tens, then I don’t want to hear no chat about charting

Uh... Well, then. I think I’ll skip this one, I mean, this isn’t a great song but Stormzy’s still pretty intimidating, I mean, damn, I better shut up. Please don’t kill me Stor—

We here at Sudnay Salad have received a statement from cactus’ estate announcing her untimely murder at age withheld. Rumours say she was the victim of a secret hitman order placed by famous British rapper Michael Owuo Jr., more well known as Stormzy.

#24 – “Professor X” – Dave

Produced by Dave

Now, there was an album bomb of sorts this week that wasn’t Sam Fender, yet neither Fender or this bomb had any impact on the Top 40. That album bomb was for the soundtrack to gritty street drama Top Boy, rebooted and continued by Netflix... and soundtracked by Drake leeching off of British hip hop as he’s been doing for the past few years, with his only contribution being a freestyle from 2018 on Link Up TV, with a tad more reverb. It’s a lazy compilation on Drake’s part, but he didn’t choose awful rappers at all, I mean, there are songs with Fredo and Little Simz, who had an amazing album you should check out that was released this year, GREY AREA, as well as AJ Tracey, Headie One, Nafe Smallz and two songs by Dave. The Drake freestyle, “Behind Barz”, debuted second-highest at #51, Fredo’s “Freddy” debuted at #53 and since technically this isn’t a singular artist’s album, it’s not affected by the chart rule restricting the songs debuting to the three biggest, meaning “Elastic” by AJ Tracey also debuted at #63. One of two singles by Dave from the soundtrack, the other being “God’s Eye”, landed at the Top 40 despite being the seventh song on the album and having no single push whatsoever. Anyway, it’s Dave’s 13th UK Top 40, and it sure is... okay? The strummed guitar is actually pretty intimidating but the lyrics aren’t at all so that doesn’t work. The trap percussion with the intense sub-bass kicking in during the first verse as well as the sweet vocal samples and strings makes for a pretty cool beat, actually, but Dave doesn’t say much of interest or include some cool wordplay... and all of this seems more like a demo for “Streatham” from Psychodrama – the flow is exactly the same for most of it, although this is the typical “Dave flow”... but then at the end of the first verse, he has the exact same flow switch that worked so well into the bass launching in the middle of the second verse on that song, but here it just leads to a half-chorus and a brief interlude from what I’m assuming is Top Boy. It kind of cheapens “Streatham”, which is still a fantastic song, although the second verse is better and I’m not going to lie and say the hook isn’t pretty catchy. Otherwise, this is one of the worst songs I’ve heard from Dave in a while, and is relatively uninteresting in all factors.

#22 – “Take What You Want” – Post Malone featuring Travis Scott and Ozzy Osbourne

Produced by watt and Louis Bell – Peaked at #6 in Hungary and #8 in the US

Yeah, I did a double-take the first time I saw that listed on Spotify too. Since “Hollywood’s Bleeding” debuted last week, it has faltered in popularity, meaning arbitrary UK chart rules let this song chart, and oh, my God, I wish it charted sooner because this is easily one of the best songs on that Hollywood’s Bleeding album, right next to “Sunflower”, my personal favourite “Goodbyes” and what I think is the best deep cut, “Allergic” (Although that seems to be one of the least popular efforts from Post here). I’m not even sure what to say about it, to be honest, everything just meshes perfectly into place. This is Post Malone’s 13th UK Top 40 hit and Travis Scott’s eighth, as well as being Ozzy Osbourne’s ninth (Not counting Black Sabbath), and first UK hit since “Changes” with his daughter Kelly Osbourne hit #1 in 2001, more than 18 years ago – although in the US, Ozzy had a 20+ year lack of charting singles until “Take What You Want”. I feel I’m going to ramble on about this song but, God, it is near-perfect. It starts with a slick, processed, slightly downtuned acoustic guitar amidst creepy harmonised ad-libs from Post and Ozzy, before the sub-bass kicks in and Ozzy Osbourne sounds fantastic over looming 808s with his ominous, trembling voice, which sounds quite delicate and melodic here, a sharp contrast from the early metal sound of Black Sabbath but not unfound territory for the singer. The poetic lyrics are brutal and are a knee-jerk reaction to a break-up, where Ozzy and Post feel lost and clueless, like they’ve been sucked dry, and Post comes in with a pretty subdued flow initially, but then starts belting against a peaking mix, distorted bass and some low electric guitar (That’ll come back again, much more forward in the mix however...). Post’s warbling in the chorus arguably sounds better than Ozzy, especially when that crash of the kick drum comes in and the intensity is amped up to 100%... only for it to collapse, to make space for Travis Scott. Now, remember when I said this song was near-perfect? Well, I initially really didn’t like Travis’ verse here but it has grown on me immensely. Even if his content is nonexistent, Travis’ sour bitterness is lethal, talking about using the power given to him by his ex’s insults to make chains as well as almost threatening her at the end of the verse, saying that no matter where he goes, he’ll never be alone, but this woman is just completely isolated without him. It’s almost like he lives in some sort of primitive patriarchal society within his mind, and that’s completely fair, as not only would someone suffering from a brutal break-up be this self-indulgent but also he sounds fantastic saying it, with the distorted Auto-Tune drenched in reverb hitting in a similar way to Kanye on 808s & Heartbreak. The pre-chorus, also delivered by Travis, is just a bunch of manic thoughts vaguely resembling “rapper activities” collected into somewhat of a rhythmic pattern, and that’s how Travis feels - he is a bunch of words compiled with no rhyme or reason as he’s left fragmented and sour about the relationship. The final chorus is an awesome harmony from Ozzy and Post – they sound surprisingly great together, but slowly and slowly you hear those guitar riffs in the midst of trap percussion... which cuts out for an excellent guitar solo, with surprisingly technical skill and it works astonishingly well on the trap beat, especially when it elevates with repetitive ad-libs from both singers amplifying the chaos, just to slow down and end abruptly... much like the relationship. Funny how that works out. This is a fantastic song, everyone kills it from Post to Ozzy to Travis to uncredited producer-guitar man (that’s Andrew Watt, by the way), and that’s all I can say really.

#16 – “Nookie” – D-Block Europe featuring Lil Baby

Produced by Nathaniel London

So, funny story, I saw this song blow up in real time because for some reason “#LilBaby” was trending on Twitter in the UK and I was so confused because Lil Baby isn’t that big here. Turns out he had a feature on a D-Block Europe song... but so did Offset, and that track completely flopped so I didn’t expect this to go anywhere. Now I see the chart and it’s D-Block Europe’s fourth UK Top 40 hit and their third Top 20 hit, tied for their highest peaking song ever with “Kitchen Kings” from a couple months ago and Lil Baby’s highest-peaking song and first ever Top 20 here in the UK (“Drip Too Hard” with Gunna did chart at like #26 last year, however). I guess that’s just how awful I am at speculating. Most of the Tweets I saw with that hashtag were about how Lil Baby bodied the song and outshone Young Adz, the breakout star of the group, who ends up sharing a verse with the other member, Dirtbike LB. Dirtbike doesn’t handle the chorus or even most of his verse, so essentially this is a song by Young Adz and Lil Baby from the upcoming D-Block album PTSD and... it’s not as bad as it usually is from these guys, but that’s mostly because Lil Baby kills it here. I never liked the guy and I still don’t think I’ll like him in the future, but I have seen improvements. He tried to hold his own on “Baby” with DaBaby, had a pretty good verse on Young Thug’s “Bad Bad Bad” from So Much Fun and his verse here is not the first set of bars that I’ve heard from him I’d consider actually pretty good, although I’ll always personally prefer Gunna. Does he have interesting content in all his gunplay and shallow flexing? Not exactly, but he has some relatively funny punchlines here and there, referencing Lil Keed and mostly sticking out for how odd they are, we’ll get to funny lyrics in a second (We always do with these dudes). His flow is outstanding, especially for Lil Baby standards and picks up the pace and momentum of the song immensely, which had only been a Young Adz hook at this point, to the point where when he’s not on the song, it’s a pretty empty song, because it’s just a vaguely rural flute and guitar-lead trap beat with some ugly snares, 808s and farting synths behind a cheap trap skitter, as well as the awful Auto-Tune added to Young Adz that sounds awful as always, but Lil Baby actually has some energy for once, and the cheap, ear-ringing hi-hats being so monotonous when they rapidly skitter during his verse is pretty clever, and his climax of the verse as he slowly gets angrier would work if this was a competent beat. As for lyrics, well, sorry for expanding this song review for more it’s worth, but as with all D-Block Europe songs... we have a showcase for you.

Treat the p***y right, that’s good nookie (That’s good nookie) / Keep killers ‘round me, that’s how it should be (That’s how it should be, yea)

I think I’ve said this before but Young Adz is not very convincing when he’s talking about sex and violence because his delivery is so naive and childish... and sometimes his lyrics are too.

Should-a, would-a, could-a, [gnarly dude] just could be (Just could be)

Or they’re complete word salad. It’s always one of the two.

Yeah, you know the vibe

Not at all.

Yeah, just spoke to my Imam and he said I can get five wives

Okay, if you don’t know, an Imam is basically fulfilling the job of a Christian reverend in a mosque, and apparently the Quran accepts monogamy and polygamy. The more you know, but 1.) that could be wildly disrespectful, I wouldn’t know how to feel as a Muslim in response to that for obvious reasons and 2.) this is also wildly irrelevant.

Onto Lil Baby’s verse and honestly, his punchlines are a lot better because he just has a bunch of non-sequiturs and they seem intentionally funny rather than just missing the mark, like these lines:

Rolls Royce truck come through, that’s anus / Audemars Piguet, Rolex, both stainless

It’s almost like a comedy skit as he says something random or nonsensical then just completely switches topic to something more straightforward and this happens bar after bar.

Steering ‘round the way, I forgot that I’m famous

How? There’s one line here that is actually really clever, where he interpolates “No Guidance” by Chris Brown as if he’s going to start serenading or flowing more melodically, but then cancels himself out completely, interrupting himself so it almost sounds off-beat even, and it was pretty funny on first listen thanks to his delivery.

You got it, girl—I ain’t givin’ her my last name

Lamborghini truck, it got me speeding ‘round the fast lane / Thinking ‘bout the time I hid my bottle in the trash can

...I can’t find a single explanation for what that second line means and I love that.

I’m from South London... Hit a [gnarly dude] up, night-night, now it’s Church somethin’

You’re praying for him after you kill him, right? So you can just have a harsh rhyme with “now I’m prayin’ for him” instead of “Church somethin’”... but surely, Young Adz cares dearly about how his rhymes connect, I mean, he has an internal rhyme in the chorus rhyming “blending” with “blender”.

I’ll eat that p***y in Mayfair

To be fair, saying you’ll desecrate the most expensive property square on London Monopoly is a pretty big flex. Sigh, after re-listening to pick up these lines, the beat is just really incompetent and everything sounds so disjointed. Even Lil Baby’s verse, which I quite liked, suffers from the same issues and Lord forbid these guys have chemistry. Good Lil Baby verse, but this really isn’t worth yourtime.

#2 – “Don’t Call Me Angel” – Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey

Produced by Max Martin and Ilya – Peaked at #1 in Greece, Hungary and Scotland, and #13 in the US

Now the song that probably deserves more of my attention, the new blockbuster soundtrack single, blah-blah-blah. We went through this already in the Top 10/pre-amble, so there are no reasons to cobble on here as well, let’s get to the song and yeah, put everything else about it aside, this is a pretty decent song. The tribal yet almost melody-box sing-songy melody not having a build-up at all and instead just dropping immediately into the hard bass-heavy trap beat is a pretty good idea and I enjoy the concept of having Ariana, Miley and Lana, three powerful women in the music industry, rejecting purity and asking for men not to call them “angels”, as these are Charlie’s angels, violent, athletic spies in pretty casual clothing, baring weapons at all times; it’s actually pretty impressive how all three singers here emulate the characters from the soundtrack as you’d figure with enough starpower this would be pretty disconnected from the film. All three stick in their little niche realms as well, with Ariana cooing on the chorus with some background belting and pretty Heavenly backing (Pun very intended), as well as subdued Auto-Tuned ad-libs during her verse. You’ve got Miley rapping in a country twang and I’m not going to lie, her verse is really disjointed and could have just not been there, but I do appreciate what it adds to the aggressiveness to the song. The way the beat just drops out entirely and switches to a more atmospheric synth soundscape with a ticking EQ’d out of existence drum beat for Lana Del Rey’s passive-aggressive bridge is great, although I’d like Lana to be a bit more involved, although her sole verse and involvement is probably for the best as her lines are the most powerful and striking here, with the line “I fell from Heaven, now I’m living like a devil” particularly standing out. In conclusion, this is a pretty genuinely great collaboration from the three girls, although Miley’s contributions I’m still unsure on and I feel there’s some empty space in the verses overall, but that chorus is killer, so it’s a pretty cool song and I’m not complaining it’s this high (Even though it’s probably not for long).

Conclusion

The Best of the Week is easily going to Post Malone, Travis Scott, Ozzy Osbourne and watt for “Take What You Want” and it’s not even close, but I’ll give Honourable Mention to Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey’s “Don’t Call Me Angel”. There’s nothing that is exactly all that bad here other than the trainwreck that is D-Block Europe and Lil Baby’s “Nookie”, which makes them the recipients of Worst of the Week. I regret saying this because I do like Dave but he’s getting the Dishonourable Mention for “Professor X” and that’s all for now. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more musical ramblings and I’ll see you next week!