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liriostigre · 3 years

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hey! I wanted to ask what your favorite poetry books are? I have a few but I want to read new and interesting stuff, and I trust your taste :D

hiii ♡

tbh i only started reading poetry collections like,, last year. i'm subscribed to poetryfoundation's newsletter (poem of the day) so i usually just read random poems

anyway, i'm not sure my recs could be considered new (cause i'm gonna start with Mary Oliver ♡) but feel free to message me if you want to know the themes, style, feeling (vibes, if you will) or anything you want to know about these collections. for now, i'm linking my favorite poems in each collection, i hope this helps you choose! ♡

here you go:

Dream Work —Mary Oliver (“Wild Geese.” “Dogfish.”)

Red Bird —Mary Oliver (“Summer Morning.” “Love Sorrow.”)

Blue Horses —Mary Oliver (“To Be Human Is to Sing Your Own Song.” “Loneliness.” “Little Crazy Love Song.”)

The Wild Iris —Louise Glück (“Sunset.” “Retreating Light.”)

Haruko/Love Poems —June Jordan (“On a New Year’s Eve.” “Mendocino Memory.” “Toward a City That Sings.” *under the cut)

Extracting the Stone of Madness —Alejandra Pizarnik (“Primitive Eyes.” “Summer Goodbyes.” *under the cut)

Ariel —Sylvia Plath (“Tulips.” “The Rival.”)

Prelude to Bruise —Saeed Jones (“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat.” *under the cut)

Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth —Alice Walker (“Coming Back from Seeing Your People.” *under the cut)

I Must Be Living Twice —Eileen Myles (“Edward the Confessor.” *under the cut)

Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth —Warsan Shire (“Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre.”)

The Black Unicorn —Audre Lorde (“Hanging Fire.” “Sister Outsider.”)

Bright Dead Things —Ada Limón (“The Riveter.” “Glow.”)

Night Sky With Exit Wounds —Ocean Vuong (“Thanksgiving 2006.” “Logophobia.”)

Postcolonial Love Poem —Natalie Diaz (“Manhattan Is a Lenape Word.”)

Crush —Richard Siken (“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out.”)

Once —Alice Walker (“So We've Come at Last to Freud.”)

“Toward a City That Sings” by June Jordan

Into the topaz the crystalline signals of Manhattan the nightplane lowers my body scintillate with longing to lie positive beside the electric waters of your flesh and I will never tell you the meaning of this poem: Just say, ‘She wrote it and I recognize the reference.’ Please let it go at that. Although it is all the willingness you lend the world as when you picked it up the garbage scattering the cool formalities of Madison Avenue after midnight (where we walked for miles as though we knew the woods well enough to ignore the darkness) although it is all the willingness you lend the world that makes me want to clean up everything in sight (myself included)

for your possible discovery

“Primitive Eyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

Where fear neither speaks in stories or poems, nor gives shape to terrors or triumphs.

My name, my pronoun — a grey void.

I’m familiar with the full range of fear. I know what it’s like to start singing and to set off slowly through the narrow mountain pass that leads back to the stranger in me, to my own emigrant.

I write to ward off fear and the clawing wind that lodges in my throat.

And in the morning, when you are afraid of finding yourself dead (of there being no more images): the silence of compression, the silence of existence itself. This is how the years fly by. This is how we lost that beautiful animal happiness.

“Summer Goodbyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

The soft rumor of spreading weeds. The sound of things ruined by the wind. They come to me as if I were the heart of all that exists. I would like to be dead, and also to go inside another heart.

“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat” by Saeed Jones

I. Drugged, I dreamed you a plume of ash, great rush of wrecked air through the towns of my stupor. And when the ocean in your blood went toxic, I thought fire was what we needed: serrated light through the skin, grenade in the chest—pulled linchpin. I saw us breathing on the other side of after. But a blackout is not night; orange-bottled dreams are not sleep. II. I was a cross-legged boy in the third lifetime, empire of blocks in my lap while you walked through the door of your silence, hunting knife in one hand, flask in the other. I waited for you until I forgot to breathe, my want turning me colors only tongues of amaryllis could answer for. It owned me, that hunger, tendriled its way into my name for you. III. In a city made of rain each door, a silence; each lock, a mouth, I walked daily through the spit-slick streets, harbingers on my hands in henna: there will be no after Black-and-blue-garbed strangers, they called me Cassandra. (I had such a body then.) Umbrellas in hand, they listened while they unlistened. there will be no no. after

the world will end no.

you are the reason it no. ends

you no. IV. I didn’t exactly mean to survive myself. Half this life I’ve spent falling out of fourth-story windows. Pigeons for hair, wind for feet. Sometimes I sing “Stormy Weather” on the way down. Today, “Strange Fruit.” Each time, strangers find me drawing my own chalk outline on the sidewalk, cursing with a mouth full of iron, furious at my pulse. V. After ruin, after shards of glass like misplaced stars, after dredge, after the black bite of frost: you are the after, you are the first hour in a life without clocks; the name of whatever falls from the clouds now is you (it is not rain), a song in a dead language, an unlit earth, a coast broken— how was I to know every word was your name?

“Coming Back from Seeing Your People” by Alice Walker

Coming back From seeing your people You were So wonderfully Full Of yourself.

But now You have supped With vampires They have fed Feasted On you.

They arise Bright-eyed Fit.

You alone have lost Not only Your sleep But also Your glow The luster of Affection Heart welcome Your people Sent home With you.

Beloved You must learn To walk alone To hold The precious Silence To bring home And keep the precious Little That is left Of yourself.

“Edward the Confessor” by Eileen Myles

I have a confession to make I wish there were some role in society I could fulfill I could be a confessor I have a confession to make I have this way when I step into the bakery on 2nd Ave. of wanting to be the only really nice person in the store so the harried sales woman with several toned hair will like me. I do this in all kinds of stores, coffee shops xerox shops, everywhere I go. And invariably I leave my keys, xeroxing, my coffee from the last place I am being so nice. I try so hard to make a great impression on these neutral strangers right down to the perfect warm smile I get entirely lost and stagger back out onto the street, bereft of something major. It’s really leaning too hard on the everyday. My mother was the kind of woman who dragging us into stores always seemed to charm the pants off the cashier. She was such a great person, so human though at home she was such a bitch, I mean really distant. I imitate her and I don’t do it well. She didn’t leave her wallet or us in a store. I’m just a pale imitation it is simply not my style to open the hearts of strangers to my true personhood. I hope you accept this tiny confession of what I am currently going through. And if you are experiencing something of a similar nature tell someone, not me, but tell someone. It’s the new human program to be in. It would be nice for at least these final moments if we could sigh with the relief of being in the same program with all the other humans whispering in school. I can’t quite locate the terror, but I am trying to be my mother or Edward the Confessor smiling down on you with up-praying hands. I am looking down at the tips of my boots as I step across the balcony of the church excited to be allowed to say these things. Outside my church is a relationship. On 11th street this guy and this woman are selling the woman so they can get more dope. All their things are there, rags and loaves of bread and make-up. And there was— this was incredible. Two men lying by the door of the church giving each other blow-jobs. They were sort of street guys, one black one white. I said hey you can’t do that here. They jumped up, one spit come out of his mouth. If you don’t get out of here I’ll call the cops. Don’t call the cops we’ll go, we’ll leave. That was a shock. That was more than I expected to see in a day. Something about seeing the guy spit come out of his mouth. He didn’t have to do that. I guess I scared him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was scared too.

#btw!!!! i'm sorry!!! SO SORRY it took me weeks to reply 🤕#hope you're having good days <3 #💌

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johannesviii · 3 years

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Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2020

You know, when I finished my latest list and realised every decade had the same pattern and that we were slowly going towards a series of great years for pop, I didn’t realise how good that year would be.

What’s at the top? Am I boringly predictable because I already said I loved that song all the way back in January 2020? Let’s find out.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will probably be stuff in French somewhere on this post. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

So. Uh. How was your 2020?

Mine was actually surprisingly good, considering. I’m lucky enough to have a job that I can partially do from home, and I was extremely paranoid from the get-go and nobody got sick under this roof so far. Turns out I’m even better at my job from home and I got permission to work from home one day per week even after the health crisis is over! My first name was also finally officially approved and I can’t tell you how happy I feel about that. I almost feel bad to have had such a good year considering the circumstances. I feel like an asshole just because I’m happy, haha.

The only frustrating part was that I was supposed to see Hatari in concert in Paris in early April which, as you can guess, was cancelled. I’m not too mad about it though, since their tour was called “Europe will crumble” and the message saying the tour was cancelled started with “since Europe is actually crumbling due to Covid-19″ and that’s hysterical.

Good or interesting albums that came out in 2020 now, let’s see.

Nightwish released Human/Nature, which was a huge letdown compared to their previous album, but I will relisten to it at some point to make sure I wasn’t just in a bad mood that day.

The Birthday Massacre released Diamonds, which might be their weakest album since their debut, but contained some real gems (I listened to The Last Goodbye on a loop, it floored me. Flashback and Enter are also very good).

The 1975 released Notes On A Conditional Form, and let’s be real, it’s a f█cking mess. You could cut half the tracks and end up with an excellent album, but as it is it’s like, yes, a collection of notes ; however there’s some truely excellent shit on it (see unelligible songs).

Thanks to a friend on a discord server I was exposed to Dorian Electra’s music and I haven’t been quite the same ever since. I’m so happy to be alive to see other enbies making such great music with an insanely good aesthetic surrounding it and asking so many interesting questions about gender. Also the arc the ‘gentleman’ character goes through over the course of the entire tracklist of the 2020 My Agenda album is absolutely hilarious, don’t @ me.

I also discovered 100 Gecs this year. Why are most of you guys saying it’s unlistenable garbage. It’s just as abrasive and over the top as industrial music is, but with none of the edginess or drama. I love it. What the hell. But yeah Tree of Clues was released this year. Good.

Speaking of industrial, in March 2020 Nine Inch Nails were like “hey remember when we released Ghosts I-IV a decade ago entirely for free and how amazing that was? Well we’re all in lockdown and bored as hell so here’s Ghosts V-VI and it’s also free. Enjoy” and I f█cking died instantly. And it’s even better than I-IV. What the hell was that year

Jonsi released Shiver. It’s strange and highly experimental. I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing I was into hyperpop this year, otherwise going from his previous material straight to this album would have been brutal.

Yadda yadda yadda After Hours by the Weeknd good yadda yadda.

I’ve joked about that already but if you had told me in 2019 that 2020 would have fires, a pandemic, riots, monoliths appearing and disappearing, and also a super good Machine Gun Kelly album, guess which part I would have found the most ridiculous. But yeah uh. Tickets to my Downfall good

So uh this year I tried to listen to some hyperpop and liked it a lot, and I also dipped my toes timidly into screamo and listened to Svalbard, who released When I Die this year, and the entire album was a very beautiful, very intricately decorated punch to the face. It sounds like God Is An Astronaut except with a shit ton of yelling. I love it. Open Wound is my favorite track on it.

But no, despite all of this, my album of the year was from a band I had never even heard about before that year, called Spanish Love Songs. The album is titled Brave Faces Everyone and it’s line after line after line of extremely relatable generational angst but yelled with complete sincerity and it’s so propulsive and energetic you can’t help but feel both exhausted and ready to fight the entire universe. I don’t know how it works, but it’s incredible. The entire album is wonderfully brutal, so it’s kind of difficult to pick my favorite songs on it, but Beachfront Property and the title track stand out.

Unelligible songs, now, and there’s, uh, quite a few of them too so I’m also gonna use bullet points. Good lord this post is gonna be long.

First, let me say I have literally no idea why Midnight Sky by Miley Cyrus wasn’t a bigger hit. It’s not on the year-end US top 100 and it feels extremely wrong. Would have made it to #4 on this list otherwise.

I still entertain the vague hope that stuff from Machine Gun Kelly will chart higher in 2021 but I doubt it will happen so I might as well tackle it now and say that Bloody Valentine and especially Forget Me Too are both excellent and that it’s a shame radios aren’t playing them more often.

Heaven by the late Avicii featuring Coldplay should have charted in 2019 and still didn’t chart in 2020 and that’s a real shame.

If the world was a bit less unfair, Lovesick Girls by Blackpink would have been a hit rather than the awful Ice Cream.

One day I will stop complaining about my bafflement concerning the lack of mainstream pop charts success of The 1975. Today is not that day. I just love how they keep making songs about extremely awkward relationships full of weird details, and I haven’t grown tired of that yet. So yeah If You’re Too Shy is about a guy who’s crush is asking him to get naked on Skype in his hotel room and he’s, uh, not too sure about that idea.

And Me & You Together is about a guy who never finds the right moment to tell his best friend he’s in love with her, and he manages to do so at the end and it’s cute as hell. My fave part is “I'm sorry that I'm kinda queer / It's not as weird as it appears / It's 'cause my body doesn't stop me (Stop me) / Oh, it's okay, lots of people think I'm gay / But we're friends, so it's cool, why would it not be?”. Relatable as f█ck.

And now for an international hit that should have been bigger in the US and/or in my country but wasn’t: Head & Heart by Joel Corry and MNEK.

I’ve heard Nos Célébrations by Indochine extremely often on French radio for months now so I was very surprised to see that it didn’t crack the local year-end list. What happened.

I can finally hear the appeal of Bring Me The Horizon. It took me ages. And also Death Stranding. The song Ludens isn’t in the game per say, but it’s among the ones you can pick to broadcast briefly when people drive by your constructions, and long story short it's been living rent-free in my head for months now.

Phew.

It’s time for a round of Honorable Mentions for elligible songs, containing a couple of guilty pleasures, which is saying something considering the kind of shit I put on some of my previous lists.

Ne Reviens Pas (Gradur et Heuss l’Enfoiré) - Heuss is a French artist that kept baffling me while making my lists for the previous years, and I was like “??? ok, that’s it then, I guess I’m getting too old to get what teenagers find funny”. This one worked for me, though. And the music video doesn’t hurt. Really dumb and really fun.

Adore You (Harry Styles) - Perfectly good little pop song, very pleasant to listen to, never outstayed its welcome for me.

Mood (24kGoldn) - This doesn’t sound like a very good relationship, my dude, but that’s still a super pleasant song.

WAP (Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion) - This song is absolutely hilarious and I will hear no argument from any of you.

Control (Zoe Wees) - Was clearly a hit here. Should have been even bigger though. What a powerful but comfy voice. If I had better taste it would be on the list.

Hot Girl Bummer (Blackbear) - I. Uh. Listen. I keep saying I have bad taste and nobody believes me. Do you believe me now. But yeah. “F█ck you, and you, and you~, I hate your friends and they hate me too” is gonna pop in my head every single time someone is being a jerk anywhere near me now. It’s been happening all year already. Someone trashed my documents at work? Someone isn’t wearing a mask in public? That guy has filled his car with rolls of toilet paper? Brain goes “F█ck you, and you, and you~”. Every. Single. Time.

Come & Go (Juice WRLD & Marshmello ) - Damn, that’s a pretty good little song. I’ve seen plenty of people saying it’s ruined by the drop, but may I remind you I’m the person who loves Blue by Eiffel 65 with all my heart. If the song was ramping up consistently until the end instead of ending like that, it would have made the list, definitely.

And now, the actual list. This one actually feels pretty solid, I genuinely like everything on it, there’s no filler here for once.

10 - The Box (Roddy Rich)

US: #3 / FR: #23

Now this is a weird case, because for the longest time I couldn’t figure out why this song was so popular and I was completely neutral about it. Then, one morning in September, my mental jukebox (which always, always puts a song on a loop in my head when I wake up) decided to play it. And I was like oh wow?? I never noticed the atmosphere in that song before? It’s so great. And that hook too. Let’s listen to it.

So yeah, I don’t know what happened. It just clicked one day and everything fell into place, I guess.

9 - Alane (Wes & Robin Shulz)

US: Not on the list / FR: #93

Come on. You can’t do a remake of one of my previous #1 songs and let it chart in 2020. That’s cheating. Even with this subpar drop, I have to put it on the list, now.

I’ve already said my piece about the original, so I’m just going to send you back to my 1997 list.

8 - Kings and Queens (Ava Max)

US: Not on the list / FR: #76

[BBC documentary voice] After Lady Gaga decided to make piano balads and left her musical niche vacant, Ava Max quickly took her place as the top predator pop diva. Even after Lady Gaga was re-introduced to her natural habitat in 2020, she still hasn’t fully recovered in Europe, where Ava Max still reigns supreme on the charts -

(tldr I think it’s hilarious that this isn’t on the US Billboard while Lady Gaga isn’t on the French year-end top 100)

7 - Roses (Saint Jhn & Imanbek)

US: #19 / FR: #3

What an earworm. It doesn’t even bother trying to have an intro or an outro, so it loops almost perfectly. It’s like entering a party that started long before you arrived, and it will go on long after you leave it to go back home. Kind of hypnotic in a way.

And yes, my mental jukebox was very fond of using it to wake me up this year, so this is another song that’s here almost solely because of that.

6 - Physical (Dua Lipa)

US: Not on the list / FR: #69 (hehehe)

“Hey I’m not that old” says the guy who’s definitely a sucker for this kind of retro throwback that was so popular this year. Oh well.

I don’t have anything interesting to say about this one, though. Apart from the fact that everyone seems to have a different fave song on that album. Guess that’s quality for you.

5 - Rain on Me (Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande)

US: #48 / FR: Not on the list

That is far from being Lady Gaga’s best song, but it was a joy to listen to everytime it was on the radio anyway. Also Ariana Grande has surprisingly good chemistry with Gaga! This year was full of strange duets mostly made for commercial reasons, and this one isn’t an exception, but unlike a lot of them, it really, really works.

4 - Dynamite (BTS)

US: #38 / FR: Not on the list

I’m still not 100% sold on k-pop even if a ton of it sounds super good, but come on. Even if some bits of this song (especially the beginning of the second chorus) sound a bit like they were made on autopilot, it still sounds just as happy and fun several months after I first heard it and I never got tired of it. That’s quality. You hear it and you can’t help but tap your feet and smile.

Actually, I’m sure there’s people somewhere that don’t smile when they hear this song. And they must be avoided at all costs.

3 - Godzilla (Eminem ft Juice WRLD)

US: #62 / FR: Not on the list

What are you doing so high on this list, old man. Why are you still here in the year 2020. I thought we left you in the previous decade. Who gave you the right.

I’m gonna tell you who did, and it’s actually Juice WRLD. Because that chorus is incredible, and like a lot of people I’m pissed off because the guy died super young and this shit shouldn’t happen to anybody. No, his early material wasn’t great, but I’m sorry I’m gonna say it again: have you heard this damn chorus? It’s suspenseful and dark, it’s got this lowkey menacing quality, it’s an earworm and a half, and it’s more convincing in like six lines than Eminem’s own flexing is in the entire song.

The beat is extremely good as well, and the flow, obviously, impressive. The weakest link is Eminem’s writing, which is as usual full of puns and weird wordplay, except here a lot of it isn’t great, and that last ultra fast part at the end is technically impressive but it also drives the song up a cliff and stops it dead in its tracks once it’s over. But frankly the lines fly by so fast it’s difficult to be too annoyed by them.

Can I sincerely put this extremely flawed song so high on my list? A better question would be “did I spend hours trying to learn how to sing this shit without choking on my own spit?”. The answer is yes. To both.

2 - Heartless (The Weeknd)

US: #28 / FR: Not on the list

I’ve said it on my 2015 and 2016 lists already, but just for the record I’ll say it again: it took me ages to like The Weeknd, mostly because I found most of his songs fairly boring, or disliked the lyrics, or both. Also I never really liked the general vibe of his “sexy” songs like The Hills, they felt dark but in an unpleasant creepy way. Felt like miserable hedonism, if that makes sense.

So, because I’m a person with extremely consistent and logical tastes, here’s the exact same shit he was making before, except that this time I absolutely adore it.

What is he doing differently that makes the whole After Hours album click for me whereas almost all of his previous material failed to do so? Is it the energy? Is it the reverb? Is it the fact that the narrator sounds properly unhinged and, frankly, scared to be spiralling out of control? Why are the colors so beautiful yet full of anxiety? Why is that bridge so fantastic? How can you make your voice look like a glowstick in the dark?

I give up. I have no clue. At least I’m done talking about-

Oh.

1 - Blinding Lights (The Weeknd)

US: #1 / FR: #1 (listen sometimes something’s just that good, ok)

Surprise. Or not.

Wow, look at that, Johannes has put this year’s number one pop song at number one on their personal playlist. The audacity. The edge. What a hot take.

I discovered that song when it first came out at the end of 2019 and I adored it instantly. And I was so scared it wouldn’t be a hit. Which means I’m a f█cking dumbass considering it ended up breaking all sorts of records in 2020. But what can I say, overplay can be a blessing when you love a song that much.

Like every single song I put at number one on one of my lists, I will draw this one at some point and you will understand how incredibly satisfying it is to listen to a song called Blinding Lights, talking about city lights looking blurry when you’re driving at night, while looking itself like a bunch of blurry city lights passing by super fast. Perfect in every way.

Also it sounds exactly like A-ha, and that never hurts.

See you next year! Pretty sure it will be even better music-wise.

#Johannes’ bad not good pretty terrible music lists #music #long post #eye contact tw

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felixnation · 4 years

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THE TOP 10 WORST KPOP SONGS OF 2020

(WARNING: I DON’T LIKE THESE SONGS AND WILL BE MEAN AT THEM. I DO NOT HAVE ANY PERSONAL BEEF WITH ANY OF THESE GROUPS OR ARTISTS SO DON’T COME FOR ME IF YOUR FAVE MADE A STINKER TRACK THIS YEAR.)

Ah, 2020. The year where disco came back, the 80s came back, and everyone was titling their songs after nonsense words. It was a good year for k-pop overall, with a lot of new trends entering the game towards the end of summer. However, there were some real clunkers that refused to get out of my head this quarantine and pissed me off to varying degrees each time I heard them. This list is an attempt to chronicle all of those.

So without further ado, let’s get this shit done.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

NCT 127 - PUNCH This isn't actually a bad song, hence it only making it to the honorable mentions section. In fact, I think this could've easily made the best list had it not been for one thing, and that's the presence of NCT 127, namely their rap line. The instrumental on this thing is absolutely killer and one of the best productions to come out of SM in a long time. The entire thing is bizarrely structured and incredibly gutsy, and therefore I think it's a travesty that an instrumental this incredible was drowned in ASMR-esque whispers and EYYYY WE BALLINs. There are a few salvageable sections, namely the first post-chorus, and we see glimmers of NCT 127's true potential, should they choose to explore this sound further.

CIGNATURE - NUN NU NAN NA Similar to Punch, I admire the production choices here - there are a few sections that blast you with 100gecs-esque womps, and that's always something I enjoy. The vast majority of the song rarely dips below decent territory, but since the entire thing hinges on the titular hook, it ends up falling apart right when it needs to bring the hype the most. I mean, building a hook around those notes was...an interesting choice, I guess. It reminds me a lot of fromis_9's FUN!, which also constructed the entire song around a terrible set of notes. Listen to them yell that hook at you and tell me it doesn't sound off. Most frustrating song of 2020.

ONG SEONG WU - GRAVITY Have you ever heard a drop this weak? I sure haven't. I hate the way he says DIVING INTO YOUR LOVE, the over-enunciation kills me and there's one syllable too many. Also, thanks Ong Seong Wu for giving CRAVITY the promo they deserve.

BTS - FLY TO MY ROOM I can't relax while listening to this, the beat is so sparse and has this nauseous sway to it that really makes me feel like I'm reliving these past 9 months of quarantine all over again. And just like quarantine, it really feels like this goddamn thing never ends. That final set of choruses is really a chore to get through, and I'm not the only one who thinks so - shout out to Taehyung for serving taste and I'm sorry Jimin convinced you to sing out of your natural range yet again.

TREASURE - MMM Ew.

I*ZONE - FIESTA It's a pretty standard girl group song up until that chorus hits and oh my god, who on earth produced this? Are they actively trying to trigger my psychosis? There are so many sounds happening that it feels like three or four demo tracks laid on top of each other, it makes me confused even trying to figure out what's going on here. And that post-chorus drop is horrendous, it's like the instrumental is literally screaming into my ear STREAM BLOOM*IZ!!! STREAM BLOOM*IZ YOU DUMB CUCK!!! YOU LOVE IT!!!

NOW FOR THE REAL LIST.

#10: TAEYEON - HAPPY

I do not like this. Taeyeon has one of the most powerful voices in the industry and instead of putting it to good use, she decided to put out the musical equivalent of eating a stick of butter. Bland, horrible texture, seems to go on forever and ever, you know you shouldn't be consuming it and you don't know why you're doing this to yourself, etc.

The MV contributed to my dislike, with Taeyeon whitewashed all the way into uncanny valley as she lounges around her beautiful apartment. Well of course you'd be happy if you lived in a place like that, I know I would. The sad thing is that there's some really nice vocal work here and there, but for the majority of the song, Taeyeon decides to serenade us in the most nasal tone that she can muster. I know she can sing better than this, and I'm disappointed in her for creating this and unleashing it on the world.

#9: WEKI MEKI - OOPSY

Whereas Picky Picky was annoying in the best way possible, Oopsy is annoying in the worst way possible. The instrumental legitimately sounds cheap, the drums sound so tinny and artificial that it's hard on the ears. Not to mention the hook, wherein the girls force their voices as high as they can go as they proclaim OOPSY!

I'm a huge fan of cute concepts, but when it comes to putting out a high-energy sugary track like this, you're walking a fine line between adorable and irritating. Weki Meki didn't even try to walk the line, they just dove headfirst into irritating territory without a care in the world. It literally feels like the audio equivalent of having to hold a whiny toddler and then it pisses itself and the mom is just cooing about how her little darling made an oopsy.

#8: VICTON - MAYDAY

It feels like for most of the year, the vast majority of boy groups were stuck in a rut, knee-deep in sludgy EDM and leather harnesses. You know the songs I'm talking about, and I could've put any one of them here, but I chose this one purely because that chorus makes me feel like I have a concussion. I don't like this song nor the trend it's representative of - I spent most of quarantine having the same dark BG concepts thrown at me over and over and I'm glad things are starting to take a bit of a turn.

The bridge on this is actually pretty great, and the guys in VICTON do know how to sing, as can be seen in the final post-chorus. But man, there's just nothing fresh being brought to the table here, just the same stale trends in their worst form yet. The hook is so slow and drowsy, the same few notes just repeated over and over. I have not seen the MV because I feel like I can picture it well enough in my head just by listening. Are there harnesses? Don't forget those, boys.

#7: MCND - SPRING

Only Pentagon are allowed to do these concepts.

#6: HYO, LOOPY, SOYEON - DESSERT

This is genuinely unlistenable as soon as the drop hits, with a vocal stitching job that might be a horn synth, I'm not sure. That's how annoying it is. The producer is clearly incompetent and the performers are oozing with personality, though not the pleasant sort. The hook is bratty and the raps here are beyond generic. After the halfway point, there are a couple interesting sounds thrown into the mix, but it's not enough to save things.

Soyeon in particular sounds awful here, with her iconic nasally tone morphing into something genuinely irritating and borderline spiteful. Age up the toddler from the Oopsy comparison to around 7 or 8 and that's basically what you've got here. All I can hope is that this song is not influential in any way, shape or form, because I just had a vision of Blackpink imitating this production style and I felt a shiver run down my spine.

#5: SECRET NUMBER - WHO DIS?

I'm not sure how many Secret Number fans are out there, but I'm about to make all of em real mad at me right about now. However, it must be said.

This is basically Your Turn by Kaachi again.

I don't think I need to explain that hot take, just listen to the song. It's surprisingly amateurish, to the point where I feel like the vocals aren't in sync and they just used the first take they got from each girl. The raps in particular are awful, and I swear they even sound like they go off-key a couple of times. How this blew up in any aspect is bizarre to me. Anyways, stream Photo Magic and stan Kaachi.

#4: BAEKHYUN - CANDY

Did you want a k-pop version of Yummy by Justin Bieber? No? Well, Baekhyun decided to make it anyways! At least Yummy was sort of funny in how bad it is, this is just...a somber affair. Inexplicably, he manages to oversing the final third of the song, which I don't get the point of, but okay. Lazy, underproduced and overproduced at the same time, bland, boring, annoying...

Wait, did he just say...

Okay, I changed my mind, this is hysterical. Like Pop rocks, strawberry, bubble gum...

#3: (G)-IDLE - DUMDI DUMDI

I'm so sick of this group's 'ethnic' schtick, it's like they never learn. They just don't give a fuck - after a string of genuinely great tracks like Hann, Lion, and Oh My God, they just decide to put out this shit and expect me to listen to it? They're a group with a lot of potential, with some brilliant vocalists and the talent that is Soyeon (who really loves being on this list, apparently) but if they continue down the path of using different cultures as concepts I can't support them any further.

The song itself has salvageable parts, a recurring theme on this list, but the over-the-top tribal influences are so obvious and tropey that even listening to it feels gross. (G)-Idle have more creative control than most groups, and the fact that they're capable of creating works of art like Lion is what makes me harsh on them. Instead of moving forward, they continue to regress into their comfort zone of cultural appropriation.

#2 YOOA - BON VOYAGE

Speaking of cultural appropriation...are we gonna address this? Nah? Okay.

Oh My Girl, YooA's parent group, has a history of blatant cultural appropriation (and arguably some legit racist moments depending on how you look at it) and they seem like they're not changing anytime soon. That's why this particular song stings even more than it probably should. If you thought Dumdi Dumdi's tribal influences were a little too on the nose, take a listen to this chorus.

YooA has a bad voice, is wearing tribal face paint, and is running around the wilderness whitewashed into oblivion while a choir of nameless voices chant vaguely tribal things behind her. Even in an industry like k-pop, this sticks out as something in bafflingly poor taste, and I can't see how she got away with this in 2020.

#1 BLACKPINK & SELENA GOMEZ - ICE CREAM

Well, this is a predictable pick.

I don't know why or how Blackpink thought they could get away with drip-feeding blinks content for 4 goddamn years in the lead-up to their first album, only to drop this big fat clunker on them. I honestly felt insulted by the song, from its cheap, tinny production to the god-awful lyrics. I don't know how anyone could find any value in a piece of music this soulless and hollow.

Lisa's raps are by far the worst part of it, with FIRE BARS such as "you're the one been chosen, play the part like moses" and "mona lisa kinda lisa". Unfortunately, these raps take up a good portion of the song, and there's nothing going on in the instrumental to distract you from them, save for that little ice cream truck jingle. (or at least I think that's what the producer was going for)

Selena is a non-presence and essentially blends in with the girls, who WAIL that awful hook like their lives depend on it. Also, there's some really cheesy innuendos here that're sung with all the sex appeal of the actual ice cream truck driver from literally your neighborhood.

I loathe what this song represents - the only good thing about it is that the girls look stunning in the MV. And that's exactly the thing - this song represents the exact moment in time wherein Blackpink admitted to their audience that music is no longer their main focus. This is the peak of their influencer-ization, and only time will tell if they'll redeem themselves. (Spoiler: They sort of did, goddammit.)

#kpop #worst kpop #kpop review #review #yooa bon voyage #blackpink ice cream #mcnd spring #dumdi dumdi #baekhyun candy #victon mayday #secret number #taeyeon happy #weki meki

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keatondj · 4 years

Text

My Personal Ranking of Lady Gaga’s Discography

The time has come. The day has arrived. I am so excited to finally do this list!

Lady Gaga is one of the most influential, innovative, and incomparable artists of this generation. I think her to be one of the greatest musical artists to ever live. Her impact on pop culture as a whole cannot be ignored, and her talents as a singer/songwriter is limitless.

I remember first seeing her perform on So You Think You Can Dance with that iconic bleach-blonde, sharp-edged wig and those LED glasses with text on them and being absolutely mesmerized. Ever since that performance, I had been a casual fan, but absolute admirer of her music. Around 2016-2017 is when I decided to listen to pop music more regularly, and the first artist I knew I had to add to my library was Gaga. It was then that I listened to all her albums and officially became a Little Monster.

Each one of her albums is so incredibly unique, yet so undeniably Gaga at the same time. With the recent release of her sixth studio album Chromatica, I can now finally give my ranking of her incredible discography. I will only be covering her solo studio albums, so A Star Is Born and Cheek to Cheek will not be included.

A new thing I want to add to each album review is add a superlative that the album possesses to showcase its respective strength in the discography as a whole.

Reminder: this is my opinion. Everyone has a different ear, and certain sounds and songs resonate with different people. I’m just sharing my personal thoughts and experiences with these albums.

6. Joanne (2016)

This feels like pure blasphemy to put this album as the lowest ranking on the list when it is objectively one of Gaga’s strongest and more mature albums. It showcases her versatility as a songwriter to the nth degree, and she is the most vocally ferocious on this album.

It is incredibly top-heavy for my taste (the first seven songs are absolutely sublime to listen to). It’s unfortunate, but from “Sinner’s Prayer” to the end, the album becomes borderline unlistenable to me. Gaga’s vocal delivery on the last few songs seems over-dramatic and unauthentic, and also technically not up to par with what I know she can do.

I think the big concern about Joanne is the feigned nature that I think I’m listening to. Gaga has always been theatrical and performative with her music, but with Joanne, I don’t seem to buy it as well. It suits a more dance-pop and electronic feel that we know and love her for. Maybe that’s the gay sensibilities in me talking; that’s just how I feel.

She was far more successful with the A Star Is Born soundtrack in terms of writing for this genre. I applaud Gaga for going out on a limb with this massive genre shift, and it worked well, for the most part.

Favorite Songs: “Diamond Heart” through “Million Reasons”

Superlatives: Most Stripped, Most Diverse

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5. Artpop (2013)

I have very conflicted feelings about this album. At its best, it is exploratory, imaginative, and audacious. At its worst, it’s ostentatious, inaccessible, and clumsy.

It undoubtedly has some of Gaga’s sickest and coolest production to date; she really amped up the electronic feel for this album. She also experimented with several contemporary genres (hip hop, R&B, dubstep, trap, rock, etc.) quite skillfully on various tracks like “MANiCURE”, “Do What U Want”, and “Swine”. However, the production does go overboard sometimes, creating a heavy and clunky sound (”Swine” often becomes very harsh to listen to).

Lyrically, I find that it can be very distant, boastful, and vain. Certain songs like “Donatella” and “Fashion” are very specific to Gaga’s lifestyle and obvious love for high fashion, but it is not relatable to the common listener (or at least not me). The extravagant nature of the songs, and even the album as a whole, is hard to really dive into.

I still love this album a lot, but more like as a guilty pleasure. I see many people regard it to be her underrated masterpiece, and I understand where they are coming from, but find them to be misguided. It’s a strong piece of work, but Gaga just shot for the stars and went a little too far for her own good.

Favorite Songs: “Aura”, “Venus”, “G.U.Y.”, “Sexxx Dreams”, “ARTPOP”, “Applause”

Superlatives: Most Experimental, Most Bold

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4. The Fame (2008)

It truly pains me to put this album so low because it’s the record that introduced us to the brilliance of her work and it features some of my absolute favorite Gaga tracks on it (”Poker Face” still hits hard even today). I cannot let the nostalgic nature of the album cloud my judgment, though. This only goes to show how incredibly strong her discography is; we are really splitting hairs at this point.

What Gaga did for the music industry back in 2008 is insurmountable and outrageous. She brought back the four-to-the-floor sound to the radio in a campy and edgy way that we had never heard before. She will most likely be the biggest juggernaut of an artist I will ever see in my lifetime; she will define my era of music as a child. This is the era I mainly associate with the iconic nature of Lady Gaga.

It’s comparatively tame to her other work since she was still testing the waters and figuring herself out as an artist. But by 2008′s standards, terms like “disco stick” and “bluffin with my muffin” were totally out-there and controversial. Songs like “Paparazzi”, “LoveGame” and “Poker Face” pushed the envelope and influenced many artists for years to come.

Besides the lead singles, many of the songs on the album are not too remarkable and probably the closest thing you can classify as “filler tracks”. They’re inconsequential, generic, and uneventful compared to the powerhouse singles.

While these songs also deal with fame and the opulent lifestyle like the ones I mentioned for ARTPOP, they were written from the perspective of someone who was not yet famous. The whole idea of the album is playing with the universal dream and fantasy of what fame is like. In turn, that make the album so much more relatable, universal, and engaging.

This is one of the greatest debut albums ever produced, and it paved the way for Gaga’s career and artistry. I’m happy to say that it basically gets close to pop perfection from here on out.

Favorite Songs: “Just Dance”, “LoveGame”, “Poker Face”, “The Fame”, “Starstruck”

Superlatives: Most Revolutionary, Most Iconic

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3. Chromatica (2020)

This is the first album of her work that I was eagerly waiting for as a proper Little Monster. I was absolutely ecstatic when the first information about the album was coming out, including the singles. It was the album that I had been waiting for for a long time... and it absolutely delivered. It was everything I needed it to be and more.

Vocally, it is Gaga’s most impressive work to date. Her voice has matured so beautifully over the past 12 years, and she has learned to use her upper register in the D5-F5 range more healthily, powerfully, and consistently than before. There were several moments throughout the album that I was gobsmacked at the force of her voice.

I will admit it is the most “tame” of all her works in terms of the outlandish and campy nature with which we know her for (just ahead of The Fame). Instead, she writes with more sophistication, finesse, and honesty that has come with more experience. On first listen, it seems rudimentary, but as time goes on, the inner complexities of the album start to reveal themselves.

For being a straight-up dance album through and through, it is brutally honest and personal. There is real pain and heartache that is displayed through much of the album, and Gaga is using music as a means of catharsis to release the pain. It makes the album incredibly relatable and accessible, allowing the listeners to dance through the pain. Released in a time when the whole world was faced with such uncertainty and worry, this album is definitely a great outlet for those looking for comfort.

Being as huge of a fan of artists like Kylie Minogue, Robyn, and Carly Rae Jepsen as I am, this album truly delivers on the dance/dance-pop department. The production is impeccably done and spearheaded by Bloodpop (who I hope is Gaga’s main collaborator from now on). Even the Chromatica interludes are stunningly gorgeous and inform how the next act of the album will go. In my opinion, Act I of the album (Tracks 1-6) is absolute pop perfection; I wouldn’t change a single thing about any of those tracks.

The album may run a little short, and it’s tamer compared to her earlier works, but it is still brilliant nonetheless. With a collaboration with the reigning Princess of Pop, Ariana Grande, you know it has to be amazing. This will absolutely go down as one of the best dance albums ever written. This is Gaga’s return to form, and we have been so blessed.

(Ok, but Chromatica II into 911 is THE serve. She did THAT. Do you know what she did? THAT.)

Favorite Songs: “Chromatica I”, “Alice”, “Stupid Love”, “Rain On Me”, “Free Woman”, “Fun Tonight”, “911″, “1000 Doves”

Superlatives: Most Cohesive, Most Personal

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2. The Fame Monster (2009)

I’m gonna be perfectly honest here: it took the longest time for this album to grow on me. Even longer than ARTPOP. But with time, I was finally able to see just how sleek, crisp, and perfect of an album this really is.

This was Gaga’s expansion to The Fame that she wrote based on her experiences with touring, fame, and the toll that can take on someone. It is a concept album with each song being based on a personal fear of Gaga’s that I am sure were all amplified with the high intensity of being a pop star.

You can immediately tell the difference between this album and its predecessor. It’s darker, it’s sexier, and it’s candid. Where The Fame was written from a place of imagination and wonder, this was written from a place of truth and fear. The amount of growth that came from just a year on the road is staggering.

It is undeniably her most polished album in terms of production and composition. It took the ambition of sonic perfection that The Fame was going for, and amped it up even more. Each song has its own feel to it, but they all work together so well as an album.

There is one song that makes this album imperfect and keeps it from my number one spot, and the song will make tons of Little Monsters angry: “Speechless”. I just don’t like it, no matter how many times I’ve tried to get into it. It’s written in C major (my least favorite key), it’s overly sentimental and hokey, and it disrupts the flow of pop that keeps the album together. I know it’s an incredibly personal song for her, but it is just mediocre to me; I skip it everytime.

Other than that, I think the album is absolute perfection. “Bad Romance” is one of the most iconic and influential songs in her songbook and even the Great American Songbook, and the non-singles are just as powerful, if not better. This album is the standard to which Gaga is held, and any album in the future will struggle to hold its own against this amazing work. Except one. ;)

Favorite Songs: “Bad Romance”, “Alejandro”, “Monster”, “Dance In The Dark”, “So Happy I Could Die”

Superlatives: Most Polished, Most Dark

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1. Born This Way (2011)

Is there really any other option?

It’s the album that debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts. It’s the album with 5 of her most iconic and successful singles (the title song, “Judas”, “The Edge of Glory”, “You And I”, and “Marry The Night”). It’s the album that was unabashedly open about its advocacy, and gave voice to anyone who ever felt cheated by life or counted out. Of course it has to be in the number one spot.

This is Gaga at her freest, her most courageous, her most daring. She went all out in this record, and the results are absolutely remarkable. I am a massive fan of the 80′s in all aspects (especially the music), so the influence of 80′s rock and pop on the album satisfy my sensibilities swimmingly. The ingenuity and artistry which she demonstrates in the composition of this album is just mind-blowing.

“The Edge of Glory” is her best song. Hands down. No question. Bottom line, cut, and dry. The first time I heard it back in 2011 was so impactful to me. I learned just what an impressive singer Gaga is, and how powerful of a songwriter she is. It is one of the most euphoric, devil-may-care, and joyous songs ever written, and one of the most important songs in my life. The fact that it perfectly closes out the thrilling roller-coaster ride of Born This Way is the cherry on top.

It might be a little messier and imprecise than The Fame Monster, but it’s lows never get as low, and its highs are astronomically high. The arc that this album takes me through is astonishing. It is an album about celebrating life, loving others and yourself, and throwing caution to the wind. Who can’t relate to that and find comfort in it?

I could go on for ages about this album, but I’ll keep it simple. This is Gaga’s magnum opus, and one of the best pop records ever created. I am so unbelievably grateful for what it has done for my life, and it will forever be one of my favorite albums ever written. It taught me that I am unequivocally born this way, and that I should strive to be on the edge of glory.

Favorite Songs: The whole tracklist ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Superlatives: Most Daring, Most Adventurous, Most Creative

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I have been wanting to do this list for so long, and I am thrilled to finally get my thoughts out in a post. Lady Gaga is one of the best and most iconic musicals artists ever, and I am eagerly hopeful for the future of her music. I recently uploaded a reaction video of me listening to Chromatica for the first time if you’d like to watch. I am an absolute dork in it, and completely got my life on the first listen. I’ll include it as a separate post on my page as well. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/zdEH2RRc3DE

#lady gaga #the fame #the fame monster #born this way #artpop #joanne #chromatica #albums ranked #albums

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grimelords · 5 years

Photo

There is no limit to how many good songs exist! There are just so many!

My June playlist is finished, and on time too! Please enjoy all manner of bangers from Dave Brubeck, Nelly Furtado and everyone in between.

listen here

Night And Day - Hot Chip: I’ve started a band with some friends and my friend Tiana (who has requested a special shoutout in this playlist and is currently receiving it!) suggested this as a song for us to learn and she was extremely right to do it! It’s extremely funky and probably the most i’ve ever liked Hot Chip because they’ve finally allowed themselves to be emotional and feel the most important emotion of all: horniness.

Infinity Guitars - Sleigh Bells: The other day a friend of mine said ‘hey whatever happened to Sleigh Bells?’ and guess what: they have five albums and continue to release new music as recently as last year. They seem to steadfastly refuse to advance their sound and you’ve got to give them props for that. When nobody else sounds anything like you the smartest thing you can do is double down on your own weird thing. I’ve always loved this song and am totally enamoured by whatever mixing trick it is that enables this song to start loud as fuck and somehow finish even louder no matter what volume you play it at.

Hurricane - Bob Dylan: I haven’t watched the Rolling Thunder Revue thing on Netflix yet but I’m excited to because this is a good Dylan era and I’m always down for more footage of the world’s freak Bobby D acting like a maniac. This song is a good example of how have no control over how music is consumed once you release it because this is ostensibly a serious and angry protest song about a great injustice but my greatest memory of it is for at least a month when I was in boarding school a guy in my dorm would play it every morning super loud and we would all yell the words along as we were getting dressed. Having a great time being fifteen and yelling happily about a miscarriage of justice.

Grindin' - Clipse: I started putting together a playlist of songs with super minimal or no pitched instrumentation that almost totally rely on the percussion and the vocals to carry it. Basically the Pharrell special because he did it on this and Drop It Like It’s Hot and I’m sure more songs of his I haven’t heard yet. But also songs like Lipgloss by Lil Mama, Fix Up Look Sharp by Dizzee Rascal, Tipsy By J-Kwon (almost if it didn’t have the baseline) and The Whisper Song by The Ying Yang Twins. There’s heaps more I’m sure. It was a real minimal style for a little while in the mid 2000s and I think it’s great. It gives you so much space in the mix and it’s a great lesson: if the beat is hot enough and you’ve got enough charisma to carry the vocal you don’t need anything else at all.

Rock Lobster - The B-52's: Did you know the guitar in this is tuned CFFFFF? Did you know this song is nearly 7 minutes long? Did you know The B-52s had a hit with this and then didn’t have another hit until Love Shack fully ten years later? Truly everything about this song is insane.

Johnny Irony - Bad//Dreems: I think ‘are you bleeding?’ is my favourite bit of pre-song hot mic dialogue i’ve ever heard. I love the energy of this song, and what a fun throwback it is to I guess reference Lead Belly’s ancient song about doing cocaine Take A Whiff On Me for a new modern twist on a song about doing cocaine.

Girls On Film - Duran Duran: Have you ever noticed how the bass in this song is absolutely popping off? It rocks. I listened to just the isolated bass track on youtube the other day and it’s my new favourite song. I’m having a big moment with this early eighties art-funk thing where someone figured out you could put huge funky basslines into rock music and completely changed the game.

Love - Lana Del Rey: I figured out this month that my vocal range seems to be just Lana Del Rey but an octave lower which is absolutely great news for anyone that wants to hear me sing this song in a cowboy voice in my car.

Want You In My Room - Carly Rae Jepsen: I am absolutely in love with this song and also absolutely furious at it. Absolutely in love with the way it’s written like a duet with herself, trading lines and overlapping and harmonising. The big ascending guitar line that leads into the chorus. I love how horny the lyrics are, I love the very 80s robot voice in the chorus who also wants to fuck. It’s just phenomenal, which brings me to the the think that makes me so furious: this song just fades out? After the second chorus just as the saxophone comes in? Just as it’s getting good???

Genevieve (Unfinished) - Jai Paul: It's just unbelievable how good this sounds. The bass sound. The way the whole mix seems to float around. The cuts to silence that feel like someone took a razor randomly to the master. It all culminates in this frenetic nervous energy that feels like the song could just fall apart and stop at any point. And it does! It just fades to silence and then comes back in as a totally different song near the end before fading away again.

Elephant Talk - King Crimson: King Crimson is on Spotify now and I’m comically striking them off my list of Bands I Have A Grudge Against For Not Being On Spotify. It’s always kind of surprised me that for someone who loved The Mars Volta as much as I did I never really had a big King Crimson phase. I always liked them fine, and I love this song, but I never really sat down and gave them a proper listen. Maybe now they’re on streaming that’s all about to change and my girlfriend will have to suffer accordingly.

Kids In The Dark - Bat For Lashes: Very excited for Bat For Lashes next album if this is an indication of the direction. She's always had a very hazy 80s feeling, so purposefully leaning into it is only going to be great.

CHORDS For Organ - Ellen Arkbro: My favourite lady is back with 15 minutes of rock solid chords. Something I've been thinking recently in regards to Ellen Arkbro and Holly Herndon is people who make pretentious art unpretentiously, truly believing in their process and outcomes but very aware of and fine with the fact that it's silly, useless or unlistenable to anyone who's not interested. Ellen Arkbro posted a photo of an organ on instagram the other day and wrote "turned out this was one of the biggest instruments in berlin and it was also connected up to two other organs in the same space. Despite that I ended up playing an extremely quiet version of my music. I don't really know how that happened. I will play a louder version in st giles cripple gate in london this saturday if you're around" She posts like Courtney Barnett about her experimental organ drone music, I just love it. As for the music itself I don't really know how to explain this other than if you let it it can be extremely overwhelming. It's also the closest I've come musically to Malevich's Black Square and how I feel about that, which is hard to explain properly other that to say I love it.

SWIM - Holly Herndon: I'm obsessed with this Holly Herndon album. It's just amazing though I think the marketing and a lot of the writing about it is sort of.. misleading? There's a lot of emphasis being put on the machine learning and AI aspects of it, which as undoubtedly good and cool as they are, are sort of overshadowing what's so good about this in a simple way which is that it's just choral music for the future. It feels like it reaches so far back and so far forward at the same time it's incredible.

Too Real/Television Screens - Fontaines D.C.: I really had to stop myself from putting the whole Fontaines DC album on here because quite literally every single song on this is amazing. Just when you think guitar music is well and truly dead it pulls you back in!! Also the way he says 'aaa' at the start of Too Real just absolutely kills me.

Dangerous Match Ten - Scientist: I forget where I read it but some bass player was saying she learned to play by listening to Scientist albums, and so that made me listen to Scientist for the first time and go on a long dub trail and have a very good and dangerous day where I thought “..what if I become a dub guy?”. It’s very good. I don’t know anything about dub really, we don’t really have the jamaican population here for it to have any cultural currency like it does in america and the UK so my biggest exposure is the Dub radio station from GTA III and San Andreas which I’m now learning was mostly made up of Scientist songs anyway. Anyway dub is good, please keep an eye one me and watch as this playlist evolves into me becoming an evangelical dub guy over the next few months and start calling everyone m’brethren in a racist way.

Lipitor - Longmont Potion Castle: Lipitor. This is unfortunately unavailable on Australian spotify which is a crime but if you're from anywhere else please enjoy.

A Lot’s Gonna Change/ Andromeda - Weyes Blood: I am having such a time with this Weyes Blood album. Yesterday I spent all day playing A Lot’s Gonna Change over and over and over and today I spent all day listening to Andromeda over and over and learning how to play it. I suspect this will happen to me with the entire album, it has a complete hold over me.

I’ve listened to Weyes Blood before and she’s never really grabbed me and so it took a lot of people rhapsodising about this one to get me to give it a go and I’m so glad I finally did. This album really took me by surprise, and looking back now I love the development of her sound: from her original spacy noisy thing to the bonafide soft rock of Front Row Seat To Earth to this - an expensive sounding 70s singer songwriter pop album of absolutely devastating beauty and inventiveness.

Wasting My Young Years - London Grammar: I think what's so interesting about this song is that it sounds like an acoustic cover of a trance song. I don't really know how to explain it better than that. The way the deceptively fast four on the floor drums come in, the sort of adult-contemporary The XX instrumentation, the whole structure of it, it feels like a BBC Live Lounge cover of some forgotten rave classic. I love it regardless but it's an odd song as well.

Left Hand - Beast Coast: Beast Coast is lames and I didn't make it more that halfway through the album. On the fourth song there's a verse where one of these guys is doing that rap thing of talking way to graphically about eating pussy. He says lick lick lick it's gross. Anyway this song rocks though. The beat is that perfect mix of hard as hell and a little bit spooky and I love any song where one million guys do like four lines each.

Hung Up - Madonna: In the wake of not listening to Madame X I've been reflecting on how it's been 15 years since Madonna's last true banger, Hung Up, and in my opinion she's a legend forever for this song alone. Do you remember the Madonna x Gorillaz performance at the 2006 Grammys? Where she walked BEHIND the hologram? She still has so much to teach us.

Never Fight A Man With A Perm - IDLES: I love just how purely sweaty man muscle this song is. 'concrete to leather' are you kidding me?? That's the coolest shit I've ever heard. 'You look like you're from Love Island' also quite good.

Speakers Going Hammer - Soulja Boy: I was listening to this the other day and had to keep stopping and rewinding because of how advanced the flow is when he says 'Style swift hot like it's July 10th/Fly chick in my whip with nice tits/Her boyfriend paid for it, I didn't" he's like five minutes in front of the beat and combined with the internal assonance it just sounds sick as hell.

African Woman - Ebo Taylor: Man goes ham on toy piano must see

(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone - The Monkees: My friend Tiana (who I've mentioned twice now!) came to band practice and said she saw The Monkees last night. I thought no, that's impossible. The Monkees are all long dead, forgotten legends from a forgotten age. BUT I was wrong! Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz, the surviving Monkees tour to this day! And she introduced me to this great song which we learned for the band! Monkees forever!

Whoo! Alright! Yeah! .. Uh Huh - The Rapture: Somehow as time goes on this song becomes more and more important to me and more and more groovy.I used to think life’s a bitter pill but it’s a grand old time. Now that’s wisdom.

World Of Stone/Loinclothing - Hunters And Collectors: I've been getting very heavily into early Hunters And Collectors over the last couple of months. I think I put Loinclothing on last months playlist as well but fuck it, it's great. It's so primal and raw it feels like the first caveman who learned to talk fronting a band of cavemen who sing songs about caveman issues and passion. I love the incredibly wide open sound the drums and bass have and the fidgety guitar combined with the unhinged vocals creates this really unique ambience of menace and power without ever getting particularly busy and losing the spaciousness. Feels like yelling about monkeys on a wide open desert plain.

Coisa No. 10 - Marcello Gonçalves and Anat Cohen: I found this song ages ago on ABC Jazz I think, and I absolutely love the intricacies of it. It twists and folds in on itself over and over and over without ever losing the groove or relaxing into anything easy. There's so much tension in it even though the melody and groove are so fun, it's a great mix. I also found out it's from an album that's a tribute to someone I'd never heard of before named Moacir Santos, so I got the great joy of discovering his music via this song as well.

Monologue/Nana - Moacir Santos: Moacis Santos, as I understand it, was one of Henry Mancini's film composition assistants and also the guy that taught all the Boss Nova geniuses like Sergio Mendes. I love this Monologue where he tells the story of a mystical vision that inspired this song, which you assume being inspired by a vision would be of mythical importance and weight and but instead sounds like the theme to a cartoon about a grandma who has superpowers.

Weird People - Little Mix: I need more info about the identity of the robot voice in this song. What is his relationship to the singer. He starts off antagonistic: “get off the wall” then commenting on what happened to her: “fell off the wall” then just echoing her: “on the other side” then becoming her “i’m living my life”. It’s complicated and hard to explain but I believe the robot voice in this song is god. Anyway this song is a masterpiece. It’s an incredibly goofy and great piece of 80s revival that imagines a glorious alternate future where Oh Yeah by Yello is the template for all pop music.

3 Legged Dog - Marisa Anderson: Marisa Anderson used to write songs with words here and there among her instrumentals but it seems that over the last couple of albums she’s decided to stick to instrumentals only which I think is a shame. She’s obviously brilliant at it but I’d hate to be missing out on beautiful little slices like this. I love how small time this song is, it feels like a song you’d sing to yourself more than a song for anyone else.

Nighttime Suite - Adam Gnade & Demetrius Francisco Antuña: Adam Gnade is a guy I’ve been following for about ten years now who seems determined to stay obscure. He self-releases all his stuff in limited editions or on cassettes, some of my favourite things he’s ever done don’t seem to be available anywhere digitally any more (if they ever were). I remember years ago he seemed hard up for cash and he ran a deal on his website called a ‘lifetime subscription’ where if you sent him I think $100 he would send you everything he’s ever done AND would continue to send you everything he made in the future for the rest of his life. It was absolutely great, I would get CD-Rs and tapes and zines and things delivered randomly to my mailbox every so often for a couple of years and they were all fantastic. I guess at some point my lifetime subscription lapsed because he’s released a bunch of stuff I haven’t heard or read but that’s ok, you shouldn’t be able to buy someone’s eternal soul for $100.

Adam Gnade has developed his own style of folk music where he just recites a sort of prose poetry over music and it’s incredible. In the hands of anyone else it could feel overly pretentious, and he pretty often rides that line. He’s reaching for a sort of poet laureate of Americana ideal but very often he actually grabs it. His writing is great and magnifies the minor details of normal life into larger symptoms of the American mindset, like depression-era songs of marginalised and exploited people individualised and updated for the modern era. Most of the time he backs himself on a lazily strummed guitar or banjo and his music sounds like sitting on the front step or laying down in the tall grass, but for this song he’s teamed up with Demetrius Francisco Antuña for some real Godspeed feeling dark soundscapes and it’s really something.

We Are The Same - Lurch And Chief: I think it's a damn shame that Lurch And Chief broke up before they even put an album out because this song is a damn classic and I have begun praying every day for the return of Lurch and/or Chief. I love a big voice and there's two distinctly huge voices in this song fighting for position.

983/Near DT, MI - Black Midi: Fucking hell I love this Black Midi album. I'm so, so glad it exists. It feels like the next generation of the Slint Hella, Tera Melos etc lineage of math rock and I simply can't get enough of it. Pump it directly into my veins I'm obsessed with it.

Take Control - Amerie: I just screamed out loud in my car hearing this song for the first time because it samples Jimmy, Renda Se by Tom Zé one of my absolute favourite songs ever. And samples it amazingly, totally transforms it into something new while keeping the spirit of the original. Do you ever feel like a song was just made for you personally? It’s a very kind thing of my vlogger wife Amerie to do for me but I guess that’s just how she is. Also, thanks to Spotify’s new feature where you can see the actual credits for songs I got to find out that Hall And Oates are credited on this because it basically interpolates the the whole verse melody from You Make My Dreams Come True which I didn’t even realise until I looked up why they were credited.

Unsquare Dance - Dave Brubeck: Dave Brubeck's brain is huge. I can't belive it's possible to make 7/4 this funky. How come nobody else ever ripped off this rhythm? It deserves to be a whole genre. I also totally love the piano solo near the end where it turns into like a funky 7/4 stride and then abruply ends with a shave and haircut like it's 1925.

Suddenly - French Vanilla: Get a load of this fucking slice of dance punk that Discover Weekly served me up. I haven't even listened ot the album yet because I just love this song so much I'm stuck on it. Singing "I like the nightlife! I'm in the spotlight!" like you're being hunted with a knife? Incredible. The impromptue glossolalia about halfway through? Incredible. Everything about the saxophone? Incredible

Maneater - Nelly Furtado: There's nothing deft or subtle about Timbaland. Everything he does is just so heavy handed and thick. The drums in this are so straightforward and they sound like garbage cans.. Nothing ever plays at he same time as anything else . It's like a gorilla learned to play and it's absolutely fucking sick. And then the whole rest of the song! His insanely thick buzzy synth lines against the big beautifully stack clean harmonies

I, The Witchfinder - Electric Wizard: I've been getting back into Skyrim because I have a little worm living in my brain and I've discovered a good trick is to turn off the game music and turn on Electric Wizard instead. It increases the ambience because it feels like if you did an x-ray of the Dragonborn's head this is all that would be in there. It's just stoner metal in there and no other thoughts.

Music Sounds Better With You - Stardust: Can you believe how lucky we are to live in a world where the greatest song ever written is finally available on spotify? You can just listen to this any time of the night or day and immediately improve your life.

Don’t Chew - Spilled Oats: Here’s a very good and underexplored idea: what if guitar music but it sounds like chopped and screwed? Absolutely dynamite.

As an extra bonus treat here the absolute best ever chopped and screwed channel I’ve found on youtube, please explore Scobed & Robed: https://www.youtube.com/user/scottalexanderburton

listen here

#playlists

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anyways-wonderwall · 3 years

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Album of the week #1

Dream Chapter: Eternity

(2020)

By Tomorrow x Together

Overall rating: 6/10

TL;DR: this album is meh but has the greatest song ever recorded, “Fairy of Shampoo”.

So the first album (well, mini album) of the week is kpop because I recently got back into listening to it and wanted to choose a random album I’d never listened to before. I asked my friend who is deep in kpop hell for a recommendation and this is what she threw at me, which honestly was a great pick on her part.

So for the album of the week, I’m gonna just go over each song one by one, then a full summary. But first, I’ll go over my general thoughts because I’m sure you don’t want to read hundreds of words.

General Thoughts:

Honestly pretty good. This is the first 4th gen Kpop album I’ve ever listened to and was kind of worried it would suck. I’ve been listening to kpop since 2015 off and on, and the last break I took was because all the new music that was coming out just sounded like American pop to me. That doesn’t mean it just got bad, it just became something I didn’t want to listen to.

Maybe I was just listening to the wrong groups because this album didn’t feel like that for me. I don’t think any of the songs were super unique, but each was different from the other, making an album that didn’t blur together. The fact that I won’t mix them up after only knowing them a week shows that this has a pretty nice variety.

That being said, the album wasn’t super unique. All of the songs were good, but something I could see any other kpop group doing. Maybe I don’t know TXT enough, I don’t know. Oh and one more point that is more directed at the entire kpop industry: why is falsetto the only way to sing? You guys are employing some of the greatest singers on earth and you’re really only letting them sing soprano. If that would change I would listen to only kpop til the day I die.

Song Breakdown:

1. Drama

THIS is how you start an album. It hooks you in right away with strong chords and sets a tone for the whole album that quickly changes and keeps you guessing. It’s kind of obvious how much I love the art of putting together an album, given that I’m only reviewing those, but this group does it well. Definitely one of my favorite album openings.

That aside the song isn’t my favorite, but it’s pretty dang good. It gives me a summer road trip to the beach vibes, and I really want to blare this on my car stereo with my friends. The chorus annoys me just enough that I’m on the fence about putting it on any of my playlists though. I think this is one of those songs that if I listen to it over and over I’d probably love it, but as of right now I just like it and will vibe to it on occasion.

Also, doing a Japanese comeback with a Haikyuu themed video? Very bold. They definitely knew what they were doing

2. Can’t You See Me?

Okay this is definitely a song that doesn’t match up remotely with the music video, something Bighit just loves doing. I’m not even going to remotely think about the greater storyline with these because I’ve already wasted enough of my life on kpop.

But onto the song, I don’t like this one much at all. It’s definitely not unlistenable and I get while people like it, I just really don’t. I know it’s hard to believe, but I actually don’t like much pop music at all, and this would fall into the not-good category.

It’s just a bit too computerized, and when you mix that kind of background music with auto tune I instantly lose interest. Plus there’s no real instruments in this one :/.

3. Fairy of Shampoo

Hey so do you ever want to take a song, put it in a blender, then inject it into your veins and become it? That’s what this song is for me. It’s not even an ear-worm at this point, it has become part of my brain and plays during any time I’m not talking. It’s hands down my favorite out of the album and one of my favorite kpop songs ever. I could gush about this song for 50 years but I’ll keep is short.

So apparently this song is a cover of a pretty famous disco kinda song from the 90s. I expected to like the original more but TXT’s version sounds better than any other one I’ve heard. The driving baseline makes me move to the song every time and every part of the song is ethereal, down to the fantastic choreography.

God and the chord progression?? It itches a scratch in my brain I didn’t know I had. When it shifts down to the G and the trumpet comes in I’m gone. Seriously you are doing yourself a disservice not listening to this song, it’s a solid 50/10.

4. Maze in the Mirror

So you know how I was saying that while each song was unique the album wasn’t? This song is what I mean. It’s very safe in everything that it does, to the point it is forgettable. I can only remember what it sounds like just after listening to it, and it falls very much into the forgettable middle part of an album.

While I don’t like it as it is I think this song would sound incredible unplugged and live. I think if it’s just them and an acoustic guitar, no editing on the voices, I would love this song. The overdubbing smooths over any character this song would have, and leaves it pretty meh.

5. PUMA

So when my friend recommended this album to me she said “don’t bother listening to Puma, it’s not good” and she’s right. Some people must like it because the music video 27M views, heck even the fact that there is a music video shows they thought it would be popular.

The song seems to meander without any purpose, and it borders on annoying for me. It’s just basic kpop to me with nothing fun added, and I was pretty bored listening to it. I thought Yeonjun’s rap would save this for me but it totally didn’t, it just made me sigh even more.

I don’t throw the word hate around often with songs, and I don’t think this really deserves it. It’s just unlistenable for me to the point I really dislike it. (But hey if you like this song more power to you, wish I could be you).

6. Eternally

Hey, another music video that makes no sense! It’s honestly in the short film category with how long it is, and I have to give them credit for making something super aesthetically pleasing that makes zero sense. But onto the song.

Drama was the perfect way to start this album and this was the perfect way to end it. Just as ethereal as the rest, with the coolest shift I’ve ever heard. The two parts of the song sound so so different from each other but somehow seamlessly shift from one part to another. The beginning sounded like any other BTS song to me but the shift made this song incredible. This is my second favorite on the album, only because Fairy of Shampoo is untouchable.

Final Verdict:

So the final verdict for the album of the week is whether I buy it and put it on my phone. Usually, I buy physical albums, since I’m super bad with technology and am paranoid I’ll lose my iTunes, but kpop makes that tricky. An album comes with so many bells and whistles that it costs an insane amount. This mini-album only has six songs but costs like $20, yikes.

On iTunes it only costs $6 though, so will I buy it? I’m still on the fence, but leaning towards yes. I think I might just buy the three songs I like because the other ones would just be skipped anyway.

#album of the week #album 1 #txt #tomorrow x together #album review #music review #music recommendation

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mydumbmcfuckinopinion · 7 years

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*This post is for my friends please don’t reblog

This post has been a long time coming lmao. Lil Kim and Remy Ma dropped “Wake Me Up” and I’m about to shove my opinions down your throats. So I’ll start with the positives. I️ absolutely LOVE the ‘updated’ beat. “Queen Bitch” by Lil Kim is such a great song and definitely one of her best. The beat was amazing to begin with and the update wasn’t super in your face or offensive in any way. I️ have mixed feelings about the flows. Yes, I️ get that she’s gonna reuse the same flows as “Queen Bitch” but I️ feel like the callbacks were a little excessive. I️ think the beat was an amazing callback but she over referenced the lyrics to Queen Bitch making it sound a little less personal and innovative. To begin with Queen Bitch was heavily influenced/written with Biggie’s help. He provided the reference track to show her how to execute the song to the fullest making it feel extra unoriginal. It went from Biggie to Kim and years later to Remy. I️t feels like a tweaked copy of a copy. Personally I️ love both her verses however, objectively speaking they definitely weren’t perfect. The line “My hands like Mayweather’s” is good and all but as my pal Olly pointed out Mayweather wasn’t known for his punches but for his defense. But on the other hand of course if you got punched by Mayweather it’s still gonna fuckin hurt. Kim’s chorus was okay. It was a little bland and repetitive and she doesn’t sound like herself but the humble reference was dope. Remy’s second verse is fun af but soooo repetitive. She rhymes ‘shit’ literally 8 times in a row. It’s difficult to stomach from an analytical standpoint. Nicki does the same thing in “Rake it Up” with the word China. Nicki did it bc she’s into using homonyms/homographs but that’s not what I’m babbling about rn. Again, when Remy rhymes shit 8 times in a row it’s because Lil Kim had rhymed bitch in “Queen Bitch” 7 times during her first verse. So not only is it repetitive as shit (pun intended) it’s also not at all innovative or creative. The strongest lines in verse two were definitely “‘cause you a clown and Homey don’t play that shit” you kiddos probably don’t remember the show “In Living Color” but this line was a great reference to a great show that jump started a lot of careers. The bars that dig the deepest are definitely “I heard he lay that dick, you let him filet that fish/You just met him, how he bae that quick?” This of course is a shot at Nicki Minaj and her new boyfriend Nas. Remy is implying that she heard Nicki fucked Nas and made him ‘bae’ too quick seeing she recently cut off her engagement to Meek Mill. Ouch Remy. She then raps “I'll say it to your face, don't gotta relay that shit/If Nick-ole a Kid-man, OJ that bitch!” Oh my god where do I️ even begin with this. Remy in her Genius video explains the lyrics and starts the video off by saying this song is “not about anyone” like bruh you can’t say “I’ll say it to your face” and “it’s not about Nicki” she’s being incredibly hypocritical. Now to the most frustrating line of all. “If Nick-ole a Kid-man, OJ that bitch!” First of all, OJ was not married to Nicole Kidman he was married to Nicole Brown. Second, Nicole Kidman is an actress and has no ties whatsoever to OJ. Third, Nicki’s full name is Onika Tanya Miraj, not Nicole. Fourth, Remy caught her mistake AND KEPT IT IN KNOWING IT DIDN’T MAKE SENSE. It’s so frustrating listening to her claim to be an artist dedicated to her craft when she won’t even fix a simple but vital mistake because it “sounded dope”. Again, hypocritical. Now to the final line of the second verse. “If that's your dog, I suggest you go train that bitch!” She’s telling Nas to control Nicki bc Nicki’s out here not paying homage to rappers like Lil Kim who helped lay the foundation she built her empire on. I️ agree with this but not the control aspect of course. She’s her own woman but I️ really hate that the artists I️ respect and look up to disrespect each other and drag other women down like it isn’t already difficult enough in a male dominated industry. I️ also feel like Remy just didn’t put enough into this song. She had two simple verses, used a blueprint of a blueprint, and didn’t fix sloppy/lazy mistakes. Lil Kim closes the song with some of the worst, unoriginal lyrics I’ve ever heard from her. I️ Love Lil Kim to death but I’m so disappointed in this song. So much potential wasted. Kim should have had a rap verse with complex metaphors and her famous fuck you attitude and voice but instead we got what sounded like a washed up auto tuned Kim. She didn’t sound like herself, she was slurring words, wasting space (there should have been a rap verse in place of that nonsense) and the auto tune made it unlistenable. I️ honestly can’t even listen to the ending because it’s that bad. I️ skip after Remy’s verses. I️ do love the song though it’s a bop if you don’t over analyze and skip Kim’s verse. I’d probably give this song a 4/10 maybe a 5/10 on a good day. Beat was good, some great lyrics but mostly stale and unoriginal, and having Lil Kim and Remy Ma on a distrack @ Nicki is such a fuck you so I️ dig that distrack wise.

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ecotone99 · 4 years

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Humor [HM] Fantasy [FN] Chapter 3 - Bards, Shrooms, and Zombies Cadorna Keep - A Dnd GameLit

One of the two great doors of the gateway hung broken and tired at a possibly impossible angle. The other lay more certainly upon the ground, straggly grass curling up and over its edges in a grasping and wispy grab for sunlight. The place was in rough shape.

Ya know, Yenrab thought, shading his eyes from the glare of the overhead sun, it doesn’t look that dangerous. It just looks sad . . . and in need of a fix up!

They all stood clustered about the opening in a mob with Bern Sandros watching the right flank and Wex monitoring the left as Yenrab sheltered the spell casters Tracy and Carric in the center. They all stood in awe, mouths open and drooling.

An open air dungeon! Yenrab enthused, trying to put a positive spin on his earlier thoughts. No cobwebs, no goblin zombie lords or skullator gem monsters under tons of rock and dirt. Just a brisk jaunt through a disaster 20 years passed. We don’t need that stupid fireball spell. We’ve got this and then some!

The rest of the party EoTtHUaARB must have come to a similar conclusion because they oohed and aahed along with him at the adventure complex before them. They oohed because it lay completely deserted, filled with old and uninhabited buildings strewn throughout and peppered by thin reedy stalks of grass. They aahed because each and every one of them imagined individual specific treasures within each of those buildings, somehow ungotten by that legendary adventuring troupe, SOG. Then they shivered because the wind blew mournfully as if sad about the place’s tragic past. A shutter banged on warped hinges, turning smiles to frowns and giving the place a bit more character than any of them wanted it to have.

Yenrab stared daggers at Tracy as his emotional arc finished its rollercoaster course. He was back to feeling a mite grumpy about the needless waste of powerful magic.

“Tracy, ya know, we might well have needed that spell,” he nagged to the unlistening hippy from Freemeet. “I’m pretty certain the SOG didn’t all get lost. It’s not a big island.”

Tracy looked about, his goatee a blowing a little in the wind. He threw out his arms in an exaggerated gesture and scrunched his face in tremendous confusion.

“You hear anything?” Tracy yelled to no one in particular. “Because I sure don’t. I’ve got this thing, this curse, where I can’t hear nags or even recognize that they are there.”

Bern watched on with a small half grin playing at his lips. From the other flank of the group Wex snorted and then laughed, enjoying Yenrab’s discomfort.

The big half-orc sighed. Jerks he thought fondly, thinking over all they had already been through together.

“Well, someone tell Tracy to be careful anyways. We need to keep tactical,” Yenrab announced to them all, authority surrounding him. Then he paused and looked off for a bit. “Pillion isn’t around anymore to show us the ropes and, ya know, you all made me captain so let me captain us. Tracy stay in the middle, Carric move to the rear, Wex stay left, Bern stay right, I’m gonna stay as the front. Let’s move together and everyone keep a look out. Someone tell Tracy to tell someone to tell me since he can’t hear or even recognize that I’m here.”

“Maybe someone should tell someone to tell that nag that I can’t heat that maybe he needs to apologize?” Tracy stated to the sky, stroking his goatee in philosophical thought.

“Mates, maybe I should sneak around a bit and see what I can see?” Bern Sandros asked, a greedy glint in his eye.

“And deal with some accidentally summoned monster or demon for our troubles? Again?!” Carric laughed. “Once is enough of that, good sir.”

“Don’t call me sir. I work for a living,” Bern retorted.

“Power to the people!” Tracy agreed.

Doesn’t that power to the people stuff ever get old the Gamer Chief asked at some celestial table far away. Never replied the Gamers with a laugh.

“Look,” Carric said, his face now serious, “this place is strange and I don’t believe for one second that it is empty. Let’s listen to Yenrab and stay together. My bard powers work better with a group anyways. Maybe you can do sneaky rogue stuff when we get to the actual keep up ahead.”

He pointed to the far end of the complex. There the keep stood solid despite its age, grey stones with grey mortar for the gaps, nary a crack in sight. Only its gates looked warped and bowed, but they stood closed and were perhaps stout. It was hard to tell from this distance.

“Ag, man. Shame. Alright mate. I guess I can hold my horses til then,” Bern Sandros agreed. “We stay tight for some bliksem then I sneak when we get close. Got it.”

“Rattle ya dags, bro!” Wex stated, looking back behind them, where the plant life was slowly meandering over to where they stood. “Else we’re gonna cark it.”

“Um, right?” Carric agreed. The common tongue his friends used was sometimes quite foreign to him. But he thought he understood the context. “Let’s move on and let those plants lose interest then, shall we?”

With Yenrab in the lead the five of them headed forward, all tense and at the ready. Ahead the gloomy and fire blackened yet sturdy barracks houses of the immediate garrison hung dark and gritty, their very visage a warning to would be seekers of fortune. The shutters clacked again against their sides in the freshening gust of lake born wind.

“Maybe Bern really should go ahead and scout things out,” Wex suggested with a mask-hidden grin.

“Sard-off mate,” Bern chuckled. “If you thought it’d be safe you’d volunteer yourself off next to me.”

Carric smiled, “Sounds like neither of you has the guts to go forward.”

“Ya know, if I were mocked by a bard,” Yenrab nodded, to Carric’s drooping face, “I’d feel the need to push ahead and prove myself.”

A staccato of more distinct Gamer voices blasted into hearing. The party members winced.

That’s cruel, man.

Nah, that’s realistic. Bards suck.

You suck.

Your mo-

Guys stop it. Look, how about Carric goes forward and shows us what guts really are.

Okay, I guess I will!

“I, uh, I feel like I should have a bit more choice in this matter,” Carric protested to no one in particular. “But I guess it’s my turn in the forefront.”

“Carric! Carric!” Tracy cheered on in support. The bard gave him a panicked shush and hurried himself forward to get it all done with.

***

Carric stealthed ahead as well as he could. He couldn’t hear his own steps, so that was probably a good thing. The wind gusted again, briefly, as if in response to his brave foray forward.

This is not good. Not good not good not good he thought to himself in fright. He looked back at the party, growing a bit smaller as they got more distant. Tracy danced and waved.

He was next to the first of the two military structures. They weren’t that big, really, but he imagined that soldiers were like clowns in that they could all pile into those tiny enclosed carts in impossibly compact knots of people encompassing a hundred or so individuals. He certainly wasn’t looking forward to clacking a shutter fully open against the walls and poking his head in.

The bard took a quick stroll around the building, giving himself a quiet sigh as a gift for such bravery. Then, again in the eyes of the party, he fully opened one of the shuttered window apertures and peered inside.

The interior was filled with broken and splintered wood, the remains of the bunks and chests of the original defenders. They were indeed stacked together quite tight, perhaps capable of holding thirty defenders? It was hard to tell, though, because the place looked well smashed up and looted.

The bard looked back and yelled out to them.

“It’s well clear you bunch of yellow-bellied chickens. You are welcome.”

Yenrab started laughing, striding ahead in eager pace. There was some distant muttering, and also the loud cheering of Tracy, as they all moved forward.

That’ll teach them to besmirch my honor he chuckled to himself. Shown up and mocked by a bard?! How pathetic!

***

The party checked out both of the barracks buildings from the outside quite thoroughly before readying themselves for the interior. Whether it was the shame of being shown up by a bard or perhaps a lack of things to say nobody could tell you, but Wex and Bern kept their mouths shut through the whole process. It wasn’t until they were standing before the actual door to one of the structures that Bern, the noisier of the two, finally spoke.

“I’ve checked it this way and that, mates. Free from traps, good as platinum in my pocket. If there is anything dangerous here, it is going to be spooky and not at all in my department of things to deal with.”

Yenrab stretched and Carric swung his harmonica bar across his face, its burnished surface catching in the sun for a momentary bit of glare. Next to him Tracy rolled his hands in slow purpose around a dim and pulsing ball of flame. It was a definite zeroth level cantrip but something probably useful against all manner of spooky things.

“Well I guess now might be a good time for us to go in then?” the barbarian asked them all, looking back and forth between those on either flank.

Tracy shimmered by in rainbow-glittered robes, taking an advantageous angle. “Let’s do this,” the sorcerer grinned, glowing orb pulsating more brightly, possibly leveled up from its earlier state.

“Right. Yeah, ya know, I think I’d like it better if this place were full of zombies,” the big man complained in response. He reached one meaty hamlike hand forward though despite his reluctance and threw open the door. But there was nothing.

“Bro,” Wex whispered, “this is spooky.”

Then he found himself stumbling into the room, shoved by some unseen force. He looked back in panic and saw Bern Sandros stifling a laugh. The glee of the merry man was infectious and Wex smiled back while digging about quickly and thoroughly for hidden treasures. The rest swarmed in to do the same.

“I found a button,” Tracy called out in glee.

“Yuck,” Carric called out, holding a moldering scrap of soiled underpants.

“Well that’s enough of that,” Yenrab affirmed, waving everyone out. “We’ve still got a whole keep to search.”

***

The buildings closest to them were the stout and stone castle-like kitchen, some lanky and disused stables, and what looked to be the remains of a silo, one that must have been quite tall a few decades ago. At present, what was left of it was stunted, the majority of it having collapsed during the battle for the keep or soon after. It was at a distance but they could see that the silo was bereft of anything but a field of large mushrooms, growing through bare earth and out of the cracks of broken rubble.

“Jol!” “Mean as!” “Sweet!” the bard, the rogue, and the cleric all yelled at the same time, then laughed, making a beeline for the silo.

“Oh no,” Yenrab moaned, shaking his head slowly as the party hunched over their find, daggers in hand, ready to prune. “Not again,” he added, giving a bit of mystery to the interested reader as he or she or they hunched over the flickering light of their dying kindle, or the stout pages of the published novel.

Tracy eyed them over, the Gamer rolling enthusiastically as he tried to figure out what it was. The 20 sided die clicked and rolled off of the cosmic table.

“Noni Moss,” Tracy said, a 13 blazing in his mind’s eye. “Not a real moss, but one in name. Eating it makes you a bit wiser and have a good taste in novels for a while, but it’s not gonna get you all high.”

“Are you being straight up?” Wex asked, his eyes suddenly empty of their former joviality. “Brah, I really thought we had something here.”

“No worries, mate, this stuff here sounds good regardless,” Bern opined, to Yenrab’s nodding approval.

“Yeah, I bet we can sell it big at some market somewhere and use that money to get the good stuff,” Carric laughed, making the barbarian frown all over again.

The big guy didn’t stop them though from gathering all they could, stuffing one small travel pack and then the other full of the delicious-looking fungi. He too could hear the clink of gold coins in his head as the useful fungus was bottled, bagged, or otherwise stored.

Indeed, so absorbed were the party in the collection and perusal of the task at hand that they didn’t realize it when the ground behind them tore open, silent and deadly. Nor did they hear the click of bones and the rasp of dead flesh as zombies and skeleton crawled on out to do battle. They only realized their danger when Carric screamed, punched in the back of the head by a skeletal fist. He stumbled, but he did not fall.

Roll initiative! a distant voice called in their heads.

“To arms!” Yenrab yelled, fumbling with his axe straps in surprise.

Chapter 1 = https://www.reddit.com/r/shortstories/comments/edngy6/humor_hm_fantasy_fn_cadorna_keep_chapter_1_a_dnd/

Chapter 2 = https://www.reddit.com/r/shortstories/comments/eecc7d/humor_hm_fantasy_fn_cadorna_keep_chapter_2_a_dnd/

submitted by /u/damienleehanson [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2MHs1LX

#Blogger #Story

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johannesviii · 4 years

Text

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2008

19 to 20 years old, and... hang on. Is that a mediocre year with actual filler on the list and only three honorable mentions? That’s kind of refreshing in a decade where each and every single one of my lists was a mile long.

The top 3 is still great, mind you.

Disclaimers:

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

2008. Finished my History Licence, started my Master degree. To quote one of the biggest hits of the year, my funds were ‘low, low, low, low, low, low’, my nickname was still ‘the hobo’, and I was constantly on the verge of a breakdown even though things were not nearly as bad as they were five years before. But I finally had my own computer and a reliable internet access, so that was a thing. I made a LOT of cd compilations that year.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: the French charts usually tend to salvage bad years for these lists I’m making, but the 2008 French year-end list is absolutely rotten, so this didn’t happen here, obviously. I have no idea why Human (The Killers), Kids (MGMT), Integral (Pet Shop Boys), Big Girls (Mika) and basically everything from Bloc Party aren’t elligible songs, but this is bad and the charts should feel bad. Have a very short list of honorable mentions instead.

Low (Flo Rida) - This was absolutely everywhere. I didn’t mind at all.

Dégénération (Mylène Farmer) - I mean. It’s not bad. But. Like. What the hell was that.

Je Réalise (Sinik & James Blunt) - Not better than the previous two, but made James Blunt palatable even though I find him nearly unlistenable in his own songs, and that’s an impressive feat.

And now, the list.

10 - Hot n Cold (Katy Perry)

US: #36 / FR: #52

My s.o absolutely LOVED Katy Perry that year. I loathed I Kissed a Girl. Thankfully, Hot n Cold was fun and catchy, so I didn’t mind hearing that one way, way too many times. He still loves most of her albums and he sings some of her songs while playing games from time to time.

For those who are wondering, yes, this is the same person who’s also a big fan of Metallica, and Gorillaz, and Mika, because I guess I can only get along with someone who also has weird and debatable musical tastes.

9 - Don’t Stop the Music (Rihanna)

US: #17 / FR: Not on the list

This was a honorable mention before I noticed I couldn’t fill the list with songs I actively listened to. I have nothing to say about it. It’s reasonably fun and catchy. Not her best, not her worst.

8 - Disturbia (Rihanna)

US: #16 / FR: #36

No Rihanna, you’re not scaring me. But that “bum bum bee dum” hook is an earworm and a half, so I’ll take it.

7- Apologise (OneRepublic ft Timbaland)

US: #5 / FR: Not on the list

This is just as pleasant (if slightly bland) as drinking hot chocolate and the fact that this was enough to put it at #7 tells a lot about how unimpressed I was with hit songs in 2008.

6 - This is the life (Amy McDonald)

US: Not on the list / FR: #34

This is also pleasant, if a bit repetitive. I have literally nothing else to say. Thankfully, everything after that are songs are actually like.

5 - Shake it (Metro Station)

US: #32 / FR: Not on the list

This is incredibly stupid, and also incredibly fun, and it was a delight every time it was on the radio. Thankfully the following year would bring many, many more fun, upbeat, stupid songs, but in 2008 it was like breathing fresh air.

4 - Just Dance (Lady Gaga)

US: Not on the list (...................yet) / FR: #56

I was way too broke in 2008 (and in every single previous year) to have any party that wasn’t something like “find a deserted place and burn a couple of things together” apart from one (1) party at a friend’s house which went nearly as bad as that song. It’s great.

I really like Lady Gaga, for the record, even if I was never a fan, and my initial opinion of her around 2009/2010 was basically “oh good, the US found their own Mylène Farmer. It’s about time.”

3 - Let It Rock (Kevin Rudolf ft Lil Wayne)

US: #65 / FR: Not on the list

I’m shocked this is so high on the list. I first put it at the bottom, then relistened to it just to make sure, felt pure, undiluted joy, and now here we are.

It’s so strange to think that this was one of the only great rock songs on the year end list if not the only one, and it has Lil Wayne on it, of all people. But yeah, kickass song, kickass guitar, a ton of fun to sing along with it. We needed more hits like this, and we still do, if I’m being honest.

2 - Shadow of the Day (Linkin Park)

US: #55 / FR: Not on the list

At the time, looking back at the previous years and everything I had been through, this song was extremely relatable, and powerful, and it was very difficult to listen to it without crying because that crescendo at the end was almost too beautiful. It was like a suicide note written in gold. You want to admire it and maybe frame it but it’s gonna destroy you emotionally everytime you look at it.

For very, very obvious reasons, it is close to unlistenable to me since 2017. Relistening to it just to make this list made me cry my eyes out on my f█cking desk.

This would probably top the list without all the painful bagage that comes with it. Can I genuinely put a nearly unlistenable song so high on a list even if it isn’t at #1? Considering how mediocre the pool of 2008 hit songs is, I can, and I will.

I’m also still crying, by the way.

1 - Viva la Vida (Coldplay)

US: #13 / FR: #44

Behold, the thrilling beginning of “Johannes finally loves Coldplay” Act 2, that would reach its epic conclusion with Life In Technicolor II a year later, one of my favorite songs ever from the band, but sadly (or not, there’s already a shit ton of great music in 2009 and I’m not even sure I can make a top 10 instead of 12) isn’t elligible for 2009.

Anyhow. Bells? Strings? Actual energy in a Coldplay song? Epic choirs? Lyrics that tell an interesting story? Actual... fun?? What happened to these guys? Were they even the same band?

I still don’t know what happened but that was so, so refreshing. I was sincerely hoping they’d stay on these new tracks, and they definitely did.

Good.

Next up: Johannes was dead certain the song they wanted to put at the top of the list was elligible, but it isn’t, and many walls were punched that day

#Johannes’ bad not good pretty terrible music lists #music #long post #suicide mention tw #eye contact tw

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johannesviii · 4 years

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Top 15 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2002

13 to 14 years old. Most of the year was pretty good. Summer was great. But in September I arrived in 2nd (local equivalent of 10th grade), so I was 14 in a class of mostly 15/16 years old students, and I looked so out of place that inevitably, bad shit started to happen very quickly.

Thankfully, it was a damn good year for hits. They say music never sounds better than when you are a teenager, as if that was a bad thing - but maybe they’re right? So yeah, nostalgia is in full force there. This year was so good for music, in fact, that this is a top 15 instead of 10. It was already super difficult to keep only 10 songs before I even looked at the French year-end list, and then I just gave up.

Disclaimers:

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

This list originally had SIX horribly painful cuts so I decided to do some damage control and make it a top 15. There’s still a whole bunch of honorable mentions, though.

Heaven remix (DJ Sammy) - [Insert here rant about Johannes liking overproduced dance garbage full of colors and lights]

Move b█tch (Ludacris) - Just a ton of fun to sing along that chorus.

Whenever Wherever (Shakira) - I claim overplay, but that is still legendary.

How You Remind Me (Nickelback) - Nobody’s gonna disagree if I say they’re a terrible band, but you gotta admit, their first hit was pretty great.

The Middle (Jimmy Eat World) - In a year full of fantastic earworms, some had to stay out of the list.

Can’t Fight the Moonlight (LeAnn Rimes) - Just re-read the previous statement.

Get the Party Started (Pink) - More on that later.

Inch’Allah (MC Solaar) - Not his best song by a mile (obviously; I mean, the guy who wrote a song about making Satan explode into antimatter can’t really top that because nobody can) but still very nice.

Cleanin’ Out My Closet (Eminem) - Yeah, the rethread of The Real Slim Shady is on the list and not this. What can I say, I told you I had bad taste.

Just Like a Pill (Pink) - The last cut from the list. I just really, really liked Pink, can you tell?

This is when I started to listen to the radio A LOT in my room, because my access to the family computer was restricted and radio was basically the only media I still had 100% access to and full control of. Which might explain why I suddenly liked a ton of pop music. Or maybe that year was simply really good. I guess it’s a mix of both.

Also, I still didn’t have a key to the appartment, but I was a lot less supervised when I was outside, and I would sometimes sneak out to go the library or to the disc store.

So... here’s some of the first singles I ever bought, for the record, and also because I think it’s fun to see all of them together.

They’re all on this list, just to clarify.

15 - I’m Gonna Getcha Good (Shania Twain)

US: Not on the list / FR: #67

Well, that was quick. So yeah, I loved this song. The accent meant I couldn’t understand half of the lyrics, but it was still a ton of fun and a delight every time it was on the radio.

14 - Wherever You Will Go (The Calling)

US: #5 / FR: #53

I didn’t love this song that much at the time and only put it on one tape, but it really grew on my over the years. Yeah, it’s your standard 2000s pop-rock song, objectively, but I don’t know. It didn’t have to go that hard with its metaphors. I mean the guy is ready to follow that person into hell and turn back time if necessary. I really don’t know. It shouldn’t work so well but it does for me. Maybe it’s because I’m very literal-minded.

13 - Le Chemin (Kyo ft. Sita)

US: Not on the list / FR: #55

Basically: A Ma Place by Axel Bauer & Zazie from the previous honorable mentions of 2001, except with half the amount of Hetero Drama(tm) and a pop-rock flavour to make it more palatable.

The first hit of a band it would very quickly be super cool to hate in my country (and I do mean very quickly, like a year or so) because everyone (including me, mind you) thought their lyrics were a bit too cringy even for pop-rock songs.

Doesn’t mean I didn’t buy the album and listened the shit out of it for like two years, though. The saddest part is that my favorite single from it by far, Je Cours (”I Run”), isn’t elligible for any list. Dammit.

12 - Murder On The Dancefloor (Sophie Ellis-Bextor)

US: Not on the list / FR: #26

This was a huge hit in Europe and somehow I thought it had reached the US, but apparently it didn’t. That’s a shame.

Also, overplay didn’t manage to kill it for me and that’s impressive.

11 - Complicated (Avril Lavigne)

US: #11 / FR: #83

Loved it, bought the single, loved it even more, and then one of my uncles sent me the album for christmas, and all was nice and good in the world.

For the record, I thought Sk8er Boi was one of the worst songs on the album (my favorite was My World), and I still dislike this particular song to this day, so this is why it’s nowhere to be found here.

10 - Don’t Let Me Get Me (Pink)

US: #36 / FR: Not on the list

You already know that because of the honorable mentions, but yeah, I loved Pink. This was the second album I decided I had to save money for months to acquire instead of just a single and which my parents would probably find acceptable. And this song is the best and it kicks some serious ass, on top of being full of self-loathing and extremely relatable at the time ("everyday I fight a war against the mirror, can't take the person staring back at me"? "I wanna be somebody else"?? Big, big dysphoria mood right there).

No regrets, baby.

9 - Hands Clean (Alanis Morissette)

US: #95 / FR: Not on the list

In just about every list I’ve made so far, there’s one song which makes me think “if I had better taste, this would be much higher”. This is one of these songs. Still love it, still put it on a tape and burned it on a cd. I found the cd in question again yesterday while making this list and it contains, in that exact order: Visage, Evanescence, Kyo, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Talk Talk, Scatman John, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Shania Twain, INXS, Freur, Alizée, Linkin Park and this exact song by Alanis Morissette. It’s a great little time-capsule of my debatable tastes.

8 - Die Another Day (Madonna)

US: Not on the list / FR: #86

This has the same kind of weird, disjointed beat as Music, but it sounds much more aggressive and sinister. This dropped right when I started to have real problems at school, so it’s a bit difficult for me to listen to it nowadays without having unpleasant flashbacks at the same time, which is why it’s so low on the list even though I listened to it on a loop back in the day. It might be a subpar James Bond theme, and might have dumb lyrics (god the Sigmund Freud line sdfghjhgfdfg), but on its own? It’s great.

Also I loved the music video. My mother, obviously, hated it, which only made me like it more, because, I mean, obviously it did. That’s how it works when you’re 14.

Speaking of which.

7 - Without Me (Eminem)

US: #21 / FR: #11

By that point, it was becoming pretty clear that I would never be able to buy the music I wanted if my parents disapproved of it, so I had to be sneaky and buy every, uh “debatable” single with a second more acceptable single to hide the first one. The one I bought alongside this one was a cover of Désenchantée, sung by Kate Ryan.

Success.

It is, in fact, less good than The Real Slim Shady, and I could only understand about one third of the lyrics, but still. I listened to it a loooooot. Because I actually had that single and not the other one which it was basically referencing to the point of self-parody. And just like the other one, I obviously don’t endorse all the lyrics, and the beat is great.

6 - All the Things She Said (Tatu)

US: Not on the list / FR: #12

Just like Die Another Day this one is a bit difficult to listen to nowadays for me but it’s a monster of a hit nonetheless. Have to say, though: I listened to Not Gonna Get Us even more, which means THAT one is even more linked to bad memories, to the point of basically being unlistenable because it triggers a literal fight-or-flight response with me. Not kidding in the slightest. Still love it though.

5 - J’ai Demandé à la Lune (Indochine)

US: Not on the list / FR: #4

This is one of my least favorite hit songs from Indochine. It’s still #5 on a list where I had to keep 15 entries instead of 10. This is because almost no other song I really really like from them will ever be elligible for these lists and if I can’t put a single Indochine song somewhere, especially from the Paradize album, I will have to punch a wall, dammit.

So here. Have the one in which the guy asks the moon if his significant other still loves him and where the moon answers “dude it’s not my problem”.

I love them and Paradize is an absolute monster of an album which rightfully made them relevant again, from new wave sensations of the 80s to favorite mainstream band for every young French punk/goth kid ever in the 2000s. This is not a diss, by the way, considering I was very clearly in that core demographic. Especially if you look at the top three I made for that year (and for the next one but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).

4 - A Thousand Miles (Vanessa Carlton)

US: #6 / FR: #51

Yeah yeah, you knew this was coming when you saw that pic of the first singles I bought, and you can start laughing now. I know it’s basically a meme now (and a good one, mind you), but sometimes, songs are remembered for more than one reason, and you have to admit that one is still great on its own. I listened to it SO. MUCH. Especially before everything started to go wrong for me that year, so basically this is the sound of “how things should have been”, and it’s so pleasant and nice to listen to it even today. It’s no longer on my mp3 player, but, no joke, I think it stayed on it from the day I bought my first mp3 player to something like 2017. Is it an indicator of quality or yet another indicator of my debatable taste? Probably both.

In any other year, there would be a clear #1 either towering above the other songs or just slightly ahead of the rest. 2002 was so good I can’t, for the life of me, decide which of these next three songs is the best one, even subjectively, in a “hey I like this one a little bit more” kind of way.

So I’m ranking the top 3 according to the lengths I went to to listen to each of these songs at the time.

Let’s go.

3 - C’est Une Belle Journée (Mylène Farmer)

US: Not on the list / FR: #46

This is what I’d call the Last Great Mylène Farmer Song. Oh she was still making music, pretty great music, in fact, after that. She’s still making decent stuff nowadays, from time to time. But in my opinion, it’s all downhill from there.

Still. This kickstarted my obsession with her at the time, because someone (I still have no idea who that was) was foolish enough to buy me the cd for Christmas. This is also why it’s #3 and not higher; I didn’t have to work at all to listen to it.

So... This is a song about killing yourself, disguised as a bouncy energetic pop tune. And it works horribly well. It’s very vaguely sinister but if you don’t listen to it very closely, it’s nearly impossible to notice what it’s actually about (translation here), and it charted super high and for a super long time without any controversy in its wake.

As I said: all downhill from there, because... how do you even top this?

2 - Lose Yourself (Eminem)

US: #63 / FR: Not on the list

You probably guessed this was coming. I’m not sure what the consensus for the “best Eminem hit song” is nowadays, but that one has to be pretty high on the list. And it’s also kind of a meme because of the spaghetti line, I know, but still, quality, man. The most important thing about it in the context of this list is that it was juuuuust slow enough to allow me to understand most of the important parts with my still-limited English, and I loved the little story it told. I remember trying to put it on a tape for days and waiting for it to pop up on the radio and instantly pressing Record after the first note.

And of course I wanted to see 8 Mile and I couldn’t, but a few months later, the local book/dvd/music store, which had screens broadcasting scenes from new stuff they were selling, had a screen with a few battle rap scenes from 8 Mile on it, and once I noticed I stood in front of the screen for a long time in silent admiration. What can I say, I was an angry little thing, and seeing angry people fighting each other in ways where no-one gets hurt was very satisfying and cathartic.

1 - In the End (Linkin Park)

US: #7 / FR: Not on the list

The music video had hilariously bad cgi even at the time, just to clarify. But yeah, that sound right there had the perfect balance of color, energy, sadness and anger to be the hit of the year for me back then. And I could understand nearly all the lyrics! I. Loved it. The local library had Hybrid Theory and I listened to it so. MUCH (my favorite song on it was actually One Step Closer (singing CAUSE I’M ONE-STEP-CLOSER-TO-THE-EDGE, ANDI’MABOUTTOBREAK felt great) and I thought Crawling was a bit embarrassing). Thank god that library didn’t have fines if you returned your stuff after the due date because I had to wait until I was able to make a copy of it first. The “parents-proof” “”cryptic”” label I wrote on said copy wasn’t particularly cryptic, though, and I’m gonna share it with you right now because that’s kind of funny.

So what do you do when you’re 14, pretty sure you understood the whole song, are finally able to listen to the whole album, burn it on a cd, and listen to it way too often? You write down the lyrics, painstakingly, with a fountain pen, in a small notebook where you try to write down the lyrics of every single song you love & can understand entirely. That’s what you do. Of course.

When I stopped doing that in 2007, there were two notebooks like that. I lost one of them, apparently, but the one I was able to find already had 63 songs in it. I finally had my own internet access later that year and I could find all the lyrics I wanted whenever I wanted, and I stopped doing that once and for all.

But it helped me get a lot better with English, so in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

So yeah, In the End?

Loved it and loved that band. I still do.

Next up: wow, “all edge no point”, uh?

#Johannes’ bad not good pretty terrible music lists #music #long post #eye contact tw #suicide ideation tw

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