#like i know i definitely brought up punk music as a comparison which. if it was abt the chainsmokers wouldve been so fucking funny

[marklikely]

harrowing experience yesterday where my friend and i debated whether or not "Closer" was a good song and it went on for like. way too long before we realized that i was talking about the nine inch nails song and they were talking about the god awful chainsmokers song.

[ambitionsource]

did you guys ever have voice casts for the characters? like people/singers you think the characters would sound like n all that? if so would you mind sharing them?

This is such an interesting question... admittedly, Es and I hadn’t really thought about it! We especially just think about the actual actors for those who already sing, but we can provide a couple other samples for each person if it intrigues you to know! Let’s see...

FARKLE | Corey actually does sing -- though not often in this version of reality -- but I do believe he has some professional training. We think of this song he’s recorded in particular, which I think is a really good example of how he sounds circa S1 in my head (this song is actually a bop. The YT version cuts out like 20 seconds too early but I found a version on Tumblr last year that was full so now I have it on my phone LMAO let’s go 2015 Corey). Anyway, it’s that pretty stereotypical power tenor vibe. A couple more comparisons I suggest are:

Jonathan Groff -- I think Jonathan Groff is the best comparison I can make. He’s theatrical, he has a pretty impressive range, but he rests pretty comfortably in the natural tenor range. Like he can do Kristoff one minute and King George from Hamilton the next, and I think that is equitable to Farkle’s range. The man key is that he’s a powerful vocalist. I think Farkle’s true center of his voice has a higher resting place than Groff, but it’s close enough. Example track: Bohemian Rhapsody. One of Glee’s best and an amazing display of Groff’s vocal range in one track. Farkle could match this beat for beat, flair for flair.

Chris Colfer -- I think that the flair Chris Colfer brings to a lot of his performances on Glee match well to Farkle’s vocal stylings as well (which is why he’s done a few performances with that version), but to be clear, I think Colfer’s voice is softer / higher than Farkle’s. It’s more about... emotion and inflection here than tone. Example track: Not the Boy Next Door. Farkle did this on the show, so you know we endorse it. This was also the track Esther brought up when I asked for her opinion.

Brendon Urie -- I think that Urie’s range is really akin to Farkle’s. I don’t think Farkle has at all the same kind of flair or inflection that Urie does (and Farkle is obviously more Broadway than radio), but on certain tracks I think it’s pretty cross applicable. Example track: Dying In LA

I’ll continue this under a read more to spare everyone who doesn’t want to read on because clearly this will be lengthy LOL.

RILEY | I have not heard Rowan sing since the thinly attached source material theme song days, so I honestly don’t think of her much as Riley’s voice (though I think she could do it if trained for it). Especially because of all the mains, Riley is one of the ones who is meant to be less trained and unimposing. For me, the most important quality to Riley’s voice is that it’s not overwhelming. It’s beautiful, and leaves an impact when you listen, but it’s never going to be Maya or Zay’s big, brassy vocals. And that’s fine. That’s what makes it unique in the landscape of the show (and why it appeals to Lucas rather than turns him away). A couple more comparisons I suggest are:

Amanda Seyfried -- I admittedly only know Seyfried’s work in the first Mamma Mia film, but she has the right delicate soprano that I envision Riley having. It’s like... a lilting, soft thing that’s enjoyable to listen to but can escalate into strong belting if needed and handle it effectively enough. Example track: Thank You For Music. Literally a perfect track for Riles.

Phillipa Soo -- Another great example of a powerful soprano player. Case in point enough that we’ve had Riley do a Eliza Hamilton song on the show already. Gentle and gorgeous, but sharp and intense when it needs to be. Example track: Burn.

mxmtoon -- First of all, let this be my plug that everyone should listen to mxmtoon. I love her. She has this lovely gentle voice and her instrumentation is so good. Her EP dusk is gorgeous and I cannot recommend it enough. But she is a great non-theater example of what I think Riley’s voice is like. She varies between ukulele and piano, and everything is just really understated and nice. Example track: show and tell.

MAYA | This is easy. I literally don’t have to say like anything. She just is Sab. That’s it. Like Sab is a phenomenal vocalist and she’s brassy and bold and has range and that’s all Maya is. Like literally that’s it LOL. If you need examples, hit her discography, but I’ll specifically highlight “Sue Me,” “Looking At Me,” and “Diamonds Are Forever” aka the Sab songs we’ve had her do on the show.

ZAY | Zay is an interesting one, because I don’t really think he fits any specific category in my head. He kind of defies definition. He definitely has a brassy swing to him that allows him to pull off showstopping numbers (like his Kossal audition with “Ain’t No Way”), but he can pull it back and reshape it to fit breathtaking musical theater renditions (like “Music and the Mirror”) or banging contemporary (think “Consideration” or “Self Control”) in a way that I don’t think Farkle or Maya can. He is the most vocally versatile of the bunch, and that makes his comparisons sort of wide-reaching as well. I’m not really familiar with Amir’s vocal ability outside of rap (so at least we know he can do that), but based purely on what I hear in my imagination, a few comparisons:

Leslie Odom Jr. -- A younger and less polished Odom, to be clear, but this is a big one for me. I think Odom’s vocal strength and range is so impressive, and what really strikes me is how... grounded and resonant his voice is. That’s a big thing for Zay for me -- you never doubt he’ll be able to support his vocals and that they’re strongly rooted. If he ever cracked or ran out of breath, it would be a shock. This is also really tied to Zay because of how much I would kill to see him perform “Wait For It” and how I feel like it’s such a Zay song. But anywho... Example track: Wait For It.

Frank Ocean -- Ocean has such a cool interesting range and does a lot of things with his performances vocally, so that’s why he’s on here in that he also defies definition. I think Zay also considers Ocean a musical inspiration, so it makes sense that he would adopt or emulate some of his style. I feel like he also translates emotion well, which is a key Zay trait too. Example track: Godspeed.

Amber Riley -- Now hear me out here. Obviously, Zay is a baritone and Amber is like a mezzo soprano / alto / what have you, but the reason I’m listing this Glee legend as a comp is because the quality of her performances is so sharp. It’s like, any time Amber performed on the show it was jawdropping. Her vocal runs are insane, the power behind her vocals is awe-inspiring. She captivates you from the first note, and that is why I always think of Zay. That’s how it is when he performs too, especially in moments where he’s trying to sell it (like his Kossal audition). I wouldn’t be giving my authentic comparisons if I didn’t mention this. So there. Example track: And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going (I would sell my soul to see Zay perform this. Please. PLEASE. Maybe I’ll crowdsource with Charlie and we’ll both sell our kidneys).

CHARLIE | Speaking of Charlie, he’s an interesting one, too. I honestly didn’t really... have a concept of how he sounded in my head, but then when I learned that Tanner sings, it was not at all whatever was deep in my head. But I love his voice, so I think I kind of ended up reconfiguring my perception of what Charlie sounds like around that revelation and now I’m still kind of trying to figure out exactly what that sounds like in the context of the show. The thing is, though, I think Charlie also doesn’t really know what his style is (LMAO), so it’s okay that we’re experimenting a little bit. Like in S1, the few times he sang, it was all over the place but mainly radio. Then in S2, he did predominantly musical theater duets. And now in S3, we’ve really just gone all over the map (from punk-rock opera with “Superstar” to bubblegum pop with “Party For One”) and there’s a lot of fun in that. Where Charlie will land, I don’t know yet, but I will share with you all Tanner’s only recorded song at this point and you all can start to orient yourselves from there. But a few other ideas to get the ball rolling:

Norbert Leo Butz -- Now here’s the thing... Charlie doesn’t sound like this LOL. The reason I’m including Butz is because I started writing about Jeremy Jordan and his rendition of “If I Didn’t Believe In You” and Jordan’s rendition is truly just so inferior that I realized no, I really don’t think Charlie sounds like Jeremy Jordan. So then I ended up here, and you know what, here’s the thing. I think an older Charlie would sound like Norbert Leo Butz. Like, give him 10 or so years, and this is where he’ll settle. To a degree at least -- I don’t think he’ll ever go quite as brassy or bold as Butz can lean sometimes, but the way he like... emotes through his vocals feels extremely Charlie, and the range is about right in terms of voice part. Anyway, give him 10 years, and then get to the point with this amazing example track that is one of my favorite musical theater tracks ever even though I hate the character who sings it. Example track: If I Didn’t Believe In You.

Oshima Brothers -- The shape of the O bros vocals don’t quite match how I hear Charlie in my head (they’re a bit too flat), but the essence of their performances resonate with him very strongly. It’s that gentle, soft-spoken acoustic vibe that I think is so core to Charlie’s performing delivery, which is part of why he’s so consistently overlooked even when he proves time and time again that he can bring compelling vocals (i.e. Haverford’s semi-finals setlist). Example track: Cadence.

Harry Styles -- It’s funny to think that if Charlie saw I was comparing him to Harry Styles he would lose his shit, but I want to be very specific about why and under what conditions I’m including him as a comparison (as he’ll show up on another person’s list too). I think Styles specifically works as a comp for Charlie in regards to the general tone and quality of his voice, in particular when it is on a softer acoustic (like “Cherry” or “Sweet Creature”) and when it’s more upbeat (like “Lights Up”). Like I’m not out here being like Charlie is as good as Harry Styles LOL, but I think the core qualities of their voices are similar. Especially when cross-compared with the other examples above along with Tanner’s actual voice. Example track: Sweet Creature.

ISADORA | Isadora is an anomaly of sorts, since she’s that character archetype where they never expected to be a singer but then ended up being talented anyway (Asher is in the same box). I tend to imagine her with a defined alto register, and a slightly huskier, gravelly tone as compared to Maya’s polished, trained vocals and Riley’s gentle, chime-like resonance. So it’s like... gritty, in a way? I have never heard Ceci sing, though I’ve been told she has once upon a time, but I am working basically from scratch in regards to how I imagine her. So without further ado, some comparisons I suggest:

Jorja Smith -- I think Jorja is the most Isa-like track we’ve had her do on the show thus far, to my brain at least. She has this charming edge to her vocals even when they’re on the softer side which is exactly what I envision for her, and I think there’s such a strong definition to when she jumps into her lower register. Whereas with Isa, I think it would be the same, but reaching into her upper notes would be even more of an audible stretch. Example track: Don’t Watch Me Cry.

Dua Lipa -- Another strong alto here, which automatically tracks Isadora for me. Dua especially has that husky quality I was describing. I would recommend all of her Live Acoustic EP to get a sense of what I’m highlighting most as a comparable, but it’s just that like... slight grit, gonna-kick-your-ass alto excellence. It’s so hard to articulate so I hope you get what I’m saying LOL. Example track: Tears Dry On Their Own Acoustic.

Madison Reyes -- I don’t know how many of y’all have watched Julie and the Phantoms yet, but it’s fun. And Madison has a great voice, which made her another good comp for Isadora. Same thing of like that unpolished but compelling belter, slightly gravelly quality. Example track: Wake Up.

LUCAS | Obviously, Lucas doesn’t sing all that often. And when we do give him songs, or roles in songs, most of the time it’s of a variation where he can more talk-sing the words than actually Sing. But he’s not totally exempt, so he deserves a comparison. For me, it’s like... the way Lucas would tell it it’s like he’s the worst singer ever in the history of the universe and you should never hear him, but honestly he’s like. Fine. He’s not great and he would never have gotten into the school for singing, but he’s not terrible. He’s passable. When he tries, it’s charming. I think the biggest key that makes him different from everyone else is he doesn’t have much of a range -- when I pick songs for him, I always try to go for ones that kind of stay within the same octave or register for the entirety so it’s almost like monotone singing, because that’s about what he can handle decently (his performance in 211 being an exception, of course, because it had to be). So, comparing accordingly:

Harry Styles -- I warned you he’d be back again, but this criteria is even more hyper-specific than Charlie. I think Styles is a great comp for Lucas in the very limited tracks where he is not showing off in any capacity and is really just keeping it stripped down and to the point (think “To Be So Lonely”). His cover of “Girl Crush” is another good example of what I mean. It’s basically like the same 4 or 5 notes and very little movement or flash, and his voice kind of takes on a grittier, flatter quality which is what I’m aiming for. Example track: From the Dining Table

That’s really it honestly. He doesn’t perform enough to warrant much else. You get the idea lmao.

ASHER | Although we didn’t expect it back in the days of S1, Asher has certainly jumped up to take spotlight in terms of performing in the last couple of seasons! Ricky (along with Liam) are actual singers and were together in a band for several years, so there’s no doubt they can sing and I think of their voices most often (in particular, I recommend the “Compass” music video, because it’s a good song and allows you to actively see which boy is singing what). But admittedly, Ricky’s handful of solo tracks since FIYM went on hiatus are average at best (and his lyricism... king you need Liam to write your lyrics LMAO), so I don’t usually jump to his music as examples of what I think he -- or Asher -- is actually capable of. So with Ricky’s good vocals as a base, here are some additional comparisons:

Ruel -- Cannot stress this one enough. There’s a reason Asher’s true initial debut was Ruel’s best track (”Younger”). He just has that perfect like... strong tenor with soft edges that feels very teenage twink and very Asher. It’s not quite Diva!Asher flair, but at Asher’s most base vocal style, I think Ruel is the perfect match. Example track: Down For You

Troye Sivan -- Same kind of traits here in terms of like smooth tenor, and in this case it actually is a certified twink singing so the crossover is even more apt. I don’t think Asher is as... electronic as Troye’s production often is, but the general range of his voice is close enough to be considered a match. Example track: 10/10

DYLAN | So same FIYM video shared in Asher’s applies here as well, but I think what works so well about Liam’s voice in regards to Dylan is that I think the key trait to Dylan is that he’s not flashy. When I think about Liam’s voice (and I love his voice, he’s my favorite FIYM member), I often think about when Sue on Glee called Quinn’s voice a “soft, forgettable alto,” but only it’s a tenor and I mean it in a nice way. The most endeared way. Dylan is less about being impressive and more about just like... character. His voice is not the best in the bunch but you can feel how him all of his performances are through his inflections and his energy. That’s what Dylan vocally feels like to me. So aside from his soft, forgettable tenor on the second verse of “Compass,” here’s a couple other niche comparisons for Dyl Pickle:

Princeton in Avenue Q -- Whenever “Purpose” comes on shuffle, I think about Dylan because of how distinct and energetic the delivery of the song is. There’s just so many little quirks and inflections and moments of fun within the vocals, and that reminds me so much of how Dylan performs. Little laughs, free-wheeling runs, stuff like that. Example track: Purpose.

Graham Verchere -- This dude like isn’t even actually a singer and he isn’t that big an actor, but I love love love his rendition of “Thirteen” with Grace VanderWaal and every time I listen to it I think about Dylan and Asher. It captures the other end of Dylan’s range for me (the soft, forgettable tenor thing) in the sense of like... imagining Dylan plucking out songs for fun on his guitar while hanging out with Asher and then playfully serenading him and the two of them doing a carefree, easy duet like this. I just love it. So I’ll include it. Example track: Thirteen.

[chibistarlyte]

shut up and dance with me

“Do you want to dance with me, Aizawa-kun?” Yagi asked with an almost bashful smile, and Aizawa couldn’t tell if it was the dim, colorful lights or a blush that was turning Yagi’s sharp cheeks pink.

“Alright,” he agreed, pushing himself off the wall and taking Yagi’s hand.

i wrote this fluffy erasermight fic for the @auyeahaugust prompt “dance” because i’m a slut for soft erasermight and i needed them to slow dance together.

thank you kat @sunshineijirou for betaing, as always. ilu!

read the fic below the cut or here on ao3! you can also find a masterlist of all my bnha fics here!

.

More often than not, Aizawa would rather be sleeping than wherever he was present at any given time, especially if he was required to socialize or be in other peoples’ presence. It took so much effort to keep up appearances, to refrain from being curt and rude when people tried to talk to him. He preferred the peace and quiet that solitude brought (though, he did enjoy all the quiet time he'd get to spend with Eri when he wasn't busy with other things).

Yet somehow, he still ended up getting roped into being a chaperone for the dance UA was holding for its third years. 

It had been Principal Nezu's idea—after some recent run-ins with villains and the like, the little mouse thought it'd be a good idea to hold some fun event to help the students, particularly those in the hero course, unwind and have a good time. But they still had to be prepared if something happened, and Aizawa was part of the chaperoning team to ensure the students’ safety.

So here he was, dressed in a suit and tie with his hair pulled back into a messy bun low at his neck, leaning against the wall far away from anyone else with his arms crossed and eyes squinted, watchful for any trouble. 

Yamada was DJing, because of course he was, though Aizawa had to admit that his best friend and eternal thorn in his side had a knack for knowing what music was popular with the kids nowadays. Everyone seemed to be having a good time on the dance floor. Aizawa even cracked a smile at the aptly-named Bakusquad's antics—Shinsou had Kaminari under his mind control and was forcing the electric boy to perform a bunch of embarrassing dance moves, much to the joy of the other students. Even Bakugou laughed, which brought a smirk to Aizawa's usually bored and impassive face.

"Was that a smile I just saw, Aizawa-kun?" came a very familiar voice, teasing in its tone.

Aizawa looked up to see Yagi standing next to him, holding two plastic cups, one in each of his large, bony hands.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Aizawa said, uncrossing his arms and taking the drink his coworker held out to him.

Yagi just smiled knowingly and took to leaning next to Aizawa against the wall. He hunched his shoulders and extended his noodle legs out a bit, his intimidating height dwindling just a little. But even dwarfing himself in such a way, he still towered over Aizawa.

"Glad to see you're not wearing that garish yellow suit you seem to favor so much," Aizawa commented dryly before taking a sip of punch. And he meant it. Yagi looked good in his navy blue suit, accented with a crisp white shirt and a red tie. It wasn't so oversized like his usual clothing, when he needed to be sure any outfit would accommodate a quick transformation into All Might. 

Yagi laughed, the sound coming from deep in his throat. "Why does everyone hate that suit so much?" he lamented, bringing his own cup to his lips. "Even you, who cares the least about fashion than anyone I know."

Aizawa shrugged, finishing his punch off in a couple of long gulps. "I prefer comfort and practicality over all else," he said, gesturing to his own black suit, complete with a dark charcoal grey shirt and a sloppily knotted black tie. He definitely didn't like dressing up, but at least he could say that his clothing was comfortable and afforded him some kind of inconspicuousness with the dark shades. 

"Well. You look good, Aizawa-kun," Yagi said warmly, and Aizawa could see his bright blue eyes squinted in a genuine smile.

Regretting that he couldn't hide behind the rim of his cup, having already finished his drink, Aizawa averted his gaze. "You too," he muttered, tapping the toe of his dress shoe against the gymnasium floor.

They stood in companionable silence, watching their students rock out to the fun and upbeat songs on Yamada's tracklist. Aizawa felt particularly amused observing Midoriya's attempt to teach Todoroki to dance. The icyhot boy's movements were so stiff and rigid that he made Iida's gestures look loose and free-flowing by comparison.

When the song ended, Yamada's loud, booming voice called the attention of the entire gymnasium. 

"Hey, hey, hey! You guys ready for a slow song?! Grab your favorite dance partners and just swaaaaay to the melody. Yeah!" the voice hero yelled as he messed with some buttons and switches on his turntable setup. There was a smooth transition into a much softer, much slower song with gentle piano and feminine vocals. 

Aizawa watched as the students began to pair off, confirming some of his suspicions as to the dating lives of his kids. 

Somehow Kirishima was able to coerce Bakugou to join him on the dance floor, and once they were there, Bakugou’s head rested on Kirishima’s shoulder as if it was meant to be there. 

Midoriya placed his hands on Todoroki’s solid shoulders, and Todoroki shyly touched his hands to Midoriya’s waist with an almost indecipherable smile on his face.

Asui took Uraraka’s hands in her own larger ones. Jirou pointedly made sure to look at Yaoyorozu’s face, a light blush on her cheeks. Dark Shadow swayed happily over Tokoyami and Shouji, clearly enjoying the music.

The erasure hero was glad that amongst all the strife they’d gone through, his kids seemed to find a little bit of love along the way.

Aizawa nearly jumped out of his skin when a large hand appeared in his vision, palm up in invitation.

“Do you want to dance with me, Aizawa-kun?” Yagi asked with an almost bashful smile, and Aizawa couldn’t tell if it was the dim, colorful lights or a blush that was turning Yagi’s sharp cheeks pink.

Normally he would have scoffed or rolled his eyes, or any other manner of clear dismissal at the offer. He had no interest in dancing, never had, and besides, he was here to keep watch and make sure everyone was safe. He had a job to do.

Still...something in Yagi’s eyes, eyes that radiated like sunlight reflected through colored glass in the sunken pits of his eye sockets, gave Aizawa pause and made his chest tighten for some godforsaken reason.

Damn, he was going soft.

“Alright,” he agreed, pushing himself off the wall and taking Yagi’s hand.

Yagi lit up like a kid in a candy store, smiling in that soft yet vibrant way of his as he led Aizawa out onto the dance floor.

“So...how does...one do this?” Aizawa muttered only loud enough for Yagi to hear, looking down at their still joined hands. “I’ve never danced before.”

“Well, it’s not like we have to waltz or anything,” Yagi said with a low chuckle. “Here...you can put your hand on my shoulders, and I’ll just…” he trailed off, bringing his free hand up and placing it hesitantly on Aizawa’s hip. Aizawa could feel the heat of Yagi’s palm through the fabric of his suit.

Aizawa brought his own free hand up toward Yagi’s shoulder, and it wasn’t until they were standing face-to-face, a hair’s breadth away from each other, that he realized just how damn tall the blond was, even in his skeletal form.

“Don’t think I can reach comfortably,” Aizawa said, bringing his arm back down and circling it around Yagi’s twig-thin waist. His calloused hand nestled in the small of Yagi’s back. “This alright?”

“Y-Yeah,” Yagi said with a nod and a weak smile, giving Aizawa’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Maybe I should…” Yagi shifted, placing his other hand on Aizawa’s shoulder. It was a comforting weight that almost gave the illusion that Aizawa was wearing his binding scarves.

“Now what?” Aizawa said with a slight frown.

Smiling softly, Yagi curled his long fingers just a bit tighter around Aizawa’s much smaller hand. “We just, uh, sway to the music, y’know?” To illustrate, Yagi swayed side to side in time with the slow rhythm of the song, gently guiding Aizawa to do the same.

It was surprising how relaxing such a simple motion felt, Aizawa thought as he let himself be led by Yagi. The ever-present tension in his muscles seemed to melt away with every passing moment, and Aizawa felt...content, and perhaps a little sleepy.

Without even thinking, he leaned forward and rested his head against Yagi’s chest. He could hear the other man’s pulse in his ear, could feel the pounding of his heart against his cheek even through the layers of clothing separating them. But they weren’t doing anything even remotely strenuous. Why was Yagi’s heart beating so fast?

Blond hair tickled his temple as Yagi leaned his head down, resting his bony chin atop Aizawa’s scruffy mess of hair that hadn’t been tamed by the bun. Yagi’s hand traveled up from Aizawa’s shoulder to behind his neck, and Aizawa involuntarily shivered as Yagi’s fingertips almost lovingly stroked the sensitive skin at the base of his neck.

Aizawa let his fingers curl into the fabric of Yagi’s jacket, not caring if he left wrinkles in his wake. For some inexplicable reason, he felt the need to hold onto Yagi, to pull him close and not let go.

The song came to an end sooner than Aizawa would have liked, and Yamada made a smooth transition into some pop-punk headbanger that immediately changed the mood of the gymnasium. Aizawa couldn’t help the slight scowl that overtook his features. And just when he was getting comfortable, too…

Yagi took a small step back, creating a polite space between them that Aizawa wanted to close again immediately. “This is a little too upbeat for my old bones,” the Symbol of Peace joked with another of his bashful smiles.

“Perhaps we should go back to supervising, then,” Aizawa said, slowly loosening his fingers from Yagi’s suit jacket and dropping his hand back to his side. Yagi did the same, trailing his fingertip across Aizawa’s neck as he removed his hand from his coworker.

They still held each other’s hands, though, neither of them ready to let go just yet.

“Thanks for the dance,” Aizawa said, meeting Yagi’s gentle gaze with a relaxed one of his own.

“No, thank you, Aizawa-kun. I’m very happy you agreed to dance with me,” Yagi said with a disarming smile.

Something hung in the air between them, something charged and soft at the same time—something magnetic, something exhilarating and calming and frightening, all mixed into a cacophony of energy that left Aizawa’s nerves tingling. 

Just then, Yagi leaned forward and kissed Aizawa’s forehead. Aizawa practically melted on the spot with a soft exhale, letting his eyes slide shut for just a moment. But when he cracked them open again, Yagi was gone, already across the gymnasium.

Placing a hand on his chest in an attempt to calm his racing heart, Aizawa left the dance floor himself. When he saw his loudmouth best friend waving at him from behind his DJ podium, Aizawa sighed. Damn, he probably saw what had just transpired between him and Yagi. He weaved through the dancings students, headed for Yamada’s music station.

“Shouta!” Yamada greeted, leaning on his turntable with his elbow to get closer to Aizawa. “I see you had a good time during that last song, hm?” the blond asked, waggling his eyebrows in a very suggestive manner.

Aizawa rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, glaring death at his best friend. “Shut up, or I’ll strangle you with my tie and make it look like an accident,” he warned, voice dangerously low.

Yamada just laughed at Aizawa’s threat to his life, patting his slightly shorter friend on the back hard enough to bruise. “You won’t and you know it,” he teased, sticking his tongue out. “You’re all bark and no bite. Which works out well for Yagi-san, ne?”

Blowing out a sigh, Aizawa didn’t deign Yamada’s comment with an answer. He didn’t leave his best friend’s side, though, just leaned back against the wall like before. He adopted his usual no-nonsense expression, his lips pulled down in a slight frown. His dark eyes surveyed the room, once again on high alert for any possible danger.

But when he looked across the gym and met gazes with a certain blond-haired, blue-eyed man standing over by the punch table, Aizawa couldn’t fight down the tiny smile that crept up on his face.

[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Postmortem: You Suck

I don’t really talk about my love for Mortal Kombat near as much as i do for Marvel, Fate, Star Wars, or Batman, but i adore that bloody franchise. Seriously, the vast majority of this blog is just Marvel and Star Wars content but, i mean, I'm an Eighties baby. That was a massive chunk of our childhoods. See? Even in an essay bout Mortal Kombat, Marvel and Star Wars found it’s way into the conversation. I have a problem but that’s not the problem i want to address in this essay. The problem i have with this one, is the f*cking Mortal Kombat release that just dropped. F*ck did they get so much wrong! I haven’t felt this frustrated with a movie since The Old Guard. I wanted this to be a Comparison but, as i tried to coalesce my thoughts about both films, it became mad apparent to me that the Nineties version of this movie would runaway with it. How is it possible that a film which came out twenty-six years ago, sh*ts all over one with modern shooting techniques and effects? How can a PG-13 movie, saturated with tongue-in-cheek camp and constant nods to the camera, do the Enter the Dragon knock-off franchise more justice that the blockbuster, R-rated, third attempt? Yeah, so this is a postmortem now.

Issue: Cole Young

Why? F*cking why? Listen, I'm all for reimaginings. I love when people can take an established work, recontextualize it, and present something new but familiar. That’s why i keep seeing Batman movies. You can only tell that dude’s story so many times but it’s how you present that story which grabs me. I like the idea of Cole. A fresh face for the audience to view these fantastical circumstances through? Good idea. I hate the execution of Cole. Punk ass weenie who literally develops powers by getting his ass kicked, portrayed by an actor who can’t act, but brought in because of his stunt background, only to nerf the physicality of the role, relegating dude’s greatest strength to his greatest weakness? F*cking, why?

Fix 1: Drop Cole Young, Start Liu Kang

Look, Liu Kang IS Mortal Kombat. He’s their Ryu. He’s their Link. He’s their guy. Drop the family. Drop the Scorpion stuff. Drop the professional fight thrower shtick Build him up as a dude who learned all of this in the Buddhist orphanage he grew up in, denying all of it as just legend and storytelling, until he’s attacked by Sub-Zero. Force him to fight Subby-boy, only to get his ass beat without his Arcana, but have Jax save him just in time. Basically follow Cole’s plot going forward with an emphasis on Liu’s training.

Issue: Shang Tsung

Listen, Ng Chin Han is a get. Dude is a decent actor and i enjoyed he take on the shapeshifter but come on? If you’re not trying to do a Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, you’re doing it wrong. Shang Tsung should be snarky, quippy, and overconfident. This dude has won nine straight Mortal Kombat tournaments. It’s fine for him to be conniving and deceitful, Deadly Alliance, but this version of Shang is just too flaccid for the title. Hell, when Tagawa came back for the game, he STILL exuded that same smarmy energy and it was perfect.

Fix 2: Give Shang Tsung more agency

I, personally, love smarmy Shang Tsung but if you want to go different, go brutal. Make Shang the spear head of the offense. Give him a seen where he is just mowing down jobber monks in Raiden’s temple before getting real intimate with Hung Lao. Have Tsung absolutely brutalized Lao as Liu watches, breaking his neck before sucking the sole out of his limp body. You got an R, Lean into that sh*t. You gotta give Liu that Chan moment. Lao’s death not only establishes Shang as a straight up force, but activates Liu’s Arcana, fulfilling the prophecy.

Issue: The f*cking prophecy

Bro, you gotta get rid of all the Scorpion prophecy sh*t. That doesn’t fit. It doesn’t make any sense. The prophecy is supposed to be a foreshadowing of Outworld’s downfall. Tying everything to Scorpion and Sub-Zero just because Ed Boon loves the character is kind of ridiculous. And that’s coming from me, a guy who uses Scorpion as his main since MKI. I love Scorpion, Dude is my favorite character in the entire franchise but giving him such a prominent role in this first film was a mistake.

Fix 3: Make it the Shaolin Prophecy

Have Shang Tsung send Sub-Zero into the Shaolin Temple with a team of Jobbers, probably Tarkatan or other Lin Kuei, and murder everyone. It is whispered that a great champion, kin to Master Kung Lao, would defeat the armies of Outworld, sealing Earthrealm off from the Emperor's grasp. baby Liu and Kung are saved, sent off to an orphanage in the US where they grow up in an orphanage run by a weird old man who tells stories. Eventually, the two separate, Kung returns to their homeland, Liu stays in the states, and they live their lives. Fast forward a bit and Shang gets wind that there are two survivors and he dispatches Sub-Zero to go after Liu. Fast forward to the temple, Liu reconnects with his cousin, Kung, who explains his powers activated during a battle against, let’s say... Baraka? Raiden feels it, recruits Kung Lao, who has been training in the temple ever since. He spars with Liu, teaching him the secrets her learned from Master Bo Rai Cho, until Raiden’s Temple is singed. Everything lays out like it did in the film except Liu watched Lao die at the hand of Shang, his Dragon Arcana activates, and the Sorcerer knows he dun goof’d.

Issue: Fights

The fighting sucked in this, man. It was shot like none of the principal actors were physical enough to pull off the fight scenes, which is ridiculous, because that opening scene was exceptional and those dues are old as f*ck. The dude who plays Scorpion, Hiroyuki Sanada, is f*cking sixty, man. You’re telling me these youngsters with actual stunt backgrounds, can’t give me a scrap as entertaining as a sixty year old man? Word?

Fix 4: Oh, there’s a lot here, bud

First, shoot the scraps better. Holy sh*t, that Taken editing was stupid. We live in an age of John Wick, The Raid, and Jason Bourne films, but you chose to shoot these scenes like this? Really? Bro, no. Hell, the fights in Enter the Dragon are some of the best I've eve seen and that motherf*cker dropped forty-eight years ago. Just do whatever he f*ck they did, just do it with a modern twist. Two, cast motherf*ckers that can believable execute the choreography. The chick that played Sonya in the first one, had to learn her fighting n set during the downtime of production because she as late to the shoot. THAT chick was a more believable fighter than the dude who played Cole and that was his f*cking job before he was an actor! F*cking, how?? Three, hire better stunt coordinators. These fights needed to be plotted out much better. Sure, fatalities are cool and special moves are awesome but they aren’t necessary. Liu Kang through one fireball in the first MK film and it was ll the better for it. I don’t need giant flame dragons and head claps and sh*t, i just need brutal, intense, violence inflicted upon a person. These people are in the fight for their lives. I need to feel that. Four, hire more jobbers. Too many actual named characters died in this movie. Too many actual named characters appeared in this movie. Why the f*ck was Nitara in this?

Look, there’s still SO much i would change about this flick. The costumes, the tone, the choice in music, the writing; All need to be adjusted. I would hold Scorpion back until sequel. Have him breaking out of the Netherrealm as a post credit stinger or something. This movie is broken and i think that’s because WB just made this thing to secure rights or a a backdoor pilot for HBO max content. Either way, this movie is bad, man and it didn’t have to be. You can make dope ass, martial arts films, on the cheap, especially when you “ground them in reality.” Why the f*ck didn’t that happen here? How the f*ck is the budget so high, and the film so cheap looking? I miss the ingenuity of the Eighties. Cats had to figure out how to make sh*t work because CG was too expensive. Now, that sh*t is everywhere and it’s a detriment to film. That sh*t takes casualties out of practical films and Mortal Kombat is definitely one of those.

[jonesrocktography]

A Few Questions for Ašara

(From L-R, Mike and Ieva)

A new outfit hailing from Rhode Island, Ašara, just released a new album of songs earlier this fall, called Dancing in The Doldrums (Spotify|Bandcamp|Youtube) and I got a chance to talk to them a little bit about it.

Here's the interview for your reading pleasure with Mike and Ieva! (some edits for clarity)

Good day, morning, noon, night, whatever time it is. Let's start with a hard hitting journalist question... how are you doing?

Mike (Instrumentals) - I’m a lil under the weather at the moment and about to get a COVID test, but things are swell. How’s about you Larny? Ieva (Vocals) - Doing well, thank you for interviewing us.

How did this project come about? It’s always a curiosity to wonder how a project like this comes together... Mutual friends, classified ads, chance encounters...? 

Mike - She had popped up in my suggested profiles on instagram and I had checked out her band Cruisers (it was awesome). We talked a bit about music and decided to jam once. It was fun for me (I can’t speak for Ieva, probably hated it) but there was no real direction to it. She then sent me the demos for 5 songs.

Ieva - Heyy it was fun for me too, I’m just not much of a jam sort of person typically. I think we had a direction, we wanted to make music, and the only thing I ever know how to write is droney and pretty depressing, all subjective I suppose. That’s a direction in itself, whether I like it or not.

What's the meaning of the name? I sense it's not in English so excuse my ignorance here.

Mike - It means “tear” in Lithuanian. Once I heard it, I knew it meant we had a band name. AH-SHA-RA is the pronunciation. 

Ieva - I am part Lithuanian. It was my first language before I learnt English. So sometimes I tend to form sentences combining both without even realizing. I wanted a word that I could associate with pain, emotional or physical. Not to sound like an absolute cliche but my writing stems from those feelings.

Ok next question: Your musical past before this project came about, what was it like? How do your past experiences influence what you’re trying to do now?

Mike - My musical past and present is amazing. I’ve worked with so many talented folks in the genres of metal, punk, rock, and everything in between. The Ašara demos were completely bare bones so a lot of what I brought to it was rhythmic structure. The music was droning on and I wanted to move it forward and fill it in without disturbing the mood Ieva had laid out.

Ieva - I’ve been in numerous bands, signed and unsigned. I’ve toured the US and Europe. Worked with people remotely over decades really. Every project has been slightly different, from chamber-pop to darkwave. I would say that Ašara is the closest I’ve come to realizing what I hear in my head. Sometimes it’s hard to translate initial ideas into the real world. Thankful that Mike and I were able to create this together.

I got a chance to hear some of your music prior to this interview and I’m intrigued....it seems like a combination of ideas that touch upon Chelsea Wolfe meets Filter meets David Lynch...is that an accurate assessment or is there a better combination of names in your mind?

Mike - Out of those 3, I’ve only really listened to Welcome to the Fold by Filter, lol. Great song. I honestly stuck in my own head while making this. I asked Ieva what she thought it sounded like which led to me falling in love with Windhand. It’s on you to tell us who we sound like, I just wanted to mix elements of doom, stoner, and industrial metal and listen to what came of it.

Ieva - I watched Twin Peaks when I was way too young. So there are probably some elements of David Lynch’s work in my subconscious. I think he is brilliant. Julee Cruise is definitely an influence in some way as well. Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins, Massive Attack) is one of my main influences across anything I do. I’m also a fan of everything on Sargent House so thank you for the comparison.

Lay it out for me: In your first year of existence...what are your goals?**

Mike - We actually finished an album start-to-finish in 2021. I really wasn’t sure if it was going to end up unreleased or not. If by first year you mean from the release onward, we’re going to keep writing and play out in 2022 if the cards line up. We have a few live musicians we have yet to run the songs with, but we hopefully won’t keep you waiting long.

Ieva - We’re working on the next batch of songs, and will hopefully play a couple of live shows eventually.

Mike, I think you might like this one....if your band got a call from a pro wrestling organization to write or license a song to anyone, which wrestler (and this could be anyone) would you want to come out to your music?

Mike - I’d be open to commission a song to anyone, but specifically, Malakai Black in AEW. He’d look good walking down the ramp to He Could Kill.

Ieva, this’s one for you....what’s your lyrical inspiration for these songs?

Mike - Her lyrical inspiration for album #2 will be my interpretation of lyrics from album #1. She was holding the lyrics hostage from me so I had to come up with my own. It’ll be a 240 degree process; She sings the lyrics, I guess was she’s saying, she sings what I guess she’s saying, It’s going to be amazing**

Ieva - I really love Mike’s interpretation of my lyrics. Sometimes it's all about how words sound together. Whilst driving across the country from Los Angeles to Boston, I listened to a lot of Dateline. I was of course horrified by all of it, and it's typical of me, I’ve always been curious and drawn to things that are slightly morbid. I wrote a lot of these lyrics from the perspective of someone who is preying on another. “A Pact” is about a deer running from a hunter, from the perspective of the deer. “Remain” is about a killer’s confession. I could say that some of the inspiration came from personal experience intertwined with more extreme made up scenarios.  Time for a big question: How did you produce this project during the pandemic?

Mike - Musically, it was very easy but different. If you don’t know me, I’ve played bass for about 20 years and barely touched a guitar or drum set in that time. I was gifted a guitar from a friend a few years back and had enough of an idea on how to program drums to get the flow I wanted. We recorded it 95% remotely, the bridge riff to Dark Waters came from a jam in May because I couldn’t really figure out what to do with it. The technical aspect was tougher because I had to learn how to mix for this so it still does sound rough around the edges to me, but I am proud of what we accomplished.

Ieva - I had been so used to working remotely way before the pandemic, so I can say that I’m pretty comfortable with that sort of setup. We both have our own home studios so we did a lot of tracking on our own and met up to go over final edits in person.

Final one before I wrap this up: Where can people find you on social media?

Mike - asaramusic666, asara, or ašara. You can type a Caron “s” on Windows by holding Alt and typing 0154 (confirmed) or on Mac by holding down the S key and you'll be presented with three options - press 3 on your keyboard to type š (unconfirmed).

Facebook

Instagram

Bandcamp

Hopefully we’ll have a website soon since I’m bad at constantly posting. Duly noted, thanks to you both for a fantastic interview, can’t wait to see you live in 2022 (or whenever that day comes)!

[thatswhenyourefrom]

Sunday’s Best - “Poised to Break” & The “Californian”

I wanted to give insight into the checkpoints of the external forces that make me who I am today. I won’t deny that most of these pieces will mostly stem from my adolescence (and also mostly be music), but I still act as clay in the presences of art around me. The selected pieces (or collections of pieces) may be precise or vast, so expect varying lenses. Most of what I wanted to bring to this conversation were my hidden gems; pieces I hold so true to me and me only. I came to a realization recently that some of my favorite albums and some of my favorite movies do not stick to some of my peers. I don’t expect them too. I also don’t expect to sway any opinions or justify any of my opinions. The expectation is to usher you in to the closest parts of me.

I first heard Sunday’s Best in 2002 on a Canadian tv show called Undergrads before I was in the double-digits. It was a background song (reused again in the end credits), but the chorus stuck in my head. Whether it be hummed, sang, or just spinning around in my head, the song and the sound was stuck (and remains to be to this day). This song has built a house on top of my brain.

In the early 2000’s, the internet was picking up a lot of steam, and even though I was a young little guy, i started to learn my way around it at a young age. Yet still, there was difficulty in finding what I was looking for. I needed to find the artist of this song and the name of the song and download it on Napster or Ares or Kazaa or Limewire (or……). When a certain mood would strike, I would feel almost nostalgic and go on journeys to find a soundtrack list of the songs involved with this show. The hunt for the past is what I craved, and still do. One day I found the Undergrads website, put up by MTV when they used to make websites for each individual show on their rotation. It was a flash site and you could navigate around a little picture and highlight items for more information. One setting to navigate was a bar. In that bar was a jukebox. In that jukebox was the soundtrack list.

I began downloading every song I could. To be entirely honest, I think that these two Sundays Best songs were relatively easy to find, since the rest of the soundtrack was made up by obscure Canadian power pop bands. After listening to the first song I downloaded I knew I had found it; the song was called “Saccharine”.

I mark this song as my touch point for what I would later call emo music. The cul de sac that now exists with the houses of The Promise Ring and Texas is the Reason would most likely not exist is I didn’t hear “Saccharine” when i was nine years old. It fit right in with the other music I liked at the time like Jimmy Eat World who had just brought the light of Bleed American to the world. I get amped in the same way when I hear “Saccharine” as I do “Sweetness” by Jimmy Eat World; youthful, energetic, a little pain, and most of all nostalgia.

[If you would like to split hairs for a minute, I really love the poppy sound of this song and it‘s a much more of a power pop/college rock sound that I was attracted to than something classically emo, but it paved the way, so i digress.]

The hooks still get me. The riffs enliven me. At the very least, you can walk away from this song thinking it it is a catchy bastard. If anyone in the world can take a step back, look in on this song, and for even a second understand that this is the foundation for some person’s entire musical world, you have found me out. I am an open book at that point.

This is one song.

There is another Sunday’s Best song in the soundtrack for Undergrads and it also rang in my head, but to a much lesser extent. “White Picket Fences” is a much more reserved song by comparison to “Saccharine.” Quieter, yet way more dynamic. It grows so much. From what I remember from Undergrads, the audience only hears the last section, a theme that is bigger and hookier than the mood the rest of the song lays.

These two songs remained on my iPod for years.

When I was around the ages of fifteen and sixteen, I decided that i really needed to figure out all of this mumbo jumbo and really hammer down the music that has plagued me for years. What is that sound I am looking for? I want more Sunday’s Best. Can’t just search indie rock. Can’t search punk. Can’t search anything. The keyword “emo” was found and i had suddenly discovered a bible.

I spent a ton of time getting to know a ton of new bands which continue to dominate the music I like today. In this discovery of bands, I also learned much about record labels, including Polyvinyl records. Guess who put out Sunday’s Best’s music.

I decided that I would make the gamble and buy the CD “Poised to Break” by Sunday’s Best from the Polyvinyl store. I call it a gamble, because I have been severely bitten by looking in deeper to a bands output only to find out that the single I love is by far the only thing I could find likeable. This is not the case. This album is ten songs of exactly what I love.

“The Hardest Part” is a strange opener, because it’s kind of big and heavy. The chorus is yelled for Christ sake. It’s easily the angriest sounding song for an otherwise mellow band that I would call energetic at most. Partially uncharacteristic, but still a damn fine song. Track 2, “Bruise Blue” would fit right in with the soundtrack of Undergrads (and parallely my life). It’s calm, full of hooks, emotional. Great. Followed by “Bruise Blue” is “White Picket Fences” and “Saccharine”. At this point, my thought it “well I have all of the best songs out of the way.” “Indian Summer” blows that away with a track that I am so surprised isn’t heralded as an indie rock classic. This song wants be on every mixtape and MTV show until the end of time. “When is Pearl Harbour Day” is an awesome song about nostalgia, including the following line which rings in my head all of the time: “I hate nostalgia, it tries to hard to remember only the easy parts.” Track 7 and 9 are both energetic ones. Track 8, “Looks Like a Mess” is a broody, melodramatic song that I am undeniably in love with. “Winter Owned” rounds out the album and brings it back to the energy of track 1 and employs the same mixed singer chorus. The final track (and bonus track) is called “Congratulations”. Full of hooks, personal experience of naivety and confusion. The secret track is an instrumental song I am sure they used to open sets with. I am glad they included it because it’s loud, slow and cool. To me, each track is unskippable.

The whole album sounds like a soundtrack to a teen drama show that were hugely popular in the late 90’s going into the early 2000’s. Shows like Buffy, Dawson's Creek, 90210, and so many others were drenched in naive and intense emotions, stories of love and personal growth, and youth culture which made them a perfect place for this type of music. I am lucky i got to grow up in the times when I did where I can look up to those people on the screen, then be them, then look back on them with a familiar nostalgia.

Years later I would find that Polyvinyl holds a “Garage Sale” where they sell their surplus records and cd’s for next to nothing. While flipping through the garage sale, I had discovered Sunday’s Best had a second full length. I must have unconsciously ignored this release due to my fear of ruining the sanctity of my entire musical foundation. Do I risk it? What if it sucks and it’s ten boring songs? Or what if they sound like other more popular bands of now? It did come out in 2002 when this type of music was the mainstream. This is more than just a $3 gamble.

I bought it. It’s called “The Californian”. It’s better than the first LP.

Again hitting a ten song track count, “The Californian” is a succinct mood of an album. Much more consistent in tone, the songs are a lot more mellow than the ones on the first LP. This doesn’t mean that it lacks dynamics or moments of intensity. But it does mean there’s less yelling, head banging, and anthemic lyrics. What arises is my own personal therapy. Whether it be because I found a lot of this music (emo) in the autumn seasons, or if my mood just drew my to these sounds during fall, I always return to my classics around this time. Monday was a brisk day and I put in “The Californian” and it immediately hooked a line to the center of my heart. The air reminded me to being a young person and being in high school and college and time passing and old friends and how I used to feel so big, and the songs from “The Californian” were not there to yell at me; they were there to hold me like mother to her child. Therapeutic.

Quick track by track: The album launches into “The Try”. Coming off of the first album, you immediately know this album has more pieces to each song (production wise) creating a huge sound. But it’s not wasted. Every melody is catchy as all hell. “The Try” reigns that in. Track two, the title track, continues this pace. The chorus bops around a bit. “Don’t Let It Fade” is the single. Very quiet. Very somber. The bridge is my favorite part. “The Salt Mines of Santa Monica” has more energy than the last two so it sounds like a bigger “Poised to Break” song. The second singer has great contributions in the pre-chorus. He is really being used in a more calculated way. “If We Had It Made” comes in with massive church bells sound. One of my favorite songs. I love the bells. I don’t entirely know what the song is about, but the chorus moves me. Track 6 is a rocker. Even so, it’s consistent. “Without Meaning” was used in a Gilmore Girls and it’s directed melodrama fits that vibe really well. “Beethoven St.” is pure Sunday’s Best. If you wanted to write a song like them, copy this song. “Brave But Brittle” has a lot of the classic emo riffs. The way the intro falls over itself and then morphs into have arpeggios. Another favorite of mine. The last track is easily my least listened to song, but that’s because I usually reach my destination listing to this album in the care. It’s great though and I kick myself for missing it.

(I could give more in depth track-by-track if requested, but that isn’t necessarily the point of the writing.)

This band and these two lengths are an emblem of my growth. They are a tree that has stood my whole life and I am still sustained by its fruit. The sound that is contained in these albums is contains a definition of who I am and what I love. When you cannot articulate a feeling with direct words, you use art. That’s what artists do. Though I could never imagine conjuring this feeling inside of anyone else with my own art, I am glad I can direct others to this album and this feeling. It it’s hooks can get in and you let yourself get pulled, you can be me.

-luke

[momentsinsong]

Moments In Song No. 023 - Kotic Couture

Authentic. That’s one word that can be used to describe Kotic Couture’s current mindset. From their music, to their marketing, Kotic is making sure to put their genuine self in everything that they do, regardless of who cares. We talk to the artist about intersectionality in Hip-Hop, their love for relatable lyrics, and the never-ending journey towards authenticity.

Listen to Kotic Couture’s playlist on Apple Music and Spotify. 

Words and photos by Julian.

_______________________________________________________________________

Julian: The first thing I noticed about your playlist is that a lot of the songs are introspective and thought provoking. There’s maybe only one or two celebratory party songs on there. Was that a conscious choice you made or just something that ended up happening? 

Kotic: It’s funny because I didn’t realize how introspective I was until the beginning of the year when I put a song and my friends were like, “You’re very conscious of yourself when you  write.” Looking at the songs on the playlist, it does include songs that I casually listen to, so it wasn’t really a conscious decision, but it was interesting to see the artists that I like and how they reflect on things and how that comes into my everyday life. I feel like I’m always thinking about shit or being conscious of how I move. I didn’t realize how much that was reflected in the music I listened to until I started looking at my playlist. 

Are those reflective songs new songs you’ve been listening? Or are some of them songs you’ve always loved?

I’ve always always always always listened to “Save Me” by Nicki Minaj. Since “Pink Friday” came out it’s been one of my favorite songs. I’ve literally been listening to “Ctrl” for the last 2 months. That’s why “Drew Berrymore” is my go to song right now. It’s just such a great song. Even “Family Business” by Kanye and “Daddy Lessons” are songs I’ve always cycled through. But as of recent “Drew Berrymore” has been on repeat everyday. 

You mentioned earlier the reason why that song sticks out so much is because it puts into words what you may not always be able to? 

Music is such a beautiful thing. A lot of times you think you’re the only person who’s experiencing something and I just think that SZA....SZA and I are very close in age and so I think that album and the way that she wrote it is for people of our generation. It’s very relatable. So as I’m growing and experiencing more things, and experiencing relationships, or different career goals, that was one of those songs that makes sense. It puts my emotions into words. I didn’t know how to say it but this song says it. 

When working on your own music, is expressing those not-so-easy-to express emotions through writing a skill you’ve developed over time or is it something you’re still developing? I also know that you are really into the club music scene, so is that more introspective side something that was always present at the beginning of your career?

I’ve always loved singer-songwriters, but it always felt like I had to make party music or club music because I was always in clubs. But as of late, and especially since we’ve all been quarantined, I feel a little bit more adventurous with expressing myself and wanting to challenge my writing. When I look onto the internet, or look on Twitter, or talk to people, a lot of people feel underrepresented and they want those songs to make them feel how “Drew Berrymore” makes me feel. They want something real, they want something relatable. This is what’s going on in my life. Just recently I came to terms with the fact that I’m not on the radio right now. I really don’t have a desire to be on the radio right now. I want to make music that feeds people’s souls and means something. That’s been a recent shift that’s starting to be reflected in my writing a lot more.

I honestly think that’s where you find longevity. Searching for just that radio play….

It’s going to fizzle out. 

Yeah, and like you said earlier when you’re really making that impact on people’s lives  and speaking to what they want to hear, that’s how you reach longevity and stay on people’s ears and minds.

People just want to be understood. And they want to express things to others, and sometimes that’s through music. It can be a conversation starter as well. 

Are some of the artists on this playlist big musical influences when you were growing up? Or are there some not on this playlist that you could tell us about?

Definitely coming up as a rapper Nicki, Missy Elliott, Left Eye. Missy and Left Eye are the reasons I started rapping. Even M.I.A. I always knew club music, but even outside of that I didn’t have a lot of exposure to different types of music. So my friends would hear Electronic music and say, “Oh that’s white people music.” So when I heard “Galang” for the first time and saw the visual I was like, “Oh shit!” And then I found out about Santigold and all these other artists, and it kind of opened up another world for me. It let me know I can make these different types of music, and pull from these different influences.

As of right now I’ve been experiencing a lot of influence from R&B music. Along with “Ctrl” I’ve been listening to “Shea Butter Baby” by Ari Lennox non-stop, literally. Tidal does a “most listened to” playlist for the month and my July playlist was one song and then the whole “Shea Butter Baby” album and “Ctrl.”

What about Missy Elliott and Left Eye specifically inspired you to make music?

I never connected with male figures growing up. Male rappers never talked about anything that I thought was relatable, or anything that I really liked, until Kanye came out. So hearing Missy, and hearing Left Eye, these artists are talking about things that I was relating to. They’re both super creative. I feel like they’re opposite ends of the spectrum where Missy is so out there and iconic visually and is dangerous as a songwriter, Left Eye was very upfront and vocal about her beliefs and the way she felt about things. I feel like it was the marriage of the two of them that built me as a person, even to the point of me standing up for what I believe in. I remember listening to a TLC interview and they said in the “Creep” video Left Eye didn’t agree with the message so she wore tape over her mouth and didn’t want to put a verse on the song. So it’s things like that that remind me to say what I feel and to always be ahead.  

I feel like you can also see that with some of the newer artists you have on your playlist. I feel like CHIKA falls into that category you just described as far as doing her and saying what’s on her mind regardless of what other people are saying. 

If you haven’t listened to anything else, you should definitely listen to her Tiny Desk. I love listening to EP’s, but my favorite thing is performing. So watching people perform something in a more acoustic way is always interesting to me. And the way the production was done, with the background singers being brought out for the Tiny Desk is really dope. So CHIKA is someone I really love. I love her, I love Tank and the Bangas, that's just what I enjoy. I enjoy poetry, I enjoy art. I’m very receptive to people who make art with their words. 

Do you have any other artists that you admire as far as their live performances go?

I saw NAO at Afropunk, she is amazing live. Jill Scott, she is amazing live. And very captivating. I did theater in high school, so performance is a very important thing to me. Watching how people put things together, I love instrumentation, I love bands. Someone who I think is very slept on is Azealia Banks. When she performs live it’s crazy. 

You brought up Azealia and it’s really crazy what happened to her. She’s an incredible artist but I feel like all that extra stuff overshadowed her talent and music. You could honestly make the argument that she laid the groundwork for a lot of the female, and male artists even out today. 

I think Azealia is a great example of how the industry, and more specifically the Black community, responds to mental illness. How they respond to mental illness coming from Black women versus Black men. Because you can make the comparison of Kanye and Azealia and it's going to be two different things. I think that when you hear Azealia and some of the things she went through, and then look at some of her actions, she’s someone that’s been hurt. You can tell she’s someone who has issues with mental illness. But I think that the way the world attacks women, and demonizes women, especially darker skinned Black women, it says a lot about the way the industry carried her out. 

“Broke with Expensive Taste” was an amazing album. I don’t think the label pushed her the way they should have. There’s a lane of people who craft the way artists move, especially underground artists, and I feel like Azealia opened the doors for Black people to come back to Electronic music, to come back to House music, to rap and to sing. And then visually and aesthetically, I feel like Azealia laid down that groundwork which made people more receptive, and opened up the doors for someone like Rico Nasty to take it to the next level. 

I feel like Rico doesn’t get the recognition she deserves. For alternative girls in Hip-Hop Rico changed the aesthetic and the sound. And I think it just says a lot about how this industry handles and disrespects Black women. People are just so used to that being the way, they don’t think about it or question it. But yeah Azealia is just super talented, and she’s opened up a lot of doors and pushed a lot of envelopes, and I don’t think she gets the respect she deserves for that. 

She definitely helped pave the way for like a Rico Nasty, and even then you were saying Rico doesn’t get the recognition she deserves. She’s very in your face, with that almost angsty punk rock, emo rock type of energy, and not to pit them against each other, but that doesn’t get the same type of love and recognition as a Cardi B or Megan the Stallion. So that goes back to your point of making sure the playing field is level and everyone gets the shine and attention they deserve. And like you said it’s a societal issue, not a Cardi or Meg issue. They’re not trying to be the one and only voice for female rappers out here. 

Even Cardi just recently said, when they were talking about “WAP” and someone made a comment about conscious female rappers and Cardi was like, “Y’all don’t listen to them!” There’s a lane for everybody because there’s something everybody wants to listen to, but I think that if you are a femme-identifying person and youre not selling sex then people don’t want to hear you. Or you have to play the game a certain way. Even if you think about Nicki she was like I’m going to put these blonde wigs on and give you this bubblegum pop shit but I’m also going to put rap songs on my albums because I recognize where I come from. So I guess it’s about learning to play the game, or wanting to play the game because some people don’t want to. 

At the end of the day some people are like, look I just want to make what I want to make, create what I want to create, and if they like it they like it, if they don’t they don’t. And I feel like now it’s hard to have these conversations because some people in our generation and younger are conditioned to think that their opinion is the only thing that’s correct. So when people are trying to have a conversation or debate it’s automatic, I don’t agree with you let’s shut it off. And there’s a lot of tension and things that get involved. Like Rico and Meg can exist within the same world but the world tells us that they can’t. And I think people hear what they want to hear, and see what they want to see out of that and just cut it. It definitely says a lot about society, but things are changing. 

Women are running the rap game right now. Between City Girls, Meg, Cardi, even artists like Mulatto coming up. I don’t care what anyone says CHIKA is the best rapper in the freshmen class. Women are really starting to be like, look I’m running this shit, I’m making the content, I’m bringing everything to the game that other people aren’t. A lot of the other younger rappers that are coming up are lazy. Because for 5 minutes when Black Lives Matter happened everyone wanted to be an activist, but now everybody is like let’s go back to playing party music. And it’s fine you don’t have to, everybody don’t want to express it in their art. So I just think it goes to show the wave, and who’s real. And people are leaning towards authenticity now. 

I would make the argument that this decade of rap, the 2020’s, is going to be leaning towards women taking over, and them taking the spotlight, and their voice taking priority. I feel like the 2010’s was when it just started being ok for you to not be rapping about trapping or gangbanging. You saw the Drakes and the Tylers and all of those guys come up this decade, so I feel like the 2020’s now will have women come in and take that role. Plus some of the male rappers are getting lazy. The last three albums you put out sound the same. Nothing is new, nothing is different. You’re still talking about the same stuff.

And I always question artists who put, not to question their creative process, but if you’re putting out two or three albums in a year or year and a half did you really take the time to craft that? There’s certain people now who I’m really starting to listen to more. Amine I’m starting to listen to more, and his visuals are really dope. I really like Saba, I like Smino, I like Noname. I think we’re breaking out of that time of there can only be one. It took almost 10 years of Nicki being out before someone was like, oh we can have multiple women. She was like, Ok I’ve been telling y'all there doesn't have to be only one. Or you have like J. Cole who was the only “conscious” rapper that people were paying attention to but now people are realizing you can like more than one person and it’s ok to diversify what you take in. 

It’s making room for people to create. And I think people have always been afraid because I think back to watching Jay Z “Fade to Black'' and there was a point where they were in the studio and the guy was like, “I don’t want to talk about the shit that I’m talking about but that's the only thing labels want to push and hear,” and Jay Z was like “Y’all hear that? Y’all got people afraid to be themselves because y’all won’t listen to it.” And I think we’re out of that time because the internet has grown, the internet is more accessible so people can go find exactly what they want to listen to. 

I feel like that goes back to the piece you were saying earlier, like when you’re making music to impact people’s lives. There’s an audience for everyone, there’s a space for everyone. If you’re making music to get on the radio your audience is only gonna be so big, but when you’re making music to impact people’s lives, that’s going to increase the size of your audience tenfold. 

I like to think of my music as a book, and each song being a chapter. Like overall, what do I want this book to be about, and who do I want this chapter to relate to? But away from everything else, how do I want to express what I’m feeling and how do I want to be vulnerable to help someone else is my biggest thing. I just recently realized I’m not going to be Beyonce. That’s not my role, I love Beyonce, but that’s not my role. I can still love somebody’s work and their art and respect it, and want to go in another direction. So I think the realization of like, “I’m cool being like the Saba, the Smino, the Mac Miller that does the festival stage, that sells out shows, but I might not be on the radio,” that’s fine. It’s more important for me to create something that I can perform for 5 to 10 years and still be happy with it. And I’ve just come to that realization, and I think that’s changed a lot of the music I’m creating.  

Would you say your latest release, “Pink Durag” embodies that new message you're trying to get across?

Yeah I feel like that was kind of a spiritual graduation for me. I think the reason why that song was different was because I produced it. So even making the beat, I’m making this knowing what I want to say, knowing what I want to do. I just think it was a different connection with the music. I think more now I’m in the realm of, “If you don’t like it, it’s not for you but I love this.” I’m making music for me, that I hope touches other people. But if it doesn’t, I want to make sure the stuff that I release, I can look at it and be like you know what people weren’t receptive to it but I’m 1000% proud of what I put out. And that’s just the mind-frame that I’ve been in. I’m not trying to sell myself to anybody else anymore. Labels don’t know how to sell me. Marketing teams don’t know how to sell me. So I’m just going to do it myself, and in order for me to do it myself it has to be authentic. It has to be something I believe in. 

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[mountainashfae]

multiples of three&five for mialee and rowan??? yes this is a lot lmao have an egg in a frying pan 🍳

hahahha yes good time to have fun.

I realized after typing the answers for #3 and #5 that there were.. a LOT more to answer than anticipated.

This is a freaking infodump. I love it.

[ Super detailed questions about your OCs ]

Rowan

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory?

You can say Rowan had a good childhood. He got to spend a lot of time with his parents since his dad was a goober who took every opportunity to skip out on his responsibilities to be with his family, and his mother was just always with him (except for when she went back to her home in the forest to make sure everything was okay there. She was much more serious about her responsibilities as a druid). All of Rowan’s favorite memories were with his parents, usually just doing simple things like playing in the garden and literally every time his mom brought home some wild animal from the forest (his favorite was a fox that one time hid in the castle gardens instead of going back to its home). The one true bad memory would be the night when the castle caught fire and his parents died, and literally any others are mild at best in comparison.

The last bit of his childhood that he spent with Altair and Evelynn wasn’t bad per se, but it wasn’t quite as good as the first seven years. Altair was much tougher than Rowan’s dad (especially pushing with the fighting training), and while Evelynn coddled him in comparison to her husband, it just wasn’t the same as his mom, ya know? A lot of the villagers in Pinegrove weren’t as quick to be warm to him since he was a half-elf amongst humans, but he became close friends with two kids his age, Adrian and Shelley. The three of them were partners in crime and would often run off to explore the woods nearby (which was the same one as Rowan’s mom lived).

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

Siblings? Oh heck yes let’s never forget the beautiful Aelin Thornbrook, aka Rowan’s complete opposite. As children, Aelin and Rowan were practically joined at the hip. Rowan would hold her hand and lead her around everywhere. There was practically no reason for the two to have separate bedrooms since half the time they would sleep together anyway. The only reason the two weren’t together during That Night was because Aelin was sick and they didn’t want Rowan to get sick as well. I sure wish I could comment on their relationship now that they’re adults, but as far as Rowan is aware, Aelin died in that fire. Whoopsie.

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

Rowan got a good ol’ Unorthodox Royal Education, so his general subjects in school were much more varied than everyone else’s. There’s no real equivalent to modern education I don’t think, and even with that he never ‘finished’ per se. They gave up trying to school him after he started helping out on the different farms in the village. He loved learning about the history and lore of Riverin, and honestly hated any and all politics-related classes.

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

HE!!! LOVES!!! ANIMALS!!!! Rowan for Druid 2k17

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect?

Rowan likes children, yeah, but he’s absolutely terrified of the idea of him having to take care of one. He has no plans of becoming a parent and the only way he would become one is by some crazy magical BS. He’d probably make a pretty uncle though. A really protective and doting one.

12. What is their favourite food?

Peach ice cream, hands down. Boiled peanuts is a close second. ;3

15. Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

Rowan is absolutely baller at cooking, especially baking. It’s his favorite thing to do, especially when he’s doin it for others. So far, everyone has liked his cooking. Can’t wait for him to bake something again, which will likely be soon since we’re approaching midsummer in Dunks.

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else

Rowan isn’t a huge reader, but if he were to read for fun, he’d prefer realistic fiction. When it comes to music, he’s a fan of calmer music. Punk? Rock? Metal? Pop? Not his thing really. If he were to play video games, he’d love chill games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley.

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes?

He’s definitely a fan of music, though he can’t play it to save his life. If a song he likes comes on or if he gets one stuck in his head, he’ll start humming along, maybe dance a little bit if he’s alone.

21. Do they have a temper? Are they patient? What are they like when they do lose their temper?

This is probably one of the most patient men you’ll meet. No, he doesn’t take much BS (such as Lesdyn’s teasing and shenanigans), but it takes a lot to truly set him off and make him angry. The few times that he has lost his temper, someone has gotten punched.

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress?

Rowan prefers a soft bed when he can get one, but sleeping on harder surfaces isn’t too much of a problem for him. And what the heck is a healthy sleep pattern? This man has that recurring nightmare every night. The only difference is whether or not he wakes up screaming.

25. What do they find funny? Do they have a good sense of humour? Are they funny themselves?

I don’t know what you’d call what he finds funny, since he’ll have a laugh at plenty of different things, but he definitely has a sense of humor. No patience for offensive jokes of any kind though. He’ll crack jokes from time to time, but he’s not a super humorous guy. Quite a few of the ones he’ll pull are kinda him trying to make a joke about himself (usually at him messing something up), and he’ll laugh at those jokes but they don’t quite go over as well with others.

27. What makes them sad? Do they cry regularly? Do they cry openly or hide it? What are they like they are sad?

As someone who doesn’t really get sad from much themself, I can’t really say what makes Rowan sad, other than fairly obvious things. He’s not one to cry out in the open; he’d much rather just get some space, cry himself out alone, and then re-join the group.

30. Do they exercise? Regularly? Or only when forced? What do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

Me, a person who never works out at all: uhhhhhhhhhhhhh

You had to force Rowan to work out when he was younger, but with time he realized he needed to keep himself strong as both a Fighter and as someone who works on a farm. A lot of his exercise has been farmwork and training, though he has to rely on other exercises now that he’s away from home.

33. What underwear do they wear? Boxers or briefs? Lacey? Comfy granny panties?

Definitely boxers on this man.

35. What’s their guilty pleasure? What is their totally unguilty pleasure?

He likes to say his guilty pleasure is taking walks in the woods, but I doubt that really counts. I don’t think he has anything that counts as a “guilty pleasure.”

This here is a simple man (who often forgets he’s a prince) who just likes to bake, spend time with animals, and make sure his friends don’t die from doing something stupid.

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing?

Being a Fighter: No

Farming: Moderate success

Baking: Hail yeah

Singing: Probably ;3c

39. Do they like letters? Or prefer emails/messaging?

In this not-quite-modern society of Dunksworld, Rowan has written many a letter and will continue to write them. He’s discovered Scype though, so that could easily be a thing he turns to in the future (with the help of Nazh of course).

40. Do they like energy drinks? Coffee? Sugary food? Or can they naturally stay awake and alert?

This man??? Stay awake and alert??? Fat chance with his sleeping issues.

He’s not a fan of coffee, and prefers naturally sweet foods over super sugary ones.

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition?

Goals: Figure out how the hailstones to do the thing in Riverin and become king (not that he really wants to), Become A Druid, get Nazha to the Altar of Mhenine in one piece.

What would he sacrifice anything for?? Nazha of course.

Secret Ambition: Date That Reverend. You know the one.

45. How do other people see them? Is it similar to how they see themselves?

Well I know Nazha sees him as a brother, the rest of the party probably sees him as an anxious goof who loves animals, hopefully they’ve all had the thought of “this man is supposed to be a prince??”

He really doesn’t see himself as that much, just a guy who has no idea where he belongs in terms of race and society, who has anxiety issues and sucks at his job as a Fighter, and also he personally has the thought of “oh wait that’s right I’m a prince” every now and then.

48. Do they enjoy any parties? If so what kind? Do they organize the party or just turn up? How do they act? What if they didn’t want to go but were dragged along by a friend?

Rowan?? Go to a social event on his own??? lmao yeah right. If he goes to a party, he’s getting dragged there by Nazha or Lesdyn and will be completely awkward and lowkey uncomfortable the whole time.

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?

Not counting his clothing/weapons/armor, he would pack his cooking supplies, probably some sort of first aid, ingredient for cooking, his signet ring (which he wears around his neck anyway), and his tank of pet mice. You can fight him he’s bringing the mice everywhere.

Mialee

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory?

Mialee has absolutely nothing to complain about in their childhood, given they were a mule. I still need to figure out how reason for a fancy hob such as their father being down south and having a child with a trailer trash elf. Mia’s mom was a cool divination wizard/astrologist though, so I shouldn’t dunk on her too hard. Young Mialee was much too rambunctious for an elf thanks to their hob heritage, but they didn’t mature quite as quickly as a hob. I’d like to say they reached maturity/adulthood by about age 60-70. That’s a good halfway mark between the two races. Mialee was always curious, particularly about different kinds of magic and other similar topics (Languages such as Hob? Not so much). Their favorite school of magic was illusion, since it fell right in line with their prankster antics. They loved to read books about magic, but didn’t exactly have the makings of a wizard. Their favorite memories with their parents aren’t actually of them playing some sort of prank, but rather when one (or both) of their parents would sit and read a book (or five) with them. Almost hard to believe this stinker was a bookworm, until you remember that they’re always on the move and don’t really have the money for books as much anymore. One bad memory that they really prefer to not think about is the death of their father, which they weren’t physically present for. They were about 30 or so at the time (still very young for an elf and fairly young with their maturation), and it hadn’t been explained very well to them that hobs don’t live nearly as long as elves do. They came home one day to learn that their father had passed away, from a cause along the lines of old age. It was probably around this time frame that they became much harder for their elf mother and the other elves to keep track of them, since their hob parent wasn’t around anymore.

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

Mia has no siblings by birth, partially because they were such a handful on their own that their mother didn’t know if they could handle a second child until Mia was older. They like to say they have plenty of adoptive siblings though, namely a bunch of the kids that they met living on the streets during their century-long escapade across the coast. Weird to think about the fact that some of them have probably reached the end of their natural life. Mia’d be that older sibling who would be super protective and would dote on the adopted sibling, and those kids are usually where most of Mia’s money would go. The fun exception to this adoptive sibling deal is good ol’ Kivas “Catnip” Lazhreen, who adopted them as a sibling first and is actually (unbeknownst to the two of them) cousins. You’re the DM Theo, I’d love to see how you play out just how close of cousins they are. These two could realistically be first cousins.

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

Everything Mialee knows, they either learned from their parents, books, or out on the road. They only retained info they thought interesting or useful, and kinda forgot everything else (see: Hob language). They really do love learning but only care about learning stuff that interests them. The best example of this is anything related to magic.

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

Mia is a big fan of birds, given that 3 canon illusions have been various birds. (Concept to remember later: african gray parrot illusion) They don’t show nearly as much of an interest in other animals, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like them or get along with them.

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect?

Mialee is to children as Rowan is to animals. They absolutely love children and would do anything for one. They wouldn’t mind having a child of their own, but they’re constantly on the move and keeping up an act/disguise is such a big part of their life that they don’t know if they can really take care of one properly. They’re the best big sibling/cousin/nib you could ask for though, taking kids out for shenanigans and entertaining them with their illusions.

12. What is their favourite food?

They’re a fan of anything with honey in it. Honeycombs are a great example.

15. Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

Mia is not an expert in the kitchen, but they can cook kinda well. More often than not they’ll cast Prestidigitation to fix the flavor/temperature of the food. They’re on the road too much to learn proper cooking.

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else

Does mythology count? Because they love mythology. Also any nonfiction text on magic. Anything on magic and you have their attention. They love upbeat music, any kind that you can dance to.

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes?

Mia has probably found a way to sneak into a musical performance using their illusions, so write that down. They love music, though they don’t have much experience making music outside from their illusions. Which kinda counts. They ain’t much of  singer but if the right song comes on, they’ll definitely start dancing to it. The only reason they wouldn’t is because they’re in disguise and can’t break character.

21. Do they have a temper? Are they patient? What are they like when they do lose their temper?

Now this is a fiery little hobbo! They can deal with BS but once you hit that certain point, be prepared for holy fury from their divine-gifted magic. Or at least passive aggressive antics. Make them mad and they will wreak havoc upon you.

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress?

Step 1: Wait until everyone in the room is asleep, Step 2: remove tail from hiding, Step 3: Sleep, Step 4: wake up before everyone else to hide tail.

They love a luxurious soft mattress when able, which isn’t too often. They don’t usually snore unless they’re sleeping really hard.

25. What do they find funny? Do they have a good sense of humour? Are they funny themselves?

Here’s an elf with a sense of humor! Their particular favorite type of humor includes trickery, pranks, and teasing; all of which is usually coming from them. Those are all things they do 24/7.

27. What makes them sad? Do they cry regularly? Do they cry openly or hide it? What are they like they are sad?

“Life’s too short to be sad just move on and do what ya want you ain’t gonna live forever.” - Probably Mialee

30. Do they exercise? Regularly? Or only when forced? What do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

The closest thing to exercise this kid’s gonna do is running from somebody who caught them in a lie.

33. What underwear do they wear? Boxers or briefs? Lacey? Comfy granny panties?

They like support and comfort in their undergarments, but yes those same undergarments are frilly. They probably purloined them from some rich person.

35. What’s their guilty pleasure? What is their totally unguilty pleasure?

Spending any sort of large amount of money on something for themself is definitely a guilty pleasure.

An unguilty one? Conning the heck outta some fool

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing?

Mialee is good at lying, deception, disguises, illusions, and generally making up nicknames. Hobbies more or less include reading when possible and putting on a show with said illusions. They aren’t much of a singer, can’t really seem to hit the notes like they want.

39. Do they like letters? Or prefer emails/messaging?

Mia? Keep in touch? With anyone? Hah!

They’d probably prefer messaging though.

40. Do they like energy drinks? Coffee? Sugary food? Or can they naturally stay awake and alert?

Might be an elf thing or just habit, but they don’t need much sleep to be alert and function. They do love a good cup of coffee or sugary food when given the opportunity though.

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition?

They don’t really got any goals in mind other than live life, don’t get caught, and cause shenanigans. That’s legit it. Just Carpe Diem and find whoever the hailstone is the hob in the locketwatch portrait.

They’d definitely sacrifice anything for a kid, and Kit too whether they really know it or not.

45. How do other people see them? Is it similar to how they see themselves?

Well they’d hope that others see them as whatever front they are putting on. Whatever facade that isn’t their real self, with the exception of Kit of course. Kit is the one lucky SoB who gets all the inside info on Mia’s life even though he still doesn’t know a thing about their past. Mialee likes themself as an elf, but not so much as a hob. They’re completely content with the person that they are, so long as they aren’t defined by their parents. They’re actually kinda full of themself when it comes to just them and their magic skills.

48. Do they enjoy any parties? If so what kind? Do they organize the party or just turn up? How do they act? What if they didn’t want to go but were dragged along by a friend?

Mialee is the person to crash a party they weren’t invited to, but you don’t realize they crashed it until halfway through because they used a disguise to get in. They’re in it for the shenanigans and chaos. And also for the music and food and occasionally the booze.

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?

They’re not one to pack much, honestly. As long as they have their disguise stuff, their staff, and a way to earn money, they’re good. Without a way to earn money though, they’d pack some food in that bag too.

Gosh that took like, 3 hours.

I’m never gonna be free of the egg-in-frying-pan emoji, am I?

[glittergummicandypeach]

This is how Brian Baker ended up in Bad Religion over 25 years ago

If there was a punk-rock hall of fame, Bad Religion would certainly belong in it. The long-running California punk outfit have maintained a positive agenda while creating some classic songs. But if the band drove up to the front door of said punk building, they’d probably look through the glass door, look at each other and then drive away. Their reasons for being are about the visceral and emotional. Definitely not the realm of the self-aggrandizing. That point comes through loud and clear in Do What You Want, the new band biography written by Jim Ruland and the band. Below, Alternative Press is running an excerpt from the book.

This selection from Do What You Want focuses on Brian Baker joining the ranks of Bad Religion in 1994. Baker (known for his reputation in the Washington, D.C., punk and hardcore scenes) turned down an offer to join R.E.M. to play guitar with the SoCal punk legends.

Read more: Watch Bad Religion’s Brian Baker stir the pot making “Seeing Red” sauce

The night of Brett’s last show with Bad Religion, his replacement watched from the audience. Brian Baker was already part of the Epitaph family when he was invited to join Bad Religion. Brett had put out a record by Brian’s band, Dag Nasty, in 1992. In fact, Jay recalled that Brian started lobbying for a spot in Bad Religion while he was recording with Epitaph. “He told me, ‘If Hetson ever leaves, call me.’ He said to Hetson, ‘If Brett ever leaves, call me.’ It was really funny because when Brett left, both me and Hetson were like, ‘Brian wants the job.’”

Of course, Brian wasn’t as well known for his guitar work with Dag Nasty as he was for being one of the founding members of what was arguably the most important hardcore band to ever plug in an amplifier: Minor Threat.

Brian started playing guitar when he was eight years old. He learned to play at the same time as his best friend, Michael Hampton, another influential guitar player in the D.C. hardcore scene, who would go on to play in State of Alert with Henry Rollins and the Faith with Ian MacKaye’s brother Alec. When Brian was twelve, he joined his first band, Silent Thunder, which basically just played KISS and Aerosmith covers in the drummer’s basement. “I think we might have played one show,” Brian said, “but I know we had T-shirts!”

Read more: Here are 10 of the most influential bands of hardcore

The Bakers moved to Michigan, where Brian formed a band called Hameron with some other kids at his school. This time it was Cheap Trick and Ted Nugent covers. When Carlos Santana came to town, the drummer’s dad secured backstage passes for his son, who brought Brian along. Before the show, they were given a tour of the entire backstage area where Brian made his presence felt by picking up one of Santana’s guitars and jamming on it. Instead of being escorted out of the building, the crew brought Brian an amp and encouraged him to keep playing. That would be the highlight of any kid’s night, but this was just the warm-up. Right before the second encore, one of the guitar techs slung a Les Paul guitar around Brian’s neck and pushed him out onstage. Brian ended up playing a couple songs with Carlos Santana in front of twenty-five thousand people.

However, Brian’s newfound fame in Michigan was destined to be short-lived because not long afterward he moved back to Washington, D.C., where all his friends were now into punk rock. For most kids, listening to punk made you an outcast, but at Georgetown Day School punk was cool. The first time Brian saw real punks outside of his circle of friends was when he saw the Cramps play at the Ontario Theatre on August 21, 1980. “I felt a visceral tingle,” he said. “I felt like I was on fire.”

After the Teen Idles broke up, vocalist Ian MacKaye and drummer Jeff Nelson started a new band. They invited Lyle Preslar to play guitar, and recruited Brian to play bass. This was approximately the same time that Bad Religion was forming on the other side of the country. Like his future bandmate Jay Bentley, Brian was a guitar player who was asked to switch instruments for the sake of the band. Brian was only fifteen years old, by far the youngest member of the band.

Read more: Bad Religion’s Brian Baker found his new band’s singer in a catering line

“I’d never played bass,” Brian said. “I was a guitar player. I suppose I was asked to join the band because there was no one else available who had an instrument and wasn’t already in a band. Our scene was so small. I went to high school with the guitar player who was two grades above me. I played bass because I was the last one there. I started playing chords on it. They told me, ‘No, you play one note at a time.’”

Most scenes are defined by one or two bands, but the D.C. punk community was exceptionally vital with a large number of bands for such a small city. Dischord, the label MacKaye co-owns with Jeff Nelson, was the epicenter for the scene, but it sometimes seemed as if everyone Brian knew was making music.

“I was part of this group of twenty or thirty people in Washington, D.C., and everyone had a band,” Brian said. “That whole experience was really profound. I was in Minor Threat and my friends were in the Faith. These guys were in Void and these guys were in Marginal Man. Everyone was in their own band. Someone would play a show and we’d all go watch. Our band would play and they’d come watch us. It was all the same. Minor Threat would play and it would be the same thing if Government Issue were playing. The same people would go to both shows. The only difference was who was onstage.”

Read more: Bad Religion unboxing: Tours they’d rather forget, interviews they walked out of

Much like the L.A. scene, each band had its own distinct sound, but it was Minor Threat that broke out of the pack and rose to prominence in D.C. and beyond. As the youngest member, Brian downplayed his contribution to the band. “I could play and Lyle could play,” Brian said. “I mean we knew how to play our instruments, but we had the best drummer in town and Ian wrote great songs.”

With a mix of sledgehammer riffs and howling intensity, Minor Threat set the bar for hardcore punk. Musically, Minor Threat made other bands sound tame in comparison, but the clarity and coherence of MacKaye’s message was never compromised.

[Photo: Thorsten Martin-Edigshaus]

Although it didn’t feel like it at the time, being in Minor Threat was a watershed moment that set the stage for the rest of Brian’s career. “It was a classic case of right place, right time,” Brian said. “It was a lightning-in-a-bottle situation. My high school band that jammed at the guitar player’s mom’s house after school got to be one of the most influential punk rock bands ever. And always will be.”

After Minor Threat broke up, Brian collaborated with Glenn Danzig in the infant stages of what would become Samhain, though Brian left the group before they played their first show. Brian also did a stint in the Meatmen while “sort of ” going to college before leaving school for good and forming Dag Nasty in 1985. After Dag Nasty broke up in 1988, Brian went on to join Junkyard, an L.A. hard rock band. They did two records for Geffen and toured extensively in the United States before being dropped in 1992. Junkyard fizzled out soon after that and Brian moved on to his next project.

Read more: Bad Religion and Alkaline Trio are cancelling their tour so fans can get refunds

Next, he started a band called Careless, an alternative rock band with what Brian described as “a weird crossover of styles.” Major labels were throwing around stupid amounts of money in the hopes of signing an alternative act that could deliver a hit. “We were Weezer before Weezer,” Brian said. “Not metal. Not grunge. Whatever the fuck we were. The problem was whatever the fuck we were didn’t get a record deal.” The band was very close to being signed—they had a publishing deal with Virgin—but it didn’t happen.

Brian decided to take a hiatus from playing music at this point. “I realized I’d been in a band consistently for fourteen years,” Brian said. “It was time to step back for a bit and recharge my batteries.” He started working full time at Cole Rehearsal Studios in Hollywood. Cole was a pro-am studio, meaning they rented to professionals and amateurs alike. A band like Danzig might have a practice space locked out for a month while a bunch of kids just off the bus from Tulsa rented the room right next to it by the hour.

“It was entertaining,” Brian said. “I was basically the front-of-house guy. When you came into Cole, I was the guy at the front desk. ‘You’re going to be in B. Your mics are set up, and if you need anything let me know.’ I was basically a concierge. I think it helped that people would recognize me. ‘Oh my god you’re Brian from Minor Threat!’ So that was interesting to them.”

Read more: Why you’re not punk if you don’t support BLM, according to Brett Gurewitz

Brian was a talented guitar player with an affable personality who was willing to do whatever was necessary to assist. It didn’t matter if you were on your way up or crashing back down to earth, Brian had been there and was willing to lend a hand. “I was a kind of goodwill ambassador,” Brian said. “Lending my experience and trying to be funny and lightening up the process. That’s what I did.”

At Cole, Brian struck up a friendship with Tommy Stinson of the Replacements, who’d formed a new band called Bash & Pop and was looking to recruit some musicians for a follow-up album. Stinson asked Brian to join his band, and for a while they wrote music and played shows together in L.A. Around this time Brian met Scott Litt, who was working with Juliana Hatfield. Litt enlisted Brian’s help during preproduction of Hatfield’s new record. It turned out that Litt had produced a number of R.E.M.’s albums, and he was so impressed with Brian he introduced him to the R.E.M. camp. The rockers from Athens, Georgia, were looking for a fill-in guitar player for their next tour.

Brian met with Michael Stipe and, like a lot of tryouts Brian had been on, the subject turned to Minor Threat. It helped that Brian was a really good guitar player, but Stipe and MacKaye were also friends, and Brian discovered he and Stipe knew a lot of the same people. Brian formally tried out and was offered the gig.

Read more: ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 1 + 2’ adds 30 new songs to soundtrack

“I was still working at Cole and life was looking good when I got a conference call from Greg Hetson and Greg Graffin asking if I wanted to try out for Bad Religion. They had a new record coming out and they were touring immediately. They needed someone right now and they didn’t want some random person. Because of Brett’s importance in the band, they felt they needed someone with a pedigree.”

In a matter of days, Brian went from being a guy who worked at a rent-by-the-hour practice space to being offered gigs in R.E.M. and Bad Religion. Brian loved Bad Religion; they were his favorite West Coast punk rock band. “When I bought my first Bad Religion record, I got How Could Hell Be Any Worse? and Black Flag’s Jealous Again the same day. I really liked ‘We’re Only Gonna Die.’ I thought that Black Flag were more powerful, but I preferred the singing in Bad Religion.”

Despite his affection for the band, he felt the honorable thing to do was tell Greg that he’d already accepted an offer to tour with R.E.M. Greg countered by matching the salary that R.E.M. was going to pay him and offering him a chance to become a full member of the band. That made the prospect of turning down R.E.M. much easier.

Read more: 10 Vans collabs from some of your favorite bands

“It meant being part of a team and not an outside guy,” Brian explained. “It meant being an equal partner in what we decided to do and where we decided to go. In some camps you can be hired for a tour and let go. You’re not pretty anymore or someone’s wife is looking at you the wrong way. There are all kinds of things that can happen. But being a member of the band you’re a partner. You have security you don’t have as a side player.”

In addition, he already knew several members of the band. He was acquainted with Brett and Jay from Epitaph when Dag Nasty’s Four on the Floor came out, and he knew Hetson from around town. “Hetson was a local Lothario barfly like me,” Brian said. “He was someone I’d see at bars. We knew each other from Circle Jerks and Minor Threat. He was a punk icon. I was a punk icon. We’d go to bars and be punk icons.”

Brian’s audition took place at Cole while Greg was in town, and he played with the full band. It was something of a foregone conclusion that he would get the gig because they didn’t bring anyone else in for a tryout. It was Brian’s job to lose.

“It was great,” Brian said. “They found out I’m a real person. I’m not just this myth.”

After the audition, he was officially offered the gig. Brian would now get his first taste of Bad Religion’s bicoastal arrangement. In L.A., he rehearsed with Jay, Hetson, and Bobby—or whoever was available. Then he flew out to Ithaca to work with Greg on some songs. The next time he would play with the entire band would be at his first Bad Religion gig for a one-off show in Germany. The airline lost one of the two guitars that he’d brought, which made his first trip to the European continent more nerve-wracking than it needed to be.

Read more: Minor Threat, Bad Brains and the DC hardcore scene examined in new documentary

“I flew to Europe to play the Bizarre Festival with Bad Religion,” Brian said. “My first show was a forty-five-minute set at a big European festival with sixty thousand people. I walked out on the stage to play with Greg and the whole band for the first time, and I’d never played in front of that many people ever. It was insane. It was absolutely insane.”

A number of Epitaph bands were playing the festival, and Brett watched Brian’s debut from the soundboard. It was like the Epitaph Summer Nationals only this time Brian and Brett had traded places.

Brian’s performance at the Bizarre Festival changed the narrative from despair over Brett’s departure to excitement about Brian’s arrival. Minor Threat had never played in Europe, so Brian joining Bad Religion was a very big deal over there. Bad Religion received considerable media attention and a lot of it centered on Minor Threat.

Read more: Here are 20 punk and metal songs you can easily learn on guitar

“Publicly,” Jay explained, “when someone leaves the band and people want to know what happened, my answer is, ‘You’ll have to ask him.’ But when someone like Brett leaves and you’ve lost one of your songwriters, you can’t just go, ‘You’ll have to talk to him’ because that’s not going to fly. So having someone like Brian Baker from Minor Threat helped get us out of that awkward conversation. ‘What happened? Here’s Brian!’ It buffered the situation without completely ignoring that we’d lost a major player in our band by replacing him with another major player.”

The festival also opened Brian’s eyes about how Bad Religion was perceived in Europe. “I knew Bad Religion was a successful band. I knew they were a punk band, but I did not know they were a big band. I knew they played the Hollywood Palladium in L.A. and they could play Roseland in New York. I thought of them as nowhere near as big as the Offspring or Green Day, but at that Replacements, Soul Asylum level. Then I went to Germany and was like Jesus Christ. I had no concept.”

The Bizarre Festival, though intense, was just a warm-up. The moment Brian got off the stage, he had less than a month to prepare for what they were calling the Ain’t Life a Mystery Tour, which would take them to eleven European countries in five weeks.

Read more: NOFX and Frank Turner want the world to shut up about what’s not punk

Brian asked for help and he turned to an unlikely person: Brett Gurewitz. Brian didn’t have copies of Bad Religion’s back catalog, which he needed so he could learn the songs. Brian had avoided getting involved in the dispute between Brett and the band, and the two remained on good terms. That didn’t stop Brett from issuing Brian a warning: “Those guys are crazy. You won’t last three months.”

Stranger Than Fiction was released in early September, a few weeks before the European tour. KROQ put “Infected” into heavy rotation despite Atlantic pushing “21st Century (Digital Boy)” as the first single from the album. It was a less than ideal situation to have the most powerful rock and roll radio station playing one song while the record label promoted another. Neither song gained the momentum necessary to break out nationally, and it had a negative impact on sales.

Before Brett’s departure Bad Religion shot two videos for the album, both by Gore Verbinski. “Stranger Than Fiction” features a random cast of characters who have assembled for a book burning under a bridge in downtown L.A. The exceptionally strange video for “21st Century (Digital Boy)” required covering the band members with blue paint and submerging them in a pool of green slime, which would act as a liquid green screen. “Unfortunately,” Brett recalled, “the idea didn’t work and it looked like we were drowning in weird blue liquid.” Life isn’t always a mystery, but the video certainly is.

Read more: Here are 10 punk bands who made synths and electronics rock hard

In late September, the band embarked on its first European tour without Brett. The tour started in France and proceeded to Spain. In San Sebastian, at a show at Discoteca Erne, calamity struck. When the band entered through the ground floor of the building, they assumed that the structure was being renovated because portions of the second story, where the club was located, were supported with jacks. Bad Religion had been touring Europe for six consecutive years, and they’d performed in plenty of dodgy venues. From rundown squats to buildings that weren’t up to code, the band had grown accustomed to playing in places that would have been shut down in the United States.

The band opened up with “Recipe for Hate” and the fans immediately started jumping around and dancing to the music. Right at the song’s climax, the left side of the floor suddenly collapsed. “We started playing the show,” Greg recalled, “and a big hole opened up in front of me on the dance floor and bodies started falling into the hole.” The people who had been standing in front of the stage disappeared into the space where the floor had been.

Bad Religion stopped playing and the people on the right side of the dance floor shouted in protest, unaware of what had happened. But the screams of those who had fallen or were in danger of falling drowned them out. A huge cloud of dust rose from the lower level and people continued to tumble into the pit.

Read more: Quiz: How well do you know your punk-rock history?

The band was quickly ushered off the stage and out of the venue while fans and club personnel attended to those who had been injured. The hole that had opened up in front of the stage was enormous: approximately seventy feet long by forty feet wide and between fifteen and twenty feet deep. Hundreds of fans fell into the chasm created by the collapse. Between the lights and the dust and the screams from below it resembled a scene out of a disaster movie. It took twenty minutes for the first ambulance to arrive and two hours to get everyone who’d been hurt out of harm’s way. Although hundreds had been injured, thankfully there were no fatalities.

The band had questions and demanded answers. What happened? Had the show been oversold? Did the venue have the proper permits? The disco’s promoters insisted the venue had held events in the recent past with 3,500 and 4,000 guests. By the band’s count, fewer than three thousand people had come through the door to see Bad Religion. In retrospect, the presence of temporary jacks to help support the joists was a huge red flag that the structure was unsound and the venue unsafe.

Brian Baker and Jay Bentley [Photo: Jim Wright]

Bad Religion’s soundman, Ronnie Kimball, took photos of the scene to document the damage, but on his way out of the venue, his camera was confiscated and the images were lost. Neither the club’s owners nor the local police wanted word to get out about what had happened, and they were eager to see Bad Religion leave San Sebastian.

Read more: Bad Religion mark 40 years with autobiography

Much to the band’s surprise, the incident received minimal media coverage in the weeks that followed. Less than two weeks later, an incident occurred at a Pink Floyd concert in London where a section of the bleachers collapsed. Nearly one hundred fans fell but no one was hurt. This story generated major headlines across the United States and Europe. The silence out of Spain struck Bad Religion as odd.

“To this day,” Greg said, “when we go to Spain, people tell us, ‘I was there. I was at that show.’ We get asked about it all the time.”

It’s a minor miracle that the show will go down in history as one of Bad Religion’s shortest performances and not its deadliest. Although the tragedy was widely known in Europe, few fans in the United States were aware of it until the band discussed the incident in their newsletter, The Bad Times, which enjoyed an intermittent eleven-issue run from 1994 until 2001.

Although the band, the crew, and the majority of the fans escaped unscathed, Bad Religion had experienced enough upheavals over the last few months, and they were eager to leave behind the feeling of the ground giving way beneath their feet.

Excerpted from Do What You Want: The Story of Bad Religion by Bad Religion with Jim Ruland. Copyright © 2020. Available from Hachette Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The post This is how Brian Baker ended up in Bad Religion over 25 years ago appeared first on Alternative Press.

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[aaronmaurer]

Music I Liked in 2019

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

2019 was a great year for music, at least among the pop-leaning alt and indie rock I enjoy. Several favorite bands came back and knocked their latest efforts out of the park and I gained new appreciation for some artists that I’d never really connected with before. In fact, there was so much good music this year, I stretched my self-imposed Top 15 to get a few more records in. Of the three lists I write up each year, music is easily the most subjective because there’s a lot more of it out there and it’s even more fragmented, so I definitely don’t make any claims that these are the best albums of the year; they’re just my favorites and come highly recommended.

15. Better Oblivion Community Center – Better Oblivion Community Center

Phoebe Bridgers and Conner Oberst teamed up for this surprise release which merges both of their styles. The record is more electric/grungy than Bridgers’ solo output and though I’m not a big Oberst fan, there is still much to like here, especially the lovely ode to musical discovery “Chesapeake.”

14. Native Tongue – Switchfoot 

Switchfoot have established a pattern of alternating records I adore (Hello Hurricane, Fading West) with records that do almost nothing for me (Vice Verses, Where The Light Shines Through). Native Tongue swings back to the positive column with a mix of shiny anthems and contemplative balladry. Maybe the next one will break the cycle and stay in the “win” column?

13. New Jersey EP – Geographer / Let’s Try the After EPs – Broken Social Scene

The digital-age trend of artists dropping EPs rather than full-lengths continued in earnest this year with a lot of decent short-form offerings. Geographer’s New Jersey EP is my favorite thing he’s done in years and Broken Social Scene’s two Let’s Try The After releases continue the revitalized kick begun with 2017’s Hug of Thunder.

12. (I Am) Origami Pt. 3 – A Catacomb Hymn – John Van Deusen

Former Lonely Forest frontman Van Deusen released the third in a series of solo records last year, this one reconciling the alt-rock angst of Pt. 1 and the spiritual introspection of Pt. 2. There’s a lot to dig into here, but I’m especially fond of “Fly Away to Hell,” an appeal to finding hope through the natural world’s beauty in the midst of despair.

11. Without Fear – Dermot Kennedy

Kennedy’s first full-length record comes on the heels of a series of EPs and includes several tracks cherry-picked from those yet still coheres as a whole. Mixing singer-songwriter guitar folk with modern pop production (including vocal distortion effects and massive percussion) yields a sound that is simultaneously raw and polished – and immediate. Highlights include “All My Friends,” “Moments Passed,” “Lost” and “Dancing Under Red Skies.”

10. Everyday Life – Coldplay / Hyperspace – Beck

The latest albums from these two alt-rock luminaries were released on the same day and both have a lot to recommend them, even if they don’t quite reach the heights of the artists’ best work. Everyday Life is an interesting grab bag of ideas that doesn’t quite gel, but it is far better than anything on the prior A Head Full of Dreams. Tracks like the quietly pretty “Èkó,” the Owl John-interpolating “Champion of the World” and the Afrobeat breakdown “Arabesque” are peak Coldplay. Hyperspace is Beck doing vaporwave, a mostly chill dive into existentialism that finds a medium between the neon pop of Colors and the mellow beauty of Morning Phase.

  9. Rattlesnake – The Strumbellas 

While even Mumford & Sons have tired of the banjo-rock trend they re-popularized, there are still some terrific folk-leaning bands keeping the tradition alive. The most recent record from the Strumbellas is a collection of upbeat anthems that celebrate life and hope with an honest tinge of existentialism. This is perfectly encapsulated on closer “All My Life,” an ode to the paradoxical nature of love (whether divine or romantic) as both heart-breaking and life-giving force.

8. I Am Easy to Find – The National

I Am Easy to Find is the National at their more gorgeously languid. With the inclusion of a chorus of female vocalists (one of three in a trend on this list), the music here expands in new directions. As a sister piece to a short film by artist/designer Mike Mills (Beginners), this record has the feel of a curated museum piece – in the best possible way. “Not in Kansas” references my favorite R.E.M. album, “Where Is Her Head” is all propulsive stream-of-consciousness, and the closing sequence from “Hairpin Turns” through “Light Years” is as strong as anything else in the band’s catalog. (If you like this record, I strongly recommend “Think You Can Wait,” their earlier collaboration with Sharon Van Etten for the soundtrack to Win Win.)

7. Surviving – Jimmy Eat World

2016’s Integrity Blues marked a return to form for Jimmy Eat World after a couple uneven efforts and Surviving sets the bar even higher. Zach Lind’s percussion comes through as clearly and strongly as the robust guitar riffs, making this one of the best rock records of the year. The album’s middle stretch – from the synthy staccato of “555” to the quiet-loud dynamism of “One Mil” to the Futures-esque “All The Way (Stay)” to the soaring immediacy of “Diamond” – may be my favorite 4-song sequence of any album this year.

6. In the Morse Code of Break Lights – The New Pornographers

Another dose of shimmering power-pop from the Canadian collective, In the Morse Code of Break Lights finds A.C. Newman at his most lyrically direct, confronting the current political landscape with comparisons to fallen empires of antiquity on the likes of “Colossus of Rhodes” & “One Kind of Solomon.” Standouts include those tracks as well as the rhythmic pulse of “Falling Down the Stairs of Your Smile” & “Opening Ceremony” and Simi Stone’s dynamic violin flourishes on “Dreamlike And On The Rush” & “Leather On The Seat.

5. Norman Fucking Rockwell! – Lana Del Rey

I’ve been on the fence about Lana Del Rey to this point, appreciating some of the singles I’ve heard but never fully engaging with her brand of arch romanticism. Whether her casually profane and resigned lyrics are authentically her or an ironic persona, NFR! is undeniable, reflecting the fatalism of young adulthood in Trump’s America with excellent songcraft. Jack Antonoff’s production floats her dreamy vocals over spare but lush instrumentation, creating a hazy atmosphere of malaise with maybe some glimmers of hope flickering through.

4. My Finest Work Yet – Andrew Bird

Another reflection of the times from an artist I’ve never quite connected with before, Bird’s wryly titled My Finest Work Yet focuses his droll wit on deconstructing American exceptionalism and imperialism. The wordplay throughout this record is ingenious, but it’s the compositions that really sell everything, with hooks a-plenty and warm jazz orchestration to counterbalance the heavy subject matter. And yes, there is some whistling.

3. NINE – blink-182 / Strange Love EP – Simple Creatures

If 2016’s California was preoccupied with recapturing the bratty pop-punk rush of Enema of the State, then NINE is blink-182’s return to the more experimental emo leanings of their self-titled 2003 release. While not quite as adventurous as that record, it’s definitely their best work since, featuring introspective lyrics, plenty of Whoa-Oh-Oh sing-a-longs and full integration of newest member Matt Skiba (who is deployed as much more than a Tom DeLonge surrogate this time out). Personal favorites include “Heaven,” “I Really Wish I Hated You,” “No Heart To Speak Of” and “Hungover You,” but this is a solid front-to-back listen.

2019 also saw Mark Hoppus team up with All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth for two EPs under the moniker Simple Creatures. Strange Love is the stronger of the two and leans into synthpop territory with bright choruses, providing a nice complement to NINE.

2. Father of the Bride – Vampire Weekend

Aside from the stellar “Harmony Hall,” the pre-release singles from Vampire Weekend’s latest didn’t really wow me and I worried that this record (the first without Rostam Batmanglij as a full member) would end their unimpeachable run. However, in the context of the album, everything works brilliantly, a clear case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Ezra Koenig is at both his most experimental (see “Sympathy” and “Flower Moon”) and most traditional (see “Unbearably White” and “We Belong Together”) here, to great effect. Danielle Haim contributes vocals to several songs (two of three of the trend), tying everything together and adding a new dimension to the sound, which is still recognizably VW while expanding in new directions.

1. American Football (LP3) – American Football

Though I missed American Football’s initial late-90s run, I was glad to catch up with the band upon the release of their 2016 reunion album. Their music lives somewhere at the nexus of emo, post-rock, shoegaze and jazz, with instrumental motifs that call to mind Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity opus “Goodbye Sky Harbor.” 2019 brought a third LP (fortunately without a 17-year wait) that I believe is their best yet. Featuring female vocalists on several tracks (three of three of the trend), this set of songs has more immediate hooks without sacrificing lush guitar cascades or meditative polyrhythms. A perfect record to get lost in on a quiet morning drive – or any other time, really.

You know what’s better than reading about music? Listening to it. Here’s a sampling of songs from each of these records if you want an easily-digestible mix:

Bonus! Reinterpretation Albums:

Reworked – Snow Patrol – For Snow Patrol’s 25th year, they put out this album of new recordings of some of their greatest hits (and a few new songs for good measure). These reinterpretations aren’t drastically different from the originals, but they share a consistent coffeehouse vibe that makes for nice Sunday morning listening and a fresh approach to a typical “Best Of” record (which, to be fair, they have done before).

Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit’s ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’ – Various Artists – One of the final projects Scott Hutchison was involved with before his death, Tiny Changes bucks the trend of reissuing a landmark album on its anniversary. Instead, to commemorate 10 years of their breakthrough release, Frightened Rabbit tapped some of their favorite artists and friends (including the likes of Ben Gibbard, Manchester Orchestra and Julien Baker) to record cover versions of the whole thing. While nothing can touch the raw emotion of the originals, these interpretations reveal new dimensions to many of the songs, especially Daughter’s hauntingly beautiful and gut-wrenching take on “Poke.”

[jenniferasberryus]

Why Sonic Is the Perfect Mascot for Gen Z

Ever since the film based on the Genesis’ Sonic games got regenerated for Gen Zs, it’s got me thinking: “Gen Z’s” sounds a lot like “Genesis.” But, beyond that, it’s got me thinking about the ever-improving system we have in place for marketing nostalgia to Millenials, while also trying to convince new clusters of Gen Z kids to embrace these characters and franchises as their own.

Marvel comics became the MCU, the Star Wars continue unabated, and everyone’s so aware that we’re living in recycled times that... that’s all I’m really going to say about it. What’s interesting to me is just how perfect Sonic the Hedgehog is as a vehicle for this kind of weaponized nostalgia, and how he’s served as a measure of our relationship to coolness for three generations now.

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Obviously, by casting Jim Carrey in a wacky role and re-doing the CG to make Sonic look more like his classic self, the filmmakers aren’t shying away from appealing to fond Millenial memories (you know, for money!). But Sonic remains primarily a kids’ movie, and thinking about the ways that today’s young people may relate to the blue blur made me realize that Sonic said a lot more about the Millennial generation than we realized - whether he intended to or not - and he sheds light on some of the things that connect us across time, no matter our generation...except for the Boomers, who I guess we all hate now? Is that the meme? Regardless, to understand why Sonic is the fuzzy multi-generational mirror that he is, we’re going to need...

A Bit of a History Lesson

To be clear, I’m considering a Baby Boomer someone born between 1950 and 1965, a Gen X-er someone born between ‘65 and ‘80, a Millenial someone born between ‘80 and ‘95 (prime Sonic age), and a Gen Z-er anyone born after 1995.

When Sonic was initially released in 1991, I was six years old, and “being cool” was super important both to myself and all of my peers (except for the kid who brought a gavel to school every day). What I think younger folks today might not understand is that this quest for coolness was not about authenticity, individuality, or any kind of meta-awareness of our identities. We weren’t “cool,” we were Cool™, and Coolness™ was defined by brands, something most of us didn’t grow up with the media-savvy to question. It was about being in a minority product vertical: skateboarding, black clothes, skitchin’, rap and/or punk rock on MTV, and unironically spelling the word “extreme” with a capital X.

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Speaking of irony, I’d argue that the ’90s were the decade where Detached Irony was born, grew up, got perfected as chronicled in the 1995 Alanis Morisette song “Ironic,” and, in a sense, died. Irony is a toy we make memes with nowadays, but it used to be what we used to identify ourselves as - we were misfits who were “over it,” and therefore cooler than you. You were Coke, we were Pepsi. Flash forward twenty years and I’d call myself more of a Blueberry Acai caffeine-free Diet Coke guy; my point being that identity issues have gotten more complex over the years. And Sonic has all of that wrapped up in his fur. Needles? His…hedgehog...texture.

The ’90s were a gaming landscape dominated by Mario: a fat, middle-aged human who focuses primarily on jumping. This made Sonic feel like pure, uncut, corporate-designed cool in a way that immediately juiced the X-centers of my brain. If you were a Sega kid, you felt indie, edgy, a little more Pitchfork than your Nintendo playmates. Sonic focused on going fast, his head had Liberty Spikes, and he was such a crude, rude, awesome dude that if you stopped playing for a few seconds he’d look right into camera and give you the stink eye for wasting his time.

Amazingly, none of that seemed corny to us at the time. Sonic’s Cool was genuine and accepted by his fans with a naivete born of the mono-media culture of the ’70s and ’80s, and which has been slowly decaying ever since Fonzie jumped the shark. These days it’s almost been completely dispelled as the internet and other technologies drive us to be more aware of the systems around us from a younger and younger age.

Considering that, it’s no coincidence that the 90’s saw the ascendance of grunge music, pop-punk, an explosion in goth culture, the advent of “The Gritty Reboot,” and popular films with nihilism as a central theme. As a culture, we became obsessed with the “fakeness” of all the sheeple around us — irony became a way to interact with the broader world, and a signature part of the Gen X and Millenial attitude. Suddenly we were only interested in bands that hadn’t “sold out” yet, and anyone who didn’t think everything sucked was probably a phony.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2015/10/14/history-of-awesome-1998"]

In that environment, Sonic’s cool started to taste a little Chemical Zone-ey, a little factory-produced. Although the fact that his transition to 3-D graphics was far less graceful than Mario’s was definitely a factor, as a pop-cultural icon Sonic had to shift gears, too. The first Sonic TV show, essentially a kid’s comedy, was canceled and replaced with a much more action-packed and serious take on the Battle for Mobius (if you didn’t know, Sonic’s from a planet called Mobius in the year 3235, but it’s best not to question it).

During the same period, Sonic stopped moving merch, and Sega announced their retirement from the console wars. Which finally brings us to Gen Z, the generation that’s proud to be themselves and frankly doesn’t give a f**k what you think about it.

Sonic & Gen Z (or... Zennials or… Whatever You/They Want to Call Your/Themselves)

These days, truly being yourself, unique, authentic… just you, is huge business. Youtube and Twitch are filled with child billionaires who lean into their personality quirks and are loved specifically for that reason. Also some racism. But the bigger point is, in the new normal, ironic detachment isn’t nearly as valuable. It’s actually cooler, these days, to be into something than to be over something. Young people feel more empowered to simply like what they like, which makes it an ideal time for Sonic to re-enter the fray.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/11/12/sonic-the-hedgehog-old-and-new-design-comparison"]

None of this is to say the movie will definitely do well (or even be good), but as a Sonic fan for life, it’s been interesting to watch him go from cool, to corporatized and “fake”, to “kinda corny and silly and… still fake, but that’s what’s funny about it.” The whole debacle with the initial CG Sonic reveal speaks to that...the filmmakers tried to make Sonic “realistic” and the internet said, “No you idiots, he’s a cartoon rascal that thinks he’s too cool for school, just let him be that!”

Gen Z is the first generation of humans to have grown up fully immersed in a digitally-enhanced society. Everyone is able to indulge their interests and hobbies much more thoroughly now, which has resulted in a galaxy of fragmented fan-bases and communal identities that make the “Are you a Sega person or a Nintendo person?” question seems quaint by comparison.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/03/01/why-are-there-no-good-video-game-movies"]

Nowadays, someone isn’t just a Nintendo or Sega player - they’re an anime cosplayer with an interest in tabletop gaming, or a maker of pixel-beats who crochets Star Wars scarves on Etsy in their spare time. The pop culture landscape is richer. Case in point: there were 130 more movies released in the US in 2018 than in 2017, and the number of scripted TV series’ have increased by 85% since 2011. In such a dynamic environment, generalizations are tough to make, but there is a lot of statistical data on Gen Z folks -- mostly marketing data about buying trends, because Capitalsim™ -- that I think bodes well for the possibility of a Sonic Renaissance.

Environmental Consciousness

Gen Z kids are more concerned about pollution, sustainability, and conservancy than any previous generation. Sonic the Hedgehog’s arch-nemesis is a boomer in a non-self-driving vehicle who’s here to automate all the flowers and animals and build a giant factory.

Fiscal Responsibility

Gen Z-ers are notoriously thrifty, more likely to work a series of freelance jobs or change careers frequently, and always looking for bargains or a place to live that they can actually afford. Sonic the Hedgehog hoards gold rings and emeralds and is in danger of being gentrified out of his neighborhood.

Cord-Cutters

Gen Z is the generation that “cut the cable,” and consumes most of their content on their mobiles, seeing screens as essentially interchangeable and TV as outdated. Sonic destroys hundreds of old-fashioned TVs every game and is mobility incarnate.

Data Protection

Gen Z places less emphasis on the importance of personal privacy. Sonic wears gloves and shoes but no pants.

Ethically-Sourced…Chili Dogs?

Gen Z is consuming far less meat than previous generations. Sonic loves chili dogs, which is a tube of several kinds of meat with ground-up meat on top. Okay, that one doesn’t work. Um...

Blue Hair

I’ve been seeing lots of kids with blue hair lately? What’s up with that?

Let’s see, how can I sound older than I already do? Oh! Bidets? No thank you! What’s all this fuss lately about bidets and bidet seat add-ons? I’ll stick to good old-fashioned American-made two-ply, thank you very much! Now, in my day, we had the Virtual Boy, and he was my best friend and oh my, the times we’d have…

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Editor’s Note: Michael just kept typing out SNES titles until he got sleepy. We put a blanket over him to make sure he didn’t get cold.

What’s your take on Sonic these days? Corporate Shill or Moderately Funny In Sort of a Kitschy Way Corporate Shill? Let us know in the comments, or to really see how far the internet has fallen, check out what happens when you put the creepy old CG sonic’s teeth on other game characters.

from IGN Video Games https://www.ign.com/articles/2020/01/09/why-sonic-is-the-perfect-mascot-for-gen-z via IFTTT from The Fax Fox https://thefaxfox.blogspot.com/2020/01/why-sonic-is-perfect-mascot-for-gen-z.html

[mitchwritesthings-blog]

Mitch’s Music Year-in-Review

What this is?

My name is Mitch, although sometimes I say it’s Jeff, and I just wanted an outlet to discuss how my experience with listening to music was in the year 2017. Now, this is completely my taste in music, and only what I listened to. I don’t really keep up with new music all too much to be honest, so before I write this, I’m not sure how many 2017 albums will actually be in my 2017 write-up. There will be quite a few albums from the 00′s and 10′s that I had listened to the first time, as well as albums that have been my favourites for years that I still wanted to talk about.

What will be discussed?

i. 2017 album releases “After Laughter” ~ Paramore “Reputation” ~ Taylor Swift “Waiting on the Sun” ~ Jule Vera “Wolves” ~ Story of the Year

ii. 2016 albums releases that I can basically pretend are new releases “E-mo-tion: Side B” ~ Carly Rae Jepsen “Neptune” ~ Tall Heights “Yellowcard” ~ Yellowcard

iii. Albums that are nowhere new releases, but are new to me “stellastarr*” ~ stellastarr* “E-mo-tion” ~ Carly Rae Jepsen

Now before we get started

An introduction on my musical tastes. Since the early-to-mid 2000′s, I have been a pop-punk kid, whether I knew it or not. The videogame soundtracks from EA games (EA Games, EA Sports, and EA Sports BIG), heavily shaped my taste in music. Yellowcard, being my favourite band ever, were included in some of these soundtrack, and in section B I’ll be talking about their self-titled album- which was an emotional one for me. Story of the Year and stellastarr* were discoveries of mine for similar reasons to Yellowcard. The remaining artists I listened to from doing my own research (Jule Vera), them being popular enough -slash- from people I know (Paramore, Taylor, Carly), or from being blown away at a show (Tall Heights). So without further adieu, let’s get started!

2017 album releases

“After Laughter” ~ Paramore

I’m writing about these albums in alphabetical order of their category, so some of the stories and descriptions might be a bit disjointed- but fuck it- it’s just a Tumblr post. 

Being a pop-punk kid that was transitioning into a girl pop guy, what a better way to merge the interests than with Paramore. Now, this album is not pop-punk, but that doesn’t mean it’s not great! In fact, the 80′s emotional pop vibes are amazing after playing the shit out of E-mo-tion, and needing more of those vibes.

About the album itself, it starts off with the wildly-popular Hard Times, which is not something I entirely love in theory. I don’t think it’s ideal to start off with the lead single for an album, it kinds sets you up for disappointment. And while Hard Times is a much poppier song that most of the album, I don’t think it necessarily does a bad job as the opener. It gets you jumping, ready to dance to the 80′s pop, while also introducing you the darker lyrics that are to come from a post-divorce album (Hayley split with lead singer of New Found Glory Jordan Pundik prior to the album’s recording).

The rest of the album is a nice journey in vibey aesthetics (definitely using Tumblr language here), with ebs and flows of energy. It’s hard for me to pick a favourite from it; trust me, I’ve had many many of these songs stuck in my head at some point. If I had to, however, I’d pick Fake Happy. The lyrics are very honest, and it kinda fucks you up a bit; starting off pretty depressing and then turning into a hell of a bop. Following is the real depressing song, 26, so it’s quite the two-song journey they put you on there.

Overall, it’s a very strong album both musically and lyrically, and would encourage anyone to pick it up. If you like Paramore, you’ll love hearing Hayley bleed her heart out. If you’re not, it’s a good fucking album anyway. 8.8/10

“reputation” ~ Taylor Swift

If I’ve linked you to this, you know I’m a major swiftie; I’ve got tickets to both of her shows in Toronto for August. So this album is a pretty big album for me. That being said, I was not completely blown away by this album- which didn’t surprise. After Look What You Made Me Do’s release, I kinda went “Okay, I know how this is gonna go”. It’s gonna be a solid pop album, but trying a little too hard being edgy and dealing with her reputation while subsequently pretending to not care about it.

Now I say I wasn’t blown away, but upon first listen, the first three songs were pretty damn impressive, and still are. Ready For It, which by the way is an incredible album opener and I knew it would be the moment I heard it, obviously starts it off well. End Game is a very single-worthy song, and introduces you to the overall theme of the album. And I Did Something Bad has a pretty fucking great chorus. Don’t Blame Me didn’t blow me away right away, but I grew on me pretty quickly, and it’s a top track for me. 

After that, in the middle, is where the album really faulters. Delicate and So It Goes... are the weakest tracks on the album in my opinion, and they flank the lead fucking single, all but killing it’s strength from the perspective of the album. And after that, Gorgeous, which while a promotional single, is not in the upper echelon of rep songs. So you’ve got your 5 through 8 songs effectively killing any momentum your incredible starting batch created. 

Following that is a very strong song, Getaway Car, and the beginning of reputation’s resurgence. Track 9 is probably the most 1989-sounding song on the record, and that is definitely a compliment in this case. Taylor tells a clean story, and gets to show off her pipes towards the end of the song. King of my Heart is a little meh in my eyes. It’s one of those classic Taylor songs that are on album and you’re like “Did this really have to be there?”, which is something 1989 actually avoided, and could be why I prefer it over rep. Dancing With Our Hands Tied was one of my favourites right away, although it’s a little underappreciated from what I’ve seen from the fandom on IG. Dress certainly gets the point across that this a new Taylor. She’s gone from “She wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts”, to basically saying “Boy, take this dress off and fuck me”. Something I’ve failed to mention, is the very consistent themes of alcohol consumption (in a recreational way) and getting good dick from her bf littered through the lyrics of this album- just so you know. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things is the second direct Kanye diss on the album, and absolutely deserving of a single. Call It What You Want should have been the final song, but Taylor had to go and pop cliche it up and give the last track to a boring acoustic song that makes you think “That’s it?”, when it’s done. With an album this momentous, you gotta go out with a bang!

Overall, it’s a better collection of songs than it is an album. You could put in on shuffle, and it’d hold the same value. The pacing is a bit off, and it doesn’t really take you on a sonically cohesive journey. So for that reason, I can’t give it any higher than an 8 (the equivalent of an A-minus), but the songs themselves are still pretty good. 7.8/10

“Waiting on the Sun” ~ Jule Vera

I need to tell you guys about this band before I get into the album themselves. They are amazing people. Before Warped Tour 2015, I was listening to artists that were gonna be on the tour, and Jule Vera showed up on my youtube suggestions, so I checked them out. Fucking great. They had just put out their debut EP Friendly Enemies, which you should absolutely check out by the way, and I knew all the words by the time Warped came around. Now, they just put out their debut, so not really many fans at the side stages. In fact, I was the only person who knew the words in the crowd. But their set is bumping! They incorporate a lot of different parts of the stage in their act, sometimes disassembling the drum kit itself and having multiple people playing each part- it’s great. Their lead singer, Ansley, has got some serious pipes. The band will go as far as she takes them, because as that stage presence builds- watch out! I can absolutely see them making it big with the kind of energy they have, their songwriting chops, and a good-looking incredible female lead singer. 

I talked with them after their, got a picture, and my album signed, and I was on the bandwagon. I’ll follow these guys and gal for as long as they make music- which includes coming back to Toronto in March after two-and-a-half year, and you bet your ass I’ll be there buying all the merch and hopefully getting some hangs with the band. 

Oh yeah... there’s an album to talk about. Waiting on the Sun went in a much more poppy direction than their EP which i brought up earlier which was an alternative record. Despite the stylistic change, it still bangs. Ansley shows her singing chops, and despite only having put out 18 songs total, they show they have an incredible amount of diversity with the kind of songs they can right. Something Good is the bounciest chorus I have ever heard, check that shit out right away.

In complete honesty, the album kind of pales in comparison to its alternative predecessor, at least in my opinion, but it’s not bad. I think the stylistic change was a decision made my the label. They have a lead singer who could be a solo artist once the charisma gets there, so they tried to do a poppy singer-heavy record. They’re still trying to figure out what they are, but once they do, the sky’s the limit.

I love these guys, and even if the album didn’t blow me away, I’ll support them whenever they need it! 7.6/10

“Wolves” ~ Story of the Year

This long-awaited came out this month, so I won’t be able to fully express how I feel about, considering I’ve only given it a handful of playthroughs. But let me tell you, it rocks. It post-hardcore/melodic hardcore/pop-punk rocks. These guys’ Page Avenue was a killer album, and 14 years later, they’re still putting out tracks with the same amount of energy and attitude as when they were kids. But better yet, there’s a more musicianship and polish (not in a bad way) to make it even better. I haven’t listened to this album yet with headphones on chilling on the bus- which I think is a good barometer for the quality of an album- but I know it’ll be a great trip on the 200 iXpress when I do.

Right away you’re hit with trademake SotY energy, and it doesn’t really go away, at least not until you’re left utterly satisfied. How Can We Go On is a great way to get things going, and it keeps going. Songs like Bang Bang, and Can Anybody Here Me are terrific too, and there are definitely more- I just haven’t listened enough to get the song names down pat.

Just listen to it, trust me. Since it’s a very fresh listen to it, I don’t feel comfortable giving a definite score. So instead I’ll give it a bare minimum score and an absolutely peak score: 8.2-9.4/10, likely falling somewhere in the middle upon further listening.

So what’s my favourite release of 2017?

Well, to be honest, I don’t know. Wolves falls both above and below After Laughter, so I can’t say conclusively what I like more. If I had to, I’d give the edge to Paramore, since it’s stood the test of multiple listens, whereas there still can be some uncertainty with a brand new release. 

What I did learn is that I need to listen to more new music. Only 4 albums throughout the year that I felt inclined to write about? The Used and Brand New put out new music, but they haven’t gotten enough listening to warrant anything more than honourable mention.

2016 albums releases that I can basically pretend are new releases

“E-mo-tion: Side B” ~ Carly Rae Jepsen

Carly is the GOAT, mess me with that Taylor shit. Despite having only listen to Side B for maybe two months- three tops- this is **spoiler alert**, my favourite thing I listened to this year. It’s just 8 bops. I can talk about it not being very “albumy”, but it’s a b-side release, who cares? You get 8 extra tracks that are all great, after Queen Carly gave us the gift that was E-mo-tion. 

I feel like it’s kinda split into two four-song parts, with Fever acting as the end of Act 1 and Body Language bringing in Act 2. 

First Time is a very fun start to the whole thing. It just bops. Carly’s vocal ability really shine in this release, and there are few good lyrical pieces too- so overall a very good showing from her herself.

Higher is an excellent second song... I don’t think that’s a compliment many people think about. But it starts off very quickly, no real lead-in, with an upbeat verse, than leads you into a chorus with leading and backing vocals. It says something about the album when I consider this to be one of the weaker tracks on the album- it’s still a great song! And I think that’s one of the benefits of a shorter album, there’s no filler!

The One again is a song that in comparison to the rest of the record, isn’t gaudy, but it’s still really good! All of the choruses on this album are uber catchy, you’ll have them all stuck in your head at some point. For an album I love so much, I’m kinda talking shit to start, but it’s good! This a really fun album to listen to it, and I’ve done a lot of singing in the shower to it.

The problem with the last two tracks, is that they didn’t really stand out to me. They were great, but not stand-out great. The rest of the album will stick in your mind a bit more vividly. Fever talks about stealing her man’s bike, who does that!? If this were a 4-song EP, this would be an excellent song to end it off with, but instead it leads you into another set of four bangers!

Body Language is a hell of a song. From the get go, you’re bouncing at the verse, hoping you’ll get an equally boppy chorus- and you get it! The anti-melodic ending to the chorus is kind of genius. “I just think we’re over thinking it, over thinking it” is intentionally disjointed, and it helps illustrate actually over-thinking something. Great song.

Cry really gets into the “emotional” part of emotional 80′s pop. It’s an incredibly honest song, and delivers such heartfelt lyrics, while still maintaining the level of catchyness ever-present in the album. Where most pop albums have latter-half songs that make you scratch your head about their inclusion, this album does the exact opposite. These b-sides would be singles on other artists’ best-of works. 

Store is iconic. Just go listen to it. Go! Best chorus ever. Solidifies Carly as GOAT status. Nobody else could ever write that. The choppy sentences are intentional. 

Roses is a nice chill, vibey, emotional finale to an absolutely stellar album. Strong lyrics, compelling verses, catchy yet deep chorus- everything this album is condensed into one song- reminding you why you loved what you just listened to so much.

I need CRJ4 asap. I fully expect it to be a masterpiece no matter what direction she goes in (which I heard yesterday was Disco, btw). 9.6/10

“Neptune” ~ Tall Heights

I saw these guys open for Ben Folds (who, by the way, is amazing live), and they blew me away. They’re a progressive folk duo-tuned-trio, with absolutely beautiful vocal harmonies-oh yeah, and a cello, how cool is that!?

It’s an beautiful record, the instrumentation is terrific, and the vocals are gorgeous- which isn’t something you necessarily hear a lot from male-sung bands. This is the kind of record you put on when you’re staying in on a weekend evening. and just wanna do some solo chillaxing- which is something I do quite a bit. It’s also good for falling asleep to, once you learn the melody and lyrics. I’d imagine it’d also be dope as fuck to listen to when passing a joint around. It’s super chill, sets a terrific atmosphere, and it takes you on a nice little journey. 

It’s not necessarily an album that would yield any huge radio singles, but I have no problems with that whatsoever. You can just press play on this bad boy, and you know it’s gonna do it’s job. Now given the mood it sets, you’re not always gonna want to have this playing, but when you do you’ll be so glad you have it for those moments. 8.9/10

“Yellowcard” ~ Yellowcard

youknowihadtodoittoem.png It’s the last record every to be made by my favourite band, I had to write about it. I’m gonna start from the end though. Fields and Fences is the absolute perfect way for Yellowcard to end their careers. It’s not what I expected, nor what I would have said I wanted, but it was total and complete perfection. It kind of acts of a microcosm for the Lift a Sail era and on, where the guys pretty much left the pop-punk deal behind and went for a more alternative. Fields starts off basically as a country song, and you’re kinda disappointed, much like many YC fans were with LaS, but it keeps going, and you start digging it. And then, it stops, and you think it’s over. “That’s how it ends?”. No, that’s when it starts. You get the electric guitar, you get “I don’t have much that I can give to you...”, on repeat, and then it fades out, and every single Yellowcard fan is put in an absolute state of bliss when they hear almost 2 minutes of just Sean’s violin taking them by the hand and emotionally leading them to the end of what was an incredible 20-year journey. You’re listening to it, and you’re so thankful for those 90 seconds, because it allows you to reflect on all of the great memories this band has given you. And you don’t want it to end, and you savour ever note coming from Sean, as well as the return of Rodney and Christine, and you’re so happy. But you realise, it has to end, and it does. And not even with a cry, but more of a whimper. But it’s not a bad whimper. It’s a releasing of the bow for the very last time, and you think to yourself “Holy fuck, I love this band”. Then you stare at whatever your audio source was for that last first listen for a few minutes, and you’re at peace. You’ve listened to the last Yellowcard record ever, and it’s a bittersweet feeling. You’re glad that the guys went out on such a beautiful note, but you’re sad because you realise they could keep putting out beautiful records, but that will never happen again. 

That is what this album is. This what this band is. The rest of this album could’ve been 40 minutes of farts, but if it end with that song, it’d be great. 

Now I understand that objectively, this is not a perfect album- nothing is. Some of these songs aren’t great. But I can tell that at that very moment, when I heard the very last playing of violin on a Yellowcard record, I felt perfectly at peace with myself and who I was as an Underdog- something I’m proud to be, and always will be. 

Fields and Fences, as a song, for a Yellowcard fan: 10/10.

I was going to write about more albums, as you can tell by the table of contents I made. But I think that was a good place to leave things. Thank you for reading all of this. 

Mitch

[morningrainmusic]

Top 25 Albums of 2017

A lot of very good albums came out in 2017. These are my favorite 25, with some thoughts on each of them. See you in the new year.

Best,

The Staff of Morning Rain Music

25. Ty Segall – Ty Segall  Almost all of Ty Segall’s albums (there are a lot) are made to be turned up to 11. His second self-titled release is no exception. Segall said of the live recorded album, “There’s something about a band in a room – it’s a feeling you can’t replicate. There’s a feel to the music. The band is so good, and I love the feel of this record.” So do I.

24. The Feelies – In Between  I took one journalism class in college. The professor would play music before starting lectures and I vividly remember one class when he played The Feelies and then talked about how great and underappreciated they are for a little while. I don’t recall much else from the class, but I remember that. I wonder what Greg Downey is up to now.

23. Mount Eerie – A Crow Looked at Me A Crow Looked at Me is this year’s Skeleton Tree (Nick Cave’s 2016 musical tribute to his late son). To call Phil Eleverum’s meditation on the death of his wife a slog of misery would be a profound understatement. Listen to it and feel his utter despair.

22. Fleet Foxes – Crack-Up  Fleet Foxes’ return after six years on hiatus isn’t as triumphant as Helplessness Blues, but it’s a bold and invigorating odyssey of an album that could only come from the questioning, adventurous minds of Robin Pecknold et al.

21. Ryan Adams – Prisoner I got really into Adams’ Heartbreaker this year. Could this have primed me to enjoy Prisoner more? It has been called his best and most personal record since his 2000 debut. You be the judge, I guess.

20. Chastity Belt – I used to spend so much time alone If The National are music’s reigning “sad bastard” kings, Chastity Belt’s latest album make them contenders for the spot as queens. Or “sad bastardesses” maybe. A quick glance at the track-list is a pretty good indication of what you’re in for—“Stuck,” “What the Hell,” “5am,” “Bender.” These aren’t exactly pit of despair bummer songs. They lack the “look at me” dramatics of The Smiths or Joy Division. Chastity Belt keep it low-key, conveying something of a slow-crippling, dejected resignation that’s truer to life. If I’ve just made this record sound like complete agony, let me assure you, it’s not. I used to spend has some pep in its step—a bit of that Pacific Northwest punk spunk. One of the guitar breaks in “Something Else” even slightly recalls The Cranberries’ “Dreams.” So it won’t completely overwhelm with its ruminations on feelings of self-loathing/emptiness. For that kind of experience, turn to Mount Eerie.

19. A. Savage – Thawing Dawn Thawing Dawn  has some glaring flaws, but I listened to it a lot in 2017 because I really like it. Andrew Savage (who is in a band called Parquet Courts, you might’ve heard of them) has an everyman’s voice that sounds like a too-clever-for-his-own-good friend talking to you on the subway, regardless of whether you’re actually listening (“Eyeballs”). He also delivers a tender, slow-burning love song (“Wild, Wild, Wild Horses”) and a full-blown country waltz, slide guitar and all (“Phantom Limbo”). It doesn’t all work (see the church organ-heavy dud “Untitled” and overly drawn-out existential crisis-mode plod of “What Do I Do”). But something about the rest of Thawing Dawn, imperfections and all, is simply pleasant and demanding of the occasional revisit.

18. Kevin Morby – City Music If you like Bob Dylan (any era) you will probably like at least a handful of Kevin Morby songs. This may seem like a lazy assertation since the same could reasonably be said about a few dozen current artists, but I feel the comparison is worth making because Morby leans into the Dylan-ness a bit further on City Music, the follow-up to last year’s also excellent Singing Saw. The influence, of course, is not accidental and it isn’t limited to Morby’s charmingly wooden vocal delivery. City Music finds Morby getting even more introspective, a tad emotional and notably more poetic. One of the highlights is the ambling, groove-laden title track, which is preceded by a short Flannery O’Connor passage read by musician Meg Baird. The track gradually builds to a rapturous rave-up with Morby shouting the lyrics (there are only fifteen distinct words in the whole song). Play it fuckin’ loud. Side note: “Caught in My Eye” is a great introductory song to this album and Morby in general.

17. The xx – I See You  The xx, a band known for hushed tones and stark minimalism, broke free and brought dancehall spirit to their brooding songs. I See You is a natural next step in the group’s evolution.

16. The National – Sleep Well Beast  The National are not everyone’s bag, and understandably so. They require time and attention, which people seem to have less and less of these days. For those who do though, and are inclined to give The National a chance, the experience is a rewarding one. On Sleep Well Beast they do a bit of everything—rock out, wail lovelorn agonies, get glitchy, and mutter cryptic lyrics. I’d like to know who “dead John” in “Carin at the Liquor” store is, one of the record’s strongest, and most National-y tracks. But then again, The National are with each new record proving that they’re quite adept at going in a lot of different directions.

15. Hiss Golden Messenger – Hallelujah Anyhow  Hallelujah Anyhow is a record that seems to have slipped through the cracks. That’s a shame because MC Taylor creates the kind of terrific country-ish folk rock that should make any self-respecting music fan who’s ever picked up a Lumineers or Mumford and Sons record seriously question some of his or her life choices—no offense to those bands. Listen to “Harder Rain” and tell me that isn’t dang good southern rock music. But really, listen to the whole album.

14. Aimee Mann – Mental Illness  Aimee Mann does here what she does best, which is craft melancholy portraits of life’s disappointments. And she does so beautifully. It’s a strange and strangely uplifting album. Also, it might be the most universally enjoyable album on this list.

13. LCD Soundsystem – American Dream James Murphy broke up his band when they were seemingly at the height of their popularity, threw a huge goodbye concert/party in Madison Square Garden, and then spent years puttering around with coffee, wine, and musical turnstiles. All the while he was (presumably) wondering why the hell he called it quits. LCD Soundsystem’s new album which, as recently as three years ago was never supposed to exist, is a solid homecoming that retreads their well-established punk meets electro art-rock style with some new tricks. They have a long history of spastic, challenging songs and American Dream contains the most in terms both of quantity of tracks that fit this bill and quality (the challenging-ness, that is). If you don’t like their first album (or the genre they’re working in) don’t bother. That being said, songs like “how do you sleep,” “oh baby,” “tonite,” “emotional haircut,” and “call the police” bring the goods dance-wise. Album closer/bonus track “pulse (v. 1)” finds LCD going full techno for almost fourteen minutes. So yeah, it’s good to have James Murphy and co. back again.

12. Alvvays – Antisocialites  Alvvays, is one of those little indie bands that could. The spelling of their name is stupid. The songs they make are sunny and catchy. Lead singer Molly Rankin wrote much of the album “in isolation in an abandoned schoolroom” on the Toronto Islands. Taking your word on that one, Spotify “about” section.

11. Japanese Breakfast – Soft Sounds from Another Planet  Soft Sounds could be called a distant cousin of Frankie Rose’s Interstellar from 2012. Both Rose and Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner sing in angelic tones, inspired by distant worlds in the infinite cosmos. Zauner, however, thinks a bit bigger, and quite a lot hookier too. I’m talking about entrancingly dreamy, poppy, shoegazing tunes that shoot for the stars and land firmly in the heart. Fantastic song titles too, like “Here Come the Tubular Bells,” “Jimmy Fallon Big!,” and my personal favorite, “The Body is a Blade,” also one of the standout tracks on an album full of those.

10. Vince Staples – Big Fish Theory  Between songs during Vince Staples’ set at Pitchfork Music Festival in July, I leaned over to a friend and said I think Staples could be the next Kendrick Lamar. He looked at me quizzically and said, “I think he already is.” It was a bit of a “no duh” moment and one listen to Big Fish Theory proves the comparison to be accurate. It’s a club-ready banger of an album with sharp rhymes and an aggressive current running through it. “745” is, give me permission to write this just one time, the trillest track of the year. It also echoes Lamar’s “Backseat Freestyle” with the repeated “all I want” lyric.

9. Spoon – Hot Thoughts By now, everyone who gives a damn about good music should recognize Spoon as one of the most reliably great bands of the last twenty years. Hot Thoughts sees them stretching their legs, experimenting with some new sounds, but always sounding like Spoon, which is to say cool, confident, sexy, and slick.

8. The Courtneys – II  I feel like The Courtneys should be bigger. Maybe not huge, but definitely a lot bigger. They’re three gals from LA by way of Vancouver who love 90s pop culture and write songs that fall somewhere between candidly wise (“Tour”) and endearingly goofy (“Lost Boys”). There’s also a Big Star-inspired track (“Country Song”), one about a guy moving to the cold North Country (“Minnesota”), and one about iron deficiency (“Iron Deficiency”). Everything is up-tempo and there’s nothing not to like.

7. Lost Balloons – Hey Summer How do you feel about fuzzy, sentimental jangle-pop? How about infectious melodies sung by a guy from Japan? How about deep left-field bands cracking the top ten of MRM’s best albums list? Those questions are rhetorical and this album is very good. Lost Balloons’ Jeff Burke and Yusuke Okada crept under the radar for a while, but they’ve earned the seven spot with a record full of sprightly, mournful ditties. They’re what the characters of Sing Street call, “happy-sad.”

6. Mac DeMarco – This Old Dog The pepperoni playboy is so good at making excellent, laid-back, reflective indie-rock, it feels like only three full-length records in, folks are already taking him for granted. I’ve seen very little love for This Old Dog on other year-end lists…what gives? It’s the most stripped back and mature-sounding of DeMarco’s work so far. Is Mac more fun when he’s singing about the lighthearted aspects of life? Of course. But listening to a song like “Dreams from Yesterday,” it becomes clear that this gap-toothed goofball is at his best when he gets into the deep stuff.

5. Alex Cameron – Forced Witness Part of me can’t believe one of the year’s best albums is by a dude who sings about prowling for women on the web, benching other guys’ bodyweight, and how he’s “packing heat” under his jeans. What’s so remarkable about Forced Witness is how easily it could have been a complete disaster. Adopting a stage persona this crass and outlandish requires an unwavering commitment to the character and, more importantly, having the musical chops to back it up. Cameron and right-hand man on the sax Roy Malloy deliver both, with a batch of killer tunes that weave tales of pathetic delusion, macho posturing, and (perhaps unexpectedly) extreme vulnerability. The carefully crafted façade Cameron takes on is one of the most entertaining aspects of these songs, but it’s how sadly desperate for connection his brazenly low-life characters are that make many of them perversely beautiful. Cameron mixes uninhibited rock star swagger with portraits of seedy, disturbed individuals from the underbelly—like Springsteen, Zevon, and 80s Joel all rolled into one greasy-haired goon. The results are mesmerizing.

4. Mount Kimbie – Love What Survives The opening two songs of Love What Survives sometimes remind me of a terrific movie from this year, the Safdie brothers’ Good Time. The film’s music by Oneohtrix Point Never is a completely different brand of jittery electronic from Mount Kimbie, but these songs produce images of urban menace and escalating panic that, if you’ve seen the film, you’ll understand why they would fit snugly in its world. But then, three tracks in, the record pivots. “Audition” and album standout “Marilyn” slide in to cleanse the palate, providing a hazy, coolly detached warmth. If that sounds a bit enigmatic and contradictory, that’s because it is. This is the brilliance of Love What Survives, an album that earns the distinction of 2017’s breakout revelation. The genre Mount Kimbie occupies is admittedly not my area of expertise, but if ever I was asked to recommend an album of UK-based electronic/“post-dubstep” to a total neophyte, this might be the record. Built around a half dozen guest vocalists including James Blake and King Krule, Love What Survives is a gorgeous collage of sounds—organic and industrial, familiar and foreign, soothing and unsettling—that has a truly captivating effect. And while it is not the best of album of 2017, it is the most fascinating.

3. Lorde – Melodrama  I want to begin by saying I think the music of Taylor Swift is pretty much irrelevant to Lorde. They are both massive female pop stars with fiercely loyal fanbases and, as it would happen, the two are pals (or at least they present themselves publicly as such). Stylistically though, all the two have in common is that their songs fall into the (depending on your point of view) ever-broadening or frustratingly narrow genre of mainstream pop. The reason I bring Swift up is because 1989, which is now just over three years old, seems to be the unanimously agreed upon best pop album of recent memory—it is also the highest selling. Its appeal is near-universal and it is indeed, a stellar album. I’m here to tell you that Lorde’s Melodrama is even better. This is a collection of moody and electrifying songs whose consistent quality is made more impressive by the fact that her previous record is similarly fantastic. Loosely based around the concept of a night spent partying, Melodrama is the rare example of pop music that transcends its generic conventions and manages to be both a supremely satisfying get-up-and-dance record as well as a thoughtful reflection on youth, romance, and the fleeting nature of both.

2. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN. Crown him folks. Kendrick Lamar, best rapper alive. What’s that? We already did that? Okay then, if you weren’t sure before, you ought to be now. The man can do it all. DAMN. is a rightfully ALL CAPS PERIOD rap record that tackles everything from heritage to crippling self-doubt to our divided nation and racism like no one else can. When it comes to beats, flow, intelligence, and charisma Lamar is in a category of his own. “There’s a difference between black artists and whack artists, ” Lamar raps on “ELEMENT.” He’s not wrong.

1. The War on Drugs – A Deeper Understanding  This is a blog so ridiculously unread that the point of keeping it up at times feels woefully nonexistent—I sometimes question why I don’t just shut it all down to the dismay of no one. Why post something on the internet for it to be utterly unnoticed? The same question could be posed to the tens of thousands of other amateur music bloggers across the country with year-end lists that probably look a lot like this one. I don’t know what their reasons might be. Complete lack of awareness? Blissful ignorance? The self-assigned obligation of a shameless vanity project? Mine, for the little it’s worth, is an unadulterated love of rock music and a compulsion to champion the uncompromising musicians that make compelling art. That’s a mission statement of sorts, generic and predictable as it may be, for a largely inactive blog run by a guy who listens to and reads a lot about rock music. That’s all this is. And since I’m on the subject of big cliché statements and uncommissioned content that oversaturates this largely vapid world wide web, here’s an undercooked question whose answer is as subjective as it is insignificant: What is the state of rock and roll in 2017? Reading Collin Brennan’s COS piece from early this year, in which he mines bands like Japandroids, Cloud Nothings, Jay Som, and Real Estate for something resembling a conclusion, I got to thinking about this question myself. Then I got to thinking about The War On Drugs and how they fit into this tired conversation. Here’s what I know to be true: rock and roll, contrary to what people may tell you, does not require a new roster of fresh-faced superstars. It does not need to dominate the charts. It does not need to be young people’s genre of choice, the soundtrack of a revolution, and it certainly doesn’t need to lazily repackage the sound of former greats. Don’t call The War on Drugs or any other band for that matter, “saviors of rock” because rock doesn’t need saving.

Artists like The War on Drugs, albums like A Deeper Understanding are proof that rock and roll’s health report is just fine. The Philadelphia-based band, led by studio obsessive Adam Granduciel, are endearing underdogs: the guys that rose from indie obscurity to fame-straddling heights on the back of an exceptional, critically adored 2014 release. They have made a name for themselves by borrowing from the best. A little Dire Straits, a lot of Bruce, some Ghost is Born-era Wilco distortion, Granduciel’s hushed, Dylan-esque drawl—their sound is built from a foundation of musical greats. These influences are easily recognized on A Deeper Understanding, but it never sounds like mimicry. Instead, it sounds like reverence. Steven Hyden (who also named it the best album of 2017) put it nicely, writing about how the record doesn’t actually sound like the artists the WOD are so frequently compared to. “It does sound like your memories of that questing, widescreen heartland rock music,” he writes. “This is what Adam Graunduciel does best: He evokes the spirit of classic rock’s past without ever literally replicating Bryan Adams’ gruff vocals, Mark Knopfler’s bluesy guitar, or Born In The USA‘s glockenspiels.” The band has mutated their sound over the years from rootsy to atmospheric to this new incarnation, which could be called “quietly epic.” This phenomenon comes across best in a song like “Thinking of a Place,” the eleven-minute opus that somehow doesn’t feel a second too long. “Strangest Thing” builds to the point where its swelling guitar motif will forcibly displace you from whatever you are occupied with and once it’s over you’ll need a moment to come back to Earth. “Nothing To Find” is the breeziest on the record, and equally suited for a large amphitheater or a car stereo on an open road. I could go on and on, but I won’t. This album will not knock you on your ass or change the way you think about music. It’s not the best thing since Nevermind, it’s not even the best album by this band. Here’s what it is: an engrossing sonic experience marked by lush guitars, heartland synths, and a whole lot of things being very strongly felt—longing, nostalgia, confinement, and of course, pain. It’s the kind of album that hits you at your core without sounding like it’s trying too hard to. If the question, “is rock and roll is still capable of having a profound impact today?” were a legitimate one, the sixty-six minutes of A Deeper Understanding would make for an effective, resounding, “Yes.”

Honorable Mentions:  Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile – Lotta Sea Lice Real Estate – In Mind Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels 3 Randy Newman – Dark Matter Four Tet – New Energy Margo Price – All American Made Big Thief - Capacity

[junker-town]

Kendrick Lamar made Russell Westbrook NBA MVP by referencing him in his new song

It’s over. Kendrick ended the NBA MVP race.

Russell Westbrook has to be MVP. Kendrick Lamar said so.

K-Dot doesn’t explicitly make this declaration, but he compares himself to Westbrook in a song where he calls himself the king of rap. Since we know that rappers want to be ballers and ballers want to be rappers, and the king of the NBA would be the MVP.

It’s an easy translation to make. The conversation is over, give Westbrook his crown.

Russell Westbrook appears to be a fan of Kendrick Lamar's new song: http://pic.twitter.com/rg92vaBUzz

— Royce Young (@royceyoung) March 24, 2017

Before the world could properly get their merengue on to Drake’s new album “More Life,” Kendrick decided to put an end to the riddim. Mad ting! Babylon ting!

The Compton born rapper recently dropped a song called “The Heart Part 4,” in which he warns other rappers: “Y’all got ’til April the 7th to get y’all shit together.”

In the song, Kendrick has some harsh words for a mysterious friend turned adversary. The hurt was so deep that he had to reference the breakup of Kevin Durant and Westbrook:

Tables turned, lesson learned, my best look/You jumped sides on me, now you 'bout to meet Westbrook/Go celebrate with your team and let victory vouch you/

Just know the next game played, I might slap the s... out you/

There’s been speculation that the fellow rapper in question is Hedwig’s very own, Drake, who the diminutive West Coast rapper has had problems with over the years. Some have said that it is Big Sean instead, but we’re not going to waste time with someone who once rapped: “I was so cold on the motha... eggs, they called me Young Eggs, mane.”

Anyways, Kendrick called out Drake by name on his infamous “Control” verse and Drake responded with several subliminal shots on songs like “The Language,” and “6PM In New York.” A tactic similar to Durant’s stinging quotes of playing with more unselfish players when he moved to Golden State.

The “tables turned, lesson learned…” line could very well be a response to Drake’s own “tables turn, bridges burn, you live and learn” line on “Pound Cake,” a song in which Jay Z advises Toronto’s Sean Paul against beefing. Coincidentally, Kendrick also brought up Jay Z in the song: “You making him nervous, the music is loud/ H.., Jay Z Hall of Fame, sit your punk ass down.” Jay Z is a well-known supporter of Kendrick.

For the purpose of this article, Jay Z has also often claimed to be the Michael Jordan of rap, and lest we forget, Michael Jordan was the person who inducted Westbrook into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

As far as the Westbrook/Durant connection, beyond the fact that both Westbrook and Kendrick are both from LA, Drake claimed comparison to Durant on his song “Weston Road Flows,” from his 2016 album that had a photoshopped picture of Drake sitting on a city monument: “Shout out to KD, we relate, we get the same attention.”

And in his new album, he references Durant again on “Free Smoke,” the first song of the album:

I took the team play from Oracle/Mama never used to cook much/Used to chef KD/Now me and Chef KD/

Just like Durant and Westbrook, Kendrick and Drake were once cool with each other. Drake featured on Kendrick’s debut album, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, on the song “Poetic Justice.” And they were both on that one A$ap Rocky song that we won’t talk about. I refuse. Rocky hates that song and I have to respect the wishes of the young French Braids.

So what we have now is that Kendrick Lamar is Russell Westbrook and Drake is Kevin Durant. A fractured relationship at its boiling point.

This is the biggest connection in basketball history since Jay Z decided to retire but promised to come back wearing the 4-5 — a Jordan reference. Or that time Kanye shouted out Derrick Rose and the quality of both of their works took a nose dive right after.

James Harden, for all of his talents and accomplishments, has only been referenced in a handful of rap songs and the two most prominent times have been by ... Drake. “H-town my second home like I'm James Harden,” on “No New Friends.” And the very cringy “They should call me James/ Cause I’m goin' hard in this bitch” on the “My Way (remix). His other two appearances are on a song by Kanye West Jr/Travis Scott and Mr. Cash4Gold/Trinidad James.

And no one has ever used Kawhi Leonard’s name in a song. No one. None.

So we all agree: the MVP discussion is over — Harden and Leonard don’t have a good case musically and Westbrook should definitely win after this song. The bigger issue is the simple question of whether you are Team Westbrook or Team Durant in their beef? Are you for Kendrick or are you for Drake?

Do you prefer a good album that will have you doing the bachata with the nearest person of Caribbean descent or the type of vicious raps that makes suburban helicopter parents concerned that their child is being radicalized? Do you want instagram captions or verbal threats? Are you more inclined to sending out heartbroken texts on late nights or jumping on couches at house parties? Do you like Durant’s unbrushed hair or Westbrook’s inclination to try and destroy everything that stands before him?

This is a choice that can change the complexion of basketball and rap forever.