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popculture-etc · 4 years

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Kenny Rogers, Adam Schlesinger,...coping with 2020

Worst year ever although there were some good.

It’s too early yet for me to do a quick look back on what 2020 is like here as we’re only going to be in the first of December tomorrow (it’s Nov 30 here) but I just have to as two losses this year broke me. Kind of, well, especially the second one.

You see, before East Asian pop, Jpop and Kpop, Western pop culture was my thing. It still is and this pandemic has made me go back to that recently starting with...the Beach Boys (their westcoast sound caught me, hook, line, and sinker and I wasn’t very fond of the Beatles to begin with...to be completely honest) I’m currently chillin’ to right now, as I write this post. I’m really weak to the westcoast sound. Beach sound/s in general, rather. I’m a big fan of the beach where nature goes, for one. Since some time, a few years ago, deep chill and tropical house music has been my go-to when I want to chill or calm myself down after an outburst of sorts and I put them on when I just feel meh, especially on Fridays. When I dream of being by the sea, the beach or in some island on my own. I live in a country with a lot of beaches and the Visayas here is basically island region Philippines, lol. Like most people, I listen to music according to mood just like the way I dress according to mood. And...it’s no wonder, really that I’m so into the Beach Boys now. RIP the Beatles. My dad played some songs of theirs on the guitar or so but the hold they have on me waned later on and I just think now how overrated they were back then. They did have good songs but when talking of good music, as in really good that it retains the same sound style or so, it’s the Beach Boys for me. Brian Wilson is the man despite his issues and personal struggles.

Anyway, we’re going quickly off tangent. I’ll save the Beach Boys fangirling for another day. lol.

I grew up with western pop culture rife all around me thanks to my American, cowboy country and folk music listening dad, my Carpenters-loving mom and then, college-aged aunts who’d made me see the Titanic film more than my fingers could count---the third is clearly an exaggeration but well...some of it is true and they were why I got into American films like Pretty Woman (we have this in good ol’ VHS in our family home, my grandparents’ in Jasaan), Mannequin, Ghost etc. in the late 80s, coming into the early 90s. So, tired of all the kdrama and uninteresting kvariety shows on tvn and the rebranded local channel, Kapamilya (long story for what we formerly know as ABS-CBN, the nation’s a mess right now and our gov’t’s just...ick!), I’d retreated to my cave and got into old tv shows I’d watched as a kid instead like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed and it’s been, well, moving on from there. I’m checking out Twin Peaks later. I’ve been watching old Hollywood films too. Some revisits on this include: Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, and especially A Streetcar Named Desire will always and forever be my favorite. Very young and cute and good looking Marlon Brando, ugh. I have some others in the stash which include Bonnie and Clyde I’ll be getting into much, much later, maybe over the weekends and holidays. In sum, I have a long history with western pop culture, especially America’s, more than I have with Japan’s and South Korea’s. The latter being very, very recent so it doesn’t really compare as much.

Let’s get right down to it...

So 2020 had us lose Kenny Rogers to natural causes on March 20 in a hospice and after, Adam Schlesinger to COVID 19 complications on April 1. I know the latter as the songwriter of The Wonders’ That Thing You Do from the film sharing the same song title. I know Kenny Rogers well because my dad listens to him over and over in the car. In pretty much the same way, I know the words to Islands in the Stream by heart and I accept and revere it as one of the best, if not THE BEST country-pop duet songs of all time between Kenny and Dolly Parton...as far as country and pop music in the US of A’re concerned, of course. Miley and Shawn Mendez’s cover of it I’d seen recently was alright but nothing still beats the OG one, as always. With music, it’s just, really always the case.

Kenny departing from us March this year was alright. He was well cared for in a hospice and at the right age too, to leave us and this mess of a world behind for the afterlife. Sounds grim but not really. Heh. He died of natural causes so we know he was at peace and accepted then that his time has come. Fans and long-time listeners of his should also be at peace with this knowledge. I don’t consider myself a fan but since he’s been around so much because my dad plays his songs in the car often, I’m the same. I’ve accepted his passing away early this year. He’s lived his life well and given us good music to listen to should we like to remember him and his works and celebrate his life and legacy doing so.

Schlesinger’s case was way worse because, well, COVID 19. And it’s well...I guess we all saw it coming, me included, that I’d just learned, watching the one of many national English news on ANC that ‘pandemic’ is the word of the year according to Merriam-Webster. Timely, huh? Yep. Predictable, really. Sarcasm noted here.

So if someone ever asks what 2020 was about, we only have to say that according to Merriam-Webster, it’s the global (COVID 19) pandemic. Short, not-so-sweet, succinct, and grim. Yep.

This one, Schlesinger’s case, is something I still find difficult to accept. He was only 52 years old! He was at the prime of his life and had some projects still he was working on at the time of his passing so WHY?! I suppose that’s all of us who followed him and his extensive work on tv, film, the stage and his own band, Fountains of Wayne when we heard news he’s passed away due to COVID 19 complications. It’s definitely me now though I learned of it late. Heh.

To cope with the sadness of losing Schlesinger, gone too soon at 52 years old and with an impressive Hollywood tv, stage, film resume to his name since and his own band’s, Fountains of Wayne (FoW) really good discography, by the way, I’ve been listening to FoW’s Welcome Interstate Managers---all of the contents of said album/record---and That Thing You Do’s OST with the Beach Boys’ Sounds of Summer Best of in between. My favorite song on Welcome Interstate Managers is the sarcastic take on real life as an everyday worker in sales, Bright Future in Sales. As much as I like chill sounds where music goes, I like me some music with lyrics jolting us back to grim reality in much the same way I like films (indies, mostly, or lesser known short and full-length ones) that tackle social issues not frequently discussed in public or so but we are aware are there, still plaguing much of today’s society. I live for cynical, satirical, ironic, and even hyperbolic stuff about real life actually. It may be why I’m so entrenched and attached to the era where we all hated ourselves---the 90s. Although one would say much of that sentiment or feeling did carry itself to the 2000s, though. I don’t know about you, but until now, I still hate or have heavy dislike for myself and everything else around me, especially our gov’t or current admin here in the Philippines, and people in general so I don’t think it ever really goes away. And going off tangent again for the nth time today.

Anyway, my 1996 was That Thing You Do on HBO in our household...on and off along with other 90s films like The Craft, Clueless, Jawbreakers (I think this still plays in Cinemax from time to time) so of course losing Schlesinger also was...rather, is hard. He’s done so much and he was supposed to be working on more and he’s left such a deep mark here for us, avid fans of American pop culture...I suppose, even the casual ones. Aside from his That Thing You Do, I’d also seen Josie and the Pussycats at some point. I don’t remember when, where...though I did watch some episodes of the cartoon on Cartoon Network (CN) so of course, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the film of it as well. He worked on a track or some tracks there, too.

2020 sucks. COVID 19 sucks. This global pandemic sucks. But at least there’re films, tv shows, music, stage musical plays turned movies (Jonathan Larson’s Tick, Tick...Boom! is coming to us soon with Andrew Garfield in the lead---I’m wary of Garfield being a forgettable actor since The Amazing Spider Man because Dane Dehaan was what made that for me, to be quite honest so I’m not so sure of him being Jon here and as a self-respecting Larson fan since Rent, I’d rather they casted Neil Patrick Harris/NPH since he was in the London stage for this way back anyway...) to keep us entertained and fine until then. What would it take for ‘rona, and I’m not talking about the American Corona beer here that’s really popular in the west coast, to go away? I, like the rest of you in self isolation or quarantine, tend to think so but I don’t think we’ll have any answer to that until the vaccines are well underway by spring next year. Or at least, that’s what health authorities and scientists tell us anyway. I get reminded of it often in the news and I only tune in to that once in a while now because even that, following that daily, breaks my mental faculties down due to stress and pressure and all and I can’t have that when I still have so much, at the back of my mind, to do.

But anyway, time to conclude this one with one of my favorite The Wonders songs, All My Only Dreams just to end on a good note, better than the last paragraph’s ending at least and to remember Schlesinger as well that we’d lost this year along with plenty others we’d met in passing who’ve also left this world especially due to COVID 19 complications. I know we know a lot of those. For me, it’s a distant relative or family member I’d known since young but don’t have particular fluffy bunny feelings for because of some things that happened between the guy and me growing up in the NCR/Caloocan City to be exact. There’s also my good friend and former co-worker’s only remaining parent, her dad and a few more, I’m sure. So I hope 2021 would be better but I doubt it...very much. It’s still looking pretty dim, grim and bleak from here, where I’m currently standing in 2020.

Before we really end though, COVID 19 is definitely not a hoax. It hasn’t been since the first cases started in Wuhan, China. It’s just, only been getting worse and still continue to claim lives and spread to more people even those at home. So as someone who comes from a household of mostly medical workers or health care workers here, we should really be very careful about and around it. Let’s take the necessary health protocols seriously like wearing a mask out and maybe the face shield too and always keeping the sanitizers, alcohols in our bags among others---hygiene and sanitation, disinfection. It may come off really anal of me and I am not anal (I don’t like people with Type A personalities in the first place, lol...I’m just a very cautious Virgo, really, and a Type X---mix of Type C and D personalities) but seriously, SERIOUSLY, I can’t stress this enough, COVID 19, the virus SARS-COV2, that causes it is real. Very real and once it’s in your system, it can go the fatal, deadly way or just the mild and you’ll recover later anyway way. It’s not picking which people should die next and which should not, really. It’s really just there making a mess of things that are already messy since the beginning. My point being, it’s just better if we don’t spread it or are careful enough not to contract it with following health protocols set by health experts, scientists to help us get by this...pandemic.

Well here’s to 2020 being over soon and 2021 creeping in on us soon enough.

P.S.

Billie Armstrong of Greenday upped a cover of That Thing You Do as a tribute to Adam and the youtube live of the Wonders coming together again to pay tribute to and celebrate Adam’s life may still be up on the ‘tube. I have yet to see the latter but enjoyed the former. They are just so...sweet and precious. Ugh. Adam Schlesinger, gone too soon indeed. :(

PPS

Another songwriter/contributor in the TTYD OST passed away last year, too. Rick Elias. Cause of death is brain cancer. I had a friend from college, young and so full of life and dreams, who passed away due to the same thing so I’m kind of aware how this goes. Ugh. Cancer sucks. All of these are just so...sad. Depressing, actually.

youtube

#Adam Schlesinger #Kenny Rogers #american pop culture #USA #United States of America #That Thing You Do #Fountains of Wayne #music #entertainment #Hollywood #loss #COVID 19 #2020 #2020 is the worst year ever #what's next 2021?#A year in music #a year in american pop culture #a year in american rock and roll and pop music

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dew-line · 4 years

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Life, death, and rebirth – developing and redeveloping a personality on a progressing timeline

So. I had a little fun today. The last task on the psychology course was to write an essay on personality development based(ish) on Mischels theories about personality development. The guidelines were a tad loose, and I choose to run with it. The text below is what I submitted, hopefully I’ll get som feedback on it tomorrow or in a few days and I’ll keep you posted on that. :D //Jimmy How does one begin to describe, in any relatable fashion, the development of one’s personality, especially as it is a work of perpetual process? One must, I assume, begin at the beginning: I was born. Then there was nothing until I developed a basic sense of self awareness and the ability to define myself in relation to other people and objects. In that very moment I created the world; but you may rest easy, for I am a humble god. Especially so since I stopped demanding the immediate satisfaction of my basic needs and allowed myself to be shaped into this present form by the mold created by my parents and by society; by boundaries drawn by cultural and linguistic traits Thus, like the Christian God I was made flesh and blood – now writing before you as this maculate conception, ever learning as I progressed over the years, constantly striving to fill out this rudimentary sketch of “me” drawn by my parents with ever more content and subject matter. I learnt of poetry and philosophy – the power of word and thought, and thus, in my late teens, I entered a new phase. Let it begin with these words from the gospel [abridged] of St. Charles the Inebriated.

”Born like this

Into this

Into these carefully mad wars

Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness

Into bars where people no longer speak to each other

Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings

Born into this

Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die

Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty

Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed

Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

Born into this

Walking and living through this

Dying because of this

Muted because of this

Castrated

Debauched

Disinherited

Because of this

Fooled by this

Used by this

Pissed on by this

Made crazy and sick by this

Made violent

Made inhuman

By this

[…]”

Charles Bukowski – ”Dinosauria, We”.

Now, I may not have turned out quite as bitter and fatalistic as the aged Bukowski, but I do confess to a certain faiblesse for the absurd, in Camus’s use of the term, that existence is without meaning and purpose, and that beauty lies in –the absurd– meeting between this knowledge and continuing to striving too, despite this knowledge, fill life with love, beauty and personal meaning.

I was born into a classical working class home at 09:28, December 25th 1974, the first child of a young mother and an alcoholic and controlling father; two parents that had the unusually common sense for their time to realise that they should not be together, and thus early becoming a child of separation – my parents were not married. I was doomed to the life of bi-weekend migrations between families – as this was long before the enlightened era where parents manage to handle child care in an adult fashion and share the weeks equally – a conduct that, in my case, created a feeling or rootlessness and a sense of drifting rather than establishing solid connections within either family – my mother and my father’s new families respectively. This rootlessness in turn created the foundation of a lifelong fear of abandonment and also of a shyness that manifested itself in an extroverted way – acting like the class clown, hiding emotions behind first erratic behavior and later, as I grew older and developed an arsenal of wit and amassed at least a modicum of knowledge – in early attempts at humor. I also developed the foundation of a contrarian mindset that is still present to this day. I despise the consensus – mainly because a consensus promotes a lack of progress and a lack of progress is the base definition of death. However, when I was a child the main reason for causing disruption, even if I was not aware of it at the time, was that it is easier to hide where there is disorder. Being judged by one’s behavior was far more preferable to being judged on who I actually was.

It was at this age, around the age of seven or eight, that I came to the conclusion that religion was not the answer. Being introduced to a light version of Christianity in an after-school setting, being taught the core concepts of the New Testament, I promptly told the teacher that it was nonsense and, if I recall correctly, was not invited back for the second semester. Much to my mother’s dismay, I presume. By this time, we had left Uppsala and moved out into the countryside, a move that lead to an increased isolation on my behalf – this suited me perfectly as my main interests, especially as I started fourth grade, turned into literature and music. My mother had always read out loud for us when we were little, and I have always had a strong imagination – making the immersion into literature both smooth and welcome. Music also became an important present at this early age – literature and music has followed me ever since. The main part of the eighties was spent in my room reading and listening to music.

What beautiful time it was.

Reading has had a huge impact on the forming of the person that I am today. All adults that I was surrounded by, in a formative sense – part from teachers – lacked any higher education and we did not really discuss much at, particularly not on my mother’s side, where I spent most of my time. My father, on the other hand – and this is based on long term memories, I cannot vouch for the validity of these memories as I have not spoken to the man in over 20 years – had a creative side – he tried to keep up to date, enjoyed certain intellectual activities. And whisky. And to listen to music. And whisky. And occasionally to beat his kids. Personally, I can’t remember to have ever being beaten by him, that seem to have developed later. My two brothers on my father’s side got to take the brunt of it as I can remember, however – he also had a knack for the words and was happy to share his opinions on how useless we were. That one has stuck with me. As I grew up and became older, and also stronger, this abuse increasingly became a greater and greater problem for me – culminating in me eventually starting to step between my father and my younger siblings when he got ”into the mood”. Eventually, however, I came to the point where I could not keep doing this and as I neared adulthood the relationship with my father and also my father’s side of the family slowly ebbed out. Initially, and for some years I felt that I had let my siblings to fend for themselves, but that feeling is long since passed. I have processed this, and I have moved on. It had to be done.

I once asked my mother why they did not put any pressure on us when we were younger. Why they never pushed us to do better in school or had any opinions on what we choose to study in high school. The answer was that they wanted to let us choose for ourselves, that we should study what we wanted. The guidance counselor, I remember, told me to look find a job in a warehouse. Packing vegetables at the COOP. The direct result of that was that I ended up studying for two years to become a bricklayer. I had no ambitions. I choose what I knew, since my stepfather and my father both worked in construction. I should not have been there. My only proper skills after being through the Swedish school system in the 80’s and early 90’s was a decent grasp of English. There were no jobs for me in construction, nor would I have been interested if there were any. If change was to come it was not through family, the school system or anything else. It was through me.

Looking back, however, it is interesting to see how much my life has been formed from the experiences of these formative years. I have no friends or acquaintances from before I started studying at university for the first time in 1998. Non whatsoever. I was social, I had friends – but I have never been sentimental – and I would rather let friendships run out from time or distance. No strong ties, no risk for emotional trauma. One might say that I started to reconstruct my life in my early twenties, I got into a new profession, I applied and got accepted into Grythyttan, Sweden’s premier hospitality industry education, a higher education under the management of the university of Örebro. This pretty much meant everything. Getting away from Uppsala and then – by the slight detour of three years in Grythyttan – to Stockholm meant everything. There is a reason why the Stockholm tends to draw people to it: the chance to rebuild yourself, to turn you into the person you want to be, to let yourself take center stage, if you will. Those were the formative years. They were great years. Working in the restaurant business in Stockholm in the early 2000’s was a smorgasbord of hedonism; food, wine, spirits, drugs. The sky was the limit. What a time to be young. And had not an underlying feeling that there must be more to life kept on nagging me I’d probably still be there today, standing on the brink of being a burned out wreck – but instead I got out, I diversified and got into wine import, into copywriting, photography – always searching; and I think that I am finally starting to get an idea.

I woke up one morning in December 2018, taking stock of my life. What I had done, where I had been, where I was and what I wanted to do. The same day I applied for a late admission course at Södertörn and started studying the very next month. I am very curious to see where I will end up.

#the DEW line #psychology #mischel #essay #forfunsies

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vinylexams · 6 years

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Planet Score Records - St. Louis, Missouri

Today’s featured record store is none other than Planet Score Records (@planetscore) in St. Louis, Missouri! After hearing from so many of you that wanted me to feature your favorite shops in the land, Planet Score was the first to get back to me with lots of great pics of the shop and some great answers to a list of questions you all will become familiar with as more and more independently owned stores get featured here. The features on Instagram will be as lengthy as the word count will allow, but the full interview and features will always be available in their entirety on vinylexams.com so if you don’t have it bookmarked yet, do it!

Planet Score Records is a music store that’s been a St. Louis staple for years but was purchased and revamped in 2015 by long-time employee of the previous shop, Joe Stulce, and his friend from his years in the 2000s playing in bands around the city, Tim Lohmann. The Guided by Voices (@instagbv) fans here will probably recognize the name, but don’t worry, not only did they get Mr. Pollard’s personal approval, he’s even become a friend of the owners and the shop and is known to stop by from time to time (check out the pics above!).

Here’s the nitty gritty:

Hours:

Monday- Thursday 10am-8pm

Friday- Saturday 10am-9pm

Sunday- 12pm- 5pm

Planet Score Records

7421 Manchester Rd.

St. Louis, MO 63143

314-282-0777

And here’s the interview:

Tell us about your store and how it came to be:

Tim Lohmann (Planet Score co-owner) and I met in the early 2000's playing in bands together in the St. Louis music scene. I had been working at a long standing record store called Record Reunion since the late 90's (re-branded CD Reunion during the CD boom). It was always my favorite shop, long before I got a job there. My friends and I would hang out there almost every day after school, exploring the vast catalog and educating ourselves on all things music. Not long after I started working there, I was promoted to full time manager. In 2015 the owner of RR decided to retire and Tim and I bought the business from him. We really just wanted the stock and planned from the get-go to move the store out of the county and closer to the city (where we lived) and re-brand and re-vamp it. We quickly found a great location in the Maplewood shopping and restaurant district.

We chose the name Planet Score after a Guided by Voices song. Robert Pollard of GBV got wind of our idea, gave us his blessing to use the name, and has since become a friend, popping into the shop when he is in town. Being that Tim and I are both music obsessives and we grew up in record stores, we strive to create our ideal of the perfect record shopping environment. Fun, cool and friendly; the kind of place people will feel comfortable spending hours on end shopping, exploring and chatting about our collective obsessions.

Does your shop specialize in any specific genres of music?

We carry every genre: rock, pop, soul, jazz, blues, hip-hop, punk, metal, world, country, classical... you name it. We are personally really into psychedelic rock, punk, prog, jazz, funk, krautrock, post-punk, electronic, hip-hop, exotica, Indian, African, reggae... St. Louis is a big classic rock city, so we always have a lot of that on hand. LP's, 7"s, CD's, cassettes, movies, posters, even 8-tracks and reel-to-reel tapes.

If you had to estimate, about how much of your inventory is used vs new?

Probably around 70% used, 30% new. Reissues and new vinyl are cool and readily available, but there's nothing like the thrill of the hunt.

What do YOU think makes your shop special?

Customer service is really important. Either one or both (usually both) of the owners are running the shop every single day, and we make sure to interact with every person who comes through the door. We love getting to know our regulars, and keeping an eye out for records that we think they are into. You will never have to deal with a grumpy, clueless part-timer, or a pretentious record store snob here. We are music obsessives who are extremely passionate about what we do. We still get as excited about records now as we did when we were kids. We also try to stock stuff that we don't think is readily available elsewhere. The deep cuts if you will. We are a relatively small shop, and we are careful not to stuff the bins with filler and thrift store junk. Plus we love throwing events and parties: Record Store Day and special sales... our neighborhood will throw weekend events that we always take part in... Our secret weapon is our best bud Joey Bags, a chef who loves to cook for us and our customers. There is an amazing craft brewery, Schlafly Bottleworks, a couple of blocks from us and they always help us out with our parties. We are lucky to have some amazing friends, family and neighbors that always help us out behind the scenes.

What makes running a record store fun and exciting for you?

It's my one and only dream job. I've thought about it many times, and there is nothing else I would rather be doing. To be able to make a living listening to and talking about music all day is a dream come true. Exploring new and old sounds, digging through forgotten collections and bringing joy to fellow obsessives. Music lovers really are the best people to be surrounded by on a daily basis.

What is your most prized record?/Have you finally snagged your ultimate “white whale” yet?

Tim and I both kind of put our collecting on hold when we started Planet Score. We have even sold off large chunks of our personal collections to help build up the business. We get to play records all day, so having a huge collection sitting in our houses gathering dust is not as important as it used to be. We see records come through all the time that we would love to bring home (it hurts sometimes!), even stuff that I never thought I would see in real life. But seeing someone else find that record that they have been searching for brings just as much joy (well, almost as much...). Though, if I ever come across an original copy of GBV's Propeller that might change.

=====

Well, there you have it folks! Please, if you’re in the area, stop by and say hello to Tim and Joe and tell ‘em VINYLEXAMS sent ya!

As always, we encourage you to shop small and support the wonderful independently owned shops like Planet Score whenever you can. These stores make the scene exciting and fun and all of us started our love for our collections in dusty crates somewhere! Thanks Joe and Tim, I can’t wait to swing by!

VINYLEXAMS

#planetscore #planetscorerecords #stlouis #stlouismusic #stl #stlmo #vinyl #vinylexams #vinylcollector #vinylrecord #vinylrecords #recordstore #recordstoreday #rsd

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mawwart · 2 years

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What’s ur most listened to song/artist/playlist? (Am I trying to get new music??? No I am yes I’m not <3)

Oh god anon my taste in music is ALL over the place. SO I uh picked out SOME that I usually end up listening to on loop.

Greta van fleet - light my love

Greatest comedian - matt maltese

Junk of the heart (happy) the kooks

Hyukoh- when october goes (HIGHLY rec Hyukoh ABSOLUTE angel)

Warm glow - hippo campus

Most non heinous - earth girls are easy (found this one bc the movie is one of my fav bad movies ever its so funny)

Someday we’ll linger in the sun - gaelynn lea

Exist for love - aurora

Paolo Nutini - one day

I Monster - Who is She? Here's just some artist that I can listen to just about anything they put out and vibe with Nate Ruess (ESPECIALLY The Grand Romantic ALL of the album art the songs UGH fav album for YEARS)

Orville Peck

Lord Huron

Matt Maltese

Mother Mother (BLESS I've been listening to them since middle school❤️❤️❤️) In a previous ask I came from a more musically inclined family and like generations of my family have played SOME kinda instrument or sang (I sing like a crow and can't play for shit lmao) BUT I am absolutely a radio rat. Every car ride HAD to have the radio on so I grew up with a LOT of country music (when country was a little less about drinking a beer and having a pickup truck and that's it. The country I grew up with had that and also saying "fuck work the boss is a dickhead live how you want" so. take that as you will ig) and tons and tons and TONS of 80-90's rock, pop, r&b, rap and everything else. Not to mention plenty of 2000's music since I was actually alive during that but y'know. ALSO my love for oldies music came around in I think middle school? Started with the songs that most people know from Paul Anka, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and just kinda grew from there into a big ol oldies MESS So uh,,, sorry for that ramble here's a playlist I made for Odie made up of random songs that remind me of him, his relationships or just his story COYOTE

#openmaww #music reccs #sorry for the ramble #asks #bday asks #i really hope the links work ill cry if they dont

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bymaribel · 3 years

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Was there a song in your lifetime that no matter where you were as soon as it played it triggered a response of joy or better yet, the need to dance? What song was that for you? Has a song ever changed your life or the trajectory of it? This one did for me.

I grew up in the era of Rock-en-Español. There were many great bands and songs we danced and enjoyed back in the late 90s early 2000's. I still listen to Rock-En-Español from time to time but this morning as I was heading out to buy coffee my bluetooth connected my phone to the car music outlet and out of what felt no where the sound of drums began to thunder literally waking me into a state of joy. Up until that moment it was a very quiet beautiful morning with the birds chirping and early enough that most were still asleep or in bed as I drove down the road. Although my eyes could see the road ahead of me with with the shopping center in sight the sound of those drums pulled me out of that car and I found myself in the dark surrounded by strangers. It was January of the year 2000. I was shot back in time as if I was really there. The music was loud and echoing through my body as I found myself tapping the back shoulder of a stranger with the intention to dance. At that moment I didn't care who it was. It could've been my grandfather or a troll or the devil himself. I didn't care. I needed to go and dance to this song. The stranger turned around and I don't remember his face all I remember was asking boldly if he wanted to dance with me. I don't remember what he said and I don't know if I could've heard him as the music was so loud. All I know is that moment changed everything. I just didn't know it yet. I was standing in the lively Night club situated in the heart of Bogotá Colombia. I'm not Colombian. But I was insane. It was 1999 and there I was again my heart thumping following the beat of the drums to MATADOR, by the band Los Fabulosos Cadillacs. The drum beat hits a ryrhem that is a call to war. It's mixed with the unique sound and lyric, gypsy octaves and melodic rap. Very unique. I love it still.

I had gone to this night club in Bogotá that night almost by force. I didn't want to go. I had traveled to Colombia when the world was supposed to end due to 1999 turning into 2000. Apparently all the computers of the world were supposed to crash. I was on a plane flying out to Colombia the night those computers were supposed to end it all for humanity. I figured if it's all going to end anyway why not travel alone to one most dangerous cities in the world? What could go wrong? I jest of course. I was really headed out there to be with my ex who I was still very much in love with. It was a very hard break up. He hadn't seen his family in over five years or so. A couple of his family members called me and convinced me I should go out there. Although his family was very sweet and accommodating I should not have gone. Toward the end of my short visit he had taken off with his friends for days and I never saw him again for the remainder of my stay.

He hadn't seen his friends in years so I can understand that now. In retrospect I don't think he really invited me but was more pressured into it by his family to have them meet me. His sister in law was insistent that I go out and checkout the night scene. Reluctantly I fixed myself up and went out with his sister-in-law and some of his family members to a local night club. I don't drink so I was not sitting with their group long as they got their drinking party going. Instead I stood by the side of the dance floor and watched. Colombians are amazing dancers. That night something amazing happened. I didn't know it then, but I was about to get swept away. I was about to finally have closure on a long painful relationship. Ironically it would be in the presence of the very people rallying for my ex and I to mend things out.

Matador! Matador! The brave stranger and I started to dance and that's when I finally remember seeing his face. Dear heavenly god. He was gorgeous. In fact had I seen his face first I don't believe I would have had the guts to ask. But as fate would have it, I had a false sense of security until I saw him face to face. Afterwards we kept chatting and the family started to notice I had made a new friend. I was approached by my ex's brother-in-law and told it was time to go. My new friend had asked me for my phone number but I explained to him that I was not from the country but I would happily take his. I don't think he believed me. Regardless he took a napkin wrote his name and some numbers on the back. I also learned that Colombia doesn't have seven digits for their phone numbers. Instead it's a strange combination of some sort so I too thought I was being punked. Bogotá is also famous for kidnappings and cons. I had just revealed that I am an American and basically put a target on my head according to the siblings out there.

Upon returning to my ex family's home most of his siblings were pretty quiet. The sister-in-law came to my room and excitedly asked me what was his name. Jose Ruiz read the napkin. "Are you gonna call him?!"

"I don't have a phone."

"Use mine."

My heart was racing. I felt conflicted. What am I doing? I'm here trying to mend things and get back with my womanizing ex. He was not around. But I declined. I waited for the ex to show up but it was going on day three and still nothing. My plane tickets were set and I would be leaving in 2 days. I felt an urgency to call Jose. What was the point? I'm leaving in 2 days? Then again, I'm leaving in 2 days, I had nothing to lose. A day later,

"can I borrow your phone?"

"Omg, yes!"

He could not believe I called. He told me he thought I was using a creative line to make him go away. Who says I don't have a phone number in this day and age?! We laughed and I told him tomorrow was my last day in Bogota flying out to Los Angeles. I was still in school and classes started at UCLA in a matter of days. So we agreed to meet at a little hole in the wall which was lots of them out there with mom and pop restaurants for lunch. This would be the first time we would actually see each other in daylight. Now for those of you who are unaware of what a club scene is compared to a day scene well to put it lightly you could be two totally different people especially if you had been drinking ( I had not but I think he had). He asked where I was staying, what area in Bogota? I had no clue! I felt so ignorant. I honestly don't remember how I got there because I didn't know the area and I certainly didn't have transportation. Someone took me. I just can't remember now.

There he was. Just as gorgeous if not more than the night we met. We chatted for a bit. We drank a soda. It's all a blur. We exchanged information. All I know is that shortly after I was on a plane on an 11 hour flight home holding a picture of this young man in my hands. Thin built, Full lips, black short but slightly wavy hair. Thick black eye brows. Long eyelashes that decorated the softest frosty light mint green eyes you would ever see. I stared at that photo all throughout my 11 hour flight. I had turned a page. I was not upset that my ex had once again abondend me. In fact I was grateful. I knew deep inside that nothing would really come from this beautiful new encounter. But a new sense of hope where a heartbroken obsession once dominated had softly lifted and I felt free. I felt hope. I felt alive again.

we wrote to eachother for a year or so. We would chat by phone from time to time. I traveled back to Bogota alone twice and met Jose's beautiful family. It was an amazing time. One time he called me at midnight and sang to me with live music in the background as he was so very drunk. We both knew this too would end. But we tried to keep it going until we just could do so no longer.

As far as my ex goes, he was hurt about the situation but it was more of a realization that I was finally over him. He hated and loved my obsession and heartbreak over him. But it was finally really over.

Matador! Matador! That song was the trigger that night. The irony of it all.

#Colombia #matador #love story #bogota #Spotify

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surveysonfleek · 7 years

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348.

5000 Question Survey Pt. 1

1. Who are you? dee. 2. What are the 3 most important things everyone should know about you? i live in sydney, i’m 26 and i’m so bored that i’m gna attempt this. 3. When you aren't filling out 5,000 question surveys like this one what are you doing? working, sleeping, eating or hanging out with my boyfriend and/or friends. 4. List your classes in school from the ones you like the most to the ones you like the least (or if you are out of school, think of the classes you did like and didn't like at the time). i liked visual arts the most, religion the least. 5. What is your biggest goal for this year? to find a new job.

6. Where do you want to be in 5 years? hopefully found a good career, married with either kids or planning to have kids. 7. What stage of life are you in right now? i’m still finding myself. 8. Are you more child-like or childish? childish i guess. 9. What is the last thing you said out loud? bye. 10. What song comes closest to how you feel about your life right now? 20 something - sza. 11. Have you ever taken martial arts classes? i did back in 7th grade, quit after i got yellow belt lmao. 12. Does your life tend to get better or worse or does it just stay the same? it’s been the same for the past couple of years. hopefully it’s just better from now on. 13. Does time really heal all wounds? kinda. it definitely eases the ‘pain’. 14. How do you handle a rainy day? i complain if i have to work, i love it if i’m staying home. 15. Which is worse...losing your luggage or having to sort out tangled holiday lights? definitely losing my luggage. 16. How is your relationship with your parents? Will you miss them when they are gone? my relationship with my parents is pretty good. we’re not super close but we all get along. 17. Do you tend to be aware of what is going on around you? usually. 18. What is the truest thing that you know? haha not sure. that i’m currently living this life? 19. What did you want to be when you grew up? a singer or actress even though i couldn’t sing or act. 20. Have you ever been given a second chance? yep. 21. Are you more of a giver or a taker? giver. 22. Do you make your decisions with an open heart/mind? yes. 23. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you? this weird migraine/virus thing i had a couple years ago. it’s probably the last time in forever i’ve cried because of pain. i’m surprised i didn’t go to the hospital. 24. What is the most emotionally painful thing that has ever happened to you? going through my parents’ separation and having my grandmother die within three months. 25. Who have you hugged today? like five of my friends. 26. Who has done something today to show they care about you? my boyfriend drove us to dinner tonight lol. 27. Do you have a lot to learn? of course. there’s always room to learn. 28. If you could learn how to do three things just by wishing and not by working what would they be? all skills needed for i.t., all skills needed for nursing/doctor, all skills needed for management. 29. Which do you remember the longest: what other people say, what other people do or how other people make you feel? how people make me feel. 30. What are the key ingredients to having a good relationship? basically having the same kind of relationship as best friends and being in love with each other. 31. What 3 things do you want to do before you die? get married, have kids, live to see my grandchildren. 32. What three things would you want to die to avoid doing? pap smears, long plane trips and taking shoes off and laptops out at airport security lol. 33. Is there a cause you believe in more than any other cause? hmm idk lol. gay marriage and feminism. 34. What does each decade make you think of: The 19.. 20's: flapper girls (i could totally be in the wrong decade, my bad) 30's: american gangsters 40's: betty boop 50's: sound of music 60's: marilyn monroe 70's: disco era 80's: neon 90's: grunge 2000: sept 11 2010's: eyebrows 35. Which decade do you feel the most special connection to and why? 90s. i loved my childhood. 36. What is your favorite oldie/classic rock song? bohemian rhapsody. 37. What country do you live in and who is the leader of that country? If you could say any sentence to the current leader of your country what would it be? australia, malcolm turnbull. make gay marriage legal already. 38. What's your favorite TV channel to watch in the middle of the night? i don’t really have a favourite channel, i just watch certain shows i like. 39. What Disney villain are you the most like and why? ursula hahaha. that makeup tho. 40. Have you ever been a girl scout/boy scout? nope. 41. If you were traveling to another continent would you rather fly or take a boat? definitely fly unless it’s on a luxury cruise ship. 42. Why is the sky blue during the day and black at night? because of the sun. 43. What does your name mean? goddess of wine. 44. Would you rather explore the deeps of the ocean or outer space? neither tbh. i don’t like the depths of the unkown. 45. Word association What is the first word that comes to mind when you see the word: Air: bender Meat: sweats Different: strokes Pink: panther Deserve: more White: dove Elvis: presley Magic: carpet Heart: love Clash: band Pulp: fiction 46. If you could meet any person in the world who is dead who would you want it to be? my grandparents. 47. What if you could meet anyone who is alive? rihanna. 48. Is there a movie that you love so much you could watch it everyday? haha not really. 49. You are going to be stuck alone in an elevator for a week. What do you bring to do? a ton of food, a puzzle book, my kindle, my phone and charger, a bed lol. 50. Have you ever saved someone's life or had your life saved? nope. 51. Make up a definition for the following silly words... Fruitgoogle: a fruit that’ll appear every time you google something and you have to eat it to get the results lol Ambytime: time for an ambulance Asscactus: a cactus in the shape of an ass 52. What was the last thing you made with your own hands? food. 53. What was your favorite toy as a child? probably my cabbage patch doll. 54. How many TV’s are in your house? five. 55. What is your favorite thing to do outside? lie down in the sun. 56. How do you feel when you see a rainbow? happy i guess. i always point it out. 57. Have you ever dreamt a dream that came true? yep. 58. Have you ever been to a psychic/tarot reader? nope. i don’t think i’d want to tbh. 59. What is your idea of paradise? a sunny beach resort that’s all inclusive. 60. Do you believe in god and if so what is he/she/it like? yeah i do, but idk what they’re like. 61. Do you believe in Hell? i think so. 62. What one thing have you done that most people haven't? visit nearly all continents of the world. 63. What is the kindest thing you have ever done? do any favours that weren’t expected of me i guess. 64. Are you a patient person? not really. 65. What holiday should exist but doesn't? ha idk. 66. What holiday shouldn't exist but does? none. 67. What's the best joke you ever heard? i’ve heard plenty, i just don’t have a favourite. 68. Where is the most fun place you have EVER been? disney world! 69. Is your hair natural or dyed? the ends are dyed, otherwise natural. 70. Do you have any deep dark secrets or are you pretty much up front? i’m up front. 71. What is under your bed right now? boxes of junk, presents i never used, a huge bag of hand sanitzers from bath and body works, old uni booked etc. 72. If you were in the Land of Oz would you want to live there or go home? go home thanks. 73. If you drive do you frequently speed? yes. 74. What is the world's best song to dance to? idk haha. 75. What song was on the last time you danced with someone? i forgot. 76. Do you prefer Disney or Warner Brothers? disney. 77. What is the first animal you would run to see if you went to the zoo? panda. i don’t think i’ve ever seen one in real life. 78. Would you consider yourself to be romantic? not really. 79. If the earth stopped rotating would we all fly off? no idea. 80. What is the one thing that you love to do so much that you would make sacrifices to be able to do it? traveling. saving money to travel is a bitch, not to mention getting time off from your job etc. 81. If you (and everyone) had to lose one right or freedom, but you could pick which one everyone had to lose, what would you pick? idk tbh. 82. If you had to choose would you live on the equator or at the North Pole? equator. 83. Would you rather give up listening to music or watching television? errrr. that’s hard. watching tv i guess. since i watch all my shows on my laptop anyway. 84. What do you think makes someone a hero? doing something good for the masses and being inspirational. 85. What cartoon would you like to be a character in? aladdin. 86. Name one thing that turns your stomach: bad smells. 87. What was the last thing you paid for? dinner. 88. Are you a coupon clipper? nah, we never get any good coupons here. 89. Get anything good in the mail recently? yeah, my purchase from ebay. 90. Which would you rather take as a gym class...dancing, sailing, karate, or bowling? bowling lol. 91. In Star Trek people 'beam' back and forth between different places. What this means is they stand in a little tube and their molecules are deconstructed and sent to another tube somewhere else where they are reassembled. Only problem is when the molecules are deconstructed the person is dead. When they are put back together it is only a clone that has all the dead person's memories. So... Is the person who gets beamed the same person on both ends? physically no... it’s like that ship paradox i guess. 92. What insects are you afraid of? cockroaches. 93. If you could print any phrase on a T-shirt, what would it say? nothing to wear. 94. What's the most eccentric thing you have ever worn? cat ears? lol it was for halloween. 95. If you could pick one food that you could eat all you wanted but it would have no effect on how much you weigh, what food would it be? hotdogs. actually ribs. 96. What are your parents interested in? they love tv shows and movies. my dad loves fishing too lol. 97. Have you ever caught an insect and kept it as a pet? Have you ever caught and tamed a wild animal? no and no. 98. What is more helpful to you, wishes or plans? plans definitely. i’m too lazy to make my wishes come true. 99. When do you feel your life energy the strongest? when i’m the most awake? 100. You are spending the night alone in the woods and may bring only 3 items with you. What do you bring? a tent, bed and food.

#survey #surveys #quiz #bored #questions

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theteenagetrickster · 4 years

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D'Angelo's 'Witchcraft' Redefined What an R&B Album Can Be

A four-and-a-half-minute-long, NSFW video recording changed the whole program of D'Angelo's career.

"Untitled (Exactly How Performs It Feel)" begins accidently, panning coming from the vocalist's nice cornrows to his gap-toothed grin. Stripped-down and also susceptible, the normally smooth performer looks slightly uneasy. This pain is relatable; it is actually the sensation of undressing before somebody who has never ever observed you nude. With his look corrected below his midsection, you're left behind pondering what the heck is actually going on below the chance. In a job interview along with? uestlove, the vocalist would not assure or reject if he was actually obtaining dental sex, but his superficial breathing merely contributes to the implication. The magnetism of "Untitled," as well as it's exciting grandeur, makes it very easy to miss out on the Jesus crucifix pendant hanging coming from his back. The dichotomy of religion as well as sexuality has actually been the core pressure in the production of D'Angelo.

Even with the results of 1995's Brown Sugar, and also eventually Witchcraft-- which transforms twenty years outdated today-- the R&B vocalist stayed an enigma: He was actually evolving as D'Angelo, the sex symbolic representation, yet dealing with like heck to be actually Michael Archer, the choir young boy who grew in his father's Pentecostal religion. The measure of Dark quality is actually frequently assessed by just how remarkably our company may harmonize our double awareness: that we are actually versus who the world identifies our company to be. Honored as the second coming of Prince, D'Angelo's radiance plagued him, as well as his sophomore album will test just how much he was willing to compromise for self-preservation.

"As I started to hear what ended up being Voodoo, I swiftly started to recognize that this was actually not simply Brown Sugar part 2," excursion supervisor Alan Leeds said in the docudrama. "It was crystal clear to me that he went to the forefront of no matter where Dark popular music was visiting use the following 10 or twenty years."

Created in his bed room on a 4-track in Richmond, Brown Glucose pleases each of the detects. The "cherry in [his] chocolate-covered goals" remains on your lips on "Me and also Those Dreamin' Eyes of Mine," and you can easily see his blood-stained hands through the side of the bluesy "Crap, Damn, Motherfucker." D'Angelo's songwriting frequently mixes fragrant as well as scrumptious, as he carries out on the record's eponymous solitary. "I receive higher on your affection, do not recognize exactly how to behave," wasn't for dramatic impact; it was actually an ode to a forthright as balmy as the hooptie you hotboxed in college. Reprising 90s R&B in his picture, D'Angelo was actually identical parts Sly Rock and A People Referred To As Pursuit; this crash of soul and also road offered childbirth to a brand-new label of rhythm as well as blues that fit him like a handwear cover. "I was regularly choosing to make hip-hop without possessing to seem R&B," he informed? uestlove.

"After [Brown Sugar] was performed I enjoyed it, yet there were certain songs that I experienced it lost one thing in between the demonstration version plus all of the creation that went into it," he said in a 2014 meeting with Reddish Bull Popular Music Academy. After thinking that his debut came to be "a little homogenized," D'Angelo generated his consequence to test the mainstream. "Straight from the cow to the glass-- that's what Voodoo was actually," he pointed out.

As followers awaited an additional cd and also the second fifty percent of the 90s played out, life didn't seem to slow down. The O.J. Simpson murder trial split the country, along with the absolution of the previous expert football gamer astonishing The United States. Louis Farrakhan's attempt to industry the Thousand Man March as a symbol of unity didn't assist the Dark community's social anguish. Tupac and also Big deal's massacres were actually mindless, and also when the Nyc Cops Division shot 41 chance ats Amadou Diallo, a disarmed 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea, the target on the spines of Black men were amplified. As the many years wound down, Bill Clinton, who Toni Morrison the moment referred to as our "initial Dark president," was dealing with impeachment for an occasion with Monica Lewinsky, a White Property trainee.

Twenty years later, United States has finally seen 2 terms of its own actual first Black president, yet the country remains mistaken in myriad ways: possible impeachment is actually as soon as again on the perspective, appealing sporting activities heroes are actually still confined in massacre hearings, and also cops violence remains to dominate the titles. Voodoo's brilliant depends on D'Angelo's selection to make an album as incomplete as the amount of times.

The cd's title alone redeemed dark magic decades just before the expression "black (gal) miracle" became a symbol of empowerment. Glorifying the spiritual methods of the American South, Caribbean islands, as well as West Africa, Voodoo symbolized the marital relationship of the intricacies of Dark life and also faith affecting his sound. Somewhat than decrease Vodou to spells and ritual killings, the performer conjured the soul of the Haitians that birthed the faith on slavery farmsteads.

"I discovered that everything that exists, all music, stems from Africa," D'Angelo said to desire hampton in a 2000 problem of FEEL. "I began to find all the links of music aiming back to Africa, and I wished to show all those styles. Like what Sly was actually attempting to perform, like what Royal prince was actually attempting to carry out, as well as Jimi too."

D'Angelo taped Voodoo at Greenwich Town's Electric Girl Studios. Certainly there, summoning the power of Hendrix-- that developed the studio in the 70s-- as well as packing it with signboards of various other soul guys like Royal prince as well as The Isley Brothers, he made it a shrine to his heroes. As an adolescent in Richmond, a prospective mentorship with Ellis Marsalis Jr. dropped through, and now, he had actually located the positive side: training would possess created him also brightened, and also Witchcraft was the reverse of formal musicality. The recording of Voodoo was fully uncustomary. Envious a demo-like premium that was actually shed on Brownish Sweets, he videotaped most of the album in one take, determining what to keep after playback. Tunes appeared primarily out of jam treatments, along with tracks like "Greatdayndamornin'" and "The Origin" fastened all together through designer Russ Elevado.

What is actually most significant isn't just the means they recorded, yet exactly how they participated in." [Witchcraft] revolutionized how audio equipments and reside guitars could possibly sound," guitar player Jesse Johnson pointed out in Devil's Cake. "It was actually so anti-music market, I liked it since also the trendiest song, which was 'Untitled,' really did not possess a headline." Working with reduced zing drums as well as a regular 4-string bass guitar, Witchcraft was actually a snarling whisper compared to its contemporaries.? uest's drumming was modeled after J Dilla's trademark type, "bit [ping] to seamless gutter pail degrees," or even playing inaccurate, as he commonly explains it.

Certainly not only was the manufacturing highly textured, yet thus was actually the album's lyricism. The off-center drumming and distant vocals of "Hen Oil" developed a special combination for his analogies. Poultry, much like music, is ideal with the remainders of tastes the oil carries, as well as D'Angelo desired listeners to taste that spice. "Simmer to a sizzle like the day of outdated/ Yet I'll wait til I've learnt this, allow the others go initially," he vocalizes. This notion of frowning at brilliance, as well as the reparations it asks for, haunt him on various other tunes like "Free throw line": "I mentioned the tension is on/ Coming from every viewpoint, political to individual," he performs. "Will I dangle or even receive left behind hangin'?/ Will I diminish, or even is it bangin'?"

Despite his insecurities, Voodoo was a transformation. It was a middle finger to bureaucracy relating to the restrictions positioned on Dark popular music, but it was actually also a method of healing.

The only issue was, his setting as a recently produced sex symbolic representation was actually risking his principles, ultimately ending up being a disturbance coming from his songs.

Adhering to "Untitled," D'Angelo concerts ended up being a storm of demands to find him shirtless, regardless of the gravitation of the tunes on Voodoo. He 'd oblige, stripping down as rapidly as twenty mins in to his collection simply to keep his enthusiasts fulfilled. Carrying out became the form of chains he performed approximately on "Evil one's Pie," a monitor more hip-hop than R&B that was made through DJ Premier. "The spirit of the vocals is actually extra like a chain gang, or even area of servants, choosing whatever the fuck owner had our company picking, and also's what our experts 'd be actually vocal singing in the very hot fucking sunlight," he informed Red Upward. Prating off the strange traits folks do for amount of money as well as desire, he performs certainly not exclude himself. "Who am I to warrant/ All the misery in our eye/ When I myself feel the higher/ From everything I abhor?" he performs. D'Angelo devoted the following 14 years hunting for the response to that concern.

To be actually Dark as well as exceptional methods that you must be both in all times. There is actually seldom any sort of space for mistake, and also it's certainly not adequate to simply be actually dazzling-- you must be actually "twice as excellent." "Everything short of one's absolute best is a different off the upright and also slim put together for our team by whatever generation went through before our team-- as well as a dishonor to what we owe them," Steven Undergrowth composed for. The skills of Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Donny Hathaway, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, as well as D'Angelo's peer J Dilla were actually darkened through their fatalities. The idea that D'Angelo's destiny can represent those of his heroes paralyzed Michael Archer, and an individual.

Reborn in the time of Dark Lives Concern, D'Angelo's long-awaited Black Messiah gotten here in 2014 as a response to the massacre of Michael Brown, a disarmed teenager, due to the Ferguson Cops Department. Even with his 3rd album being actually near-complete for virtually two years, he possessed reservations concerning discharging it. "He yearned for one thing that was actually much more free-flowing, that more showed anarchy as well as seriousness as well as circle," Jocelyn Cooper, that signed the vocalist in the 90s, said to. Every thing he knew on his sophomore cd was happening cycle.

When Sorcery was actually complete, D'Angelo revealed that his mission was actually to boost the audios of his preferred artists, as opposed to example all of them.? uestlove talked to the singer, "Thus would certainly you point out that [the album] is actually that eyesight materialized?"

"Yeah ... but not entirely," D'Angelo pointed out. "I seem like it is actually the start of it. We refined it with Witchcraft."

Kristin Corry is a workers author for VICE.Additional picture through: Frank Micelotta/Getty Images

This content was originally published here.

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disappearingground · 5 years

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Think Of Us As Bookends: Jenny Lewis Interviewed

Clash Music August 8, 2019

American songwriter on her hidden hip-hop roots, creative honesty, and collaboration...

By Sarah Bradbury

“We can’t do anything about the shit out there,” Jenny Lewis says from the stage at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in West London, “but we’re all OK together in here.”

Bravely clad in figure-hugging, head-to-toe rose-gold sequins in spite of the atypical British heat still burgeoning outside the ram-packed venue, the Las Vegas-born musician oozes retro-edged glamour in her flame-red beehive and delivers a glitzy, soulful performance, every bit the music and style icon her reputation dictates.

The image she cuts on stage is in stark contrast to the laid-back woman in t-shirt and trainers I had the pleasure of speaking to just days earlier from a hotel room sofa at the K West.

Throughout our freewheeling chat that touches on Ariana Grande’s towering heels at Coachella, her love of boxing, and whether you sneeze when you eat peppermint, amongst more heavy-going topics, I feel the counteracting forces of an effusive warmth with an intimidating otherworldliness, as if speaking with a Hollywood film star of yesteryear.

Husky-toned statements end in pregnant pauses with eye contact firmly held, each anecdotal answer to a question leaving me on tenterhooks of what might come next.

The American singer-songwriter’s life in the limelight began as a child actress, appearing in Troop Beverly Hills and Brooklyn Bridge, Baywatch and The Golden Girls, Jell-O and Toys R Us ads in the late 80s/early 90s, her earnings going to support her family after her parents separated.

She made her break into music heading up much-loved LA indie band Rilo Kiley from 1998, which saw success over four albums and tracks featured on the likes of Noughties teen obsessions The O.C. and Dawson’s Creek. As well as time spent in The Postal Service, Jenny & Johnny and Nice As Fuck*, Lewis has been pursuing a solo career since 2006’s 'Rabbit Fur Coat'.

Earlier this year came the release of her fourth solo studio album, 'On The Line', to rapturous acclaim, delivering yet another installment of the particular brand of country-infused indie rock she has carved out for herself, which she has since been touring the US, Europe and many a festival stage with.

The journey to the album’s completion wasn’t an easy one - while 2014’s 'The Voyager' was preoccupied with the breakup of Rilo Kiley, facing her father’s death and suffering the tyranny of depression and insomnia, the five intervening years before the release of 'On The Line' brought their own set of challenges: the break down of her 12 year relationship with partner and musician Johnathan Rice and her mother’s death from cancer.

Yet while these life events may have left indelible marks on the singer-songwriter, the songs produced in their wake are counterintuitively dominated by spangly sing-along choruses, lucid images and strongly-drawn characters in immersive narratives. In her explanation of what inspired the album, she’s impossibly understated:

“Just life as it happens. All the things that you would imagine that happened between like 35 and 40. A lot of stuff happens in that period. So my songs either predict or mirror or shadow real life. I never know what I'm going to write about, I just kind of write about it.”

In that respect, songwriting is often a kind of therapy for the artist: “I think it's a feeling that births a song,” she explains thoughtfully. “And it's usually a feeling of agony or pain. Music is kind of therapeutic. And in that way it's something to turn to. It doesn't have to come from that place but I feel like it's always a feeling and then hopefully something catchy pops up.”

“In order for me to remember it, it has to be incredibly catchy or it'll just disappear into the ether of my unfinished songs pile. From 12 years ago, I have this one called ‘The Scorpion and the Lily’, that's just this thing that keeps unfolding. I don't think it's very good. I better stop…”

The intensely personal nature of her music means that the experience of releasing them out into the public realm can be a double-edged sword: “The life of a record is so funny because in the formative stage, it feels so potent. Working on it takes however long it takes. But this one took a minute, so to have it done and out in the world and now starting to see people know the songs, it's really satisfying. But it's also like, ‘How do you know that? That's really personal! Stop singing along with that sir, it's inappropriate!”

There’s also a process of translating the album tracks to work live: “On the road with a live band, you’re not playing any backing tracks, it's all what we're creating organically. So sometimes it doesn't work, a record piece.”

In particular, she notes collaborator Beck, the first of many on the album, is a meticulous producer: “Everything is very deliberate. So unless you hit all those marks live, sometimes a song will feel not as great. It takes playing it out in front of people 20, 30 times where it's like, mediocre. And then one night, you're like, ‘we got it.’”

But it’s a collaboration she has found exhilarating, “to experience my own songs through like another artist’s prism, rather than like a straight engineer, there's a trust. It's exciting to just feel what is going to happen. It’s the room. It's the cast of characters. It's how you feel on that day. It's the song. If the song sucks, it's not going to fly. But once I had the songs, I was very open to send them off to college or whatever.”

Growing up with parents as lounge musicians in Las Vegas, music was always going to figure largely in Lewis’ life: “They had a band together. And so music is just in the genetics, like that's just been the family thing. I grew up singing with my mom and my sister, and my dad was a virtuosic harmonica player - genius - so music was just the family business. I also had this side thing as an actor, which was also the family business. But then I just started writing from a young age.”

Her mother’s singer-songwriter records were certainly a key influence but Lewis credits a love of hip-hop for her obsession and dexterity as a lyricist: “I think it was hip-hop that really got me into words. My mom was listening to Laura Nero and Barbra Streisand. But then it was my music, like A Tribe Called Quest, that was a huge, just poetic influence. It was Big Daddy Kane, it was like Run DMC. Souls of Mischief. EPMD - all this lyrical stuff. I’d write poetry and raps. And then someone taught me how to play a couple chords on the piano and the guitar and then that was it.”

It was then later that country music came onto Lewis’ radar, completing the “mixtape” of genres that define her output: “I got into Gram Parsons and the Byrds in the early 2000s, then into Bakersfield stuff a little bit later. It’s all about storytelling. I like very evocative storytelling.”

And it is that very love of storytelling that has led Lewis to sit apart as a songwriter, bringing the acute specificities of her experiences and musical education to bear on a sound that invites her listener into a distinct world via vivid imagery and often biting witty observations in each track.

Opening with ‘Heads Gonna Roll’, the “lyrical mission statement,” featuring none other than Ringo Star plus a narcoleptic poet from Duluth, sycophants in Marrakech and nuns from Harlem, Lewis sees 'On The Line' as a story “from front to back. It begins with a breakup. But it's really a rebound. And then a death and rebirth.”

“So the beginning, it's like a play in my mind: here are the characters, now go for it. And Ringo's on the first track. It's a little braggy to put Ringo on the first track. But that is maybe the coolest thing that's ever happened to me…”

Also featured on the record are Jim Keltner - “one of the all-time rock and roll drummers” - Benmont Tench, Don Was, Jim Keltner and Jason Falkner. Delectable melodies and nods to country-pop and 70s soft rock serve to seductively sugarcoat searingly poignant evocations of much darker subject matter, arguably the most candid reflections on her past her music has ever dealt with.

As Lewis admits, ‘Little White Dove,’ is the “funkiest song about mourning and grieving.” Tackling her mother’s heroin addiction, their decades-long estrangement and final reconciliation before she died in hospital from liver cancer, she sings, “A mother and child / Emergency behind a yellow curtain / On the second floor / All the guardian angels at the door / With their long white coats and stethoscopes” before leading into the line: “I’m the heroin.”

‘Wasted Youth’ ponders her years acting as a child, “I wasted my youth on a poppy / Doo-doo doo-doo doo, just because,” nodding to the hard-earned cash part-funding her mother’s opiate addiction. Stand out track ‘Red Bull & Hennessy’, hits on her painful break from Rice, “And we had it all / It's falling apart / Never getting back again without that spark.”

‘Party Clown’ brings us Fuji apples, scorpions, beetles floating in red wine, while asking: “Can you be my puzzle piece, baby? / When I cry like Meryl Streep.”

Amid heartbreak and grief, lust and infatuation, cynical detachment and raw emotion, there’s a thread of black humour, as is pointed to in the album opener: “And maybe after all is said and done / We'll all be skulls.”

Having become increasingly adept as a solo artist, Lewis still looks back at first leaving her band as challenging: “Those were the best times ever. It's so amazing to see things for the first time, especially with a bunch of your friends around. It was so potent, and so fresh, and so new that it was like as exciting as it ever has been.”

Branching out at first filled her with trepidation, she recalls: “I was terrified. Making my first solo record, my friend asked me to make it for his label. That wasn't something that I would have done at that time. So I feel like I've been encouraged by people throughout my career. I've had these little spirit guides that have kind of like pushed me, like, ‘go do it. You can do it on your own.’”

That encouragement led her to surprise herself of just what she could achieve: “the art itself is the surprising part. When you realise you can do it. I remember hearing Rabbit Fur Coat off the tape in the studio after we had just cut. It was like live music. It sounded exactly like my dreams. It sounded like my soul. Band music is a collective soul but it’s different, it's everyone's experience. This was so personal.”

And now, she thrives on being, “the creative director of my world. I feel more comfortable doing it, you know, designing the set and directing the music videos. Like I directed the ‘Just One Of The Guys’ video” - a brilliantly fun ensemble of Kristen Stewart, Anne Hathaway and Brie Larson donning Adidas tracksuits and fake ‘taches - “which wouldn't have happened in my band, because it would have been a co-directing thing. So I feel like as far as a full artistic vision goes - good or bad, it could suck! - now I want to be in charge of the whole thing. I don't want to really, like, share.”

She reluctantly accepts a need to engage in the promotional side of the business, “though it is annoying, sometimes. But it is part of the whole thing. If I want to get my music out there, this presence is really important. So I try not to not to grumble about it. Because if you're not making like top 40 music, how are people going to find out about your music?”

At least with Instagram, she’s determined to have a laugh with it: “I've tried to curate my Instagram in a way where it is 100% authentic. It is 100% me. So whatever you see on there, if it's lame, it's my fault,” she says with a laugh.

I get a preview of the latest of her surreal Insta Story videos, “shot at the Queen's tennis centre. We opened for Death Cab For Cutie there a couple weeks ago. And that's where Wes Anderson shot part of the Royal Tennenbaums. Then we had these rabbit costumes...”

In the span of her career, the 43 year old reflects she seen the industry and environment both for artists and audiences shift. She herself had to distance herself from Ryan Adams who had worked on 'The Voyager' and the early stages of the current album, after allegations were made against him of sexual manipulative behaviour.

“I think it's evolving and I appreciate the dialogue,” Lewis says. “I was one of fewer women on the road when I started. Now there are way more women out there. But there's still those moments. Like, this camera guy at this festival I played. I wanted the cameras to be in my aesthetic. So I go back to talk to him with the set list and he just rolled his eyes from the moment I opened my mouth. I could tell he didn't want to do it. But I've learned over the years, to just not bat an eye, and just be patient, and get exactly what I fucking want. But you still feel those moments of resistance.”

While she does joke that becoming an “icon” of any kind usually implies “you’re kind of old”, she has no doubt of the importance of inspiring the next generation: “When I saw my first proper concert, on my own, without my mum, it was The Cure and PIXIES were opening. I must have been 11 or 12. And I saw Kim Deal on stage playing bass. She was maybe the first woman I'd ever seen playing an instrument. And that really resonated with me.”

That’s not to say she fully embraces role model status: “I never think of myself in a leadership context. I'm trying to just be myself. I'm not trying to be perfect. I try to be responsible with what I say. But sometimes, I talk shit,” she says with a wry smile.

Were things more wild back in the day?

“I went to a bunch of Grateful Dead shows as a kid. And like the even the parking lot was wild. You know? I mean, it was like drug culture. That was the 90s. We still have fun. Although it's like pretty rated PG-13. I mean, I've never been invited to an orgy. So I don't know. I'm trying to be less of a square…”

While she might not literally be taking things day by day - “I’m a hippie but that big of a hippie that much of a hippie” - there’s a resistance to overengineering her forward path: “I don't have goals ever. I've got like, song ideas. I've got 10 or 12 songs I'm just starting. Like the kombucha thing, you’ve got to let it ferment.”

And there’s also a sense that having pretty much experienced it all, from child-acting to band life to solo artist, playing all festivals from Glastonbury to Coachella, becoming artistic director of all her output, she can take the time to relish in this moment.

The week previous she was at Latitude: “I love Latitude. Our set was so fun. But then afterwards, we got stoned and went out into the crowd to watch Khruangbin, which was the best festival sets I've seen since like, Tame Impala at Coachella. It was absolutely dancey. We were like we found ourselves in the middle of like a steampunk 30th birthday party where everyone was dressed up and dancing around us. And we were like, this is amazing.”

Later that week, watching her delight, charm and coax her summer’s evening London crowd into being wrapped around her finger as pink and blue balloons filled the air, I saw that this is a Jenny Lewis who’s survived significant turbulence in her life, faced her demons and gone from strength to strength as an artist as a result - and now gets to enjoy the pink and blue-hued view.

Does she have any advice for young women looking to for the success she has enjoyed?

“I'd say: wear what you want. Sing what you feel. Write what you know. Stand flat-footed. Don't take no shit.”

Wise words, well said.

#publication: clash #album: on the line #year: 2019 #mention: breakup #mention: mother's death #mention: songwriting #mention: parent's band #song: little white dove #song: wasted youth #mention: child acting #mention: heroin #mention: drug addiction #mention: advice

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brianjameson · 5 years

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Saturday Day 4: Snorkeling in Silfra

It was the day of my snorkeling tour and thankfully I woke up not feeling sick. It was a good idea to just go home after my dinner I had the night before to avoid getting sick.

I was beyond excited for this tour because of the amount of history it had to it.

I was going to be snorkeling in Silfra in between the 2 tectonic plates where 2 major oceans are separated.

Silfra is a fissure created by the separation of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates cutting through Iceland. The Silfra fissure fills with glacial water that has been filtered underground for decades through hardened, porous lava rock. The filtering process of the glacial water makes Silfra one of the clearest bodies of water on earth with up to 120 meters of visibility.

Most people do this tour in the summer for obvious reasons but once I saw the images when I was booking my tours, this one just looked the most magical.

I walked down the street where my bus was going to be picking me up and there was a boy standing on the side of the road so I figured that was the bus stop. I swear some of these bus pick ups were literally just outside of hotels and hostels. There would be no bus signs, nothing, you just stand there on the side of the road and hope that your bus hasn’t passed by yet.

My bus arrived and my driver was hot. He was this bald tall buff dude wearing a tank and a jacket half zipped blasting Pantera on the bus. I was melting lol.

We drove out about 45 min to Silfra and when we got there we had clear instructions on where to go to start getting dressed for the tour. You had to go to a different bus that had the snorkeling suits with different sizes. You then have to go back to your bus and get suited up. Afterwards you then grab your flippers and the rest of the gear from crates that they had on the floor and just wait for everyone else.

Getting ready was easily the most miserable part of this tour.

The floors were all ice because of the snow and the rubber boots in the suits were so thin that your feet immediately start to freeze. It got to the point where we were standing on our flippers to avoid the freezing cold floor. We couldn’t wear gloves or beanies or anything and we were standing outside for a good 45 minutes. They put this rope around your neck over the suit so that water doesn’t get inside your suit and it was pretty uncomfortable.

You get put in groups of 6 and wait for your wave to go which took foreeeever. I was talking to these 2 girls while waiting in the freezing cold. One of the girls was from Canada, her name was Julie and the other from Taiwan and her name was Lien. They were cracking me up taking photos of themselves looking miserable because of how cold they were lol. Lien had a Gopro so she was taking photos of everything in the water.

When we got down to the ramp they have you do something disgusting. YOU HAVE TO SPIT IN YOUR FACE MASK. Like, literally spit all in that shit… I guess the enzymes in saliva help from the mask fogging up which did work but it was FUCKING DISGUSTING to me. I know everyone is going to ask ‘WASN’T THE WATER COLD?’ no not at all because once in the water you do not feel how cold the water is because of the dry suit, plus, it was colder outside than in the water. Something shitty that does happen is water gets in your gloves regardless of how much you move your hands around to swim and your hands start to freeze so I had mine clenched most of the time.

There are no fish or anything living in the water it’s all just rocks and shells that reflect light.

While swimming I was just thinking to myself ‘wow I’m really swimming in something that holds so much history’ even though I was struggling to swim because of how obnoxious the suit was. We swam for about 30 minutes and at that point I was ready to go. My gloves were filled with freezing cold water and I literally ran my ass back to the van while trying not to fall because of the ice on the ground. I was so uncomfortable because of the gloves that I could barely take them off and when I did my thumb was literally frozen to where I couldn’t even move it. Once it thawed out it hurt because of how cold my hands were lol.

Once we all got back to the vans and got undressed they gave us hot coco to warm us all up lol.

We hung out for maybe 20 minutes and then it was time to go which I was kind of glad about. I love the cold I really do but this tour REALLY TESTED ME. Needless to say, the tour was not as easy as it looked in photos but it was worth all the money.

I got back to my place and showered to go out on the town with Janusz, a polish boy I had met. We were going to go to 101 Hotel to have a drink by the fire place. We both had espresso martinis which I totally needed after all that swimming I did. My friend Jacob had wrote to me while I was in Iceland and told me he used to live in Reykjavik and that he and his wife Debbie actually fell in love in Iceland and every Friday night they would go to 101 Hotel and have drinks by the fire. I thought it was the most romantic and endearing thing to do and so I definitely wanted to toast to them and their love. I met them at a wedding recently and we all just connected and they’ve instantly become such a big part of my life.

Janusz and I sat by the fire and talked and got to know each other and it was just fun to be able to do this with someone I just met and since he lived in Iceland it was great to have him guide me around the town. I don’t think I’ve ever met a random stranger who was as kind as he was to me.

Afterwards we went to a restaurant that was across the street that supposedly had good Icelandic food. Definitely did not disappoint!

We ordered puffin for appetizer which was very tender and kinda sweet but very good! I had whale for my main course and that was a shocker because it literally tasted like steak. I think the fact that it was grilled really helped but it literally tasted and looked like steak.

Once we left the restaurant, we instantly hit the bars. He took me to a gay bar called Kiki which is the main gay bar in Iceland. It was cool but definitely not Vegas and I kind of felt like anyone goes there not just gay people. We kind of pub crawled after but once we left Kiki it started to snow! It was the first time I was actually in the snow while being in Iceland and it truly was like a dream. I felt the need to dance in it through out our escapades lol. The saying is definitely true about the rain and snow in Iceland…. It all comes at you sideways! So while you’re trying to walk, you’re getting wacked in the face with snow to the point where you can almost not even see lol.

I don’t normally make it a point to get drunk but I told myself I was getting HAMMERED since it was my last weekend in Iceland and I sure did get hammered. Janusz was taking me all over the place and we kept ordering more and more drinks. One thing I noticed is that most of these bars and clubs don’t have a DJ they just play music on a track which was different. Most of the songs coming on were either early 90’s or the super gay pop songs you grew up listening to. It really depended which bar you were at because some other bars we went to were playing early 2000’s songs from when I was in high school which realllllly took me back in time. It really made me happy hearing all the variety of different music I hadn’t heard in years but it was also interesting to be hearing it all play in a foreign country lol.

Soon it was 2am and time to go home. Before we parted ways Janusz told me he wanted to take me to the waterfalls and to the Reynisfjara Black Sand beach where Game of Thrones season 7 ended. I was STOKED because the beaches were not a part of the Game of Thrones tour and I was super bummed about it since I really felt that the beach was calling my name. I wanted to go to the beach so so bad but didn’t want to go alone after seeing what the roads looked like in the country when I was on my tours. So he said he would go with me and I felt like I actually would really like that. It helps having someone who knows their way around the city just in case anything happens. I know I was being a wild child but driving in Iceland definitely requires a lot of caution and focus because of the weather conditions in the country. Driving in the city is fine because they pump hot water into the roads so that there’s no ice to slide on but once in the country, you don’t get that luxury.. I would be seeing these itty bitty ass cars driving through plows of snow. So yeah I was not about to do all of that alone because the responsible me was like ‘bitch don’t even try it without someone because if something happens YOU’RE IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY’ and so I listened to the voice talking to me in my head and took Janusz with me lol.

He walked me back to my place and we said goodnight.

Sunday was a very important part of my trip and easily the most spiritual..

Letters from the Arctic pt.4 Saturday Day 4: Snorkeling in Silfra It was the day of my snorkeling tour and thankfully I woke up not feeling sick.

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wallstnwhiskey-blog · 7 years

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My obsession with Hard Rock and Heavy Metal...

Being born in the 90′s is not fun for a hair metal girl, but I’ve learned to make the best out of it by inspiring others to find the true beauty and mystery in Rock n Roll that I have found.

Growing up as an only child I was either drawing, writing, or playing the piano. I always enjoyed music and constantly played my baby keyboard I got when I was 4. I started playing the piano fully when I reached the age of 9. I played for a few years and was classically trained.

My european parents grew stricter as I got older. I never really indulged in fun activities and spent the majority of my time with my best friend who lived across the street. At the age of 10, I discovered a few of the “emo” bands that emerged in the early 2000′s, but quickly fell in love with Lady Gaga, Blondie, and Cindi Lauper. I was intrigued by their interesting styles and drag like influences. I was dabbling with different mainstream metal-core artists and also goth/industrial/black metal artists from the nordic countries. I was always into the 80′s, the high pitched screams, and of course the fast riffs. I just did not now where to find it.

One day I was sitting in front of my TV and I discovered a song on a car commercial called “Piece of your Action.” I was automatically hooked and typed the lyrics into google to find out who it was. Now... the first thing that popped up was US FEST 1983 Motley Crue. My life took a complete 360. I had finally found everything I had been looking for.

I started watching That Metal Show, Metal Mania, and Metal Evolution. Those 3 shows taught me literally everything I needed to know. I became obsessed with the evolution of heavy metal. That is ALL I did with my life in high school. I was so in love with the changing economical and societal environments and how the music was impacted by it. My background before my crue incident was heavily influenced by punk music. The fast sound “Too Fast for Love” emulated my love for punk but also emphasized the signature 80′s look which I was in love with.

Either way, ever since the crue incident happened I became obsessed. My whole life was dedicated to watching, learning, listening, and LIVING hard rock and heavy metal. I began watching interviews in school, at home, at night, in the morning... 24/7!! I was pretty lonely growing up. I had barely any friends and I found refuge in music.

Now in my college years I find it harder and harder to fit in. Most think it gets easier but for me it hasn’t. The majority of my friends are males who are in their 20′s and 40′s. I love them. I have made friends with a lot of bands and I’m forever grateful for that. When I’m not studying law or business, I spend the majority of my time studying heavy metal. There is something about it that gives me comfort. No matter how lonely it gets I can pop a cd in my vintage stereo, I can spin a vinyl on my turquoise Victrola, or even sync my Spotfiy to my purple Webster speaker.

I worship the ground that musicians walk on. To me, hard rock and heavy metal is a lifestyle and my first love. I can’t imagine my life without it. It still is and always has been my my only refuge in tough times.

Biggest Influences/Icons (solo, specific members, and band as a whole):

Mark Slaughter/Slaughter, Van Halen (Roth Era), Robert Plant/Led Zeppelin, Eddie Van Halen, Motley Crue, Dokken, Eddie Trunk, Jim Florentine, and DOOONNNNNNN Jamieson, George Lynch, David Lee Roth, Michael Sweet/Stryper, Kiss, Judas Priest, Axl Rose, Ralph Saenz, David Bowie, The Velvet Underground, Arthur Brown, Screamin Jay Hawkins, Ronnie James Dio, Michael Tramp, Great White (Jack Russell Era), Rainbow, Joe Lynn Turner, Sam Dunn, Britny Fox, Steve Stevens, Michael Angel Batio, Deep Purple (Gillan and Coverdale era), Humble Pie, Eagles, Taime Downe, The Beach Boys, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Rush, Johnny Winter, Hanoi Rocks, Tim Kelly, Motorhead, Buddy Rich, Ritchie Blackmore, David Coverdale, Doug Aldrich, Cinderella, K.K Downing, Steven Adler, Bon Scott, Randy Rhoads, Glenn Frey, Lizzy Borden, Tony Harnell, Kix, Helloween (Kai Hansen), Glenn Hughes, Venom, Frankie Bello, Dave Ellefson, King Diamond/Mercyful Fate, Bobby Blitz/Overkill and MANY MORE.

I from the bottom of my heart want to thank all of you for putting love back into my heart. In my loneliest times I have always had your melodies serenading my every move. I do NOT know what I would do without all of you. Rock n Roll has impacted me so deeply. I have been truly blessed to have discovered such an amazing genre of people/artists/performers who have paved the road to happiness for me. I love, appreciate, and will continue to support you until my dying day because in my worst days YOU were there whether you know it or not.

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artworkandstuff · 5 years

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Politics in rap (Protest songs)

Politics within rap isn’t new, however the most recent wave of mainstream rap has a heavy sense of political undertones. The term “Youthquake” was the number 1 word of 2017 as seen by the oxford dictionary. The term simply means that amongst young people they have opened their ears and eyes to listen and gain a sense understanding of the British political climate. Myself included I am one of many who realised that in order for myself to be respected by adults, I first need to gain the knowledge and full understanding of politics. Politics is everywhere. If you work, pay tax, drive a car, or simply watch tv, you are involved in politics. It’s important to know current affairs as everything affects everything else and can help you with understanding the world. Not only this, but a few close friends and myself included, we didn’t want to stay ignorant, we didn’t want to stay uneducated and lost, we wanted to gain knowledge as knowledge is power. If you are powerful and can hold a mature conversation about the current political climate, not only are you one up on others who are too ignorant to care, you are able to feel empowered by your knowledge and wider understanding of the world.

I would argue that rap is very much now the new “punk”. Punk was inspired by the anarchism and anti government movement of the 80’s. Pieces such as “stand down Margaret” by The English Beat and “1 in 10” by UB40 show this. However every other band since them, calling themselves punk or anti government/anti right wing have only really taken inspirations from other bands, not actual problems the original bands sung about. What I’m trying to explain is that there is a new type of artist, almost at the right time. Artists always appear at the right time as its people speaking out about problems. There are multiple artists who share this same attribute and its simply them being human and speaking out. Childish Gambino with “This is america” is a clear example. Many world renowned artists have money, have themselves sorted. But I feel that it says a lot when these artists are willing to risk their audience appeal and ignore typical trends and instead make the effort to help others lower than them. One very well known artist and well respected is no other then Grime Rapper, Stormzy. During the Brits award night, Stormzy had the chance to put his stamp on the stage and show the country where his heart lies. After winning two awards that evening Stormzy was clearly feeling good about himself and out of nowhere when it came to his performance, just before he performed “blinded by your grace”, water started to pour on him like rain as he ripped his top off and freestyled saying; “Yo Theresa May, where’s the money for Grenfell?”. He continued with; “What, you thought we just forgot about Grenfell? You criminals, and you’ve got the cheek to call us savages, you should do some jail time, you should pay some damages, you should burn your house down and see if you can manage this.” .This simple freestyle bought the country to a standstill and if anything it gained him popularity buy having the confidence to speak out about what he cares about. Although his work doesn’t directly point a finger at particular subjects like other artists such as DAVE, however it’s clear that he cares about politics and is using his voice for something powerful and good on him. Grenfell was and still is such an overlooked tragedy that he bought it back to the forefront to show the government that people are still suffering. That’s activism right there.

Talking about activism, not only here is it that stars are taking their privilege and using it, but over in America EMINEM certainly is. He risked losing fans when he done a freestyle rap out of disgust and frustration of donald trump. The reason I make a point about him losing fans is because, and I quote “ …and any fan of mine, who’s a supporter of his, I’m drawing in the sand a line, you’re either for or against. And if you can’t decide who you like more in your split, on who you should stand beside, I’ll do it for you with this… *middle finger to the camera* …Fuck you! “. Amazingly if anything his support grew and as someone who never really listened to 90’s rap or early 2000’s I never paid attention to his work but since that I’ve definitely taken a liking to his work. Clearly EMINEM was frustrated with Trump as throughout the freestyle he just kept going. As a performer I can sense how other performers feel and can easily read faces, and my word was he infuriated. The freestyle rap went on for 4:34 which even for a song is rather long. During the beginning he starts and gets so caught up in his pain he pauses and then starts again. Subjects such as the hell of a storm that hit Puerto Rico and the lack of support from Trump as well as the gun crisis. You could tell that he wanted to speak out and wanted to make his voice heard and Trump being the discriminative, right wing, selfish, misogynistic man he is, EMINEM needing to say something and it’s clear that Trump is what inspired him.

Now although Stormzy and EMINEM don’t create tracks and produce eps exposing and questioning politics, a favourite artist of mine does. At the age of 19 DAVE is one of Britain’s breakthrough artists of 2017. Not only that, but for his age he speaks with wisdom and is very wise when rapping about a subject which he addresses from an unbiased view. Majority of his work reflects his youth and his family and friends however a few of his pieces show his interest in politics. One of his most powerful pieces of work is “Question Time” which depicts the general election and Theresa May’s leadership as the PM. For someone who loves both politics and music this is bar one of my favourite songs to date just down to its facts and pure emotion as you can see doing the music video how emotionally attacked DAVE is to getting his message across. His message is that politics is something we all need to understand to avoid staying ignorant and if you don’t want to understand it, you can’t ever complain about a political situation. I for one feel that that is an appropriate way to interpret that particular pieces message. Even from the first line of the song it says “I got a question for the new prime minister, how do you have a heart so sinister, how are we so wasteful when people are dying in Somalia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya. “. The beginning of this piece really allows me to not only connect with DAVE on an artistic level in the sense of poetry, but also in means of his actual question. Because as much as “Question Time” is a rap, it’s also one big question, hence the name. The country wants answers and DAVE is happy to ask them. He continues on to say “The irony is we have no business in syria, but kids are getting killed for all the business in syria”. Now although this was released back in October of 2017, it couldn’t be more relevant. With the recent airstakes of 2018 in Syria by the US, UK and France in retaliation to Bashar Al-Assad using illegal chemical weapons on his own people down to the civil war at play, DAVE’s song really does make you ask why. Why are we getting involved in other countries business. It’s ironic really as we condemn Bashar Al-Assad for basically bombing his own people, creating refugees which our government refuses to take in. So we bomb his country to tell him not to bomb his own, creating more refugees, which our government won’t take in, yet the reason we bombed his country is to warn him to look after his own people but we’re adding to the cycle. The logic is ridiculous and although our airstrikes were used to blow up “military bases” and “science research labs”, majority of airstrikes aren’t even that accurate anyway. Another one of DAVE’s lines from “Question Time” is; “What’s the difference between us and them, when you’ve got drones killing kids just touching ten”. The bars are so simple and there aren’t any metaphors used, its just straight up words that makes sense and want you wanting answers. DAVE continues on to talk about Brexit in frustration and says “What about the people that voted for us to leave for the money that it would see. £350 Million pound that we give to the EU every week that our health service needs.”. Brexit is a really interesting subject and one that divides a room much like marmite divides people’s taste buds. Brexit, regardless of its good or bad has brought about racial tension and a rise in hate crime. As a modern, progressive country this is embarrassing and the whole political climate is a complete joke. Now although I didn’t live through the 80’s it feels as if we are back there. Not only are we on the brink of a dirty nuclear war, but because of Brexit and Donald Trump race relationships aren’t the best. Though to top it all off we have an incompetent, selfish right wing conservative party in government.

Bibliography:

Newspaper article, ‘Youthquake’ named 2017 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, The Guardian, 2017

Sian Cain, Site editor, Written on 15/12/17

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/15/youthquake-named-2017-word-of-the-year-by-oxford-dictionaries

Webpage, Definition of Youthquake in English, Oxford Dictionaries, 1965

Oxford Dictionaries, English Dictionary, 2017

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/youthquake

Online video, The English Beat - Stand Down Margaret (O.T.T. - Broadcast March 27, 1982), Youtube, 1982

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 23/07/12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K6YWX4OL0o

Online video, UB40 - One in Ten, 1981

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 06/05/13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYgf8cVfvU

Online video, Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video), 2018

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 05/05/18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY

Online video, STORMZY - BLINDED BY YOUR GRACE PT.2 & BIG FOR YOUR BOOTS [LIVE AT THE BRITs ‘18], 2018

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 22/02/18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReY4yVkoDc4

Newspaper article, Stormzy asks Theresa May: “Where’s the money for Grenfell?” in Brit Awards performance, Mirror, 2018

Lucy Clarke-Billings, Assistant news editor, Written on 21/02/18

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/stormzy-asks-theresa-may-wheres-12067811

Newspaper article, Eminem attacks Donald Trump in scathing freestyle rap 'The Storm’ - and gives his fans an ultimatum, Mirror, 2017

Zoe Forsey, Audience writer, Written on 11/10/17

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/eminem-attacks-donald-trump-scathing-11323842

Online video, Dave - Question Time, 2017

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 09/10/17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ff6CjYBhoI

0 notes

moreartworkandstuff · 6 years

Text

Politics in rap (Protest songs)

I would argue that rap is very much now the new “punk”. Punk was inspired by the anarchism and anti government movement of the 80’s. Pieces such as “stand down Margaret” by The English Beat and “1 in 10” by UB40 show this. However every other band since them, calling themselves punk or anti government/anti right wing have only really taken inspirations from other bands, not actual problems the original bands sung about. What I’m trying to explain is that there is a new type of artist, almost at the right time. Artists always appear at the right time as its people speaking out about problems. There are multiple artists who share this same attribute and its simply them being human and speaking out. Childish Gambino with “This is america” is a clear example. Many world renowned artists have money, have themselves sorted. But I feel that it says a lot when these artists are willing to risk their audience appeal and ignore typical trends and instead make the effort to help others lower than them. One very well known artist and well respected is no other then Grime Rapper, Stormzy. During the Brits award night, Stormzy had the chance to put his stamp on the stage and show the country where his heart lies. After winning two awards that evening Stormzy was clearly feeling good about himself and out of nowhere when it came to his performance, just before he performed “blinded by your grace”, water started to pour on him like rain as he ripped his top off and freestyled saying; "Yo Theresa May, where’s the money for Grenfell?". He continued with; "What, you thought we just forgot about Grenfell? You criminals, and you’ve got the cheek to call us savages, you should do some jail time, you should pay some damages, you should burn your house down and see if you can manage this." .This simple freestyle bought the country to a standstill and if anything it gained him popularity buy having the confidence to speak out about what he cares about. Although his work doesn’t directly point a finger at particular subjects like other artists such as DAVE, however it’s clear that he cares about politics and is using his voice for something powerful and good on him. Grenfell was and still is such an overlooked tragedy that he bought it back to the forefront to show the government that people are still suffering. That’s activism right there.

Talking about activism, not only here is it that stars are taking their privilege and using it, but over in America EMINEM certainly is. He risked losing fans when he done a freestyle rap out of disgust and frustration of donald trump. The reason I make a point about him losing fans is because, and I quote “ ...and any fan of mine, who’s a supporter of his, I’m drawing in the sand a line, you’re either for or against. And if you can’t decide who you like more in your split, on who you should stand beside, I’ll do it for you with this… *middle finger to the camera* ...Fuck you! “. Amazingly if anything his support grew and as someone who never really listened to 90’s rap or early 2000’s I never paid attention to his work but since that I’ve definitely taken a liking to his work. Clearly EMINEM was frustrated with Trump as throughout the freestyle he just kept going. As a performer I can sense how other performers feel and can easily read faces, and my word was he infuriated. The freestyle rap went on for 4:34 which even for a song is rather long. During the beginning he starts and gets so caught up in his pain he pauses and then starts again. Subjects such as the hell of a storm that hit Puerto Rico and the lack of support from Trump as well as the gun crisis. You could tell that he wanted to speak out and wanted to make his voice heard and Trump being the discriminative, right wing, selfish, misogynistic man he is, EMINEM needing to say something and it’s clear that Trump is what inspired him.

Now although Stormzy and EMINEM don’t create tracks and produce eps exposing and questioning politics, a favourite artist of mine does. At the age of 19 DAVE is one of Britain's breakthrough artists of 2017. Not only that, but for his age he speaks with wisdom and is very wise when rapping about a subject which he addresses from an unbiased view. Majority of his work reflects his youth and his family and friends however a few of his pieces show his interest in politics. One of his most powerful pieces of work is “Question Time” which depicts the general election and Theresa May’s leadership as the PM. For someone who loves both politics and music this is bar one of my favourite songs to date just down to its facts and pure emotion as you can see doing the music video how emotionally attacked DAVE is to getting his message across. His message is that politics is something we all need to understand to avoid staying ignorant and if you don’t want to understand it, you can’t ever complain about a political situation. I for one feel that that is an appropriate way to interpret that particular pieces message. Even from the first line of the song it says “I got a question for the new prime minister, how do you have a heart so sinister, how are we so wasteful when people are dying in Somalia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya. “. The beginning of this piece really allows me to not only connect with DAVE on an artistic level in the sense of poetry, but also in means of his actual question. Because as much as “Question Time” is a rap, it’s also one big question, hence the name. The country wants answers and DAVE is happy to ask them. He continues on to say “The irony is we have no business in syria, but kids are getting killed for all the business in syria”. Now although this was released back in October of 2017, it couldn’t be more relevant. With the recent airstakes of 2018 in Syria by the US, UK and France in retaliation to Bashar Al-Assad using illegal chemical weapons on his own people down to the civil war at play, DAVE’s song really does make you ask why. Why are we getting involved in other countries business. It’s ironic really as we condemn Bashar Al-Assad for basically bombing his own people, creating refugees which our government refuses to take in. So we bomb his country to tell him not to bomb his own, creating more refugees, which our government won’t take in, yet the reason we bombed his country is to warn him to look after his own people but we’re adding to the cycle. The logic is ridiculous and although our airstrikes were used to blow up “military bases” and “science research labs”, majority of airstrikes aren’t even that accurate anyway. Another one of DAVE’s lines from “Question Time” is; “What’s the difference between us and them, when you’ve got drones killing kids just touching ten”. The bars are so simple and there aren’t any metaphors used, its just straight up words that makes sense and want you wanting answers. DAVE continues on to talk about Brexit in frustration and says “What about the people that voted for us to leave for the money that it would see. £350 Million pound that we give to the EU every week that our health service needs.”. Brexit is a really interesting subject and one that divides a room much like marmite divides people's taste buds. Brexit, regardless of its good or bad has brought about racial tension and a rise in hate crime. As a modern, progressive country this is embarrassing and the whole political climate is a complete joke. Now although I didn’t live through the 80’s it feels as if we are back there. Not only are we on the brink of a dirty nuclear war, but because of Brexit and Donald Trump race relationships aren’t the best. Though to top it all off we have an incompetent, selfish right wing conservative party in government.

Bibliography:

Newspaper article, ‘Youthquake’ named 2017 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, The Guardian, 2017

Sian Cain, Site editor, Written on 15/12/17

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/15/youthquake-named-2017-word-of-the-year-by-oxford-dictionaries

Webpage, Definition of Youthquake in English, Oxford Dictionaries, 1965

Oxford Dictionaries, English Dictionary, 2017

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/youthquake

Online video, The English Beat - Stand Down Margaret (O.T.T. - Broadcast March 27, 1982), Youtube, 1982

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 23/07/12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K6YWX4OL0o

Online video, UB40 - One in Ten, 1981

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 06/05/13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYgf8cVfvU

Online video, Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video), 2018

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 05/05/18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY

Online video, STORMZY - BLINDED BY YOUR GRACE PT.2 & BIG FOR YOUR BOOTS [LIVE AT THE BRITs '18], 2018

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 22/02/18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReY4yVkoDc4

Newspaper article, Stormzy asks Theresa May: "Where's the money for Grenfell?" in Brit Awards performance, Mirror, 2018

Lucy Clarke-Billings, Assistant news editor, Written on 21/02/18

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/stormzy-asks-theresa-may-wheres-12067811

Newspaper article, Eminem attacks Donald Trump in scathing freestyle rap 'The Storm' - and gives his fans an ultimatum, Mirror, 2017

Zoe Forsey, Audience writer, Written on 11/10/17

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/eminem-attacks-donald-trump-scathing-11323842

Online video, Dave - Question Time, 2017

Youtube, Online video website, Uploaded on 09/10/17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ff6CjYBhoI

0 notes

samanthasroberts · 6 years

Text

6 Bands That Totally Reinvented Themselves To Get Famous

For many people, musical genres are personality-defining lines that can never be crossed. For instance, cool people listen to thrash metal, but anyone who listens to speed metal has their former dungeon master’s head in a freezer. Sometimes it gets complicated, like how emo music is for crying into your diary, while gothic rock is for crying into your cupcake.

However, many genre-defining artists started out playing the exact kind of music their fans are required by social law to loathe. For example …

#6. Kid Rock Was A Hilarious ’90s Rapper

In the popular consciousness, there have already been two versions of Kid Rock. There is the current Kid Rock, who sings country-rock anthems, and there’s the more popular rap-rock/nu-metal Kid Rock of the late ’90s. He has a personality easily summed up by reminding you he’s a man from Michigan who loves the Confederate flag.

“And if black people don’t like it, they can continue to have very little interest in my music!”

The Artist He Was Before That:

We really should just stop the article here.

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Kid Rock was the funkiest, flyest rapper all the way to the extreme. Admittedly, it was an awkward time for everyone, but Kid Rock’s head looked like a racist Halloween costume. He looked like a Disney film about two boys swapping bodies after a magic basketball bounced into a magic chess tournament.

In Hell, this album art is downloaded for every song in your iTunes.

But Kid Rock’s early stuff wasn’t some trashy chimera of country, rock, and hip-hop. He was trying for the real deal, with songs like “Wax The Booty,” a description of an erotic encounter that seems like it was written by a virgin and performed by an aging sea captain selling breakfast cereal.

Using the term “puddy” for female genitals? Definitely a virgin.

With little to no encouragement, Kid Rock continued to make rap songs like this for seven years. His musical career was already a decade old when he released his breakthrough hit “Bawitdaba,” which was accidentally written when he tried to spell “badminton instructor” on a job application. That song and album blew up, and Kid Rock’s incredible flat top was never seen again.

If it seems like Kid Rock was adopting culture that wasn’t his, it’s because he was. He wasn’t learning how to rhyme on the tough-rhyming Detroit streets like Eminem. Kid Rock grew up in a beautiful suburb in a nice house. So this guy ..

… and this guy …

… all come from the same upper-middle-class childhood spent in one of Michigan’s loveliest homes. His childhood job of selling apples from his father’s orchard sounds like a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. So he’s gone from rich suburbanite to street rapper to hillbilly rapper to just regular hillbilly. At this rate, Kid Rock should be performing as a Syrian refugee as early as next year.

#5. Radiohead Were A Cheesy Top 40 Band

Radiohead helped define the term “alternative rock” by continually pushing the boundaries of popular music and being forever played by lonely men with acoustic guitars on open mic nights in coffee shops around the globe.

Just because they dismissed “Creep” as juvenile and stupid decades ago doesn’t mean the rest of the universe has to.

They are known for their creative risks and their ability to redefine themselves, even after decades. Albums like OK Computer helped drive mid-’90s music away from traditional pop structure, and Rolling Stone named Radiohead’s Kid A the best album of the 2000s. It should tell you something about Radiohead’s talent and influence when here, in an article making fun of artists trying to redefine themselves, we are praising their ability to redefine themselves. Frontman Thom Yorke even has the courage to spell the name “Tom” with an H.

The Artists They Were Before That:

Radiohead started with the name On A Friday, which they were forced to change immediately after being signed by EMI, presumably because on a scale of band names from Hoobastank to Sex Pistols, On A Friday rates a firm Toad The Wet Sprocket.

“We’re On A Friday, because my mum only allows us to use the garage on Fridays while she’s at the gym!”

It wasn’t only their shitty name, though. Their early music was the exact opposite of “alternative.” It was generic Britpop that sounded like a sloppy karaoke version of U2.

They presumably wrote “How To Disappear Completely” after being reminded that they made this.

Instead of a calculated effort to evolve, On A Friday was locked in a desperate struggle to sound exactly like everyone else. And the transition from “dumb high school band that thinks it’s clever” to “genius new artist” wasn’t an immediate one, either — the band’s first album as Radiohead was titled Pablo Honey, which is the name of a goddamn Jerky Boys bit.

#4. The Songwriter Behind Taylor Swift And Katy Perry Started In A Ridiculous Hair Metal Band

You may not remember how you know Max Martin’s name, but he’s the man behind dozens of the most overplayed pop songs from the past 25 years. He was responsible for Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl,” Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time,” and Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood.” In fact, that last one was his 20th No. 1 single, meaning — except for Paul McCartney and John Lennon — Martin has more No. 1 singles than anyone who has ever lived.

On top of his three Billy Ray Cyrus lookalike contest trophies.

The Artist He Was Before That:

Before Martin was a hitmaking superproducer, he was a high school dropout named Martin White, which, confusingly, also wasn’t his real name. Karl “Max (Martin White) Martin” Sandberg started a group in the late ’80s called It’s Alive. It’s Alive combined glam metal with grunge in a way that provoked one of two reactions from everyone who ever heard them: “This sucks,” or, “Who?”

“We want the most adorable album cover of all time.”

Somehow, It’s Alive managed to record two whole albums, and their sophomore effort, 1993’s Earthquake Visions, sold only 30,000 copies. More people picked up Bret Michaels’ herpes than It’s Alive albums that year. It was apparent the group wasn’t destined for international superstardom, but it did link Martin with producer Denniz Pop (also not that guy’s real name).

Their moms must be wondering why they even bothered to fill out the birth certificate at all.

Pop heroically saw through all the feathered-hair bullshit of It’s Alive enough to notice that Martin had an incredible ear for catchy melodies, so he put Martin in the studio without the rest of his dipshit bandmates. Martin was trained in pelvic thrusts and nothing else, so he spent his first two years in the studio just “trying to learn what the hell was going on.” He definitely got the hang of it, though. From every one of Taylor Swift’s No. 1 hits to writing every hit single on the Backstreet Boys’ Millennium, Martin knew how to create songs tailor-made to get stuck in millions and millions of heads. So, now you know who to thank for “Blank Space.”

#3. The Go-Go’s Were A Hardcore Punk Band

The Go-Go’s are the most successful all-female group ever, a fact stated definitively on the band’s own website. Their dancey songs about having the beat and going on vacation saturated pop culture in the 1980s, and they’re still used today to detect the number of bachelorette parties inside karaoke bars. If evil scientists found a way to turn liquid cheerleaders into music, it would sound exactly like The Go-Go’s. Now that we mention it, it would sound suspiciously exactly like that.

What are you hiding?

The Artists They Were Before That:

If you clicked the song link above or just have a perfect memory, you may have noticed “We Got The Beat” opens with weirdly pounding drums and staccato guitar sounds. It’s kind of punk rock for a song about clapping and loving to clap, right? That’s because The Go-Go’s actually started as a grimy, fuck-you-in-your-face punk rock band.

The only beat they cared about was beating on any promoters that stiffed them.

The group started in the L.A. punk scene of the late ’70s alongside other seminal punk acts like The Motels and The Germs.

“What makes you think you can just come into The Bronx Upside Downsies turf, Warriors?”

In fact, The Go-Go’s lead singer, Belinda Carlisle, actually started out as the drummer for The Germs. She called herself Dottie Danger while with the group, but ditched The Germs after catching mono, because Belinda apparently doesn’t appreciate willful strokes of cosmic irony.

“I feel really sick. The Germs isn’t just a cute name, is it?”

That’s Belinda wearing the bloody swastika, making the exact face she would make if she saw her future self walk into the club.

“Ahoy, fellow Nazis! Fuck the establishment, right?”

#2. Kraftwerk Were A Terrible Jam Band

Kraftwerk are the godfathers of electronic music. They were the first popular band to utilize nothing but electronic instruments to create songs full of driving, repetitive bleeps, like a Nintendo game you can dance to. Basically, they’re the nerds who made robot sounds into a legitimate musical genre.

When not attempting to exterminate all of humanity, Skynet loves to get funky funky fresh.

The Artists They Were Before That:

Before they switched their sound to C-3PO translating funk for R2-D2, Kraftwerk were a psychedelic jam band. You really, really couldn’t dance to it. It was like a pile of sound an art major would make to start a conversation about what music, like, is, man. It was a sonic port-o-john of flutes, guitars, and random sound effects, with all the focus of a frightened cat scrambling over a piano. Even libraries in the early ’70s categorized it under “Bullshit, Hippie.”

“Oh yeah? Well, your grandpappy’s hippie bullshit didn’t have a traffic-cone solo!”

Founding members Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider were initially interested in creating free-form experimental rock, and that’s what they did, clonking and flooping for several years. Kraftwerk’s music seemed designed specifically for LSD trips and advanced LSD trips, until 1974, when they released Autobahn and defined the electronica genre of robomusic. Apparently, even robots have to go through an angsty phase before they come into their own.

Even the guys in Phish wanted them to get to the fucking point already.

#1. Ministry Started Out As A Synth-Pop Knockoff Of The Cure

Since the mid-’80s, Chicago-based Ministry have been helping angry teens demonstrate their misunderstoodedness, with aggressive heavy metal far too noisy for their parents. Their scrotum-kicking sound includes albums like The Land Of Rape And Honey, which is both an awful pun and a terrible sentiment, and From Beer To Eternity, which is only an awful pun.

They clearly didn’t have time for anything more.

Ministry helped elevate its downtrodden fans with powerful lyrics, letting them know that someone out there understood what it was like to have no one understand you. For instance, here is a selection from their song “Filth Pig”:

Filth pig, filth pig He sleeps with both eyes open Filth pig, filth pig He sleeps all right because he’s a Filth pig

It’s not clear if this was translated into Pig and then back to English, or if this is the first song pieced together from the dying words of stroke victims. The point is, the music of Ministry is better suited for random ax slaughter than slow-dancing.

The Artists They Were Before That:

Ministry started off the 1980s as a new-wave synth-pop outfit. And we don’t mean a little bit ’80s, like every other band at the time. They looked like a Broadway musical about the ’80s.

“Filth pig’s sleeping or something. Psh. Whatever.”

In 1983, Ministry released their first album, With Sympathy, and it was like a greatest hits compilation of every song Joy Division decided was too shitty to record. To put it another way, it’s exactly the soundtrack you hear in your head when you quote Nietzsche to some clueless sheep — dark synth-pop about impotent despair. And lead singer Al Jourgensen performed the entire album with a fake British accent. It’s the official soundtrack for avoiding gym class because it makes your mascara run. A conformist like you just wouldn’t get it, man.

CSI: Gothika

After the band went more industrial and metal, Jourgensen claimed he was pressured by management into making With Sympathy into the fussy wusspop it was, and he seemed determined to keep it out of print. He even claimed to have destroyed the master copies, yet the album was eventually reissued in 2012. It definitely doesn’t have much in common with their modern sound, but Ministry music from any era is always the perfect way to tell a hitchhiker this is the last van ride they’ll ever take.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/6-bands-that-totally-reinvented-themselves-to-get-famous/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/02/17/6-bands-that-totally-reinvented-themselves-to-get-famous/

0 notes

adambstingus · 6 years

Text

6 Bands That Totally Reinvented Themselves To Get Famous

However, many genre-defining artists started out playing the exact kind of music their fans are required by social law to loathe. For example …

#6. Kid Rock Was A Hilarious ’90s Rapper

“And if black people don’t like it, they can continue to have very little interest in my music!”

The Artist He Was Before That:

We really should just stop the article here.

In Hell, this album art is downloaded for every song in your iTunes.

Using the term “puddy” for female genitals? Definitely a virgin.

… and this guy …

#5. Radiohead Were A Cheesy Top 40 Band

Just because they dismissed “Creep” as juvenile and stupid decades ago doesn’t mean the rest of the universe has to.

The Artists They Were Before That:

“We’re On A Friday, because my mum only allows us to use the garage on Fridays while she’s at the gym!”

It wasn’t only their shitty name, though. Their early music was the exact opposite of “alternative.” It was generic Britpop that sounded like a sloppy karaoke version of U2.

They presumably wrote “How To Disappear Completely” after being reminded that they made this.

#4. The Songwriter Behind Taylor Swift And Katy Perry Started In A Ridiculous Hair Metal Band

On top of his three Billy Ray Cyrus lookalike contest trophies.

The Artist He Was Before That:

“We want the most adorable album cover of all time.”

Their moms must be wondering why they even bothered to fill out the birth certificate at all.

#3. The Go-Go’s Were A Hardcore Punk Band

What are you hiding?

The Artists They Were Before That:

The only beat they cared about was beating on any promoters that stiffed them.

The group started in the L.A. punk scene of the late ’70s alongside other seminal punk acts like The Motels and The Germs.

“What makes you think you can just come into The Bronx Upside Downsies turf, Warriors?”

“I feel really sick. The Germs isn’t just a cute name, is it?”

That’s Belinda wearing the bloody swastika, making the exact face she would make if she saw her future self walk into the club.

“Ahoy, fellow Nazis! Fuck the establishment, right?”

#2. Kraftwerk Were A Terrible Jam Band

When not attempting to exterminate all of humanity, Skynet loves to get funky funky fresh.

The Artists They Were Before That:

“Oh yeah? Well, your grandpappy’s hippie bullshit didn’t have a traffic-cone solo!”

Even the guys in Phish wanted them to get to the fucking point already.

#1. Ministry Started Out As A Synth-Pop Knockoff Of The Cure

They clearly didn��t have time for anything more.

Filth pig, filth pig He sleeps with both eyes open Filth pig, filth pig He sleeps all right because he’s a Filth pig

The Artists They Were Before That:

Ministry started off the 1980s as a new-wave synth-pop outfit. And we don’t mean a little bit ’80s, like every other band at the time. They looked like a Broadway musical about the ’80s.

“Filth pig’s sleeping or something. Psh. Whatever.”

CSI: Gothika

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/6-bands-that-totally-reinvented-themselves-to-get-famous/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/170991824677

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