#love the album tho

[my-only-braincell]

can someone please explain why i had NO IDEA THIS WAS COMING OUT!!!!! DID OTHER PEOPLE KNOW OR WAS IT A COMPLETE SURPRISE FOR NOT JUST ME???!

[ivesambrose]

Me hearing namjoon say fuck

[a-silly-stained-glass-anomaly]

[skidcd-megamix]

aba gear

Real

[pondhue]

oh pondue where art thou have gone

[loucygoosey]

Finally watched soul eater they are my children

[speakofcompersion]

ONEW 'Flow' Tracklist 1. Beatdrum (Title) 2. Hola! 3. Maestro 4. Shape of My Heart 5. All Day 6. Focus

[thekidsarentalright]

every word’s a new regret if you say it right every wound can be forgotten in the right light

[daily-ethoslab]

[608] Heres a scavenger hunt! Try to find the album that inspired the colors of this etho! Hint: the name of the author is on the shirt :^P

[logosbot-tm]

Mcr, that one band where people get sad about voting on which member we like the most and which album we like the most, bc all the members are equally important and all albums are equally important so we try to figure out other ways to decide what we like the most, bc we suck at choosing between the four albums and the four members

[fumiko-matsubara]

Obligatory Chiba wearing Hyunjin's outfits for Stray Kids' ATE 🥠 comeback season because he looks too good 😩🤌🌹

[ireone]

"cause i'm too spicy for your heart" — KARINA, ‘SPICY' MV 🌶️

[chaoticniko]

This might become a series if I don't get another shiny moment

Have Hermes and Poseidon bc ✨️yes✨️

And 2k12 tmnt oc for apologies for my absence

[torsamors]

Fall Out Boy + Gold (fob + blue)

Songs: Saturday, Homesick at Space Camp, Sending Postcards from a Plane Crash (Wish You Were Here), Snitches and Talkers Get Stitches and Walkers, This ain’t a Scene it’s a Goddamn Arms Race, Golden, W.A.M.S., Rat a Tat, Centuries, The Last of the Real Ones + Genius annotation on The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years)

Art + artists: Mark Rothko - Untitled, Max Kurzweil - Lady in Gold, Van Gogh - The Mulberry Tree, Canegallo Sexto - The Meeting, XuanWei Su - In Love, Zhiyong Jing - Untitled, Emily Kame Kngwarreye - Ceremony, Richard R. Powell

[indeliblescarspivotalmarks]

the friends and bros upon hearing So High School:

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 18: Balls (Bullet Train)

Sometimes (oftentimes) it's true that all you need are Balls. I personally absolutely love Balls. I'm a big fan! Ekhem. Today I'm using the help of (I mean, copying most of the passages from it) my earlier Balls rant that I have written down after my first listen of it back in January. I really love this album and I don't want to completely skip over saying a couple words on it at least but I really don't think I have the headspace to write anything very good for it today. I'll still try though!

So yeah, Balls. It's a great album, fun and chill (in my sense of what I call and consider chill anyway), consistent, as Sparks albums tend to be, and as I suspected / hoped it does fit this specific vibe of driving around at night somewhere city-like and illuminated. Or being on a train deep at night and looking at the world zooming by (if you'd even see much of it on a train at night anyway.....). And I do think that it's not so dissimilar to Gratsax (I'd say now that it's definitely darker and moodier than its predecessor...). So it's interesting to think about how it's considered to be one of the "weak" ones (by music reviewers at least) while Gratsax is so beloved in comparision.

I will admit, I don't really know what the big problem with this album could be. As I said, it's fun, it has the melodies, it has the energy, it has the theatricality (I like seeing how more and more orchestral instruments such as strings are being incorporated into the music, in a way the jump into Lil' Beethoven two years later doesn't come of as THAT much of a shock because of this. The evolution of sound here is fascinating!) I really like the intense beats, just as much as the more laid-back and moodier pieces. And there's lots of gold to be found in the lyrics department as always.

One more thing I wanna say is that at some point I wondered if this music sounds older than it is. Maybe it does? But then I remembered that this was 2000 and honestly when I think about it, there just IS something about this album that fits so well with the Y2K image and vibe and all. Sparks 2000 and all that.

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Balls: I mean. It's Balls.

Scheherazade: absolutely LOVE this one and I had the strangest impression of it sounding very familiar when I first heard it. Months later I found out that it was just briefly featured in TSB so I think that explains it (I will talk more about my TSB viewings on TSB day. EVERYTHING has to be explained in excruciating detail, lmao)

The Calm Before The Storm: bugsonas 4ever. Song itself is amazing too

How To Get Your Ass Kicked: how can a song about getting your ass kicked be so pleasant and relaxing, it always keeps cracking me up, how perfect that is actually

Bullet Train: I love it how introducing the topic of the song with a "It's the [topic of the song]" is a reoccurring theme on this album. Thank you Sparks for this ode to technology and art (these lyrics always have me giggling). And also it just goes hard as heck

It's Educational: a perfect fusion of / sequel to I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car and Progress (it's mostly the vocal delivery that reminds me of the latter)

The Angels: such an odd one here but I still like it a lot, I apparently said that it sounds "surprisingly mainstream for Sparks but somehow in a positive way". It's very sweet and I absolutely love how Russell sings here, it's so different from what we're used to but that only makes it hit you even more in the feels, lol. And I actually prefer the alternative version of this song that's featured as a bonus track, and I do think that's in big part because you can hear Russell better on it (or that was my first impression of it at least and it kind of stuck)