#lps the queen of lies

[little-peril-stories]

The Queen of Lies: Trust and Treachery

Story Intro | Content Warnings | Mood Board | Vibey Song Lyrics | Ao3

Contents: police, lady whump (sort of, ish, not exactly but ????), guy whump, guns (drawn but not fired)

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Word count: 4100 || Approx reading time: 17 mins

Trust and Treachery

Teaser: “I’m serious. They’re still looking for her. Isn’t anyone going to talk about that? Or am I the only one who’s worried?”

The tales were told over endless cups of tea, as night fell and deepened to the blues and purples of midnight: Will’s time in prison, including details Bree herself had not heard and which made her eyes fill with tears; Bree’s side of the story, and how she had run away from Baden and taken Will with her; Colette’s summary of her time spent in a “safe place” about which she gave no further information; and Jamie Wardrew’s account of shutting down all Iustitia aecum operations and hiding out with the mostly silent other man, who was called Geoff. They had reunited with Colette once word got out that a thief had mysteriously escaped from prison—and posters with Will’s face on them appeared all over the city.

“You idiots should have skipped town fucking weeks ago,” Will said more than once, but there was no vehemence in his words. In fact, he was almost glowing. For most of the conversation, he twitched, bounced, and shifted in his seat, incapable of sitting still—except for his hand, which, despite how often he pulled it away to talk animatedly, always came back to rest upon Bree’s.

Now, his thumb stroked the back of her hand in a gentle, comforting rhythm. “You doing all right?” he murmured in her ear when the others were distracted.

Bree hummed a confirmation that she was, but exhaustion settled over her, brought on by the hours of talking and digging up of painful memories.

Oh—and the residual worries, of course, about when the inner circle of Iustitia aecum would come to their senses and throw her out. After all, what kind of woman would marry a man like Baden Hatchett? And how could she ever be trusted?

“You sure you’re okay?” Will asked.

“I’m just tired,” she told him, and he squeezed her hand.

“Don’t look so worried,” he said. “Everything’s okay.”

But alongside the joy of the reunion, a heaviness clung to the air, and when she glanced at the others, she found that they would not meet her gaze.

***

The next morning, waking in a bed that seemed emptier and colder than it should have, Bree found that Will was not beside her. She could hear him, though—one of several voices that drifted in from the kitchen, hushed and serious.

Frowning, she sat up, trying to catch what was being whispered into the stillness of the early morning.

“Gotta decide what to…”

“If we start up again…”

Bree slipped out of the bed, stifling a gasp at the bite of the cold floor against her bare feet. At the door, which Will had left ajar—had he snuck out, trying not to wake her?—she paused, nudging it slightly to let in more sound.

“I’m serious. They’re still looking for her. Isn’t anyone going to talk about that? Or am I the only one who’s worried?”

Dread, barbed and brutal, tore through Bree’s chest. They weren’t merely talking about IA business. They were talking about her.

“Colette,” Will’s voice said stiffly, his earlier elation gone, “she doesn’t want to go b—”

“Stop twisting my words. I didn’t say she wants to go back. But if they find her, they find us. You can’t tell me it didn’t cross your mind, too.”

“Okay, fine, it did, but—”

Bree closed her eyes. Was that the reason he’d held out so long before giving his name? Fear that her very presence would lead Baden right to him—and that she would buckle under pressure and reveal his name to the entire constabulary? Destroy everything he’d suffered so keenly to conceal with a single witless utterance?

“I mean,” Colette went on, “does anyone else really believe that mad constable’s just going to give up? He’s insane.”

Silence met her words.

“I didn’t think so.” How could she sound so fearless? How could her words be so calm, so steeped in cool, unshakeable logic? “I think you’d all better listen to me about this. Because I get it, we all want to get back to normal, get back to business, but as long as she’s around—”

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor made Bree jump. Furiously, Will snapped, “Don’t you even fucking think about saying what you’re about to say.”

“God, will you let me finish? I’m not arguing that we ditch her somewhere. She’s lovely. God knows how someone like her ended up with someone like him. And—just wait, for heaven’s sake! I’m not a monster. But we need a plan, and we need to make it now, because Hatchett wants you and her and as long as that’s true, we’re all in trouble.”

“She wouldn’t fuck us over like th—”

“Are you even listening? That’s not what I—”

Jamie’s quiet voice cut in. “Okay. Both of you. Shut up for a second.”

“Alpha, you know I’m right.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Will said, his voice acidic. Something warm flickered in Bree’s chest. Even with his brother speaking now, he was standing up for her. “We know. You’re always right. You’re so fucking smart—”

“Will!” Jamie snapped. “Shut the fuck up. Listen, for once.”

“You’re taking her side?”

“I’m not taking sides,” Jamie said tightly. “She—”

Too loudly—enough that if Bree hadn’t already been awake, she would have been jolted out of a dead sleep—Will said, “If you say she has to go, we’re about to have a big problem.”

“Just—”

“She has nowhere else to go,” he said. “Her parents are dead, too. And she can’t go back to Hatchett. She can’t. I’ll fucking die before I let that happen.”

Barely audible, some of the coldness faded from her voice, Colette said, “Oh, Will.”

Bree pressed her hands to her mouth, her heart trying to tear itself free of her very chest.

“And I—I—”

Neither his brother nor his friend interrupted, yet Will’s voice trailed off, the thought unfinished.

Geoff grunted, “You what?”

“I just can’t do that to her, all right?”

Did he mean it? Every word? He did, didn’t he? He wouldn’t let her go back to Baden, even if it meant going against the family he’d only just found again.

“Okay,” Jamie said. A mere breath after him, Colette said the same. “Okay. It’s not going to come to that. But let’s make a contingency plan, all right?”

Will mumbled, “The fuck is a contingency?”

“A just-in-case plan,” Colette said quietly.

“Just in case of what?”

Bree’s throat tightened again as Colette responded, “Just in case things go sideways. In case he catches up with her.” She paused. “With us.”

Jamie, from the sound of it, continued, but Bree silently pushed the door closed again and backed away on trembling legs. Her heart pounded as she went over the conversation—the argument—the inner circle of Iustitia aecum had just had about her.

For a few painful seconds, tears prickled behind her eyes. No matter where she went, she was never good enough. Breanna certainly hadn’t been. Now, it seemed that Bree was not, either—not for her own failings, but for the peril she brought in her wake.

No.

She swallowed her tears and took a breath. So Colette and Jamie were wary. Weren’t they right to be? But Colette had said it herself—it wasn’t Bree she didn’t trust. It was Baden.

But Will trusted her. Even if the others were reserving their confidence for now, he had faith in her. And he was willing to go against the others to prove it.

So, there was only one thing to do. She was going to have to prove it, too. That she belonged here. The she was one of them. That she deserved every ounce of that hard-won faith.

***

Of course, proving herself to IA was easier said than done. Bree opted not to mention what she had overheard, and Will didn’t bring it up, either. In this, she was almost relieved; he was spared the unenviable task of admitting that he’d been talking about her when he thought she couldn’t hear, and she was spared the indignity of facing everyone else’s mistrust head-on. No, she decided, it was much better to carry on as if she were none the wiser, and do what she could to weave herself into the delicate IA web.

Evenings, she determined promptly, provided ripe opportunity to find common ground with the others—particularly Colette and Jamie, who seemed to be the ones who had filled the bookshelves until they bowed in the middle. It was when the fire burned hottest and brightest; when everyone gathered without speaking of gangs or thievery; when she could read amid the soothing sound of crackling embers. The threadbare chairs did not provide nearly enough room for everyone to fit, but sitting on the floor with her book made Bree feel like a child again. Will, pressed against her side, didn’t seem to mind, either, and that made it all the sweeter.

Tonight, in a move that made everyone else’s jaws drop, Will was thumbing through Romeo and Juliet, which Bree had finished reading. He wasn’t reading it in earnest, however.

“The hell does this all mean?” he asked, cackling to himself. “You trying to tell me any of this makes sense to you?”

Bree blinked herself out of her current book and looked up to meet his amused gaze and unimpressed smirk. “It’s an old story. Once you know what to expect, it makes sense.”

But Will just shook his head, dictating lines he found perplexing or droll. “‘Such comfort as do lusty young men feel…’” He burst into a laugh and, reading on, found another that had him howling. “‘An open-arse, thou a poperin pear…’ What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You would find all the rude bits,” said Colette with a roll of her eyes.

“‘Some consequence,’” he went on, ignoring her save for a grin, “‘yet hanging in the stars, shall bitterly begin…’ Well, he sure sounds happy, doesn’t he? ‘Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars…’ No one else thinks that’s a weird thing to want? No? Just me? All right. ‘I have an ill-divining soul…’” He scoffed and pushed it away. “Why can’t he just write like a normal person?”

Shaking her head, Colette asked wryly, “That’s your expert literary opinion, is it?”

“Pretty sure you’d find most reasonable people would agree with me.”

“I rather think you’d find,” she shot back, “that most intelligent people would not.”

Will snatched a cushion right out from behind Jamie’s back, eliciting a surprised yelp, and threw it at her head, howling with laughter when it struck its target squarely.

And grunting a loud, “Ow!” when she hurled it back at him.

“Leave her alone,” Bree said, laughing, laying a hand on his arm to prevent him from launching another attack. “Maybe you should try reading it. Who knows? You might end up liking it.” She paused. “Though it is very sad.”

“Right. It’d take me a month just to get through the first chapter.”

“It has acts and scenes,” Bree said, pointing to the heading on the page. “Not chapters.”

“See? I’m already hopeless.” But he didn’t look hopeless or even terribly annoyed as he closed the book and peeked over at Bree’s. “Can’t believe you finished it in a few days. What are you reading now?”

Bree showed him the cover, and Colette, peering at it, too, piped up again. “Oh, you found my Ovid.” She heaved a long, dramatic sigh. “It’s nice to have another intellectual around for once.”

Biting her lip, Bree tried not to look too satisfied with this remark.

Will brandished the cushion again, prompting his brother to take it out of his hands and return it to its previous place, supporting his back. With his physical ammunition confiscated, Will merely said, “You’re fucking hilarious, Colette.”

“I just finished the story of Orpheus and Eurydice,” Bree said to her, talking over him.

Geoff and Jamie had been watching in silence, the former quite apathetic toward the topic of fine literature and the latter baffled that Will was engaging with it at all. Now, his long-suffering-elder-brother expression changed from faint amusement to outright hilarity when Will demanded with a groan, “What the hell kind of names are those, now?”

Rubbing his face, Jamie answered, “It’s a myth, Will. Ancient Greek.” He looked over at Bree almost apologetically. “I really tried, you know. He used to sneak away instead of going to school. You think this guy ever did anything he was told?”

Throwing his brother an obscene gesture, Will just asked, “What’s it about?”

Bree was about to answer, but Colette said, utterly straight-faced, “It’s about an idiot who can’t follow simple instructions.”

The group burst into gleeful laughter, celebrating how Will had set himself up for the joke. Bree took his hand.

“No, it isn’t,” she told him. “It’s about how love is sometimes stronger than reason.”

With another vulgar gesture at the others, Will leaned toward her and laid a kiss right on her lips. Bree blushed, but there were no huffs of disapproval, suspicious glares, or scandalized gasps. Instead, teasing whoops spread through the room.

“You give her one of those bite marks in front of me, and I’ll smother you in your sleep,” Colette said primly as the titters faded, and Jamie choked on his tea.

“Oh, shut up,” Will said, and even though even his face flooded as red as Bree’s, he nearly fell to the floor with laughter.

Maybe, Bree thought with a smile, winning over Iustitia aecum wouldn’t be as difficult as she thought.

***

“You know, I’ve never seen him care about any of Colette’s books before.”

Bree jumped and stifled a squeak at the sudden voice behind her. She’d offered to fetch some water from the well, and she’d been quietly humming to herself—certainly not expecting anyone to overhear her less-than-impressive musical talents—so the appearance of Will’s brother was not one she was prepared for.

“Sorry,” Jamie said, smiling a little ruefully upon seeing that she was startled. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

“It’s all right.” She resisted the urge to press a hand against her pounding heart, figuring she already seemed jumpy enough to his eyes—jumpy, silly, and in over her head. “I didn’t hear you walking up.”

Jamie’s laugh, to her ears, was sardonic and abrupt—almost uncomfortable. “Well. We’ve had some practice in being stealthy over the years.” He nodded at her arm, free of bandages now but still marred by an unsightly scab she suspected might leave a scar. “You need some help?”

 “Did Will send you?” she asked charily.

“No, actually.” He took the full bucket from her hand and replaced it with the empty one he had brought with him. “We can share the job. I’ll carry two back, you carry one.”

“Thank you,” she said, uncertain of where to go from there as she filled the last bucket. Was he going to be the one to confront her? Bring up Colette’s fears? Demand proof of her loyalty to the Iustitia aecum creed?

“Will didn’t send me after you,” Jamie said. “I wanted to say…” A strange look crossed his face—a happy one, but mixed with sadness, too, and perhaps even a touch of bemusement. “I’ve never heard Will…I don’t know, ask questions like that before. About books, I mean. Like he actually cared.”

A warm glow blossomed in Bree’s chest. “Really?”

“Definitely not.” He leaned against the side of the well, eyes fixed on the cloudy sky. “You know, I was… When we didn’t know what had happened to him, all I could do was hope we’d find him again. And I knew if we did, he might be different.” He laughed. “I didn’t think that this was the kind of different we’d be getting.”

Bree’s eyes burned with uninvited but admittedly gratified—and somewhat triumphant—tears. “Is that…” She swallowed. “That’s a good thing, right?”

He glanced at her now, seeming to notice the shine in her eyes, though he did not mention it. “I think so.”

Bree turned her face away for a moment to blink away the sting.

“You look familiar.”

Almost automatically, she said, “Well, maybe you saw me about town with Baden,” although now that he mentioned it, there was something about his face, hailing from a time long ago—more than just his striking resemblance to Will.

He clenched his jaw. “I can tell you for sure that I have never once been close enough to that fucker at any moment to see your face that well.” The flat hatred in his voice made a shiver run down her spine.

“Um…” Eager to move on from that thought, Bree said, “Perhaps before that? School, maybe?”

But he shook his head—the age difference was a bit too big, they determined, and he had likely already been working by the time she was in the schoolhouse, too poor for a governess.

“My maiden name is Cooper,” she said, thinking back and racking her brain for the answer, and as his expression changed to astonishment, the image struck her, too: a quiet boy with threadbare clothes, wind-chapped cheeks, and tired eyes—a boy she’d never seen again after a fateful winter’s day.

Or so she’d thought.

“James,” she gasped at the same time he said, “Cooper.”

“You worked for us!”

“Your dad’s a huge prick.”

Well, there was no denying that. “He was. He’s dead now.” She gazed at the man in front of her. Was it really him? The boy from that day?

The day her father had turned out all the servants, every single one—and one boy had fought back.

She hadn’t thought of him in years. It was painful to remember, those early days of her father’s broken business, his rage, his humiliation. That day in particular was one she preferred not to recall. All those people, thrown out in the bitter winter, hopeless and weeping and cold...

But a boy called James had tried so hard to stand up for them, shouting and railing, demanding some semblance of justice for the servants who were losing their livelihoods. As he always had, to everything and everyone, Silas Cooper had responded with violence—beat him and hurled him out, right into a snowdrift.

“He was horrible to you,” she whispered. “I’m—I’m so sorry—”

“You ran out,” he said, and she nodded. Bree had raced outside, determined to stay her father’s hand, and wound up with a handprint on her cheek. “I remember that. You…” He paused. “Thanks.”

Reeling at the revelation that her story and Will’s had been threaded together for so much longer than either of them had known, she pushed up her sleeves, close to sweating from exertion and awe. “I…I can’t believe it.”

“No,” Jamie said, equally stunned. “It’s a damn small world.”

They stared at one another a few moments more, Bree fitting his careworn face over the time-misted features of a sixteen-year-old boy with fire in his eyes—the same fire she had seen blazing in Will’s so many times before.

Suddenly, those eyes widened.

“Breanna?”

It took Bree a moment to realize that it was not Jamie calling to her—nor would that be the name he would use even if he was.

Gasping, Bree spun around, letting the bucket slip from her hands and spilling frigid water over her boots.

“Curt,” she whispered. The wonder of the moment, blazing hot and beautiful, vanished; every ounce of it sucked away, leaving nothing behind but cold, scouring dread.

He flew forward, so fast she only managed a panicked step backwards before he reached her. “It’s you.” Hands on her arms, pinching tightly. Eyes wide. Voice rasping. “God, Breanna—” Grip tight. Too tight. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“Please let go,” she said, half-dizzy. Frantic thoughts spilled through her mind, melting into the noisy, discordant symphony of Curt’s voice, rapid hoofbeats, and distant thunder. No. This can’t be. “I’m…”

But he was talking, clinging tight, talking, talking, talking, gesturing to the officers behind him. “Quick! Go get…” Not happening. This couldn’t be real. But he was holding her hand, lifting it, examining the scab on her arm. “Breanna, what happened to you?”

“Nothing!” He can’t be here. She tried to wrench herself free. She had to get free. Where was he sending that other constable? “Curt, you’re hurting me.”

Where’s Will?

What if—

“Don’t move!”

Bree froze her struggles, but the order was not for her.

“Who are you?” Curt demanded, his eyes on Jamie. “Breanna, is he with—is he with them? Is he keeping you here against your will?”

“No!” Bree tried again to pull away. Still, he wouldn’t let go. Why wouldn’t he let her go? “Curt, leave him. Please. He didn’t—”

“You’re hurt.” Curt’s voice was dark, his gaze flicking between her arm and Jamie’s frozen form. “That miserable bastard hurt you. The one who got out.”

“No,” she said. “Listen, please, Curt, he didn’t. He didn’t. Let me go, and—and—leave him, Curt, please. Please—”

But Curt was only half-listening, it seemed; he was no longer even looking at her, and when he spoke, he merely repeated, “He didn’t let you go and leave.” With his gaze trained on Jamie’s, he stared, slow recognition leaching into his face. Realizing he had seen those features before. Realizing who else that ruddy hair and those strangely hued eyes belonged to.

Forming his own twisted narrative from the face he saw before him and the cry for help he thought he’d heard.

He cursed softly, and Bree cried his name, desperate for him to look anywhere but at Jamie’s face.

“What did they do to you?” he hissed.

“Nothing!”

“You’re lying to me,” said Curt furiously. “Again. After everything. Aren’t you? That bastard is here somewhere. I know he is. Who is that—his bloody twin?” Finally, he looked back at her. “Where is he?”

Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, don’t…

If she looked back at the townhouse, if she gave away the headquarters of Iustitia aecum, then it was all over—when it had barely even begun.

Don’t look back.

But she did.

She did, just in time to see a figure with red-brown hair fling open the door and start to run before a pair of brawny arms grabbed hold and yanked him out of sight.

Two furiously screamed names escaped before Will’s voice faded into strangled silence.

“Bree! Jamie! N—”

“That way,” Curt said, following her gaze. Following Will’s cry. One of his fellow constables hastened toward the townhouse, boots clicking maddeningly along the street.

And then he jerked his head toward Jamie and said, “Arrest him.”

Something shattered.

Perhaps it was the sound of Will’s voice being cut off. Perhaps it was the sight of that constable bolting toward the townhouse, all because her treacherous eyes could not do as they were told. Perhaps it was the cold fury in Curtis Lenton’s voice. Perhaps it was the way Jamie Wardrew did not move a muscle.

“No!” She thrashed against Curt’s grasp, and in his shock, he let go. “Curt, for the love of god, don’t do this, please!”

She made it three steps away from him before he captured her again.

“Why are you fighting me?” he asked as she pounded her fists against him. “Breanna—please! I’m here to help you! I’m going to get you away from these people!”

Tears, heavier and hotter and more painful than any she had ever shed in her life, blurred her vision. Her limbs trembled and, after a moment, gave out, for Curt did not listen. And he did not let go.

“Hey!”

All the officers froze.

“There’s no one there,” Jamie said. His words were calm. He had not run, and he still did not, even as the third officer approached him with his revolver drawn. But his arms, held in the air, trembled.

For one of them had the sleeve pulled up—baring the Iustitia aecum sigil for the constables to see.

“You’re too late,” Jamie said. “They’re already gone. You won’t find anyone else.”

Lies, Bree thought dizzily. A distraction to confuse them? Slow them down?

“Who are you?” Curt snarled again. “Where is the thief who escaped?” To the one he’d sent to the townhouse, he repeated the order to go, and the man obeyed.

“Forget him. He’s gone.” Jamie looked away from Curt’s glare to stare into the barrel of the other constable’s gun. His gaze met Bree’s for only an instant when the man reached him and wrenched his hands behind his back. “I’m the one who’s in charge of Iustitia aecum. I’m the one you want.”

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✨

[littleperilstories]

Yesterday I was just walking to work minding my own business and my brain was like, “What if Bree did marry Hatchett all those years ago but somehow still encountered Will when he got arrested?” and then I could barely think straight for the rest of the walk.

[natromanxoff]

RCD Magazine - 1992

(x)

Transcription and the rest of this interview is taken from brianmay.com:

It's been a traumatic year for Brian May. Freddie Mercury's illness and death, and the ensuing tabloid onslaught would have broken lesser mortals but May found refuge in his own work. the result is his solo album, Back to the Light. In an exclusive interview with Rock CD, Brian May tells Kirk Blows about life after Freddie.

COME WHAT MAY

The hair, as ever remains a trademark. Brian May's familiar curly black locks caress the side of his face as he pores over the photographs in a copy of Queen's Greatest Pix that detail the first decade of their career.

'It's funny, sometimes it seems like yesterday and sometimes it seems like a hundred years ago," he muses, reflecting on the images that document Queen's ascent from an intriguing British rock act with an acknowledgement of glamour and elegance - mainly down to their vocalist, one Frederick Mercury - to a stadium-filling entity, via some dandy sophistication.

He's more than entitled to consider many changes of the band's career as a blur, but the guitarist merely comments that 'all this has definitely had an effect on me. I'm not normal'. An ironic statement considering that Brian May is considered probably one of the most 'normal' beings within the rock fraternity. As he talks up at the group's Notting Hill headquarters of the final days of Queen, the death of Freddie Mercury and his new solo project - Back to the Light being his first solo album proper following 1983's Star Fleet Project mini-LP) credited to Brian May and Friends) - May comes across as an intelligent and sensitive human being with a great respect for privacy and protocol.

He's more than happy to appease fans and sign autographs when recognised, as long as there's a polite request, though 'there have been times when I physically haven't been able to relate to what's said. It makes you feel almost sick because somebody comes up to you and tells you how wonderful you are, but inside you really honestly feel that you don't relate to that and that they're talking about someone else.'

'There's also a part of me that just cringes every time I see a camera lens,' he admits, relating a time when he fell victim to paparazzo king Richard Young. 'There are certain situations where I don't feel comfortable having him around. Richard was one of the people that the band did kind of trust, but when all this stuff came out about me and Anita (Dobson, May's actress girlfriend) there was a picture that got published which Richard took at Fred's private party of me standing with Anita, and that still hurts me that he would sell that picture for that purpose.'

It was when news broke of that relationship in the tabloids that 'the spotlight came squarely on us. And it was hell, it was miserable,' he says.

'The way they treat people's lives is just disgusting. I don't think that people have a right to know everbody's private life. I don't see how that benefits the world at all. I think this country wins as far as pointless smut. And there's nothing you can do. There's a point where if something looks like it's going to sell newspapers they can all come and camp on your doorstep. They can be looking in your window, taking pictures of you on the toilet, there is nothing you can do and I think it should be change.'

The death of Freddie Mercury last November gave the tabloids another opportunity to wreak havoc.

'I think it's all very predicatable,' May sighs. 'After his death even, they went both ways. There were some who wanted to bathe in the glory and some who still wanted to have their little digs, and, of course, now they had more freedom, because they're free of the laws of libel. So some of them really laid into him with complete lies. I was appalled... it made me so angry. Not just because they were slating Freddie, which is bad enough, but because it was dangerous for other people. They were saying things like "Fred got AIDS because he was promiscuous, the rest of us needn't worry". I think the Evening Standard was one of the worst offenders. And to print that stuff is gonna make a few kids think, I'm okay, and the next day they'll be HIV positive. I think the people that put out that kind of stuff are guilty of something very serious.'

It almost goes without saying that the closing annals of Queen's career were indeed painful, as May, bassist John Deacon and drummer Roger Taylor witnessed the gradual demise of their vocalist. Both Th Miracle (1989) and last year's Innuendo were recorded in the knowledge that they would probably be Freddie Mercury's last efforts.

'I think we all thought The Miracle was going to be last one because there were no guarantees how long Fred was gonna last at that time, and he'd been told by his doctor that he probably wouldn't last the duration of that album. So we just knew we had to press on and do what we could,' reflects Brian. 'In Freddie's mind it was totally clear to him, he just said "I want to go on working, business as usual, until I fucking drop. That's what I want, and I'd like you to support me in being able to do this and that's why I don't want any discussion about this".'

'I think we were all going through miserable, difficult times, and the studio becomes the only place where you have some sort of refuge. And I know for him it kept him alive, and even when he got to the point... he was already having problems doing The Miracle, but by the time Innuendo was there he could only just stand, and he could sing - by end of that album - just one or two days a week. It was tough psychologically having to sort of... keep it from everyone else, I suppose, because I never told my family or anything.'

When did the band actually discover that Freddie had AIDS?

'Well... various private moments, but I suppose... it was a gradual thing. There's a lot of unspoken stuff for a long time and then, yeah, there was a point where we sat down and talked about it, but I suppose that was only about... talking about it directly, only a few months before he went, nine months before or something.'

'You'll find things on The Miracle where we're already sort of... on The Miracle we actually managed to write stuff together, which is a miracle in itself, becaue we all used to be very pig-headed and very possessive about our songs. But we did, we wrote together, and there's certainly stuff in The Miracle where we're talking about what it's all gonna mean as we wind it up. You can see that now and it got very direct on Innuendo.'

Is listening to Innuendo a painful experience now?

''Mmmmmm... yes, it is. It is painful, especially on the radio when you're unprepared. Sometimes you just hear a snatch of his voice and you think, Christ, he's not around doing that no more.'

Rather than throwing May off course from his solo album - the genesis of which took place five years ago ('I've written a little explanation on the album, and what it says is I've been doing this for five years and during that time my life and my feelings changed, and so the music is a cross section of all that. I was in a pretty sort of low state five yars ago, I was very untogether and in much pain,' he states) - he sought refuge in the recording process.

'I made a conscious decision that I would work my way through it and I think it's helped,' he declares. 'I just plunged into recording almost every day. We all did get... I don't know if we're actually through it yet. There's a part of us that doesn't believe that he's not there yet. It takes a long time to really adjust and redraw your map, you know. I still expect him to come in the door really, particularly in the studio, there's still that feeling.'

'Some of it's quite nice, you know, sometimes when I'm doing something I sort of feel like he's... I'm not a heavily spiritual person but I would feel what Fred would've said. I can hear him saying "No, c'mon, you can do better than that". Part of me is beginning to feel sort of comfortable about it, and he's not suffering anymore, thank God.'

'You think you're prepared but you can't... we were totally destroyed. He was exceptional. I know I'm biased, you know, but I think he was a very unusual person, quite complex in a way, and yet inside, like the rest of us, quite small. You know, the feelings of insecurity and smallness that we all have propel us to do all sorts of things, don't they, you build up your compensation screen. You develop all these ways of dealing with life, but it's always... even if you lose touch with it, which some people do and I did at some point, it's always in there somewhere, this little person that's still basically a child, that's very vulnerable, and Fred was, definitley.'

'I think I'm stil trying to get my perspectives on what this all was. And I feel very proud of what we were, you know. I just consider that I was very fortunate to be part of all that, and we found a combination that was magical and worked. Freddie in particular is... sometimes his methods were very blunt with people, to stir up... sometimes he stirred up hatred in people, but he got a reaction from everyone.'

'It's almost a selfish thing to say, but you lose a part of yourself. I lost my dad not too long ago, and you grieve because he's not there, and then there's also something else going on, which is that you've lost a piece of yourself. And that's how I feel, I've been close to Freddie for 25 years, which is most of my adult life, and so there's a gaping hole. And it'll be a long time before it doesn't feel like that, I'm sure.'

How did Roger Taylor and John Deacon handle Freddie's death?

May takes a long pause. 'Er... .. I think we all got completely messed up in our diferent ways, you'd have to talk to them, you know. But it was a continuous process, of which the actual death was one part. I think we all got seriously messed up in the time leading up to it, because you're part of it and you feel so helpless. None of us could believe that it was happening before our eyes.'

'I think the last two or three years actually brought us together, as there was this feeling that the world outside can crumble but there is something in here which is worth doing. So I think we did get pretty close and I think we are still fairly close.'

Back To The Light - made with the assistance of bassist Neil Murray ('a favourite player of mine') and drummer Cozy Powell ('we actually developed a good way of working together, so hopefully there's the beginnings of something there') - may reflect a range of differing emotions but it's inevitable that Freddie Mercury's death permeates some of the record.

'There's quite a bit, I suppose, you'd have to fish it out quite carefully. Some of it's quite ambiguous; when I used to listen to Dylan and John Lennon I'd get a piece of life from them that meant something to me,' he says.

'Nothing But Blue happened because Cozy came in with a backing track and said play something on it. It was the night before Freddie went, but for the first time I had this complete conviction that it was imminent, and I felt that he was going at that point. I used that track and wrote the song about how I felt at that point.'

Rather less emotional was the experience of penning Drive By You, a version of which appears as the soundtrack for a Ford TV advert, after being approached by some advertising execs in LA: 'I said to them, "If you throw something at me I'll tell you whether it means anything to me or not." It was only after recognising the ambiguity of the phrase 'driven by you' that he decided to write the song.

'I approached it on two fronts, one was for the advert - which has different words, obviously - and the other was for me. And it was only because I could do it for me that I did it at all.'

'This album to me is a sort of divide, a crossroads. I wanted to make this record on my own, with nobody else to argue with, just to see what happened. My major driving force really is to do something worthwhile, so that when I do die I can say I'm proud of that. The worst thing you can do is stick out more wallpaper for the world. I would hate to put anything out that I thought was just repetition or superfluous or whatever. The only reason I've put this out is because I think I actually do have something to say, and it's worth saying. That's why it's taken five years, I suppose, I could have chucked out all sorts of stuff. I'm quite good at being a craftsman, I can make pop songs to a certain extent, I know I can. But I wanted this album to be... to be special to some people.'

The ultimate goal, though is to take it out live. Does he see himself as a frontman?

'Erm... interesting question,' he says, laughing. 'It's early days yet. I sung until I bled in the studio and it's for other people to judge whether I pulled it off or not, but I did some things I didn't think I could do in the beginning. But it's very different doing it on stage. I don't know if I have the expertise or the flair, or even the physical capabilites to deliver that stuff for two hours. I seem to suffer from colds half my life anyway, but there's only one day in three where I can sing that stuff on the album, so I'm still wrestling with that problem.'

There's still been no formal notification of Queen's split as yet.

'I don't know what splitting up means, really,' May says. 'I mean, we're not doing anything together at the moment except making sure that the all the old stuff is properly handled (the band have been overseeing the remasering of their catalogue for CD; And if you don't keep an eye on all that stuff it doesn't get done right. Half the original master of the first album is missing, nobody knows where it is. It's quite shocking,' he says). But we talk, and when we feel a bit more ready for it we'll go in and look at the material which Fred has sung and that we haven't released yet, because there is a bit left,'he declares, estimating that there's 'about half an album's worth.'

'We always said that if any of us disappeared that would be the end of it and I think that's right really, I don't have any inclination to try and be Queen without Freddie. That doesn't mean that I don't ever want to work with the other two again because I like working with them and I think we do have the ability to play together which the (Freddie Mercury tribute) gig showed. But how we do that in the future I've no idea. All I know is that at the moment, I don't want to do another thing like Wembley.. it's been suggested that we could do other things like that, but I don't want to make a career of it. That was for a purpose.'

'I think a lot of people thought that Queen was very calculating,' he opines, 'that we had this world domination plan, but in fact we didn't. The major thing for us was to keep ourselves in areas that we thought were worthwhile. And even though we didn't have a masterplan we always fought for control, and I think all the mistakes we made we made ourselves. But I don't feel like we have to make any apologies, if you have any spirit of adventure in you you do make mistakes.'

'It's funny, I went to a book launch the other day, and this guy came up to me and said "Hullo, pleased to meet you, I'm a socialist," or something like that, and he said, "I just want to tell you I really like some of your work. That was the first album, and after that you did crap and everything was commerical and everybody knows that". And I said, "I guess so, I guess that includes Bohemian Rhapsody and We Will Rock You and all that stuff", and he said "I still wanted to say, y'know, you did some good stuff". And that was the conversation really, and I thought, everybody has their own view. That's his view, and it wasn't worth arguing, because that's the way he sees it. There's some people who hated everything we did, you know. That's life.'

Kirk Blows

The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert

'We had a lot of doubts. On the night that Freddie died we announced that when the time was right we'd send him off in the manner and style to which he was accustomed, so it was in our minds from the beginning. But we went through quite a while where we actually didn't want to do it. When we looked at it and thought we're gonna be on stage with someone else singing Freddie's lines, we weren't sure whether we did want to do it or not. I think Deacky in particular said that he didn't.'

'Then we got to the point where we said, okay, let's contact some people and see how they feel about it - some key people we thought it would be nice to work with and who we knew had special feelings about Freddie. And they were so enthusiastic, we sort of gained momentum from that point. I'm talking about George Michael and Elton, Guns N' Roses...'

'A lot of it happened in rehearsals, the moments where it would all get too much... the first time we met all those people and went through the songs, there were some incredibly emotional moments. And I think the three of us got through a lot of that before the actual gig, not all of it but a lot of it. I think we were aware that if we were in tears the whole time it would be a joke, it just wouldn't work. It had to be a up thing; Fred would've hated people mooning around and being maudlin over him. So we wanted it to be big and actually rejoicing about his life, 'cos that's what it was about.'

'I think most of it worked. We made some mistakes... but I think for what we took on most of it came off, as an event. As far as playing, it was a case of getting through, because there was so much to worry about in terms of the show.'

'But there were some great things, you know, seeing Axl and Elton... there were some amazing things and I was personally very proud of Liza Minnelli being there because I think Freddie would have wanted that. I think she's quite close to him in spirit, and almost everybody disagreed with me, but I don't think anybody else could have stepped into that spot at the end of the show (for We Are The Champions). I could've sung it, but I don't think it would've meant what it did done that way'.

[thewales]

[Really hoping that Charles pulls a Margrethe soon and removes titles from the traitors and their family, they don't deserve them, they don't serve anything from the RF and besides they were apparently so traumatized by them and the formalities, why do they even want those titles? They can keep living under the titles of king and queen of lies.]

To this ask you received, why didn’t this person hope that QE2 pulled a Daisy? Meghan gave the Oprah interview while pregnant - she could have pulled the trigger to issue new LP but didn’t and left it to KC3 to sort out along with Andy.

If KC3 issues new LP, it will apply to more than just the Sussex kids. And then the twitter mob that is crying now about him being weak, are going to cry that he’s cruel.

Okay a few things to say.

I don't mean to speak for the Anon who said that but honestly, Lizzie's favourite animal to imitate was the Ostrich, especially when it was something to do with the former spares.

The interview Meghan AND Harry gave to oprah. Please stop blaming her alone for everything, I think it's pretty clear that the biggest problem in this whole mess is the ginger who lives in denial about his hair.

Lizzie could fix that problem even before Henry got married but she didn't want to, for whatever reason.

The last thing you said is true and I think it partly confirms that all the "outrage" from many is because it is about the sussexes and not because of the situation itself. The decision that many are demanding would affect Louis' children, maybe Charlotte's if some other things change when she, perhaps, decides to have children. Will they be happy with that? What personally makes me laugh about this outrage is that today they were celebrating that the 13th in line of succession received another title, they complained that their son who will probably never be working royal will not inherit it but they cross the line when it comes to the titles of Henry's children.

[mariacallous]

In Marina Lambrini Diamandis' oft-cited comeback interview with Popjustice last August, she introduced the concept that would lead into her second album: that of Electra Heart, a kind of not-quite-alter-ego/character/affectation/cinematic simulacrum that would feed into the follow-up to her 2010 debut LP as Marina and the Diamonds, The Family Jewels. Representing Greek tragedy, the "loss and failure" side of the American Dream, a daddy complex, and the vacuity apparently lingering inside us all, over six months prior to the eventual release of the LP there was very much a feeling of Marina over-complicating the whole affair: trying to dress up the high-gloss record that she had made with Katy Perry's collaborators (seemingly at the behest of her major label) in layers of philosophy, mythology, artifice, and blonde wigs. (There's a babyish song here called "Hypocrates", misspelled for seemingly no good reason, and with no reference to the philosopher in the song.) It must have stung like billy-o when Lana Del Rey came along and executed precisely what Marina was aiming for, hardly having to open her much-discussed mouth in order to explain herself whilst Marina tied herself in conceptual knots. In short, Electra Heart bears no profound relationship to Greek mythology or philosophical thought beyond exploring situations of basic human pathos (or lack thereof), but its rare affecting moments are heavy with tragedy.

The Family Jewels was disliked by many for its vaudevillian Sparks-like gaucheness, Marina's self-aggrandizement and cock-a-hoop vocal (though there's no doubting the chops of a song like "Hollywood"). But there was a sense of personality to the music as well as Diamandis' deep, hiccupy voice, and a promising sense of audaciousness that's been all but lost here. Working with Dr. Luke, Stargate, Greg Kurstin, and Liam Howe, the songs on Electra Heart fall into three basic categories: the bland, swampy banger (sub-category: "Lies"' Skrillex-lite), a regal, electronic strut falling somewhere between Depeche Mode at their poppiest and the Doctor Who theme tune, and very cloying, nursery rhyme music-box ballads. The campy ding-dong of "The State of Dreaming" is as close as Electra Heart gets to fun, with huge church bells whooshing from side to side in the mix like a pantomime dame testing the trajectory of her ball gown skirts. Relegating great early single "Radioactive" to the bonus tracks on the deluxe version of the LP is nearly as daft as some of the waffle that Marina comes out with here.

Marina really, really wants you to know that she's into pop culture, though the lazy, meaningless strings of references that comprise a good chunk of the songs here aren't any kind of postmodern comment on the Tumblr-ification of society, but just plain bad songwriting. The bombardment of archetypes and clichés is exhausting: "Beauty queen of a silver screen" persuading someone to buy her "a big diamond ring" on "Primadonna"; the titular "Homewrecker" (where excruciatingly bad spoken word verses clash against a pretty triumphant chorus) whose "life is a mess, but I'm still looking pretty in this dress." "Teen Idle" is just horrible, a glitchy ballad that sounds as though it was recorded in a church, where she wishes to be a "virgin pure/ A 21st century whore," "a prom queen fighting for the title/ instead of being 16 and burning up a bible/ feeling super super super suicidal," a chorus of Marinas echoing "super." She wishes for "blood, guts, and angel cake" because "I'm gonna puke it anyway," a weird preoccupation of hers that also crops up in "Homewrecker" ("girls and their cosmic gourmet vomit"), continued from "Girls" on her debut. But as for ending the ego, Marina does seem obsessed with ideas of finality and death-- knowing "where I will belong/ When they blow me out" on the quavering, celestial "Fear and Loathing"-- seemingly finding solace in the reliability of microcosmic, compact celebrity tragedies, perhaps in the face of the parts of this album that ring desperately true.

"You only ever touch me in the dark/ Only if we're drinking can you see my spark," she sings on "Lies". "The only time you open up is when we get undressed," she laments on "Starring Role", which glimmers like clashing porcelain before a stuttering, empowering chorus where she refuses to be a supporting cast member in an alluded-to love triangle. "Doesn't mean that I am weak," she asserts on "Power & Control", repeating, "I am weak, I am weak, I am weak" in an increasingly ephemeral voice. "Every day I feel the same/ Stuck, and I can never change/ Sucked into a black balloon/ Spat into an empty room" goes "Living Dead", a snappy, taut Soft Cell-like number. It feels like shaky ground to say that these vulnerable moments are Electra Heart's finest, catchiest, and hardest-hitting songs, Marina's soaring vocals packing some genuine emotion, picking up on themes of self-loathing that don't need blasé allusions to bulimia in order to indicate emotional emptiness; where the often transcendent states of sex and alcohol collaborate for profoundly dispiriting experiences. Her honesty, at least, is empowering. Whilst there's no getting past some of the duller and more unbearable material on this record, it's a real shame that it's come hamstrung in this unnecessary concept, ready for people to laugh when Marina fails to pull it off. If she'd made a record full of songs as unaffected as these four, Electra Heart could be one of the year's most acclaimed pop albums. Let's hope there's a next time.

[chaosincurate]

My month in music - July 2023

Prince - 1999

New Order - Power, Corruption, and Lies

The Beatles - Revolver

Squid - Bright Green Field

Squid - O Monolith (relisten)

Nothing But Thieves - Dead Club City (new)

Slowdive - Souvlaki

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland

Madvillain - Madvillainy

Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city

Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King

King Crimson - Discipline

Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

black midi - Hellfire (relisten)

Regina Spektor - Soviet Kitsch (relisten)

Gabriels - Angels & Queens (new)

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - SCARING THE HOES (new)

Alvvays - Alvvays (relisten)

Injury Reserve - By the Time I Get to Phoenix

Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope

Regina Spektor - Far

Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee (relisten)

Alvvays - Blue Rev (relisten)

Regina Spektor - 11:11

JPEGMAFIA - LP! (Offline)

Write-ups below

Prince - 1999

In a continuation of my "I was wrong about Prince" arc, I gotta say, this album is incredible. One of the most admirable traits Prince's music has, is the ability to lock into a groove and just keep it going for insane runtimes without it overstaying it's welcome, and that is very much a trait that is on display on this album, with only two songs being under 5 minutes, and only a couple of the others are noticeably long.

I imagine it's safe to assume anyone reading this has already heard the title track and Little Red Corvette, so realistically you've already had a taste of this album, but if you're looking for another song to try, D.M.S.R. stood out to me as an exceptional example of that previously mentioned ability to lock into a groove for ages without it becoming noticeable.

New Order - Power, Corruption, and Lies

A brighter, more hopeful version of Joy Division, as they are often labelled, New Order creates a distinction between itself and it's predecessor by simply being a less challenging listen, emotionally and intellectually. That isn't to say that it's any less deep, though. There is still plenty to dig into here, but I would argue that it is more optional here than with what I've heard from Joy Division.

I think if I were to recommend an individual song, I'd put forward the opener, Age of Consent. It's an excellent establishment of the band's personality, whether or not you're familiar with Joy Division, and therefore the majority of New Order.

The Beatles - Revolver

I think it's time to admit that I'm never gonna get The Beatles. I understand that they were incredibly influential and that some of my favourite bands wouldn't exist without their work, and many of them would be drastically different, but I just don't understand how people can listen to it with the developments we've made since and not find them incredibly lackluster. After listening to Abbey Road, Help, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (not a concept album btw), and now Revolver, I have only enjoyed the first of those as a whole project. Granted, I hear picking a version of Sgt. Pepper's to listen to is like playing Russian Roulette with a half full revolver, so maybe I just chose wrong there, but the other two don't have that excuse. I just don't get the hype when it comes to modern listening.

Squid - Bright Green Field

I remember seeing this album a lot when it was first released, and my tastes must not have been ready for that yet, because I do remember, quite distinctly, listening to something off of this album. Clearly though, I was right to hold off, because my tastes have since broadened enough for me to absolutely love this. Bright Green Field is an energetic art-punk album with a compelling breadth of themes and executes all of them with a very engaging subtlety that balances having a clear meaning with allowing the listener to have their own interpretations. The way this manifests, is that you will have a general idea of what the song is pointing towards, but will have to fill the nuances in for yourself, which I find gives you a better connection to the music.

A great example of that in action, and possibly my favourite song off the album, is Narrator. It is pretty clear that, no matter what your interpretation is, whatever the woman in the song represents is being victimized and forced to beg for scraps from a more powerful being. For me, the interpretation that makes most sense is that the song is about patriarchy, and how both men and women are pushed to act a certain way, but how men often get the better deal, even if there are many ways in which they are equally trapped, playing their respective parts. However you look at it though, it is a great demonstration of how power dynamics like that are entirely damaging.

Squid - O Monolith

For the most part this album is pretty stylistically similar to Bright Green Field, but I'd say this one is more consistently experimental than their last effort. Overall though, if you liked BGF, you'll probably like O Monolith. There's not a lot that you can say about the former that doesn't apply to the latter.

My favourite song off the album is The Blades, another great song by Squid about power, in this case the abuse of it and the loss of it, seemingly through the perspective of a police officer or soldier who inflicts pain and torment under the guise of protection, and then feels inadequate when they lose their position. The line "Another man's hand on the joystick instead of mine" feels full of the kind of jealousy one would feel when they are being cheated on. A righteous spite and tinge of self-hatred, like an all encompassing emotional poison.

Nothing But Thieves - Dead Club City

Nothing But Thieves are a band I talked about before, in my Top 100 One Song Per Artist post (at 52 to save you some time if you're interested), and I made sure to mention that they were crucial to developing my music taste, but I do feel like I've largely grown to have a disdain for their music. I look at their older stuff with a similar love to the one I had in my younger days, albeit with a slight undercurrent of acknowledgement that if it weren't for nostalgia I may not like it so much; but their new music always feels strange to listen to because of that. There are only a few songs I can actually get into without it feeling like a hollow nostalgia. This isn't their fault, of course, it's me who's changed, but it does result in a strange experience.

Also, for a more objective criticism, what is it with bands just having, like, 3 songs that contribute to a theme or story and calling it a concept album? This could have been a cool concept album, but there's just an opener which introduces you to a concept (a thinly veiled metaphor for the internet, most specifically social media and the other dopamine pumping addiction machines across the web), then maybe slightly touches on it a couple times, then has this epic, riotous closer that has no payoff because there was basically no buildup. I understand most people just don't care, but I really like concept albums, and the amount out there that claim to be one while offering no greater cohesion than the average album is infuriating to me.

Anyway, I did really enjoy Do You Love Me Yet? It felt like it was contributing kinda well to the concept, and the way they mix orchestra and crunchy, headbanging alternative rock is novel and works surprisingly well. The lyrics are painfully mediocre, but the concept of the song and the instrumental carries it well enough for it to not be that big a deal for me.

Slowdive - Souvlaki

I feel like I've kind of been unintentionally circling and prodding at the genre of shoegaze, especially since listening to, and subsequently adoring, Blue Rev by Alvvays. This month I decided to take an intentional dive into this music that seems like such a good fit for me by listening to one of the subgenre's most beloved albums. Unsurprisingly, I liked it. I was a little hesitant to listen to something shoegaze, because my first experience was with my bloody valentine a little while back and I didn't like how the lyrics were seen as so secondary to the music. I've since become a little more open to that, so maybe it's worth a revisit, but that experience with the shoegaze album kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. Fortunately, between Blue Rev and this, my palette has thoroughly cleansed and sweetened.

I love how the genre, when done well, entirely envelops you similarly to metal, but with a sweetness, like the difference between a hug and a sleeper hold.

That being said, my favourite song off of the album is probably the one that probably adheres to it the least, that being Souvlaki Space Station. The guitars here have this kind of alarm-like sound that gives you a deep sense of something going very wrong, and that enveloping that I mentioned earlier feels less like a hug now and more like a crowd of panicked people rushing past you for the nearest exit. It's an incredibly anxious atmosphere, and the album would be harmed by more than the sum of the songs parts were it not on the track list.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland

Not much needs to be said about this one. It's a classic for a reason. If you're after a captivating experience that melds charismatic vocals and one-of-a-kind guitar playing, then look no further than The Jimi Hendrix Experience. You've almost certainly already heard and fell in love with the incredible cover of All Along the Watchtower, so you have no excuse to not bless your ears with more of the same as far as I'm concerned.

If you must dip your toes a little more though, I'd recommend Rainy Day, Dream Away personally, with the 15 minute Voodoo Chile also being a highlight.

Madvillain - Madvillainy

This is a very deceptively rapid fire album. The beats aren't super invigorating and DOOM is so laid back as he makes history with his dense flow and wordplay. It makes for a very hard album to keep up with for someone with as little melanin as me, but what I kept up with was exceptional and hinted at a deserved legacy.

It's not just MF DOOM that makes this album great though. Madlib's beats are complex enough to be captivating, but not enough to feel like they're trying to take the spotlight off the awe-inspiring lyricism and flow that DOOM brings.

If I were to recommend a song, I'd struggle first and foremost because it's a very consistently amazing album, but the one that has really stuck with me is Fancy Clown. You really can't go too wrong though.

Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city

I'm not remotely likely to reach anyone who hasn't heard this album before (or at least knows if they ever will) with this, but I really loved this album. It is one of the best examples of an album that I have ever heard. The sequencing is damn near perfect, making the album feel noticeably effortless in a way that is hard to explain. It's so rare that an album is sequenced in such an excellent way and it feels so primally easy, like the very core of your being was made to listen to this album, like it has some ancient understanding of this project that predates both you and the album. It's immaculate. It's glorious. It's beautiful.

Kendrick is also clearly great at making albums that feel significantly more cohesive than albums that are supposed to be concept album. I've spoken about how irritated I get about albums just being called concept albums when that label doesn't apply, but for reference, this is how concept albums are done. Not having one or two songs connected to the concept, but only having one or two that don't. It's focused and it makes it so much more affecting.

With that in mind, I'd first and foremost recommend just listening to the album if you haven't already, but if you need to hear a song to be convinced, Money Trees is my suggestion. It is, as you'd expect from the title, a well executed depiction of the hustle culture and money obsession that comes with growing up in an economically deprived area, where the safety it can provide is invaluable.

Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid

I feel like the entirety of this album would be ruined if there were a single point where the performances slipped. On a conceptual level, it seems like there is a sense that it is better than it is. Like it doesn't recognize its simplicity, but because Janelle Monaé is an incredible performer, and the band is on point constantly, it elevates it and makes that conceptual simplicity a positive somehow. The incredible execution legitimizes the concept, at least it does for me.

To demonstrate Janelle Monaé's awesome skill as a performer, take Tightrope and imagine some random X Factor or American Idol finalist making it. For me, it turns into childish, top 40 slop in my imagination. But because it's Janelle Monaé, it feels sincere and meaningful, if a little self-aware in it's lack of conceptual complexity.

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King

Probably the album at the top of the must-listen list for prog-rock. I enjoyed the album enough to agree with that too. The songs are all really long but the experimental nature of the album really makes the album consistently attention-grabbing and entertaining.

It's a basic choice, but I really enjoyed 21st Century Schizoid Man. It's huge, it's anthemic, it's got bombast and aggression, along with that previously mentioned experimental nature.

King Crimson - Discipline

Discipline didn't impress me quite as much as In the Court of the Crimson King, but it was still a pretty great experience. It's very much more of the same great sound that made Crimson King such a standout record, but just to a slightly lesser quality in my humble opinion and with more of a focus on settling into a repetitive groove than on their earlier record. I'd definitely recommend that you listen to that before Discipline if you're interested and haven't already.

The standout track for me, and the song I'd recommend is Thela Hun Ginjeet. I feel it embodies the unique elements of this record in particular pretty well.

Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

I don't really think I'm a Bob Dylan sort of guy because I just couldn't get into this on anything other than an intellectual level. Because of that, and the fact that as I write this I'm a few days past the day I wanted this to be posted by, I'll just say that I'd recommend listening to Tangled Up In Blue if you're unsure and move swiftly on.

black midi - Hellfire

I've spoken at length about this album multiple times before, so I'll keep this pretty brief, but this is quite possibly my favourite album of all time. It was my first exposure to black midi because, based on the album art and the name, I assumed it was heavy metal or something equally heavy. I was very wrong about that. They are absolutely a band that will overwhelm on first listen, but not in a heavy metal sort of way. There is a complex intensity to the album that, at least for me, inspired an almost religious experience where I couldn't even begin to grasp what I just experienced, but it just felt right to me.

I could very easily recommend any song off the album, but today I'll go with Sugar/Tzu. It's a very theatrical song, using a boxing match as a metaphor for... Something. It's pretty abstract and open to interpretation. I'll leave you to come up with your own.

Regina Spektor - Soviet Kitsch

Another one I've written about a lot already, I should really just write about these albums so I can link somewhere when they pop up in future.

Anyway, I've been on a bit of a Regina Spektor kick lately and been listening to some of her other albums, and I gotta say, as much as I love and appreciate those albums too, they all just make me appreciate how special this one is even more. None of her other albums that I've listened to have the same quirky, artistic charm that this does. It's all a little different. Here, the songs feel of-the-earth, dug up in this incredibly affecting, raw, primitive state that spoke directly to emotions in the language of emotions. It's incredible and I don't expect I'll hear anything quite like it for a very long time, if ever.

Recently, I've really enjoyed Chemo Limo, and I see no reason not to suggest that as a single song for those who want to dip their toes.

Gabriels - Angels & Queens

I'm going to be honest, I was distracted when I first listened to this album and never revisited it fully. That being said, the title track popped up on shuffle a lot and I got really into it in that less focused context, so I imagine that's a good recommendation for an individual song.

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - SCARING THE HOES

This whole album is so chaotic, anthemic, exciting, and weird enough to earn it's title. JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown's energies click so perfectly too, which really gives this album an infectious, propulsive flow. It's definitely my favourite hip-hop album of the year so far and I'm disappointed that it took me so long to listen.

I think this album is at it's best when it's chaotic energy is at it's highest, so if you're looking for a song to try it out first, I'd go with the opener, Lean Beef Patty. It's an explosive start, and prepares you perfectly for the experience you're about to have.

Alvvays - Alvvays

I've made no effort to keep the fact that I absolutely love Alvvays under wraps. In fact, I've made a whole ass post about it. That being said, this is clearly a version of the band that wasn't quite as keen to explore new sonic palettes as they have since become. It's pretty one note, but they chose a great note to linger on, like an F#. Solid note for sure, but if I were to nitpick, I'd like a few more.

As I implied in that first paragraph, the album is incredibly consistent, so it's another one of those albums where you could close your eyes and point to a song to try if you were unsure, but here I'd like to recommend fan favourite Archie, Marry Me. Much like the rest of the album, it's dreamy, twee, and euphoric, with some sardonic lyricism courtesy of Molly Rankin, where, depending on how sarcastic you think she's being, she's either targeting the pressure to marry, or the person who is unwilling despite their shared commitment to one another. It's really good and fun and full of indie charm, you should give it a listen.

Injury Reserve - By the Time I Get to Phoenix

Much like the Bob Dylan album I talked briefly about earlier in this post, I enjoyed this way more on an intellectual level moreso than on any other, although I was able to get into this one a little bit more. It's a very intense experimental hip-hop album generally centered around grief, which makes it more intense and, at the same time, more harmonious for the way it intensifies that innate intensity.

The best songs off the album are towards the end in my opinion, and to suggest you listen to one of those before the album as a whole would probably lead to a worse experience with the album, so I'll suggest Superman That as an introduction instead. It's glitchy and stuttered which grants a heightened level of desperation to the sound of the song as the hook "ain't no saving me or you" punctuates it.

Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope

As I said earlier, I feel like Regina Spektor, if she was trying to, struggled to recapture the very specific charm of Soviet Kitsch, but as they say, shoot for the stars, and if you fall short you'll make it to the moon. There is still plenty to love here if you aren't comparing it to a once-in-a-lifetime record. The lyricism is still fantastic, albeit in a different way now, with Samson in particular being a song from this album that felt incredibly poetic. Après Moi on the other hand shows off her ability to make lyrically focused music instrumentally interesting. It's still a great album, just not as unique as I was hoping after hearing Soviet Kitsch. I'd still highly recommend giving it a listen if you like lyrically focused art pop ballads.

Regina Spektor - Far

A lot of what I said about Begin to Hope applies here too. I saw a few people pointing out Eet as their favourite Regina Spektor album, but I'm going to have to disagree there. Personally, my favourite ended up being One More Time With Feeling. It's just one of those songs that make you feel backed up and supported in whatever challenges you may be feeling. It somehow reminds me of Road to Nowhere by Talking Heads in that respect.

All in all, this was by quite a way my least favourite Regina Spektor album so far, but it is still very much worth a listen for me. She's just a very special artist, the likes of which don't come around very often, and that has been clear in every single album I've heard so far.

Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee

I imagine I've written about Jubilee before, but not often enough. It's such a great example of an album being fun without sacrificing depth. Admittedly, not every song here is positive, but the majority are, as the title would suggest, and I can't describe in words alone how happy I am that there is an album out there proving to the depression snobs that you don't have to be sad to be interesting, and proving to the lazy that you don't have to give up meaning to make music that expresses the positive sides of life.

The example I adore most is the opener, Paprika. Its an absolutely gorgeous song that has dug it's way deeper and deeper into my mind since I listened to it to the point that I'm convinced one day my whole personality will be Paprika by Japanese Breakfast. The song, and by extension, the album, opens to slow, ascending synths that are instantly positive and comforting. Then you hear the beautiful lyrics, "Lucidity came slowly, I awoke from dreams of untying a great knot". the words that have not left my head for more than a day in months. Gorgeous. Then you get a triumphant drum line to give the song a soft drive, and eventually the chorus

"How's it feel to be at the center of magic to linger in tones and words?

I opened the floodgates and found no water, no current, no river, no rush

How's it feel to stand at the height of your powers to captivate every heart?

Projecting your visions to strangers who feel it, who listen, who linger on every word?

Oh, it's a rush"

I had to share it in full. It's such a beautiful ode to music, it brought a tear to even my dry eye.

This has grown to be my favourite song off the album for it's summation of everything within the project, but aspects of this beauty are reflected in other moments on it. If left-field pop is even in the vague vicinity of "your thing", this is a must listen. If not the album, Paprika at least.

Alvvays - Blue Rev

I've talked enough about Blue Rev by now. It's a fantastic noisy, shoegaze album. Listen to After The Earthquake if that sounds up your alley. Even if you've heard it before, treat yourself. You deserve it.

Regina Spektor - 11:11

I really loved the sparse production on this album. It allowed the lyrics to take center stage alongside Regina Spektor's amazing, expressive vocals, that prevent the music from feeling empty. It's some great artistry on display to almost make the sparsity go unnoticed.

I think there are two great songs that serve as microcosms of the album as a whole. First, Rejazz. Here, there's only a bass and Regina Spektor's immaculate vocals which cover ground from deep growls, to delicate highs within the space of seconds in a way that feels natural, as if it's just an attempt to squeeze out every single bit of emotion she can as she sings of losing someone and recognizing the catastrophizing she is doing, convincing herself that she will cry forever and realizing how untrue that is.

Next, I wanted to bring up I Want to Sing because it is a great example of the intimacy that the sparseness of the album creates. Here, there are no instruments at all, taking that acoustic idea to the absolute max without literally having a silent track, and therefore making it feel almost as if you're in the room with her in some cheesy romance film moment. That's not to say that this is a simple love song though, because she recognizes the absurdity of her situation with glimpses of that aggressive anti-cliché writing that initially drew me to Spektor's music with Soviet Kitsch.

JPEGMAFIA - LP! (Offline)

After listening to and being blown away by SCARING THE HOES, I developed an itch for that sort of sound, and considering JPEGMAFIA was responsible for my favourite parts of that album, I decided to start here, and I was impressed. I didn't enjoy it as much as STH, but it was an abrasive and chaotic enough experience that the itch is very much scratched for now.

As much as it seemed out of place as the fourth track on the album, I'd recommend listening to the song END CREDITS as a first taste of the album.

[idkiwillfindone]

Alright playlist for a ship are cool but what about a Henbelch divorce playlist

For now i have:

Rät by Penelope Scott

Lost on you by LP

Lies by Marina and the diamonds

Woke up from distant land obsidian

Dead girl walking reprise from Heathers

Love me dead by Ludo

King of anything by Sara Bareilles

Dead to me by Melanie Martinez

Lotta true crime by Penelope Scott

So what by P!nk

No children by the mountain goats

I want to break free by queen

Burn from Hamilton

Un’emozione da poco by Anna Oxa

A man without love by Engelbert Humperdinck

You give love a bad name by Bon Jovi

Twin size mattress by the front bottoms

Dove ho sbagliato by Checco Zalone

I will always think of you from Bojack horseman

All i want is you by Rebzyyx

Sociopath by Stèlouse

Moral of the story by Ashe

They’re coming to take me away by Napoleon XIV

I say no from heathers

It took me by surprise by Maria Mena

Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift

Memories by Conan Gray

Mommy fwiend by Penelope Scott

Last lullaby part 1 from centaur world

I’ll update this as I’ll find more

[longliverockback]

The Who The Studio Albums [Box Set] 2012 Polydor ————————————————— Tracks LP One: My Generation 01. Out in the Street 02. I Don’t Mind 03. The Good’s Gone 04. La-La-La Lies 05. Much Too Much 06. My Generation 07. The Kids Are Alright 08. Please, Please, Please 09. It’s Not True 10. I’m a Man 11. A Legal Matter 12. The Ox

Tracks LP Two: A Quick One 01. Run Run Run 02. Boris the Spider 03. I Need You 04. Whiskey Man 05. Heat Wave 06. Cobwebs and Strange 07. Don’t Look Away 08. See My Way 09. So Sad about Us 10. A Quick One While He’s Away

Tracks LP Three: The Who Sell Out 01. Armenia City in the Sky 02. Heinz Baked Beans 03. Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand 04. Odorono 05. Tattoo 06. Our Love Was 07. I Can See for Miles 08. I Can’t Reach You 09. Medac 10. Relax 11. Silas Stingy 12. Sunrise 13. Rael (1 and 2)

Tracks LP Four: Tommy 01. Overture 02. It’s a Boy 03. 1921 04. Amazing Journey 05. Sparks 06. Eyesight to the Blind (the Hawker) 07. Christmas 08. Cousin Kevin 09. The Acid Queen 10. Underture

Tracks LP Five: Tommy [continued] 01. Do You Think It’s Alright? 02. Fiddle About 03. Pinball Wizard 04. There’s a Doctor 05. Go to the Mirror! 06. Tommy Can You Hear Me? 07. Smash the Mirror 08. Sensation 09. Miracle Cure 10. Sally Simpson 11. I’m Free 12. Welcome 13. Tommy’s Holiday Camp 14. We’re Not Gonna Take It

Tracks LP Six: Who’s Next 01. Baba O’Riley 02. Bargain 03. Love Ain’t for Keeping 04. My Wife 05. The Song Is Over 06. Getting in Tune 07. Going Mobile 08. Behind Blue Eyes 09. Won’t Get Fooled Again 10. Pure and Easy 11. Baby Don’t You Do It 12. Naked Eye 13. Water 14. Too Much of Anything 15. I Don’t Even Know Myself 16. Behind Blue Eyes

Tracks LP Seven: Quadrophenia 01. I’m the Sea 02. The Real Me 03. Quadrophenia 04. Cut My Hair 05. The Punk and the Godfather 06. I’m One 07. The Dirty Jobs 08. Helpless Dancer 09. Is It in My Head 10. I’ve Had Enough

Tracks LP Eight: Quadrophenia [continued] 01. 5:15 02. Sea and Sand 03. Drowned 04. Bell Boy 05. Doctor Jimmy 06. The Rock 07. Love, Reign o’er Me

Tracks LP Nine: The Who by Numbers 01. Slip Kid 02. However Much I Booze 03. Squeeze Box 04. Dreaming from the Waist 05. Imagine a Man 06. Success Story 07. They Are All in Love 08. Blue Red and Grey 09. How Many Friends 10. In a Hand or a Face

Tracks LP Ten: Who Are You 1. New Song 2. Had Enough 3. 905 4. Sister Disco 5. Music Must Change 6. Trick of the Light 7. Guitar and Pen 8. Love is Coming Down 9. Who Are You

Tracks LP Eleven: Face Dances 1. You Better You Bet 2. Don’t Let Go the Coat 3. Cache Cache 4. The Quiet One 5. Did You Steal My Money 6. How Can you Do It Alone 7. Daily Records 8. You 9. Another Tricky Day

Tracks LP Twelve: It’s Hard 01. Athena 02. It’s Your Turn 03. Cooks County 04. It’s Hard 05. Dangerous 06. Eminence Front 07. I’ve Known No War 08. One Life’s Enough 09. One at a Time 10. Why Did I Fall for That? 11. A Man Is a Man 12. Cry If You Want

Tracks LP Thirteen: Endless Wire 01. Fragments 02. A Man in a Purple Dress 03. Mike Post Theme 04. In the Ether 05. Black Widow’s Eyes 06. Two Thousand Years 07. God Speaks of Marty Robbins 08. It’s Not Enough 09. You Stand by Me

Tracks LP Fourteen: Wire & Glass 01. Sound Round 02. Pick up the Peace 03. Unholy Trinity 04. Trilby’s Piano 05. Endless Wire 06. Fragments of Fragments 07. We Got a Hit 08. They Made My Dream Come True 09. Mirror Door 10. Tea & Theatre 11. We Got a Hit [extended version] 12. Endless Wire [extended version] —————————————————

* Long Live Rock Archive

[somethingvinyl]

Speaking of records I’ve been waiting for… I started listening to @theorionexperience last year at @mystic.micron ‘s recommendation. Incredible dance pop rock, think Mother Mother meets Of Montreal. I looked at the time and saw that in 15 years, Cosmicandy had never been pressed on vinyl. I checked back a few months later (because I was still obsessed), and saw a 2021 test pressing listed on Discogs… I figured a release was imminent. At the beginning of this year they finally announced it and I preordered it on the first day—look at that cosmic swirl! Happy to have this incredible band and album on my shelf at last. If you haven’t heard them yet, cue up “Queen of White Lies” and “Cult of Dionysus”—you’ll be hooked. #theorionexperience #vinyl #vinyladay #lp #vinyloftheday #vinyligclub #vinyljunkie #vinylcommunity #vinylcollective #instavinyl #vinylgram #recordcollector #nowspinning https://www.instagram.com/p/CdjVEnvOmGs/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[petervc88]

Cappelle Calling - 30 oktober 2023

De LP van de Week staat bekend als hèt meesterwerk van Elton John, maar had destijds in ons land met een 74ste plek in de hitlijst geen succes: 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' uit 1973. Ik zette hem vanavond centraal voor een herwaardering. In de DisCovered een cover die ik al weken wilde behandelen. De Filmplaat was gekozen vanwege Halloween. Uiteraard moest ik het ook hebben over twee dingen waar ik met spanning op wacht: de nieuwe Beatlessingle die donderdag verschijnt, en de mogelijke concertaankondiging van Bruce Springsteen.

Terugluisteren kan hier.

Dit was de playlist:

Uur 1:

Tom Browne - Funkin' For Jamaica (1980) Dawn Brothers - Lucky (2023) Jefferson Airplane - Somebody To Love (1967) Elton John - Bennie And The Jets (1973) (LP van de Week) Eagles - I Can't Tell You Why (1979) The Gaslight Anthem - Michigan, 1975 (2023) Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - War (live, 1985) Sufjan Stevens - There's A World (2023) (DisCovered) Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - The Death Of You And Me (2011) Huey Lewis & The News - Hip To Be Square (1986) (Filmplaat - uit 'American Psycho') Black Pumas - Ice Cream (Pay Phone) (2023) Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) (LP van de Week) Prince - Cream (1991)

Uur 2:

Queens Of The Stone Age - No One Knows (2002) Green Day - The American Dream Is Killing Me (2023) Elton John - Sweet Painted Lady (1973) (LP van de Week) Jaime Waytt - Back To The Country (2023) Neil Young - There's A World (1972) (DisCovered) Froukje - Houden Van Mij (2023) Elton John - Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting (1973) (LP van de Week) Black Honey - Lemonade (2023) Eddie Floyd - Knock On Wood (1966) (Muzikale Ketting) The Beatles - Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (1965) (Muzikale Ketting) Acda & De Munnik - De Beatles en de Buren (2000) Pete Philly & Perquisite - Hot Sauce (2023) Elton John - Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeing (1973) (LP van de Week)

Cappelle Calling is iedere maandagavond van 20:00 t/m 22:00 te horen op Radio 90FM. Iedere woensdagmiddag wordt de uitzending herhaald van 18:00 tot 20:00. Suggesties voor DisCovered of De Filmplaat zijn welkom via de Facebookpagina van het programma of via cappellecalling@gmail.com.

[little-peril-stories]

The Queen of Lies: A Worthless Criminal Condemned

Story Intro | Content Warnings | Mood Board | Vibey Song Lyrics | Ao3

Contents: grief, panic attack, hopelessness

Previous | Masterlist | Next

Word count: 2600 || Approx reading time: 11 mins

A Worthless Criminal Condemned

Teaser: Undoubtedly, part of the reason Will could not, at that moment, think or breathe properly was that Geoff had his thick fucking hand clamped over his mouth, holding in the panicked bellows for his brother and for the girl who meant more to him than any other in the entire world. And while, logically, Will knew that Geoff was saving his sorry fucking life, he wanted nothing more than to tear his friend apart until there was nothing left.

“Don’t you fucking dare let go of him.”

Although they were harsh, perhaps the expletives and the commanding tone were necessary, given the situation: constables heading straight for the townhouse, Bree clutched in the dirty, covetous paws of Will’s second-most-hated police officer; Jamie being arrested; and Will himself barely able to see, breathe, or think.

“I fucking mean it, Geoff,” Colette said—the last words she spoke before she disappeared, practically vaulting out the window. She didn’t say a word to Will, or mention the way he was being fully manhandled by someone who was supposed to be his friend.

Undoubtedly, part of the reason Will could not, at that moment, think or breathe properly was that Geoff had his thick fucking hand clamped over his mouth, holding in the panicked bellows for his brother and for the girl who meant more to him than any other in the entire world. And while, logically, Will knew that Geoff was saving his sorry fucking life, he wanted nothing more than to tear his friend apart until there was nothing left.

In fact, he hated Geoff more than Baden Hatchett, almost. For Geoff wasn’t supposed to stop him from running. Geoff was supposed to fling himself into the street to save Jamie while Will gave Lenton a good crack across the jaw, grabbed Bree’s hand, and ran. They were supposed to be a team, a family, and families didn’t fucking abandon each other. Not like this. Not ever.

Will had thought Jamie had abandoned him—had even hoped for it—but he hadn’t. So how could he even consider abandoning Jamie?

But Geoff didn’t release his grip— merely held him still while the constables hurried past and then dragged him away when their backs were turned.

Only when they had put distance between themselves and the compromised townhouse did he finally let Will go.

The moment he was free, Will spun around and punched Geoff squarely in the mouth.

It didn’t do much, not his weakened muscles against Geoff’s well-developed bulk. It certainly hurt Will’s knuckles. Perhaps, if anything, it hurt Geoff’s feelings.

“What the fuck, you fucking bastard? Have you lost your goddamn mind?”

Geoff only looked at him in silence, sorrow Will did not want to see waiting in his dark eyes.

“We could have helped them! For fuck’s sake, we could have—”

“Woulda got caught.”

Will hated him. He hated him. Hated him for staying calm, for looking him in the eye and spitting out those miserable fucking words just like that.

“No, they would have gotten away!”

But Geoff shook his head.

The truth, reiterated in that simple motion, flowed into Will like poison, dragging him toward the ground.

He collapsed right into it, and then he couldn’t move—couldn’t sink into the soaking earth and drown there like he wanted to, because his limbs were frozen stiff from the rain. Numb from the cold. Rigid from the way his very bones had turned to solid, unbendable iron. He thought at first he might be freezing from the storm, but then he thought he couldn’t feel the rain at all.

In fact, he couldn’t feel anything, anything, except a single terrible pain, and it was not of his body, or perhaps it was; he wasn’t sure, but it was almost otherworldly, this pain. It gouged holes into the flesh deep in his chest, as if a monstrous entity snapped, snarled, and scratched at his insides until all he could think of was how much it hurt. It hurt. And if he was hurting, standing safe in the ice-cold fucking rain with Geoff, then what of Bree and Jamie? What kind of hurt were they going through—while he was standing safe in the ice-cold fucking rain with Geoff?

While he stood by and did nothing?

How could he do that to them? How? How could he watch while Jamie was dragged away to jail and Bree was sent back to the devil himself?

The blissful, golden days that had graced his pointless goddamn life with a fleeting taste of happiness seemed like some kind of cruel joke. In a matter of minutes, all of it—Bree’s smiles and her hand in his, the warm presence of his family around him once again, the naïve belief that things might go his way for fucking once—it had all crumbled underneath Will’s feet. Jamie was gone, and so was Bree. He’d seen her from the townhouse, panicking, caged in the arms of that snake Curtis Lenton, and now she’d been thrown back to her husband, back to Baden Hatchett, who would not, could not possibly forgive her for all she had done. All she had done for Will, and—and—

Geoff was saying his name, but Will couldn’t answer, because Will couldn’t breathe.

Hatchett had Jamie. Hatchett had Bree. Will was safe. Will wasn’t there. Hatchett didn’t have him. But what the fuck did that matter? If the other two were in his clutches? What was the point of being safe and free if Bree and Jamie were not?

“Will.” Geoff. Speaking. His voice. Quiet. Calm. “Will.”

Will. He was Will. An image flashed in his mind: four letters scribbled in a thick blanket of dust. He was Will. But he’d only been Will to her for a few fucking days, and she was already gone. Why had he waited so long to tell her? Who knew if he would ever hear his name from her lips again? Who knew if he’d ever kiss those lips again? Who knew if he’d ever even fucking see them again, for god’s sake?

“Will. Breathe.”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t fucking do anything. To help her. To help Jamie. He couldn’t do a goddamn thing.

“I can’t fucking breathe!” he gasped.

“Breathe. Slow.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I. Can’t.”

Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous that he should fall apart like a weakling when he was the one who was safe, who was far from Baden Hatchett and from jail, when he wasn’t the one in chains—

“Gonna be okay,” Geoff said. Hands on Will’s arms. Calm. So calm. How. How? “You can breathe. Slow. Slow it down.”

But he couldn’t, not with Jamie and Bree taken away and what if he never saw either of them again and just like the first time, he didn’t say goodbye, again, fucking again, he hadn’t known, he hadn’t said a damn thing, and the absence of that single word was going to eat him from the inside out, that goodbye, goodbye, goodbye—

“With me,” Geoff said, and Will wanted to punch him but he couldn’t punch while he couldn’t breathe, and so he tried. He tried. He tried to breathe again.

“Doing good,” said Geoff softly. “C’mon. ’S good.”

And Will could breathe, and he was safe, but Bree and Jamie weren’t, and he wanted to hurt Geoff as much as it hurt inside him, but he didn’t. He just let himself sink down to the ground again, not to drown in the rain, but to breathe and breathe and breathe.

Geoff said nothing. Only the rain pattered around them, a sound that should have been soothing and instead sliced the air like a thousand tiny, shrieking knives.

“What are we going to do?” Will finally asked, and he did not recognize the sound of his own voice.

“Get away.” The low rumble of Geoff’s voice was the same as always, and yet not. Heavier. Harder. Sharper. Precarious, like a china plate teetering on the edge of a table. Ready to fall. Ready to break. “Go from there.”

The plan, Will remembered with a jolt. His stomach clenched, and his lungs tried to squeeze the air out of him again.

“Okay,” he managed to mutter before all his air was stolen again. He stood up.

Geoff’s eyes were distant, but he nodded. “Let’s go.”

*** 

They broke into a bakery once the sun had set.

Not that it was hard; Geoff was the most skilled lock-pick Will had ever met in his life, and he had the back door open in no time. He put everyone else to shame. The man couldn’t read, and sometimes he lost his place when counting things over about fifty, but he was good at a lot of other, more important shit.

“C’mon,” he said. “Still hot back here.”

It was as good a place to hide as any. Colette, Geoff said, would get there when she had her answers. Leave it to those two, Will thought bitterly, to have some secret, silently communicated plan of where to meet.

Except it had been fucking hours and it sure seemed like she should have already figured out what there was to know, which couldn’t be much.

Unless she, too, had gotten busted.

Will told himself it was inconceivable. She was Colette. She didn’t get caught. She didn’t get spotted. That was part of her whole thing. Geoff did the heavy, hard stuff. Jamie did the planning and pretended to be in charge. Colette bossed everyone around for real, and she was the one who sneaked into impossible places on light, stealthy feet. And Will? Will did the easy work that no one else wanted to do, because that was what he could be trusted with.

And for a long time, that was what had worked.

But then he’d been in jail, and with that, everything went upside down and backwards. Suddenly, he was the one who was trusted with everyone’s fates—their lives clutched in his shackled hands, and he’d held fast to the faith they’d had no choice but to have in him, and he’d kept his goddamn mouth shut. He’d fucking done it. He’d kept IA’s secrets. He’d kept his family alive. He was supposed to do the easy stuff, but it was the hardest goddamn thing he’d ever done.

Then there’d been Bree, and easy had gone right out the bloody window.

In fact, Will wasn’t sure he’d been the same old dumbass who called himself Fox for a long time now.

Because everything was fucking different. Even Jamie’s planning skills meant nothing now. He and his dumb fucking big-picture brain were gone.

If Will, who hadn’t even earned his place in the inner circle, was more than just the useless brother of the man who started it all…

If Jamie, after years of working so hard to keep hidden while IA operated in the shadows, was gone and soon to be unmasked…

If Geoff, ever stoic and entirely unfazed by anything life threw at him, was fracturing into pieces before Will’s eyes…

If all that had already changed and gone wrong, what if it meant Colette’s sneaking skills were about to fail, too?

He pressed his forehead into his knees, letting the residual heat of the cast-iron ovens seep into him slowly, banishing the chill of the rain.

What are we going to do?

He was half-asleep when Colette finally showed, looking like a right nightmare: soaked to the bone, covered in mud, and exhausted.

“Holy shit,” he said, the first words that came to mind, “what the hell happened to you?”

She laughed—an ill-natured, soggy, tearful thing, completely devoid of humour or anything close to it. “I chased a fucking wagon across this goddamn city. And then I chased a carriage across it again. I nearly got trampled twice. Do not fucking start with me.”

“Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat when the apology came out in a whisper.

They let her collapse as close as humanly possible to the ovens, and Will pretended not to hear the tiniest hiccup of a sob catch in her throat.

Geoff disappeared for a few minutes and returned with some burnt heels of bread. Colette took hers without complaint, and she nibbled at it while still lying on the floor.

Impatience burned under Will’s skin. She had intel. She had to. She had to, didn’t she? Why else would she be chasing horses all over the goddamn place, come back so late and so worn out and so drained?

“It’s bad news,” he finally said when he couldn’t wait a single moment longer. Slowly, Colette nodded in confirmation, wincing in pain when she sat back up. Her thick curls were nothing more than matted ropes, glued to her dress and to her neck. The speckles of darkness all over her clothes made Will feel sick. In the gloom, the mud might have been splashes of anything—reminiscent of something else that might stain one’s clothes with grimy black spots.

“Jamie’s fucked,” he guessed again, and Colette repeated her nod of assent.

Burning behind his eyes. Buzzing at the back of his mind.

No. No, he wasn’t going to break down again.

“Bree?” he managed.

Colette’s face screwed up tightly—like she was hiding some emotion she didn’t want him to see. Like she was hiding… No, he was imagining things.

Except he wasn’t.

“It’s not good news,” she said softly.

He swallowed, pretending her words didn’t send heavy, aching prickles through his entire body. “She’s in jail, too?”

Suddenly hesitant, she asked, “Are you ready to hear it right now?”

Will nodded, and all three of them knew he was a liar.

“You promise me?”

Another nod.

“She’s not in jail,” said Colette gently, and something relaxed in his chest.

That was good news, wasn’t it? Why would she preface such tidings with It’s not good news if it wasn’t true? Because anything had to be better than Baden Hatchett’s prison, didn’t it? “Where, then?”

He almost missed what she said, distracted momentarily by the memory of Bree’s teary eyes as she told him about how Hatchett had locked her up in her own bedroom. He pushed aside the ghostly echo of her voice. If that was where she was, it was still better than jail—and it offered significantly more opportunity for busting her out.

When Colette gave her answer, though, Will’s heart screeched to a stop. “No.”

It’s not good news.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

Are you ready to hear it right now?

“You can’t be serious,” he said. “You’re fucking lying.”

This was Colette; she should have snapped at him about such an accusation. Should have demanded his respect, because didn’t he trust her information? Did she look like a liar to him? When had she ever given him reason to believe she would mislead him on something as important as this?

She’s not in jail.

Colette simply shook her head, and Will ground his forehead into his knees again, trying to remember how to breathe.

Hatchett hadn’t fucking sent Bree to jail, no. He’d decided he’d punish her another way instead. Why, it was the goddamn perfect solution. It explained everything—the only plausible reason a sweet, proper girl like Breanna Hatchett would ever get mixed up with a piece of shit criminal like Will Wardrew, the fox-thief of Iustitia aecum.

Colette’s hand brushed his shoulder, and he jerked away from her touch. She didn’t try to comfort him again.

Through the storm of furious thoughts, Will heard her ask Geoff how he was doing.

And Will was glad to be hidden in the darkness of his arms and knees around him, for it hid the dampness on his cheeks that slipped free when Geoff gave a wordless answer that sliced right through any armour Will might have thought he wore. It pierced the night, an anguished echo of the turmoil inside Will’s mind, a perfect reflection of soul-wrenching, haunting grief.

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✨ @starlit-hopes-and-dreams | @clairelsonao3 | @gala1981 | @pleasestaywithmedarling | @kixngiggles ✨

[acrispyapple]

MLQC CH: 520 R Karma

throw those sunnies away, victor. ( ˙▿˙ )

[natromanxoff]

Smash Hits (February 6 - February 19, 1991): 138/?

Credits to Michael Kane.

QUEEN

***THEIR STORY ***

We all know that Queen are the tops for OperaRock, and that their new tune "Innuendo" is by far and away the best song that's ever been invented in the whole history of this century (maybe!). But what's the real story behind rock's "loveable" art-terrorists?

• FIG 1. Barely able to afford decent furniture, Queen (L-R: Brian May, Roger Taylor, Freddie Mercury and John Deacon) set off on Rock's Mislaid Flyover with full hearts and exciting trousers. The world soon warmed to their anarchic blend of rock and theatre, and their orchestral epic, "Bohemian Rhapsody", lodged itself in the Number One spot for nine weeks in 1975. It was an adventure into sound: "Bizmillah! No! We will not let him go!!" travelled the chorus. The Queen legend was, thus, born.

• FIG 2. 1984. "I want to break freeeee / I've got to break freee." Never one to be swayed by convention, Lord Frederick grew a moustache and pretended to be a girl. The rest of the group followed suit (facial hair excluded).

• FIG 3. Not content with the luxury of gender-swapping and the millions of pounds they reaped from triumphs, they took to the streets in a vain attempt to live like ver kids who bought their LPs (they've made 17 in all — unit fans!). Unfortunately, no one told Fred, who turned up in his new smoking jacket.

• FIG 4. After 18 years in the business, relaxed and casual, we see Queen as they are today. With the release of their new LP "Innuendo" and their new self-same-titled single, they know success lies in a well-turned shirt, a classic lapel and a steady stream of corking tunes. May they have many more years of super-stardom!

~~

Queen: Innuendo (Parlophone)

Flippin' Nora! This is Queen's 17th — 17th!! — LP. You would reckon a group would start to run out of ideas after writing all those tunes, wouldn't you? And you would reckon rightly so, because this LP is the sound of a successful group very quickly running out of steam. Not that Queen's hordes of devoted followers (most of whom have moustaches and are called "Jim") seem to have noticed, if the band's recent number one is anything to go by. Suffice to say, it's a bit of a rockin' affair (with Brian May's "jittery guitar puzzles" still as happening as can be expected), laced with the occasional "touching" ballad. The results, however, are more or less melody-free. There's even a song on it called "I'm Going Slightly Mad" (great title, crap tune). Somehow, I can't imagine Vanilla Ice wanting sample any bits off this particular Queen record. (3 out of 10 - or 11 out of 10 if your name's Jim)

Tom Doyle

[artdjgblog]

Some of the Latest in Equine LP Design

Bruce Springsteen: Western Stars (2019)

Fontaines D.C.: Dogrel (2019)

The Killers: Dying Breed (2020)

Bonny Light Horseman: Self-Titled (2020)

Ice Age: Seek Shelter (2021)

Feeble Little Horse: Modern Tourism (2021)

Sturgill Simpson: The Ballad of Dood and Juanita (2021)

Beyonce: Renaissance (2022)

Orville Peck: Bronco (2022)

Black Lips: Apocalypse Love (2022)

The White Buffalo: Year of the Dark Horse (2022)

Shania Twain: Queen of Me (2023)

Tanya Tucker: Sweet Western Sound (2023)

Being Dead: When Horses Would Run (2023)

Thunder Horse: After the Fall (2023)

Medicine Horse: Self-Titled (2023)

Willie Nelson: I Don't Know a Thing About Love (2023)

Mental Cruelty: Zwielicht (2023)

Sorcerer: Reign of the Reaper (2023)

Indie Tribe: Low Blow (2023)

Health Issues: Promo '23 (2023)

Gunship: Unicorn (2023)

The Shootouts: Stampede (2023)

War of Ages: Dominion (2023)

Sweat: Dark Horses (White Lies) (2023)

Jocelyn's Baby: Are You Listening? (2023)

Wicca Phase Springs Eternal (2023)

Eric Bibb: Ridin' (2023)

Colter Wall: Little Songs (2023)

OK Wait (2023)

[ivanreycristo]

VIRGINIA MAESTRO..te dedico I USED TO LOVE HER (BUT I have to Kill her) de Lp LIES (=MENTIRAS) de GUNSNROSES q me grabó mi vecino JUAN JESUS MENESES PARRA (con el q fui al concierto gira NUDE de PRINCE estando junto a Carlos ARMAS y otro de LOCO-MIA q debutaron con el CD TAIO=SOL ..para luego fundar VATIKANO siendo sustituidos los ORIGINALES x lo q fueron agredidos en un programa de TV en MEXICO jaja) ..junto al LP THE MIRACLE de QUEEN (q grabaron tras MERCURY publicar CD BARCELONA y Roger TAYLOR grabar CD SHOVE IT con su otro grupo THE CROSS=LA CRUZ)..creo q es Ideal ahora a vas el Sábado a TOLEDO donde actuaste contra la VIOLENCIA DE GENERO..q no es algo de BROMA pero si de ROMA en la seguimos con CASA REAL Y EL VATIKANO

[a-little-revolution]

A Brief History of Dwarfism

(TW/CW: cure, medical, pet culture and slavery mentioned, discriminative language)

LYZ LENZ Updated: June14, 2017 Origional: February 25, 2015 

When researchers from the biopharmaceutical company BioMarin told representatives of the Little People of America about the results of a drug that could potentially cure one of the causes of dwarfism, they expected a better response than the silence they were treated to. This caught the BioMarin folks off guard. “I think they wanted us to be happy,” says Leah Smith, LPA's director of public relations. “But really, people like me are endangered and now, they want to make me extinct. How can I be happy?”

BioMarin isn’t the only company trying to eliminate dwarfism. For years doctors have been using limb lengthening and hormone treatments to counter and cure the over 400 underlying causes of dwarfism. And yet, despite these efforts to eliminate what many people see as a disability, society can’t stop staring. From The Lord of the Rings to Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones, people have long been mesmerized by depictions of LPs. As Smith explains, “It doesn’t matter how normal I am, it’s hard for people to look at me an see anything besides Leah the LP.”

Dr. Judith Hall, a clinical geneticist whose work focuses on short-limbed dwarfism, explains that our staring and our desire to cure are intimately connected. “In the same way that ancient societies viewed those people with differences as a pathway to the divine,” Hall says, “I see them as a pathway to access the knowledge of nature. There is so much to be learned about humans and our genetic make-up by studying the genetics of people with short stature and anyone with a ‘disability’ although I hate that term, don’t you?”

But understanding our curiosity and desire to cure requires an understanding of the history of dwarfism, which lies in the nebulous intersection of medicine and myth.

For much of early history, LPs were considered to be intimately connected to the divine. In fact, pre-literate societies often saw all people with disabilities as conduits to heaven. The ancient Egyptians associated dwarfs with Bes, the god of home, family, and childbirth; and Ptah, the god of the Earth’s essential elements. (Both gods—representing youth and the Earth—play a role in enduring myths and stereotypes, like the fairy tales that claim that dwarfs live underground, or the stereotype about the childish nature of people with short stature.) Because of their connection with the gods, dwarfs were often revered in Egypt, and were allowed to serve high roles in the government.

Whereas dwarfs in the Old Kingdom of Egypt (2575-2134 B.C.E.) were often jewelers, linen attendants, bird catchers, and pilots of boats—all positions of high-esteem, by the Middle Kingdom dwarfs were more likely to be personal attendants or nurses. These positions, while still respected, were comparatively lower status. Historians surmise that dwarfs were relegated to these roles because their short limbs made them perfect midwives and the association with the god Bes. Of course, even in this age of reverence, dwarfs lived lives of bondage.

In ancient Rome, the attitude toward dwarfs was less reverential. Owners would intentionally malnourish their slaves so they would sell for a higher price. In ancient Greece, dwarfs were associated in a menacing and lurid way with the rituals of the Dyonisian cult; art from that period shows them as bald men with out-sized penises lusting after averaged-sized women. This same pattern of reverence and bondage also appears in China and West Africa, where LPs were so often servants of the king. A 17th-century author wrote that the Yoruba people in West Africa believed dwarfs to be “uncanny in some rather undefined way, having form similar to certain potent spirits who carry out the will of the gods.” And out of a similar reverence for their stature, the courts of China employed dwarfs as entertainers and court jesters. Here there also may have been a level of fetishism; Emperor Hsuan-Tsung kept dwarf slaves in the harem he called the Resting Palace for Desirable Monsters.

By the time of the Italian Renaissance, LPs had become a court commodity all over Western Europe, Russia, and China. There are tragic tales of court dwarfs and their wild antics. Jan Bondeson writes in The Two-Headed Boy about Nicolas Ferry, the infamous court dwarf of King Sanislas Leszynski of Poland. Ferry was given to King Sanislas when he was about five years old. The King promised his father he would be given the best education and medical care. Ferry’s father didn’t even consult his wife, who had to journey to the court to say goodbye to her son. Ferry, who may have also had learning disabilities, was spoiled and terrorized the court with his antics—kicking the shins of servants and crawling up the skirts of ladies. He even threw a dog out of the window when he believed the Queen loved the dog more than him.

Another Italian, Isabella d’Este, marchioness of Mantua, viewed dwarfs as collectable items. She hoarded them in her vast palace along with art, classical writings, gold, and silver. She also tried to breed dwarfs and kept them in a series of specially designed rooms, with low ceilings and staircases to scale. This was more for their display than comfort. One of Isabella’s dwarfs was “Crazy Catherine,” an alcoholic who stole from her mistress and whose misdeeds were laughed off as entertainment. The history of courts throughout Europe and Russia tell similar tales of dwarfs employed as jesters, or little more than pets—laughed at, loved, and never fully allowed to be human.

As the age of monarchy ended, the era of medicine and medical curiosity arose to fill its place, often providing more opportunities for LPs. Dwarfs were put on display—by others or themselves—for money. In a time where very few occupations were open to LPs, putting yourself on display in a freak show was at least a way to make a living. While traveling around provided LPs with more independence, it also opened them up to the gaping and insensitive curiosity of the public and medical professionals.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, then, to say that LPs were subsequently taken advantage of by greedy brokers and agents. In his book Freak Show, Robert Bogdan explains the phenomena of human exhibits, singling out the insular nature of communities as a leading cause. Animals and humans that were outside of the norm were exciting curiosities; different races, ethnicities, and disabilities were all billed as novel entertainment. Bogdan quotes a handbill advertising a Carolina dwarf in 1738 who was “taken in a wood in Guinea; tis a female about four foot high, in every part like a human excepting her head which nearly resembles an ape.”

FOR MOST OF EARLY HISTORY, THE RESPONSE OF DOCTORS TO LPS WAS TO MEASURE EVERYTHING—NOSE, HAIR, GENITALS. THIS MEANINGLESS COLLECTION OF DATA IS OFTEN ACCOMPANIED BY CONDESCENDING NOTES ON THE APPEARANCE AND INTELLECT OF THE DWARF.

From these human exhibits came the growth of dime museums, midget villages, and Lilliputian touring communities, where many LPs rose to prominence. But while these exhibitions took center stage, several LPs made incredible, albeit quieter, contributions to history. There were people like Antoine Godeau, a poet and bishop best known for his works of criticism, or economist Ferdinando Galiani, one of the leading figures in the Enlightenment. Then there’s Alexander Pope, a classical poet known as the “most accomplished verse satirist in English.” Plus Benjamin Lay, an early abolitionist and good friend of Benjamin Franklin. And Novelist Paul Leicester Ford, artist Henry de Toulous Lautrec, electrical engineer Charles Proteus Steinmetz. The list goes on.

Yet even in this time, as many LPs grew to prominence, medicine was able to do little more than collect data. Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor, kept an LP family of Romanian performers captive in Auschwitz, subjecting them to various tests and experiments that included pulling out teeth and hair specimens. Mengele is remembered as the angel of death—a cruel doctor who performed unscientific and often deadly experiments—yet his data collection on LPs isn’t much different than that of the medical community in centuries prior.

For most of early history, the response of doctors to LPs was to measure everything—nose, hair, genitals. This meaningless collection of data is often accompanied by condescending notes on the appearance and intellect of the dwarf. Even as late as 1983, Mercer’s Orthopaedic Surgery offered this observation about achondroplasia: “Because of their deformed bodies they have strong feelings of inferiority and are emotionally immature and are often vain, boastful, excitable, fond of drink and sometimes lascivious.”

The obsessive data collection reads like a stack of clues, wherein doctors hope to find an answer to the riddle of difference. With nothing else to do, like the Egyptian pharaohs and the courts of kings, doctors found themselves staring too.

In the absence of a cure, most early doctors focused on prevention. They believed that dwarfism was caused by the mother having seen another dwarf or animal. In fact, for most of medical history many disabilities and unexplained deformities were chalked up to maternal impressions. Consequently, pregnant women often sequestered themselves away from their communities, acting like they themselves had a disability.

This isn’t different from the modern approach to “curing” dwarfism. With early genetic testing, many in the LP community are worried about unborn dwarfs being allowed to be born.

In the aftermath of World War II, LPs found more and more opportunities to work outside of entertainment. This was due in part to Billy Barty, a film actor and television star who, in 1957, organized a meeting of LPs in Reno, Nevada. This meeting eventually led to the founding of the Little People of America, a powerful non-profit that advocates for the rights of LPs in America.

THE HISTORY OF DWARFS IS A HISTORY OF SUBVERSION, STEREOTYPES, EXPECTATION, AND SURVIVAL. IT’S THE HISTORY OF HOW PEOPLE TREAT OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE DIFFERENT.

Before Barty, with the exception of circuses and traveling groups, most LPs were isolated. There was no way to band together to advocate for civil rights. A little more than 30 years after that first meeting in Reno, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in the United States, granting LPs more access and freedom than ever before.

The history of dwarfs is a history of subversion, stereotypes, expectation, and survival. It’s the history of how people treat other people who are different. And, while much has changed, very little is different. The tension between curiosity and cure is still prevalent. The popularity of shows like Little People, Big World and The Little Couple, while laudable for their portrayal of normal people with difference, show that we can’t stop looking at LPs. And companies like BioMarin and non-profits like Growing Stronger, which all seek to find a cure, show that we can’t stop trying to change them.

Yet, as a geneticist, Hall dismisses the notion that she is trying to change the LP community. She describes her work as merely offering a choice to individuals. “There are genetic tests for Downs Syndrome, but they haven’t eradicated people with Downs,” Hall says. “In the same way, the work I do and the work of other scientists isn’t to eradicate difference, but rather to offer options for dealing with it. It’s all about offering choices, really.”

But Smith, the LPA's director of public relations, pushes back. “The world is full of difference.” Smith says, “Sometimes I wish people would look elsewhere.”

BY LYZ LENZ 

Origional Article Post: https://psmag.com/social-justice/a-brief-history-of-dwarfism-and-the-little-people-of-america