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gerogerigaogaigar · 2 years ago

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Alright so here is another set of reviews. This time it's my brother who is very much into fun and goofy music so enjoy this selection from my brother Jason!

The Aquabats - Fury Of The Aquabats!

The Aquabats are living cartoons. Concentrated essence of childhood fun. They are a child friendly ska punk Gwar. Even though this album is from long before their purely kid oriented Yo Gabba Gabba! days there is still a distinct family friendly atmosphere to The Fury Of The Aquabats! It has a similar energy to Homestar Runner or The Muppet Show where it is kid friendly media made for adults. And, like those examples, it works because they are having so much goddamn fun with it. It is deliberately and pointedly stupid. Magic Chicken is a song about chicken. I'm laughing because it's funny. The Cat With Two Heads has the line "I was in my laboratory creating what i thought would be we something great for the world, a two headed cat. You can pet one kitty's head and pet the other kitty's head, but little did i know the power of atomic energy would create a

two headed man eating monster!"

So have I convinced you to listen to a 90s ska album yet? Because this is a very pure example of the genre musically. It has the pop punk pacing and fast paced ska rhythm and the horn section and everything. It does admittedly have some, uh, genre diversions I guess I'll call them. Attacked By Snakes is a tango song and Lobster Bucket is a zydeco type thing sometimes. The MC Bat Commander is a perfect vocalist for this kind of music. He's so goofy, but you never really get the impression that he isn't taking it seriously. Or at least he is meeting the music and lyrics on their own terms. It is very endearing. Plus this album has a little bonus that other Aquabats albums lack. Do the drums sound like really competent to you? Like way too much for a pop punk band? Yeah that's Travis Barker of Blink-182 fame. He's probably the most talented punk drummer and he lends a fantastic energy to these songs.

Deee-Lite - World Clique

If you know Deee-Lite already then you probably know them as the one hit wonder who did Grooves Is In The Heart. Well this album deserves more recognition than just having produced a hit single. Deee-Lite channel the 60s flower child throwback aesthetic harder than any other artist of the 90s and they bring that energy to house music. Now I feel like a lot of electronic music fans start to dismiss an artist the minute they hear pop vocals, but this is totally unfair. Dee-Lite use vocals the way they would use any other instrument on a house track. The repetitive vocal lines mesh with the piano samples, drum loops, and funky bass.

Speaking of funky bass, this album has a few performers with a pedigree. Three former Parliament-Funkadelic members feature on this album, trombonist Fred Wesley, saxophonist Maceo Parker, and bass legend Boots Collins. Plus A Tribe Called Quest member Q-Tip gets a verse on Grooves Is In The Heart. That element of P-Funk goofiness is apparent in their peace and love lyricism and overt cheesiness. And while a lot of memorable tracks like Try Me On and Groove Is In The Heart are more hip house to pop oriented the rest is populated by songs like What Is Love that show off a more traditional house style. The album has enough variety and good enough pacing that you don't need to throw these songs into a DJ mix when you can just throw on this whole album and get the same experience.

Shonen Knife - Brand New Knife

I can't pretend this is my absolute favorite Shonen Knife album, I'm more of a Burning Farm or Pretty Little Baka Guy kinda girl. But Shonen Knife doesn't exactly disappoint here either. There's a simplicity to their lyricism and playing that leaves little room to actually fuck it up. The punk rock meets 60s girl group sound feels like it should be influenced by cuddlecore musicians except for the fact that Shonen Knife's sound predates that movement by a decade. This album is smack dab in the middle of the height of that scene though (low heights admittedly) and there is definitely a bit of a cleaner sound than on previous Shonen Knife records that reflects the styles of the time and the rising success of the band. I don't personally believe that higher production quality does much for them, but as long as they are still singing about food and other things that make them happy Shonen Knife will always be a treat to listen to.

Bitch Ass Darius - Follow The Sound

This is the greatest DJ mix ever. Booty bass or ghetto house or ghettotech or whatever you want to call it is a chatic style of house that adopted a lot of hip hop tendencies and then ramped things up to eleven by using the most sexually explicit lyrics possible. Follow The Sound is the most ridiculous example of this already ridiculous genre.

Bitch Ass Darius is an anomaly to me. I can't find out who they are or if they made any more mixes under a different alias. A friend showed me this mix once and I don't know where he found it. The experience of listening to the mix is kind of similar. In between recognizable samples will be snippets of things that you couldn't place the origin of in a million years. And even if you could they probably fly by so fast you don't have time to parse what he just sampled before the world's foulest lyrics start repeating some shit like "he's not my baby daddy he's just a sperm donor" or "I wanna fuck your mouth". A lot of typical booty bass samples are present which means nothing if you aren't a freak like me, but if You've ever heard that memetic snippet that goes "ass n titties, ass n titties, ass ass ass ass ass n titties" that was DJ Assault who is a staple of the genre and that exact sample is in this mix. But the typical hyper crude samples are interspersed with something way weirder. Random seconds long snippets of literally anything else. I can't explain the experience adequately because everything is always happening so fast. My favorite example that I have managed to catch is that he rapid fire samples Michael Jackson (pitched and sped up naturally) saying "beat it, beat it!" And then without missing a beat counterpointing it with the Weird Al parody lyrics "eat it, eat it!" This happens in maybe one and a half seconds. The contrast of samples is a great vehicle for delivering the comedy inherent in the genre while also delivering a good example of the music. Despite feeling like it's poking fun it still remains respectful of the chaos of booty bass music. The album dwells on nothing. It doesn't care if you heard that because listen to this! Follow The Sound is the purest and most perfect sonic overload. If you have problems with auditory overstimulation then seriously consider skipping this album. But if you have ADHD like me then you are about to find your new favorite thing.

Accept - Balls To The Wall

This album is gay af. It was noted at the time and the band acknowledged it. To quote drummer Stefan Kaufmann "It's a phenomenon that should be taken into consideration. Because it exists on a wide scale and should be demystified. In fact, this is a phenomenon of society that needs to be taken as such. For a long time gay people have been considered as sick or insane. And yet, it's time to respect these people, open our minds which are often closed."

This is the kind of music that I think most people are thinking of when they say "heavy metal". It is riff driven heavy music with corny lyrics about tough guy stuff. Like having sex with men. Accept is like if AC/DC was self aware. And thankfully the only ballad in the album is actually good too. It's hard to review this style of metal without sounding dismissive. The camp is obviously deliberate here so I don't feel as bad poking a little fun because I think I'm laughing with them a bit. But really this is a simple and effective album with no weak tracks and themes that it plays straight. Which doesn't seem like much but in the world of late 70s early 80s heavy metal its really raising the bar for future acts.

Desmond Dekker & The Aces - 007 Shanty Town

Before ska was associated with middle school boys with frosted tips and cargo pants, before the days of London teens in ill fitting suits and checkerboard patterns, before dub and reggae there was Desmond Dekker. One of the 60s original ska artists. With a sound that blended Jamaican mento music with a solid helping of jazz and R&B to create a unique blend of Jamaican pop music.

The unique beat that we all know and love (you love it right?!) is created by muted guitar downstrokes on the one and three beats and loud staccato upstrokes on the two and four. Add in some horns, walking bass, and vocal harmonies and you've got the blueprint for basically all ska. And this combination, the crisp staccato guitar and horns especially, grant a uniquely sunny disposition to basically the entire genre so that even when Desmond Dekker is singing about poverty or crime there is an underlying love for his home in every song. Plus a lot of the gangster aesthetic is pure kitsch and is strangely one of the major aspects of the genre to have maintained throughout the years. Ska artists all wanna be in Oceans Eleven even in back in 1967.

Mastodon - Leviathan

If 17 year old me knew that in the year 2023 I was still going off about how much I love this album I think she would call me a slur and have a weird feeling about being called 'she'. I've liked this album for a while and the more metal I listen to the more I appreciate Mastodon. They are somewhere between being sludge, progressive, and death metal and they navigate that in-between with skill. The chugging skudginess can easily erupt into speedy solos and there is an abundance of complexities in the musical arrangements.

Leviathan is the second in a tetralogy that incorporated their first four albums each being themed after a classical element. Leviathan is a concept album about Moby Dick and therefore is obviously water. If their more aggressive debut is fire and the sludgier Blood Mountain is earth then Leviathan's status as water follows. The riffing crashes like waves and there are a lot more melodic flowing sequences that also suggest water. Although the album is more strictly focused on its Moby Dick themeing. Leviathan crashes forward with an intensity that is honestly too much to just call sludge metal but it never hits the level of screaming that you expect from death metal. In retrospect Mastodon have always been a very progressive metal act and I think this album in particular does the best at blending all of their different styles into one package. That said all four of their original albums, Remission, Leviathan, Blood Mountain, and Crack The Skye are worth a listen.

K.d. Lang And The Reclines - Absolute Torch And Twang

Oh so my son of a bitch brother is gonna be a bigger lesbian than I am by giving me a k.d. Lang album I've never listened to huh? Before she transitioned to a more lounge / jazz style k.d. Lang was a full on country western musician with her band The Reclines. Country music had been in severe decline for over a decade but somehow Lang avoids any of the pitfalls of her contemporaries. Instead she mines decades worth of country music blending rock influenced outlaw styles, singing cowboy western styles, and 60s Nashville sound into a monolithic style that celebrates the history of the genre without just being a period piece. And her voice is just astounding. She can sing tender love ballads and rollicking honky tonk numbers with equal ferocity. Her mezzo-soprano is maybe the richest I've ever heard.

Luie Luie - Touchy

Luie Luie is here to tell you about a new dance called the Touchy. This is going to be a bitch to explain. Luie Luie was an outsider musician from the 70s and understanding that he was almost certainly on the autism spectrum goes a long way towards understanding what's going on here. You see Luie Luie was a nightclub manager who thought that people didn't touch enough while dancing anymore so he tried to make a new dance called The Touchy that would encourage touching but with clear rules for how you were allowed to touch you dance partner. It's strange but all very well meaning. He managed to finance the creation of an album and so Touchy was born.

So after Luie Luie tells you that he's invented a new dance and that he plays all the instruments on the album and that every touchy starts with a "wild horn intro" we get a wild horn intro and holy shit he's actually a really good musician. The touchy is basically a mix of mariachi, funk, soul, and lounge music. The slightly offbeat sound and cheap production are wildly endearing especially when you understand this as a passion project that is composed, performed, and recorded all by one man. Luie Luie is a fairly talented multi instrumentalist and where his technical skills falter he covers with incredible ear for complex arrangement. Some songs like El Touchy make for fairly danceable music, although I would rather sit and listen than dance and touch if I'm being honest. Although special mention should be given to the track Touch Of Light for it's intense layering of up to fourteen trumpet parts creating an elaborate tone poem that recalls the works of Ligeti. I'm eternally baffled and grateful for the Touchy it is the rare piece of outsider music that is actually as listenable as it is intriguing.

Kumi Tanioka - Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles OST

Crystal Chronicles is such a weird mess of a game. It has an intriguing narrative structure, but the repetitive gameplay loop makes finding the plot tedious. Plus it isn't really fun to play at all unless you have at least three people with game boy advances and gba link cables. I beat it single player when I was a kid because I'm neurodivergent.

Soundtracks are difficult to review. Should you review it as a stand alone album, pretend the source material doesn't exist? You would be missing crucial context and anyway a soundtrack that does stand alone as an album probably didn't work that well as a soundtrack then. Well the answer for me is to realize everything has context. Nothing exists in a void. If you saw an album with blood and gore on the cover and the title in a death metal font and then the album contained folk rock your opinion of the music would be colored by that experience even though the cover has no effect on theusic. So let your understanding of this music be colored by the fact that it is the soundtrack to a GameCube game.

Kumi Tanioka is mainly just the Crystal Chronicles composer and that's a shame because she is extremely good. Final Fantasy games have a long history of using their music to heavily influence the game's mood, but that is partially because of the efforts of long time composer Nobuo Uematsu. Tanioka manages to outdo even Uematsu when it comes to heavily themeing the soundtrack. The Crystal Chronicles OST features music heavily influenced by a mix of medieval folk styles. Music that plays in towns and in roads will have aspects of Byzantine music while your hometown festival is very Celtic. Some tracks like Twilight In Dreamland show some influence from South American music too. The idea of a world music soundtrack to a game about trying to travel ever farther into an unfamiliar world is quite brilliant.

The music is also melodically beautiful. And catchy. There are tracks that you are severe risk of getting stuck in your head especially Annual Festival or the opening vocal track Sound Of Wind. A lot of games have a vocal pop track tacked somewhere in there and sometimes it does work (I dunno how FFXV pulled off a Florence Welch cover of Stand By Me but goddamn it worked) but usually it's just an out of genre pop song that doesn't mesh with the game at all. Sound Of The Wind is a great song that works as a pop song units own right but also sticks to the medieval themeing of the rest of the soundtrack.

You might not appreciate listening to this as much if you haven't played the game. And honestly I can't in good faith recommend Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, it's not a very good game. But this soundtrack is one of the ones I put on just to listen to and it is probably my second favorite Final Fantasy OST after FFIX.

#the aquabats #Deee-Lite #shonen knife #bitch ass darius #accept #desmond dekker & the aces #mastodon #k.d. lang and the reclines #luie luie #kumi tanioka #500 album gaiden

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jjsmaybank20 · 9 months ago

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hi!! if requests are open could you a viv miedema fic where they have been in a relationship for ages in secret and then decide to tell their arsenal teammates/ they start finding out and no one has any idea

My Love Mine All Mine

Arsenal!Vivianne Miedema x Fem!Reader

Summary: Viv and R are in a relationship, but the rest of the team doesn't know, leading to some jealous feelings.

Warnings: Viv gets jealous, thats it

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: Sorry this took so long! Hope you like it!

navigation woso masterlist

---

Waking up warmed by the soft sun rays has always been your favorite way to start the morning. Especially when you roll over and are met with the soft rising and falling of your girlfriend’s chest. You sit up and brush Viv’s stray hairs—messy from her slumber—out of her face, waiting for her eyes to flutter open and meet your own.

When she finally rouses, she is met with a soft smile from you and a featherlight kiss on the forehead. “Were you watching me sleep? That’s creepy, liefje [darling].” Viv’s scratchy morning voice paired with the pet name makes your heart flutter and you press another, more firm kiss to her head before starting to climb out of bed.

“Wait no, come back! I didn’t mean it, you’re not creepy!” Viv makes grabby hands at you, trying to pull you back into the mess of sheets still covering her. Your laugh fills the air as you shake your head, and the brunette woman looks at you with a pout on her face. “At least give me a kiss if you’re going to abandon me.”

You roll your eyes at her, murmuring, “such a baby,” under your breath as you lean back in to press a kiss on her lips. “How would the world react if they knew that The Vivianne Miedema was so clingy?”

As you move into the bathroom, you hear Viv curse in Dutch underneath her breath. You start to get ready, and as you brush your teeth, the sleepy-looking dutchwoman shuffles in to join you. She wraps her arms around your waist from behind before resting her chin on your shoulder. You watch her nod off, finally shifting your body to get her to open her eyes again.

When you get Viv unattached from your torso, you leave her in the bathroom to get herself ready and you go downstairs to begin breakfast. Instead of making a lot of food, you are forced to quickly throw together some toast and two protein shakes because of the delay caused by Viv’s insistence on not leaving the bed.

You put together both of your kit bags and get everything ready to go as your girlfriend jogs down the stairs, looking more awake than she had 20 minutes prior. She grabs her shake, toast, and bag, and presses a grateful kiss to your lips. You roll your eyes, but you can’t fight the uptick of your mouth that makes Viv grin victoriously. She grabs the car keys and heads out the door, calling out, “Come on, liefje! We are going to be late!”

Your face is immediately taken over by a frown, and you grumble as you head out the door with all of your stuff. As you climb into the car, you exclaim, “Are you actually serious? If we are late, it is because you refused to get out of bed. You and your—how do you say it?—luie reet [lazy ass].” Viv just laughs, glancing over at you as she turns onto the road.

You refuse to make eye contact with Viv for the entire car ride, instead letting her jokingly grovel until you finally crack a smile. When she finally pulls into the parking lot and turns the car off, you give her a kiss on the cheek and hop out with all of your stuff.

As you walk towards the building, Viv scrambles to grab all of her stuff, calling out, “Wait for me!” You stop for a second to let her catch up, then continue walking inside as the slightly taller woman catches her breath a little. The two of you walk into the bustling locker room and finally separate to get situated in your lockers. It just so happens that your locker is next to England’s very own Beth Mead.

While you are getting yourself situated, you can see Beth glancing over at you from her own space. After a few minutes of her seemingly waiting for you to be done getting ready, you relent. “What is it, Meado? You clearly have something on your mind.” The blonde woman almost squeals with excitement, grabbing onto your arm and talking a mile a minute about some woman named Sarah.

When the two of you emerge onto the field, you are finally able to get a word in. “She sounds lovely, Bethy. Are you seeing her?”

Beth gives you an exasperated look, replying, “No, silly. I’m trying to set you up on a date with her!” If you had been drinking water, you would have done an almost comical spit take. You splutter for a second, not able to form words through your surprise.

Finally you regain your voice. “No, I think I’m okay. She seems sweet but I don’t know if I’m ready to go out with someone,” you lie through your teeth. Beth just rolls her eyes.

“You always say that. You’ve been single for years! Maybe it’s time to find someone. And maybe I can find that someone for you.” The Englishwoman puts her face closer to yours, raising her eyebrows suggestively at the end of her statement. You just shove her away, laughing at her antics and jogging onto the pitch to start training.

---

After practice, you and Viv are among the last few to leave the locker room. As you walk towards your car, the two of you make small talk. Once Viv pulls out and onto the main road, you decide to tell her about your conversation with Beth.

“So, Bethy tried to set me up with someone again. Some woman named Sarah, I think.” You laugh lightly, finding the blonde woman’s persistence to find you a partner amusing, albeit slightly annoying. Instead of laughing with you like she usually would, Viv scowls. You watch her grip tighten on the steering wheel, turning her knuckles practically pure white.

You look at your girlfriend with worried eyes, reaching over and rubbing her leg lightly. “Are you okay, mijn liefde [my love]?” Viv nods tersely, and your worry for the dutchwoman increases tenfold. You drop it for now, though, knowing that if you push too hard, Viv would just shut down more. The rest of the car ride is filled with tense silence, and you can’t help but sigh with relief when you pull into the driveway of your shared home.

Viv grabs her stuff and practically storms inside, leaving you to scramble after her. You try to figure out what you may have done to cause the brunette woman to act this way, thinking back on your conversation until you finally realize that she was jealous.

When you find Viv in the bedroom, you try to figure out how to approach the topic tactically. “Baby, are you jealous?” Whelp, there goes any attempt at tact. You watch as Viv shakes her head to the negative yet refuses to look up, a sure sign that she was lying. You soften, moving towards the taller woman until you can reach her hand. Holding it in your own, you press a kiss to its back. “You know I’m yours and only yours, right?”

Viv jumps up, exclaiming, “Yes, but I want everyone to know that you're mine!” Her sudden movement startles you slightly, and it takes you a second to process what she is truly trying to say. After you take a minute to think about it, you finally say, “Okay.” Viv blinks, not expecting that from you. “Okay?” You nod, smiling at the forward. “Okay. Let’s tell the team.”

The dutchwoman lunges at you, peppering your face with kisses. You laugh and hold her tightly, pulling her down onto the bed with you. After a minute Viv pulls back, apprehension in her eyes. “Are you sure? We don’t have to if you don’t–” You interrupt her, quickly assuring, “I want to. I want to so badly. I am so ready for everyone to know that you’re mine and I am yours.” Viv grins, lunging forward again, practically laying on top of you while you hold her.

---

The two of you decide to tell the team sooner rather than later, knowing that now that the two of you were on the same page, there was no way you would be able to keep your relationship under wraps. The morning after your decision, the two of you come into the locker room hand in hand. Viv goes to her locker and gets ready as fast as she can before moving towards your space and wrapping her arm around your waist.

When it seems as if everyone had arrived, you call out, “Everybody! Can Viv and I have your attention for a few minutes? We have an announcement to make.” All of your teammates look at the two of you, and Viv nervously glances at the ground. You push through your nerves and hold your connected hands in the air. “Viv and I are dating. We have been for about three years now.”

The locker room is filled with stunned silence until Katie’s strong Irish accent breaks the quiet. “I KNEW IT!” You can see Caitlin roll her eyes before passing her girlfriend a £10 note, which the Irishwoman accepts smugly. This seems to snap the rest of the team out of their shock, and they all approach you and Viv, congratulating you and asking questions about your relationship.

As most of your teammates disperse and Katie thoroughly interrogates Viv, Beth approaches you. You give her an apologetic look, but Beth just grins at you. “Don’t even think about apologizing, love. All I wanted was for you to be happy, and it’s clear that you are with Vivianne. You two clearly love each other, and I feel silly for not noticing it.”

You smile at your friend, and let your eyes drift to your girlfriend. “I love her so much. I couldn’t be happier than I am with her.” As your eyes meet Viv’s, you know in your heart that she is the one you will spend the rest of your life with.

---

@awfcloml

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