#maybe I should listen to outkast again

[not-souleaterpost]

And I thought the way I title chapters was too much lol:

[catbountry]

Does anybody else remember Pandora? Not the box, or the fictional planet where James Cameron's blue alien cat people live where there's a literal mineral called "unobtanium" that can only be harvested from that particular planet. My man literally called that shit "unobtanium," fucking portmanteau of "unobtainable" and the "-ium" suffix for newer elements. No. That has absolutely nothing to do with anything else I'm writing beyond this point. This is a post about music.

This is a post about the customizable internet radio station Pandora. And also it's going to briefly cover ClickRadio, it's going to talk about my experiences with YouTube Music, Spotify, my own iPod and how I find and listen to music, and how it's a core part of my creative process and I put a bunch of music references in pretty much all of my creative work. None of it being musical, by the way. I can barely carry a tune and I can't play any instruments more complicated than a kazoo.

It also got really long and rambly, look, I'm high, I'm sorry. You've been warned.

It's 2001. I'm in high school. My life looks like this drawing I made a few weeks ago.

Music is a big part of my life. The internet was a lot slower. It would take several minutes to download an .mp3 file of a song that was only about three and a half minutes long, so I would listen to the radio a lot. But the thing about listening tuning into radio is that it's not the internet. You can't pick which song to listen to whenever you want. If you want that, your best bet is to own the songs you want on their physical CD releases, or risk exposing your mom's computer to a million viruses. But in order to skip a song, you have to press a physical button to skip a song. And of course, if you're listening to the radio where you can discover new songs, you can't skip the latest Limp Bizkit or Disturbed track with the vain hope that maybe they'll play "One-Armed Scissor" by At The Drive-In or "Go With the Flow" by Queens of the Stone Age, or any single off of Kid A. Everything you hated the most, hated more than Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys, was all lumped together under the formless "alternative rock" label, which weirdly included hip-hop artists like Eminem, House of Pain, Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, Gorillaz and Outkast; all stuff that I guess radio stations looked at and thought "yeah, this can appeal to white people."

You know I heard Dynamite Hack's version of "Boyz N The Hood" before I ever heard Eazy-E's? That should be a crime. That should be considered a human right's violation. Fuck you, Dynamite Hack for introducing the entire world to the concept of ironic hipster covers hip-hop songs which led to the fucking white people with ukeleles versions of Tupac songs. I am so glad that we, as a society, have all come together against these dynamite hacks and decided this was cringe and something that belongs in the past.

But this isn't an essay on awful YouTube music trends of the early 2010's, this is listening to music in the internet age in the early 2000's.

In 2001, ClickRadio launched. It was a desktop application that allowed you to listen to radio stations via the internet, but it had something real radio stations did not; if a song like, say, Dynamite Hack's cover of "Boys N The Hood" came on, you could click a thumbs down button and it would let out this cartoonishly loud "thud" and then that station would never play that song for you again. And if they played a song you really liked? You could click a thumb's up button and it would play that song more often.

I cannot understate how fucking mindblowing an idea this was in the early 2000's. Yes, ClickRadio would slow down your computer as the Neopets Flash games you would play gringing for Neopoints to get a Halloween brush for your Lupe that you named after a member of your favorite band. Anybody else do that?

No? Just me? Okay then.

ClickRadio would quickly get enshittificated, within only about a year or two being filled with more and more unskippable ads. I went back to just loading up MP3s in Winamp and playing music that way by the time I was in college, but it was a pain having to listen to whatever song I had physically on my hard drive, or a few years later, going to YouTube to see if somebody uploaded a crusty version of a NoMeansNo song with a Spanish-speaking DJ speaking in the opening bits of the video. Not ideal.

But then Pandora showed up.

I don't remember where I first heard about Pandora, but after Napster, there were a bunch of music start-ups hoping to be legitimate in the eyes of artists and record labels. Clickradio was just a radio station. But Pandora... was an experiment of The Algorithm.

You see, Pandora started what is known as the Music Genome Project, a way of organizing music into hundreds of different subgenres across five large umbrella genres; Pop/Rock, Hip Hop/Electronica, Jazz, World Music and Classical. What Pandora did was use this as a way to allow users to craft their own custom radio stations. And not only would it play the stuff you liked, but it would be tailored to a seed artist or song; you put in Nirvana, you get a lot of 90's alt rock radio faire, but then maybe it plays Mudhoney. Maybe it plays Sonic Youth. Maybe it plays Melvins, and you like it. And when you give a thumbs up, you hear more and more artists in similar subgenres. And let's say you've been looking into obscure or underground music for years before you start using Pandora, and suddenly you're introduced to artists you never would have come across more organically. And buddy, you'd bet my Pandora station was a fucking hodgepodge of hundreds of seeds, which allowed me to discover highly influential /mu/ core bands like Swans, Animal Collective and Neutral Milk Hotel, but also bands that are so obscure that their Spotify listens are in the lower four digits at maximum and maybe a couple tens of thousands of views on YouTube. So many songs I found through Pandora are from bands that I very rarely hear a lot of people talk about, but they've made songs that have just lived in my brain for decades.

And for a couple years, I'd be listening to Pandora radio while writing up new TF2 fanfiction to terrorize TF2chan with. Certain songs would come up so often because I specifically bookmarked them. I didn't really know a lot about shoegaze before Pandora, but now I own a physical copy of all three of Slowdive's albums, and you fucking bet "When the Sun Hits" was in heavy rotation while I was writing Respawn of the Dead.

Yes, this was playing while I was writing out Respawn of the Dead, chapter by chapter. And so was "Beautiful Plateau" by Sonic Youth, "The Sound" by Swans, "Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor and "End of the Line" by Murder By Death. And also this song by a band called The Clock Work Army, which split up and reformed into another band called Calico Horses, and I know this because I found this out while trying to track down a song that would play constantly on my Pandora station and it has, as of writing this sentence, 2,588 listens. And it might have more by the time you read this because I might just put it on loop because oh my god, I love this song so much, it hits so perfect for me, why don't more people know about this song?

It's not on YouTube, where I usually tend to listen to music, since I'll go through a rotation of songs that I call "work songs." I put on music while I write, and some songs are just so perfect that I can listen to them on loop with a very select number of songs that just never, ever get old for me. My neurons in my brain light up as though I was hearing it again for the first time.

Swans, Sigur Ros and The Dillinger Escape Plan are all artists who I found through Pandora that I've had the privilege to see live. By the time I was just discovering bands because I had a bunch of friends and mutuals with similar taste in music to mine, Pandora was slowly getting more and more ads. It was getting to the point where the free service would, if you were lucky, play only three or four songs before playing an ad. And when the length of those songs can span anywhere from less than three minutes for much of my beloved 80's and early 90's punk, to up to a half an hour for post-rock, noise, or ambient music. And the number of ads that played between songs had increased. What was just one every half an hour or so was now two to three for what could potentially be only after seven minutes of music. Pandora really doesn't like it if the music you like includes a lot of songs that are longer than an episode of The Simpsons.

I never hear anybody talk about Pandora anymore. Spotify is THE name in internet music streaming, and it favors listens of entire albums and other people's playlists. I don't like Spotify; sometimes I just want a specific song from a specific album. I could make a playlist of these "work songs," but I like when YouTube notices that I'm listening to music, and in the recommendeds, there's another song that I've listened to on repeat. Why yes, I would like you to play "Classical Homicide" by Dälek for me again. What's that? An hour loop of Deadmau5's "Professional Griefers" featuring Gerard Way? Yes please. I apologize for nothing. That dude's way better than Skrillex.

God, do you guys remember the Deadmau5/Skrillex shipping that was all over Tumblr in the early 2010's. I remember it. I remember it so hard. Everybody shipping them and the members of Daft Punk, posting Steam Powered Giraffe (blech) and Die Antwoord (lol) on my dashboard. In Die Antwoord's defense, they had some pretty funny music videos.

I got AdBlocker for YouTube, so the ads aren't a problem there. I mean, I could make a playlist for Spotify of my go-to songs, but I'd have to deal with ads. And there's something nice about YouTube's robots that sell my precious data to faceless corporations at least having the courtesy to be like "You look like you could use another stream of 'Anything (Viva!)' by Foetus. Or Scraping Foetus off the Wheel. Or... whatever, fuck it, it's J.G. Thirwell's band, okay? It's the guy that does the music for Venture Brothers."

Foetus was introduced to me through a friend but it was Pandora serving me up more of their music that made their albums "nail" and "Flow" ones that got the honor of Being Downloaded onto my iPod so I can Listen to This in my Car. I still use my iPod and even if there's albums that I haven't gone back to in years on there, I like having them there. I haven't listened to the soundtrack for Panty and Stocking in ages but having access to it so that I can FLY AWAY NOW, FLY AWAY NOW, FLY AWAAAYYYY on a long drive? I like having that option.

I still buy CDs so I can burn albums onto my iPod. My iPod doesn't have ads and switching between artists doesn't mean I have to flip through a CD binder. I also try to buy albums off of Bandcamp. Especially for smaller artists, or artists whose work I love enough to want to give them my money. I don't want to listen to ads. It throws off my workflow, shakes me out of the trance-like state that is pure, focused creativity. Whether it's working on comics or thinking about things I want to do in those comics, I'm usually listening to music. Sometimes the same album, hundreds of times over. I admit I haven't listened to that much King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, but I've listened to Nonagon Infinity front to back more times than I can count.

Nowadays it feels like I don't have a lot of friends who share my taste in music. I've so fully entrenched myself in fandom circles that I've been exposed to the average person's taste in music and I'm like "oh yeah, most people aren't as big of a fucking nerd about this as you are." You know how hard it is to get people who aren't music nerds to get into The Residents? Everybody I know that likes them already knew about them before we met, and people who had never heard of them before they met me usually find them deeply weird and never get fucking obsessed with them like I have. I own a physical copy of, not their original version of their album The King and Eye, which is an entire album of them covering Elvis that sounds like this, but the fucking remix of that album that does shit like this to their covers of Elvis songs. And you know what? I love both versions, but that remix of their cover of "Surrender" is a work song.

Listening to music is the only way I can guarantee that I'm actually working on something and not playing with my phone. I guess what I'm saying is... it sure would be nice if Pandora existed like it did back then right now.

Especially because I stopped cleaning up a page of my horrible Deltarune fan comic (MASSIVE Dead Dove warning, not even kidding, the entire story hinges on some very upsetting topics) just to write all this down and make sure there were links to every song in this essay. And like... I've even used the comic as a not-so-clandestine way into tricking them into listening to my music before. Whether it be directly namedropping bands and songs, writing about a specific character's taste in music and using that in the story somehow, or literally just making the title of one of my comic installments... this.

It is really good. 686 listens on YouTube. Absolutely criminal. And the example above? That's me not putting in hundreds of references into the comic and wondering if anybody else has noticed them.

I guess what I'm saying is that I am a huge music nerd, even though I always feel like I'm getting into artists super late (unless they're like Death Grips, but that was only after The Money Store had come out), but I fucking hate Spotify. I want more physical releases that can be preserved digitally, and I don't have the money to get into collecting vinyls as a hobby. All the vinyl I own is toys, and uh... I own a lot of those.

Thank you for reading through pure, uncut music autism mixed in with nostalgia and griping about capitalism because that's apparently where my head is at all the time when I'm not daydreaming my little stories or making up video essays in my head that will never be made. That's why I do stream of consciousness Tumblr essays full of minute details that absolutely are not necessary, but this is how my goddamn ADHD brain works. Now you know what it's like to be in my Discord server.

That post is, of course, pinned in the music channel.

As it should be.

... Fuck Pandora, I don't even fuck with it no more, I miss Grooveshark, weh, my playlist on that site was eight hours long before they shut it down in 2014. Devastated. I was in the middle of using it when it went offline.

Okay now I'm done for real, sorry.

[allandoflimbo]

I  C  E    P R I N C E S S  10

Pairings: Popular Girl!Reader x Outkast!Bucky

Explicit Content - Smut - NO MINORS

Summary:

Bucky Barnes is the quiet boy who gets picked on.

The Reader and her friends run with the popular crowd at Stark High.

As the Winter Ball approaches, she is partnered with Bucky Barnes for a class project. They grow close in an inadvertently secret friendship, which later turns into love.

Only catch is…she’s Steve Roger’s ex girlfriend, and before she was partnered up with Bucky, her friends had planned to use and turn Bucky into Stark High’s new it boy to try and get back at Steve; a disgusting bet.

Another catch: She’s a figure skater at the town’s arena every Tuesday and Thursday nights. Bucky works part time at the rink resurfacing the ice. The other doesn’t know.

Modern AU High School fic - later goes into adulthood.

M A S T E R P A G E - FULL SERIES

Warnings: This story will have a lot of angst, a lot of fluff, a lot of cursing, and a lot of sex. Oral, praise kink, body worship, overstimulation, etc. you know me. There will also be loss of virginity in this.

Please support your content creators and writers and leave a review.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

You hear him call your name before you see him.

"I heard you were going to the cabin trip." He says.

You turn around after his question.

Steve.

"I am." You reply.

"I'll be there, too! I'm excited, it'll be fun."

You sigh. You didn't understand his playful tone. What was he getting at?

"I hope so. Now that I think about it, I do need it." You say.

"You do." Steve says. He notices your eyes drop and he brings you in for a hug that you mutually respond to, "You'll have a blast, Bunny." Whispers into your hair; "You're going to have a great time, I promise."

At the end of the hallway, Bucky is watching your interaction.

He swallows hard and blinks.

He didn't expect this. He didn't expect the jealousy he'd feel at seeing you talking to your ex. Because he realizes that is exactly what he is feeling right now. Pure goddamn jealousy.

He hates everything about this. He hates how he's clearly developed feelings for you.

He can't stand the way your arms tighten around Steve or the way Steve's hand runs over the top of your head.

Steve's already hurt you once before, what's to say he won't do it again.

Bucky sighs and runs a hand down his face.

He was screwed. He had feelings for you.

At first he had thought it was just a crush, but this was different than that. Seeing you with Steve confirmed that for him.

He walks away, refusing to look at the scene in front of him any longer.

__

Bucky wasn't listening to you. His mind was running on a hundred miles per hour since he realized what he was starting to feel. The second he stepped foot into your home today he knew things were different. He felt different now, sitting here in your room, hearing to your voice explain school work.

He can't look up at you because the second he does, he won't be able to look away from those eyes of yours.

How did this even happen?

"Question five. Biggest Strengths and Weaknesses?" You ask, going down the list. Bucky sits crisscross from you on your bed. He doesn't respond as he bites his lip. "Bucky?" You try calling his attention.

He's been distracted all night. He's not usually like this, you note.

You nudge his leg with your foot when he still doesn't respond.

"Biggest strengths and weaknesses?" You ask again, frowning. You pondered if you should ask if he's okay, but he beats you to it.

"What the deal with you and Steve?" He asks. His gaze is still on the notebook in his lap and he's scribbling.

The question catches you completely off guard. For a second you think maybe he's joking, but everything about him, his eyes and his tone, screams extremely serious. You don't know what to make of it at all.

"He's my ex. But we stayed friends." You explain slowly, "why?"

He shrugs an arm and licks his lips.

"Just curious. I saw you two together today."

You keep watching his behavior and you notice the way he hesitantly finally starts to look up at you. The look in his eyes sent something down your spine.

"Yeah," you say, voice coming out a little hoarse and you clear your throat, "we're friends. Just friends."

He keeps eye contact with you and then reaches over to grab his water bottle. You watch as he gulps down his water.

You look away as you feel a heat in your cheeks. What was happening?

"And your friends really are genuine about being nice to me now?" He asks once he's closing the water bottle.

You look back at him sympathetically. You close your notebook and place it down on the bed.

"Yes. I told you they are." You reach over to grab his hand and surprisingly, he returns your hold. He grabs tightly onto you, "Just stay away from Matt. None of us like him. He's a leech that won't unstick. But all of us; me, Sam, Sharon, and Carol, hell even Steve, like you."

You feel him rub this thumb over the back of your hand.

"Okay." He says.

"You sure?"

"Yeah," he keeps looking down at your hand in his and he runs his thumb over it once more. You both stare at it silently.

"Bucky—"

"Y/N—"

You both say each other's name at the same time, but it doesn't matter. It's interrupted by the sound of Bucky's phone vibrating next to him

He frowns and picks up quickly.

"What?" His face falls and you instantly become worried, "Okay where? But she's okay?" The look in his eyes break your heart. Bucky stands up and runs a hand through his hair, "Okay, I'll be there in about a half hour." He looks back at you and your heart does that hammering thing again. He looks away from you as you get up and follow him, "Is there anything I should bring? Okay. Bye."

There's a change in his behavior as you walk up behind him. Something was wrong.

"What happened?" You ask softly.

You feel the urge to reach out your hand and touch his back, to show some kind of comfort.

He turns around and he's giving you the sweetest look you've ever received in your life.

"I'm sorry. I need to go."He walks around you and starts to pack his things up.

"Bucky, you can tell me." You follow him again, "I want to be there for you."

Bucky is too distracted by the thoughts in his head to hear you.

"I'll text you later, okay?"

And with that he was out.

___

"So she's going to be able to have the lung transplant sooner?" Bucky's father asks the doctor.

"That's correct. Because she's deteriorating faster because of what happened, she's been pushed up on the donors list. We're making calls as we speak. We just need to find a match and she'll be booked for surgery." The doctor explains.

Bucky's leg is bouncing up and down as he listens to the doctor. He's worried for his mother and he's scared. At the same time, he's also relieved and hopeful that she will finally receive new lungs.

But he knows they are on a limited time.

Just like that, Bucky feels a pull in his heart. He didn't want to do this alone. And the kind of companion and support he needed right now wasn't from his father. Bucky can feel his heart in his fingertips as he pulls out his phone and finds your number.

- if you want to come meet up with me, I'm here

He sends you the address

- mom isn't doing too well, but she might get her surgery soon.

Not even two minutes pass before his phone vibrates.

| I'm on my way

A half hour passes with no new news.

Bucky looks up at his father who sitting right across from him, his hands on his face. He gets up and slowly makes his way up to him. Bucky crouches down in front of his dad.

"She'll be alright. Mom has been through worse. Everything will be fine, I know it." Bucky tells him.

His dad drops his hands and sighs. He smiles sweetly at his son and ruffles his hair.

"You're a good one, you know that?" Bucky smiles back. His dad frowns at him, "you've changed." Bucky is the one that frowns now, "you're more, I don't know, laidback. Less worried. Happier."

Bucky just stares at his dad and contemplates what he's saying.

Was he right? Was Bucky really acting different? Happier? The nagging feeling in his heart and brain knows why but he's afraid to acknowledge it right now.

Y/N was his study partner, sometimes friend. That's all. He's hated you since fourth grade. It's just because you've been spending a lot of time together and he's overthinking it.

It's not because he's never seen someone skate as beautifully as you, or because of your naturing care for people like how you'd always have little snacks ready for him to take him to his parents, it wasn't because of how genuinely wrong he was about your unkindness, and it wasn't because of how funny and dorky you were, and it most certainly wasn't about your chocolate chip cookies, or when you told him you wanted to be a doctor while you both skated around an ice rink.

"Bucky?"

Bucky quickly turns his head towards the door to the waiting room where he sees you. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts about his feelings for you that it's like whip-splash and he doesn't find the words to respond to you. You're standing there, a concerned look on that face of yours, and all he can think about is how he never saw this coming.

He slowly stands up and you and him meet halfway.

Her eyes dart behind him.

"That's my dad." Bucky says quietly, "we're waiting for news on her now." The uneasiness in his voice doesn't go unnoticed and you slowly move in closer to him.

You step on your tip toes and reach up to wrap both your arms around his neck in a tight hug. He's surprised at first, but it doesn't take him very long to reciprocate, his own arms wrapping around your middle.

He wasn't overthinking it.

N E X T   C H A P T E R

[sweetfirebird]

I got tagged

by @amysnotdeadyet (i wasn't sure if I was supposed to directly reblog)

You can usually tell a lot about a person by the type of music they listen to. put your favourite playlist on shuffle and list the first ten songs then tag ten people! no skipping!

I don't have a favorite playlist but this was the one on when I was walking this morning, so why not that one?

(The playlist is titled Put On Your Sunday Best, Kids. We're Going to Sears!)

on shuffle

Bootylicious - Destiny's Child

Oops (Oh My) - Tweet feat. Missy Elliot

Obsessed -Mariah Carey

(look this is a workout playlist)

Destroy Everything You Touch -Ladytron

Milkshake -Kelis

Try Again -Aaliyah

Rehab -Amy Winehouse

Perfect (Exceeder) --Mason/Princess Superstar

Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You) -Janet Jackson/Carly Simon

I'm on Fire --Bruce Springsteen (I think this ended up in this playlist by mistake but oh well. It's good it's just not a workout song)

**Bonus since that was not a workout song**

Roses -Outkast

I know I'm supposed to tag people but honestly, like, everyone should do it if they feel like it. Get some new music on the dash for people maybe. <3

[girlreviews]

Review #49: Aquemeni, OutKast

Coming in at one hour and fourteen minutes (!!!), there was this very fun time where, particularly hip hop albums really ran long and featured soundscapes between tracks and running storylines throughout. I mean I’m sure they still do but it was like, a real thing. It’s hard to imagine an album running over an hour these days.

Aquemeni is a few records in but before OutKast really were super mainstream, got burned out and quit — no Heya! here. I feel so lucky to have been growing up and listening to OutKast as they were releasing music, beginning, middle, and end. They were just interesting and different and I kinda think it wouldn’t have mattered what genre they were in (André 3000’s most recent flute record would probably agree). It had something to say about society and the world we live in, it was a relationship between two friends who had serious talent and seriously different approaches but a ton of respect for one another, and it was a ton of other musical influence. This record is so funky.

I could and might spend the remainder of this review writing about Spottieottiedopalicious which I think might be one of my favorite songs of all time. For several reasons.

One, the drums. I can’t even deal with them.

Two, the opening vocals sung by André that are, again, so funky it’s almost not right.

Three, the line “as the plot thickens, it gives me the Dickens reminiscent of Charles”. It’s really introducing the remainder of the song, which is a story, and it is fucking genius. I can’t even imagine how pleased with myself I’d be if I wrote something like that. My ego simply would not be contained. I’d just know I was better than everyone else because I wrote that and nobody else did. And rightfully so.

Four, the brass. Not a sample. ORIGINAL brass. Like, what even is this song? Move this point up to number one actually. It’s ORIGINAL MUSIC.

Why aren’t we talking about it all of the time? Why isn’t it required listening for high school students so they can play it in marching band? I’m dead serious. Okay after fussing about this on the internet for a bit I’m heartened to learn that Aquemeni, specifically, and this is amazing, is played among orchestras because of its incredible composition. Check this the fuck out! The entire album start to finish! Incredible. I am pretty sure, although I can’t find it anywhere now that I have seen a clip of at least one high school band playing the trumpet from Spottieottiedopalicious.

There was a time when this song didn’t exist, and then it did, and we should all be in awe of that the majority of the time. I don’t get why we’re not. Two people met each other and became friends and made music together and created that, and a whole bunch of other incredible music.

When I was an angsty teen, I had tickets to the some tour… I wanna say the Anger Management Tour or something like that, and I was so fucking pumped about it (I hand painted my own shirt to wear, it was the dorkiest shit ever and the less said about it the better). OutKast were headlining alongside frankly, a bunch of other subpar bands that, while I was very into at the time, have not stood the test of time whatsoever (looking at you Fred Durst). It was abruptly cancelled a few days before and I never did get to see OutKast, not at any other festival or show, which is really a huge miss. I traded in those four tickets in exchange for ten tickets to then up and coming band Linkin Park. I still remember the outfit I wore. That was a memory, and not one I’d trade for quite a few reasons, none related to Linkin Park or their music. And I do wish I’d had the chance to see OutKast live, but I can honestly say I know I wouldn’t have appreciated what I was seeing at the time. Maybe it was better that I never got to wear my DIY shirt though. I’ve embarrassed myself enough in this life.

[twunny20fission]

My thoughts on Pitchfork's 150 best albums of the 1990s; #90-#81

Reminder: three completely subjective criteria. 1: do I like it, yes or no? (Basically, is this for me?) 2: Would I recommend it to anyone, yes or no? (is this for anyone else?) and 3: Is it better than STPs "Core"? (The lowest bar. Few things are better than "Purple," but Core should absolutely be in the top 150, so that's the bar.)

90: Ghostface Killah: Ironman (1996). It was fine. Doesn't hit as hard as I wanted it to.

Like it: sure. Recommend: sure. Better than "Core": no.

89: Sonny Sharrock: Ask the Ages (1991). I'd heard of Sharrock, but never listened to a full album. I enjoyed it greatly. Very glad it was included. It is very tricky to compare against pretty much anything else on this list.

Like it: yes. Recommend: yes. Better than "Core": yes.

88: Sonic Youth: Goo (1990). This band never sounds like I think they're going to. I simultaneously don't get what all the fuss is about and understand why people who really like them like them.

Like it: yes. Recommend: no. Better than "Core": no.

87: DJ Screw: 3 ’N The Mornin’ Part Two (1996). Didn't love it. It was theoretically divided into separate pieces, but really sounded like one big DJ jam-session that went on way too long and lacked inspiration for most of it.

Like it: no. Recommend: no. Better than "Core": no.

86: Spiritualized: Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (1997). Ahead of their time. In that, this album sounded like a movie soundtrack to a pretentious early-aughts movie, more than an album from 1997. It was crowded, far-out (for better or worse,) and deep (usually for worse.)

Like it: no. Recommend: no. Better than "Core": no.

85: Godspeed You! Black Emperor: F♯ A♯ ∞ (1997). Again, very soundtracky. It should have been nowhere near this list. It's not a "best album" album; it's a "album my weird friend left on repeat in college when he took a 6-hour nap one time and I varied between thinking it was cool and hating everything about my life because all that existed was the Sound" album.

Like it: no. Recommend: no. Better than "Core": no.

84: OutKast: ATLiens (1996). Friends, I don't want to hate on OutKast. So I won't. This isn't the best shit I've heard, but I liked it.

Like it: yes. Recommend: yes. Better than "Core": maybe.

83: Slint: Spiderland (1991). I don't know much about this band. Wikipedia claims they are seminal, which means...let me see here..."of, relating to, or consisting of seed or semen." Sure. I understood so little of the lyrics that I can't deny that may be accurate. Kyuss is better.

Like it: no. Recommend: no. Better than "Core": no.

82: The Chicks: Fly (1999). I'm no longer in high school. I no longer have to listen to country music so that I can have something to talk to my high school girlfriend about. And I no longer have to pretend any more. I am no longer surrounded by either A) people who think country music sucks or B) so-called 'purists' who think the Chicks aren't "real country." If those people are nearby, they can go to hell. The Chicks RULE. "Fly" RULES. And, while we're talking about it, "Wide Open Spaces" rules, too. (I'm not as familiar with the other albums.

Like it: yes. Recommend: yes. Better than "Core": yes.

91: Radiohead: The Bends (1995). I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't get Radiohead. So strongly do I NOT get them, I firmly believe that anyone who is obsessed with Radiohead (you know the type) is delusional. I'd say I don't hate them as much as Weezer. But I don't get them. You know those bands you love, and you've never been able to articulate why? It's just like...your molecules vibrate the right way when you hear them? I get the opposite of that with Radiohead. My molecules just tilt their little bonds and say "can we change it to something else"?

Like it: no. Recommend: no. Better than "Core": no.

[eightysixed]

happier than ever

You call me again, drunk in your Benz Drivin' home under the influence You scared me to death, but I'm wastin' my breath 'Cause you only listen to your fuckin' friends I don't relate to you I don't relate to you, no 'Cause I'd never treat me this shitty You made me hate this city

words: 3.2k plot: emma and tomo’s relationship, in a nutshell. trigger warnings: abuse, assault, drugs, cheating, violence, blood, suicidal ideation, nsfw

Five years is a lifetime when you’ve just begun your twenties. It’s half a decade of years so formative and important that you don’t really realize their importance until they have flown past.

Emma spent those years with Tomo.

[ SEPTEMBER 2014 ]

A twenty-one year old goes to an Outkast concert. She gets propositioned by a guy. Rough, pushy, handsy, it’s enough to make her feel suffocated, plan paths of escape or desperately look for a face in the crowd that could intervene. Then he comes in with his buddies and they all but rescue her. How ironic Emma thinks, years later. What a Disney-ified, damsel in distress moment to have and to meet by.

They spend the rest of the concert together, follow it up with an after hours at Los Coyotes, wolfing down soft shells in between food-spitting laughter. Emma, Tomo, and his two buddies. The energy is infectious, and she doesn’t want to say goodbye at the end of the night. It’s a feeling she has never felt before; those sparks in his eyes that are in hers too, the way he grounds and floors her. They exchange numbers and Emma’s face lights up as she’s getting off her Muni owl: it’s a text from him.

It doesn’t take long for his contact name to acquire an Emoji heart next to it, the girl who ridiculed these kinds of things in high school now finding herself enamoured, head-over-heels, and not caring for the criticisms of formerly cynical self.

[ OCTOBER ] A month later and she’s packed up and moved into his place, about as happy as she has ever been of late; everything in life falls into place with him, just makes sense.

[ NOVEMBER ] He gets エマ tattooed on his collarbone; her name in katakana. She gets 23, his lucky number.

They spend thanksgiving with her mom in Cupertino. Frankie hasn’t seen Emma this animated again in a long time, composes a poem about in her head as the green beans and pumpkin pie are passed around. Later of course, she pulls out the baby photos, much to Emma’s embarrassment and Tomo’s delight. “You were such a fat baby, Jesus,”  Tomo laughs. “She looks like she ate baby Jesus,” her mother quips.

When her mom falls asleep, they sneak out and climb up Emma’s childhood treehouse armed with blankets. They gaze at a sliver of night sky through a gap in the roof as Emma tells him her childhood dreams of flying to space and inventing computers that could contact extraterrestrial life. They kiss, they make love, Emma ponders her stance on marriage being outdated and for chumps and losers next to a snoring Tomo.

[ FEBRUARY 2015 ] Their first Valentine’s day together they drop acid at Pier 39. An irate parent yells at them for making out on the merry-go-round in view of children; have they no shame.

She makes new friends, dozens, someone always at their place as Tomo plays them new tracks, smoke weed together, and watch the oil projector light show make shapes on the ceiling. They talk about the future, fame, and world domination.

They don’t discuss babies because neither of them care for that sort of shit — but they do talk about moving into a bigger place together, maybe getting a dog or two — the breed is subject of many arguments.

[ MARCH ] In peak puppy fever, Emma adopts a two year old rescue bulldog named Tito. It’s the first, tiny sign of a crack in their relationship, of dissent — she thinks she sees Tomo glare at the precious pup when he thinks she isn’t looking. But maybe she imagined it. He does shed and slobber uncontrollably after all, and her boyfriend happens to be a clean freak.

[ JULY ] That summer, Emma braves a plane once more to see Tomo play in Atlanta. His set is off the walls and for the first time, she is amazed to see just how many fans he has, how far this boyfriend of hers has come from making tracks in his living room. It’s just too bad she is fast asleep when he tiptoes out of their hotel room to meet one of said fans for a back-alley blowjob.

They roadtrip across the South to play some more venues and the pattern repeats itself in Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico. She wakes up in a cold sweat one night in Vegas, confused as to why he’s gone. “Out getting food. Got hungry.” The message hits her in a weird place, but she is tired, sleepy, and in a haze; Emma accepts, does not question. He even returns with some Taco Bell for her.

Timeskip — 3 years:

[ APRIL 2018 ]

Emma is on her hands and knees in a bathroom, vomit dripping off the toilet rim. She can’t remember how or why she got here, but she’s here. Everything seems to be swimming backwards. Eventually she is able to collect herself off the floor, splash water against her face and wall-to-wall stagger back out of the bathroom. It didn’t work, she’s purged the worst of it but still feeling funny. “Oh, Emma, there you are.” A man’s hands wrap around her. He says he’s friends with Tomo. Says he’ll take her to him. Fade to black.

Waking up with strange bruises should not become a norm, but it does. Emma dismisses it, goes to work, does her best.

Things with Tomo are a violent rollercoaster; some days are great, some days nondescript; and some days downright nightmarish. They fight, throw shit, break shit, yell at each other. Things almost border on the unacceptable as words turn into threats, threats turn to action. A hand around the throat; a body pinned to the wall — her body, of course. His weed grinder he threw that hit her in the head which he swore he’d meant to only toss at the wall. It never crosses a line into the unacceptable, though. That’s what Emma tells herself. He might push her down on the bed, sure, but a bed was soft. He might squeeze her throat in the heat of an argument, but never so much that she’s passing out. He doesn’t hit, kick, or punch her. That was what abusers did, not him. 

She tells herself he can’t help it, his mother used to punish him and his father didn’t love him and now he lashes out the only way he knows how, on the only person he can. He didn’t grown up in as loving a home like she did. He had his reasons. It was okay. They were okay. And the makeup sex afterwards? The best ever.

[ MAY 2018 ]  A month later and Emma is walking in on some girl riding Tomo’s dick like the world was ending, right there on their couch. On their goddamn couch they picked out together, hauled up the stairs with the delivery men. Somehow, the worst part about it all, Emma’s fucked up brain tells her, is that Tito is there to witness it. Her innocent, furry son, witnessing his ‘dad’ for all intents and purposes, cheating on his mom. A ridiculously thought but one she has nonetheless as she’s driving away, Tito next to her in the passenger seat. She goes to sleep at a friend’s and sobs the entire night.

Despite herself, she doesn’t break up with him; but the rift is a mile wide and constantly palpable. Tomo becomes relentlessly apologetic. Not only does he beg forgiveness, he does it live on-air at a radio station, on social media, Emma bombarded by strangers she doesn’t know writing her to take him back. Then he goes and uses her personal kryptonite pulls a Lloyd Dobler outside her work with a Cocorosie song she was absolutely weak for. She hates making a public scene but the sentimental part of her is melting at the gesture, the boombox, all of it. Emma stays. He’d been a shitbag, but he was her shitbag, with all his lovable and terrible qualities wrapped into one person, and she just had to take the shit with the good. Because there was no one else she’d rather be with, ripping side-stitches from too much laughter at four in the morning, tears in her eyes for a good reason this time, from one of his horrifying jokes. 

He was hers and she was his, that’s just how it was to be. Well, as much as she could call him hers when he seemed to be everybody else’s in the process.

Emma does ridiculous, degrading, uncomfortable things in the name of love, and yet in the end she can’t hold on to the love she had for him in the beginning. Way back when they were going up on that ferris wheel at the pier and he looked at her like he had nothing but love in this world, for her. That was what hurt the most, because now the ferris wheel only went down.

There are threesomes, fivesomes, sixsomes, so many bodies in between hers and the one she loves, all in the name of exciting him, holding onto him, trying to be something for him that measured up to Enough. But none of it is enough. None of it makes him happy, nor did it make her happy. She gives him an inch and he takes a mile and then demands more, smiling with blood in his mouth.  She breaks down and becomes something she doesn’t recognize in the mirror. Whether it was an act of revenge or desperation, or finally wanting to give him a taste of his own medicine, Emma sleeps with Corey, one of his best friends. She takes pictures, sends them to him “by accident”. She hates herself through it all, every moment of it, mostly for what he made her into. And yet, underneath all the layers of attempts at hurting him she was really just crawling on all fours, begging him to love her again, need her and want he the way he did in the beginning. Craving to get that first hit back, the one she had been on a residue high off of for four years, the one that now tasted metallic and rancid in her throat.

The worst part? Tomo doesn’t care. He texts her back, telling her to have fun, to send more pictures. She’s never felt this hollow, this empty, this non-entity of a being. The day of her high school graduation flashes in her mind, her dad telling her to never lose her identity, the core of what made her, her. Emma took that core and probably threw it into the Pacific. Somewher between Japan and California, it lies at the bottom of the ocean. 

[ APRIL 2019 ]

Turns out, Emma could draw a line, and that line was becoming accessory to a drug deal. She knew Tomo sold on the side to make up for all the money going into the records, but it had always been a few pills here and there, nothing big. But this? Fentanyl, Xanax, bricks of coke and hash? It was a lot. It was too much.

He sells the drugs and her to go with it, and that’s the end right there. The package she delivers to the apartment he asks her to deliver it to turns into a hostage situation, and she leaves hours later, bruises and caked blood on her. She can’t go home, doesn’t want to. She wants to jump off the bridge she’s crossing from Oakland back to the city. Any bridge, any of them would do. She understands why people jump from the Golden Gate now, or maybe always had. She was there now, climbing the railings, she was ready. She wanted that plunge so badly, would be sad to leave one parent, but good to be reunited with the other. Maybe there she’d be happy, maybe there she’d find peace. 

She calls Ben that night. She’s dry eyed and unemotional, but as soon as she gets the right words, verbalizes her situation, she’s sobbing again. Tomo is out of the city, across the country in Philly on tour. Now was the time, if there was any time for it. She’s not even done with the call when Ben is getting in his car to drive to her. It’s 6 hours from Ojai to San Francisco; he tells her he’ll be there in five. She never deserved a friend like him and never would, Emma thinks as she packs, hastily because somehow Tomo walking through the front door as a ‘surprise’ wouldn’t be out of the question. In the end, she can’t pack everything, has to leave so much behind, her records, books, knickknacks. Five years in this apartment and she’s leaving all of it behind, making a getaway in the middle of the night like some kind of burglar.

By three in the morning he’s here, and they get to packing her suitcases in the car, stacking them as best as they fit in his trunk and backseat, all of Tito’s things and then Tito on a bed in the seat in the back. Emma is in busy mode, stacking and packing everything as fast she can, still somewhere in the back of her mind thinking Tomo would appear at the last minute, and how with Ben here, things could get ugly. She doesn’t want them to get ugly. She loved him far too much to see him have to deal with Tomo, the only person in that specific firing line should be her and no one else.

They drive off. She only feels herself unclench an hour out of Daly City, somewhere in between the Bay and Southern California, where she can exhale. She’s still looking behind them constantly, wondering if every passing car could somehow be him. The saddest, most desperate part of all this that a part of her wants him to have followed. One last ditch attempt to get her back. An all out attempt, one where he would get on both knees and apologize, swear to never be this way again and follow through with it, because he was her person, he was her only person, there was nobody else in this world for her but him, but what do you do when you had to run from your person in the dead of night?

She pulls her raincoat tighter when they stop to get gas, a cold and windy middle of nowhere gas station. She’s not sure how she ends up embracing him, but they’re in it, and feeling someone’s arms around her, somebody that actually cares, who’d never hurt her, who was family, was her mom and his sister and everybody she loved rolled into one, feels like a reprieve. She feels like dirt for making him do this, making him worry, Emma was a piece of shit for that.

She says as much. He tells her to shut up, that she’s nothing like that and this was nothing that he wouldn’t have done for her on any night, any time at all. And maybe that, that was the night she fell in love with him a little bit, or realized she had always been, all along, but God likes to play Lucifer’s games with the little lives he watches over, and it wasn’t made to be, too late anyway since she’d left her heart in somebody else’s hands where it would stay. And he doesn’t need a mess like her anyway, just thinking of the name Catarina was enough. It had been five years but she still remembered the day like yesterday. How low he had been back then. How they would get high together and feel miserable together because at least they had that. They had Weetzie too, but she hadn’t experienced loss like they had, she sympathized but she’d never know what this particular slice of hell was like. But Ben and Emma knew. She knew it in that part of her ribs that met his, and she did not know what she would do if she didn’t have that, have Ben Abrams in her life. 

[ MARCH 2021 ]

Fast forward two years, and the ex is in town. Here, in Los Angeles. That very ex you worked so hard to forget, to heal from, to act like he wasn’t there. And yet, reminders of him were constantly there, everywhere. She doesn’t tell her friends, doesn’t tell anybody he’s in town, just balks when his so called best friend turns up in her neighborhood. She nearly grabs Tito and runs the other way, but it had been too late for that and they have a forced, awkward catch-up. He’s oblivious to anything happening, had barely known about her and Tomo breaking up. Figures, Emma thought, that he would act like nothing happened at all.

He’s in town, and every day she goes to work dreading something happening. She thinks she sees him outside the tattoo parlor’s window, but it’s someone else entirely. She’s losing it again, losing sleep, falling prey to her nightmares. Has a boyfriend now but even that doesn’t help, if anything, he’s a guilty reminder of just how little progress she had made, because she couldn’t devote the time and attention somebody like that needed in her life. Not when all she could think about was him.

The worst part is that once he’s long gone again, back up north, she’s feeling that hollow feeling again. Feeling upset that he didn’t seek her out, didn’t come see her. Even though she knew what an unmitigated disaster that would’ve been, the horrible, rotten part of her wanted it. Of course it wanted it. Two years and her skin still itched for him like an addict longing to be in the throes of fullblown relapse. But he didn’t track her down, call, or text, and that was that. Her only run-in with him involves a party flyer papered on a wall, his name in big stylized letters as the headlining DJ at the club. She stares at that flyer for a little too long, it burns itself in her eye like she’d looked at the sun for too long. And then she does the worst thing she could probably do, go on instagram. Only to find he has a new girlfriend. A brunette with tattoos who looked fun and flirty and everything she had been all those years ago.

That was the last tip of the scale. She reactivates her Tinder, finds some half okay looking guy, makes plans to meet him that night. It’s terrifying, so terrifying going through with, but she gets sufficiently drunk, then high on top of that, and goes through with it. Thinking of another boy’s name the entire time, his face, his body, hands and all the rest. Twelve hours later she’s leaving his apartment, no longer the nun of two years she’d become and feeling shitty about that on top of everything else. It was probably time to go see Karen again she thinks, smoking a cigarette under the sun that melts her while waiting for her Uber home. Thanks friends, thanks family, I’ve made terrific process with all your help and am now back to square one. Thanks for everything.  

Maybe in a decade’s time. 

Maybe she’d be over it by then.  

[parkerwhitmore]

hello buzzfeed friends, do we have a treat for you! straight from the west wing, we’ve got an exclusive interview with parker whitmore: america’s favorite first son! now, we over here at the entertainment section aren’t interested in the political stuff, we’ve only got weird questions for him. but luckily, kara had a great idea: why don’t we get him to pick out the best songs to one day replace our national anthem after society collapses. he was really into the idea: he gave us, like, 50! but we condensed it to the best of the best! we hope you enjoy as much as we did, readers! 

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

1. toxic by britney spears

 “have you ever considered that britney spears is the real president? no? good, because that’s totally not true, at all, and i know nothing about that rumor. but this song just... speaks to the souls of the american people. it starts playing at the club and you hit the dance floor. it unites us as a people.” 

2. national anthem by lana del rey

“we all wish we were the kennedy’s. i mean, i live most of my life in the white house and i still wish i looked that good. somehow, lana bottled the essence of that wish that we were in camelot with them and just turned it into this absolute banger.” 

3. hey ya by outkast

“listen. we all knew this was going to be on here. it’s the only song that makes my mother’s cold, dead heart start beating again. it hits that hard. oh, shit. i didn’t mean that, it was totally a joke, please leave that out? thanks. anyways, andre 3000 please return my calls.” 

4. party in the u.s.a. by miley cyrus

“miley might not be a good southern girl anymore but she still wrote the best song about america ever written. star spanged banner who? america the beautiful what? sorry i only accept this and that one song about getting drunk at 7/11 as my favorite songs specifically about my country.” 

5. footloose by kenny loggins

“no, i’m not taking constructive criticism on this one.” 

6. let’s go crazy by prince

“i once heard this song at 4 am when a party was winding down at a frat house in uva, when i was still in school. literally, the place returned to full swing by the time the elevator tried to bring us down. we kept partying until 2 pm.”  

7. hollaback girl by gwen stefani

“before i heard this song, i had no idea how to spell bananas. now i know it’s b-a-n-a-n-a-s. thanks, gwen. america salutes your service to our country.” 

8. american woman by lenny kravitz

“lenny kravitz is literally the coolest dude in real life, but this song changed the landscape of america with it’s praise of the american woman. it made people all over the country realize that, shit, maybe we should tell this one american woman to let us be. she should definitely stay away from me.”

9. american girl by bonnie mckee 

“this is it! the 7/11 song! god, i try my best to live like this. alcohol in a slurpee, chillin at waffle house, that kind of american shit. it’s so fun, you should try it. just like, follow her instructions. she lines it out pretty well in the first verse.” 

10. born in the usa by bruce springsteen

“i legally have to include this because if i don’t bruce springsteen will personally have me murdered. but this song is okay i guess, my parents are way more into it than i am. so like, old people in america. we have to represent everyone and all that jazz. also if there are photographs of me as that bruce springsteen album cover: they weren’t me and i definitely didn’t go to that frat party.”  

11. no diggity by blackstreet

“it’s got nothing to do with america i just think it’d be fucking awesome if they started blasting this when we won a gold medal. could you imagine a russian and an english guy having to keep a straight face while the american winner cries to this? god, that’d be awesome.” 

12. boys of summer by don henley

“if you’ve never driven with the top down and the wind whipping through your hair while this plays: you’ve never lived. that’s my opinion and i’m sticking with it, there’s nothing you can do to change my mind.”

13. love in america by jtx

“this is going to be a controversial choice, but have you considered: it’s so cheesy it’s fun to listen to. like come on, in the chorus it literally lists the three best things about america: sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll.” 

14. dynamite by taio cruz

“i got to live in a world where this was #1 and it was the time of my life. we got to party to this, i still turn this up the second it comes on the radio. taio cruz must have sold his soul to be able to make this song slap this hard.” 

15. american boy by estelle (feat. kanye west)

“i know it’s technically not about all of america but just... one american boy. but that’s enough for me, this song goes hard and that’s all i have to say.” 

16. american idiot by green day

“okay listen, i know this one’s a bit much. it’s all about what they hate about america but i think it’s a good song and it let me headbang in my dorm room when i was mad at my mom in college, so it goes on my playlist. thanks billie joe armstrong, you’re the best.” 

17. american pie by don mclean

“a classic. another old people song, but a better one this time.” 

18. sweet caroline by neil diamond

“if you don’t buh-buh-buh in the middle of this song, you’re either dead or not from these great united states. we play it when we try to figure out if people are secret foreign agents.” 

19. stacy’s mom by fountains of wayne

“if you can’t live in a country where stacy’s mom is the hottest person in it, what’s the point?

20. livin’ on a prayer by bon jovi

“this song is art. i know it’s overplayed and old but it’s art. it’s about the american dream. we’re always just halfway there. whoa-oh. lemon on a chair. you know the lyrics. i don’t have to explain them to you.” 

[neonflavored]

back pocket

finally some powerfist// Luke and Danny make mixtapes and team building exercises ensue

you can read this here too:http://archiveofourown.org/works/13099077/chapters/29967954

song the title came from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5pYL-Y--To

back pocket

 Is it so hard to believe that Danny is the one that believes in team building exercises?

Actually, that’s probably the easiest thing to believe out of how crazy the whole thing is. What’s more amazing is that the others indulged him in the first place. Here are four people who couldn’t stand each other just a month ago, confined in a tiny space (i.e. Danny’s apartment) trying to coexist like normal human beings. And for all intents and purposes, it was working.

It took some bribing for Jessica to join in –par for the course at this point- and even then, it took Danny spending a small fortune on alcohol to get her to come over.

“Finally came through for me, Iron Clad,” she says, swirling the bourbon in her glass.

Danny’s only ever had Joy over at his apartment; Colleen hasn’t even been over yet. He thinks it’s kind of special that his team gets to be the second group of guests in his home, so it’s really no trouble to flash the cash and get something that all of them can enjoy together. He thinks of it like a toast to their saving of the world gig, just without the actual toasting. Jessica’s lounging back on the couch making friends with the bourbon bottle with Matt next to her. Luke is sitting on the edge of the chaise with Danny finishing out the circle on the loveseat.

There’s music playing in the background, a random playlist from Danny’s old iPod. There’s pizza boxes on the coffee table, mostly empty and mingling amongst nearly drained bottles of wine. The skyline is backing their entire setup. Things are nice.

“You’d probably be nicer to me if I was a whiskey bottle,” says Danny, not meaning any harm by it. Jessica smiles serenely at him, good and buzzed now. “Hey, you said it, not me.”

Luke and Mike laugh, and for a little while, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think they’d all been friends for years, that they hadn’t just met a month ago. “That reminds me,” says Jessica, after tipping back the last of her bourbon, “what else you got?”

“I think that’s it,” replies Danny, leaning forward to sift through the junk on the coffee table. “We kinda went wild tonight.”

Jessica shakes her head. “Oh, honey, you don’t even know.” With that, she sets her glass down on the table and heaves herself to her feet. “But if the bourbon’s finished, then so am I. Been nice, actually, but I gotta scram.” She picked up one of the half-finished wine bottles, looked it over, shrugged, then stuffed it into her bag.

“Later,” she chirped over her shoulder, hand raised in way of goodbye. Then, she was gone.

For a whirlwind like she was, Jessica Jones was never one to stay put for very long it seemed. She showed up, did what needed to be done, said what needed to be said, and went on her way. A woman of few words who put up with even fewer things.

Matt pushed his glasses up further on the bridge of his nose and stretched. “I think I’m gonna head out too. I’d stay and help clean up, but…”

Danny grinned at him, leaning back in the loveseat. “’But’…”

Matt shrugged, no shame to his game. “I don’t want to.”

Danny snorted. “Fair enough.”

Matt grabbed his cane and nodded at Danny, keeping his tone light. “You’re a good man, Danny Rand. Skinny, but good.”

Danny laughs, might’ve said something in retort, but he’d never really gotten a look at Matt’s physique under the suits –bulletproof or business- to warrant a wisecrack.

Once Matt’s gone, Danny looks to Luke, still seated on the couch and looking rather comfortable there with zero intentions of moving. Still, Danny asks him, “Guess you’ll be heading out too?”

Luke shakes his head. “Nah. I’ll help you clean up. Least I can do; you probably spent a fortune on that alcohol anyway.”

“Yeah, but it’s cool,” says Danny, shrugging one shoulder. “As long as everyone liked it.” He slides out of his seat and leans down to clear away the pizza boxes.

Luke regards him quietly with an expression on his face that was equal parts smug and curious. Danny catches him looking out the corner of his eye and straightens slightly. “What?”

“You’ve gotten a lot more easygoing since…well, all things considered. Is this what Danny Rand is really like?” says Luke. He stands up, plucks a wine bottle up by the neck and searches for a trash can. “I thought you’d be small and angry forever.”

Danny quirks an eyebrow. “I’m not small and angry.”

“You’re shorter than I am and way angrier. You punched everything before you even asked any questions.”

“Doesn’t Jessica do that too?”

Luke turned back to him, one eyebrow raised. “You wanna be the one to call her out on that? Be my guest, man, I promise you’ll regret it.” He’s smiling as he says it though, and when he looks up again, Danny is smiling too.

They clean up in shared silence for a while, at least until Danny starts humming to the music playing in the background. Luke vaguely recognizes the song, hasn’t heard it in years but still feels the tickle of familiarity in the back of his mind as his lips silently reform the lyrics from memory.

“Is this…Outkast?” he asks. Danny startles, like he’d forgotten Luke was even there, probably wrapped up in whatever world he’d found in the music. He looks from the sound system where his iPod is connected back to Luke and grins sheepishly. “Uh…yeah.”

Luke turns from where he’s busy crushing pizza boxes to fit into the garbage bin and looks at Danny fully. Kid’s full of surprises.

“What’s a skinny rich kid doing listening to Outkast of all things?”

Danny’s ears are slightly pink. “I like Outkast. Have since I was a kid,” he says with a soft laugh. Luke grins and shakes his head. “Never woulda pegged you for the RnB, hip hop type.”

“What? What’d you think I was into?” says Danny, genuinely curious.

“I don’t know. What are most rich people into? Mozart or something?”

“I like the raw aggression. Connects, y’know? Back in Ku’n Lun they always taught me to use my aggression in a controlled, concentrated way. But the music kind of lets me break that rule without really breaking it, you know?” explains Danny.  Then he winks. “Mozart can’t do that, now can it?”

They finish cleaning up the living room in a comfortable silence, save for one of the wine bottles. There’s still some left, just enough to be finished in a swallow or three, so Luke swigs from it, humming at the pleasant burn on the way down his throat. He notices Danny fiddling with the iPod, connecting the old thing to a frayed looking charger.

“You really should get a new one,” he says, shaking his head at the wine bottle. Danny shrugs, doesn’t look up. “Maybe. This one’s special though.”

“Special as in?” inquires Luke. “Don’t tell me it,” he flaps his hand in the air, “opens mystic portals or something.” At this point, having seen Danny’s chi in action and hearing about the dragons and mystic monks, Luke was willing to believe in most of the insane shit that Danny told him about.

Danny smiles softly, shakes his head. “No. Nothing like that. It’s…I’ve had this one since I was a kid,” he sits on the arm of the couch with the device in his hands. “It’s all I’ve got left from my old life. It was all I could find after our plane…”

Danny trails off, and it occurs to Luke that he doesn’t actually know anything about what happened to Danny that made him this way, at least until now. He knew his parents were dead, Danny had said as much when explaining why he was fighting so hard against the Hand. It kind of makes sense, in a way. He’s angry and impulsive, yeah, but that was because he was still a kid. His childhood was over the moment his parents died and the monks came to take him in; he’d probably never had a chance to really grow out of the hurt.

Now, knowing that he’d lost his parents in such a traumatic way, it was kind of no surprise that he acted the way he did. And why he seemed to want the four of them –Luke, Matt, himself and Jess- to stay together. Having lost a family, he was desperate to find another. Knowing that, everything fell into place. Everything made sense.

Luke perches himself on the arm of the loveseat and wordlessly offers Danny the wine bottle, which Danny accepts with a small smile. He tosses back the rest of it, shakes his head at the burn, and then looks at the bottle. Then he looks at Luke. “Wait, did you put your mouth on this?”

Luke rolls his eyes.

“Gross,” but Danny’s laughing as he says it. Outkast is still playing in the background, Andre crooning about a girl he’s jilted, left to apologize a trillion times.

“You ever do that?” asks Luke. “Stood up a girl?”

It’s kind of a dumb question. Danny probably wasn’t old enough to have a girlfriend when he was taken in by the monks, and he figured there was zero time for a mighty warrior to date in a mystical city full of mystical people. It’s just nice to change the subject.

Danny looks horrified. “What? No! I mean, have you?”

“Nah. Wasn’t raised that way.” Luke thinks back to his childhood. It hadn’t been great, but there had been good times. “I used to have a crush on this girl. We were maybe in the third or fourth grade. Sarah Wilkins.” Luke nods sagely, recalling her pink ribbons and pigtails. “I put a frog in her bookbag.”

Danny throws his head back and laughs, and it’s like sunshine in a bottle. Luke’s never heard him laugh so loudly, never seen him smile so big. It’s…actually nice. Attractive.

“Really? That’s awful! Why didn’t you just…I dunno, make her a mix CD or something?”

“I was, like, eight, cut me some slack. Also, a mix CD? Do people even do that anymore?”

Danny laughs again, shrugs. “I have no idea. They were still a thing when I was a kid. I probably would’ve given one to a girl I liked.”

“Oh yeah? What would you have put on it?”

Danny looks thoughtful for a moment, leaning back in the arm of the couch with his arms folded across his chest. “I don’t really know, now that you’ve put me on the spot. Probably some stuff I thought was cool from when I was a kid. Might be something stupid, like Maroon 5.”

Luke snorts. “Oh, god, no. I would’ve dumped you.”

Danny’s mouth drops open in shock. “What? Really? Aw.”

The gesture is cute, more adorable than it has any right to be, and it’s the kind of thing that makes people make questionable decisions, makes them make stupid choices and think with their fluttering hearts instead of their brains like normal human beings. Its got too much power. Too much influence.

At least, that’s what Luke blames his new idea on.

 +

Luke isn’t sure what compels him to think this is a good idea, but the next time he sees Danny, which isn’t too much later, he slips him a CD wrapped in a little white paper sleeve and simply says, “This is how you get a girl to like you.”

He doesn’t see Danny take the CD home, boot up his laptop, stick the CD inside and pull on his headphones. He doesn’t see him lying in the middle of his living room, hands lying idly by his sides as he listens to the playlist Luke’s made for him. He doesn’t see Danny smile softly at each song, carefully curated to project the warmth of a nervous crush.

Probably for good reason too, Luke had never been good at keeping a straight face around his schoolyard crushes.

[theworstbob]

the thing journal, 3.19.2017

review-like bitlets of the 7+ new things i took in last week.

this week: mystery team, what we do in the shadows, quelle chris, /sigh/ ed sheeran, the lies of locke lamora, sorority noise, margo price, valerie june

1) Mystery Team, dir. Dan Eckman: This is such a small movie, and such a relatively hidden gem, that I kinda feel bad for pointing out flaws. There's so much charm that I feel the gross-out humor is, while executed well, really out-of-place, doesn’t really fit with what I thought the movie was best at doing, and I really think they should've done more with Donald Glover's boundless exuberance and Aubrey Plaza's deadpan stare; that's a quality comic pairing that I kinda think got short shrift, and for good reason, it's DerrickComedy not DerrickComedy & Friends, but that's still a well they could've explored more. (Hey Bob! maybe edit that sentence?) Nah, dude. Such a solid comedy, though. The central goof somehow never grows tiresome, is in fact never fully abandoned, and they take this concept to really interesting places; like, these characters in a gentleman's club would have been good enough, but they found an absurd angle to take that took it to a whole new level (and then they took it to... a different place? a decidedly less whimsical place, to be certain). There's a lot of imagination, and that’s this film’s saving grace. Honestly, bringing up what I don’t like about this film kind of feels like analyzing a newborn fawn’s first steps. “Yeah, see, the great ones, they strut out the womb. Birth to trot time here is pitiful, not pro-quality at all. You can tell he doesn’t have that motor. You can’t teach motor, you just c -- why is it vomiting. Goddamnit, but why.”

2) What We Do in the Shadows, dir. Taika Waititi: I'm counting this as a film I haven't seen before because I was half-asleep the first time I saw it! It's... Enjoyable, I guess, is the right word? Hey. Team. Let's real quick talk about something. Why has every comedy I've seen in 2017 had a protracted vomiting sequence? It was a good time in Santa Clarita Diet. It was at least acceptable in Mystery Team because that's about what I expected from a film of its caliber. Why did anyone need to vomit here? Or, perhaps more accurately, why have I missed what makes vomit so inherently funny? The gross-out gag didn't really fit the general vibe of this film. This film was so subtle, so deadpan it's hard to tell what the jokes were, then the dude eats a fry, "You shouldn't have done that!" BLEEEEEEEEH like why, did that advance anyone's arc in a meaningful way that i just missed, did it test so well that they would've been fools to cut it, i don't get it. That was the one thing about this movie that wasn't right up my alley, which is why I spent so many sentences talking about it.

3) Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often, by Quelle Chris: Because I've never smoked pot in my life, I was initially put off by the weirdness of this album, but because I'm a generally weird person, I was on this album's wavelength by about halfway through, and now I'm stoked to give this an album a shot now that I know what to expect and that it's something I feel. It's especially nice to hear something this weird and unique because I came to this on Monday and, hey, y'all know what I did over the last weekend? Listened to a fuckton of shitty pop(/country) songs from 2007. It's such a treat to come into this world where this dude's being his own dude.

4) Divide, by Ed Sheeran: In what world is "Eraser" not just an acceptable track to put on this album, but the opening track ahead of "Castle on the Hill." "Castle on the Hill" strikes a much clearer tone, sets an actual mission. "Eraser" is just the song where Ed Sheeran raps because how do you know your limits if you never push them, and not only is it a bad intro, it’s redundant because THAT'S WHAT "GALWAY GIRL" IS THERE TO DO. Ugh. Whatever. I hate how much I enjoyed "Galway Girl." I dunno, this wasn't the worst thing in the world, there were parts were I was like "enh" but parts I really dug, so I guess cheers to exactly fulfilling my expectations!, but I kinda wish it had a more cohesive sound? This was like Ed Sheeran's tour through the magical world of music. This is U2! This is dancehall! This is traditional Irish rap! This is what your exceedingly normal cousins will play at their weddings! This? is Spain!??? And it's like hey man, just be yourself. /remembers ed sheeran's early works Yeah OK this is more than acceptable, then. As something I made myself listen to for a thing no one ever asked for, I couldn't have asked for a better time.

5) The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch: This was a really impressive con man story told within the parameters of basic-ass fantasy. It was this Breaking Bad-esque display of a character getting out of the tightest corners possible, and part of the extrication from the corner involves a sword fight. Father Chains is one of the best, most down-to-earth characters I've ever come across in this kind of novel, and there's a short interlude toward the end between Chains and the title character that I'm still thinking about and laughing at, but it is this kind of novel, where they call chicken “capon.” You can call it chicken. No one’s gonna call bullshit if you call it chicken. Goddamnit. Like there's a Gabe Liedman bit about The Fantasy which all fantasy novelists apparently share and how boring that makes standard fantasy, and I don't 100% get why this needed to be set in a vaguely Spanish (but almost certainly British) fantasy land with an all-powerful wizard? But y'know what, if that's what's in your heart, you write your heart out, and the fact this was fantasy didn't keep me from having a grand old two weeks on the bus.

6) You're Not as _____ as You Think, by Sorority Noise: After my first listen, I immediately hit play on this thing again, 'cuz fuuuuuuuuck, y'all. One of my favorite records of last year was The Hotelier's Goodness, it was this odd little thing that I kept returning to because it kept hitting me in this certain way, felt like an album that sort of understood the special way in which I'm depressed. This album does what Goodness does, but in a more conventional way, speaking about emptiness and failure and staying in your own head, but with music that positively soars at points, like holy shit "A Portait Of" is kind of perfect? And maybe it's worth dissecting why something more conventional hit me harder than the weirdness of Goodness, but fuck it, not now, this is _____ time, and I absolutely love this. If this doesn't end up being my #1 album of 2017, I'm going to be so stoked, because I will have heard something better than this. My favorite punk album since No Closer to Heaven. I don't think I'm going to be capable of having rational thoughts about this album.

7) Midwest Farmer's Daughter, by Margo Price: hahaha you can hear the OH SHIT I DON'T WANT IT TO BE ALL DUDES THIS WEEK from a million miles away! I really dug this. I think it's probably the least interesting out of anything in the recent rash of traditional-leaning country albums, but we're talking about Big Day in a Small Town and Sailor's Guide to Earth and Traveler, that is a strong-ass chain that would see this album as the weakest link. I think, because I had this follow _____, I wasn't really in a space where I could connect to a different kind of sadness than my own? And it's not fair to this album that its evaluation should suffer because I try to binge albums.

7a) The Sun's Tirade, by Isaiah Rashad: So like I've listened to this a couple times on the bus before, so it doesn’t belong in the New Things category, but I just wanted to give this a quick shout-out, because I actually spent some uninterrupted quality time with it (previous listens have been marred by connection issues MUSIC IN 2017 HOLLA), and man, this dude kills it. It's like a Gothic OutKast, if that makes any sense. I'm really intrigued to see how he builds off of this, because man, if he can put the pieces together, he's gonna be incredible.

8) The Order of Time, by Valerie June: It should surprise no one I lurk on a website called Saving Country Music, which is where I heard about this woman, and I was intrigued enough by the description to check her out, and this is like the country version of the Quelle Chris album, where it took me a few tracks to get on the same wavelength, but once I was there, I was there, and I loved spending time in this fully-realized world. I almost feel bad calling this country; trying to fit this into a genre feels inappropriate, like, there isn't a word for Valerie June's songs, there's only the phrase Valerie June's songs. There’s this album I listened to last year, My Wild West by Lissie, this really dreamy and ethereal-feeling folk-rock album, and that’s the closest comparison I can find to The Order of Time, except The Order of Time is more eclectic, has a more interesting sound. It’s a touch slower than what I typically go for, but this is a phenomenal artist doing something crazy-unique and making it sound dope, and I appreciate it.

[agentem]

Emily Watches Iron Fist, Episode One

Is Colleen in this one?: Yes, appears 21 minutes in.

Is Claire in this one?: No

It opens with his fucking bare feet on the sidewalk as he returns home. I thought I told this guy I didn’t want to see his fucking gross bare feet anymore. (This makes me wonder what Jason Mantzoukas feels about this series. He’s mentioned IRON FIST on HDTGM. I wonder if they would do a HDTGM of a TV show? Asking for a friend.)

I’ve already tuned out. Sorry. So Danny walks around midtown while Outkast’s “So Fresh, So Clean” plays. I miss how the music in Luke Cage meant something already. And how the show had a tone and shit.

Danny goes to Rand Corp and asks for Harold. I feel like I’ve seen this clip online.

He finds a screen and watches a video about the Rand Corporation, which Danny says is “new.” It shows us Wendall and Harold smiling and shit. Then security throws Danny out.

No shirt, no shoes, no service, dude.

So Danny beats up the security guys who are just doing their job, really. I wish they had said something or been rude in some way. I just feel bad for them. The show makes the odd choice to put the fight--our first look at the Iron Fist in action!--in slow motion. Unless your action is incredibly fast, which this isn’t, I don’t think slowing stuff down makes it cooler. The choreography is fine but I think they are actually doing it a disservice, making it look quite rehearsed.

He steals a woman’s keycard and blows past a secretary to go into Harold’s office. But ward is in there. Joy just happens to walk in. Danny is like, “it’s me!” But they don’t recognize him.

Ward gets angry because he thinks this homeless weirdo is pretending to be his dead friend and asking to see his dead father. Joy is freaked out. She says he sort of looked like Danny. Ward assures her it was not Danny.

Security comes again, and Danny holds his head like he has a headache. What he’s having is flashbacks to the plane crash and the death of his family.

All of this seems too much too fast. Ward and Joy play the above scene like it is super serious, while Finn Jones clearly thinks it’s a comedy. But there isn’t any comedy beats to it. I actually think that was probably a good choice and it would’ve played better if Ward and Joy were like, “Whoa, weirdo.” Maybe if that had happened before? They got fake Danny Rands all the time?

But Marvel probably didn’t want to establish a joke-y tone since they think the Netflix shows should be super gritty, or whatever. But you have to admit it is hard to take Danny seriously here, in his dumb dirty hippie clothes and no shoes.

The flashback then swings us again into the super dramatic! (The tones are fighting each other and it’s not even the first ten minutes.) But then switches to the elevator and the guards telling Danny they don’t give a shit about him. Danny replies that guard reminds him of “Billy” whom he guesses retired.

Awkward opening scene is awkward. Clearly the filmmakers are finding their way as they go, which OF COURSE contributed to the early negative reviews of the opening episodes. . Very different from Luke Cage and Jessica Jones whose creators had a clear point of view from the jump.

Danny then heads to a brownstone near Gramercy Park. “Danny, Mom and Dad” was drawn into the concrete in front of the building. You know whoever bought that after the Rands would’ve had it removed. Weirdly, he finds the key in its usual hiding place but the key no longer works. Did nobody notice the key in this completely obvious hiding spot when it was sold?

Danny leaps up onto a balcony with an improbably open window and just lets himself in. Poignant music plays. He looks at books along the wall and has AN EXPRESSION. But in this moment I am not sure if the room is as it was when he left (which seems improbable) or has been redecorated. I’m confused. We finally see a photograph of Joy and Ward... which means... they moved into their dead friends’ place after he died?

WEIRD.

A dog barks and Danny approaches it warily. He does something kind of meditative and the dog becomes friendly. It would’ve been cooler if the dog were old and recognized him. But at least Danny and Luke are on the same page regarding “we don’t hurt dogs.”

Danny goes back into the library-type room and finds more pictures of their families when they were younger, Joy’s degree from Columbia, Then he goes upstairs to the roof garden where he is flashbacks to them playing as kids.

Again, I say it is WEIRD that the Meachums kept the Rand’s house after they died.

Young Danny, Ward and Joy play Monopoly on the roof. We get some heavy-handed clues that Ward is kind of a douche who follows in his father’s footsteps. The Rands arrive home and little Danny calls, “We’re up here!” Ward gets mad and stomps on Danny’s foot saying some stuff about how his mommy and daddy give him hugs and kisses. He knocks the pieces off the game board dramatically.

Danny goes downstairs and sees Joy coming home from work. So she lives here? In her dead friend’s old family home? WEIRD. It’s still weird. You can’t convince me otherwise. And if later on we get some monologue from her about how she always wanted to be part of the Rand family and not her own, then I think it’s even fucking weirder.

Like a creeper, Danny watchers her for awhile then leaves. He could’ve at least “borrowed” some shoes while he was there.

Suddenly it is nighttime, and Danny is just chillin’ in Gramercy Park. He takes some stuff out of his backpack, an old walkman-type device, a leather-bound book, something else I can’t make out. He pops in the earbuds and listens to music and reads.

Another missed comedy opportunity. If he were listening to some random pop song from the 2000s, like Britney Spears. Oh I would’ve loved that.

Anyway, another homeless(?) man approaches Danny and introduces himself as Big Al. Big Al has an iPhone and says “you can find anyone you want on the internet!” Danny asks him to look up Danny Rand. The poor actor who plays Big Al has to explain that this kid died in a plane crash. Then he asks him to look up Harold Meachum. Also dead, we’re told.

Big Al says you can get shoes at a specific shelter. THANK YOU, BIG AL, YOU ARE THE HERO OF THIS SHOW.

Danny kind of laughs at him and is like, “I guess people think we’re pretty much alike.” Fuck you, dude. Don’t laugh at Big Al. He’s the hero of the show!

Probably offended, Big Al gets up and leaves.

The next morning, Danny creepily accosts Joy outside her building. He tries to tell her dumb random facts to make her believe him and she’s like “you could’ve looked that up on the internet.” Annoyed, Danny says she lives in his house which clearly even he thinks is WEIRD. She says it is her house now. Danny dumbly says, “Yeah your dog is kinda scary,” giving away that he went through her stuff last night. She starts to get annoyed.

Danny wanders into the street, like a dummy, and is nearly hit by a taxi which he jumps over in weird special effects. Joy is like, “whut.” Danny walks away.

He does tai chi or something in Gramercy Park, communing with an eagle (bird of prey of some type?) flying over the city. When someone puts money in his cup.

IT’S COLLEEN WING. OMG. I’m so excited. It’s her! And she’s nice to crazy homeless guys! She’s putting up fliers for her self defense classes.

Danny tries to give the money back to her, but she won’t take it.

He says her name, “Colleen Wing.” Then starts speaking to her in Mandarin. She replies in Mandarin, and he starts speaking again. Then she cuts him off and says she speaks Japanese or English. That she hasn’t spoken Mandarin since she was a kid.

I’ve seen this scene criticized online, that he would just start speaking Mandarin to her. And I agree that is weird to assume she knows the language. “Wing” is also a Chinese name, so perhaps him stating “Colleen Wing” indicates he recognizes her ancestry. It doesn’t excuse the idea that she MUST know Mandarin. But it’s pointing out an inconsistency in the Marvel universe, that Colleen is trained as a Japanese samurai and ninja, yet she has a Chinese name. (Jessica Henwick, the actress who plays her is half Singaporean-Chinese and half white.) Am I giving them too much credit here to think that was the purpose of the scene? Probably.

Danny asks her for a job.

Colleen is like, “Um, you’re a homeless man I met in a park who just kind of insulted me?” She says, “I already got someone to clean up.” ZING!

I love her. Have I mentioned I love her?

She leaves and I feel sad and bereft. The show cuts to Joy at the Rand building. She’s telling Ward about her encounter with Danny that morning. Ward decides he’s an insane, homeless acrobat. Joy wonders if maybe they should talk to him and see if it’s really Danny. Ward is like “Nope.” This is a crazy person who is playing on your emotions, making you want to believe your friend is back. That is dangerous. While we’re clearly meant to see Ward as the bad guy, especially considering his youthful Monopoly tantrum, I think he’s right here. It could be a con man, who is trying to get money out of them.

Ward lays out a theory that this is corporate sabotage. They are just about to announce their expansion into China, and someone shows up claiming to own half the company. I don’t know if I believe that. But there could definitely be a con artist trying to cash in on a missing dead, rich kid. Just look at how many fake Anatasias there were, and that was before the internet.

Danny then accosts Ward in the parking lot, getting in his car. Ward tells him to stop but jumps in the passenger seat. Danny’s like, ”Sorry! I haven’t driven since my dad put me on his lap and let me drive around.” Again, this is Jones playing Danny as a kind of wide-eyed goof ball. He seems to think driving is so cool.

Ward pulls a gun out of the glove compartment and tells Danny to pull over. I’m wondering where he thinks Danny can pull over in a parking garage.

Then a kind of rage comes over Danny. He’s like “I have been met with nothing but anger and hostility since I got home!” Then he grabs the gun and points it at Ward, kind of gleefully saying, “How’s it feel? Not so good, right?” Danny is very creepy and not-likeable in this moment. And it’s strange that he was so calm only seconds before. I don’t remember Iron Fist having Wolverine-like berserker rages.

Ward, pretty heroically defiant here, says, “You will never get a penny from us.” Even though Danny is clearly crazy. Danny says he doesn’t want money he wants answers about his family.

The actor who plays Ward (I should look this up), then tells the backstory of the Rand family, how they died in a plane crash over the Himalayas. How the bodies were never found. Danny wants more but Ward says that’s it.

Danny accuses Ward of being a dick as a kid, putting him in freezers and putting a dead frog in his food, stuff like that. This clearly resonates with Ward who, nonetheless says, “None of that is true.” And demands DNA or fingerprints to prove this is Danny. Danny says he doesn’t have any of that, which is really his own fault. Couldn’t he get dental records or something? Think, man!

Danny, fully unhinged, starts driving super fast up the parking lot to the roof, saying this is what it was like to watch his mother die and know he and his father were next. (How is this situation similar at all?) He nearly drives them off the roof, while having flashbacks, only to swerve at the last minute.

Cut to Danny alone in the park listening to his Britney Spears. Big Al brings him a sandwich saying he thought Danny might be hungry. Seriously, hero! They have a chat about society and hunters and gatherers and the Buddha. Danny states definitely that his purpose in life is to protect K’un L’un which begs the question ... why are you HERE?

Happily we then cut to Colleen’s dojo. Yay HEART COLLEEN. Danny shows up at the end of a class to talk to her. She asks if he’s here for a lesson and he offers up the money she gave him. She says that will only get him a cup of coffee down the street and Danny says he never had coffee before.

In Luke Cage world, I think that means he’s a virgin. Right. RIGHT?!?

Colleen suggests he could also get a pair of flip flops because CLEARLY HE NEEDS SHOES. Yes, good thinking, Colleen. Danny is like, “Nah I’m good.”

Bro, you are not good. Your feet are gross. At least wash ‘em.

Danny says he wants to challenges Colleen’s master. Which, dude, lemme stop you there. Colleen is her own master. I am more offended by this than the Mandarin, tbh. She’s like, I’m the master and I don’t accept your challenge, GTFO.

He asks if she teaches kung fu and she’s like, nope. He again offers to teach for her. And she’s annoyed. Rightly, he’s annoying.

Before he leaves, because she is way nicer than I am and a HERO she gives him shoes (kind of martial arts shoes, with a toe?). Finally! Yes, Colleen. Thank you. I don’t want to see those dirty ass feet anymore.

As he’s putting the shoes on outside, some guy attacks him randomly. It’s the security guard from Rand that reminded him of Bill. There’s two other guys with him. Danny fights them and Colleen watches out of her window.

Because she’s a fucking hero, she descends the fire escape of her building with her sword to help him out. Danny knocks out one and throws away his gun while Colleen watches, like a badass.

Then there is a random street fair. I call bullshit on this. It looks kind of like Chinese New Year, they have the dragon on sticks. But Lunar New Year is in the Winter and earlier when Danny was in the Park, there were flowers on the trees. It’s also not nearly big enough to be NYC’s Lunar New Year celebration. Nor of there any Year of Animal? People just have glow sticks? So it’s like a vaguely Chinese rave in the streets?

Danny buys a mask (with Colleen’s money) off a street vendor. I don’t know why he would think this would make him less conspicuous? All I can tell is it would make the fight scenes easier because the stunt double doesn’t have to hide his face.

There are bubbles and birds in cages. WTF celebration is this supposed to be? I’m a white girl who has only been to two Chinese New Year parades. It wouldn’t honestly make me feel better if someone could tell me this was a real thing.

Masked!Danny, disarms another bad guy. Then another. This time he demands to know who sent him. The security guard says it was Ward, which I thought was pretty obvious. Danny is not that bright.

Colleen watches. When Danny turns to where she was standing second ago, she is not there. Colleen is mysterious and cool.

Ward is eating when he gets a call. He calls someone else and sets up a meeting about the “situation.” He then goes to a cool art deco building (where is this?) in a Hyundai (whhaaaat?). They draw this out big time. But he’s meeting with... his dead dad! (Played by David Wenham, of being Faramir in Lord of the Rings fame.)

Faramir and Ward have a weird discussion about loyalty before getting to the matter at hand. Ward insists the Danny is a lunatic. Faramir wonders if it is Danny does that mean his parents are also still alive. Good question! Faramir has other questions too and says that’s why you can’t just send someone to beat him up. Faramir says he’s going to take care of this one and tell him exactly what to do.

Then we cut to the park, where Danny finds Big Al with a needle in his arm (!!) dead. I’m annoyed about this. We had no reason to believe Big Al was an addict. You gotta foreshadow that shit. Just because he’s homeless doesn’t mean he MUST be on drugs.

Danny prays over Big Al’s corpse and notices a bird tattoo on his arm. Ominous music plays.

Cut to Rand building in daytime, Danny just waltzes into Joy’s office. The security guards who recognized him must all be out sick that day? He tells Joy her brother tried to have him killed.

They have a boring conversation. Danny tells the story of the plane crash, getting his headache face again. Oh no, it’s not headache face. That’s Finn Jones’ acting face, I guess. Joy has put something in his tea. He passes out on the floor, flashing back to K’un L’un before waking up in a mental hospital.

Danny remembers the plane crash and waking up in the snow with Outkast’s “So Fresh, So Clean” playing. Oh see I didn’t even realize that song was from 2001. If it were Britney Spears I would’ve gotten it!

End episode. This post was long. I need to do shorter ones in the future or this will take weeks.

[westendtheory]

Welcome to The West End Theory, now can I kick it?

Yes I can. 

Hey, everyone  — or just you. Thanks for checking out my music blog. Before we get too far into this, or at least while I have your attention, I should probably tell you a little bit about myself and why this wooden shack of a music blog exists on the outskirts of the Internet. Maybe it’ll make you want to read more? 

“Speech is my hammer, bang the world into shape now let it fall ... ”

- Yasiin Bey, “Hip Hop” 

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I could get really into the first time I heard then-Mos Def deliver these lines and how they have’t stopped echoing in my head years later. But, if this blog is going to differentiate itself from all the other places on the web where white boys in their mid-20s go to wax poetic about music, I need to say more with less and get to my point. So here it is: 

Art, in this case music, shapes the world because it shapes us. Great music somehow drills a hole inside our minds and allows our streams of consciousness to merge with that of another person or an entire collective. Perception changes entirely. Music shapes how we process the past, the present, and the future. Colors change. Specific spaces  —  physical and mental — are never the same again. For the duration of any given song that’s lodged into our internal webs of memories, it’s as if we have accessed that time and place in our lives again. We learn from the words and rhythms ringing in our eardrums and the emotions they create inside us. 

Then we go out and bang the world into shape. Now let it fall ...

My name is Brooks Holton. I’m 24 years old living in Nashville, Tennessee, where I work as a digital producer for USA TODAY. I graduated with a Master’s from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism in the spring of 2018 and studied English/Creative Writing and played Division III football in undergrad at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. If I could only listen to 10 albums for the rest of my life (in alphabetical order ... don’t crucify me this was off top and I already feel bad about albums I snubbed): 

- "Acid Rap,” Chance The Rapper 

- “Aquemini,” OutKast 

- “Be,” Common

- “Black On Both Sides,” Mos Def 

- “Blonde,” Frank Ocean 

- “Late Registration,” Kanye West 

- “Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool,” Lupe Fiasco

- “Midnight Marauders,” A Tribe Called Quest 

- “The Beatles (White Album),” The Beatles 

- “This Old Dog,” Mac DeMarco

The first time I DJed a party in college, I was so drunk that I excessively hammered down on a DJ Khaled airhorn soundboard to the point where someone had this to say on Yik Yak (R.I.P.) the next morning:

“That DJ at The Warehouse last night was straight balls.” 

So it totally sounds like I know enough about music to run a blog, right? I guess we’ll find out. 

[trentteti]

A Look at the September 2018 LSAT: Logical Reasoning

For fans of rap music whose tastes go beyond whatever shows up on Rap Caviar, September 29th, 1998 is generally considered to be the greatest release date for rap albums ever. You had Outkast get really into traditional rap subversions and astral funk excursions and spoken word discursions on their masterpiece Aquemini. You had Jay-Z, bolstered by the showtune-sampling hit single, cementing his crossover bona fides force with Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life.* We also had Black Star’s deliberate antidote to the shiny suit era of rap in Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, the last pre-break-up album from the legendary A Tribe Called Quest, and, sure why not, a Brand Nubian record thrown in.

*That one, btw, holds a special place in my heart as the first non-Bad Boy C.D. I bought with my own money — which a sentence that probably makes me sound positively ancient to you, if the aforementioned Rap Caviar shade didn’t already make it seem like these old man takes were emanating from a body that time has already turned to dust.

We’d like to think that LSAT commemorated the 20th anniversary of this momentous day by making the score release for the September 2018 LSAT September 29, 2018. After all, they’ve made a firm commitment to trying to actually release the scores on the day they promised to. So it makes sense that they’d treat that day with the same pomp and circumstance that the rappers of 1998 did. Sure, LSAC has only mentioned rap music a few times — most notably the used and new rap CDs game from the June 2000 LSAT that was featured Legally Blonde — but there must be, amongst the psychometricians who write this exam and the legal gatekeepers who run LSAC, a few B-Boys and B-Girls thrown in?

At any rate, only those who took the September 2018 LSAT can tell if September 29, 2018 was as great a release date as September 29, 1998. Will your LSAT performance catapult you into the upper echelons of law schools, as Jay’s performance on “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” catapulted him into the upper echelons of the pop charts? Or did you regret how the test went, like how Jay probably regrets his verse on “Can I Get A …” now that he’s married to a feminist icon?

Either way, LSAC has released the exam, and we’re going to break it down for you, section by section. So just like we did for the Logical Reasoning, Reading Comp, and Logic Games sections from the July 2018 LSAT earlier this year, we’ll have our contributors take a look at each section and the “curve,” and report our findings. If you took the September exam and it went great, these posts can be a chance to reflect on a test in a hopefully not-super-triggering way. If you took the September LSAT and are planning to take it again in November or beyond, these posts can be a chance to figure out what went wrong and how to prepare for the next exam. And even if you’ve never taken the LSAT before, these posts can be a chance to get a little insight into what your exam might look like. So without further adieu, let’s get to today’s point-by-point breakdown of the Logical Reasoning section.

• Any discussion of Logical Reasoning should start with the question distribution. While a Logical Reasoning question could discuss any topic the twisted minds who write this test can think of — though I have to admit, as a fans of weird questions, September’s test was a little light on odd topics — there are only a few different things a question might ask you to do.

At Blueprint, we have a classification system that organizes these questions based on what the question asks you to do. We have three broad “families” of questions — the implication family (for questions that ask you to make an inference), the characterization family (for questions that ask you to describe some feature of an argument), and the operation family (for questions that ask you to make some change to an argument). And within each family, there are various types of questions classified based on the type of inference you’re asked to deduce, or the feature the question you’re asked to describe, or the type of change you’re asked to make.

By looking at the question distribution, on a given exam — and comparing it to past exams — you can start to figure out trends in the Logical Reasoning section. Certain question types show up more frequently than others, and over time the test writers have made subtle but demonstrable shifts in the questions that show up the most frequently. If you’re relying on tests from, say, 1998, you’ll get a misleading impression of which questions are going to be the most prevalent on an upcoming exam. These recent exams will give us the best picture of which question types are likely to be more common on the November exam and beyond.

So here’s the question distribution from the September exam …

This exam mostly continues trends we’ve observed on previous Logical Reasoning sections, but with a few notable exceptions. Strengthen questions have recently emerged as the most common question type, and there were a lot of them here. Additionally, part of ubiquity of the Strengthen questions has to do with the increasing prominence of the Strengthen Principle variation of that question type — and four of the eight Strengthen questions were Strengthen Principle questions here.

The September test also maintained recent exam’s de-emphasis on the implication family — with only about 14% of LR questions from that family on the September exam. Also consistent with recent trends: nearly every question from implication family is a Soft Must Be True question. This exam went pretty extreme with regard to that — even now, it’s still pretty rare that exam completely elides any questions that ask you to make a deduction that “must be true,” as this exam did.

We’re also seeing fewer and fewer questions that ask you to describe some structural feature of an argument — like the main point, the argumentative strategy, or a role played by given proposition. Less than 8% of the LR questions asked test takers to do any of those.

But this exam did buck some trends, too. After over a year of Disagree questions becoming increasingly prominent on the LSAT, this exam featured just one of those. This exam was on the low end of Necessary questions (which may have been good news for test takers, since these are among the more despised question types) and the high end for Weaken questions (less good news, because these are also pretty annoying to test takers). What was good news — to me, at least — was that after being left for dead on recent exams, a Must Be False question showed up once again (more on that particular question in a moment).

• Unlike the June 2018 and December 2017 Logical Reasoning sections, this test didn’t overemphasize any one particular commonly test skill — like conditional statements and comparison fallacies in June 2018, or causation in December 2017. There was an even mix of statements that involved conditional statements (about five of these, per my count) and questions that involved causation (about six), and no common fallacy standing out as especially pervasive.

There were, however, several arguments that failed to address the fact that what we believe to be true is not always what is actually true, or that what we intend to have happen is not always what actually happens. At Blueprint, we say that these types of arguments commit a “perception versus reality” fallacy. On a given LSAT, there’s usually at most one argument that commits this fallacy. On this LSAT, there were four.

There was a question in which someone assumed that just because musicians don’t intend to manipulate listeners’ emotions that the listeners’ emotions aren’t being affected by music. There was a question in which someone confused whether people expected a certain action would benefit them with whether that action in fact benefited them. There was a question that turned on whether people who received an extra dollar when given change from a transaction actually “perceived” that they were getting an extra dollar. There was a question in which a scientist assumed that because we can’t observe any active volcanoes on Mars, that there probably aren’t any active volcanoes contributing to sulfur dioxide spikes (this could also have been classified as what we call an “absence of evidence” fallacy).

So, for whatever reason, this particular fallacy showed up a lot. It’s always tempting to attribute certain motivations to the test writers when something like this shows up. Like, maybe this is all commentary on our increasingly fragmented perceptions of the world — in which we frequently refer to things as “Fake News” and “alternative facts” when they don’t align with our perceptions or motivations. But of course, to attribute these motivations to these test writers just because I perceive them to be true would leave me vulnerable to accusations of this same “perception versus reality” fallacy.

• The two LR sections illustrated two different ways a section can progress. The second of these Logical Reasoning sections progressed in way these sections typically do — with easy questions at the beginning, medium questions in the middle, and difficult questions towards the end. The disparity between the easy and hard questions in that section was more pronounced than usual, if anything. The section featured many of what thought were easy questions all the way through question 17 or so, and then went on a pretty brutal run of several super tough questions at the end.

I thought the first LR section, was a bit more unpredictable. Some harder questions were thrown in among the early questions, and there were some easier questions thrown in among the questions that are typically the hardest in a section. I imagine this section threw off the rhythm and shook the confidence of test takers who are used to going from easy to medium to hard questions on a given section.

• The question that dominated the post-exam online chatter I saw was a question late in the first Logical Reasoning section about “kindness.” People couldn’t even remember what kind of question that was, so I was super happy to see it was a Must Be False question. Why was I happy about this development? Because Must Be False questions are really only hard if you don’t know how to do them — they’re actually quite easy if you do. And I knew that my students, at least, would know how to do a question like this.

Here’s what you do on a Must Be False question: look for conditional statements. Diagram them. If there’s more than one conditional statement, see if you can make a deduction. And then just look for an answer choice that states that you can have the sufficient condition of one of the conditional statements stated in the question or that you could deduce but without its necessary condition. That’s it.

And that’s all you had to do for this question. There were three conditional statements that linked up, allowing you to deduce that if two people who are fully content in each other’s presence, then they must want each other to prosper. Which means that any two people on the planet who are fully content in each other’s presence — whether that’s Andre 3000 and Big Boi, Jay and Bey, Yasiin Bey (née Mos Def) and Talib Kweli, Q Tip and Phife Dawg, some combination of Grand Puba, Sadat X, and Lord Jamar (or, you know, any other pair of people who didn’t necessarily release music 20 years ago) — must want each other to prosper. The right answer said that there are some people who are who are fully content in each other’s presence but don’t want each other to prosper — which directly contradicts the deduction here.

• Finally, how difficult were these sections? After waking up early to do this exam, I gave a quick ranking, one through five, of how difficult I thought it was. It’s hard to fully gage how difficult a section is without seeing how many students answered that question, but I tend to have a pretty good idea of what sorts of things trip up the typical test taker and what things will not. Now, this wasn’t the most mathematically or scientifically sound way to assess the difficulty, but if I were good at math or science I probably wouldn’t have taken the LSAT. Anyway, the average difficulty of the questions on the first LR section rated out to 2.8 out of 5 , and the questions on the second section rated out to 2.78. So based on this, it was a little more difficult than usual, but not by much.

A Look at the September 2018 LSAT: Logical Reasoning was originally published on LSAT Blog

[junker-town]

Here’s everything we've learned about Kyrie Irving since his Christmas 2016 game-winner

He’s woke and ready to lead the Celtics.

On Christmas Day 2016, nearly a year to the day, then-Cavaliers star Kyrie Irving drove to the rim, turned around and faded away over Klay Thompson to swish a mid-range shot that sunk the Warriors. That shot gave the basketball world some false hope that the Kevin Durant-Warriors weren’t going to take the Finals over the Cavs with ease. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and a lot has changed since.

In 365 days, fans have learned more about Irving than maybe any other athlete in the world in that span. He revealed his jealousy over the attention LeBron James garnered when he made a trade request to Boston. He preached “wokeness” and round earth denial in several interviews. Most importantly, he has shown us his ability to lead a team on his own with the Celtics’ success. Irving has transformed from merely James’ counterpart to begin his own legacy.

This Christmas, we look at Irving — the person and the player — differently than last, now that he’s given us a glimpse inside his mind. We are all very much woke because of it.

Here’s everything Kyrie taught us in 2017:

He’s a flat-Earth truther

All the way back in February, Irving took center stage after he went on Richard Jefferson’s podcast to reveal his disbelief in the Earth’s roundness.

He was dead serious.

Kyrie Irving was trending on Twitter today because he believes the Earth is flat. I asked him about it. http://pic.twitter.com/ODe9aP9qmK

— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) February 18, 2017

Kyrie: I think people should do their own research, man. Then hopefully they’ll either back my belief or throw it in the water. I think what I think is interesting for people to find out.

Reporter: You’ve seen pictures of the planet though, right? Like it’s a circle.

Kyrie: I’ve seen a lot of things that my educational system had said was real, but turned out to be completely fake. So I don’t mind going against the grain in terms of my thoughts and what I believe in.

This started the conversation on the man behind the athlete we had watched put the ball in the hoop to win games for the last seven years. This is where the Kyrie renaissance truly began.

Some believe he was just making his flat Earth belief up for attention. A Cleveland.com reporter, Joe Vardon, mentioned how upset Irving used to be that other reporters flocked to LeBron instead of him for quotes on politics and racial and social issues.

Then Richard Jefferson also defended Irving, saying his statement was made more as an attempt to get people to think outside the box.

Irving walked back his flat-Earth beliefs a few months later, when he said in a CBS interview, “All I want to do is be able to have that open conversation. It was all an exploration tactic. It literally spun the world — your guys’ world — it spun it into a frenzy and proved exactly what I thought it would do in terms of how this works... Do your own research, don’t come and ask me. At the end of the day, you’re going to feel and believe the way you want to feel. But don’t knock my life over that.”

So was this all just a bunch of trolling by Kyrie?

A month after that interview, he went on UConn basketball coach Geno Auriemma’s podcast, and sort of went back to his old ways after it was pointed out that pictures of a round earth exist.

“I’m saying, Coach, that you don’t even know if they’re real or not,” Irving said. “I just wanted to have that conversation. That’s it. I wanted to actually know or ask other individuals, Bro — excuse me — Coach and Sue, do you really think that this actually happened? I don’t know. I don’t know, either. I just want to know.”

Who the heck knows what this never-ending saga was ever about.

Kyrie was a little jealous of LeBron’s stardom

There didn’t seem to be a good basketball reason for Kyrie — or anyone for that matter — wanting to leave one of, if not the greatest ever to play the game. LeBron James has won three championships, and as long as he’s alive, any team with him on it will be in the running again. With LeBron on the team, the game comes easier for everyone around him to stick to their specific role, while he cleans up the mess. Playing with LeBron James seems on the outside to be pretty freakin’ fun!

Irving wanted more, though. So after simmering tension hurt the Cavaliers’ season, Irving requested out of a team that had been to three straight Finals.

He didn’t want to live in The King’s shadow even after he hit the game-winning shot of the 2016 Finals. He didn’t want to hear it from LeBron anymore when he had zero assists in a game. He knew he could be so much more somewhere else.

Irving reportedly wanted to be the focal point of an offense and cement his own legacy.

That says a lot about how Irving thinks of himself as one of the NBA’s best players.

He’s already showing us why he made his decision in Boston.

Kyrie is very much woke

Kyrie gave us quotes on quotes that were wordy, confusing, and yet, often left us wanting more. He opened his mind and let the weirdness out like few others have.

There was the time he told us that if you’re very much woke, there are no such things as distractions:

oh if ur very much woke there is no such thing as distractions http://pic.twitter.com/VsQ6pWURTE

— jack (@jackhaveitall) September 18, 2017

The time he took 1,000 words to (politely) tell off Max Kellerman:

The homie Max Kellerman bout to have a nervous breakdown trying to get ONE answer out of Kyrie. Dude is dodging everything http://pic.twitter.com/IL3P97jPyA

— Roy Wood Jr- Ex Jedi (@roywoodjr) September 18, 2017

And then just a few more:

Max Kellerman is sick of yo sh*t #AnswerTheDamnQuestions http://pic.twitter.com/BkO3qtPSbF

— Roy Wood Jr- Ex Jedi (@roywoodjr) September 18, 2017

Then he told us his favorite artists from when he was a kid:

Last week, the Celtics shared their favorite music to listen to in high school... Rozier: Gucci Mane Jaylen: OutKast Baynes: Eminem Hayward: Eminem Morris: Boys II Men, Jay Z Horford: Maná Kyrie: RENT and Phantom of the Opera

— Boston.com Celtics News (@BDCCeltics) December 19, 2017

Irving told Bleacher Report about how he became awake after going vegan:

"It works," Irving tells B/R Mag. "I mean, I'm not eating a whole bunch of animals anymore. Once you become awake, you don't see that stuff anymore."

There’s a lot to even dissect just from his Instagram bio:

Kyrie Irving was entirely himself in 2017, and created a brand as the NBA’s quirky guy seven years into his career. He’s a full-package superstar now, leading a team of youngsters atop the Eastern Conference all while being the center of attention he couldn’t receive in Cleveland.

His numbers are nearly identical to what they were a season ago, averaging 25 points, five assists and three rebounds, but as an improved defensive guard, Boston is rolling with him at the helm. Maybe they’re just woke.

2017 was the year of Kyrie Irving.

[thisaintascenereviews]

Album Review by Bradley Christensen Big K.R.I.T. – 4eva Is A Mighty Long Time Record Label: Multi Alumni / BMG Rights Management Release Date: October 27 2017

Out of every kind of hip-hop that there is, southern hip-hop is my favorite, and that would potentially “trigger” a lot of music fans, because trap music, which is the hot and trending style of hip-hop that’s dominated the charts in the last few years, owes everything to southern hip-hop. Both styles are pretty much the same, but with a few stark differences. Trap music took a lot from southern hip-hop, thanks to a rapper like T.I., who helped to pioneer the genre, I guess you could say, but he took certain ideas and sounds from 90s southern hip-hop and turned it into something more. One thing that both styles have in common, however, is that they’re more about the groove, energy, and bombast, versus lyrical versatility, groundbreaking sounds and ideas, as well as being more “cultured.” I love southern hip-hop, as well as trap to an extent, because of how energetic, bass-heavy, and groovy it can be (I love when a lot of these rappers and groups add southern soul, gospel, and R&B textures to their sounds, too; take a look at acts like Goodie Mob, OutKast, and stuff like that). The thing is, though, people have this weird idea that all hip-hop is bad, just because they don’t like trap music. I’ve seen some reviewers on YouTube talk about how they don’t like all the mainstream hip-hop, which is fine on some level, because I can understand if you’re into Migos, Gucci Mane, and stuff like that, because it’s not for everyone (to be fair, though, what kind of music is for everyone? No one’s is going to agree on a single thing, so technically speaking, nothing is for everyone), but to act like hip-hop itself isn’t any good, or only claiming that there are a couple of good rappers today (and you know it’s the clichéd ones that all of these people have to mention, such as Logic, J. Cole, and Kendrick Lamar; throw in Eminem for good measure, too, especially if the person that you’re talking to is white, because white boys love Em) is just ridiculous to me, because you can find a lot of awesome rappers in the underground scene.

The reason that I bring up that I love southern hip-hop is because the album I’ll be talking about today is from the artist that essentially got me into that style of hip-hop. That would be the third studio album from Mississippi rapper Big K.R.I.T., entitled 4eva Is A Mighty Long Time. I came across Big K.R.I.T. about two years ago. I’ve been aware of his music for even longer, but I listened to his last mixtape, 2015’s It’s Better This Way, just for kicks, because I was getting more into hip-hop when it came out, and I thought it would be interesting to listen to. Sure enough, I was right, because I love that tape. It’s one of my favorite projects from him, but I was really entranced by southern hip-hop. Earlier this year, I got into a lot more of it, including a lot of K.R.I.T.’s other projects. One issue that I do have with him, even before I get into the review of this LP (which is interesting to talk about on its own), is that his stuff tends to be repetitive, but he does that style really, really well, so I don’t mind hearing a lot of the same ideas and sounds over and over again, only because he manages to make everything sound oddly fresh. Anyway, 4eva Is A Mighty Long Time is an interesting record, because this is his first independent release. K.R.I.T. released a couple of albums on Def Jam, but he was let go from his contract last year. I’ve gathered that it was because he didn’t want to “water down” his sound for mainstream audiences, which is basically what he kind of did on his last couple studio projects. A lot of fans were very disappointed with 2012’s Live From The Underground, as well as 2014’s Cadillactica, even though I love the latter. The former one, eh, but the latter album is great. I was definitely looking forward to a new album from Big K.R.I.T., and I purposely didn’t listen to the couple of songs released from the record before it came out, just because I wanted to go into this album totally fresh. I’m glad I did, too, because this album is awesome. It’s easily his best studio album, which isn’t too hard to achieve, but it’s also one of his projects period. I’ll be blunt, folks – while I hate it when people say that someone like Kendrick Lamar should be more popular, because he’s already mainstream beyond belief, I want Big K.R.I.T. to be more popular.

For whatever reason, Big K.R.I.T. isn’t popular, and there are a lot of people that don’t know about him, but goddamn, they should. Hell, 4eva Is A Mighty Long Time is a great place to start, too, because this features his most accessible and “experimental” work to date. I put that in quotes, because this LP isn’t super groundbreaking, but it is interesting in a lot of aspects. If anything, it’s more experimental in terms of K.R.I.T.’s own sound. He has ideas and sounds that he hasn’t played with much here. Before I listened to this record, the one thing that put me off on it was that it was a double album. At 85 minutes, this LP is a bit too lengthy for its own good. I’ll get that criticism out the way right now, because it’s one of the only few that I have, and if anything, it’s a nitpick, because this thing is two discs, and both discs have a distinct sound. I mentioned in my brief little review of Ty Dolla $ign’s new record, Beach House 3 (which you can find on my Facebook page, just search Bradley’s Reviews and Ramblings) that there was an attempt of a concept on that record. You could tell that Dolla was trying to say something, because there were a lot of little interludes that were variations on things that could be “famous,” but I didn’t know what he was trying to say. There is more of a loose concept on this record, however, but the concept is easier to follow. I really like it, too, but each disc represents who Big K.R.I.T. is as both the persona and the person behind the persona. The first disc deals with K.R.I.T.’s persona, so you get a lot of his very accessible, bass-heavy, and energetic bangers that are more focused on flexing, attracting women, and stuff like that. It’s nothing new for him, which I think is the point, but I’ll be damned if some of these songs aren’t in my all-time favorites of his. “Subenstein (My Sub IV),” “1999,” “Big Bank,” “Ride Wit Me,” and “Aux Cord” are utterly amazing, even though they don’t do anything he hasn’t done before, but the thing is, K.R.I.T. has a way of being very clever, interesting, and unique with his brand of “brag-rap.” The second disc is where things get more interesting, because the second disc starts off with an almost-instrumental track entitled “Justin Scott.” I was confused about who that was, but that’s K.R.I.T.’s real name. That’s the man behind the persona.

This is where the album gets more interesting, personal, introspective, and experimental to a degree. A lot of these songs on the next half of the album deal with more personal topics, such as everlasting love (“Everlasting” and “Higher Calling”), his disdain for Def Jam (“Drinking Sessions”), and his realization that fame isn’t everything (“The Price Of Fame”), just to name a few. The album gets more personal, introspective, and deeper, and I like that, because you get another side to K.R.I.T.’s music. I wouldn’t want a whole entire double album of “Substenstein” songs, because as awesome as that song is, and it really is, that would get old. You have some energetic bangers on the second disc, such as “Keep The Devil Off,” but they have more of a point to them. Like I said, the concept is super loose here, because there’s not much to it. I would have liked for the concept to be a bit more cemented in, or at least have a clearer idea of what he’s trying to do, but I can pick up on it. It’s a noble idea, and the lack of a concise concept doesn’t bother me whatsoever, but like I said, some songs do a drag a bit. They feel a bit too long, and the album does feel a bit too long for its own good. It doesn’t bother me a lot, only because the album still is very accessible, easy to get into, as well as just a flowing listen, so it’s not like the album is full of a lot of filler. Like I mentioned earlier, too, Big K.R.I.T. needs to be bigger. This is one of the best albums of the year, and truth be told, K.R.I.T. is one of my favorite rappers, maybe even my favorite (definitely my favorite in terms of modern rappers), because he’s got a sound that I love. It’s a good mix of southern hip-hop, soul, funk, R&B, and gospel. That’s what this LP has, too, as the second disc has a lot of soul, R&B, and gospel sounds in it, so as I mentioned earlier, if you love OutKast, Goodie Mob, and all of those artists and acts, you’ll definitely love this record. I feel like this LP is worth listening to, too, if you’re not into hip-hop. You’re one of those music fans that listens to a little bit, whether it’s merely Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, or something like that, or none at all, but you want something great to start off, and I think this LP is definitely a good album to sink your teeth into.

[jessicakmatt]

15 Richard Furch Mix Tips Every Producer Should Know

15 Richard Furch Mix Tips Every Producer Should Know: via LANDR Blog

Learn from the best: Richard Furch shares his unique studio insights.

There’s a good chance you’ve heard a record mixed by Richard Furch whether you knew it or not.

His Grammy-filled discography includes mixing and engineering credits for Frank Ocean, Prince, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Tyrese, Whitney Houston, Macy Gray, Usher, Outkast and many more.

It’s a career that spans more than 15 years of top-notch mix engineering. In that time, Furch has formulated a unique approach and philosophy to mixing.

Figuring out all the little things you need to think about every time you mix comes down to hours behind the board—something Furch has A TON of. Normally, you’d have to log your own long hours to figure out what all those important little things are.

But in the spirit of sharing and pushing the craft of mixing forward, Furch took some time out from the studio to share some of what he’s discovered and show you how to approach certain parts your mixing process.

Ranging from mix referencing to the results of too much coffee, these 15 Richard Furch mix tips are valuable to every producer looking for a better mix—regardless of genre, DAW or skill level.

Get your pen and pad ready…

1. Find Your Anchor

It’s easy to get lost in a mix while asking yourself if the snare is too loud, the bass too low, the guitars to distant etc. You need an anchor for your mix. Define one element that stays static and mix around that.

Starting points could be the vocal (after you figured out some basic eq and compression to get it sitting in the right place), or the snare. Both are very important, forward parts of many mixes.

Mix around them. If you get lost, ask yourself how the part in question relates to your anchor.

If you feel lost, mute everything around the anchor and start adding instruments back in until you pinpoint the parts that are too loud, too soft, too distracting, too…wrong in the mix. Then fix, instead of questioning every level and every part.

2. Listen Through Imperfections

This one is major time saver if you can perfect (pun intended) this approach. If you stop mixing every time you decide an ess is too loud, a smack is too audible, or an edit is too rough, you’ll waste hours and hours.

Leave that stuff aside. Instead, listen for the broader musical relationships (the definition of mixing).

Chances are, half of the things you thought were important to fix early on disappear in the final mix. And the rest, you can Fix after you’re done with the song, outside of the creative zone.

3. Don’t Mix Drums While Listening Loud

If you listen to your mix very loud, you’ll likely think that the drums and percussion are too low. It’s part of their transient nature.

Get a feel for the impact of the drums while listening loud. Does it move your body? Are you dancing? Great.

But when it comes to mixing your drums and deciding how loud they are in the mix, listen at medium or low volumes. You will get a better blend.

And hey, you can always check it again loud when you’re done. Still dancing? Good work!

4. Don’t Get Distracted

Try this little experiment: Play your mix from the top and at about verse 1 pick up your phone and check your snapchat or switch to your browser and scroll through some Facebook.

I guarantee by the time the chorus rolls around, you’ll admit to yourself that you have no idea about what you were listening to and what changes you might have to make. Which is the only reason to listen to the mix in progress.

Silence your phone! Put it behind you so you can’t glance at it or leave it in the kitchen and check your texts every hour or so.

Studies have shown that if you break your concentration to do something like checking your email, it can take you up to 25 minutes to get back to the concentration level you were at before. Mix fast, go home early. THEN do all the social media you think you need.

5. Get Distracted

On the other hand, once you get very close to finishing your mix, make it a point to get distracted.

Loop your mix in the background, turn it down to a level where you can easily talk over it. Turn your back to the speakers and do some emails, texts, call a friend, whatever.

Keep listening subconsciously. What sticks out to you? Did you just lose the vocal on a few words here and there?

Make small changes in the mix based on your passive listening. Try some tweaks, and keep it looping. Once nothing irks you anymore, you might just be done!

6. Reference But don’t Compare

This is an easy and frustrating trap to fall into. You’re checking out how your mix compares to your favorite artist of a similar genre (always level match!).

After listening, you find the bass is too low in your mix and the snaps are just more crisp in the other song, the vocal is dryer and the strings are closer and blah, blah, blah…none of this matters.

The reference is not the song you’re mixing. Referencing means you take a sampling of what other records sound like and you use your findings to get your song sitting somewhere amongst these songs, while still preserving the song you’re mixing.

You will quickly figure out that every song sounds different, even in the same genre. Your song should sound different, not the same as something else. Don’t make it sound like some other song for no reason.

7. Change Your Perspective

You’ll hear a lot of mix engineers talking about the importance of checking mixes in their car.

Do you swear by the car check? Why? Does your car have the most accurate, awesome sound system ever assembled? Then why don’t you mix in your car instead?

The car check is important because the sound system is DIFFERENT. The biggest reason you should listen to your mix somewhere else is because the speakers are NOT the ones in your studio. It’s all about the change of perspective.

It will make you listen to music differently and highlight new aspects of your mix. If the car reveals something that you cannot hear in your studio, on any of your speakers, or headphones, it’s might be time for a studio tweak or upgrade.

8. EQ and Level Match

Pretty much every plugin these days has a tweakable output level. So after EQing always match your output level with the level of the bypassed signal. Ask yourself: Is it really getting better? Or were you just impressed by a louder signal after boosting bass or midrange?

You’ll find yourself EQing less and more efficiently. Which is not necessarily better, but it goes faster.

The answer to “why is this part not cutting through” is not always about adding midrange or brightness. Sometimes it’s as simple as just turning it up. Seriously… It might be just that easy.

9. EQ and Listen as a Section

Many people say you shouldn’t EQ in solo. Personally, I think that’s not necessarily right.

You might want to EQ in solo because you already know what kind of EQ you need (lower midrange, presence, etc).

EQing while soloed can help you zone in on the instrument and how the EQ will affect it. It’s a matter of marksmanship. Get as close as you can and affect only what’s necessary.

It’s a matter of marksmanship. Get as close as you can and affect only what’s necessary.

Always un-solo and listen in context to check your decisions. Level match with the bypassed signal as described above. Tweak more—in solo or not—But always check in context of the whole mix.

There’s good and bad aspects to pushing an EQ that are always related: Mud/warmth, presence/harshness, air/lightness, bass/boom. Finding the sweet spot is the art.

10. EQ From the Top Down

Try EQing from the top down (high frequencies to lows).

It’s definitely subjective, but it’s a process that works for me when defining the high end and upper midrange of a sound first—before dealing with mud or bottom frequencies.

Some of the muddiness and lack of clarity automatically goes away once you’ve defined the presence of a sound, because you’re changing the relationship between present frequencies and murky frequencies when you boost upper midrange (level matching definitely helps as described above).

I find that if you work from the bottom up you might make sounds too skinny, as you fixed the lower midrange first and then later possibly added high end when it was really not necessary. As always. Listening helps. Duh

11. Don’t Look, Listen

Here’s another experiment to try: Position your cursor at top of song, start playing your song, now turn off your monitor. Keep listening. Are you perceiving your reverbs differently? Can you focus more on the vocal detail?

A lot of people hear better when the monitor is dark or with the lights low or off. My theory is that darkness creates less brain activity and sensory input which heightens our ability to listen.

Dammit, I’m a record mixer, not a doctor. But it makes sense to me and it works! Try it.

My theory is that darkness creates less brain activity and sensory input which heightens our ability to listen.

12. Know How Beverages Affect You

Sounds funny, but it’s a real issue…

If you’re four coffees deep by 3pm, I can almost guarantee that come 5 or 6pm your hearing will be changed by the way caffeine affects your capillaries.

Try to put a finger on how different beverages affect you. Is everything starting to sound thin and harsh? Maybe it’s time to ease off the caffeine.

Or use it to your advantage. Need more vibe and caution-to-the-wind attitude? Maybe it’s Margarita time. But don’t blame me if you have to fix the mix the next day…

13. Know Your Margins

Throw up some drums, bass and a (decently compressed) vocal in a session.

Can you get the vocal sitting within 3dB of where it should be in a minute or so? How about 2dB or 1dB? Maybe even .5db?

Finding, and knowing your margins will help you stop guessing how much ‘too loud’ the vocal is.

Need more vibe and caution-to-the-wind attitude? Maybe it’s Margarita time.

To figure it out, set the vocal to where you think it might work. Now turn it up until you go “This is definitely too loud”. What is that number? 2db?

Now do the opposite: Turn the vocal down until it’s definitely too low. How many dB is that?

Now you have a window of where the vocal might sit in the final mix which will help you confidently mix around it. Hopefully that range will get smaller the more you do this. This means you’re getting better at instinctively mixing. See “find an anchor” as well.

14. Mix Without the Bass for a Long Time

I like starting my mixes with the drums. Most of the time, the drums define the whole frequency spectrum of the record from the kick to the cymbals.

Drums will often need considerably more work to sound right than a lot of the other instruments, so I like to get that done right away. I follow that with the keys, guitars, strings and vocals, and leave the bass out for a long time. It helps me really hone in on where the low-mids and low-end in the instruments sit in the mix.

I like starting my mixes with the drums. Most of the time, the drums define the whole frequency spectrum of the record from the kick to the cymbals.

Once I feel that spectrum feeling natural, I add the bass and work it in. I find that leveling a bass while only listening to drums is very hard as there is little harmonic content to put the bass in perspective. So leave it out until you have something to work around.

15. Find a Safe Place in the Mix:

150+ tracks on one project can get confusing VERY fast. There are only a few songs that actually need that many tracks. Musical intention can normally be described with much fewer musical events.

Musical intention can normally be described with much fewer musical events.

The solution? Find the center of the record. The instruments and vocal that play through the whole song that COULD be the whole song if nobody added the other bells and whistles.

Focus on making those elements sound good and remember what they are. Now. If you get lost when adding the rest of the music, mute instruments until you get back to the safe place, the place where the music feels good but the record is not finished.

Add the other elements until the song starts to feel bad. That’s the culprit, fix it. But never lose that safe place feeling and you’ll be fine.

Visit Richard’s site for more on his discography and studio. Follow Richard via his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The post 15 Richard Furch Mix Tips Every Producer Should Know appeared first on LANDR Blog.

from LANDR Blog http://blog.landr.com/richard-furch-tips/ via https://www.youtube.com/user/corporatethief/playlists from Steve Hart https://stevehartcom.tumblr.com/post/160990429609