#so my hip hop playlist is A LOT of shit from the 80s and 90s and then like every gch song lmfao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

olderthannetfic · 3 years

Note

It's really surprising that you're so well versed in older fandoms and yet participate in new popular ones (that cdrama, kpop) is this by design? Im in my twenties and my interest turnover is already way slower than it used to be

You know, that’s a really interesting question. I wouldn’t say it’s by design exactly in that I do tend to just follow what strikes my fancy, and I can’t force myself to want to write fic for just anything. (I find it easier to like reading fic without serious involuntary emotional investment, but writing takes more. Vidding I can do on command most of the time, but I don’t usually bother unless I have a lot of feels or I’m fulfilling someone’s prompt.)

However, me getting into BTS was 100% due to me wanting to understand BTS enough to explain to people who weren’t very interested but wanted to know what was going on in fandom lately. Under normal circumstances, I run the dance party at Escapade, the oldest extant slash con. We borrowed vividcon’s thing of playing fanvids on the wall--all of them set to dance music--as the soundtrack for the dance party. This means I’m creating a 3-hour mixtape of fannishness, which has amazing potential to make people feel in the know about Fandom Today... and equal potential to make them feel alienated if nothing they care about shows up. Only about 100-150 people attend the con, so it really is possible to make a playlist that feels inclusive yet informative--it just takes a huge amount of work.

Every year, I do a lot of research on which fandoms are getting big and look for vids from vidders people won’t have heard of, so there is an element of consciously trying to keep up with things. Generally, I only get into these fandoms myself if I had no idea what they were and then suddenly, oops, they’re my kryptonite, like the buddy cop android plot in Detroit: Become Human, which sucked me in hard for like 6 months on the basis of a vid.

(So if you’re into cross-fandom meta and associated stuff as one of your fannish interests, you tend to have broader knowledge of different fandoms, old and new, than if you’re just looking for the next place you’ll read fic. It’s also easier to love vids for unfamiliar things than fic.)

But though I was only looking for a basic primer on BTS, BTS has 7 members with multiple names and no clear juggernaut pairing, not to mention that AU that runs through the music videos and lots of other context to explain. The barrier to understanding WTF was going on at all was high enough that to know enough to explain, I had to be thoroughly exposed... And once I was over that hurdle, oops, I had a fandom.

In terms of old vs. new, here’s the thing: kpop fandoms in English and c-drama fandoms in English right now feel a lot like anime fandom in English did in the early 00s. I had a Buddy Cops of the 70s phase in the middle, but my current fannishness is actually a return to my older fannishness in many ways.

What do I mean about them being similar?

Yes, I know some wanker will show up to say I think China, Korea, and Japan are indistinguishable, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the way that I used to routinely meet Italian and French and German fans, Argentinian and Mexican, Malaysian and Indonesian and Filipino too. English-language fandom of SPN or MCU may have all those fans from all those countries, but it feels very American most of the time. English-language fandom of a non-English-language canon is more overtly about using English as a lingua franca.

It also tends to attract people who as a sideline to their fannishness are getting into language learning and translation, which are my other passion in life after fanworks fandom. (I speak only English and Spanish and a bit of Japanese, but I’ve studied German, French, Russian, Mandarin, Old English, and now Korean.)

Nerds arguing about methods of language learning and which textbooks are good and why is my jam. This is all over the place in English-language fandoms of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean media. Those fandoms also tend to be full of speakers coming from a Germanic or Romance languages background who face similar hurdles in learning these languages. (In other words, if you’re a native Japanese speaker trying to learn Korean, the parts that will be hard for you are different than if you’re an English speaker, but you’re also usually not doing fandom in English.)

There’s also an element of scarcity and difficulty of access and a communal attempt to construct a canon (in the other sense) of stuff from that country that pertains to one’s fannishness. So, for example, a primer explaining the genre of xianxia is highly relevant to being a n00b Untamed fan, but just any old thing about China is not. A c-drama adapted from a danmei webnovel is perhaps part of the new pantheon of Chinese shit we’re all getting into, but just any old drama from decades ago is probably not... unless it’s a genre precursor to something else we care about. Another aspect here is that while Stuff I Can Access As A N00b Who Doesn’t Speak The Language may be relatively scarce, there’s a vast, vast wealth of stuff that exists.

This is what it felt like to be an anime fan in the US in 2000. As translation got more commercial and more crappy series were licensed and dumped onto an already glutted market, the vibe changed. No longer were fans desperately trying to learn enough of the language to translate or spending their time cataloguing what existed or making fanworks about a show they stuck with for a bit: the overall community focus turned to an endless race of consumption to keep up with all of the latest releases. That’s a perfectly valid way of being fannish, but if I wanted that, I’d binge US television 24/7.

Anime fandom got bigger, but what I liked about anime fandom in English died, and I moved on. (Okay, I first moved on to Onmyouji, which is a live action Japanese thing, but still.)

Hardcore weeaboos and now fans of Chinese and Korean stuff don’t stop at language: people get excited about cooking, my other other great passion. Times a thousand if the canon is something like The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, which is full of loving shots of food preparation. People get excited about history! Mandarin and Japanese may share almost nothing in terms of grammar or phonology, but all of East Asia has influence from specific Chinese power centers historically, and there are commonalities to historical architecture and clothing that I love.

I fell out of love with the popular anime art styles as they changed, and I’m not that into animation in general these days. (I still own a shitton of manga in art styles I like, like Okano Reiko’s Onmyouji series.) I’ve become a filmmaker over the last decade, and I’m very excited about beautiful cinematography and editing. With one thing and another, I’m probably not going to get back into anime fandom, but it’s lovely to revisit the cultural aspects I enjoyed about it via live-action media.

BTS surprised me too, to be honest. I really dislike that early 90s R&B ballad style that infests idol music (not just Korean--believe me, I resisted many rounds of “But Johnny’s Entertainment though!” back in the day). While I like some of the dance pop, I just don’t care. But OH NO, BTS turn out to be massive conscious hip hop fanboys, and their music sounds different. I have some tl;dr about my reactions in the meta I wrote about one of my fanvids, which you can find on Dreamwidth here.

But back to your comment about turnover: I know fans from the 70s who’ve had one great fannish love and that’s it and more who were like that but eventually moved on to a second or third. They’re... really fannishly monogamous in a way I find hard to comprehend. It was the norm long ago, but even by the 90s when far more people were getting into fandom, it was seen as a little weird. By now, with exponentially more people in fandom, it’s almost unheard of. I think those fans still exist, even as new people joining, but we don’t notice them. They were always rare, but in the past, only people like that had the stamina to get over the barriers to entry and actually become the people who made zines or were willing to be visibly into fanfic in eras when that was seen as really weird. On top of that, there’s an element of me, us, judging the past by what’s left: only people with an intense and often single passion are visible because other people either drifted away or have seamlessly disappeared into some modern fandom. They don’t say they’re 80 or 60 or 40 instead of 20, so nobody knows.

In general, I’m a small fandoms and rare ships person. My brain will do its best to thwart me by liking whatever has no fic even in a big fic fandom... (Except BTS because there is literally fic for any combination of them, like even more than for the likes of MCU. Wow. Best fandom evar!) So I have an incentive to not get complacent and just stick with one fandom because I would very soon have no ability to be in fandom at all.

My appetite for Consuming All The Things has slowed way down, but it also goes in waves, and a lot of what I’m consuming is what I did back in 2000: journal articles and the limited range of English-language books on the history of m/m sex and romance in East Asia. It’s not so much that I have a million fandoms as that I’m watching a few shows as an expression of my interest in East Asian costume dramas and East Asian history generally.

I do like to sit with one thing and experience it deeply rather than moving on quickly, but the surface expression of this has changed depending on whether I’m more into writing fic or more into doing research or something else.

But yes, I do do a certain amount of trying to stay current, often as a part of research for fandom meta or to help other people know what’s going on. Having a sense of what’s big doesn’t automatically mean getting into all those things, but I think some fans who are older-in-fandom and/or older-in-years stop being open to even hearing what’s new. And if you’ve never heard of it, you’ll never know if you might have liked it.

#fandom meta #fandom history #Anonymous

55 notes · View notes

mytastessuck · 3 years

Text

Gorillaz: Humanz

SHere it is, the comeback tour! I was so excited for this album, I sucked all the singles that came out before I could download the album. This album basically reminded me of the reasons I love Gorillaz. All of them. One particular reason a little too well...

Okay, let's get the elephant out of the room. This album is a bit controversial among the community for playing a little too hard to one of Gorillaz' strengths: showcasing cool artists. There are more than a few tracks where Damon doesn't even show up. Hell, my favorite track doesn't even have it on him. Me, I honestly don't care about that as long as I get to hear good music but for the rest of you die hard Gorillaz fans? Just think of this as a compilation album like NOW That's What I Call Alternative/Indie Hip-Hop/R&B/Electronica/Pop.

See? Rolls off the tongue. Now let's get started.

1. Intro: I Switched My Robot Off

Nice. Real ominous. Gorillaz really know how to build up a presentation. Feels like you're walking through the doors of the doors to the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. Anybody remember Legends of the Hidden Temple? Were there doors on that stage? Anyway, awesome.

10/10

2. Ascension

Holy hell, Vince really knocks it out of the park on this one. Different beat, nice flow, social commentary...He was not fucking around on this track. Damon's barely on the track but Vince makes up for it with his existential rhymes and chorus back-up. Man, Gorillaz has gotta take advantage of gospel more often.

9/10

3. Strobelite

That didn't take long, did it? Anyway, this is my favorite song on the album. Peven has an incredible voice, the music psychically compels you to dance and...that's it. Sometimes, well usually with me, you just need to go with Simple Yet Awesome. Have a good voice and a good beat. This song has both and I'm pretty sure that one day, a scientist will hear this song and will be inspired by it to cure diabetes.

100/10

4. Saturn Barz

Ah, the lead single from the album. Remember the 360 house, everyone? Yeah, you remember. Glad to have Gorillaz welcome back Reggae into their line-up with Popcaan manning the helms. He and Damon tag-team the eardrums with the power of dread as the instrumentation makes you feel like you're in a haunted house. Welcome back, guys.

25/10

5. Momentz

WELCOME BACK, GUYS! De La Soul returns to say some real shit about time and how you should, respect and stuff. Seriously, awesome track. Kicks so much ass and you can even dance to it as you wonder if this MOMENT will be one of the last times when you feel really happy. Nice...

9/10

6. Interlude: The Non-Conformist Oath

Hey, Steve Martin! I like to imagine a bunch of assholes listening to this and...just not getting it. Not us though. We get it. We're smart. Smarter than those guys...

10/10

7. Submission

This song had to grow on me but years after I got the album and after I learned to appreciate Danny Brown a little more like all humans should, this song became one of my favorites off the album. Don't worry Kelela, he doesn't carry the whole song. Her voice is so beautiful that it can calm a charging rhino or a coked-up Connor McGregor. These make the song a lot classier than it had any right being.

90/10

8. Charger

She's beauty, she's Grace...she's also Jones. Man, I haven't heard from this woman since Corporate Cannibal and she has clearly been keeping up practice. God, how can a woman's laughter both scare and arouse me? Damon's no slouch on this track either, singing about the monster that keeps us all tethered: the charger. I kid, I kid. Hey, did Damon really get a boner on stage when he sung this or are you guys messing with me? Message me if you know.

9/10

9. Interlude: Elevator Going Up

On a recent trip, I tried to go up the elevator but it was card-activated so a desk lady had to help me. That's it.

8/10

10. Andromeda

Damon has to do the heavy lifting here and his muscles have not completely wasted away from lack of use. He tells us to take in our heart and you know what? I did. I took this song directly in my heart...and my playlist.

50/10

11. Busted And Blue

Yeah, this song is a bummer. A good bummer. It's Broken's younger brother who joined the army to make his parents proud after he couldn't get into university like his older brother who managed to form a separate family with his squad and began to think that maybe he was good enough after all before his squad gets bombed and, as he lies legless dying painfully on the ground, a blue butterfly land directly on his outstretched busted hand...

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy

10/10

12. Interlude: Talk Radio

You ever wonder how we get voices in machines? I know you think it's a complicated process but I know a dude who picked up the radio in his electric fan once. Think about it.

8/10

13. Carnival

Again, this song had to grow on me but one day, while I was thinking about Gamzee for a godforsaken reason, I thought "Geez, he talks about the Dark Carnival and the Dark Carnival isn't even some of ICP's best days. What's a good song about a carnival?" Anyway, Anthony can spin a person's mind and mind around just by singing. He's wild.

80/10

14. Let Me Out

Hey, wouldn't it be funny if Mavis was Vince's mother? She's not but that would be funny as well as cool. Her and Pusha T bang on the walls of this track as they rant about the politics at the time of this song. Yeah, they're talking about Trump. That car horn can't protect you forever, you orange bastard.

9/10

15. Interlude: Penthouse

Dear Penthouse: Hi. Does anyone check in on you, just you? I'm here to say I think you're important and you provide a necessary outlet for men to brag about being perverts. At least before the Youtube comment section existed.

Thanks for everything,

mytastessuck

8/10

16. Sex Murder Party

Ooooo, this track puts me in a funky mood. Like, there's a part but there's sex there...and MURDER. So you know it's an awesome party. Kick-ass, right? I know it's kick-ass. Keep dancing, people.

11/10

17. She's My Collar

Pretty sexy song. Gotta love people vauging about being used in a song. That's why we love Offspring, that's why we love Damon on his knees onstage. Hey, there was a post that said Noodle wrote this song about her girlfriend. That was an excellent post. Well done.

9/10

18. Interlude: The Elephant

I SAID GET OUT OF HERE, YOU BASTARD!

8/10

19. Hallelujah Money

Ah, the technical first single. Remember when they said that they weren't going to put this song on the album? Anyway, this is exactly the song we needed after The Incident occurred. Benjamin manages to calm down an entire populace while Damon just fearfully wonders what our future will be like...and he's in the UK. This song is one long terrifying lullaby to an entire country...until the end, anyway.

75/10

20. We Got The Power

A great way to remind listeners that no matter what's happening, no matter who's in charge, we have the power change everything. An excellent message for people who were still recovering from The Incident.

10/10

21. Interlude: New World

Okay, the bonus tracks. Should be nothing special here, right? Just some B-sides and I've never shown favoritism towards B-sides, right?

8/10

22. The Apprentice

A nice song from the same Rag n' Bone Man who brought us "Human". Zebra manages to lay down some nice rhymes as Ray BLK backs them both up with the force of her voice. These guys should form a team with how well they work together. Oh, they should make a virtual band! All they need to do is find an artist...

9/10

23. Halfway To The Halfway House

A very nice song if a bit overshadowed by the others on the album. Still, Peven can't be beat when it comes to crooning and he raises a song from a solid C to a B.

8/10

24. Out of Body

This song had to grow on me also but when it did...lord, this song is weird. Hypnotic suggestions, telephone tones, the song starts then Zebra jumps in to help then who is this person?! Why are people applauding?! Who are you people?! Why are there so many crows gathering outside my house?!

60/10

25. Ticker Tape

Well well well, look who's back. Damon returns with his old friend Kali to join the accuser of the vain Carly Simon to beg us to stay on the album. Sorry Damon, but I got places to do and people to go. There's nothing you can do to convince me to stick around after how long this album already is.

9/10

26. Circle of Friendz

Huh. Seems like a riot is going on. Weird for Gorillaz to get this real. What, this guy is just going to keep saying Circle of Friendz again and again? Is this supposed to affect me? Get real. It'll take a lot more than a nice voice and implications to...

To...

...

...Maybe I should listen to the album again.

11/10

Album score: 25/10

Damn, that took a while. Shouldn't be the case next week when we cover The Now Now. See you then!

#gorillaz #humanz #music #review

5 notes · View notes

randomvarious · 4 years

Video

youtube

Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - “Lost in Emotion” I Know What Boys Like! Song released in 1987. Compilation released in 1996. Pop / Freestyle

From an old biography on Billboard.com:

Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam were one of the most musically diverse and successful recording acts of the '80s. With hits produced and written by Full Force, the six-man performing/songwriting/production team from East Flatbush/Brooklyn, NY, they scored million-selling hits with dance-based tracks ("I Wonder if I Take You Home"), beautiful ballads ("All Cried Out"), and unabashed pop tunes ("Head to Toe," "Lost in Emotion"). They were one of the early exponents of what later became hip-hop R&B. With five gold singles, two number one singles on both the R&B and the pop charts, two platinum albums, and inclusions on various compilations and movie soundtracks, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam were the most successful act of Full Force's "One Big Family" roster of acts.

A constant theme throughout Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s history is the influence of Motown. Motown music is what seemingly brought them together and it’s what ultimately led them to achieve gargantuan levels of success throughout the 80s and early 90s. But it all started in 1984 with a struggling New York-based hip hop / R&B / funk / electro band called Full Force. They couldn’t get a label to bite and decided that they needed a change in direction. Having witnessed the success of R&B boy band New Edition, who were transparently packaged as an 80s rehash of the Jackson 5 (a new edition, if you will, of a Motown group), the members of Full Force formed an idea that they thought was sure to hit: an 80s rehash of The Supremes (an all-girl Motown group!). Full Force would write, produce, play the music, and provide backing vocals while a group of girls would take care of the main singing parts.

Full Force percussionist and roadie, Mike Hughes, would then come upon a 17-year old girl named Lisa Velez at a New York club called The Funhouse, which is also where Madonna ended up being discovered. Velez, who had visions of pop stardom, was a member of a traveling troupe in school that performed Motown hits and showtunes. Initially impressed by her looks, Hughes would invite her to an audition at a house in Brooklyn where three brothers from Full Force resided. Velez wouldn’t tell her protective older brother (she had nine siblings, by the way!), probably out of fear of him denying her request that she be allowed to go, and hopped on the D train to chase her dreams.

But it wasn’t all initially hunky dory. In fact, Velez’s first time meeting Full Force was rather creepy. From a 1988 interview and profile of Lisa Lisa in Spin:

...”I sit on a stool in the basement, and I’m looking around, and I see pictures of these big, big guys. Six big guys. I’m saying to myself, ‘Oh shit, they’re gonna kill me.’ I didn’t know what to think. I had just met Mike. Enter the six big guys, and I almost shit in my pants. Paul Anthony was the first one to come up to me, and he bent down and he kissed me and he says, ‘God, you’re very pretty.’ That’s when I thought, ‘Oh Jesus, he’s gonna rape me now.’”

But her fears were soon alleviated.

...Lisa started to sing. “She was singing this song that Mike Hughes wrote for her to do,” says Lou George, “and it wasn’t kicking at all. It was horrible, plain and simple. Because it had her singing so off-key, because the way the song was written, she was singing all off. I was just laughing until my tears came down because of the fact that she was off and Mike had wrote it, and it was just so funny the way the notes was going. And I was by the bathroom crying in tears, and Lisa couldn’t see me.

“Then she sang ‘For Your Eyes Only,” [the theme song from the 1981 James Bond flick] and that’s what got it. Everything fell into place.

Full Force would end up auditioning more girls, but in Velez they had found the Diana Ross piece to their 80s Supremes puzzle: an attractive young woman blessed with a high-pitched and innocent-sounding voice that MTV-watching teenybopper types could fawn over and try to emulate. Rather than wait to fill out the rest of the group with more singers, Velez and Full Force got to recording. She would be given the stage name Lisa Lisa, a sort of play on the Full Force-produced, 1984 breakthrough hip hop hit, “Roxanne, Roxanne” by UTFO. Mike Hughes and a guitarist and bassist who was associated with Full Force named Alex “Spanador” Moseley would make up Cult Jam. LL&CJ would then debut in 1985, finding decent chart success in a platinum-selling album with songs like “I Wonder If I Take You Home,” “Can You Feel the Beat,” and “All Cried Out,” the last of which would reach the top ten in the US. A couple years later, they followed up with Spanish Fly, achieving platinum status again thanks to two chart-topping pop singles, “Head to Toe” and “Lost in Emotion.” Both songs would be noted for their clear infusion of Motown influence.

“Lost in Emotion” really is just a perfect piece of sun-drenched 80s pop. And yet, despite the fact that it’s clearly such a bop, and that it reached #1, it still feels a bit overlooked today. Throughout all my years of listening to the classic pop and rock radio format, I feel like I’ve never heard it on there. Similarly, I also feel like I don’t see it included on all that many 80s mixes or playlists. I mean, this song has over 4 million plays on Spotify, which is a lot, but “Straight Up” by Paula Abdul, which hit #1 the following year, and has that same type of young and innocent girl vocal affect, has over 40 million plays. They’re both good songs, no doubt, but go listen to both of them back to back and tell me which one holds up better today. The answer is “Lost in Emotion” and I will fight you if you disagree.

Ultimately, this song reflects a fantastically catchy pairing of an in vogue and upbeat, poppy freestyle sound with old chunks of Motown mixed in. Alongside slapping percussion, flooding synthesizers, and twinkling, sort of tropical-sounding melodies courtesy of a combination of xylophones and bells, Full Force divine their main inspiration for this song from a pair of Mary Wells hits (she was a Motown star!), “Two Lovers” and “You Beat Me to the Punch.” And if you listen to those songs, you can hear the bits and pieces that ended up motivating Full Force to write “Lost in Emotion.”

But this sweet 80s jam struts with more than just Motown flair. The main, funky bassline that undergirds the whole thing has a definite Ben E. King “Stand by Me” feel to it, which is still 60s, but not Motown, and the extended bridge section, which also contains a nice sax solo, showcases even more glints of non-Motown 60s sounds. The male bass baritone backing vocal that briefly swoops in the outro portion is a clear callback to doo-wop groups of the 50s and 60s, which wasn’t Motown’s lane, and Lisa Lisa also appears to give tribute to Del Shannon with her own backing vocal by briefly wailing an “aye-yai-yai,” mimicking the iconic “why-why-why” from the early 60s rock-and-roll-pop masterpiece, “Runaway.” It’s these combinations of Lisa Lisa’s naturally nubile voice, not to mention her sheer attractiveness, along with Full Force’s expert mixing of both old and contemporary sounds that would enable “Lost in Emotion” to be the most popular song in the US during the summer of 1987. It’s also a tune which proves that, when done right, Motown doesn’t go out of style. At least it clearly hadn’t by then.

Of course, there was a music video for “Lost in Emotion,” too, which plainly shows Lisa Lisa lip syncing the whole song as she and her friends move through a crowded street fair rigged with carnival games and a stage, which Lisa Lisa graces at the end. According to Wikipedia, it was the fourth-most played video in 1987 on MTV.

youtube

An absolute classic banger of an 80s pop song that shows Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam at their peak. You ignore this flawless summer earworm at your own peril.

#pop #pop music #freestyle #freestyle music #music #80s #80s music #80's #80's music #80s pop #80's pop #80s pop music #80's pop music #classic pop #80s freestyle #80's freestyle #80s freestyle music #80's freestyle music

2 notes · View notes

grimelords · 5 years

Photo

My August playlist is finished and while it does unfortunately begin with Tool it also has two of Elvis’ gospel songs on it so please believe me when I say it takes a turn! Everything you could ever want over three hours of music from 70s christian hippie cult music to a funky remix of Also Sprach Zarathustra to Ante Up.

If you’re interested in getting these emailed to you instead of having them mysteriously appear and clog up your dash, I’ve started a tinyletter you can subscrine to at tinyletter.com/grimelords

but in the meantime,

listen here

Lateralus - Tool: Tool is on streaming now and they've got a new album out and so it's a very nice time to reinterrogate a band that meant a lot to teenaged me that i have almost completely exorcised from my life since. What's interesting firstly is how much better it is to consume their music digitally than it ever was in any physical format. They apparently resisted making it available for so long for nebulous reasons of artistic control and intention, wanting a say in how their music is listened to - they design these long and overwrought albums to be experienced as a whole. My contention is that as a whole album, start-to-finish, is one of the worst ways to listen to this band. Tool have maybe 12 great songs across four albums and every single album is around 70-80 minutes, pushing the limit of the CD. Which means for every great song there's at least two ambient interludes, Bill Hicks samples, 90s alt comedy bits (Die Eir Von Satan is just menacing music and a menacing voice reading out a weed cookie recipe in german, now that's what I call comedy) that really add nothing to the experience of the album on a casual listen. Being actually able to listen to these songs on their own, and playlist them and pull them apart from the mire is so refreshing and makes experiencing this extremely exhausting band actually pleasant for once. That's not to say ambient interludes and sketches and whatever aren't worth it, I absolutely love that shit and a lot of my favourite albums are absolutely chock full of that sort of thing - just like, don't make me do it every time. Their new album seems to reflect this at least a little bit, with the more overarching themes and arcs of the previous albums replaced by more singular and self-contained long songs interspersed with dedicated 2 minute interlude tracks. The runtime blows out to an hour and a half unrestrained by physical limits but it seems to contain more actual music and less funny than any other Tool album which is a welcome change. I'm still lukewarm on the album itself, it seems to just be a complete rehashing of the ideas on 10,000 Days (to the point of almost note-for-note repetition of some old riffs and themes) which is a bit disappointing considering how long they've apparently been working on it. I'll give it more time because Tool albums always unfold over multiple listens but for now they kind of just sound like the dad-rock version of a once extremely edgy 90s band - which I guess they are now so that makes sense. As for Lateralus, I think it's their best song. The perfect combination of Joe Rogan spirit science woo-woo sacred geometry fibonacci sequence 'open your mind' bullshit and good old fashioned riffs, it's the best of both halves of Tool and great starting point if you've never listened to this band and are interested in becoming insufferable.

Mars For The Rich - King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard: This album is so good and it's finally converted me to being a full time King Gizz guy so look out for a lot more of that in the future. It's a thrash metal concept album about ecological collapse forcing the rich to flee to mars and the poor to flee to venus where they lose their minds and fly into the fire. I spent a little while the other day obsessing over the insane vocal leap in this absolutely incredible song when he jumps down an 11th on 'mars for the riiiiiiich' somehow effortlessly.

Pattern Walks - Cloud Nothings: The interplay between Cloud Nothings second and third albums is something I think about a lot. Attack On Memory is a visceral experience of depression and living in your own head where Here And Nowhere Else is about being able to finally move past it, and living with it. There's a good quote from the singer on the Genius page for this song where he says "It was almost a response to “Wasted Days” on the last record. It ends with “I thought I would be more than this” over and over and this one ends with “I thought” over a beautiful bit of music which is an easy way to explain the way I was thinking when I was writing this record. I wasn’t as depressed as I was when I was making the last album. Before, I felt like nobody liked the band and I was doing it for three years. I was not in a good place. Now, I had more time to think about why I felt that way. It’s a positive song."

M.E. - Metz: Metz put out a B-sides and rarities album a couple of weeks ago and then they put out this Gary Numan cover on it's own for some reason. It's very very good! I love just putting a generally harder edge on it without taking anything away from the spirit of the original. I also, somehow, didn't realise that Where's Your Head At by Basement Jaxx was a Gary Numan sample until I heard this cover so we're all learning every day.

The Ocean And The Sun - The Sound Of Animals Fighting: Here's what's good: having the last third of your song just be a monotone voice reading from a CrimethInc anarchist zine over swirling guitar ambience. The drums are so good in this, Chris Tsagakis makes me want to muscle through the ska and listen to RX Bandits more, he’s just that good. The extremely crunchy part in the chorus especially, it switches through like three different distortions and sounds absolutely great. I’m a big fan of anyone that can make a very straightforward groove like the main one here really work just by absolutely leaning into it.

Uzbekistan - The Sound Of Animals Fighting: Uzbekistan is the most out-there and wild song on this album which was sort of mostly a way back into post-hardcore for TSOAF after Lover, The Lord Has Left Us.. which was perhaps a little too-out there for most. (seven minute closing track of a guy singing John Cage's Experimental Music essay over formless tabla and mandolin). The drums alone in this are worth it. The way they transition in and out of the super distorted electronic parts is so good. This song fortunately also has a section where someone recites poetry over electronic noise and a second voice whispers 'who holds your strings? wake up..." over the top near the end. I will love and defend dum-dum pretentious music until the day I die.

Gangsta - Tune-Yards: I love Tune-Yards and I'm incredibly interested in the way she interrogates whiteness. It's a complicated thing to get into in this playlist post but when she first turned up, a lot of people assumed she was african american just by the sound of her voice and music - it reaches and pulls from a lot of african music in a very postmodern sort of way and when people found out she was white, straight, cis and from New England it kind of felt like a betrayal for some people. On her 2018 album I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life she digs into it a lot in a way that becomes almost uncomfortable for what is ostensibly a pop album. An NPR article about it at the time said "Ever the student, the Smith-educated Garbus, who writes most of Tune-Yards' lyrics, designed an anti-racist curriculum for herself. She attended a six-month anti-racist workshop at the East Bay Meditation Center. She read the work of noted anti-racist educator Tim Wise and explored the activism of Standing Up for Racial Justice, a nationwide, progressive activism network dedicated to "moving white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority.". That's a lot. This song, Gangsta, from her 2011 album when all the hype was fresh feels like a pretty early look into the mindset she'd later fully fledge out of interrogating white identity and cultural appropriation while also participating in it. The lyrics are simple but they get to a simple point, "What's a boy to do if he'll never be a rasta?" is basically making the same point as Ras Trent by The Lonely Island except it's asking where else does Ras Trent fit? Can a white guy participate in anything like that in a way that's not cultural appropriation, and how can a culture like that participate in the larger world without being appropriated? It's 2013 tumblr discourse but it's still churning for a reason I suppose.

Ante Up (feat. Busta Rhymes, Teflon & Remi Martin) - M.O.P: An all time great Violence Song, in the same genre as Knuck If Ya Buck and X Gon Give It To Ya. Opening with "'this shit feel like a whole entire world collapsed" is such an insane way to open a song but the absolute whirlwind of threats that follows makes it feel warranted. "Fuck hip-hop, rip pockets, snatch jewels" is sooo good. I don't even care about this song I am just straight up robbing you. The absolute power in the rhythm of the overlapping getemGETEMgetem hitemHITEMhitem part is just so, so strong. It's like a VR experience of being fucking robbed.

Awake (feat. JPEGMAFIA) - Tkay Maidza: It seems like Tkay is finally nailing down her sound and she’s absolutely killing it. She’s been through a few different styles since she started out and now she’s really hit on something that’s very distinctly her with this and her other new song Flexin and I cannot wait for the album.

Big Head - Ms. Jade: Ms Jade had one album in 2002 and then basically disappeared which is a shame because she's got a very interesting approach. The star of the show is as usual, Timbaland. The man is a singular voice somehow making the tabla and a wikiwiki noise his signature sound. I love the drone of the raps interspersed with the vocal spikes and I love the chorus as the gospel vocals surge up from underneath. This whole song is just completely bizzare in its construction in a way that works perfectly and feels strangely.

Titanium 2 Step - Battles: Battles are finally back and I’m fucking bouncing off the walls. They’re a two piece now and it does not seem to have slowed them down at all which is very exciting. I can’t think of any band that has ever continued with only half of their original members and also moved forward radically every time. Everything about this song is great: the super strength drums, the hypercolour guitar and the vocals that are just screaming absolutely whatever you like whenever you like. It feels closest to Ice Cream, and Gloss Drop in general more than La Di Da Di but i’m so excited to see how the new album sounds - and how they adapt their old material live now that there’s only two of them.

Dancing Is The Best Revenge - !!!: I’ve never actively listened to !!! for no good reason, but plenty of times in my life I’ve heard a song playing and been like damn what the FUCK is THIS?! and it always turns out to be !!!. This is yet another example.

Skitzo Dancer (Justice Remix) - Scenario Rock: The first clap in this is one of the best sounds ever. Right after 'so you think you've seen and heard it all' everything drops out of the mix for this one very comedy clap and it makes me smile every time. The rhythm of the Disco!... Disco! Disco! part near the end is one of those things that's just always playing in the back of my mind, which as far as constant reminders go it's not the worst. I've also over the last week or so been a big fan of this 11 year old youtube video I found of some guy covering the bass on this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0DLAUaV3f8

16:56 - Danger: Danger had a new album this year that I don't think I gave enough attention to because I relistened and it's very good. He spends the majority of it refining his original sound but it's such a distinct and original niche that it works out great. The songs are so densely layered and frankly just sound so beautiful! Which is a strange thing to say about 80s inspired electro but it just does. The strings and timpani in this about halfway through are just a gift as well, I love it.

Also Sprach Zarathustra - Deodato: As part of my ‘thinking about Elvis’ I was looking up a live album of his called Aloha From Hawaii Via Sattelite which has a very good cover which doubles as an illustration of how my proposed international peacekeeping satellite will function, projecting an immense Elvis themed blanket of darkness over ‘troublemaker’ regions to immerse them in an eternal freezing night until they’ve settled down. Anyway his entrance music for this this concert in Hawaii is Also Sprach Zarathustra, which is a very very funny thing to do and I think gives an appropriate measure of his status at the time. When I told my girlfriend about this she directed me to this bonkers jazz funk version of it by Deodato which deservingly won a grammy in 1974 for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

Hollywood Forever Cemetary Sings - Father John Misty: I’ve resisted listening to Father John Misty for a long time because he just seems like a real asshole. A big brain man genius that saw what Lana Del Rey was doing and thought “what if.. me?”. But I can’t deny this song, it’s absolutely magical and as far as songs about fucking in a cemetery go it’s definitely one of the most singable.

Remember / Medicine Man - Yma Sumac: In reading about the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and who was buried there, I learned about Yma Sumac. Yma Sumac was a Peruvian soprano with one of the most incredible voices I've ever heard who was an absolutely huge deal in the 50s when Americans were clamouring for the exotic, real or imagined. She made extremely good mambo music and claimed to be descended from the last Incan emperor. Her popularity faded after the 50s and then for an unknown reson in 1971, ten years since her last album, she made this rock album. It is insane. It's the best example of 'voice as an instrument' that I've ever heard. She is making every kind of sound possible with a human voice and her range seems completely limitless. She's just as comfortable in a piercingly high whistle register as she is in deep guttural growls. About 2 minutes into Remember she just straight up jumps four octaves in a row just to flex. She also sings in a way in the second verse of Medicine Man that I've never heard before that sounds like she's blowing out her cheeks and then singing with her mouth almost closed. It's absolutey bizzare and I love it so much.

This Thing - King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard: Listening to the other album that King Gizzard put out this year is really making me appreciate how much of 180 Infest The Rats Nest was for them. This album is basically a Black Keys album of groovy fun songs about fishing for fishies with fantastic harmonica work and it makes it look even more like they just snapped when they did the next one.

The Warrior (feat. Patty Smyth) - Scandal: I've been very passively watching GLOW since the second half of season 2 and now I'm very passively watching season 3 and this song was the opening credits theme for the first episode. It fucking rocks I don't know why they don't just make it the theme song all the time. This sort of 80s hard-rock pop is very good when it's good and extremely bad when it's bad and I wonder if we'll ever see any sort of revival of it once 80s nostalgia nostalgia takes hold in 2030. Being a singer named Patty Smyth is very funny also. She's billed as a feature even though she was in the band because she left to try a solo career as soon as it was released, possibly even before. She is also John McEnroe's wife I just found out. What a life.

A Girl Called Johnny - The Waterboys: I found this song because I was googling to see if it's possibly to get a random album from spotify and instead foumd a guy on rateyourmusic who was generating random rym album pages and then listening to whatever came up if it was on spotify - which seems just as good. This was one of the albums he talked about and he seemed to like it so I listened and I did as well. Sometimes the best way to find new music is throw dice on the internet and see what comes up.

New Year's Eve - City Calm Down: The new City Calm Down is one hundred percent great and I have such admiration for them for making a complete left turn with their sound and sounding like a completely different band since their last album but being equally as great in both forms. It's very inspiring and it's also the second song of the month I've heard for the first time while walking around Richmond that's mentioned Richmond. Very spooky.

Cruel Summer - Taylor Swift: It's fucked up how good Lover is when ME! and You Need To Calm Down were so bad. It feels like they changed direction at the last minute and changed the tracklist dramatically because those two songs seem sort of wildly out of place, along with London Boy. It's so uneven it's basically two albums in one but when it's good it's extremely good. This song is fucking powerful. The way she straight up screams "he looks so pretty like a devil"? Amazing. What a crazy thing to shout. If you're interested I also resequenced Lover and took London Boy off it and it's a far better album in my opinion https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LN1uAhp8BS8Ms4bgmHiVP

Kelly - Van She: I have no idea why but this is in the opening paragraph of Van She's wiki page: "Their label introduced them as a "new band from Sydney fresh on ideas, fresher than Flavor Flav, fresh like coriander, fresher than the Fresh Prince, fresher than fresh eggs."[2] Despite these claims, the band began with a sound very much rooted in the 1980s, heavy on synthesizer." which really makes me laugh. Van She had a very specific mid-2000s indietronica thing going that was really good as this song proves but they also did a bunch of remixes under the name Van She Tech that are very out there and completely different to the main band. Their remix of UFO by Sneaky Sound System I'm sure I've yelled about in these posts before, it's absolutely phenomenal. Anyway I guess what I'm saying is get you a band that can do both.

Shadow - Wild Nothing: Somehow I missed Wild Nothing back when they were a big thing and only listened to them this month. I listened to this whole album while I was doing housework and when it finished I though 'that was nice' and could not remember a single thing about it. That's the beauty of shoegaze! I had to listen to it about five more times for it to stick and now I'm getting more and more out of it every time, I love it.

Heaven's On Fire - The Radio Dept.: Years ago when I was having a major 'depressive episode' for about a fucking year I listened to this album Constantly and as a result for a very long time I couldn't listen to it without inviting megawatts of bad vibes back into my brain. Thankfully through hard work and time passing it appears I've fully healed my assosciations with this album which is fantastic news because it is delightful start to finish and worth getting obsessed with again.

Crystalised - The xx: It's nice to see news articles posted almost every day about which albums are turning ten years old. It makes me feel one million years old and viewing the world from a television in my hermit's cave. It feels hard to overstate just how much quiet influence the xx have had over the music landscape since 2009. Without The xx we don't have Royals and without Royals we don't have You Need To Calm Down, so. Something beautiful of theirs that I think is sad hasn't caught on in the intervening years is the idea of writing romantic duets when duets had been out of fashion for so long. They wrote a whole album of them and continue to! There's a beautiful contextual depth to it, in that it's two queer people singing not exactly to each other but with each other. In an interview they've called it 'singing past each other' which is a very nice way to put it.

Aspirin - Tropical Fuck Storm: I really appreciate the continual development of the guitars in Tropical Fuck Storm where they sound so pencil-necked and reedy in these angular little melodies and then sometimes explode into thick cacophanous howls, but what's especially good is in songs like this when they don't explode and instead just sort of sprout tendrils and crawl around each other. They're really drilling down on a very singular and very unsettling sound and I really love it. It is also a very interesting feeling to be walking around Richmond listening to this album for the first time and having him mention Richmond. Spooky even.

Pasta - Angie McMahon: "My bedroom is a disaster / my dog has got kidney failure" is an all-time great opening lyric for me. I love the way this song kicks up from the doldrums, like forcing yourself to do something just so you've done something today. Angie McMahon is so great and I'm getting more and more out of her album every time.

If I Had A Hammer - Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash: The way this song is performed here is so fucking cool. The guitar tone, June's voice and the general energy of it is just absolutely electric. It feels like Highway 61 Bob Dylan where it's still folk but it's got this massive power in it. The solo fucking rips in that very old fashioned way and when it finishes and that riff comes back in by itself it's just great.

Elvis Presley Blues - Gillian Welch: I was thinking about this song because I too was thinking about Elvis. I thought for a long time that the lyrics to this were ‘didn’t he die?’ and not ‘day that he died’ and I think I prefer mine more. Idly thinking about Elvis like “whatever happened to that guy? Must be old now. Wait, didn't he die? No way to know I suppose.”

Everything Is Free - Sylvan Esso: Rolling Stone had a very good article and interview about how this song about napster has had a resurgence and remained relevant through the streaming era which is a very good read. I love the original and really this version is very similar except for the one key difference where they really dig into the anger and frustration at the heart of it in the 'fucking sing it yourself' line. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/gillian-welch-everything-is-free-courtney-barnett-father-john-misty-725135/

It's Nice To Have A Friend - Taylor Swift: This is the strangest song on Lover and one of the best, I absolutely love it. It's a very old fashioned kind of Taylor Swift Love Story type song but it also has a a fucking trumpet reveille in the middle, so that really spices it up a bit. I also keep accidentally listening to this backwards - there's a few phrases like when she sings 'it's nice to have a friend' where the 'friend' lands on the offbeat but is accented like it should be ON the beat and because of the way the music is in this where it's just the steady pulse it's hard to tell whether the chime is supposed to be on the beat or on the offbeat. It feels like it sort of slides back and forth throughout the song depending on what everything else is doing around it. I don't know if that's intentional or not but it's a very interesting effect. This song is also, in my estimation, about a woman and is detailing a fantasy Taylor Swift is having where she can come out to the world with no fuss and enjoy a simple fairytale love story as a gay woman.

Psalm 42 / Chant For Pentecost - The Trees Community: I have a mental list of albums I google every few months to see if they've been added to streaming and by the grace of god one of them finally has been. Years ago I used to listen to this almost every night to fall asleep and I think it brainwashed me slightly in a delightful way, and now I finally have it back again! This is proper hippie music: a bunch of long haired new york christians who drove around the country in the early 70s in a school bus playing their elaborate and beautiful music for anyone who wanted to hear it. The multilayered, multi-movement construction of these songs is completely entrancing to me. It's not a hollow beauty, but one that brings new meaning to old words in the way they stretch and snap and waver throughout the song, moving past each other and through each other as it moves forward. I absolutey love it. Chant For Pentecost is a good illustration of the other side of them, a short song that starts sweet and turns almost maniacal. There's a wild-eyed feeling to the harmonies and the way this melody sits on a single tone for such long stretches before the frankly scary conclusion.

In My Father's House / Working On The Building - Elvis Presley: The backing vocals in these, and especially the bass vocals are so incredible. The way they work in the second verse of Working On The Building is so great, Elvis is the lead vocal but the middle harmony and somehow it just works perfectly. The harmonies is In My Father's House are amazing. The bass solo is mind blowing and the part about halfway through where Elvis swallows the mic and says "jesus died upon the cross [VRRMER] sorrow" is very funny. It's got it all.

The Greatest - Lana Del Rey: Norman Fucking Rockwell is an absolute masterpiece and this is the best song on it. Lana has always had a knack for this apocalyptic feeling but this is a whole other level. https://www.stereogum.com/2056565/lana-del-rey-norman-fucking-rockwell-review/franchises/premature-evaluation/ The Stereogum writeup for this album was really great, and really nailed my opinion of her whole character thing as well, but he described this song as her version of that video that Ted Turner commissioned for CNN to play at the end of the world and it's really a perfect description. The part at the end where she says 'Kanye West is blonde and gone' is so chilling to me. Like Kanye losing the plot makes sense because he's only a few months ahead of the rest of us. He’s been a thought and culture leader for so long and it only makes sense that he’s spun off into space in these last days before it all wraps up.

listen here

#playlists

58 notes · View notes

inspiringwhilerespiring · 6 years

Text

Yall know i love this survey shit<3

1. List 5 things you want to do before the year ends.

-finish 5 books

-lose 20 lbs

-produce more art

-travel out of the state & country

-heal my heart and love myself a lil more

2. What color are your pants?

not wearing any

3. Favorite motivational quote.

damn, there’s A L O T. prob something simple and to the point. I like “proud, but never satisfied” and “the distance between your dreams and reality is called action”

4. When was the last time you drank coffee?

yesterday; got a new french press for christmas<3

5. What was the last thing you ate?

lmao the weirdest shit. hot cheetos, some hummus, and a bar

6. Favorite animal.

soo many; always been fascinated by sharks. Elephants are up there too.

7. Favorite song.

currently anything Kid Cudi - he soothes my soul

8. Last movie you watched?

National Lampoon family vacation I think?

9. Any turn ons?

of course; im one of those gay people who gets turned on by having an emotional connection first and foremost; but if were strictly talking physical shit - any neck action is sexy af. or just taking breaks to make eye contact.

10. Any turn offs?

bad breath lol and just being a dick in general or inconsiderate

11. List 4 big words off of the top of your head.

cognizant; superfluous; compelling; anguished

12. What are some meaningful movies?

First ones that come to my mind that left an impact or a meaningful message are Shawshank Redemption, Avatar, Wall-E (lol), Forest Gump

13. 2 most important people in your life right now?

Myself honestly

14. What are 3 things you want to do before the month ends?

Find a desk, order a blender, and form a morning routine

15. When was the last time you read a good book?

Currently reading Michelle Obama’s -Becoming; before that I read the Alchemist and it was good

16. How long do you study for usually, if you study?

I don’t

17. Do you have any nicknames?

Pollo, Hayls

18. Favorite kind of perfume? (fruity, alluring, etc.)

Viva la Juicy, but honestly all of them - been sticking to essential oils or all natural shit lately - anything with Amber is good.

19. Do you have any international friends / friends who live out of state?

yes<3

20. What is something unique that you do every single day?

lol shower? I dont really do anything special i dont think?

21. If there was a movie based on your life, what would it be called?

“Becoming” lol because I feel like I am always growing and changing and adapting and learning and ill never just be one thing

22. When was the last time you bought a gift for someone?

Recently - christmas time

23. Are you a shopaholic?

no - but i just got an amazon prime account and thats game changer fa real

24. What are some songs that always make you feel better?

Love - Kid Cudi,

25. List 3 activities that you can only enjoy by yourself.

Sitting in the tub (otherwise that shit is too crowded lmao)

Reading a good book

Masturbating prob?

26. If you could live in any biome (and survive) which biome would you live in?

Tropical island

27. How do you like being roused in the morning?

cuddles and soft music (prob reggae) and if i aint got shit to do a bluntttt fam

28. How was your day? What did you do?

it was ok - fighting some inner demons lately and feeling really low :/ but i got a little bit done so im giving myself a break

29. What did your last text message say?

“bye”

30. Do you respond to texts quickly?

depends on who it is lol

31. Who was the last person you called?

my mom

32. List 5 things that are on your wish list.

i wanna learn another language

I wish to be able to see more things change for the better in our world

i wish to skydive

i wish to live in another country for a while

and i wish to love myself

33. If you were famous, what do you think you would be famous for?

maybe being a host of a talk show lol

34. Winter or summer?

both

35. What is a quality that all people should have?

empathy

36. If you could have a large collection of one item, what would that item be?

my inner white girl and materialistic ass says shoes - but idk i think it would also be cool to have a collection of books or photographs - ya know that sentimental shit i be on

37. What have you been thinking about lately?

wow so much - a lot of reflecting honestly about who i have been and how i’ve treated others and how i am trying to change myself - so ironically enough, i’ve also been thinking about the future and trying to focus on who i want to be and where i want to be

38. What is the secret to a happy life?

taking it day by day im sure

39. What are some phrases you say often?

“nice” lol to my clients a lot

40. Favorite food?

lately its been asian - like thai and vietnamese. fuck now i want some dumplings and curry and egg rollllz

41. List 3 wishes.

already fuckin diiiiiddd fam

42. What are some of your greatest fears?

memory loss, dying, losing others

43. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer?

idk whats app prob

44. Most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen (in real life)?

machu picchu

45. Spicy food:Like or dislike?

LOVE

46. Scary movies:Like or dislike?

Depends

47. Do you like to travel?

Do you know me lol

48. Any regrets?

yeah always, but i try to live my life without any and honestly id never go back and change em

49. Do you like rain?

obsessed; fav weather actually

50. What do you spend most of your money on?

food

51. Would you rather visit the past or the future?

past bc im a sentimental person; future is exciting and i like surprises and the unknown and dreaming about that shit - id rather not know.

52. Favorite clothing store?

depends - urban outfitters is my style but i like goodwill just as much

53. What is the best advice you can give to those who are feeling down?

this too shall pass

54. How often do you think about your future? Does it scare you?

honestly not often enough, i try not to over think things or it tends to give me anxiety. why worry about things that are far out of our control? I just take shit day by day

55. What angers you the most?

ignorance. and rude ass people. when someone isnt being genuine

56. When was the last time you got majorly angry?

yesterday

57. When was the last time you got really sad?

today

58. Are you good at lying?

im sure everyone is to some degree

59. What foreign language would you like to learn?

spanish

60. How many languages can you speak and what are they?

just one - semi fluent in spanish

61. How often do you go to parties? If you don’t, what do you do instead?

lol

62. What books do you plan to read this year?

not sure! I have a couple but we shall see

63. Do you have breakfast every morning?

yes i try to - its my fav meal

64. Tell us a secret.

then it wouldnt be a secret

65. How many concerts have you been to?

a few

66. Last hug?

wasnt long enough

67. Who knows you better than anyone else?

myself

68. Baths or showers?

ooooooh damn, depends

69. Do you think you’re ambitious?

i could be a little more

70. What song is stuck in your head?

lmaooo wake up in the sky by gucci mane and bruno - thats been my shit lately

71. Countries you’ve visited?

Peru, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Caymans, Philippines

72. What do you most value in your friends?

Communication and laughter

73. What helps you to sleep better?

putting my got dang phone away from me

74. What is the most money you have ever held in your hand?

prob like 2 grand or some shit

75. What makes you nervous?

when i over book myself or take too much on and have a lot on my plate - so time management i suppose

76. What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?

to live in the present moment; and to take care of myself

77. Is it easier to forgive or forget?

forgive for sure - i dont really ever forget

78. First mobile phone?

ayyy a flip phone and it was see thru and lit up and had a walkie talkie!

79. Strangest dream?

lmao ew no im so ashamed

80. Best dream?

flying or something

81. Who is the smartest person you know?

my grandpa it seems

82. Who is the prettiest person on tumblr?

idk

83. Do you miss anyone right now?

very much, always

84. Who do you love? Why?

everyone, because life is too damn short for hate

85. Do you like sharing?

yeah lol bc i expect ppl to share w me in return

86. What was the last picture you took with your phone?

idk actually

87. Is there a reason behind everything that happens?

yeah id like to think so

88. Favorite genre of music?

i was raised on hip hop so i feel like that is my go to but honestly i love reggae, alternative, a lil bit of electro chill shit, R&B, oldies, jazz, anything

89. If you had one word to describe yourself, what would it be?

Understanding

90. Describe your life in 5 words.

roller coaster. fun. emotional. loving. growth.

91. Describe the world in 4 words.

crazy. beautiful. strong. vast.

92. Craziest thing you’ve ever done?

skinny dip?

93. First three songs in your favorite playlist?

cocaine model - zhu

is this love - bob marley

tadow - masego

94. Are you more creative or logical?

def without a doubt 100% creative/emotional/empath/sensative/does things based on feelings rather than reason type person lmao

95. Would you rather lie or hurt someone with the truth?

truth always

96. What are you most proud of?

my ability to communicate and understand people

97. What personality trait do you admire in other people?

strength/humility

98. When you imagine yourself as really, really relaxed and happy, what are you doing?

smoking a fat ass blunt doing yoga on a sunny day while its 68 degrees out and im on a beach

#survey #ask me anything #ask #questionaire #questions #haylee #get to know me

5 notes · View notes

its-stranger-than-you-think · 6 years

Text

Listen.

Let me tell y’all that the only good thing about me is my taste in music. So here are some playlists I made even though no one asked. I’m constantly adding to all of these. And if you think I actually have the most shit taste ever... well! That is your loss! Feel free to send me recommendations at any given time. I love music with my entire being. :’)

legendary ladies - women who did/are doing the damn thing and deserve to always be recognized.

in my head - psychedelic sounding songs for when you just need to escape from the world.

i’m lying in a lush meadow. the sun is shining - songs that bring me peace no matter what.

Rock n Roll will never die, motherfucker - y’all already know what the fuck is going on. Eighteen hours of Rock n Roll/alternative rock from mostly the 70s, 80s and 90s. A lot of classics and I am not sorry!

swept away by the summer tides - summer is hot and my cold, dead heart hates it, but these tunes are R A D for summer night drives, chilling by the pool and whatever the fuck else y’all do. Just listen.

please have a good day - you cannot feel sad when you’re listening to these tunes.

Move Baby, I’m In Love - love songs because I’m a sap at the end of the day, I guess.

love yourself, honey - songs that make me feel like a bad bitch. This playlist is filled with modern/throwback pop and R&B and it is fantastic.

SING YOUR HEART OUT - I cannot sing for shit, but y’all can bet that I will sing all the falsettos and whistle tones until I drop dead.

night drives for contemplative freedom - honestly, y’all don’t even have to be driving for these to slam. Listening to these songs is an overall EXPERIENCE.

THROWBACK HIP HOP & R&B - A 38 hour long playlist that consists of nothing but BOPS! Filled with some iconic 70s, 80s, a whole lotta 90s and a bit of early 2000s R&B and Hip Hop.

silk - songs that have the smoothest vibes. You could just close your eyes and get lost in their melodies.

sensual - y’all know what to do.

girls girls girls (you have my heart) - okay but get this??????? I love girls. CAN YOU BELIEVE

the hurting - songs that I find to be really sad.

dreaming of you is easy - You know in teen romance movies when the main character is in their bed kinda just staring at the ceiling, thinking about their crush or whoever for what seems like hours, and there is an absolutely stellar song in the background that just sounds so atmospheric/dream-like? These songs remind me of that.

I have so many other playlists, so y’all can sift through all of them. Or don’t! Whatever you want. Seriously though, please send me music recommendations literally whenever, I will appreciate it for all eternity <3

#courtney decides to share her playlists as if she is relevant #i’m drunk and impulsive #I will probably regret posting this later #like... no one cares dude #oh well #my playlists #music

7 notes · View notes

momentsinsong · 4 years

Photo

Moments In Song No. 025 - Lindsay Stewart Davis

Lindsay’s always looking for something a little extra. Something that’ll stand out from the pack. Whether it be the music she listens to, or the art she creates, normal just won’t cut it. Her playlist is filled with songs that bring out the extra bit of happiness that motivates us to do something great. We talk to the Neon and Interdisciplinary Artist about almost dying at a Tyler, the Creator concert, her bagpipe playing Dad, and finding inspiration during quarantine.

Listen to Lindsay’s playlist on Apple Music and Spotify.

Words and photos by Julian.

Julian: After my first couple of listens, the general theme I got from your playlist was that it seemed very happy. Like you were in a good space. Even if all of the songs didn’t have an uptempo feel to them, they still sounded happy, whether it be through the lyrics or the feel of the track.

Lindsay: I feel like a lot of the songs are older songs that I can’t shake. They’ve always been in my rotation. They’re songs that I’ll put on when I’m in my studio or creating, and they make me feel really happy. When I was making the playlist, I was going through a lot of songs and I wasn’t sure about a few of them, but I played them in the car yesterday and I could see myself dancing and smiling and I was like, “Ok these are the ones.”

That’s how I felt. As soon as that first one, the Solange song kicked in I was like, “Oh this feels good.”

That’s my favorite Solange song! I feel like that’s the first time I really got into Solange and I was just so enamored by her voice. I feel like a lot of newer Solange loses touch with that one song [Losing You]. It’s pretty old, it’s from a few albums ago, but it also shows her evolution.

Was that intentional? Putting that as the first song? Or did it just happen?

I just love that song. It’s one of my favorites. I think so yeah.

I ask because I know some people are very intentional about the order of the songs on their playlist.

“Desirée” by Blood Orange and “Losing You” by Solange were songs I played together a lot. It was around the same time period that I started listening to both songs, and so that’s kind of why I paired them together as the first two songs. I really love Blood Orange and “Desirée” really reminds me of going out and dancing with my friends in Chicago and having a really good time with them. There’s a moment in the song where it cuts away from the music and talks about how women are treated in a way and I just remember me and my friends getting really serious and looking at each other and voicing that over [Laughs]. I just love both of those songs and they remind me of really happy memories in my life.

You mentioned how these are songs you would play in the studio. Would you say you use music as a means of inspiration, motivation, and influence?

I think I use music as a form of distraction. It lets me release everything that’s going on in my life and focus in on the moment. That gets my head thinking of things I’m enjoying at the time and so that way I can let go of what's going on in the world and then use that in my creative practice. It kind of like pushes that happiness that you mentioned earlier to come out through my work. I can forget about what’s going on in the world and bring my focus back into my work.

What other songs on your playlist would you say bring out that feeling of happiness in you?

I definitely think the Tyler, the Creator song. “Cherry Bomb” is like my favorite album by him. A lot of people don’t think that but that’s also when I saw him play live. That whole album brings me back into a creative space because I can really tell he’s being so experimental, and it’s so different from any of his other stuff. I also think it’s his last ode to him being in this angry, dark place, and moving to a new happier moment, which is really inspirational to me. I like the dark metalish sound of “Cherry Bomb,” but this song [“Find Your Wings”] brings the first glimpse of the sounds on his future albums. I just think it’s such a beautiful song.

Was the first time you saw him live? Was that here?

Yeah I saw him at Ram’s Head.

I went to that same show!

I almost died at that concert. I almost got trampled.

Yeah, I’ve seen him like 5 times now and I remember the first time I was legit scared. I had never been to a concert like that before.

[Laughs] People were MOSHING. I was kind of scared too I’m not even going to lie, but I was so excited to be scared.

Same! The first time I saw him was 2011 or 2012. It was an Odd Future show, not just Tyler. And it was at this one spot that’s closed down now, but it was a really small space and we were all packed in there. Syd came out and did a DJ set and as soon as that first song started playing people went crazy. I was scared. I was like, “I’m about to die tonight. This is really it.”

I was on the verge of being trampled and I remember thinking in that moment that nobody gave a shit about me, and then somebody reached down and grabbed me.

Oh you actually fell?

Yeah a few of us fell and people were still going not realizing what had happened. But then there were people there who were actually trying to help us.

Wow that’s wild.

Yeah...memories [Laughs].

So back to the playlist…

I put that Steve Lacy song in too because it reminds me of my time in Chicago, which was a really creative moment in my life. I was going to put in a few other songs like that on the playlist but I stopped because I didn’t want to get too deep in the Chicago bag. I had to put songs by Xavier Gibson and Cadeem Lamarr in there because both of them bring a lot of happiness into my life right now. “Drive Me Crazy” by Xavier is one of the only songs I feel like is really about letting go. It’s vulnerable and happy at the same time.

Yeah that kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier about these songs being “happy songs,” even if they don’t traditionally sound like it. “Losing You” has a happy beat but she’s saying some sad stuff.

I feel like a lot of it is vulnerability, which is also something I’m working on in my life, but I think it really comes out in my music.

Yeah and the same thing with “Drive Me Crazy,” it’s uptempo and makes you feel good, and has lines that make you laugh but then there’s also lines like, “If you want to cry in the club this your theme song.” But you also have genuinely feel good songs like “Find Your Wings,” and the Homeshake song. What kind of stuff were you into when you first really started listening to music?

I actually grew up playing the saxophone so I grew up listening to a lot of Jazz. It was a lot of Ray Charles, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, and that kind of brought warm happy fuzzy feelings. I didn’t know their “rough around the edges story” until I was older, but as a kid listening to Jazz I loved the saxophone and the level of improv involved with it. I think that has transitioned into me collecting records, and has kind of inspired my music taste today. Jazz and Classical music has taught me a lot of history and what has gone into music, and I think that paves the way for what I listen to now.

Did you come from a very musical family?

My dad plays the bagpipes, which is so weird. In middle school I was known as the girl whose dad played the bagpipes which was so embarrassing. Now I think it’s cool though, but it was really embarrassing back then. He was part of a band and I would go see them on the weekends, it was a weird time. But that got me into wanting to learn an instrument, so that’s when I started learning saxophone. I haven’t played in a really long time but I think that has influenced a lot of who I am today. My dad also played a lot of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and a lot of other 80’s and 90’s music. That kind of transitioned into Alternative Rock which we would listen to together. We would listen to stuff like Passion Pit, he was actually the one who introduced me to them. Then that led to us sharing a bunch of music back and forth which was really cool. And Dr. Dog! We had a big Dr. Dog phase. We would go see concerts together, it was fun.

So from there how did your taste in music branch out to other genres?

After getting into Alt and Indie music for a while, that then transferred into things getting a little more edgy and I started to listen to more and more Rap. My brother listened to Rap when I was a kid so he would start pushing Rap onto me but I was a little too young to get it, but as I got older I could grasp it a little more.

Who are some artists from that Alt/Indie phase that stand out to you and really love? What about that era stood out to you?

I don’t know if I have a favorite, but I really love the band Dirty Projectors. They’ve had projects with Bjork, who is super weird too, but it’s super experimental. Another one is Foster the People’s album “Torches,” which is also really experimental. It was cliche but I really liked The xx because I really liked the heavy beats and experimentation in their music. I think that is continuous in what I look for in music. I want it to be pushing some sort of boundary of what’s new. I haven’t really come across anything new that’s made me feel the same way as some of those albums that I listened to as a kid just discovering music, so I feel like I’m always looking for that new best thing.

It’s funny that you were able to get that Indie/Alternative/Rock side from your dad, but at the same time your brother is playing Hip-Hop around you. When you made the move to Chicago did you take that taste in music and make it your own?

I took those tastes to Chicago and then a lot my art school friends laid down the foundation for me to find new artists as well. A lot of my friends turned into DJs or were practicing to become DJs and I feel like that continued to introduce me to new music.

When you went to Chicago for school, was it for Art?

Yeah I went for Fine Arts. I went for painting because my grandma is a painter, and my entire dad’s side of the family is made up of either painters, woodworkers, or something else creative, so I thought that I wanted to be a painter. But when I got there it felt like painting wasn’t really pushing boundaries. I feel like painting is such an old school media, and it hasn't been until recently that I’ve felt like I’ve found ways to push it further. So I then started to get into more woodworking, and looking at Art as a way to present social justice issues, and eventually I started learning how to use and make neon. That’s really been my main focus for the past 3 or 4 years, and now I feel like I’ve been able to tie in painting and neon, so it’s kind of come full circle.

So has using neon allowed you to push your own artistic boundaries forward?

It’s pushed the boundaries for me, but it’s also brought forward a really historical and antique way of Art that’s been forgotten. I feel like LED and the futuristic stuff that’s being created now is kind of taking over, so I’ve kind of looked at it as a way to bring an old school medium back to the present and give it some weight.

You mentioned earlier that you took a break from all your work with neon, but you’ve recently started back up again. What motivated you?

COVID honestly made me feel like I needed to take a break to get back in touch with myself. For a while I kind of just lost my inspiration. The world was kind of…..I don’t want to say “going to shit,” but it was losing it’s magic. But I feel like now I’m able to use creative mediums to get that out so I don’t have to feel so upset and sad. That’s kind of another reason why I chose happy songs for my playlist. When I play that music in the studio it helps me bring that happy feeling into the space and not let the outside world affect me.

I felt the same way. When this whole thing first started I thought I was going to be able to practice DJing a lot more and make a whole bunch of stuff….

And were you?

No [Laughs].

I wasn’t either.

I don’t know what it was. It didn’t feel the same. That fire that used to be there wasn’t there.

Right before COVID happened I had so many pieces in the studio that were for upcoming shows. I was supposed to have a show at Ottobar, so many people were supposed to be coming together, I was really excited but then COVID happened and it got shut down. So those pieces have just been sitting in New York. It wasn’t until recently that I was able to grab them so I can now get back to where I was before COVID.

What are your intentions going into a new piece of art? Do you have any or do you just kind of see what happens.

I always start out every art piece I do with a drawing. It helps me visualize what I want to make and work out all of the bugs and kinks before I start. I’ll also have some notes and writings down too that help me push all the boundaries I can. So once I start making the piece I’ll have all the ideas thought up. Some things might change and be different by the end, but since I’m working with neon and wiring everything has to be well thought out. That way I’m not struggling and can go into it knowing this is how it’s going to be done. I’m trying to move away from conceptual pieces and more towards three dimensional projects instead. I don’t want it to be just a painting on the wall, I want it to be interactive.

That sounds dope. I’m excited for what you come up with.

I’m excited too. I’ve really been in a rut of not knowing what to create for like two years, but I feel good now.

Connect with Lindsay:

Instagram

Twitter

Connect with Moments In Song:

Instagram

Twitter

Spotify

Apple Music

0 notes

marcoshassanlevy · 4 years

Link

For Latinxs or any minority group, it seems that it’s never just about the music. There are always stereotypes, expectations and assumed responsibilities when it comes to presenting their art. When an artist presents us with a new creation, there are assumptions that it has to display heritage, Latinidad and even social commentary for it to exist. What would you do in these circumstances? If you’re the four members of the Los Angeles, California band Chicano Batman, the answer is to let go and dedicate yourself to the music.

According to Chicano Batman, consisting of vocalist Bardo Martinez, guitarist Carlos Arévalo, bassist Eduardo Arenas and drummer Gabriel Villa, they’re done talking about the sociopolitical climate and ready to spread some heartfelt emotions. There’s a good reason why the band wants to move past their image as Latinxs calling out the Trump administration on its mistreatment of minorities. Since forming in 2008, the band has made their life and identity their primary aesthetic concern, giving nods to the Latinx culture in their lyrics as well as the music itself, as heard on their 2009 eponymous debut and 2014’s Cycles of Existential Rhyme. During this period, the band began making a name for themselves as an incredible live act, something they have displayed while sharing the stage with such acts as Jack White, Alabama Shakes and Portugal The Man, to name a few; as well as appearing in internationally renowned festivals like Coachella, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza.

However, it was 2017’s Freedom Is Free which made Chicano Batman synonymous with Latinx protest and kept them as so throughout the past few years. A warm call to resistance, Freedom Is Free dropped just as President Donald Trump got inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, and the title track became a sort of soulful resistance anthem, a celebration in the face of horrors, and a call not to let our guards down. It also became a constant subject in every interview the band conducted in the next three years. One can imagine how tiring that became.

Album art courtesy of the artist

Indeed, the members of Chicano Batman tell Remezcla, on a conference call during the global lockdown, ”we don’t call it ‘quarantine,’ we call it ‘spending time with our family,’” says Martinez. He continues to share that things have always been this way for minorities. “We’re artists,” says the vocalist. “It doesn’t matter the world situation, we’re just playing our music, whether it’s wartime or peacetime.” With that in mind, Invisible People marked a shift from their message to one of good feelings, bringing us music that can be bumped loud on a car or in your headphones. Described by someone close to the band as psychedelic G-funk, they take the low-hung beats of the South Central hip-hop genre pioneered by Dr. Dre, DJ Quik and Daz Dillinger, and mix them with the sonic experimentations of the late ‘60s California rock scene. For the band itself, the album represents something of a deeper transformation.

Their new era started with a new sound. “We know how to play grupero, Los Angeles Negros, Los Pasteles Verdes, all that stuff,” says Eduardo Arenas. “We can do that type of shit and we do it well. But we’re trying to evolve and push the limit not only of our music and our art but also as Latinos and humans existing in this world.” Carlos Arévalos continues. “Everybody realized that [the best approach was] bringing our different perspectives together to create something fresher than what we have been doing in the past and it was exciting for us. If I laid back and played what I was comfortable with, the result wouldn’t be fresh and different. It was about limitless possibilities and that made everything new for us.”

To capture their new sound appropriately, they went through a short list of producers the label provided for them but decided to work with Freedom Is Free producer Leon Michels again. In the words of Arévalos, “He knows what’s fresh, he has great gear, he’s an amazing arranger, and he knows our sound. So, we spoke to him about the ideas we wanted to try out [to not repeat what we had done in Freedom Is Free] and he was on board.” Another important piece of the Invisible People puzzle is Shawn Everett, a Grammy-winning mixing engineer known for his work with Kacey Musgraves, among others. They soon found another kindred spirit.

Photo by George Mays. Courtesy of the artist

Invisible People is an album that hits hard with‘90s recalling hip-hop, ‘80s new wave and the best psych rock around today. The performances are tight and raw without sacrificing soul or attitude, which go from the cloudy sunshine of “Color My Life” to the unstoppable groove of “Blank Slate” to the up-tempo and synthetic “Polymetronomic Harmony,” to the spacey lowrider beat of “Moment Of Joy.” This range was something they intentionally wanted to bring in reaction to music “you’ll find in Spotify or iTunes playlists,” according to Martinez. “A lot of it feels tame, like it’s missing attitude. That music is cool, I like it, but I wouldn’t want to listen to it all the time. For us, it’s about how bumping the track is, if it makes your head bob. That was always our test [for these songs],” Arévalos continues. “This wasn’t a bedroom record. That’s a beautiful way to make records, but this is four people playing at the same time, in the same room, trying to get that take that’s going to make the album and I think that’s how we were able to bring that spice in. Not a lot of bands play together [in the studio] anymore.”

Lyrically, Chicano Batman tried to bring a more uplifting vibe than before. For Martinez, this is something he carries in his blood. “My mom is Caribbean, bro. Es una negrita. Puro grito y baile y bailongo y sabrosura. That’s how I grew up, bro. I can’t help but feel that way. Since I was a little kid, I’ve been battling with society. I didn’t relate to a lot of my classmates because they didn’t feel as happy as I did, and you learn it’s different for everybody to deal with capitalism, colonialism and all this shit in society. It’s how I deal with things.” The title track brings back their socio-political commentary; speaking about minorities being invisible for so many people. “I think the problem lies in trying to figure out what to call somebody. ‘Where do you come from? Where’s your family from?’ And that’s the first thing you ask somebody when you’re having a normal conversation. That’s disrespectful. We don’t see who we are. We just see our blackness or if you’re Latino or white. And all that shit is bullshit! That’s the biggest fucking lie that we are all following. Everyday we’re following this shit. We all say it.”

Although these kinds of themes are inevitable when it comes to addressing our day to day lives, the members of Chicano Batman would like you to know they are not the dissident Latinx voice of the Trump administration. “Putting out a record during Trump’s inauguration was tough on us because we went for the political thing with our music and our flavor and our style,” says Arenas. “But we have always been about that: Truth, awareness, peace, love and some badass beats. There’s always going to be some kind of crisis, you know? We’re still going to do what we do,” Martinez adds. “We did [Freedom Is Free] and we got tired of people asking us about the election and this and that, but that shit wasn’t even about that. Those lyrics that I wrote were not about Trump. This shit has always been like this.”

“With Chicano Batman we came out the door like, ‘Yo, we’re raza and this is what it is, this is who we are,’” he continues. “It’s hard for some people to either take us seriously or automatically put us in the Latin section. We’re just about the freshness, y’all! We want to make music that’s dope, relevant that you would want to bump in your car.”

Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 11:56 AM EDT

#indie

0 notes

bobbystompy · 7 years

Text

My Top 120 Songs Of 2017

Previously: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

The one saving grace is we do have 12 fewer than last year.

As always, criteria and info:

This is a list of what I personally like, not ones I’m saying are the “best” from the year; more subjective than objective

No artist is featured more than once

If it comes down to choosing between two songs for an artist, I try to give more weight to a single or featured track; not the ultimate factor, but it typically makes sharing the music easier

Speaking of… each song on the list is linked in the title if you wanna check any or every out for yourself

Oh, also, off the suggestion of Mike Gilkes -- and a few others -- I made this whole thing into a Spotify playlist, which you can peep here (includes 114 of the 120):

Let’s go?

youtube

120) Big Sean & Metro Boomin f/ 21 Savage - “Pull Up N Wreck”

Some mediocre, listenable rap made by dudes who know a bit better (well, at least 2/3rds of them).

119) Maroon 5 f/ Future - “Cold”

This song makes me feel mostly nothing... but the first minute of the video does have some solid Adam Levine alone-in-the-car acting.

/oh my god it has 119 million views

This was a lot easier to enjoy when I assumed it went unnoticed. Bonus points for the Wu-Tang shirt at the end.

118) Bleachers - “Hate That You Know Me”

Closed out 2017 undecided as ever on one Jack Antonoff. Should we hate him for dating Lena Dunham? Somehow respect him more? Give him mega credit for his big time pop songwriting collabs? Or is that a ding? Is he a nerd or the coolest guy in the cocktail bar? I do not know the answers to any of these questions, and this song is merely OK.

UPDATE: THEY GAWN

117) B.o.B f/ T.I. & Ty Dolla $ign - “4 Lit”

Real bad song with a mindless/terrible/misogynistic chorus. Yet... something about professional musicians sitting in a room and coming up with “4 Lit” as some sort of escalated to catchphrase to “lit” is just hilarious.

116) Prophets of Rage - “Unfuck The World”

Sure, this hits a lot of the same beats as Rage Against The Machine’s “Sleep Now In The Fire” from 18 years ago, but in these increasingly polarized, political times, I welcome their voice.

115) Kacy Hill - “Like A Woman”

This song is so chill and ethereal that it seems almost unfeasible for my punk/hip-hop/XX chromosome havin’ ass to completely sync with its wave.

114) The Decemberists - “Ben Franklin’s Song”

What happens when pop indie teams up with the lyrical stylings of Lin-Manuel Miranda? Well, this. I’m not sure if The Decemberists drop f-bombs in any of their other songs, but it pleases me to think it only happened here.

113) Offset & Metro Boomin - “Ric Flair Drip”

Mostly here for the beat.

112) Hurray For The Riff Raff - “Hungry Ghost”

A cool song that’s hard to put into a box. Indie? Pop? Rock? Forget labels, just enjoy.

(Minus a few points for the low hanging “girl/world” rhyme)

111) Wavves - “Dreams Of Grandeur”

I was pretty let down by the new Wavves LP, but this song sounds enough like the old stuff to be a net positive (despite being, like, 70 seconds too long)

110) Culture Abuse - “So Busted”

Culture Abuse got on my radar with last year’s all-timer, “Dream On”. It was an unrelenting, robotic pulverization. “So Busted” is more of a drug comedown; a ballad, even. While “Dream On” wanted to seek you out and kill you like a terminator; “So Busted” just wants a cuddle.

109) Trey Songz - “#1Fan”

This song is so dumb and funny and pseudo competent. Really not sure how the R&B guys get away with this shit.

108) The Killers - “The Man”

Is this in a movie? It should be in a movie. It’s kind of, like, a better version of what Arcade Fire has been trying to be.

107) New Lenox - “Protest Sweater”

A good song for the ending 2017 -- or any year, really -- and its run time (1:30) would make Joyce Manor proud.

106) Logic - “Everybody”

This is really good, but it reminds me so much of Kendrick that it becomes distracting.

105) Gorillaz f/ DRAM - “Andromeda”

Didn’t spend enough time listening to the new Gorillaz record, but I actually put the blame on them: it was long, man. So while I woulda loved to pick one of the songs with a cool cameo (hi, Vince Staples!), this is the one I actually had around the most. It’s all we’ve come to expect from this cartoon band -- kinda British, kinda futuristic, very undisturbed. Also, if it gets you back to the album before me, I heard that Damon Albarn told all collaborating artists to record their parts like the world was ending tomorrow.

104) Dropkick Murphys - “Blood”

If you know me at all, you know I historically have not been a fan of this band. But for whatever reason, this one connected -- bagpipes and all.

103) Captain, We’re Sinking - “Books”

CWS was never, ever going to top the falling-apart-desperation of 2013′s “The Future Is Cancelled”, but this song comes pleasantly close.

102) IRONTOM - “Be Bold Like Elijah”

My buddy Crooks rec’d this band, and the guitars give me Queens Of The Stone Age vibes in the best possible way. A bio on lastFM compared them to Arctic Monkeys, and you know what? I agree with that, too.

101) Jidenna - “A Bull’s Tale”

This song feels primed to explode and makes you wanna rip the shirt off your chest; only we don’t know if the bomb’s gonna blow in the middle or at the end.

100) Jeff Tweedy - “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”

Yeah yeah, the original version of this dropped in 2002, and yes, it’s just a cover by the dude who originally sang it. I... do not care. It made me appreciate the confessional regret all over again.

99) Talib Kweli f/ Yummy Bingham & Jay Electronica - “All Of Us”

It was all bad just a week ago

Kweli and Jay Elect are a collab made in conscious rap heaven, so this song was more than a pleasant surprise.

98) Rise Against - “House On Fire”

This song could have been on “Revolutions Per Minute”. Or maybe I’m just saying that because of the hand grenade lyric in the chorus.

97) HAIM - “Want You Back”

Can’t imagine there being a lamer song on this list. HAIM and Bleachers should get in a wuss rock beef that ends with pistols.

96) The Bigger Empty - “By Its Own (So What)”

My producer plays bass in this band. This song is super solid, and, maybe most importantly in these completely divisive times, unoffensive and approachable. Kinda Hush Sound-y.

95) Little Big Town - “Lost In California” (note: link is to live version)

From the bros and broettes who brought us “Day Drinking” comes this much more subdued track. If you squint, it doesn’t really even seem like country. Granted, if they sang “Alabama” instead of “California”, you could probably call that claim out immediately.

94) Lana Del Rey - “Heroin”

Another beautiful/dreamy song from an artist who’s near-perfected that niche.

93) Wavves & Culture Abuse - “Up And Down”

Wavves and Culture Abuse have already made appearances on this list, and we haven’t even cracked the Top 80. Fortunately, their collaboration scored a little higher than their individual outputs. Shout out to their uplifting outro “I’ll just get high and I’ll die alone”.

92) The Chainsmokers & Coldplay - “Something Just Like This”

This song played at my gym all the time, and I was positive it was Coldplay. Then someone told me it was The Chainsmokers. Then I looked it up on YouTube, and it says “The Chainsmokers & Coldplay”... so what’s the deal, assholes?

91) Lil Peep f/ Lil Tracy - “Awful Things”

I hadn’t heard of Lil Peep when I found out of his passing in 2017. After looking up some pictures, I was nearly 100% positive his music was not for me. This was incorrect. I haven’t really listened to songs that sound like his; it’s kind of like rap that treads this line of being bad while also kinda sounding like alternative rock; destructive love song that doesn’t flinch.

90) AFI - “Dark Snow”

Nothing new, but Davey Havok can still sing circles around almost anybody.

89) Dashboard Confessional - “Love Yourself” (link is to live, partial version)

Well, Dashboard covered Biebs, and we all lived to tell the tale.

88) Garrett Dale - “2016 Was...”

This song would be a blast as a singalong in a late night hotel room. There’s something calming about celebrating -- or at least acknowledging -- everything sucking.

87) Katy Perry f/ Skip Marley - “Chained To The Rhythm”

Got more than a few issues with this song, but it’s catchy, so they’re mostly forgiven. Even though it’s Katy Perry, I was pretty surprised to see it racked up 444 million views.

And seriously who the hell is Skip Marley?!

86) The Ramblin’ Boys Of Pleasure - “Glug, Glug, Glug”

Now is probably a good time to plug the lead track from my band’s b-sides record that came out this year (ten years in the making, baby!). Mandatory listening if you’ve ever bonged brandy, partied in Champaign, or counted down in a country voice.

85) Charly Bliss - “Glitter”

It’s been nearly a year, but it’s still somewhat difficult to calibrate this singer’s voice. Is it a little too saccharine, too childlike, or just perfect? You be the judge.

84) Emperor X - “Wasted On The Senate Floor”

This singer is real god damn frenetic.

83) Father John Misty - “Total Entertainment Forever”

/obligatory “yes, this is the one with the Taylor Swift lyric” reference

FJM has such a pro’s pro voice and makes super sound music... but it’s also kinda hard to have an overall opinion. The more 50-50 I get, the more I think it’s not all that great. The video is a microcosm. Like... why is Macaulay Culkin paying Cobain? Is this a commentary on capitalism? Oooh, nah nah nahs are nice! As divided as I still am, I’m pretty positive this song is good-if-not-great.

82) St. Vincent - “New York”

This song is further proof that soft, radio friendly music can still benefit from a well placed “motherfucker”.

81) Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness - “Dead Man’s Dollar”

As long as Andrew McMahon’s project is called “Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness”, I will make fun of him like clockwork.

This song is nice. I sometimes sing “I want Thon Maker” when he says “I want to make a” in the chorus.

80) Kele Okereke - “Streets Been Talkin’”

Kele’s most impressive feat was sneaking “bae” right into the chorus without me noticing until literally right now.

79) Rick Ross - “Summer Seventeen”

How the hell did this dumbass song get so high up on the list? I have no explanation. Classic Roazy though -- aim high, fake it till you make it. When I started my new job in August, IT reset my password to “summer2017″, and I had this song’s hook in my head nearly every time I typed it in. All told, a pretty hilarious way to start a work day.

78) Michelle Branch - “Best You Ever”

This song sounds so dark and sultry, but I’m not totally sure why. Branch rules.

77) Calvin Harris f/ Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry & Big Sean - “Feels”

The best way to ruin this song for anyone is to point out how much the hook sounds like Katy Perry singing “Don’t be afraid to catch fish”.

76) Morrissey - “Spent The Day In Bed”

This is a very low maintenance lyric video. So you can either make fun of that or the “I spent the day in bed / I’m not the type, but I love my bed” line.

75) Red City Radio - “If You Want Blood (Be My Guest)”

The “We don’t need a god damn thing from you” chorus is a little punk cliche to win me over, but the Oklahoma City reference (”where our dreams come true and die”) is the line I’ve been waiting for since I found out RCR was from there.

74) Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs - “Talk 2 Her”

The closest we’ll get to a new Clash song in 2017.

73) Bad Cop/Bad Cop - “Womanarchist”

Factoring in the 2017′s themes (#MeToo, Harvey dead, etc.), this has to be the song title of the year. I smiled ear-to-ear watching this music video.

72) The Movielife - “Mercy Is Asleep At The Wheel”

Hey, The Movielife reunited!

71) The Rocket Summer - “Gone Too Long”

Unlike that lazy ass Morrissey, The Rocket Summer gave us a lyric video that basically passes as a legit music video.

70) Miguel f/ Travis Scott - “Sky Walker”

Me, every time I listen to this song:

“Ooh, beat is pretty solid.”

“Ah yeah, the hook’s good. I thought I really liked this song though...”

/falsetto part

“AW YEAH.”

69) Queens Of The Stone Age - “The Way You Used To Do”

Had never known about the Josh Homme/Elvis comparisons, but after hearing this, I totally get it now. Also: god damn it, man.

68) Macklemore f/ Skylar Grey - “Glorious”

What can we do to make Skylar Grey more famous? She Ginger Rogers’d for Em on “SNL” -- seriously, she played piano and sung Dido, Beyoncé, and Rihanna hooks (that’s a solid ass trinity!) -- has unarguably awesome songs, and never takes anything off the table. I honestly don’t care if she has another hit... let’s just, like, all Venmo her five bucks or something.

One of my fav music videos on the list so far. Be as skeptical of Macklemore as you want, but when his grandma offers him a drink (haha) then says she wants to “do it all” with their day together, it warms the hearts.

67) Direct Hit! - “Blood On Your Tongue”

Direct Hit! continues to be the best modern version of Green Day, The Ramones*, and themselves.

(* - without being Ramones-core)

66) Boyd & The Stahfools - “Party Penguin”

I’ve been in the game for a long while, but, for the first time in my career, I finally was part of a music video. If you told me it was a 2Pac parody that advertised craft beer, I’d, well, I’d believe you. We got Dave Hernandez on the hook, Mike Healy as Dr. Dre, and yours truly as Makaveli.

youtube

And all jokes aside, “On vacation like Bev D’Angelo” is one of my favorite penned lines.

65) Rancid - “Telegraph Avenue”

I like when Tim sings about grabbing his left-handed guitar.

64) Big Sean f/ Jeremih - “Light”

Sean Don made a forgettable 2017 album with many throwaway tracks -- but “Light” ain’t one of ‘em. I liked this song even before the touching video cemented its power.

63) blink 182 - “Parking Lot”

This is that weird mix of what makes all new blink really good and really eh at the same time -- Skiba involved (for better or worse), inspired Mark (for better or worse), and Travis’ overplaying (for better or worse). It’s for sure easier if you just turn your brain off and go with it.

Why does he reference Chicago in the verse then California in the pre-chorus?

I SAID “OFF”.

62) New Found Glory - “Your Jokes Aren’t Funny”

This song doesn’t break a ton of new ground, but it’s got this circular, easy chorus that keeps me coming back.

61) Teenage Bottlerocket - “Goin’ Back To Wyo”

Similar to Red City Radio writing about OKC, I can’t get enough of TB writing about their home. Did I blast this song while driving across the entire state alone this summer? Do you know me an ounce?

60) Frank Turner - “The Sand In The Gears”

A little dissatisfied with the current administration? Frank may be from across the pond, but he’s with you on this one, man. One of my favorite parts of this song is when he breaks the rhyme scheme just to angrily say “I thought that we were winning the war against the homophobes and the racists”.

59) Billy Bragg - “Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted”

Billy Bragg is here for all of us, with perspective, wisdom, and insightful guidance in tow.

58) Dave Hause - “The Flinch”

Send this one to an old flame if you’re hoping, you know, to maybe rekindle.

57) Selena Gomez f/ Gucci Mane - “Fetish”

That’s right -- “Bad Liar” got beat out by this significantly less popular single featuring one of my least favorite rappers.

/looks up play totals

”Fetish”... 130 million

“Bad Liar”... 214 million

Comparably popular, I say! For me, this one is all about the chorus -- and that beat’ll get you swayin’.

56) Jay Electronica - “Letter To Falon”

‘Cause who gon’ save them babies? / And finally put a definite to all those maybes

Death, taxes, maybe death again, and Jay Electronica never releasing a full length album. Our man has been on Roc Nation for nearly ten years. I hate him so much. /anxiously awaits his next move

Jay Electricity in his zone on this one; so comfortable, in full operation within the confines.

55) Laura Jane Grace - “Adore”

I don’t know who Amy Shark is, but LJG covered her song and punted my heart into Lake Michigan.

youtube

54) Russian Girlfriends - “Antidote”

Upbeat, direct song that starts kinda Metric-y with the riff but then gets more pop punk as it progresses.

53) Brian Fallon - “If Your Prayers Don’t Get To Heaven”

My fiancee laughed when I looked up how to play this song on the guitar and the guy who tabbed it out wrote “Typical Brian Fallon open chords” in the intro.

52) Cloud Nothings - “Enter Entirely”

If “Womanarchist” is the ‘best’ song title of the year, “Enter Entirely” is certainly the coolest. And please don’t let the very boring music video fool you -- this song gets after it, man. If you are a fan of rock music, it would blow me away if you found this song remotely objectionable.

(After seeing CN open for Japandroids on back-to-back nights this November, it feels criminal to have such a slow song represent the band, as their drummer is the Russell Westbrook of the indie scene. That dude does not tire and comes off as more machine than man.)

51) Conor Oberst - “Napalm”

Oberst released a 10-song album in 2016 that was super brooding and piano-y... then he released another album in 2017 (17 songs) that had every track from his previous record and seven new ones. Kind of a weird move, no? This is one of those seven; suffice to say it’s a little more upbeat.

50) Sorority Noise - “No Halo”

You could tell me this song came out in 2002, 2007, or both -- but not 2017. How is this not a time capsuled rival of Taking Back Sunday or My Chemical Romance? I don’t know, but if you like a lot of death, this one’s for you.

49) N.E.R.D f/ Rihanna - “Lemon”

Let’s lighten the mood back up with some RiRi rap. My buddy Crooks’ take: “That's how every 2017 hip-hop beat should sound.”

48) Kesha - “Praying”

It’s damn near impossible to talk about this song without talking about The Note. It occurs at 4:21, and it will make you a little faint.

Kesha dusts herself off and gets beyond empowered in this one. This song could legitimately soundtrack the entire #MeToo movement. When the drums kick in halfway through, you’ll be ready to fight back too.

When I’m finished, they won’t even know your name

47) The Smith Street Band - “Laughing (Or Pretending To Laugh)”

This soft, hopeful love song is almost *too* respectful when it comes to interactions with the opposite sex. I’m not sure there’s a more endearing 2017 lyric than “And I don't wanna marry you just yet / But at least let me get you a cider / And I don’t even think I’d have to pay for it / Hopefully there’s a couple left on the rider”.

46) Run The Jewels - “Legend Has It”

Whenever I think of this song, I will always have that image of El-P holding up that gun to the bunny’s head. This song is braggadocious, each line one-upping the previous in perpetuity. Man, they probably rule live.

45) Vic Mensa - “Say I Didn’t”

Vic Mensa's Roc Nation debut (CAN YOU HEAR ME AT ALL, JAY ELECTRONICA?!?!?!?!?!?) was real strong, and this one gives you a good taste of what he’s about. He’s intense but controlled and even gets a little soulful. And depending what sphere you come from, you’ll either be extremely more or extremely less interested after he drops a Weezer reference. If that gives you trepidation, maybe the Nate Dogg namedrop will reel you back in?

44) Kendrick Lamar - “HUMBLE.”

I like Kendrick Lamar and will always recognize his talent, platform, and body of work (there’s a real case to be made that his “Control” verse killed hip-hop, and it’s just been an animated zombie ever since). Having said that...

He doesn’t always make it easy. The all caps song titles, the weird high pitched flow, the massive reliance of “bitch” in his choruses... yet, he’s the same dude who begs for stretch marked butts and body positivity. I don’t know, man. By the time he hits the “I make a play fucking up your whole life” line, I’m nearly all the way back in.

Last complaint: that organ-y keyboard thing could be so much louder. The beat almost feels diet because of that decision.

43) PKEW PKEW PKEW - “Cold Dead Hands”

This song is about how you can’t freeze this band to death, because they’ll party their way out of the situation.

42) Weezer - “Any Friend Of Diane’s”

This song puts me in a trance; they sing the same chorus lyric a million times, and I still almost want more.

41) Taylor Swift - “I Did Something Bad”

If this song isn’t a hit in 2018, then I do not know anything. For as uneven and questionable as her new singles were, this song has none of that. By the time she’s rolling on the tremendously magnetic “over and over and over again” part, you’ll feel like it’s 2009.

Maybe the old Taylor is still alive after all.

40) Best Ex - “Someday”

What’s that, you want your pop with a lot less baggage? This song is currently at 1,042 views, which is further proof of no justice in this world. I remember grocery shopping with this in the headphones, and you woulda thought it was the happiest moment of my life by the expression on my smiling, dumb face.

39) White Reaper - “Judy French”

“There are no good new rock bands wahhhhh”

Nah -- you just suck at finding music when it’s never been easier in human history, I guess?

38) Anti-Flag - “The Criminals”

This band has always lived in this dramatic life-and-death world, and it’s been going on for so long, that it’s like their vision of what they were always rebelling against was willed into existence.

37) French Montana f/ The Weeknd & Max B - “A Lie”

My dislike of French Montana is so high that I sometimes think about having to answer for saying something heinous about him. Kinda like when Kevin Garnett was accused of calling Charlie Villanueva (who has alopecia) a “cancer patient.”

KG’s all-time response:

“I am aware there was a major miscommunication regarding something I said on the court last night. My comment to Charlie Villanueva was in fact ‘You are cancerous to your team and our league,’" Garnett said in a statement to the media on Wednesday.

Hahahaha.

French, you are a cancer to hip-hop and our league. His verse even references stupid Karl Malone, because why wouldn’t it? The good news is we have The Weeknd on the hook *and* in the first verse, so you can basically just pretend it’s his solo song with a few regrettable cameos.

36) The Penske File - “Oh Brother”

The Penske File make it look effortless sometimes. After hearing this song and doing a Malört shot with their singer, I have higher hopes than ever for their 2018 full length.

35) The Front Bottoms - “Don’t Fill Up On Chips”

TFB’s new album didn’t give me everything I wanted in terms of uptempo bangers, but the lyrics, sentiment, and craftsmanship are all still very much present.

34) Vince Staples - “Big Fish”

The Juicy J chorus might not win a Pulitzer (”I was up late night ballin’ / Countin’ up hundreds by the thousand”), but Vince is rapping invincible, and by the time the lyrics call back his monster single (“Norf Norf”), you won’t be questioning anything anymore.

33) Julien Baker - “Shadowboxing” (link is to live version)

I know that you don't understand 'Cause you don't believe what you don't see When you watch me throwing punches at the devil It just looks like I'm fighting with me

I swear, Julien Baker might be one of the only people on this planet with the power to shut us all up and listen.

32) Paramore - “Fake Happy”

Paramore is a band that does dumb shit all the time. Infighting, legal drama, horrible makeover after horrible makeover. Seriously, this is real:

But through it all, there’s that unbreakable Hayley voice, and it’s like everything is gonna be OK again. I mean, no, it’s not -- but let’s still enjoy these fleeting moments, full blown pop transition or not.

31) Nothington - “Cobblestones”

This song briefly sounds like Lucero before turning into no nonsense despair punk.

30) Lorde - “Perfect Places”

Such a phenomenal album closer; great to have her back in the pop music fold. Car, headphones, party, whatever -- this song goes all around you.

29) Remember Sports - “I Liked You Best”

If Kesha’s high note in “Praying” was pop music’s peak vocal moment in 2017, I’d like to nominate the “You made this me-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-hess” (2:37) part as punk’s.

28) Phoenix - “J-Boy”

This band makes such gorgeous music.

27) Drake - “Free Smoke” (no link)

Drake’s full album output, in minutes, for the last four years:

2013: 59 minutes 2014: N/A 2015: 108 minutes 2016: 81 minutes

And this doesn’t include stray singles, diss tracks, or cameos (2014 had “0 To 100″, for example). What I’m saying is, despite high quality material, Aubrey has saturated us with music for nearly half a decade. So even though I dig him lots, it was like “Really?!” when I heard he was releasing 2017′s “More Life” and “WHAT” when I found out it was another 81 minutes (the same length as 2016′s “Views”). Though the record is stylistically very different -- I keep hearing people use the word “grime”, though I have no idea what it means -- it’s still got bars. My favorite stray lines (they add up):

- “More life, more everything” - “I dunk text J-Lo / Old number, so it bounce back” - “Hilton rooms, gotta double up / Writin’ our name on a double cup” - “I fall asleep in sororities / I had some different priorities” - “Women I like was ignorin’ me / Now they like ‘Aren’t you adorable?’ / I know the question rhetorical” - “I make too much these days to ever say ‘Poor me’” - “I wanna move to Dubai / So I don’t never have to kick it with none of you guys”

But, it wouldn’t be Drake without making fun of him some. The song beings with, well, him sampling himself at an award show. The sample:

And more chune for your headtop So watch how you speak on my name, you know?

Which begs the question: did he do the weird Jamaican accent knowing he was gonna sample it? It treads this weird genius/calculated doofus line. All I know is it makes me laugh.

26) Tigers Jaw - “Favorite”

This song could make me pensive and unhappy on the sunniest of days.

25) Tee Grizzley - “First Day Out”

Like many, I first heard of Tee Grizzley from a LeBron James Instagram workout video. It was an easy sell: Detroit, ferocious beat, and the dude goes *hard*. I got a little too excited and emailed my hip-hop friends: “What the fuck is this? This is GOOD.”

This was before I realized he kinda sounds the same in every song. It’s no matter -- we’ll always have “First Day Out”, a brief time in June 2017 where I thought Tee Grizzley could be the next to run the game.

I can’t even be in public with my hoodie on

24) The War On Drugs - “Strangest Thing”

It’s very difficult to write about The War On Drugs without mentioning how transcendent it is to listen to them in the car. Everyone is right about that, but, for me, I also have to mention how much this dude sounds like Dylan. People say Springsteen, but I hear so much Bob. You don’t necessarily have to get “past” it, but you do kinda have to get used to it. Once you do, the lead guitar will carry you into the clouds. This music will make you contemplate and reflect.

23) Foxing - “Night Channels”

Let’s keep the mood contemplative; you almost feel sleepless if not completely locked in to this one.

UPDATE: This dropped in 2015, /sigh

22) Craig Finn - “God In Chicago”

This is more of a movie than a song -- and the visuals agree. Focus in on the lyrics, take in the story, and then do it again soon because you’ll catch new wrinkles each time. One of the year’s best videos, for sure. Punk News phrases it well: “Here he’s made a solo album of losers who have no idea they’ve already lost.”

21) DJ Khaled f/ Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper, Lil Wayne - “I’m The One”

No one wanted you to know he had sex in 2017 more than DJ Khaled. He made his infant son Asahd the “Executive Producer” for this video. Why? Because he’s an idiot. Khaled’s still existing fame continues to confound. He’s more faux-platitudes than man at his point. So why do the best artists in the world collaborate with someone so seemingly unintelligent? I don’t know, but this song bangs and was probably my Song of the Summer. We got JB on the hook, a dumb-but-amusing Quavo*, Wayne trying to gain footing, and Chance running across the finish line backward with Best Verse title belt. But Khaled won’t let you forget about him, blaring DJ tag and all. This song suffers for that, and it’s all his fault.

(* - his ad lib of just repeating everything becomes charming once you start to get Stockholm Syndrome with the song)

20) Ed Sheeran - “The Shape Of You”

What a 2017 for the man behind the year’s best (super successful) pop song. At the turn of the calendar, I barely knew who he was, but before we all knew it, there was a legitimate public outcry because he was on “Game of Thrones” for, like, two minutes. What a time. Oh, also, the “Come on, be my baby...” bridge gave me some “Real World: New Orleans” acid flashbacks.

Great meme, take us out.

19) Minus The Bear - “Last Kiss”

If the shattered neon heart didn’t give it away, this is a “the relationship is definitively over” breakup song. Seeing them play it at Riot Fest made me miss my late friend Luke; I wish he could have heard this.

18) Hot Water Music - “Never Going Back”

I’ve always maintained Chuck Ragan plays guitar and sings songs like a running back. Well, this song carpe diem’s me enough to play actual running back*.

(* - jk, would never do this unless it was against very small children)

17) Lucky Boys Confusion - “Good Luck”

My hometown heroes released their comeback album in 2017, and I’m not sure any track sums up the effort better. By the time Adam sings “Burned out, they call us / Screw ‘em, we got endless memories / Punk rock and the polish / I hope it gave you something to believe”, there are no dry eyes left.

(And yes, this could totally be an AM Taxi song, but with Ryan Fergus’ killer-fills-only drumming, I’m glad it wasn’t.)

16) Hodera - “Baltimore”

This song would likely have a Top 5 objective approval rating of any on the list.

...“The Wire” forever.

15) Iron Chic - “A Headache With Pictures”

It ain’t heavy, it ain’t heaven

If Hot Water Music is carpe diem, what is Iron Chic -- seize the life?! My favorite description of the band came from Sam Sutherland, who tweeted: “Whose day has already been derailed by the unavoidably weighty introspection of listening to the new Iron Chic record.”

They are a certified run-through-brick-walls outfit. One of my final 2017 memories of this song was subtweeting “Now I know” the night I got engaged and having my buddy Ricky think she might’ve declined the proposal. May have to include a ring emoji next time.

14) The Flatliners - “Indoors”

Had to listen to this, like, five or six times before its brilliant greatness overtook me like falling into a river. The chorus is so, so heartfelt.

Don’t sleep on the video, either (especially the end).

13) Sylvan Esso - “Die Young”

Though I have tickets to see them for the first time in 2018, I am not mega-versed in the catalogue of Sylvan Esso. But this feels like their best song. Imagine if Romeo and Juliet turned out OK.

12) Oso Oso - “Shoes (The Sneaker Song)”

Jade from Oso Oso would likely want all of the above stylized in lowercase -- but this ain’t Jade’s list. This was my favorite new band of 2017, and I do believe they made the year’s best album. It’s early-2000s emo at times, pop punk at others, and all ear candy.

11) Sincere Engineer - “Corn Dog Sonnet No. 7″

Staying in the new artist lane, I proudly introduce Sincere Engineer. This band sounds like if Modern Baseball had a little sister. By the time singer Deanna Belos sings “I’m still learning how to be”, you want to pat her on the back and give her all your best advice.

Fantastic music video -- and she confirmed to me this past weekend that it’s real mustard, not puffy paint (“I have a towel that is all yellow from cleaning it up”).

10) new.wav - “Girls”

Alright, so stick with me on this: new.wav is the band, covering The 1975′s song “Girls” in the style of “Enema of the State”-era blink-182. Confused? Yeah, I was too, but check it out. Maybe more impressive than the arrangements/performance is how they were able to match blink’s production style -- no easy task.

9) Jay-Z - “Family Feud” (starts around 5:30; partial version)

Shawn Corey Carter wants to get right with everyone -- America, his peers, and, of course, within his own home. And though I may never understand the “New n****s is the reason I stopped drinkin’ Dos Equis” lyric, I’m on board with about all else. Similar to the Oso Oso record, “4:44″ is such an album that it feels unfair to single out a song to represent all of its parts. Stripped from the LP, the song does not hit as hard, but in the groove of the record, it’s the apex. And despite Hov seemingly desiring peace, the song does have more than a few call outs:

- “My stash can’t fit into Steve Harvey’s suit” - “And old n****s, y’all stop actin’ brand new / Like 2Pac ain’t have a nose ring too” - “Al Sharpton in the mirror takin’ selfies / How is him or Pill Cosby s’posed to help me?”

In the latter stages of his career, it’s hard to call everything Jay does ‘necessary’, but “4:44″ definitely checked that box.

8) Rozwell Kid - “Wendy’s Trash Can”

Vacillated all year between this one and “Michael Keaton” and literally flipped a penny my cousin Maggie loaned me to decide. “Wendy’s Trash Can” was heads.

7) The Weeknd - “Reminder”

This one got backdoored in as a latter single from The Weeknd’s 2016 album. One of my favorite parts about Abel is how little he has had to change to succeed. Sure, it’s silky smooth, but he hasn’t sacrificed the drugs, darkness, or ego that should offend (but doesn’t because it he pulls it off so well). After bragging early in the song about he won a kids award for singing about cocaine, he calls out peers for biting his sound, blings out his entire crew, and, well:

When I travel 'round the globe, make a couple mil' a show And I come back to my city, I fuck every girl I know

/clutches pearls

6) The Bombpops - “Be Sweet”

The guitar riff in this song is why I fell in love with punk music. Also, super cool story behind the lyrics:

“'Be Sweet' is an homage to our dear friend, the late Brandon Carlisle of the band Teenage Bottlerocket," vocalist Jen Razavi told AP. "Back in 2010, we were partying in a hotel room with Brandon and Ray Carlisle. There was a guitar in the room and Brandon was showing us an idea he had for a song. He had written it for his wife, but he told us we should play it and change the lyrics to 'getting rad with my boyfriend.' He wrote down all the lyrics on four sheets of hotel notepad paper. Since then, the melody and the chord progression were forgotten, but I still had the lyrics. So we wrote our own version of the song in the studio and used every single lyric that Brandon had written down.

Did I mention the video has an “In Bloom” feel? Stop reading, go listen.

5) Action Bronson - “Let Me Breathe”

Action Bronson ain’t givin’ nothin’ up. This is my pick for rap song of the year. It’s got TV brags (”I got two shows, I’m about to pitch another”), a tight chorus (”Let me breathe for a minute / White Range Rover blowin’ trees all in it”), and whimsy shit too (“Honey bouncin’ up and down, she nearly broke my dick”). Ghostface’s disciple is having more fun than just about anyone.

4) Japandroids - “North East South West”

Only a Canadian band could get me to care this much about my own country. The Vancouver duo penned an Americana ode to the road -- but there’s a twist... they talk about their cities too. For every New Orleans, there’s a Toronto. For every California, a Vancouver.

Maybe they’ll be the ones to end all the border wars.

3) Alex Lahey - “Every Day’s The Weekend”

This is the only submission on the list I’d feel comfortable calling a perfect song. Relatable themes, a chorus that’ll tangle you up, f-bombs in all the right places, and every part maximized. She has this way of weaving between cool confidence and youthful insecurity, all in the matter of one verse.

2) Carly Rae Jepsen - “Cut To The Feeling”

When it comes to “Call Me Maybe” and its legacy, I do not fuck around. This song gets really, really, really close. Just watch this dude.

Queen Carly blessed us with another one. The chorus soars, arms go up, and clouds are your closest companions.

1) The Menzingers - “After The Party”

It's the little things my mind commits / To etch behind my eyelids

When this song dropped, my buddy Dave Rokos called it his favorite Menzos song ever. That felt like high praise, but man, he might be dead on. “After The Party” rips me in half with its lyrics of palpable desperation:

Like a kaleidoscope in vibrant hues I navigate around your tattoos Said you got that one on a whim when you were breaking up with him And that Matryoshka Russian doll That lines your shelf from big to small What a way to start anew To shed your skin and find the old you

If Carly’s chorus flies, this one holds us down like gravity. You feel everything, you feel nothing, you feel full yet voided, but after all of this -- the life, the party, the friends, the bars, the experiences, the nights, the lights, the fights, the city you live in -- it’s still her and you. Or him and you. Or whatever it is you come home to at the end, when it’s finally quiet.

youtube

1 note · View note

myaekingheart · 6 years

Text

You know, I’ve been feeling really unnecessarily nostalgic about music lately, and I’ve been thinking a lot about my strange fluctuation in taste over the years and how they’ve all kind of coincided with shit that was going on in my life at the time. I feel really grateful to have grown up exposed to tons of different genres due to both my parents and what was popular at the time so I kind of got to experience multiple different things and choose for myself what I leaned towards. Let me just make this clear that this was late 90′s/early 2000s that we’re starting with, by the way. From my mom, I got tastes of Shania Twain and Andrea Bocelli. From my dad, it was Green Day, No Doubt, and Evanescence. I got 80′s music from both of them, and pop music from what was popular at the time i.e. anything played on Radio Disney (Upside Down by A*Teens is still such a mood, okay? That and the Hamster Dance were my favorites). As much as I enjoyed pop music, though, there was something about rock music that really struck a cord in me. I loved how raw and chaotic it was, how powerful listening to it made me feel. Truthfully, I considered myself a rock kid. I loved the 90′s bands that my dad did, and I fell in love with Avril Lavigne (my aunt got me a book all about her when I was four and the one page said something about “Chicken-Fried Ass” and little old me of course grabbed a pen and scribbled the bad word out of it because oh my god what is this blasphemous language?). I wanted to be like Avril and Gwen with plaid pants and combat boots and crop tops, some sort of tomboy punk-grunge goddess. I remember being four years old and thinking that when I became a teenager, I’d cut my hair to my shoulders and dye the tips bright red like Ariel and paint my walls black and just blast loud music constantly. A few years later when we frequented Universal Studios, I always wanted to go to the Beetlejuice show and I desperately wanted to be the Bride of Frankenstein (because let’s face it, her 2004 outfit was and will always be goals. Also Hip and Hop. Hip and Hop were also goals, especially in those clear raincoats when they sang “It’s Raining Men”). My mom even has an embarrassing home video of me in my favorite red boots from the time and a polka dot skirt dancing around to KISS’s Rock and Roll All Night. So in a nutshell, I would consider myself a rock child, you know? But then there was the phase. I look back at everyone I knew in like later elementary school and middle school who all went through their emo phases and I feel like I kind of did everything backwards. I was reverse emo. When everyone was starting to dye their hair and listen to screamo, I started phasing out of my rock love affair and into more mainstream shit. I don’t know if it was just a force of nature or if my childhood best friend had something to do with it or maybe it was both but around fourth grade I switched schools and kind of became a different person. I was still dressing the same (not that I ever really dressed like the way my music taste might suggest) and all that good shit but I was barely listening to rock music anymore. Instead, it was all pop music and top 40 hits. I was obsessed with Hannah Montana. It was like I was trying to be a basic bitch but I was still trapped in the body of a nerdy ten year old. There were still aspects of me that were quirky or adhered to that rocker side of me but they kind of clashed with who I was becoming at the time so that I became this kind of jumbled, incoherent human being. I remember playing kickball one day at recess and asking the girl in front of me what her favorite movie was. She said High School Musical. When asked the same question, I replied with Juno. I was without a doubt probably the weirdest kid. I had a few friends at the time who did kind of tether me to what was left of my previous self, and who I probably should’ve become. Friends who watched anime and played video games and listened to Evanescence and Panic! At the Disco and all those emo bands that were super popular at the time. I’m glad I at least had that. By the time middle school came around, I was at a crossroads. My best friend and I broke up after an arduous year and a half of us clashing in regards to where we wanted to be and who we wanted to be-- she became obsessed with popularity, which was a mold I did not at all fit into-- and afterward I was kind of floundering to find myself and my true friends. I didn’t listen to exclusively pop music anymore, adding indie shit like Lana del Rey, Florence + the Machine (who was my favorite for a time), and The National to my playlists, as well as that one Avril Lavigne song from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (peeking into the past a bit there, even though Avril has actually kind of been the only mainstay in my music taste: when I was five, it was Sk8ter Boi; when I was nine, it was Hot and Girlfriend; when I was 13, it was Alice; etc.) When I started high school, that’s who I was. I was kind of plain, super innocent, still overall just a kid. I ended up finding a friend group that lasted me throughout the entire four years I spent in that hellhole who helped mold me and I changed a lot during my time with them. My best friend exposed me to more Aerosmith than just “Dream On,” and then the summer before my junior year I fell in love with Nirvana. Later on, in like 2014 I became a big Blink182 fan and started dipping my toes back into the genre I should’ve stayed with all these years, thanks to a boy who was into that kind of music at the time. By the beginning of my senior year, I had begun spiralling into my hardcore, super duper late emo phase. I would tease my hair sometimes. I would do the raccoon eye makeup every day. Everyone legit hated the fuck out of me. I was depressed as all hell. It was fun. It was a really fun time. Over the past three years, my level of emo-ness has fluctuated a bit but now I’m at the point where I think I am comfortably alternative just like the good lord intended lmao. I listen to pop punk and metalcore (if it’s got demonic screaming, I’m there). I’ve got those swoopy side bangs and layers that everyone had literally ten years ago. I have way too many articles of black clothing and a constant resting bitch face. And I think the best part about it all is that I am now the way I am because this is the way I should be as myself, not how I think I should be in order to transform into someone else. I struggled with that a lot for two years because a part of me felt pulled back to this but I was conflicted due to an ex of my boyfriend’s who was very emo/scene queen. A part of me desperately wanted to be exactly like her but better, but then the thought of doing that to myself disgusted me because of this very love/hate deal I had going on with her for a while. I hated myself for wanting to be like her, and feeling a sick satisfaction of doing my hair the same way she did or listening to the same music. I felt both simultaneously the most and least like my true self and after a while, I couldn’t discern where the real me ended and the fake, “trying to be like her” me began. That whole dilemma still isn’t totally perfect and I still think about it every so often, but I’ve been doing so much better than I was a year ago and I’ve finally been finding, and in some ways rediscovering, myself and it’s strange but satisfying. And music really has a hand in that. I will still listen to Florence + The Machine and Lana Del Rey or some old Ke$ha songs (back when she still had the dollar sign in her name lmao) and enjoy them if for nothing else but the nostalgia, but I‘m happy I can finally embrace who I think I’m supposed to be, who I’m comfortable being, happily and without any regret. That I can wear what I want and listen to what I want and be who I want without any implications or guilt or opposing influence.

#super long and pointless but i needed to ramble for a sec whoops lmao #ramblings

0 notes