#until the only way to access it is cds from 2006?

[iron-sides]

if you get legitimately upset about famous people you dont like who were homophobic as teenagers not being homophobic anymore i really do not know what to tell you. its not that fucking deep man.

[prettyoddfever]

I have a few different questions in my inbox that revolve around my perspective on being a teen in the 2000s. A few points weren’t relevant for me, but I’ll try to cover some other aspects here in one rambling post since this might be faster...

TECHNOLOGY:

There were no apps, filters, or presets back then. If you wanted to edit a picture, you had to sit down & actually learn how to use photoshop (I think some kids with Microsoft computers used Paint too but idk). Knowing how to use photoshop gave you a huge advantage on myspace and most likely made you popular in online forums because you could actually make icons, wallpapers, & stuff like neopets userlookup profile banners. The kinds of things that kids can do to pictures today with a single tap of a button used to take like an hour + a lot of talent. Also, photoshop didn’t used to have the kind of recurring payment nonsense that Adobe does now. You’d just go to a store, buy the software cd, install it, and then it was on your computer for good.

Selfies weren’t really a big thing until myspace... and a lot of people called them “myspace pictures” for a while if you turned the camera to face yourself lol. Gifs also didn’t have a name... I just called them “animations" at first.

Modern cell phones can replace so much stuff that I used to have to haul around... like my heavy Nokia phone, disposable camera, giant chunky video camera + its gear, a giant binder of cds plus my cd player & headphones, a notepad with pens, and maps I printed out from the internet. My friends would also bring their GPS, a portable dvd player for longer trips, and ipods... except we didn’t have a way to get the ipod to play in a car yet (in 2008-ish I got one of those cords that you could set to the frequency of whichever radio station was pure static and then you’d get to hear part of your song... but you’d have to keep changing the radio station on the cord as you drove because pretty soon another song would start to cut into yours).

I didn’t even get the type of cell phone that could have internet or apps until like 2013. I was def late to that party, but my point is that the few kids who had sidekicks in 2006 weren’t the norm. I had a basic flip phone, but don’t remember texting much until 2007. Most of my friends and I just used our phones to call our parents, and then talked on MSN or AIM on our computers (if you were fortunate enough to have one in the first place... a ton of kids at my school didn’t have internet at home).

I know that videos on youtube from 2006 look like they're "filmed on a potato" and really bad quality or whatever, but part of that low quality wasn't the fault of our video cameras!! It was really distressing how I could have a relatively decent video, try my best to get all the settings right to export it for webstreaming, and then it would look like a garbled mess by the time it finished uploading through whatever hell portal it went through while getting online. Sometimes the process of sharing & downloading video files also lowered the quality. So the quality of the original videos we recorded wasn’t quite as horrid as the final uploaded versions (cell phone videos do not apply to this... those were just atrocious period).

Our tvs were not super blurry & pixelated like the bad quality youtube videos you might see of recordings from 2006 lol. Have you ever seen a movie from 2002? It’s fine. I do remember tvs suddenly becoming REALLY clear towards the end of college, though... maybe around 2010? I don’t remember exactly when. I only remember spending a few months continually pointing out how clear the details were onscreen and being shocked that we could literally see someone’s pores. So I suppose there was some minor improvement, sure.

My random opinion: there was something nice about having fewer choices in entertainment and needing to wait to access something (I’m not saying that having the freedom to do your own thing on your own schedule these days is bad or anything... it’s just different). My high school friends and I had like 5 tv channels to pick from so then everyone watched the same exact shows at the same time because we didn’t know when the next rerun would be (although weekly TV guides that got delivered in the newspaper would list the names of each episode coming up on the schedule and I would highlight the ones I wanted to see). Some kids with cable would leave the tv on for hours in the hope that they’d see their favorite music videos show up. Now people can instantly access an endless range of entertainment on their own time, so some of the excitement that came from anticipation is lost (like even waiting for someone to return the movie you wanted to rent felt like a bigger deal than just clicking on whatever’s next in your Netflix list). I spent a lot of hours of my life waiting in fun lines for midnight Harry Potter book releases, but now I suppose you could just download an e-book right when it’s released. 

There weren’t verified social media accounts back then. YFly’s main selling point was the fact that celebrities were verified (that site didn’t really take off, but Brendon still had to sign up for an account in fall 2006). Without verified social media accounts, it was often really hard to tell if someone was real. There were SO many fake accounts for any & every celebrity. I legit believed that one account on Neopets was Emma Watson simply because so many other people were convinced too. There were a lot of fake myspace & facebook accounts for Ryan Ross & Brendon Urie by late 2006, but those always seemed very obviously fake to me (even if they actually managed to spell Brendon’s name right lol). Some newer fans who didn’t know as much about the guys were definitely fooled, though, so that’s yet another place where some harmful and/or inaccurate info came from.

FASHION:

movies from the 2000s aren’t a totally accurate picture of what teens dressed like… it’s more like an adult costume designer’s interpretation. 

Most kids I knew in high school just wore a lot of American Eagle, Hollister, Abercrombie, and whatever PacSun sold (like Roxy). There weren’t so many aesthetics back then. The high schools that my friends and I were familiar with (in several different states) mostly had kids who were skater, scene, emo, goth, kind of punk, the generalized preppy look that made everyone into a Laguna Beach clone, or kids who didn’t care & just wore sneakers, flared jeans, and whatever graphic unisex tshirts came with their school activities. 

Emo & scene were not the same thing. A lot of scene kids would get really upset if you called them emo. Some emo kids would be offended if you thought they’d ever be scene. Also: in my experience, emo kids were bullied waaaay more than scene kids.

I spent a lot of time at malls and was really into teen fashion magazines in high school like Teen Vogue, YM, Seventeen, Cosmogirl, Teen People, Elle Girl, etc. I just want to point out that styles changed SO much while I was in middle school & high school (2000–2007) and even more when I was in college. The popcorn shirts that I was obsessed with in 7th grade were only around for a short time. Flared sleeves were in towards the start of the decade, but that didn’t last long either. The 1960s came back briefly when I was in middle school, and then the neon 80s had a short comeback a few years later (but now I’m understanding why our teachers grumbled about how we were generalizing an entire decade with the looks of one moment lol). I can’t think of a single style that could possibly represent the whole decade of the 2000s. In 2004 I desperately wanted the flared jeans that Amanda Bynes wore in What A Girl Wants, but I wouldn’t have been caught dead in them in 2008. In 6th grade my favorite outfits were track pants that could snap off, flared jeans with flowers embroidered on them, butterfly clips in my hair, those clunky chunky brown sandals that looked like turtles, the spaghetti strap tank tops that were banned at school, a little triangle bandana thing on my head, foundation as some weird form of lipgloss, and body glitter. I fit in at that point, but I would’ve looked weird by 2002. Trends were super temporary & changed quickly. It’s not like the entire decade was into camo cargo pants, trucker hats, shirts/purses/hats/anything with your initial in rhinestones, madras shorts, platform sandals, jeans that laced up the sides, pants with flares as big as you could possibly get, colored skinny jeans, denim miniskirts with cropped leggings underneath, long camisoles with a lace bottom for layering, boleros, gauchos, striped polo & rugby shirts, that one style of adidas shoes, those velvet tracksuits, massively furry uggs, crocheted purses & shirts, jeans that looked like they were patched together, suede belts with the fringe that hung down to your knee, studded belts, etnies & vans, etc. Those things were from a range of different years. 2008/09 feels like it had way more in common with 2011 than with 2005. I thought the early 2000s had more in common with the late 90s than with 2006. I’m just saying... you can’t generalize the whole decade as a continuous look or sound.

TOXIC ASPECTS OF 2000s FASHION / TEEN CULTURE:

TW: eating disorders

Maybe movies didn’t show the actual types of tshirts that teens wore because those had a giant brand name plastered on them or were inappropriate? There was SO much sexual innuendo on shirts around like 2004. I just tried to google this and I’m shocked at how there are so few examples (I put some in this tag). I mean, it’s awesome that our culture has changed enough to recognize that those should be buried, but they were also so prevalent that it feels strange to see those shirts are just gone as though they barely existed. I’m able to find some examples of Abercrombie shirts still because the brand is popular, but those types of graphic tees were at almost every store in the mall for a season… even Kohls & Target were questionable. For a short time it was such a chore to find a tshirt that didn’t subtly say something sexual, which legit made me anxious as a high school freshman. A 14-year-old girl shouldn’t be walking around in a tshirt with colorful smiling flowers that say “guaranteed to get you up in seconds!” I hate that I was so naive that I wore that shirt to school for a long time, but I also hate that those types of shirts were created for the junior’s section of some stores. The graphics on those shirts were mostly designed to look like ads for things like tropical islands, travel, Asian restaurants, cleaning products, mountain resorts, etc… except it was usually sexual in some way if you stopped to actually read the small text. Other shirts were also surprisingly racist, sexist, and just generally weird for something that was obviously created for underage girls to wear. 

Parts of the teen fashion industry basically fostered a bitchy culture where girls hated each other and were striving for male validation. Most stores at the mall (and even Walmart & Target) had those popular attitude tees that pitted girls against each other or reduced our worth to a few physical characteristics. The Abercrombie t-shirt that said “I make you look fat” stands out in my memory (but it’s just one drop in the bucket of all the similar tees they sold). And there were SO many shirts at various stores about blondes vs brunettes that I remember wondering whether my friends who dyed their hair felt like they were switching sides in a battle lol (there weren’t many shirts about redheads, but I remember seeing one at a store like JC Penny or Sears that had some kind of flames & implied something sexual because of course).

There was even a weird trend of graphic tees that made fun of rural populations... like Urban Outfitters had so many shirts mocking states that were stereotypically redneck. Abercrombie and other stores did too. 

I still remember a teen magazine (maybe Cosmogirl?) had an article whose condescending tone was basically congratulating Rachel Bilson in The OC for eating cheeseburgers, being ok with her body/weight, and not trying to be skinny (she was probably a size 6 btw). She was legit considered “large” by several magazines back then, whereas Marissa on The OC was the standard of what was supposed to be “normal.” The media would create a culture where you needed to be super skinny to be acceptable, but then they’d blast those same celebrities for possibly being anorexic (and that shaming wasn’t done out of concern for their health… the tone was more like celebrating that a celebrity screwed up yet again). There really was no way to win.

I recently saw a current teen talking about that Senior Year movie on Netflix and how ridiculous it was that the main cheerleader girl claimed to be on an ice cube diet (as though that idea was absurd and Netflix was inventing it as a joke). That was an actual thing, though. I even remember reading the “helpful tip” in more than 1 magazine that the act of chewing on ice cubes would trick your brain/body into feeling a bit more full. I remember a couple girls who’d have cups of ice at lunch complaining about how their dentists told them that chewing on ice cubes was bad for their teeth. 

The top & middle shelves of jeans at Hollister & Abercrombie were like sizes 00-5 and then the biggest sizes were at the bottom. You had to kneel on the floor to try to find a size 9 in their limited stock, which was the biggest size some stores sold (others went up to a size 11). Way too many of my friends viewed themselves as “disgustingly obese cows” for being a size 9/10. I was legit ashamed to be a size 5/6. Our world was created through a really narrow lens of magazines & tv & movies, and we mostly saw super skinny white girls. 

Another aspect of the one-way dictation of culture was how “poor people” were very much looked down on in the early 2000s. The kiosks at the malls near me were full of counterfeit designer bags, sunglasses, shoes, etc. I’m mostly speaking for the preppy crowd here, but at a lot of high schools you were basically expected to have a small Coach bag and one of those chunky chain Tiffany & Co necklaces with the heart on it. That was just like the bare minimum (and it was embarrassing for the girls who were called out for clearly having knockoff ones… like I felt safer just not having those things than being caught looking like I wanted to, while clearly not being able to afford it). I was watching this youtube video last night (which is seriously funny btw) and the guy points out how Kate calls out Lizzie for being an outfit-repeater and then the characters in that movie look down on blue collar workers and people who might live in a trailer park. That is such a solid example of what our culture felt like back then. I’m glad that those comments seem noteworthy or abnormal now, but it’s hardly like the Disney channel invented that mindset. It was just everywhere. Like I cleaned hotel rooms throughout high school to be able to afford my clothes from American Eagle & Hollister, but that was a serious source of shame (even my mom looked down on me for that job). Sometime around 2009-2011 I started to notice a shift where it started to be more acceptable to admit that you shopped at Target or used coupons, and then shopping at thrift stores became mainstream cool and people were openly talking about their budgets, financial problems, etc. Maybe this shift was partially because of the recession in like 2008, but I really do think that a more connected society via the internet weakened the media’s ability to dictate such a narrow culture as we started to get inspiration & ideas from a wide range of perspectives. 

You know how in the movie 21 Jump Street there’s that scene where Channing Tatum & Jonah Hill go back to high school in like 2012 and it’s totally different? That was one of the most relatable scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie lol. Suddenly it was cool for teens to care about things or actually try in school? Admitting that you like Lord of the Rings or anything “nerdy” was no longer an actual risk that might make you lose friends or expose you to ridicule? Wtf I felt so ripped off. You’re not asking to be bullied if you wear your backpack on both shoulders?! I had been willing to give myself back problems because I thought that was the price of survival. I spent a lot of the early 2010s being cranky that the teen culture I had worked so hard to conform myself to was vanishing and being replaced with something that I would have absolutely loved in the first place, thanks. 

(I’m definitely not saying that everyone who went to high school in the early or mid-2000s had the same experience I did btw. This is just my perspective). 

SOME PAGES FROM TEEN MAGAZINES

Teen magazines were full of “entertainment” in the form of attacking female celebrities. That mindset definitely wasn’t limited to just teen magazines or the audience of teen girls, but I’m more shocked in hindsight by how 12-year-old girls were basically taught to judge, sabotage, and compete against each other. It seemed normal at the time, too. It fostered a culture where a lot of us were super insecure & anxious that everyone was waiting to laugh at our smallest mistake or mock our flaws. Here are some random examples of the culture we were fed in the mid-2000s. 

[dynanatlasalle]

The iPod

Apple recently announced the deletion of the iPod product line from the Apple product mix. This is news for many reasons. (https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/the-music-lives-on/)

It’s news because this product, a sleek, portable music player, was a very successful product for Apple when it was introduced in 2001. The product was introduced in the early days of the transition to digital music. Although Apple did not invent portable, digital music players, they reworked and redesigned an existing innovation and created a new and better product. The iPod was smaller, easier to use, cool, stylish and held more music than portable music players on the market at the time.

Deleting the iPod is news because the product line created an all new revenue stream for Apple which helped turn the company around in 2001 and avoid financial disaster.  At the time, Apple had only one product line: The Mac computer. Mac’s market share was declining as their competitors offered less expensive computers with software that was compatible with other personal computers.

By 2006, iPod sales were 40% of Apple’s revenue ( (see the chart below).  According to Statista global annual revenue for the iPod peaked at $4 Billion in 2008 and stayed over $3 billion through 2011. The iPod was obviously Apple’s cash cow for many years. We now know that the cash was used for a continuous stream of innovations such as the iPhone and iPad product lines. Until 2014 (the last year Apple reported iPod revenue separately), iPod revenue was still $1 billion. This is the story of a great success, not a modest success!

                                         Source: Statista, 2022 

Although the iPod is being discontinued, the product has a great brand story. The product and product line that was developed, played a critical role in the history of Apple success stories by being the first of many technology device successes for Apple. The iPod was Apple’s entry into the world of technology devices; Apple’s only product line was Mac computers before the iPod was launched. The success of the iPod put Apple on a path for revenue and profit growth through innovation in the device category and gave Apple an opportunity to diversify and become the technology giant it is today.  

For me, the news of the iPod’s deletion from the Apple product line is sad because I am sentimental about the iPod.   I still love my iPod and I am happy that I own the music on my iPod. I love the option of taking my music with me using a tiny and lightweight device.  The iPod is an important product to me and it is an important product culturally. The iPod changed the way we listened to music. This is important to a generation that was introduced to iTunes digital music and digital music players as a replacement for vinyl albums, CD’s and very costly digital music like Napster and LimeWire.

In my opinion, the humble iPod is the most significant product launch for Apple and changed the company forever. The iPod and iTunes transformed Apple into an electronic devices and services company; they are no longer a computer company. The success of the first iPod gave Apple a platform for continued organic growth through the many line extensions of the iPod. The line extensions gave Apple a new revenue stream that did not exist until the iPod and as data from Statista shows   it generated billions of dollars of revenue for Apple. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/263404/global-apple-ipod-revenue-since-first-quarter-2006/)

From a personal perspective, it is sad to see the decline of a great product and one which has been one of my all-time favorite products.  For me, there is still a place for my iPod in my mix of devices. It is small, extremely light and very portable. It has long battery life which is great for long distance traveling such as long airline, train or bus trips. The click wheel is unique and easy to use. I like owning my music and being able to choose exactly which songs to listen to at any given time. I like knowing that I can access my favorite music instantly.

From a strategic point of view, I agree that it was probably time to delete the iPod product line. The portable music device category is in decline and Apple integrated iPod functions into the iPhone.

As I think about the iPod going away forever, I can’t help thinking about the advertising for the iPod. The advertising for iPod is part of the iPod brand story and the iconic silhouettes advertising campaign lives on and can be accessed easily through various internet searches.  The advertising is artistically and strategically excellent: the ad agency (TBWA\Chiat\Day) created a simple product demonstration that captured the unique benefits of the iPod in a creative way. Just about all genres of music were represented in a very creative advertising campaign.

Is the iPod obsolete? Technically, yes because the world of music changed and streaming music replaced ownership of music. Music ownership is not relevant to new generation of music listeners.  Financially, the contribution of the iPod to overall Apple revenue has been declining so there is support for deleting the product line. Apple has moved on and continued innovation and growth beyond the iPod. Statista recently reported that Apple software and services are generating more revenue growth than hardware and devices. This category includes Fitness+, Apple TV, Apple Music, iCloud, Apple Pay, Apple Arcade and Apple Care. The growth in this category translates to about $77 Billion in revenue. 

                                               Source: Statista, 2022

 Did Apple do the right thing deleting the iPod? We won’t know the answer to that for a while.  However, the world of technology and consumer demand for technology has changed and Apple is responding to those changes by focusing resources on the high growth businesses that are relevant to today’s technology consumers.  From a strategic perspective, that is the right thing to do. Which of the high growth services will become a star product for Apple? My instincts tell me it will be either Apple TV or Fitness +.

[gallifrey1sburning]

Muggle Technology Through the Ages:

A vague and incomplete timeline of what people were using when for writers who want to avoid anachronistic technology use in their canon timeline-compliant Harry Potter fic.

Keeping track of the evolution of technology is hard! Here's a cheat sheet for those of you who either a) like me, have trouble keeping track in your head even though you lived through it, or b) are young enough that you didn't live through a lot of it at all.

Phones:

Land lines were the norm well into the 90s. Not only that, but CORDLESS landlines didn’t even become prevalent until the mid 90s; they still cost hundreds of dollars in 1994, and the frequencies on them were weird, so you would sometimes hear your neighbors’ phone calls by accident. Ours used to turn on my little sister’s remote control Barbie car. We thought it was haunted.

Although cell phones have been around since the 80s, they were uncommon until the 90s, and then they were nothing near as ubiquitous as they are now. In 2000, when I was in high school, I had ONE friend with a cell. I got my first one in 2002, and it was only for emergencies while driving, because when I’d get lost I would have to pull over and use a pay phone otherwise.

Unlimited calling wasn’t a thing until 2002; until then, all plans were pay per minute. A lot of plans stayed that way for many years after. “Roaming” cost more. (Roaming was when you were outside of your own area code, basically.) When you moved, you got a new number.

Texting was expensive and difficult for ages. You used your normal phone numeral keys and a system called T9 tried to figure out what you meant, because every number stood for 3-4 letters. It was a giant pain in the ass.

The first full QWERTY keyboard phones came out in 1997, and most people didn’t have them until the early 2000s. I got my first one in 2007, and no one thought anything of it.

There was NO internet capability of any sort on mass market cell phones until 2000/2001. After that, it was still pretty limited until the iPhone came out.

Texting didn’t really become a big part of how we communicate until 2002/2003 for most people. And, like calls, they charged per text, so you were VERY careful and would get super mad at your friends who pushed you over your limit, because that shit was expensive. I can’t find info on when unlimited texting started being offered, but I didn’t get it until 2007/2008.

The first iPhone also came out in 2007. It was the first phone with full internet access. It was also the second full touchscreen phone ever, and the first one (the LG Prada) was only announced a month before.

Camera phones have existed since 2000ish, but weren’t the main method people used for pictures until much later, mostly because they were super shitty. I still had a separate, physical digital camera in 2008/2009.

Internet:

Consumer access to the internet was virtually nonexistent until 1995. My family got it circa 1997. It was all dial up.

Dial up was slow, sometimes you couldn’t connect, and it USED YOUR PHONE LINE. Remember, from above, the fact that landlines were the predominant phones until the early 2000s? Yeah. If you didn’t have multiple lines, you weren’t likely to be online for very long at a go. My parents limited us to 20 minutes. Also, sometimes, if a call came in while you were online, you’d get kicked off.

Broadband came out in the late 90s, and people were still commonly using dial up until the mid 2000s

WIFI wasn’t common for consumer use until the mid 2000s, either.

We may not have been texting, but we were all VERY into instant messaging. Pretty much everyone had AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) or ICQ starting in the late 90s as well. I did a lot of late night chatting when my family was asleep and I wouldn’t be tying up the phone line.

Social media & popular websites:

Here are some key dates for when various things that seem like they’ve been around forever actually started!

Google: 1998

Livejournal: 1999

MySpace (it was huge before Facebook and not mostly for musicians!): 2003

Facebook: 2004, and you had to have an email address from a college or university that had been formally included until 2006.

YouTube: 2005

Twitter: 2006

Spotify: 2006

Tumblr: 2007

Instagram: 2010

Tinder: 2012 (before that, the biggest online dating services were Match.com (1995), eHarmony (2000) and OkCupid (2004).)

Bonus: Netflix came out in the late 90s, but it was a physical DVD mail order subscription service. They didn’t introduce streaming until 2007!

Music:

CDs came out in the early 90s, but a lot of people kept using cassettes for a long time afterwards. I got my first CD player in the late 90s; portable CD players weren’t popular before that because the CDs would skip if you jostled the player. My first car (a 1991 model I bought in 2001) only had a cassette player, so I had this weird converter thing to hook it up to my CD player. Mostly I just listened to the radio, though.

Digital music wasn’t super big before the late 90s/early 2000s, and even then, we were mostly downloading (read: stealing) it and burning it to CDs. Napster was the main service we used for piracy at first; it came out in 1999. That’s around when mix CDs started overtaking mix tapes for wooing people with pointed song lyrics.

The first MP3 player came out in 1997. iPods (which were JUST for music) were introduced in 2001, and CDs only started to lose popularity around 2003. I got my first iPod in college (an iPod mini) and it was SO COOL. It came in 4 or 6 GB versions.

Some of this info is from research, some from personal (and American) experience, but hopefully it’s helpful! I didn’t bother to go into computers or TV here, but they’ve changed a hell of a lot, too, and I’m happy to do a run down some other time. Suffice to say that the TV I took to college with me in 2003 was a 12” screen tube TV with a built in DVD player, and that before leaving for college, I didn’t have my own computer—I shared it with my entire family. There were six of us. Yeah.

[shitihaveheardatwork]

See You In Hell, Bratz Passion 4 Fashion: Diamondz!

Contrary to the opinions of many of my peers, I think weeding is awesome and I love it. There’s little I find more satisfying than an item of obviously low quality with no demand whatsoever coming into my attention and having the privilege of removing it from circulation.

Just to be entirely clear, we’re not talking about “extreme” or “controversial” content. I’ve had that conversation done to death a thousand classroom-polarizing times before. We’re talking about cheap. We’re talking about cash-grab. We’re talking about no artistic, cultural, spiritual, or even material value.

We’re talking about Bratz Passion 4 Fashion; Diamondz.

Some personal history first: I’m old enough that my last big toy phase before I reached the special level of adolescence where you have to openly condemn everything you once held dear as a child was Bionicles. I had the black bionicle from every generation up until that point, as well as a complete set of those little rolly-polly guys with the stretchy necks. I don’t know what they were called and I couldn’t be bothered to look it up for this lil micro-essay here.

What’s important is that they were cool. They did action-y stuff, I felt smart putting them together.

Waaaay Cooler, Smarter, Action-y, and REAL than my sister’s interests! Polly Pocket? Dumb! Pre-bronification MLP? Barf! Bratz? How fake can you get? Those were just shallow pieces of plastic made by toy companies. Not like my precious bionicles. So cool. So adult. So smart.

Then I watched the first Bionicle movie when it was on TV and realized I too was a cog in an elaborate toy commercial scheme. Something clicked in my horny mushy pre-teen brain, and I put away all my old favorite toys forever. It was now time to be shitty and elitist about intangible concepts instead, a hobby I’d keep until my early 20′s. But in addition to a change in hobbies, I also started to be a little bit less shit to my sister about her toys.

This confession out of the way, I don’t think my sister would have stopped me from throwing this DVD directly into the trash. My sister didn’t become a high-fallutin’ working-class intelligentsia asshole like her big brother, and we have nothing comparable in terms of media taste, but I think she would support me 100% if I told her I sent this DVD straight to hell. In fact I might call her later just to confirm. This disk was bad, is the moral of my story.

It took six paragraphs, but let’s talk about Day 3 on the job!

It was just me and Lisa today. I’ve upgraded from liking Lisa to absolutely loving working with Lisa. We talked everything from how her kids are doing to politics (she brought up Tr#mps latest satire-destroying phone call) to video-gaming to the history of animation. I genuinely like talking to her and it’s a shame she’s just filling in. If a job opens up at her branch, I’d apply for it, no question.

My boss Wallace, “Yer dad”-level queerphobe and Ron Swanson-esque libertarian, was putting out a metaphorical fire at another branch and I didn’t have to deal with him at all.

I did my opening routine. Checking the drop box, collecting the pull list, putting together holds, refiling returned materials, preparing ILL material, checking my work email, and the like. I was done with it all in about 90 minutes, with 4 hours left to go on my shift.

Wallace had told me to fill the time with anything I can qualify as “professional development” the week before, so I spent some time reading articles on the ALA website and googling “anarcho-librarianism” just to see what would happen. I found an abandoned blog and a twitter.

Then I remembered oh shit. I have to make a twitter don’t I

I don’t like twitter. I’ve tried to use it. I don’t get it. I’m too old to learn a new app. It’s impossible.

And yet I must. That’s where The Discourse is happening. That’s where the minds in my field are saying things. If I’m taking my career seriously, if I want to get a grip on the currents in my profession, I have to bite that checkmarked bullet. Stand by for updates on my professional twitter.

I got bored of being on the ALA site and ran out of productive things to google, and decided to look around the building for abandoned projects and mysteries to solve. It didn’t take long to find one, when I found a cart in the work room with a pile of DVDs in paper sleeves.

“Scratched” a post-it note on top said.

I asked Lisa if she knew how long these had been here, and she confirmed that they were in fact a hold-over from the previous staff that had left in a mass exodus some months before.

Well cool, I thought. I’ll see if these are too fucked up to play.

Commence with an hour of consuming children’s media, a few seconds of a minute at a time. I was fortunate that the work computers both had CD drives AND VLC media player! Thank you, past cool supervisor who put VLC on the work machines! Good call!

So I “watched” a few Dora The Explorers, a Care Bears film, that Trolls movie, Hotel Transylvania, and a Barbie horse adventure film, watching a few seconds before skipping a minute ahead to see if it would choke and skip.

See here’s the thing about scratched CDs. They’re weird. You can have a CD that’s fucked up completely (looking at you, my copy of Rollercoaster Tycoon 1) that still somehow plays fine like it just came out of the box. Sometimes scratches will seem totally superficial but goof up just enough microscopic binary that no machine will touch it. All these DVDs were ugly as sin, but that didn’t mean they were broken did it?

And it turns out a lot of them worked fine. That’s how I ended up watching Bratz Passion 4 Fashion: Diamondz which, unfortunately, played fine.

As I put the disk into the drive I remembered my sister’s participation in the Bratz toy craze. As an adult, a real one not the one I told myself I was at 13, I told myself that I might have a bias against this content, to just check the disk and not get judgy about what might be a kids favorite movie.

I uh... I failed to do that. BUT IT’S OK BECAUSE MY BIAS IS TOTALLY JUSTIFIED AND MY JUSTIFICATION IS RIGHT HERE

If you didn’t or don’t want to click the link, it’s a scene where the Bratz Diamonds are about to head out on some sort of fashion trucking marathon/race. Like any proper racer, the blonde at the wheel has a white-knuckle grip on the wheel, has just put their rig in gear, and in proper high-octane fashion, puts on a knowing smirk.

Except the smirk is, well... the animators just stretched the lips across the face further. I can’t do it justice, you just have to watch it, but I’ve done better animating just by pan-and-scanning around Windows Movie Maker.

This... isn’t content anybody needs. But I’m a librarian. I’m sworn to access. So the question becomes, does anyone want it?

I had to know, I had to know, how much circulation has this gotten? When was the last time this disk was in the hands of anybody at all besides me?

I popped it into Evergreen and behold: 15 check-outs since 2006 when it was released. No checkouts in the last 2 years.

I asked Lisa the proper procedure for removing something from the catalog, and in only a moment the deed was done. The case was repurposed, the disk trashed, the DVD cover recycled. It was time to go. I’d spent my remaining hours quasi-consuming children’s media.

I placed most of what I’d watched in a new pile, which I labeled “SCRATCHED BUT WORK FINE.” I placed one lone Barbie horse movie in a different pile labeled “SCRATCHED AND DOES NOT WORK.”

I felt like I’d accomplished something. I turned off the lights and I went home.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 7

Stars Like Fleas

The summer rolls on in a very peculiar way, with masks and zoom calls and brief, furtive trips to the grocery and the growing realization that normal is months, if not years, away.  Even so, the music remains excellent. Thank god it’s downloadable and accessible even in these strange days we inhabit. Here writers including Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Justin Cober-Lake and Ray Garraty consider improvised drone, precocious alt.country, experimental banjo tunes, rap metal and jazz.  Enjoy.

75 Dollar Bill — Live at Café Oto (75 Dollar Bill’s Social Music series)

Live at Cafe OTO by 75 Dollar Bill

Before 75 Dollar Bill put out those widely revered LPs for Thin Wrist records, Che Chen and Rick Brown made a series of tapes. You could pick them up at shows, packaged in a clamshell case with a business card advertising their services. 2020 is a plague year, so it’s going to be a while before anyone hires them for another party or a parade, but this download-only release fulfills similar functions. It captures the band at a particular moment in time, and it gives you a chance to throw a few bucks their way. Do so and you probably won’t be sorry, because the late 2019 tour documented by Live at Café Oto was unique in 75 Dollar Bill’s history. Chen and Brown did the whole run of shows with double bassist Andrew Lafkas, but they also did nearly all of them without essential gear. It wasn’t until near the end, when they played in England, that Brown was reunited with the big wooden box that is his main percussive instrument. Spread across three sets, this three-hour long album shows how swell they sound when they’ve got a committed agent of swing adding his subtle shift to their Bo Diddley meets Mauritanian wedding music groove. If you know I Was Real, you’ll recognize many of these tunes, and you’ll likely appreciate the differences that 75 Dollar Bill works and reworks upon them.

Bill Meyer

  Bandgang Lonnie Bands \ Bandgang Javar – The Scamily (TF Entertainment \ Empire)

After Bandgang broke up, Lonnie Bands made a successful solo career. His only misfortune, apart from a murder rap prosecutors tried to stick him with, was that he picked up a no-talent partner Javar. Here, surrounded by aggressive but undistinguished artists Mascoe and Paid Will, Lonnie hasn’t learned lesson. Thankfully, Javar makes his presence on The Scamily scarce, and the second half is basically Lonnie’s solo effort with some guests. As usual, Lonnie makes himself busy in illegal activities: drugs, scams, pimping, firearms. He neatly sums up his bad deeds on “Me Too”: “You on that bullshit? Me too.” The Scamily is not that focused as last year’s KOD but Lonnie, with his slick rhyming and catchy hooks, always reinvents a bad man’s lexicon.

Ray Garraty

 Sammy Brue — Crash Test Kid (New West)

Sammy Brue is no longer quite the wunderkind he was when he released his first full-length at 15, but he is still quite impressive here on the follow-up, hitching the spit and fire and wordy angst of, say, Ezra Furman, to the downhome pyrotechnics of Bob Log III. “Teenage Mayhem” explodes with teenage aggression, building out a twitchy blues riff into a monumental rock chorus, while “Crash Test Kid,” is softer sonically, but just as unflinching in its narrative. “Skatepark Doomsday Blues” is epic and grandiose but carries it off, infusing an old man’s blues progressions with the eruptive feelings of young manhood. All the signs point towards Brue growing into his art. He’s already channeling raw emotion into sharp song structures and lyrics without sacrificing their force. It’s a drag getting old, but it doesn’t have to be a step back.

Jennifer Kelly

 John Butcher — On Being Observed (Weight of Wax)

On Being Observed by John Butcher

English saxophonist John Butcher has a deep and diverse discography, much of it on CD. Since the standard of his playing is so high, and the settings and accompanists he selects so diverse, they’ve never been merely about documentation; you’d have to look hard to find a dud on the shelves. But as format preferences, economic shifts, and that damned virus turn everything upside down, Butcher has, like everyone else, found himself suddenly with plenty of time to comb through the hard drives and reassess the music stored there. And since CD manufacturing and distribution has been snarled up worldwide, what better time to transfer some of it straight to yours? On Being Observed comprises six solo performances recorded between 2000 and 2006, and you could not ask for a better introduction to what he does on his own. It features him in the studio, at a jazz festival, and in some unusual acoustic environments which afford a number of ways to understand what it means to read the room. Whether he’s playing to an audience or a 20 second delay in a dis-used gas storage facility, acoustically or amplified, using a soprano or tenor sax, Butcher’s tone is unmistakable, and his sense of how long to develop ideas and how to develop them is peerless.

Bill Meyer.

 Carling & Will — Soon Comes Night (self-released)

Carling & Will (banjo player Carling Berkhout and multi-instrumentalist William Seeders Mosheim) have spent the last few years working out new twists on old-time music. Their debut album Soon Comes Night takes another a step forward from their previous, more traditional sound. Much of the album relies on the interplay of banjo and electric guitar. The pair don't go for outre sounds, but Mosheim provides textures for Berkhout's banjo playing. “Lillie's Lullaby” offers a highlight, not only in its prettiness, but in its revelation of Berkhout's idiosyncracies as she shifts in and out of more typical patterns. The album in itself makes for a lovely collection of songs, but it has both the ups and downs of an act starting to find itself. Carling & Will have a distinct voice, and the more they work to develop that (probably by letting Berkhout get odder and Mosheim explore his voicings a little), the more impressive they'll become. If the pair decides to just focus on smaller updates to mountain music, they've already shown a worthy artistry in that.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Cloud Rat — “Faster” (Self-released)

Faster by Cloud Rat

Like a lot of us, the folks in Cloud Rat have been cooped up behind walls, watching the world burn. But that hasn’t stopped them from making some terrific music. This new track, “Faster,” has been posted to Bandcamp as a benefit for Black Lives Matter-aligned organizations. The song is somewhat in the mode of their most recent EP, Do Not Let Me off the Cliff (2019). That record traded in the band’s characteristic grindpunk intensities for some weirdo experiments in dreampop, noise and gauzy gothic nightmare soundtracks. “Faster” isn’t quite as far out there, and longtime listeners of the band will recognize some of the textures of tracks like “Moksha,” “Raccoon” and “Luminescent Cellar.” The song starts and ends with some lovely acoustic finger-picking by guest musician Andy Gibbs of Thou. In between, there are clean vocals by Madison Marshall that border on the ethereal, and electric riffs that build and build toward majestic heights. Good cause, great tune.

Jonathan Shaw  

 Drakeo the Ruler – Thank You for Using GTL (Stinc Team)

Recorded through a phone line from prison, with beats later provided by JoogSZN, Thank You For Using GTL right after its release was named best prison album since Penitentiary Chances, by now classic joint effort by C-Murder (still incarcerated) and Boosie Badazz (now free). It was too strong a claim to be true. On that duo’s album you can hear a sense of doom hanging over them. When all hope is lost, there is only a prayer, and even that can get lost on its way to God. There was no tomorrow. Drakeo the Ruler, on the other hand, raps like there is tomorrow. Even rough sound of voice recording and “This call is being recorded” tags are more like a necessary sound effect and a gimmick rather than an effect of reality (he couldn’t do it any other way). Strip this tape of all these effects, and you end up with an ordinary rap album, exactly like others released by dozens every week. Maybe there is no reason to thank GTL. It did us a disservice.

Ray Garraty

 Holy Hive — Float Back to You (Big Crown)

These super laid back funk soul cuts stay well inside the pocket, except when they veer unexpectedly into indie-folk. The funk parts come from one-time Dap King Homer Steinweiss, whose loose but transcendent way with a groove can be best heard on “Hypnosis.” Paul Spring, the singer, brings in the psychedelic falsetto, more Justin Vernon than Curtis Mayfield, but still radiant and chilling. The title track plays like a lost 78 soul classic, Spring’s mournful melody wafting skyward as big loopy bass notes and splayed jazz guitar chords drop into a slink and strut of snare drum. That’s maybe what you’d expect from Steinweiss’ Brooklyn soul revivalist resume, but elsewhere, there are surprises. “Red Is the Rose” sounds like Tunng, all space-bopped folk magic and electro-pinging drums, and “Be Thou By My Side” is lattice-picked folk without the slightest hint of syncopation. Both sides of Holy Hive have their sweetness, but only the funk stuff buries a stinger.

Jennifer Kelly    

 Dustin Laurenzi’s Snaketime — Behold (Astral Spirits)

Behold by Dustin Laurenzi

Here’s an irony for you. Composer Louis Hardin, whose habit of dressing up like a Viking and hawking his wares on the streets of mid-20th century NYC turned him into a bona fide attraction, may have conversed with jazz musicians, and shared a record label or two with them. But he didn’t really like jazz. Nonetheless, jazz musicians liked his music back, and they still do. The melodies are graceful, but malleable, and the Bach-meets-powwow rhythms have plenty of productive implications for a percussionist willing to work between the lines. After years of study Chicago-based tenor saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi formed Snaketime, a project named after one of the composer’s rhythmic notions, that turned seven of his compatriots loose upon the Moondog book. Maybe loose isn’t quite the right word, since Laurenzi’s arrangements show deep respect for the original melodies and their exotic vibe. But there’s not a lot of music that can’t be made a bit better when you ask bass clarinetist Jason Stein to improvise from its foundations. This half-hour long tape adds four tunes to the seven on last year’s excellent LP Snaketime: The Music of Moondog, and any one of them could have made the cut if Laurenzi had been given enough rope to make a it a double album in the first place.

Bill Meyer  

 MachineGum — Conduit (Frenchkiss)

Like its Pepto-Bismol-pink cover, these songs seem a bit over-sweet and undernourishing at first, but damned if their synth and disco and art-rock grooves didn’t start to catch on after a few listens. The project, launched in New York City with the mysterious appearance of pink gum machines, is not what you’d expect from a Strokes offshoot, but give Fabrizio Moretti credit for branching out. Here tight, “O Please”’s sleek, wah-wah’d guitars and fat-fingered bass throws off a funk shimmy, but soft, dream-y choruses add an element of electro-pop introspection. “Act of Contrition,” by contrast, swells and swirls with gothy new wave drama, but also vibrates with indie earnestness; it’s like the National playing a New Order cover. If you’d told me a month ago, that I’d be enjoying a super clean, super precise synth-dance album by a member of the Strokes, I’d have laughed, but here we are.

Jennifer Kelly

 Phosphene — Lotus Eaters (Self-Release)

Lotus Eaters by Phosphene

Portland’s Phosphene drifts and drones in a satisfying vintage 4AD-ish way, the serene vocals of Rachel Frankel wafting out over intricate tangles of shoe-gazey guitars as Matthew Hemmerich pounds out motorik rhythms on the kit. This album, the band’s second, was written in the turbulent aftermath of the 2016 election, but it exudes a murky calm. In “Carousel,” for example, Frankel sings about how “everyone gets lost in their own power,” but the temperature remains cool, dream-like, lit by arcs of guitar sound and undergirded by a thudding mantra of bass (Kevin Kaw). The two singles run closest to pop. Bright, upbeat “Cocoon” is spiked with Spoon-ish piano chords, while “The Wave” damn near bubbles with girl pop exuberance. I can see why they’re leaning on those cuts, but I like the cloudy radiance of “Seven Ways,” the morose moods of “The Body” better.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sara Schoenbeck / Wayne Horvitz — Cell Walk (Songlines)

Cell Walk by Wayne Horvitz/Sara Schoenbeck

Bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck and pianist Wayne Horvitz built to their first duo release slowly. They've been playing together since the previous decade in Horvitz's Gravitas Quartet, working together in various styles. The bassoon doesn't necessarily lend itself to jazz, but Schoenbeck's experience with artists like Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton — as well as in various orchestras and symphonies — has revealed her fluency in different languages. Horvitz and Schoenbeck develop that approach on Cell Walk, mixing composed and improvised tracks, moving from jazz to classical and back again, happily residing in a new music space. The pair's chamber background comes to the fore more than anything else, but the artists' experimental ideas and Horvitz's occasional electronics keep the duo moving forward. The album mostly stays cool, although a few tempo shifts and Schoenbeck's varied tone create unexpected energy any time the disc starts to settle. Schoenbeck and Horvitz fill an unlikely niche, but they also make a good case for expanding it.

Justin Cober-Lake

  R.E. Seraphin — Tiny Shapes (Paisley Shirt)

Tiny Shapes by R.E. Seraphin

Ray Seraphin makes sweet, sharp songs out of guitar jangle and whispers that seem to nestle right in your ear. His first cassette under his own name after a stint in the slightly more abrasive Talkies kicks up a power pop dust and haze a la Luna or, more recently, Plates of Cake. Like these bands, however, he envelops smart, coiling melodies and wild spiralling guitar hijinks in daydreaming inchoate jangles. In “Streetlight,” Seraphin vamps and caroms in spike-y mid-temperature anthemry, crooning “And I won’t feel a thing,” and indeed there’s a misty, nostalgic remove around most of this album’s emotional content. Yet there’s also a classic pop shape that can’t quite be obscured by muttered, offhand delivery. “Fortuna” is the best bit, to my ears, a summer radio megahit heard from several rooms away, bittersweet and slipping away even as it plays.

Jennifer Kelly

 Stars Like Fleas — DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO (Amsterdam) (self released)

DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO (Amsterdam) by Stars Like Fleas

New York collective Stars Like Fleas are still gone, but the tracers and streamers left in the air by their passing continue to be entrancing. Whatever collapsed in the wake of their work on the follow up to their epochal LP The Ken Burns Effect can perhaps be glimpsed a little in the bulk of this first (and hopefully not last) release from what they describe as “a huge archive of live and session material.” As the title indicates, six of the 11 tracks here come from a radio session they did during their final tour (coming apart and leaving the final album unfinished upon their return to America). Along with a couple of Ken Burns highlights that session is all new material and it is as rich as anything they released during their lifetime. The collection is rounded out with some brief improvisations and another track intended for the final album, the 7” single “End Times”, and a wonderful performance of “Falstaff” from a Toronto show. Perversely and beautifully enough, the result is not only a must listen for fans of the group, it makes an excellent introduction for anyone who missed them the first time. Bring on the archives!  

Ian Mathers  

 Thecodontion — Supercontinent (I, Voidhanger)

Supercontinent by Thecodontion

 A death metal band entirely devoted to songs about ancient, paleolithic lifeforms and geological history? It’s not the most harebrained musical concept you may have heard — it even makes a sort of sense. What better musical genre to address such massive, atavistic and lumbering forms? Supercontinent is the Italian duo’s first LP, following 2019’s Jurassic EP. As its title suggests, this new Thecodontion record goes way, way back, to primal landforms, before continental drift assembled the earthball’s map into its current shape. Appropriately, the longest track on Supercontinent is “Pangaea,” named for the unimaginably huge late Paleozoic landmass. Thecodontion’s featured instrument is Giuseppe D’Adiutorio’s bass, which he variously thrums, hammers and shreds. He gets some pretty amazing sounds out of it, sometimes producing the soaring, moaning, keening sounds that Greg Lake coaxed out of his bass on the early King Crimson recordings. The proggy reference is pointed; Thecodontion’s high concept project smacks of prog’s grandiosity. But where prog shoots for the heavens, Thecodontion goes bone hunting. It’s interesting work.  

Jonathan Shaw

 Various Artists — Building A Better Reality: A Benefit Compilation (JMY)

Building A Better Reality : A Benefit Compilation by Various Artists

As Bandcamp’s choice to waive its portion of transaction proceeds in favor or certain needs and causes has evolved from an occasional to a monthly event, releases have started to appear which take advantage of both the event and the rapidity of production when no physical objects are being produced. George Floyd died under a policeman’s knee on May 25; this compilation was released just 24 days later, on Juneteenth. Brent Gutzeit of TV Pow secured 106 contributions from friends, friends of friends, and customers of friends — and that’s just the parties that this writer recognizes. They range in length from Kendraplex’s 58 seconds of metallic shredding to Joshua Abrams’ half hour of mournful clarinet and cathartic double bass. You’ll find acoustic protest music, swinging jazz, harsh noise, hip-hop, and a sound collage that includes sounds of protest and mourning. The participants include Simon Joyner, Jsun Borne, I Kong Kult, Jesse Goin, Chris Brokaw, AZITA, Keith Fullerton Whitman, and the Jeb Bishop Trio, along with many, many more. Have I listened to them all yet? Of course not! But the thing with a set like this is that you don’t need to. Put it into your shuffle play and it’ll yield surprises for years to come. Income goes to Black Lives Matter, NAACP Legal Defense Fund. and the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

Bill Meyer

 Michael Vincent Waller — A Song (Longform Editions)

A Song by Michael Vincent Waller

At first listen, you might not guess that composer Michael Vincent Waller’s new EP/song A Song is an improvised piece, and as the surrounding material on Bandcamp makes clear, that’s kind of part of the point. Composition vs. improvisation is the kind of duality where both sides are never really distinct, and Waller is both interested in the history of composers improvising and (possibly naturally) improvises in a way that’s not a million miles away from his compositions. Which also means that just on that first listen the 21 minutes of solo piano found here are frequently beautiful, whether patiently probing a set of arpeggios or momentarily going somewhere a bit darker and deeper near the end. Whether considered as work done around or between more composed ones or in its own right, A Song makes for both a fine follow up to Waller’s 2019 collection Moments and a brief thesis on the always permeable boundary between two methods of creation.  

Ian Mathers

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2005

16 to 17 years old. Finished public highschool, started public university in September. Looking back at 2003-2005 feels like looking at ten years of my life condensed in three. Exhausting.

Also we’re now past the halfway point of these lists! And this is another exceptionally good year for hits.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

So I finished highschool that year. I met my best friend ever in late 2004 and we even had some sort of small crew back then! I had a bit of a crush on her but alas it wasn’t meant to be. I don’t know who invented the term ‘friendzone’ but they got its meaning completely wrong because staying friends basically forever with someone you love can be a fantastic thing. Things weren’t rosy nor perfect that year, of course, and I still was miserable at home, but I’m not sure where I’ll be today without her. She's amazing and she still lives nearby nowadays. Shoutout: if you read this, E., you pretty much saved my life.

I was still making tapes and burning CDs, still using my trusty portable cd player, and always listening to stuff while drawing during recess, sitting in a corner and doodling stuff in my sketchbook on the floor like a weird gangly goblin.

I had already started to buy Rock Mag in August 2004 but it really became my monthly ritual in 2005, and it lasted until autumn 2007. A reliable source of posters to cover my walls. At that point they were almost completely covered with paintings, drawings, torn pages from magazines and posters of Linkin Park, Mylène Farmer, Placebo and Indochine.

I also had a better access to the family computer and was a bit more involved online. Might explain why the number of singles I was buying plummeted.

It’s time once again for some (ok, many) honorable mentions!

Beverly Hills (Weezer) - I don’t even know why I like this but I do.

Bouger Bouger (Magic System) - I never understood why it was cool to make fun of these guys in my country. Their music is so happy and fun.

Holiday (Green Day) - My brother loved that band and listened to it a lot, and I was 100% fine with that.

Wake Me Up When September Ends (Green Day) - See above.

Gabriel (Najoua Belyzel) - That is so-bad-it’s-good at its finest right here.

Candy Shop (50 Cents) - As a sucker for terrible puns (HA, get it?? I’m sorry I’ll get out immediately) I can’t help it, I love this.

Love Generation (Bob Sinclar) - Stay tuned for more of this guy on another list.

Listen to Your Heart (DHT) - The original is better, but it was really nice to hear that again on the radio.

We Be Burnin’ (Sean Paul) - Not my favorite but still damn good.

Bad Day (Daniel Powter) - I even bought the single. What can I say except “relatable”.

All About Us (Tatu) - I bought that single as well. Almost made the list.

Le Bateau Blanc (Karol) - The last cut from the list. Not even kidding at all. I’m still not sure if Keane deserves to be on the list more than this to be honest.

Like it happened previously with Placebo not being elligible at all, it is a complete outrage that Precious by Depeche Mode isn’t elligible for this list. Like, what the f█ck. Playing the Angel was one of the defining albums of the year to me. I’m not even sure it would have topped the list, maybe #2, but it still feels wrong.

There’s another band who’s complete absence from this top feels kinda painful to me, considering how much I loved their new album at the time. Indeed, no single from Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance is elligible for this list, and it feels wrooooong, man. I love I’m not okay and especially Thank You For the Venom, but even Helena would have been nice. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

For some unfathomable reason, Get The Party Started (Pink) and, even more unexplainable, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me (Culture Club) recharted in France in 2005 and both made the year-end top 100. The fact they are both elligible but all the stuff mentioned above this paragraph isn’t makes no sense whatsoever.

And now, the actual list!

10 - Everybody’s Changing (Keane)

US: Not on the list / FR: #48

Pretty great even though it’s not my favorite Keane song. That would be Crystal Ball. It’s fantastic and as a person who is scared, above all, by existential horror, the music video is terrifying. Sadly, it’s not elligible for my 2006 list, so Everybody’s Changing will have to be its slightly less good proxy for 2005.

9 - Et Si En Plus Ya Personne (Alain Souchon)

US: Not on the list / FR: #100

This has to be the most borderline non-elligible song ever put on one of my lists. But I’m glad it is still elligible. Remember the song on the 1993 list that I called an “anticapitalist ballad”? Well that’s the same guy. And this time it’s a song about how religion can cause both beautiful things and war, and how “the sky might be empty” because of us. It’s great. Here’s a translation. You’re welcome.

8 - F█ck Them All (Mylène Farmer)

US: Not on the list / FR: #62

Aaaaaaaaand unfortunately for everyone including myself, she’s back. Not her best song by a mile (told you it was all downhill after C’est Une Belle Journée didn’t I), but still pretty damn good, and that music video where she’s destroying bird-like scarecrows is amazing so here’s a bonus gif.

7 - Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day)

US: #7 / FR: Not on the list

My brother LOVED this band and listened to it SO MUCH. And yeah, they were very good and that song might just be my favorite one from them. I don’t have much more to say about it, you all know it already. Let’s move on.

6 - Sugar We’re Going Down (Fall Out Boy)

US: #40 / FR: Not on the list

Again, it feels wrong that both Fall Out Boy AND Panic! at the Disco were elligible for this list but not My Chemical Romance. I was never a fan of these two acts, at all, and their supposed rivalry was kinda hilarious to watch from afar. With a bucket of popcorn. While listening to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge and nodding sadly, of course.

This is still a great song, mind you.

5 - Feel Good Inc (Gorillaz)

US: #37 / FR: Not on the list (really? wtf happened)

Again, I live with someone who loves Gorillaz, so I claim overexposure.

It’s still #5 on a list based on a very, very good year.

That’s quality for you.

4 - Speed of Sound (Coldplay)

US: #57 / FR: Not on the list

A new chapter in the ascension of Coldplay from “Johannes hates this band” to “this is one of the best mainstream bands we have”. An epic saga, years in the making, and Speed of Sound was basically the last scene of Act One. Not my favorite song from X&Y (that would be Talk), but still really good. Hell, I even bought the single, and goodness knows I wasn’t buying a lot of singles anymore in 2005.

Holy shit, half of these are Benassi Bros garbage. None of them are elligible, though! Dodged a bullet there, didn’t I.

3 - Numb/Encore (JayZ + Linkin Park)

US: #93 / FR: #75

What a blessed mashup. For a few magical months in 2005, all the punk goth kids and the hiphop kids were united under this song’s banner and it felt like world peace had been achieved. It could have pissed off everybody but no! Everyone loved it instead!

“But Johannes, this is just Numb all over again with different lyrics. You can’t keep putting Linkin Park at the top of your lists forever.” Sadly no, I can’t. I know. It’s only #3. Don’t yell at me. Also, the next two songs are genuinely better, at least in my opinion!

2 - Lift Me Up (Moby)

US: Not on the list / FR: #31

I heard this on the radio and bought the album, Hotel, on the grounds that Natural Blues from 2000 was one of my favorite songs ever and than it wouldn’t hurt to actually own an album of that guy after all that time (”all that time” being only five years, but please keep in mind the past three years had felt like ten, and in my mind, they still do ; trauma is one hell of a thing). And a couple of days later that year, we went to Disneyland for my brother’s birthday, and I only had a small bag that could contain my cd player, and the earphones and nothing else. So I could only put one cd in it and that was it.

So I picked Hotel, and I basically retreated inside of it whenever my mother was starting to talk aggressively, which happened a lot in the various queues. So in the end, I listened to that cd a LOT that day and every single time, it would calm me while still being energetic enough to keep me enthusiastic for the various Disneyland rides.

Lift Me Up is energetic but cold, aerial but distant, uplifting but sinister. It was the perfect song for someone who was, at the time, trying to tone down their aggressivity and anger and trying to be masculine but in a softer way, while still staying themselves and not giving up the fight. I absolutely adore this song. It’s perfect.

It instantly joined my list of favorite songs ever that year.

1 - Mr Brightside (The Killers)

US: #16 / FR: Not on the list (this feels so wrong)

If I had to make a top ten of the hits of that entire decade, this would be #2. No debate whatsoever.

Because holy shit.

I was already sold on that band after hearing Somebody Told Me on the radio, which sadly isn’t elligible for this list (I instantly loved it, first because it was catchy as hell, but also because I love the chorus “Well somebody told me you had a boyfriend / Who looked like a girlfriend / That I had in February of last year", because as you already know I tend to be extremely literal minded and my immediate conclusion was “wow you two dated the same trans guy before and after he was out of the closet” and that was highkey relatable and no you can’t change my mind). So I bought the album about two weeks after, mostly blind, because the cd store was playing it and also because Rock Mag said it was great.

That was an understatement. Hot Fuss is one of the best albums of the entire decade and you probably know that already. The first song, Jenny Was a Friend of Mine, floored me right after putting the cd in the player and it felt like the album already reached its peak and there were still 12 tracks after that.

The very next track was Mr. Brightside. And. How do I put this.

There’s like a dozen interpretations possible for this song, and most of them are something like “this guy is so anxious and paranoid he’s gonna break up with this girl because he keeps imagining her cheating with another guy and it might not even be real.”

Now might be a good moment to remind you that at the time, I had a crush on my best friend, and was still firmly in the closet. And this song starts, as everyone knows, with “Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine“.

So... yeah. This is the song that accidentally convinced me the closet sucked and did nothing to deter bullies anyway, and that after more than three years of feeling mostly miserable, I should try to be myself and screw the consequences. I know it wasn’t the original intention behind that song. But still.

Godspeed, The Killers. I owe you one, guys.

Next up: Still not able to put Indochine nor Placebo on a list, OP is this close to punching a wall

[natsspammityspamspamham]

Seiyuu Rant: Gender Inequality

The following is a repost of a post I made in 2018. It was flagged and removed for “explicit content”. 

The reason you don’t hear [female seiyuu] in anime is simply because she’s an older voice actor. Even someone as popular as Hanazawa Kana hasn’t been getting many roles lately. Those roles have all been going to cheaper and younger voice actors. It’s sad, but don’t expect Sakura Ayane to be as prominent after about five more years. That’s how the voice acting industry is.

- Reddit Commenter

Okay, so I was on Reddit when I asked, “What happened to Aya Hirano?” She used to be in her prime when she got roles in Lucky Star, Haruhi Suzumiya, Fairy Tail, and a whole bunch of other things. Her most recent role that stuck with me was Parasyte which was back in 2015. Since then, I have heard so little from her in seasonal anime.

That’s when someone brought up the elephant in the room… then shot it and stabbed it.

We all know the world is a sexist waste ball, but I have always turned a blind eye to the fact that female seiyuu get phased out really easily. I know Tumblr mostly focuses on male seiyuu since the demographic for this platform is usually younger women or something like that, but I think female seiyuu losing popularity and roles because they’re “getting older” is kind of sad.

In this rant, I rant about the inequalities and hardship facing female (and male) seiyuu. I added some stuff compared to last time.

Age:

Hanazawa was born in February 1989. She just turned 30. The idea that she’s not getting as many roles is kind of scary, isn’t it? Aya Hirano is 31. For Hanazawa and for the sake of anime, I hope that just isn’t true.

I know I always joke about people getting old and how they always go, “My back hurts!” or “I have to go to bed [at 8pm].” or “Back in my day…” (why do I even make fun of that? I do all of the above??) But these voice actresses aren’t even that old. I wouldn’t want anyone’s careers to slow down all because they reached the age of 30. A career slowing down should be by choice. 

Average Age:

But if you want cold hard numbers, I’m going to do some math. I’m aware that I’m bad at math, so I’m going to explain this process. I made two posts about the TOP TWENTY seiyuu for both male and female. 

Links: MALE | FEMALE

What is the average age? I added up the age of all twenty seiyuu then divided by twenty.  Unfortunately, all numbers hold the same amount of weight meaning that the number one spot and the number twenty spot both get calculated the same way. 

Average Male Age: 37

From the No. 1 to the No. 20 spot: 43 + 33 + 38 + 38 + 35 + 40 + 32 + 44 + 40 + 27 + 51 + 32 + 36 + 27 + 38 + 44 + 34 + 35 + 46 + 31

Average Female Age: 29

From the No. 1 to the No. 20 spot: 23 + 33 + 29 + 26 + 24 + 27 + 31 + 39 + 24 + 23 + 38 + 29 + 28 + 26 + 25 + 38 + 24 + 34 + 33 + 30

I understand that male seiyuu tend to debut later, but that’s still a very large gap. Female seiyuu don’t even have anyone over 40.

[more below]

Health:

Not to mention, this seems to be a trend across the board, doesn’t anyone notice that both mangaka, seiyuu, and artists in general always get sick because they overwork themselves? Hosoya took a break because of his throat, Taneda took a break because of illness, Umehara took a break because of illness, Akesaka retired from singing because of her throat and health, Yurika Endou retired because her health was declining, Tooru Ookawa took a break due to illness, Keiji Fujiwara took a leave due to sickness then returned later on, and the list goes on. 

Early Retirement and Demand:

If female seiyuu have to work that hard for a career that won’t last that long, no wonder some retire once they get married or pregnant. It’s not a viable option to stick around if you’re going to be pushed out like that in a few years time. I know there are exceptions and this and that, but this is just reality. Even once you finally make it, you’re only going to be there for a little while. And access to playing good female characters is always going to be limited, but that’s a rant for another time. I’m just saying that maybe if we had more good female characters, maybe we would have more demand for more voice actresses.

Image and Fans:

While male seiyuu have this too, I think it’s important to acknowledge that female seiyuu are expected to obtain “idol-like” images these days. They achieve this by restricting their personal lives by not dating and watching how they dress and present themselves and providing an innocent image for their fans to admire. While there are several examples of not being allowed to date, the most recent example of this is when Ayana Taketatsu got married to Yuki Kaji. [source]

Some of them do photo books (sometimes of a more provocative genre) that require them to pose and distribute images of themselves which can be uncomfortable, and while it’s arguably “consensual”, there is probably pressuring to do these types of things. Sometimes, they also post their “BWH” measurements. This means that they have to post their bust, weight, and hip sizes. It’s a very restricting lifestyle, and while fans of any seiyuu can be over-the-top, female seiyuu fans have been known to be exceptionally disrespectful. 

Offences by Fans:

Eriko Nakamura was tracked when she went on a trip because someone went onto Google Maps and used her pictures to find out where she went and what route she took. But that’s just a specific example of how female seiyuu’s pictures are taken by fans and dissected (and distributed) to show what they do with their lives.

Nana Mizuki got death threats because she didn’t reply to a fan on a few occasions. Yurika Ochiai also received death threats and noted on her blog that she had to take a break from the public due to stress, but who wouldn’t be stressed about strangers threatening to kill them? Aya Ueto has received death threats as well. Arrests were made in these cases.

Haruna Ikezawa was stalked and defamed by a stalker who was later arrested. He wrote defamatory comments on the voice actress's homepage and repeatedly send messages asking for a personal meeting, telling the voice actress to "come by herself". It was not confirmed whether this was the same person, but someone also followed her through the streets at night resulting in a restraining order. [source]

Mai Kadowaki’s fan was arrested after he sent a letter saying that he would kill her parents. [source]

Aki Toyosaki got into heat because she was dating someone... despite being in her 30s. “Fans began posting photos her CD K-on singles broken into pieces and photos of her K-on character's face crossed out in red ink. One fan even uploaded a photo of Toyosaki surrounded by bullets and a hand menacingly gripping a knife (above). Another fan wrote on 2ch. about killing her. These might be "jokes", but they are hardly funny. [Source]

Sumire Uesaka was sent and read a letter where she was creeped out by a fan letter, but it was played off as a joke.

And during the Kokoro Connect scandal (which is included in some links below), Eri Kitamura was harassed by fans that were sending her dick pics and hate messages via twitter to the point where she had to stop using Twitter (she has resumed Twitter activity a while after).

I talk about this more below in the “scandals” section, but female seiyuu get heat for things that are arguably normal. Again, voice actors like Hikaru Midorikawa have gotten into scandals like this too (Midorikawa was accused of cheating because of a matching piece of jewelry or something).

Scandals:

When Aya Hirano’s scandal occurred, people were threatening her and cutting up her merchandise and pictures. 

Daisuke Namikawa got into a scandal involving adultery where he allegedly cheated in 2004 when he got married in 2001. He cheated with a teenage girl who worked at his former agency. According to an interview, this relationship had gone on until “recently” (when it came to the surface in July 2017). [Source: Anime News Network] 

In my opinion, cheating is one of the lowest things you can do to your partner, and if you do such a thing, you should have a good excuse. But with a teenage girl? Come on. At the start of the relationship, he was 28. He should’ve known better, yet, we never hold these acts against him. He’s still getting a lot of roles in anime, and as much as I don’t have anything against him as an actor and as a master of his craft, I can’t help but think of this whenever his image comes up.

In the Kokoro Connect Scandal, we see a public humiliation of a male voice actor. Two of the main players in the scandal are Takuma Terashima and Hisako Kanemoto. While I don’t know the complete reasons for this, Takuma Terashima can somehow still get roles and even sang the opening for that Slime anime? We don’t see Kanemoto often though. 

The Arts Vision scandal was terrible. She was assaulted at only 16. This incident did occur in 2006, and he was released a few months later after his arrest. He stepped down as chairman in 2007. I feel like he wasn’t really held accountable. He apparently was released for medical reasons or something like that. Basically, bullshit. What’s even worse is the fact that he was the founder of the company, and this agency represents a lot of good voice actors Saki Fujita, Jun Fukushima, Souchirou Hoshi, Tomoaki Maeno, Kousuke Toriumi, Yuuichirou Umehara, and Daiki Yamashita just to name a few. It is also the parent company of I’m Enterprise which is another huge agency which houses Saori Hayami, Youko Hikasa, Kaede Hondo, Rie Kugimiya, Maria Naganawa, Mai Nakahara, Saori Oonishi, Ari Ozawa, Chiwa Saito, Ayane Sakura, Aya Suzaki, the Uchida siblings, Tatsuhisa Suzuki, Hiro Shimono, and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka. He had a lot of power, and I imagine this wasn’t his first time taking advantage.

Male Seiyuu Benefits:

So, male seiyuu get more leniency in expressing themselves, more time in the industry, more interesting parts, more work, and possibly more money. And when I say more leniency, I mean A LOT more leniency. The cast of Haganai was saying how it’s great how they can say “うんこ (poop)” in front of a large audience. Meanwhile, we have male seiyuu who can discuss panties without anybody judging. If a female seiyuu were to do that, she’d probably get scolded by her manager. They are to stick to a certain image, and they can’t do much outside of it. A huge part of Aya Hirano’s decline was caused by her sleeping with other band members (except for the bassist; RIP I’m a bass player).

While seiyuu in general cosplay, it’s far more difficult for female seiyuu to cosplay because of costumes in anime are... you know. There is a stream where Akari Kito is pressured into wearing the costume that her character wore, and yes, it did happen. If it’s any consolation, the seiyuu community felt a bit conflicted about it.

Harassment Within the Industry:

Like pretty much all industries, female seiyuu experience sexual harassment as well. Few have been open about it, but Atsuko Enomoto commented on the progression of the #metoo movement. She talks about wanting to give up and quit the industry. There have also been comments about producers and directors hitting on and harassing young female seiyuu, and they can’t do anything about it because they’re starting out. And this is only the stuff that makes it onto the surface.

Hiroko Konishi also shares her experience that happened decades ago where female seiyuu suffered from abuse, sexual harassment, and other hardship because they were expected to “sell themselves”.

There have even been comments on how there’s a “casting couch” in the industry.

Yurina Hase also speaks about the “casting couch” and how disgusting the industry is.

Hase revealed she experienced a "casting couch" situation once for an anime that was produced at Sunrise. She said that she was asked to perform sexual favors, and when she refused, she was notified the next day that she did not get the role. She said that this was her only experience with a casting couch as an anime voice actress.

Before the livestream, Hase wrote on Twitter that she planned to "reveal how I really feel," and that she has "the resolve to end everything."

In the stream, she also gave advice to "watch out for the male voice actors." She said that the newcomer male actors tend to let the attention go to their heads, and immediately try to lay their hands on the female actors.

She received multiple death threats in 2009, causing her stress. She later resigned from her role in the The IDOLM@STER series as Yukiho, and was replaced by Azumi Asakura. In 2014, she took a break from new voice acting roles.

Voice acting is a tough industry, but being a female voice actress is even tougher. I just wanted to put this rant out there because I casually say things about it from time to time, but with that Reddit comment, I think I finally wanted to give it its own post.

[ferricide]

Review: Final Fantasy XIII

[originally posted: April 11, 2010]  I haven't written a review in a long time. The last review I wrote, in fact, was of Devil May Cry 4, for the Official Xbox Magazine, in 2007. I didn't much like Devil May Cry 4, really. In the way of game journalists of my generation, I gave the game a 7.5 and an even-handed review, because there are things that it did do well. All the same, I was never asked to write another review for the magazine; much later, a staffer told me that someone from management had asked them to stop publishing my work. "Fine! Fuck you, too!" I thought, and then felt a burden lift. I had been reviewing games professionally since 1999 and was tired of it. I have long hinted that I would some day write an expose about what's really wrong with game reviewing, since nobody seems to quite get it right. But by the time I felt ready to do that, I was so bored with the whole business that I couldn't make myself want to. To my surprise, I instead find myself compelled to write a review once again. The game which I will endeavor to review, in a way that I'll make up as I go along, is the most complicated game of 2010: Final Fantasy XIII.  * * * Final Fantasy XIII was announced for the PlayStation 3 in 2006, at Square Enix's E3 press conference. As a long time fan of the series who was confounded by its direction at that time -- the gully between Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XII -- I was eager for both a return to form ("form" as a concept roughly equivalent to "more Final Fantasy X" in my mind) and a justification for Sony's yet-to-be-released next generation system. Well, things change. * * * One thing that will make this review dramatically different to any I have ever written is that I will be considering what I learned by reading others' reviews, talking to other players, and generally trying to synthesize the concept of why this game was made the way it was made, not just whether it's any good. To my mind reviewing games in 2010 the old fashioned way is beside the point; as a journalist I recognize my own obsolescence -- the old tools have been made irrelevant by the power of marketing and the cacophony of the internet. Plus it's boring. That's not to promise that will be a review worth reading. I'm going to try, all the same. Final Fantasy XIII was released for the PlayStation 3 on December 17, 2009 by Square Enix Co., Ltd. It was localized into English (and ported to the Xbox 360) and released on March 9, 2010 in the major Western markets by the company's international subsidiaries. This is notable because it reveals so much about the flux of development from the time this game was conceived until it was released. Final Fantasy XIII came out nearly three years too late, by my reckoning. By the time it did come out, one of the only ways it successfully aligned with the market it was released into is that publishing a major game in March isn't, anymore, all that peculiar. Final Fantasy XIII, however, is. In 2008, Square Enix delivered a talk at the Game Developers Conference in which it described the features of its Crystal Tools game engine which powers Final Fantasy XIII -- a talk which a developer friend and fan of the series emphatically described as "terrible" shortly after. Terrible not because the technology is bad; terrible because it took the company so long to step into the technological present. In 2008, Crystal Tools promised to deliver yesterday's features tomorrow. Coincidentally, Final Fantasy XIII was released into the Western market on the second day of GDC 2010. When I review games, I typically insulate myself from the opinions of others. This was a solemn requirement at the heart of reviewing games for EGM, for example. Editor-in-chief Dan Hsu, who was one of my mentors for much of my career as a reviewer, demanded three distinct opinions. That's not as easy at it sounds, and not just because editors are talkative. If you go out there with the wrong score, you're going to get a lashing from the internet; you may well have to justify yourself to the game's publisher; you may even put your job at risk. Consensus is a safe haven. This is part of why reviewing Final Fantasy XIII in April 2010 is amusing: staying isolated from opinions of this game, so polarizing and so widely discussed, is impossible. I've spent the better part of four years anticipating the game more than any other ever released. I've also spent the better part of the last four months marinating in the game and people's reactions to it. I've read, written, and spoken more words about this than any other game in years, and probably any in the foreseeable future. In fact, this may be the last time I can claim authority over any sizable chunk of the mainstream game industry. I didn't think about it that way in the past, but Japanese-developed RPGs have been, since the early 1990s, my passion. The JRPG is my favorite genre. Very, very briefly, it was also the world's: starting in 1997, with the release of Final Fantasy VII, it seemed that the games I loved would finally get their due. I used to have the mentality -- which now feels quite dated -- that I could convince people to give games a shot. I thought that if I could cut right into the heart of a game and explain exactly what made it tick and why that mattered, I could convince people, with only my words, to try something they weren't planning to. While I don't think that's impossible, I think it's an edge case; voracious consumers of games, maybe. Enthuasiasts of a genre, perhaps. Convincing someone to pick up an interesting book, CD, or go to a film is one thing; with games... it's much more difficult, it seems, and it's only getting harder thanks to everyone's shrinking reserves of money and time. One thing I realized over the years is that a large contingent of gamers who were suckered into playing Final Fantasy VII for its groundbreaking cinematics and engrossing story actually weren't that happy about it. They may have enjoyed that experience, but they began to become frustrated by and by, and other games in the genre perplexed and bored them. Many, many people didn't value what I valued in games -- and I don't just mean turn-based combat or pop existentialism. People simply didn't value stepping out of their comfort zone. I just didn't realize how true this was until my comfort zone started to shrink and become more and more irrelevant. It's now well-known that Microsoft approached Activision and Infinity Ward and asked them to deliver Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360's launch, because Halo 3wasn't going to be ready. While that's not the whole of it, it might just be the inflection point where things changed. By 2010, we know the story by heart: Western developers who'd never had access to an audience like this before had the console market hungrily in their sights and, driven by ambition and talent, made bold games that made what had come before look rudimentary. Meanwhile, the reliability of Japan's market and the peculiarity of the way its businesses are run had created somnambulent companies which attracted university graduates with a promise of reliable jobs rather than creative possibilities. Of course, these things are, to an extent, cyclical. It's not over yet. Things are changing. Square Enix is reputed to be a vision-driven company with strong creative minds in charge. Its president, Yoichi Wada, has complained that the staff's creative pursuits delay its titles from shipping on time. The most famous man at the company is Tetsuya Nomura, an illustrator who got famous for creating characters so memorable that it enabled him to get his thumb into the majority of the company's creative output within a decade. On the other hand, Final Fantasy XIII was the company's first real step into the next generation; it's a humongous production designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. For all of these reasons and more, Final Fantasy XIII is, most obviously, a bizarre compromise. In his borderline incomprehensible -- through no fault of his own -- GDC 2010 talk, the game's director Motomu Toriyama described how, over the years, the creative process for developing Final Fantasy titles changed from a collaborative to top-down structure thanks to the workflow demands put on the teams by technology. In the immediate aftermath of the development of Final Fantasy VI for the Super Famicom, the team bullshitted up some ideas for Final Fantasy VII. But when it came time to produce that game, the decision had been made to move to the PlayStation and deliver a Hollywood-style cinematic experience. Still and all, the game was put together piecemeal -- and if you remember its wild inconsistency of play, it's not a surprise to hear that now. From to snowboarding to defending Fort Condor to performing CPR to motorcycle combat to the Golden Saucer, the game provides arguably too many diversions from its core gameplay. By the time Final Fantasy X rolled around in 2001, said Toriyama, "An impact on experimentation took place. From this [game], scenario had to be fixed first, because of motion and voice [recording]. So each staff person we could not incorporate their comments or opinions, since just a small number of people were working on the story creation... It was a major change in Final Fantasy X." Throw in a platform shift for which the company was totally unprepared, a mandate for visual perfection, and a production team in the hundreds, and Final Fantasy XIII, as it is, is born. Still, I haven't even approached Final Fantasy XIII's greatest and most fundamental sin. * * *      "It starts to get good after about 12 hours," I said.    "Twelve hours? I can't believe you give that game such a huge by," said Lulu.    "It's not a by," I responded, lamely. She turned away. Zak looked at me. "I just know that if he sticks with it..."    She shook her head. "The fact that they can rely on that kind of loyalty --"    "...if he sticks with it -- I'm not talking to everybody, I'm talking to Zak -- he'll enjoy it." A few moments later: "You're right. It's a by." The biggest sin of Final Fantasy XIII is that the developers assume that once that disc slips into the drive, gamers are commited to seeing the ending credits. The developers assume that everybody wants so much to play this game that they will simply plod through it all. This sin is compounded by Square Enix's obvious, terrifying mandate to make the biggest, most popular Final Fantasy game since VII, and bring gamers into the fold who've never before been interested in the series. And it is complicated by their total misjudgment of the demands of today's audiences after years of increasing sophistication in games. * * * Let's play a game. No, not Final Fantasy XIII. Let's pretend that Final Fantasy XIII came out in December 2007, a year after the launch of the PlayStation 3, much as Final Fantasy X did in 2001 relative to the PlayStation 2's launch. And since we're already enmeshed in this fantastic scenario, let's take another little leap: let's pretend that the Xbox 360 never existed. Boy, Final Fantasy XIII seems pretty fucking excellent now, doesn't it? Yeah, it may not be the best game in the series, but I can't wait to see what these guys are going to do when they really come to grips with this next generation console technology! That's the world this game was made for. There were just some complications... * * * Thanks to Call of Duty, mainstream audiences of unparalleled size are getting used to the production style pioneered by Square Soft in the early '90s. These games are so complicated and huge, somebody thought, we ought to bootstrap a few teams and get them rolling into production simultaneously, so we can have a continuous flow of product for fans. At some point, this production process broke down. By the time of Final Fantasy XII's hideous and unprecedented delay, FF production was critically wounded; it has not recovered. Motomu Toriyama showed one deeply confusing screenshot of Final Fantasy XIII for the PlayStation 2 in his GDC presentation. I've privately been told by someone who'd know that the game was unconventional in a way that the Final Fantasy XIII that was manufactured and shipped to retailers is not. Something happened during the production of the unconventional, deeply flawed Final Fantasy XII to kill experimentation at Square Enix. Something happened during the troubled birth of Crystal Tools to complicate Final Fantasy XIII's production until a group of very intelligent and experienced developers were forced to pare down the design document to what would obviously and flawlessly function. In his GDC talk, the lead game designer of Assassin's Creed II, Patrick Plourde, talked about the production of the first game. Half an hour after he joked that "the Final Fantasy guys are probably the only others who face these problems" -- putting together a 30+ hour game with a team of hundreds, that is -- he explained that a separate team designed and implemented the assassination missions in the original Assassin's Creed. These missions were stapled onto the core game and, though they formed its primary gameplay objectives, they had nothing to do with its core gameplay. Ubisoft Montreal's production processes had been designed to produce different streams of content simultaneously and bolt them together at the end -- a method that was retained but completely rethought for production of its sequel. In a strange coincidence, Motomu Toriyama was sitting next to me during this presentation. * * * Most people who had anything to say about Final Fantasy XIII shortly after its release were those who were repulsed by early design decisions the team made about the game. And while I don't think production realities excuse a shitty game, they sure do explain it. If one thing's clear, it's that production ramped up on Final Fantasy XIII before there was a clear plan on how things were going to be bolted together. As Tim Rogers points out in his review, "A producer of Final Fantasy XIII explains that there was 'enough discarded content' from Final Fantasy XIII to make a whole other game. The 'content' in question is mainly levels -- game-play areas." He draws the correct inference: the production process for this game was so deeply flawed that artists were being paid to create content that the core creative team was unsure if it would have any use for, just to make them do something. As I explained to Zak and Lulu, the really bad part of Final Fantasy XIII is not, as many have said, the first two hours, in which you have no meaningful choices in combat and cannot earn Crystogen Points and so cannot level your characters. The worst part is also not the next five hours of the game, which establishes the core of the game's narrative premise and slowly and surely delivers its gameplay systems one after the other -- the tutorial. No, the worst part is between hours 8 to 14. This is the most vapid and superfluous part of Final Fantasy XIII. This is the painful and tedious point where the game has firmly established its core gameplay, its cast of characters, and then... refuses to give over. From the second half of the Gapra Whitewood to the end of the Sunleth Waterscape, Final Fantasy XIII is a tedious mess made by people who clearly don't understand what they're supposed to be doing. Here's my quick guide into making Final Fantasy XIII not suck shit. It'll sound pretty easy when I explain it. Immediately institute gameplay. Without changing the scenario at all, allow players to experiment with special abilities and raise levels in the Crystarium -- even allow them to raise the levels of the NORA troops Gadot and Lebreau, though the player won't ever use them again (notably, in the release, Gadot and Lebreau's HP are listed as ??? instead of numbers because they're NPCs.) Nobody will resent wasting this effort; certainly no more than they did being held back from experiencing gameplay for the first two hours of the game. By the time the party assembles for the battle against the Pulse Fal'Cie in the Pulse Vestige, they should have earned a few abilities in the Crystarium. (If there's one thing this game is spookily good at, it's balancing the distribution of CP as it effects gaining abilities and fighting boss battles, so I don't doubt the team could balance this well.) You don't have to unlock much, but just enough to give the player a sense he is making decisions: enough for advanced players to know what's in store and little enough for novices to stick with it. Remember, the novice audience wants to learn how to play your game. As the party escapes to Lake Bresha, lay on the tutorials, just as you did. There's a debate to be had here about teaching the player how to play the game by presenting challenges that require him to exercise the options at his fingertips -- remember that battle in Palumpolum which forces you to play the Sentinel role? like that -- but let's just assume we're not changing things that drastically. It'll work. The Vile Peaks proceed as normal, though perhaps the roles of some of the characters have to be tweaked. But here's the crucial difference. By the end of the Vile Peaks, the entire Crystarium must be unlocked and available to players. You have to be done with your lessons approximately... now. There's time for introductions to more advanced gameplay later, but the core: we're done. Here comes a tough part. Narratively, I don't see a way around having Hope and Lightning come to their own understanding in the Whitewood as Sazh and Vanille later do in the Sunleth Waterscape and Nautlius. A mix of cutscenes, structural changes, and judicious and much-needed cutting would have to happen here to make the game tolerable and well-paced. Get players to Palumpolum as fast as you can, and once the six party members gather in Hope's apartment for the game's first real climax, you've just delivered an adventuring party that will never be split up again. If you've balked at my earlier suggestion to unlock the Crystarium fully, now's when you really have to do it. You will never again force the party formation to follow the whims of the plot; that was annoying enough in the 16-bit days in what I would consider the most irritating game in the series, Final Fantasy VI, and it's excruciating now that we know other games actually give us a credible illusion of control. After Palumpolum, Palmecia. And after Palmecia, Gran Pulse. And in Gran Pulse, which we should get to much sooner, something besides mark hunts. "Something", in fact, like the second half of the game. "The answer is staring them right in the face. Gran Pulse should have been the World of Ruin. What were they thinking?" I said this out loud. It's very likely nobody else was in the room. * * * Let's talk core gameplay mechanics. I theorized, in December, that at some point there was a meeting in Square Enix's Shinjuku headquarters where things were decided that altered the course of Final Fantasy XIII's development profoundly. I'm not wrong, of course -- there were probably dozens of such meetings. But let's visualize this for a minute. Yoshinori Kitase, Motomu Toriyama, Yuji Abe, and the rest of the team is sitting at a conference table. The light is bright and fluorescent. There's stale coffee, 330 ml bottles of French spring water, and, since this is Japan, there might even be cigarette smoke hanging in the air. Production on Final Fantasy XIII is not, to put it lightly, going as planned. Crystal Tools is nothing like done. In the back of his mind, one of the men is wishing -- for not the first time and not the last -- that Matsuno's fucking team had got Final Fantasy XII out the door in time for FF13 to hit the PlayStation 2 before its market died, and that Crystal Tools could have been sorted out before production had begun on a next-generation title. Toriyama looks at Kitase. Kitase looks at Toriyama. "What are we going to do?" somebody asks. I tried, and failed, to write this scene with drama and snappy dialogue, but let's be fair: this is a Japanese office. One of the junior planners walks around the room handing out sheafs of stapled A4 paper to everybody. This is what they're going to do. They've identified the strenghts of the series: its characters and story, courtesy of Nomura, Toriyama, Kazushige Nojima and others; its battles -- thank Toshiro Tsuchida and Yuji Abe; its beautiful environments, Isamu Kamikokuryo; and the character leveling system, the Crystarium. Everything else is expendable -- it either has to be tied into the plot, or has to serve the purpose of getting this game out the door. When I talk about Final Fantasy XIII's battle system, I get excited. People can hear the excitement in my voice, and they get interested. I have actually seen this happen in real life. That's a measure not just of how much I care about the game and the series, but my genuine admiration for the level of execution of this absolutely core facet of the gameplay. Their plan almost worked -- or perhaps could have worked -- but it didn't. It fails in some very fundamental ways that mostly have to do with the developers' control and complacency. * * * Time for pure gameplay complaining: the Crystarium stinks. Let's do some comparing and contrasting and background here, since we might as well. At some point -- I guess Final Fantasy X -- the developers at Square Enix decided that traditional experience points / earn a level-style leveling systems were passe. I don't in the least bit blame them, since how you grow your characters is one of the best gameplay aspects of an RPG when handled correctly. The Sphere Grid, which was Final Fantasy X's stab at delivering that sort of gameplay, was compulsively addictive to me. It was essentially linear for a good portion of the game, but starting not terribly far in, you'd be forced to make decisions about what to unlock when, and how to balance your party, and soon after that what secondary sets of abilities you wanted your characters to develop. One of my absolute fondest memories of FFX is running in circles in Zanarkand raising levels for an entire day. Final Fantasy XII's leveling system, the License Board, is a pathetic thing, paltry and simple, trivial to exploit. It encourages you -- or at least it did me -- to rob your characters of any distinct identity and instead gravitate to what delivers the best advantage: my party were carbon copies of one another by the end of the game; bizarre hybrid mage-warriors with no trace of specialty nor identity. It's worth noting that when the game was rereleased in Japan, this entire gameplay mechanic was deleted and replaced with something new (called the Intenational Zodiac Job System, fuck knows what that is. I certainly don't care.) The Crystarium is not that bad. But it is not very good. I think one of the real flaws with it is that it's split into six: each role has its own distinct set of bonuses and abilities, because each role has to be defined within the context of the game's Paradigm System battles, which are in fact quite excellent. Unfortunately in concert with this, there's no freedom of movement, and your only decision-making process is which of the jobs you wish to raise first. But that complaint is really irrelevant compared to the real flaws in the system. The Crystarium is divided into levels, and levels are locked. They are not locked, as would be logical, until you complete one; they are locked until the arbitrary point in the game -- always after a boss battle -- where the developers deign to unlock the next stage of Crystarium growth. Frustratingly, too, in my experience, the game perfectly metes out experience points throughout so that you're just about ready to hit the next level of the Crystarium by the time you get it. This is one of the many things about playing Final Fantasy XIII that makes you feel like a rat in a maze. There's an ominous awareness of someone in control, just out of your field of view... And there is a severe and obvious flaw with this: gamers don't all enjoy games the way the developers intend them to. Gamers don't all enjoy games in the order developers intend them to. And gamers do not all enjoy games at the speed which developers intend them to. This is the first game in the series which does not allow for this, and that is a severe flaw. There are six potential roles for each character (pretentiously renamed in the U.S. version to Commando, Ravager, Medic, Saboteur, Synergist, and Sentinel from the readily comprehensible Attacker, Blaster, Healer, Jammer, Enhancer, and Defender.) However, for the first two thirds of the game, you aren't allowed to access any but the three the which the development team assigned to each character at its outset. The CP (Crystogen Points, or experience points) you earn are only enough to really concentrate on the three jobs you are given anyway. This, in fact, holds true for the whole game, including the last boss, unless you do a tremendously unpalatable amount of grinding, even when you have access to the other three jobs. This sucks out all player choice once again. Since you effectively can't raise optional jobs, since the CP costs are so astronomical, you can't really experiment with new party builds without swapping characters in and out to form the party you want. All I accomplished by trying to make Lightning a Saboteur was putting her behind Hope in primary job progress, and I quickly abandoned the idea. I got a slight benefit out of making Fang a low-level Synergist, but since you also only have six Paradigm slots this became irrelevant, too. There just wasn't room for that Paradigm. The worst aspect of the Crystarium, though, is that not every character gets every ability in every job. For example, as a Synergist, Fang gets Shellga and Protectga. I assumed Hope would earn access to these abilities soon after -- when his next Crystarium level unlocked. Nope. He never gets them -- ever -- and Synergist is one of his three primary jobs. Worse yet is that without consulting a FAQ, you'd never know this, so it's impossible to plan ahead for the ideal party without researching online -- and personally I like to avoid FAQs as much as I can. In the end, the Crystarium is just a linear leveling system in a Sphere Grid disguise, and it's probably my personal biggest disappointment with the game. Tim compared the game to busywork in his review, and it's not wrong -- by removing meaningful choice, the Crystarium has transitioned from a thoughtful system into something akin to stuffing envelopes. * * * All the same, when I look at the game, I'm more sympathetic to many of the mistakes the developers made because I came to the realization that they are tremendously determined to get players through this game, fully understanding its gameplay. And I also laud them for turning up the challenge at the point at which they believe players should fully understand it -- which is one of the most satisfying sections of the game, if not the most satisfying section -- the Battleship Palamecia. It's obvious that this is why the game is so drawn out, and derisively (though somewhat fairly) called a neverending tutorial by gamers. Gamers, for one reason and another, don't like to be condescended to, and this was a miscalculation on Square Enix's part. But it's not so simple as that. This isn't just about teaching novices to play the game. It's about making sure everybody gets it. Really, really gets it. This is necessary because with previous titles in the series, it was fully possible to get to the very end without understanding their gameplay. Not just possible, in fact, but likely. The most obvious culprit here is Final Fantasy VIII -- the game is complicated, more than a little broken, very abstract, and full of gameplay loopholes. On reading what people have had to say about it over the last 11+ years, I have certainly realized that I -- no newbie to Final Fantasy or RPGs in general by that point -- got to the end of the game without really understanding its gameplay in more than the most rudimentary way, and I was hardly alone in that. In fact, I never actually beat Final Fantasy VIII. I got to the last boss, but I never did defeat her. Let's go back to that word "abstract". When it comes to core gameplay, RPGs are the most abstracted of all established game genres. In a shooter, you shoot someone; he dies. You physically move the aiming reticule over a target; you pull a shoulder button like a trigger. It's simple. Game developers are forever adding abstract, complex gameplay elements to titles of all genres, because the kinds of people who buy Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games enjoy these abstractions. Only RPGs are build their foundations on them. Even relatively simple concepts like "equipment" tend to be so complicated by either special abilities or innumerable choices that they lose a great deal of their concreteness. There's the famous example, of course, of Dean Takahashi's review of the original Mass Effect -- in which he forgot to level Shepard. Dean is not a stupid guy. At this year's GDC, Peter Molyneux said that Microsoft research indicated that more than 60 percent of the Fable audience understood less than 50 percent of the series' gameplay. Fable is not as popular as Final Fantasy. The answer that BioWare and Lionhead have posed to these problems is to streamline the everliving fuck out of Mass Effect 2 and Fable III. The Final Fantasy XIIIdevelopment team tried that, too. However, where the paths diverge is that the Western teams have gone to great lengths to make their gameplay systems concrete. ME2 is a full-on shooter; Fable III doesn't have levels anymore: you gain followers, and that power is reflected visually by your character. Instead of moving towards action or something else easier to understand, Final Fantasy XIII completely retained an abstracted, command input-based tactical battle system with text and gauges and jobs and hit points -- they just tried to teach players to use it. As a hardcore gamer who loves abstraction (and in particular loves this battle system) I sure do appreciate it. But it's easy to argue that Square Enix is going both against the grain of the collective wisdom of the industry and also working against the mainstream audience they want to cultivate. One solution -- and I'm not even sure this is precisely intentional on BioWare's part, but if it is, it's genius -- would be to split Final Fantasy into hardcore nerdy and open and casual variants, in the same way Mass Effect and Dragon Age compliment each other. No significant number of BioWare otaku who want the D&D-inspired bollocks of Dragon Age's gameplay resent Mass Effect 2's simplicity. And they will buy every scrap of Dragon Age content thrown to them, and most of them will buy Mass Effect, too. Like i said, if this is intentional, it's pure fucking genius and probably what I most respect BioWare for right now. I've talked to a guy online -- a smart enough guy, an adult and avid gamer, who got to the end of Final Fantasy X without understanding the Sphere Grid and couldn't beat Sin. Despite my problems with FFVIII, this never occurred to me, simply because I understood FFX so well. And, more troublingly, I know a guy online who's gotten past the point in Final Fantasy XIII where the developers assume you understand the game and just throw everything at you -- far past, with the help of strategy guides and a level of perseverence that's difficult to credit but so refreshing to see -- and I'm not quite sure he really gets it. He certainly can't reliably execute it. Because of the tight control over the Crystarium he can't grind his way out of tight spots; because of the developers' faith that their style of teaching players how to play is adequate, he has to resort to following online strategies. Even the official guide isn't enough. So as much as I like the impetus of teaching novices to understand Final Fantasy -- because how else are you going to convert them into fans like me who live, breathe, and love JRPG gameplay? -- I don't think Square Enix pulled it off. And worse, they alienated a good chunk of their existing audience by making it sit through kindergarten, or as I like to call the beginning of the game, Disc 0 (think about this in PlayStation 1 FF terms and you'll get it.) * * * So while I'm on the subject of gameplay, let's keep this going and talk about the fucking battle system already. The best -- if not most appealing -- way I can think of to explain the Paradigm Shift system is that, in a regular FF battle system, you were the grill team in the McDonalds kitchen, all working to produce the meal. In FF13, you've been promoted to manager. Rather than making the same, repetitive individual decisions moment-to-moment, you control the overall flow of battle via the Paradigms. Once the system gets cooking, you get the same intense and strategic push-pull of a traditional turn-based battle system in maybe one fifth of the time. So each Paradigm you set up, to back up a bit, is a party build. Each character has three jobs (let's say three, because as I discussed, five or six is a lie and even four is pushing it.) Your job is to switch between Paradigms which offer the most effective mix of jobs (and thus, skills) for current battle situations -- you become the mini-general, flipping your troops' jobs around. And it's not just that you must tell them what (generally) to do; you also have to be mindful of how their skills compliment each other. That's before you take into account enemy behavior. To say that the battle system is challenging and addictive would be an understatement -- this is the compulsive and most highly polished aspect of the gameplay, bar-none. The problem is that it doesn't fucking get that way until the aforementioned Palamecia section... like 15 hours into the game. Sigh. But once it kicks in, it's fucking kicked in for the whole rest of the game; smacking the everloving shit out of the last boss was a highly amusing pleasure. There's also the extremely fast pace to laud, and also the strange but addictive process of Staggering enemies. Until you Stagger an enemy, damage is negligible, and you need to hit them with both physical attacks and magic to make them Stagger. This really is the way in which the Paradigm Shift system is unified with basic damage dealing, you see, and the icing is the game's maniacal reliance on buffs and debuffs later on to add another layer of tension and make your finger itch on the L1 button as you shift Paradigms compulsively. This is the good shit. This is where it's at. And when you Stagger (or Break) -- I definitely prefer the Japanese version's "Break", it's more forceful, more aesthetically appealing -- So when you BREAK an enemy, there's a skill called Launch that the Commando class gets which throws the fucker up into the air. When the enemy is up in the air it can't do jack shit -- it can't attack you at all, and just wriggles helplessly. This is so super fucking satsifying that I can't even articulate it. It makes me giggle. And to answer one of the questions Tim raised in his review of the game, yes, it's inherently satisfying to see giant fucking numbers (representing damage) pop out of enemies when you hit them. Of this I have not the least shred of doubt. * * * Let's talk about the whole NO TOWNS thing. The game does not fucking need towns. Towns would not solve this game's problems. The whole towns thing reminds me of people talking about Steven Spielberg's A.I. A lot of people didn't like the saccharine ending of the film and said that the movie should have ended with David staring at the Blue Angel, implicitly forever. No -- that would have just been a different shitty ending. In the same vein, stapling some classic-style towns to Final Fantasy XIII would not solve anything. What people who are asking for towns are asking for are two things, and one of them is valid and one of them is bullshit. 1. Give me what the series has always had, because I am old and I fear change. (Bullshit.) 2. Give me something that would improve the game's pacing, and add agency and variety. (Correct.) Let me be clear: I have no interest in seeing towns come back to Final Fantasy as towns were once executed in the series, that's for sure. But something needs to come in -- a solution must be devised. The bit where you chase the Chocobo chick through Nautilus: that was simple, and stupid, but fun. The way I much more miss towns, in all honesty, is that so many of the cutscenes in this game feature people just stopping in some corridor in some dungeon and having a conversation, and the context they do this in has absolutely nothing to do with that conversation, and it starts to feel extremely false and disconnected from any sense of reality. This is to be avoided scrupulously in future games in the series, in my opinion, and one of the ways to do that is to make sure that the important story sequences are context-driven. And to have context-driven story you need, well, a fucking context. Obviously. Things like towns are meaningful. Giant blue glowing forests, while totally fucking awesome for smacking the shit out of rampaging biological experiments in, are not so great for having a conversation about your dead mom. * * * One particularly notable object lesson in this is the segment of the game which takes place in Palumpolum. The game goes from romps through attractive but irrelevant video game backdrops to a struggle against fate in a city populated by civilians. Context comes flooding in to illustrate concepts that were so recently abstract. There's an army, there are buildings that make sense, there's the whole scenario with Hope's dad in his apartment. Things just gel fabulously here in a way that totally makes sense, and stands in stark contrast to the last several hours of the game. The Hanging Edge. Gapra Whitewood. Sunleth Waterscape. No. Vile Peaks. The Fifth Ark. Kind of; good enough. Nautilus. Palumpolum. The Palmecia. Eden. Yes. * * * Let's talk about the characters and story. The Final Fantasy series has been pretty hit or miss when it comes to antagonists. This game is pretty much a miss. It's really not until the last fucking battle that you begin to get a real understanding for what actually drives the antagonist, who is an Old Man In A Dress, the Fantasy Pope -- which is a lazy cliche, while I'm complaining -- to push your party around, try to kill them, et cetera. This is what I like to call a Big Fucking Mistake. Until then, you're confronted with the fact that he's just a floating asshole who pushes you around and lies to you. It's easy to see why the characters dislike him, but as the player, it's not so easy to feel strongly about it. Also he's a big stupid monster / god thing, really, it turns out, of course. And I found this particularly boring because, oddly enough, the real world's Evil Old Man In A Dress has been in the news a lot lately. And he has been implicated in multiple coverups involving child molesters. And while the whole complicated tale is heartbraking and infuriating, it's also a human story, one that has real heft and weight: I'm more interested in taking my band of adventurers to Rome and knocking Cardinal Ratfucker out of his Prada loafers with a hail of Blizzagas than spitting on Primarch Dysley, FF13's antagonist. Think about that rich and complicated story of venality, ambition, insensitivity, and arrogance and compare it with what motivates FF13's Pope, which is "I'm a god, but I don't like being a god that much." Right. That said, stories of gods pushing humans around don't have to suck. I mean, we have the whole pantheons of Greek and Norse mythologies, and those are just the ones I am immediately familiar with as a white nerd. Those are some fucking interesting gods. And beyond that I can think of examples from fantasy like Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief series, or Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books, or Diana Wynne Jones, or Neil Gaiman. These gods have many of the same qualities of the Fal'Cie -- aloof, manipulative -- but they're used effectively. That's because the action of the story rests on the decisions of the people, even when the gods command; FF13 does, to its credit, try to do that, too, but it doesn't come together until the end. Let's detour quickly into "Fal'Cie." We already have a word for gods, and it's "gods". Bad fantasy overuses superflous terminology like Fal'Cie that obscures both the meaning and, to my mind, seriousness of its story, and this is a prime offender. I have a theory that Japanese people are more willing to accept bullshit katakana terminology because their language is full of it -- bear in mind that everyday concepts like Personal Computer and Digital Camera and Internet and Sony PlayStation are all made up fantasy words to the Japanese, more or less, and it seems easier to understand why their games are full of them. Then again Dragon Age has shit like the Grey Wardens and (gag) Darkspawn, which sound just as bad to me. It's a problem. Fantasy people: restrain thyselves. One of the really frustrating things about this game is another aspect of the Disc 0 problem I alluded to earlier. It really, really extends to the development of the characters. Plenty of people I've talked to (aka The Whole of the Internets) really hate Snow, Hope, and Vanille. I do not hate them. But I can understand it, because for the first chunk of the game, they are boring do-nothing characters. Contrast the Sazh who stumbles around the Hanging Edge with the one who talks about his son, Dahj, in Sunleth Waterscape and Nautilus. In my opinion, Hope's problems make sense, and he begins to speak and act intelligently and with conviction earlier on. But Vanille is in a way the linchpin of the plot, or many of its mysteries, and you have no bloody idea until way too far into the game. There's a reason she's narrating the thing, folks. Snow, well... Snow can't really get into gear until he and Hope have it out, and thanks to the game's shitty pacing, that just takes far too long. Someone I know said "the plot seems like it's always an hour away from getting good", and that's apt. I've also heard it said that the text Datalog entries add necessary details to flesh out what's going on -- and that's true not in terms of understanding events (I had no problems) but it's very true in terms of shading. In the end, I'm not wild about the cast. They're not as sympathetic as the Final Fantasy X crew, somehow. I felt for them, but not strongly. I think the context problem I wrote about -- Talking In Dungeons -- and the boring antagonist help screw them up. The lack of a real focused main character (aka Final Fantasy VI-itis) is also a problem. Lightning never comes to life as a character -- she's an idea of a character, a representation, a simulacrum. She's fascinating to watch in motion and she spits out some great lines -- love her attitude -- but there's no her. Sazh, on the other hand, is dependable and sympathetic, and one of the only in the party capable of surprising you with his actions. How in the fuck did Japan deliver the one of the first truly rounded and sympathetic black characters in a game (and deliver him with a Chocobo chick in his afro, and make it work?) Talk about an unexpected triumph. Snow is a stock character. Snow is not a badly-written version of that character, but he does not exceed those bounds enough to become fully three-dimensional. He's important to the story, though, and I forgive it. He's kind of like this game's Wakka, with a role that exceeds his depth, yet somehow a less interesting conflict to resolve within himself. I had thought Hope was going to be a Shinji-type character, but he's really not, or not for very long. He's a believable adolescent; his background really comes into play for his character in ways I didn't anticipate (observations easier for me to make, perhaps, because he's the one I identified with most.) You can tell he's well-educated though he never really talks about it much; later you see he's a child of privelege who grew up in the big city, and his attitude and demeanor makes sense. Characterization Success Get! He acts in ways that are logical, and if anybody sells the whole Fal'Cie/l'Cie thing, in the whole cast, it's Hope -- through both his reactions to the situation and his knowledge. Vanille... is a conundrum. First up, she's the worst character design Nomura has shit out since... Irvine Kinneas? Long time. Part of that's a cultural Japan/America thing, and part of that's a borderline misogynist "girl skipping around in a short dress is tough to take seriously" thing, let's face it... but part of it is that she has just a hideous outfit and ridiculous hair. Even Hope looks like he's dressed to walk around a bit. She... well, it'd be an okay outfit for a summertime date. If she didn't expect to have to sit down and get hit in the back with that... beaded... thing, that is. When her role in the story becomes apparent, though, suddenly she's really interesting. I can't think of another character in an RPG who lies so much, and for such believable reasons. Usually RPG characters only lie because they're Secretly On The Other Side or whatever -- normal fantasy turncoat bullshit. That's it. You know, totally unlike real people, who lie all the time with both good and bad intentions. Not so, Vanille. And Fang is kind of dumb but she looks awesome, is gorgeous, kicks ass, has a rockin' Australian accent, and is just generally too much fun to not love. And you can easily pretend she's a lesbian. The game's real strength, though, is the dynamics of the characters -- their interactions. Lightning and Hope. Hope and Snow. Sazh and Vanille. Vanille and Fang. Japanese writers seem to have a facility for group dynamics and this frequently shines through in FF13's story more than the actual plot point that's occuring. * * * Chris Hecker has warned us that if we're not careful, games will become like comic books. What he's talking about is cultural ghettoization. I think we're already there -- we're just there at a profitable scale for a wide audience, unlike comics. And in many cases we're at an even bigger disadvantage -- it's much more challenging, and at times impossible, to step out of your preferred genres and either enjoy or comprehend the games. The FF13 solution, as I already outlined, was to teach people to enjoy it. Sure, Square Enix was less than fully successful there (though the guy who I spoke about who's struggling loved the game so much -- his first JRPG ever -- that he kept at it, and has pushed through the points where he was stuck, and even crossed over into JRPG fan territory by buying the CD soundtrack!) But I digress. My brain has been programmed by long exposure to love the JRPG genre. The experience of playing genre-based games is to gradually understand them more. As long as the games are good, your accumulated knowledge makes them more enjoyable. Hell, even mediocre games in a genre that you like and understand tend to be somewhat entertaining, because they lightly caress those synapses. Your decisions are driven by your tastes, but your tastes are reinforced by repeated exposure, until you start to think about buying games you think look terrible because they have good aspects -- for example, Eternal Sonata, which I though about buying I don't know how many times before I finally gave up on the idea. Its adorable vapidity repulsed me too much to sit through just to experience a battle system which looks pretty nifty. One thing I love most about the JRPG genre is its visual panache, and one thing that the deveopers of Final Fantasy XIII prioritized beyond perhaps all else is delivering those visuals. They are stunning. The character animations in battle and exploration are excellent, the scenes burst with detail, the environments are eye-catching and complex and unexpected. The amount of art generated for this game is nuts -- especially because that's the most expensive part of current generation game production. When I saw Lake Bresha for the first time in December, I said -- out loud -- "this is why I bought a PlayStation 3" and I was not kidding. There was my $600, three years later, right there. When I had the chance to speak to him, I even brought Lake Bresha up with Toriyama, and here's what he said: That body of water you were mentioning is crystallized, and technically it's very difficult to create something that's basically half see-through to bring that frozen effect. So it's not only that artistic vision, but it's also providing that technical expertise to create that; and that's something that really sets us apart from other developers. Other developers I don't think can really create that. You know what? It sounds arrogant, but the blend of techniques, aesthetics, and Japanese orientation to detail represented by Final Fantasy XIII is unmatched this generation. This game is a visual masterpiece. Sure, it's not subtle; The Lost Guardian is going to be more refined. But FF13 can encompass so much about what's great about current generation visuals in one game: it brings in elements of all genres and all aesthetics and blends them together and makes them work, stunningly, and in realtime. And that was something I could always fall back on and enjoy, because it's something I love. And that's what being a genre fan means. Tragically, so much of the most beautiful, exciting content is saved for late in the game. The developers just presume you'll get to Gran Pulse and see its impressive vistas. What if you get bored and sell the game before then? I don't think that thought crossed anybody's mind. That. Is. Fucking. Nuts. The same goes for the game's soundtrack: Masahi Hamauzu, long relegated to Square's B-titles, does a fantastic job here. Yes, it hews close to the aesthetics that have been long established in the genre. A friend of mine, whose music taste I respect a great deal, called it terrible. I got really annoyed. But it's hard to see something like this the way he might: not as a fan of JRPG soundtracks, but as a fan of music. I actually have plenty I could say about the topic in its defense, but that's for another time: it's enough for me to put out that, in another aspect of its conventionality, this game excels. * * * Though all games don't feature strong narrative elements, I think it might be true that games are a unique medium because they are both complex software systems and content-driven media. Together, they forge a context. It's an important tenet of fantasy writing to be embroiled in worldbuilding, of course, but games literally build the worlds they describe. One of the problems that complicates both creating and reviewing games is that they are both software and media. To create software is to create function; to create media is to create feeling. The place where things get interesting is in where these two aims, which don't have a hell of a lot to do with each other, intersect. When they diverge too obviously, pain lies. In a narrative-driven game, both the story-related events and the gameplay systems are expected to come together -- and when it works, this combination is more satisfying than either element would be alone. This dual strength allows you to forgive the flaws. Though game stories are routinely, and not unfairly, criticized for the fact that they would be dissatisfying as a linear narrative (say, a movie) I also think it's valid, and I feel comfortable saying, that the intersection point is what allows games to become more than the sum of their parts. I fully believe this. Games are satisfying because they are a synthesis. They may rountely be a clumsy synthesis in 2010, but their success is still built on this. This is not an argument against games striving to improve both in narrative and play contexts, but it explains, to me at least, my immense satisfaction with flawed experiences and failed experiments. By the time you put it to bed, Final Fantasy XIII proves both that its story is functional and its gameplay is sound. But unfortunately there is a continuous shifting and even breakdown of forged context for a great deal of the adventure. What it's trying to accomplish keeps changing. The game has something like an act structure -- not as most narrative media does because the characters make decisions that propel them forward, but because it's assembled from parts and the seams are visible. The hand of the creators is all too evident in this work, and this is even worse than it could be because it's clear the hand is shaking. And that brings us back to the fundamental problem with FF13, and, finally, to the end of this text. The team have erred seriously in their assumption that players will simply, left with no other option, like the game. Their assumption is that players will, by the end, understand the game; their assumption that, in doing so, players will inevitably care about the game's content. It always comes back to that, in every facet. I would argue that it would be ridiculous to assume someone who doesn't like what Final Fantasy has to offer should or could be catered to by a Final Fantasy title. I can't play Madden just to enjoy what it does well despite a near-total lack of interest or understanding of football. I will never develop an appreciation for Halomultiplayer, even if I can understand what makes it so compelling to so many. I don't really care to try, frankly. That attitude, which I think is common, is an important part of what makes games a tough medium to create in. Even if you allow, as you should, that the game is made for an audience that could potentially enjoy it, Final Fantasy XIII takes this assumption too much to heart, and in doing so severely tries the patience and, some would say, insults the intelligence of its audience. That is a profoundly dangerous place to go and a precipice the developers absolutely must back away from. Final Fantasy XIII For PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Released: March 9, 2010 Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Square Enix Three stars out of five

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Why are custom vinyl records popular In Australia, Where to get one?

Nostalgic rise of vinyl records

Salutes, audiophiles! The rise of the digital age streaming to listening to songs anywhere and anytime is the gold standard. But have you thought about why custom vinyl records still finding their feet again in the modern day?

Vinyl printing goes way back to the 1890s, and it’s an antique music format. Vinyl records were the only thing playing in peoples’ homes until later in the 80s, CDs and cassette tapes took over. But vinyl doesn’t fade away. It slowly slithered into the sales charts in 2006 and kept going up as years went by.

In 2020, the Australian music industry reported that CD album sales dropped more than 15% in Australia. In contrast, sales of custom vinyl records go through the roof more than 30%, as new artists started releasing their albums in the classic premium format as an alternative to digital streams, and labels continued to release collector editions of the vinyl.

At this juncture, it’s much more than a nostalgia boom. Insiders of the music industry predicted that custom record vinyl in Australia surpassed CDs this year for the first time.

Unlike modern digital with flat and loud audio, vinyl records have a unique sound. The analogue output makes vinyl unique. Traditionally vinyl records Melbourne can deliver a sound close to the authentic recording without sorrowing from digital compression in the studio.

Regardless, vinyl is expensive to store, produce and sell. Making everything accessible and affordable to many indie artists to release handsome and quirky custom vinyl records in Australia, it appears like it won’t vanish ever.

Why vinyl records and custom vinyl pressing are popular in Melbourne?

For vinyl lovers, the action of setting a record on, carefully removing the vinyl record from the sleeve, positioning it on the turntable and gently lowering the needle in the right trough is a more diligent and conservative way of amusing music.

The simple answer would be the increasing interest in the people to switch to the traditional way of listening to music. Thanks to pandemics, bored people stuck in homes developed an interest in this format.

Vinyl printing industries produce extraordinary merchandise that people love to bring home something valuable after a concert. Custom vinyl pressing records can be multi-coloured and mono-coloured. Multi-coloured undoubtedly looks incredible, like the ripple, splash, and marble designs.

Many things provoked the interest in custom vinyl records in Australia, but let me list a few of them.

An active vinyl experience:

Imagine yourself hunting in flea markets, Walmarts, local records stores, or tag sales with excitement spending hours, searching through stacks, recalling memories from the covers you see, asking people their opinions and making friends with them.

Carrying the vinyl record with the cover case, placing it on a turntable, positioning the needle on the groove, sitting comfortably with a joyful drink and letting music echo throughout the room will take you to a baffling level of happiness.

Better listening experience:

Modern-day music streaming is readily available online at your fingertips, and a vinyl record can only listen to a vinyl player by choosing a vinyl collection.

Vinyl records give listeners a better soothing warm sound than the new audio format mixed in the studio. The artwork is something to ponder on to appreciate while listening to the album.

High-quality warm sound:

Most audiences will deny the quality of sound from vinyl records, but it’s all about preferences; the sound is a spectrum of frequencies, vinyl tends to deliver the broadest range of frequencies due to the analogue production process.

But as the trend switches, most audiophiles prefer to release on vinyl records Melbourne. Although vinyl records have high-quality sound, fans still believe it’s part and parcel of authentic vinyl printing.

Better investment and collectables:

Unlike online streaming music sites that are licenced music, they charge you monthly subscription fees. On the other hand, vinyl records can be collectable and owned. With rising interest in buying, collecting, and selling vinyl records, collectors are starting to see its vast untapped potential as a good investment and grow exponentially with time.

The vinyl records are precious relics for fans. Die-hard fans love collecting things and other merchandise from their favourite celebrities, especially limited edition vinyl. Vinyl records are great collectable storage of good music.

Vinyl never lost fans:

Given the technical advancements in the music industry, vinyl records should have been bygone long ago. But the fans in the community have kept alive the modern resurgence of traditional medium. The audience buying vinyl is under 35, yet vinyl sales have steadily expanded over the past 14 years.

Vinyl fans tend to hang out and connect with music fanatics and other audiophiles. Often listening to albums together, getting to know them and sharing ideas with similar taste in music.

Custom vinyl pressing for short-runs:

Another important reason you must reach out to a vinyl pressing plant is to have your custom vinyl pressing done. These short-run custom vinyl pressings offered by pressing plants have helped indie artists discover their dream of releasing in this format.

Custom vinyl pressing plants are very helpful because there is no minimum order to meet and offer lower cost to pay. It is pleasing for new independent artists to uplift their talent with small run vinyl pressing melbourne.

Numerous signed and indie artists are releasing vinyl albums:

Comebacks of vinyl records have pushed famous artists to release singles and albums in this expensive format. Widespread artists like Billie Elish, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Dua lipa even Australian musician Paul Kelly released their latest albums on custom vinyl records.

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Visual wise custom vinyl records are worth collecting; this is what makes custom vinyl records more generic, personalized and having their own identity. Impress vinyl is a custom vinyl record in Australia that produces custom made inner-sleeves, jackets and vinyl records.

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The bottom line is that vinyl is incredible, and it is not that difficult to produce custom vinyl records anymore. Custom vinyl pressing in Australia is well equipped to deliver top-notch hassle-free vinyl packaging. Impress vinyl experts wraps your music from the labels to grooves with different records and eye-catchy designs with instant pricing. Speak to our vinyl experts today to create beautiful vinyl records.

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This Microsoft office for mac 2011 is only compatible with Mac OS X 10.5.8 users or for the more the 10.5.8 version. Below this version of the mac os, it won’t support to install this Microsoft to install or for the further use this Microsoft version was released on 22nd day of the month of September in the year of 2010. And the Microsoft company was started for selling this Microsoft Office for Mac from the October and in the year of 2010.

The first variant of Mac OS X was Mac OS X Server 1.0. Macintosh OS X Server 1.0 – 1.2v3 depended on Rhapsody, a half and half of OPENSTEP from NeXT Computer and Mac OS 8.5.1. The GUI resembled a blend of Mac OS 8’s Platinum appearance with OPENSTEP’s NeXT-based interface. It incorporated a runtime layer called Blue Box for running inheritance Mac OS-based applications inside a different window. There was the talk of executing a ‘straightforward blue box’ which would intermix Mac OS applications with those composed for Rhapsody’s Yellow Box condition, yet this would not occur until Mac OS X’s Classic condition. Apple File Services, Macintosh Manager, QuickTime Streaming Server, WebObjects, and NetBoot were incorporated with Mac OS X Server 1.0 – 1.2v3. It couldn’t utilize FireWire gadgets.

The basic main system Requirements for the Microsoft office 2011 for Mac are given below.

OS X version 10.5.8 or later

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HFS+ hard disk format (also known as Mac OS Extended or HFS Plus)

1280 x 800 or higher resolution monitor

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Office 365 is designed to work with the latest browsers and versions of Office. If you use older browsers and versions of Office that are not in mainstream support:

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• Microsoft won’t deliberately prevent you from connecting to the service, but the quality of your Office 365 experience may diminish over time.

• Microsoft won’t provide code fixes to resolve non-security related problems.

In many ways, what you actually pay for when you legally purchase a copy of Microsoft Office is the product key (sometimes referred to as a CD key or key code, or incorrectly as the serial number. This unique number is required during the installation of Microsoft office os. So, even if you did find an OS Office download, you would still need a valid OS product key to install and use Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac.

Earlier all the six versions of Microsoft Office 2011 when they were launched they were only supposed to launch these all in the USD prices and then after they used to launch in the Indian market in the currency of the Indian rupees. In the month of September and in the year of 2006 the USD prices of Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac was released by certain retail channels of the internet as well as on the radio. And all these six variants of Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac were downloaded from the various Microsoft market places. And in the retail shop, they were providing in the low-cost because all retailers sold Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac service pack 1 and provided the facility of upgrading to a higher version of Service Pack using software updates.

At this time, the only legal way of obtaining a Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac is from a legal purchase of the operating system. Contact Microsoft for a replacement Microsoft Office of Mac Setup CD, assuming you can show proof of purchase. If you own a major-brand MacBook Air and MacBook pro you could also have luck contacting them directly for a replacement Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac.

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The best benefit all versions of Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac is that it is the best operating system to help and secure your MacBook, your data, and your family from programs that contain viruses and other harmful code that can cause your MacBook to perform incorrectly and cause damage to data and corruption. More benefits of using Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac includes Instant Search, Complete MacBook Backup and Restore, organize support including area join, and the Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac SuperFetch program that stores essential programs in the RAM so that it becomes easier to access them when required on time.

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Microsoft Office 2011 includes more robust enterprise support and greater feature parity with the Windows edition. Its interface is now more similar to Office 2007 and 2010 for Windows, with the addition of the ribbon Support for visual basic for application macros, has returned after having been dropped in Office 2008. Purchasing the Home Premium version of Office for Mac will not allow telephone support automatically to query any problems with the VBA interface. There are, however, apparently, according to Microsoft Helpdesk, some third-party applications that can address problems with the VBA interface with Office for Mac.

In addition, Office 2011 supports online collaboration tools such as One Drive and Office Web Apps, allowing Mac and Windows users to simultaneously edit documents over the web. It also includes limited support for Apple’s high-density Retina Display, allowing the display of sharp text and images, although most icons within applications themselves are not optimized for this.

A new version of Microsoft Outlook, written using Mac OS X’s Cocoa API, returns to the Mac for the first time since 2001 and has full support for Microsoft exchange server 2007. It replaces entourage, which was included in Office 2001, X, 2004 and 2008 for Mac.

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Why are custom vinyl records popular In Australia, Where to get one?

Nostalgic rise of vinyl records

Salutes, audiophiles! The rise of the digital age streaming to listening to songs anywhere and anytime is the gold standard. But have you thought about why custom vinyl records still finding their feet again in the modern day?

Vinyl printing goes way back to the 1890s, and it’s an antique music format. Vinyl records were the only thing playing in peoples’ homes until later in the 80s, CDs and cassette tapes took over. But vinyl doesn’t fade away. It slowly slithered into the sales charts in 2006 and kept going up as years went by.

In 2020, the Australian music industry reported that CD album sales dropped more than 15% in Australia. In contrast, sales of custom vinyl records go through the roof more than 30%, as new artists started releasing their albums in the classic premium format as an alternative to digital streams, and labels continued to release collector editions of the vinyl.

At this juncture, it’s much more than a nostalgia boom. Insiders of the music industry predicted that custom vinyl records in Australia surpassed CDs this year for the first time.

Unlike modern digital with flat and loud audio, vinyl records have a unique sound. The analogue output makes vinyl unique. Traditionally vinyl records Melbourne can deliver a sound close to the authentic recording without sorrowing from digital compression in the studio.

Regardless, vinyl is expensive to store, produce and sell. Making everything accessible and affordable to many indie artists to release handsome and quirky custom vinyl records in Australia, it appears like it won’t vanish ever.

Why vinyl records and custom vinyl pressing are popular in Melbourne?

For vinyl lovers, the action of setting a record on, carefully removing the vinyl record from the sleeve, positioning it on the turntable and gently lowering the needle in the right trough is a more diligent and conservative way of amusing music.

The simple answer would be the increasing interest in the people to switch to the traditional way of listening to music. Thanks to pandemics, bored people stuck in homes developed an interest in this format.

Vinyl printing industries produce extraordinary merchandise that people love to bring home something valuable after a concert. Custom vinyl pressing records can be multi-coloured and mono-coloured. Multi-coloured undoubtedly looks incredible, like the ripple, splash, and marble designs.

Many things provoked the interest in custom vinyl records in Australia, but let me list a few of them.

An active vinyl experience:

Imagine yourself hunting in flea markets, Walmarts, local records stores, or tag sales with excitement spending hours, searching through stacks, recalling memories from the covers you see, asking people their opinions and making friends with them.

Carrying the vinyl record with the cover case, placing it on a turntable, positioning the needle on the groove, sitting comfortably with a joyful drink and letting music echo throughout the room will take you to a baffling level of happiness.

Better listening experience:

Modern-day music streaming is readily available online at your fingertips, and a vinyl record can only listen to a vinyl player by choosing a vinyl collection.

Vinyl records give listeners a better soothing warm sound than the new audio format mixed in the studio. The artwork is something to ponder on to appreciate while listening to the album.

High-quality warm sound:

Most audiences will deny the quality of sound from vinyl records, but it’s all about preferences; the sound is a spectrum of frequencies, vinyl tends to deliver the broadest range of frequencies due to the analogue production process.

But as the trend switches, most audiophiles prefer to release on vinyl records Melbourne. Although vinyl records have high-quality sound, fans still believe it’s part and parcel of authentic vinyl printing.

Better investment and collectables:

Unlike online streaming music sites that are licenced music, they charge you monthly subscription fees. On the other hand, vinyl records can be collectable and owned. With rising interest in buying, collecting, and selling vinyl records, collectors are starting to see its vast untapped potential as a good investment and grow exponentially with time.

The vinyl records are precious relics for fans. Die-hard fans love collecting things and other merchandise from their favourite celebrities, especially limited edition vinyl. Vinyl records are great collectable storage of good music.

Vinyl never lost fans:

Given the technical advancements in the music industry, vinyl records should have been bygone long ago. But the fans in the community have kept alive the modern resurgence of traditional medium. The audience buying vinyl is under 35, yet vinyl sales have steadily expanded over the past 14 years.

Vinyl fans tend to hang out and connect with music fanatics and other audiophiles. Often listening to albums together, getting to know them and sharing ideas with similar taste in music.

Custom vinyl pressing for short-runs:

Another important reason you must reach out to a vinyl pressing plant is to have your custom vinyl pressing done. These short-run custom vinyl pressings offered by pressing plants have helped indie artists discover their dream of releasing in this format.

Custom vinyl pressing plants are very helpful because there is no minimum order to meet and offer lower cost to pay. It is pleasing for new independent artists to uplift their talent with small run vinyl pressing.

Numerous signed and indie artists are releasing vinyl albums:

Comebacks of vinyl records have pushed famous artists to release singles and albums in this expensive format. Widespread artists like Billie Elish, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Dua lipa even Australian musician Paul Kelly released their latest albums on custom vinyl records.

Other struggling artists will be inspired to do vinyl pressing for their subsequent albums and contributes to the vouge of modern-day vinyl.

Top-notch customizable vinyl records:

Visual wise custom vinyl records are worth collecting; this is what makes custom vinyl records more generic, personalized and having their own identity. Impress vinyl is a custom vinyl record in Australia that produces custom made inner-sleeves, jackets and vinyl records.

Custom vinyl pressing offers more options designs with leaves, glitters, glass, ice, moving liquid or just coloured water, anything of your choice you can have.

The bottom line is that vinyl is incredible, and it is not that difficult to produce custom vinyl records anymore. Custom vinyl pressing in Australia is well equipped to deliver top-notch hassle-free vinyl packaging. Impress vinyl experts wraps your music from the labels to grooves with different records and eye-catchy designs with instant pricing. Speak to our vinyl experts today to create beautiful vinyl records.