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redbladereviewing · 4 years

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Shadow the Hedgehog: More Tragic than Edgy

Sonic the Hedgehog is one of my favorite franchises. Not because of its fast momentum based platforming or rockin’ soundtrack across all its games, but because of its large cast of iconic and recognizable characters and the stories they tell. Whether it’s the classic squad of Tails, Knuckles, Amy Rose, or the comic characters like Bunny Rabbot from Archie or Whisper and Tangle from IDW, or even the mad scientist Dr. Eggman and his humorously dark schemes, the cast of Sonic is what helps make the franchise so iconic. However, one character of the cast holds a strong and special place in my heart. A character that has a lot of strong tragedy attached to him, yet still remains strong of heart and soul. A character that so many writers have failed to understand despite him being pretty easy to figure out. That character (which you already know since it’s in the title of this blog) is Shadow the Hedgehog.

Shadow was created on the Space Colony ARK, a secret government science and research station in space, as part of Project Shadow. The purpose of Project Shadow was to act as the first step in achieving immortality, by creating a creature that could be immune to any disease and act as a base for cures to be created from. The project was led by Gerald Robotnik, the grandfather of Dr. Eggman. His purpose for running this project was to create a cure for his granddaughter Maria, who was sick with Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome (basically AIDS). The project required Gerald to research into the Chaos Emeralds, seven powerful gems which when combined can give its user immense speed and strength. Researching the power of the Emeralds led to Gerald creating Chaos Drives, little artificial shards of Chaos Energy that would be used as a battery by the Guardian Unit of Nations, aka GUN, for their robotic drone technology. It also led Gerald to discover the ruins of Angel Island where the Emeralds were located, along with an old mural depicting a powerful being of gold fighting against an evil force. This mural would become the blueprint that Gerald would use for Project Shadow, but all efforts to follow it failed. That is, until he gained assistance from an unlikely source. A powerful empire known as the Black Arms had traveled past Earth, and during their time near the planet they struck a deal with Gerald. Black Doom, leader of the Black Arms, would offer the genetic material that would help Gerald create The Ultimate Lifeform, in exchange for the Chaos Emeralds 50 years after completion of the project. Gerald agreed, and with the blood of Black Doom, he began creating what would become the Bio-Lizard, and Shadow the Hedgehog.

After Shadow’s creation, he was placed in the same area of the Space Colony ARK that Maria was quarantined since Shadow was created to be completely immune to all diseases. The two grew very close during their time together, growing into what would become a sort of brother/sister relationship. Maria would become the closest to family and love that Shadow would ever feel. However, when the United Federation caught word of Shadow’s creation and the deal that Gerald had made with the Black Arms, they immediately demanded that the project be shut down and all those involved would be either detained or executed for attempted treason. Gerald was immediately arrested, and Maria was shot dead after launching Shadow in an escape pod headed towards Earth. However, Shadow was found and put into cryogenic stasis and Gerald was imprisoned on Prison Island. Since the government still required his research for their experimental drone tech, they kept Gerald locked away and forced to create enough Chaos Drives for GUN to make effective use of and reverse engineer. This period of time had Gerald spiral into contempt and hatred for his captors, resulting in him reprogramming Shadow while he was in stasis with artificial memories to have the same contempt and hatred for humanity that he had. After Gerald was executed, Shadow was locked deep within Prison Island and would be almost forgotten by those that imprisoned him. That is, until the events of Sonic Adventure 2, where Gerald’s grandson Dr. Eggman found Shadow and intended to use him to conquer the world. However, Shadow’s own goal wasn’t to conquer the world, but to destroy it as an act of revenge for Maria. As a cruel act of forcing hatred onto his creation, Gerald had reprogrammed Shadow to destroy the world that took Maria from them both. However, this wouldn’t be what Maria wanted. What Maria really wanted was for Shadow to not let the tragedy on the ARK lead him to destroying all of humanity. So many more people existed on that planet than those that raided the ARK, and even a child like Maria knew that it wasn’t all of them that killed her. However, her grandfather gave in to his rage and spite as it stew away in a prison cell. He let his pain of losing his granddaughter lead him down a road of bloody revenge against the whole world, when the whole world wasn’t responsible for it. This was the ultimate theme of SA2, that even though humans can be cruel and terrible people, they all shouldn’t be judged for the mistakes and sins of isolated groups and individuals in it. This lesson would cost Shadow his own life, as he sacrificed himself to protect the world from being destroyed by the Space Colony ARK as it was crashing towards Earth like a giant meteor.

However, Sonic Heroes would reveal that Shadow was saved at the last minute by Eggman, as he intended to copy his grandfather’s work to make multiple copies of Shadow for his Eggman Empire. Shadow wasn’t on board with that, and reluctantly teamed up with GUN agent Rouge the Bat and a neglected robot named E-123 Omega who wanted to destroy Eggman for locking him away for too long. After they went through the events of Sonic Heroes, Shadow was left wandering the world, as he had lost his memories when he was found and resurrected from the dead. This would lead to Shadow’s own game, where Black Doom and his army of The Black Arms returned 50 years later to fulfill the end of the bargain that Gerald had made. Shadow doesn’t even know what Doom is talking about, but he reluctantly goes along with it in the hopes that he’ll be given proper answers on why he was created and what his purpose for existing is. Once he collects all seven of the Chaos Emeralds, Shadow is told that he was created to act as a sleeper agent for the Black Arms. To assist them, in conquering and enslaving Earth for their empire. Shadow, remembering the dying wish of his closest family Maria, rejected this plan and used the Chaos Emeralds to become Super Shadow. Using this power, he destroyed Black Doom and the Black Arms vessel The Black Comet with the Eclipse Cannon, a weapon that Gerald created as a means of stopping the Black Arms when they returned. With his memories back to him and having destroyed almost every remaining reminder of his past, Shadow leaves the ARK behind him and enlists in GUN. While this may seem like an odd decision since GUN was responsible for the ARK raid that killed Maria, Shadow was more focused on using them to assist in protecting the world that Maria could only ever see from the cold vacuum of space.

So what can be gleamed from all this? Well, Shadow’s backstory when you look into all the details is rather tragic. He was created with good intentions being put upon him, that his existence will lead to a greater future for humanity. However, that was thrown right out the window when one of his creators lost everything that mattered to him and reprogrammed him to be a weapon against the world, while his other creator always intended to use him as a weapon to destroy and control. He was forced into being a weapon of rage and revenge by his creators, with the only person who genuinely loved him for who he was dying right in front of him, and having lost so much in his life. Shadow lost everything to him, and he wasn’t even really sure of what he was meant to do. He knew that he was The Ultimate Lifeform, but that title is the only thing he really had to him. There was, however, one person that showed him that he wasn’t so strong: Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic was someone who was equal in speed and power to Shadow, even surviving an escape pod that was rigged to explode using an artificial Chaos Emerald created by Tails to teleport out of the explosion. Sonic is a carefree, relaxed, and strong of heart hero that Shadow as created in the image of. Remember that mural I mentioned Gerald finding when researching the Chaos Emeralds? That was the mural in the Knuckles boss fight in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It depicted the final fight of that game with Super Sonic destroying Eggman’s Death Egg. Shadow was intended to be the Ultimate Lifeform, but he comes to find that he was really just created in the image of Sonic, the real Ultimate Lifeform. This discovery would lead to Shadow having grown to respect Sonic as an equal, but still wanting to prove himself as the stronger hedgehog with the playful rivalry they’d develop.

With all this said, you’d think Shadow would be seen as a really cool dude. Someone who is really strong but not keen on taking the spotlight as much. Kinda like the Black and White Rangers from the Power Rangers franchise. You’d be wrong, unfortunately. Shadow has not really been given the kind of respect that he deserves as many harsh critics of the franchise see Shadow as an “edgy tryhard”. This label is mostly attributed to Shadow’s game and the English localization that had Shadow saying damn, as well as the whole concept of Shadow using realistic looking firearms being an extremely ridiculous idea for a franchise that was mostly seen as a child’s game franchise. This criticism has stuck with Shadow for about 15 years now, with people still mocking and joking about Shadow being “edgy”, as if that’s an automatic bad thing.

The whole criticism of a character or franchise being edgy doesn’t really make sense to me. So something is edgy. So what? Why is it a bad thing if something wants to be darker than what you expect? People always throw edgy around at things to the point where even I don’t know what it means anymore. Regardless, with all that I’ve said about Shadow as a character and his backstory, I’m hopeful that I’ve shown some of you why this hedgehog is the coolest of them all. And perhaps in the future, I can go a bit further talking about what I see in him and what he means to me.

#sonic the hedgehog #character analysis #shadow the hedgehog

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comickergirl · 5 years

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Alright. Let’s give this a shot.

SPOILER-Y DISCUSSION OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, INCOMING:

I figure the best way to do this is chronological; my prior attempts have not been chronological, which might account for their feeling a little...all over the place and unorganized.

This will also be a good test to see how much of the film I remember.

RIGHT THEN: First and foremost, (and we gleaned this from the trailers, obviously) MEMORY-LOSS PLOT. Which is Classic Carol™. She’s lost her memory like. Four times.

(her poor brain D:)

All of this to say: The premise of the movie, a kind of reverse origin story in which Carol figures out who she is, in a very literal but also figurative sense, was a great way to go, IMO.

Love all the moments from Carol’s past. I was admittedly surprised that we didn’t get more of that? But what was there was effective and given the amount of ground the movie had to cover, I think it was sufficient.

So after the dreams** we get the early morning fight with Yon-Rogg (who I was absolutely certain was Yon-Rogg, in spite of all the back and forth speculation and Marvel attempting to ‘hide’ his identity) and there’s exposition, obviously, and the set up of Carol’s struggle with Yon-Rogg’s forced Kree values clashing with Carol’s humanity but MORE importantly...

PHOTON BLASTS.

Love the way they render the energy pulsing just below the surface of her skin. Looks so cool.

Then: Chit Chat Time with The Great Intelligence!

I thought for sure it was gonna be Helen Cobb.

BOY WAS I MISTAKEN. (More on that in a sec.)

Favorite Visual #1: The slow pan of Starforce and the excellent shot of Carol’s helmet as they swim to shore on Torfa.

The whole rescue mission sequence/Carol’s kidnapping is...Truly a Highlight, in my opinion.

I mean!

She’s running around the enemy ship! Without her boots! Pummeling the Skrulls with unwieldy metal shackles! And growling in their faces!

#BOSSOFSPACE

Also, comic connection alert: Carol was kidnapped and experimented on by the Brood, which resulted in her stint as Binary.

So, back to the movie:

Talos man.

TALOS.

We’ll get to him later.

Okay what month of 1995 does Captain Marvel take place in? Because I was honestly offended that no one, and I mean NO ONE made a Buzz Lightyear joke re: Carol’s outfit and being a member of STARCOMMANDFORCE who checks her wrist communicator to try and make contact.

(Toy Story came out in November so if this takes place in the summer I GUESS I will let it slide.)

But otherwise dug all of the 90s references.

The little Gameboy sound when she calls Yon-Rogg!

(Also, train chase was great but I’m trying to save time though I do feel inclined to mention Kelly Sue DeConnick! Bringing some quality side eye! Very nice.)

Young Fury + Carol = excellent buddy cop combo, 14/10 would take an entire spinoff of their wacky 90s road trip adventures.

‘You look like someone’s disaffected niece’ might be favorite line in the film.

Let’s pause for a moment and appreciate the score, shall we? Pinar Toprak CRUSHES IT; the Captain Marvel theme feels like something out of The Rocketeer but with about 400% more sci-fi synth and I LOVE IT.

**Love the piece of score played when Carol wakes up. (Appropriately titled “Waking Up” I think, on the soundtrack.)

I also like the songs they picked for the movie? This is probably the complaint I’ve seen most often, that they feel obvious and easy, but. I dunno. I was never expecting something like Guardians of the Galaxy? So I wasn’t mad about it.

(In related news, I’ve been listening to “Connection” on repeat ever since the special look trailer dropped.)

Anyways.

GOOSE.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE.

MY GOOD FLERKEN GIRL.

(So, yes, breezing past the bar interrogation--though I do like the ghostly images of Carol’s past that crop up--as well as the trip to Pegasus, again in the interest of time.)

(WAIT. NO. THE TAPE JOKE.)

(Okay for real. Moving on.)

So then. THEN.

The Rambeaus. And the feelings.

Unpopular(?) opinion: I love that this big budget action movie focuses on female friendships and platonic relationships instead of romance THERE I SAID IT

ALSO LIEUTENANT TROUBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I spelled Lieutenant right on the first try. Just sayin’.

But in all seriousness, I love the time we spend in Louisiana. We get a lot of good stuff. Carol getting answers from Maria, Talos arriving with his soda (milkshake?) The standoff with Goose.

(Oh, and how could I forget Maria bidding farewell to the neighbor, shutting the front door as Carol continues to glower???)

‘What’s happening?’ ‘It’s loading.’ XD

Favorite Visual #2 (Chronologically, but actually the one I like best in the movie) The Pysche-Magnitron Light Speed Engine explosion.

(Thank you, Marvel, for changing it to ‘light speed engine,’ which is much easier to spell than Psyche-Magnitron)

But yeah, that was the visual that sold me, in the earliest trailer. I wish I had some profound reason for that, but the truth is I just love blue-glow-y stuff.

BUT ALSO

(And, okay, an additional spoiler- warning because this is a big one. Like. Big.)

...................................................................

Seriously, go away if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

................................................................................................................................

MAR-VELL iS A WOMAN

LIKE THIS WHOLE TIME. EVERYONE WAS SO FOCUSED ON JUDE LAW. And then there was that blip, right before the release, when Annette Bening revealed she was the Great Intelligence, again after months of secrecy so we were all like, HA we know the TWIST.

BUT NO. NO WE DID NOT.

Well played, Marvel. Well played.

This was something I was thinking about before the film came out; I just kind of assumed, because of the lack of an apparent ‘Mar-Vell,’ that Carol would be the first and only Captain Marvel in the MCU. And she basically is, b/c we have no indication that Dr. Larson was moonlighting as a superhero, but regardless this is SO COOL. SUCH A GOOD TWIST.

(A quick Google search on how many ‘L’s are in Mar-Vell led to a serendipitous discovery: an article on the gender swap decision, and apparently it came very late in the game. Like. ‘Already looking at guys to play Mar-Vell’ late in the game. *insert themoreyouknow.gif here*)

Right, okay, back to Feelings:

When Carol’s like: You don’t know who I am! I don’t know who I am!

I was. Emotional.

(Brie Larson is perfectly cast and does a wonderful job.)

Maria’s pep talk? Also caused emotions.

And Maria got to come on the mission! I was pleasantly surprised, and really glad that the visit there wasn’t like. Just a pit stop, you know?

RIP Science Guy, we hardly knew ye.

Again, jumping ahead, but may I just say: It was truly an Experience, watching this movie with folks who had no idea what a ‘Flerken’ was.

Both my friends at the first screening I attended, and then like. Half the theater at the second one. XD

The whole row was like: WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT when the tentacles came out.

So yeah, Talos and the 180 on the REAL villains: Nice. The enduring complaint leveled at the MCU is a lack of compelling villains. (I guess Talos technically doesn’t count as a villain by the end of this, but. We’re going with it.) And Carol’s commitment to helping the Skrull refugees lifts plot elements from my favorite portion of the DeConnick run, so. YEP. LOVED IT.

(I was also trying to determine if Talos’ daughter was perhaps meant to be like. a Tic expy. Did it say ‘Tic’ on the pinball machine? Or ‘Tig’? Or something else entirely?)

Loved the...mind prison? sequence. All of it. “Come as You Are,” the Great Intelligence rockin’ out in the jacket, Carol’s Big Damn Hero moment. Brilliant. Spectacular. Amazing.

“My name is Carol.”

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS

(Or does she say her full name? I can’t remember.)

And then the subsequent fight scene where Carol’s like. Simultaneously kicking butt but also enjoying all this newfound power/strength? A+++++

Favorite Visual #3: Carol sitting on the railing with the lunchbox.

Sad to see Minn-Erva go, but. Was so cool that Maria gets her own hero moment.

And then this big ol’ fight scene where Carol DESTROYS SPACESHIPS WITH HER BARE HANDS.

Favorite Visual #4: Carol going Binary in the red, blue, and yellow suit with the helmet FLYING THROUGH SPACE, LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

All of the visuals from this portion are so on point it’s like they’re pulled straight from the comics.

Favorite Visual #5: When Carol’s staring down Ronan and she like. Does that thing, where you hit your palm with your fist? (IDK the technical term there) And there’s this awesome energy burst and AGAIN, BLUE GLOW-Y THINGS. I love.

I’m pretty sure there’s an interview where Brie Larson talked about watching Indiana Jones? And wanting to be the female equivalent of that.

WELL, that’s the movie I immediately thought of when Carol blasted Yon-Rogg into a boulder, mid-goading.

(Y’know, like the scene in Raiders where Harrison Ford was too sick/tired to do the fight choreography, so he just. Shot the bad guy.)

ALSO, when she drags his sorry butt across the desert? I was IMMEDIATELY reminded of Kara dragging Astra into the DEO.

DANVERS GIIIIRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLS

*ahem*

THE FAMILY DINNER AT THE END?????

LITERAL FOUND FAMILY OF ALIENS AND SOLDIERS AND SUPERHEROES JUST. HAVING DINNER. PLAYING UNO. WASHING DISHES AND SINGING "PLEASE MR. POSTMAN”?

Thank you, Marvel, for this beautiful gen fic material.

WHOOPS I forgot the costume colors bit. (Admittedly confused it with the ending wherein Monica gives Carol her jacket back. Sans ketchup stain.)

So backtracking ever-so-slightly...

Let’s see if I remember this right: We get

Red and gold (Binary send-up, possibly? Or maybe the original Ms. Marvel costume?)

IDK what to call it....Lite-Brite? (♪ makin’ thi-ings with lii-iii-ight ♫)

Black and Gold (bathing suit costume?)

White and Green (original Mar-Vel/Kree colors)

That last one’s the only one that’s like. Obvious and deliberate. I’m just guessing with the others.

BUT CLEARLY I am ABSOLUTELY ONTO SOMETHING with the Lite-Brite.

BACK TO THE ENDING Lt. Trouble gives Carol her jacket and that’s my fav look, out of all the costume variations we see in the movie. I mean. I love the black and green, admittedly, and the helmet looks SO GOOD for being something that should be ridiculous, but my go-to answer for superhero costume design is: add a leather jacket.

Favorite Visual #6: Carol in the suit and flight jacket, floating above Earth, ready to go save the day.

AND THEN SHE’S OFF.

Ooooh, ooooooooh, but we can’t forget the scene. The scene that I’m certain ticked off The Continuity Police. (You know the types.)

See, remember when Marvel was like, ‘Carol’s the first Avenger!’ and haters were like, ‘UH HELLO IT’S STEVE????!????’

And then Marvel was like, oh ho ho ho, we meant LITERALLY the ENTIRE INITIATIVE IS NAMED AFTER HER CALL SIGN AND SHIELD STARTS LOOKING FOR SUPERHEROES BECAUSE OF HER ERGO SHE IS THE FIRST die mad about it.

That was so very, very satisfying to see.

(Also I guess she’s a literal Captain in the air force? If the rank on the jet is legit. Pretty sure she’s a Major in the comics, though. But I assume this change is to help sell the ‘Captain Marvel’ name.)

And then, friends. And then.

I was fully prepared to leave the theater, uncertain of when we’d next see Carol.

EVEN AS THE MID CREDITS SCENE PLAYED. I was like. ‘Well, they’re gonna cut it off before we can see anythINOHMaNTHERESHEIS!!!!!!’

‘Where’s Fury.’

*insert aesthetically pleasing keyboard smash here*

BRING ON ENDGAME.

And before we wrap up here, one final note:

The Space Stone, sought after by Trickster Gods and Mad Titans alike, was for a brief time, nothing more than a glorified furball.

FIN

(Nope, wait. One little anecdote before we go: of my core group of buddies, I am the Comics Nerd, and thus I am often consulted after we’ve watched a Marvel movie. So I had to explain that YES, Kara Danvers had the last name Danvers first, but she was adopted, and her GIVEN fake name was Linda Lee, so in all fairness, the same-name thing is a little less plagiarize-y, b/c ‘Linda Lee Danvers’ does not necessarily match up as well as ‘Kara Danvers’--which wasn’t even used until really recently--to ‘Carol Danvers’. ...Honestly, I was just really happy they called out the connection MY WORK HAS NOT BEEN IN VAIN XD )

Also, I sometimes get replies on posts like this which is totally fine BUT, I would ask that folks keep really spoiler-y stuff out of ‘em. At least for a little while.

#captain marvel #captain marvel spoilers #MAJOR SPOILERS #PLEASE BLACKLIST THIS AND SKIP IT IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE YET #long post #hark! a text post!

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barfscarf · 4 years

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21Qs

@stand-in-the-stars tagged me for this months ago but I’m too shy to even post on my own blog lmao

1.) Nicknames: Honestly I don’t have one these days altho some childhood friends called me moose bc I was a big kid and would run people over when we played tackle football in the yard

2.) Zodiac Sign: Cancer (Lunar libra, not big on astrology but I feel like I fit the stereotypes for my signs, so...)

3.) Height: 5-7

4.) Hogwarts House: When I take the test I get Gryffindor but i swear im a hufflepuff and not just because im a huge stoner

5.) Last thing I Googled: Bojack season 6 release date - after reblubing that bojack post I had to check how much longer I have to wait to see how it ends (4 more weeks!! aaaaaaaaaaaa ww3 will already be in full swing)

6.) Favorite Musicians: I have odd taste,

- Fave band is Bad Religion, I loooved them when I was young but punk is too discordant for my old-ass ears now

- Fave musician is Vince Guaraldi, he composed and played piano on the peanuts sountrack and I LOVE his range, like he can play so perfectly soft and gentle and smoothly transition to rockin out like in Linus and Lucy

- Fave composer (besides John Williams who did a fucking amazing job with Rise of Skywalker): Shoji Meguro, all of the Persona game soundtracks are so damn catchy

7.) Song Stuck in my Head: Everything Stays from Adventure Time and Dear Theodosia from Hamilton, I randomly sing these to myself through the day when I’m alone and bored

8.) Following: A lot.

9.) Followers: A few.

10.) Do I get asks?: Hahahaha nope

11.) Amount of Sleep: Lots!! Fortunately I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn or anything, I basically just get up when daytime commotion outside wakes me up and go to sleep when I’m tired, which happens earlier and earlier bc im ollllld

12.) Lucky Number: 12

13.) What am I wearing?: My ‘work uniform’: jeans, a black hoodie, and a bright green Zelda TShirt

14.) Dream Job: I really like the job I have right now, actually. I QC designs for a solar company. The work is kind of boring, but the company is new and growing and I’m the first QC worker they hired. Which meant I had to figure shit out as I went and it was kind of a nightmare but also really cool bc I got to design our systems and procedures and stuff. With some luck I’ll be able to grow the team and promote to management, and that’s the dream.

15.) Dream Trip: Okay, so my dream vacation would just be a week or two at home with no work or other obligations, just nonstop movies and shows and games. Dream trip tho, I’ve always wanted to go to Iceland and see the aurora

16.) Favorite Food: Pizza. Im a fatty and i love food, and it’s really tough to pick a fave, but I worked at pizza places for yeeeaaars and I got pretty good at making the damn things juuuusssst right which is cool but it also means im hella picky about my pizza

17.) Instruments: Piano, Bass (I like em, I can’t play em)

18.) Languages: Just english, unfortunately. I love learning about other languages and their histories and quirks and how to pronounce words/sounds but I struggle to wrap my mind around new ways of speaking. I have so much respect for people that speak multiple languages y’all have way bigger brains than me

19.) Favorite Song: Vince Guaraldi’s version of “Fly Me To The Moon”, “Beyond Electric Dreams” by Bad Religion, and “The Ol’ Beggars Bush” by Flogging Molly

20.) Random Fact: The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Wait, is it supposed to be about me? One of my front teeth is an implant bc I lost the real one when I took an elbow to the face playing field hockey in high school gym class

21.) Aesthetic: I put xmas lights up last month and i might never take them down

#thank you @stand-in-the-stars for tagging me!!#sorry i took so long to post #im weird about publicly sharing stuff about myself #but this was fun to think about and write #especially bc ive changed a lot in the last year or so getting the new gig and moving to a new place and stuff #i spent the holiday season missing the old people and the old places and the old me #but i gotta focus more on the present and future #me

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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 3 years

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Out on the Interstate: S’more Thoughts on Neil Young

I don’t have any fentanyl stories today, so I’m writing another Neil Young post. (Don’t worry. I’ll find a way to mention heroin. You’ll see.) I still have a ton of fent stories, don’t worry bout that. I just don’t feel like mining my memory for any right now. Instead, I wanna talk about my favourite Neil Young song ever. It’s called “Interstate.” This performance was recorded at Farm Aid 1985. Young’s backing band at the time were called the International Harvesters, which is a funny joke (International Harvester was a company that manufactured tractors and other agricultural equipment). Young was on a roll in the 80s with clever band names. Later on he would front Neil Young & the Restless. Anyway whoever is playing piano with Young was the perfect choice, plucking individual keys instead of slathering big chords all over the descending minor chord progression. Young’s guitar is tuned to drop D, a favourite tuning of his throughout his career, from “Cinammon Girl” to “World On A String” to “Be the Rain,” and you can hear the low D buzzing throughout, giving the song a raw off-the-cuff feel. Of course, Neil Young is known for his raw performances, especially on albums like Tonight’s the Night, but by the time the 80s rolled around he was making albums with a lot of processing and production like Landing on Water, along with silly genre exercises like Everybody’s Rockin’ and Old Ways.

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Young would eventually be sued by his own record label, Geffen, for making “uncharacteristic music.” David Geffen would eventually apologize to him, but he wasn’t wrong that Young’s early 80s records were a bit of a disaster. This performance, however, shows that Young hadn’t lost a single step when it came to live performance. His vocal is clear and convincing, world weary but still kinda defiant, like all his best songs. And whether those are real or synth strings, they sound great, and really tug at one’s heartstrings. They have the spook, that high lonesome train whistle feel. To my ears, all the best Neil Young songs are haunting and plaintive. There is a loneliness at the heart of most of Young’s best work (ever hear “Albequerque”? Prolly the saddest song to ever mention the eating of ham?) Neil Young doesn’t write carefree party music. Hell, he once recorded an entire album about the death of his friend and former bandmate Danny Whitten - and to a lesser extent, former roadie Bruce Berry who was fired for pawning instruments to buy heroin...told ya I’d find a way to mention the drug ;). What I’m saying is, Young is no stranger to sad songs. As to which song is his saddest, there are many contenders, but as Young’s biographer himself admits, “Interstate is Neil Young’s loneliest song.” I agree.

Young’s longtime producer David Briggs, who knew damn well that “Interstate” was a rare gem, tried to get Young to record it for 1991′s Ragged Glory, but in typical fashion, “[Young] acceded, but perversely,” eschewing the full-band format and recording a solo acoustic version instead. That particular version would eventually see limited release on the vinyl version of Young’s 1996 album Broken Arrow, a forgettable affair that was hammered by critics and disavowed by most members of Crazy Horse. You can find the solo acoustic “Interstate” on YouTube but I’m not gonna post it, simply because it is so freakin’ disappointing.

I love the line “I can hear a soft voice calling...telling me to bring my guitar home.” In the tradition of the Rolling Stones’ “Moonlight Mile,” "Interstate” is one of the all-time great I’m-A-Lonely-Rock-Star-On-Tour song. A more modern version of this idea can be found in Kurt Vile’s unimaginatively titled “On Tour,” a song where Young’s influence can be identified, especially in the way Vile tunes his lower strings to let them buzz, a technique pioneered by Young in the abovementioned song and most prominently in “Bandit.”

Thank God for YouTube, so that you can hear "Interstate” in all its gorgeous majesty. You can hear Young play the same guitar solo he’s been playing his whole career in minor key masterpieces like “Hey Hey My My,” “Like A Hurricane,” “Goin’ Home,” “Be The Rain.” Every time Young returns to it, you can feel the long shadow of his past, echoes of former greatness, the shambolic glory of his band bashing away at the chords, always emphasizing emotional delivery over technical proficiency. It’s a really really beautiful song, a song I treasure, and I hope you like it.

I’m also posting a rare version of “Shots.”

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In “Shots,” Neil Young returns to a technique previously used on “Cortez the Killer,” where he switches from a third person omniscient voice describing trauma and violence to a first person voice describing personal emotion. In Zuma’s “Cortez the Killer,” Young spends two or three verses describing the endeavours of genocidal explorer Hernan Cortes, and also the Aztecs: people worked together/they lifted many stones/they carried them to the flatlands/they died along the way/but they built up with their bare hands what we still can’t do today/and I know she’s living there and loves me til this day. Now, that’s not Shelley, but it’s an effective and jarring switch. Young tries it again in “Shots,” and for me, the effect is even better. For whatever reason, maybe his sharp right turn when he became an outspoken Reagan supporter, or maybe because of the Iran-Contra Affair, Young’s lyrics took on a particular preoccupation with crime, border zones, and desert iconography in the 1980s, manifestations of which can be heard in “Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero Part I)” “Rockin’ In the Free World,” “On Broadway,” and “Eldorado,” all songs that ended up on Young’s last album of the 1980s, Freedom. But because of the remarkable internal consistency of Young’s discography, you can also hear such sentiments in one of his first 1980s releases: “Shots.” Children are lost in the sand, building roads with little hands Trying to join their father's castles together again Will they make it? Hey, who knows where or when old wounds will mend? Shots ringing all along the borders can be heard Striking out like a venom in the sky Cutting through the air faster than a bird in the night But I'll never use your love, you know I'm not that kind And so if you give your heart to me I promise to you Whatever we do...that I will always be true To jump from depictions of border violence to gooey Hallmark card sentiments shouldn’t work, yet it does. The words might look silly written down, but the sheer conviction they are sung with, and the sheer power of Young’s loon-like vibrato, is what sells them, at least to my ears and heart. I’m not the first to make the loon comparison, Young’s biographer Jimmy McDonough has done so too. Young’s father Scott was the first writer to compare his son’s unique voice to the sound of the loon cry, a very Canadian sound, associated with Muskoka nights in summer, nights often soundtracked by Young’s vast and varied discography.

Disappointingly, the album version of “Shots,” which appeared on 1981′s Re-ac-tor, is pretty fuckin annoying, with its overblown machine gun affects (done by Young on the Synclavier), and Ralph Molina’s incessant marching beat. The song is already called “Shots,” Neil. You didn’t have to add machine gun sound effects. This isn’t audio verite. I’m not gonna post the album version here but you can find it easily. The album iteration has its fans though. Canadian blue-collar rockers The Constantines would cover “Shots” on a vinyl-only release with The Unintended, in which the Cons covered Neil Young and The Unintended covered Gordon Lightfoot. The Cons picked some weird songs, “Shots” among them, and you can tell they are referencing the Re-ac-tor version, not the superior one posted here. I’m not sure why Young slathered so many effects over the album version of “Shots.” The 80s definitely saw him taking his heavier music in an unpalatable direction. The Eldorado EP, in particular, has one of his most savage recordings ever, a song called “Heavy Love” where Young blows his voice out completely by the end of the song in an attempt to sing louder than the savage pulsing thrust of the band (the abovementioned Young & the Restless). The drummer on Eldorado was Chad Cromwell, not Steve Jordan who’d played with Young on his legendary SNL appearance where he played “Rockin in the Free World,” the definitive performance of that song, where Young tore all six strings from his guitar at its denouement. Unfortunately, SNL guards its content as jealously as a rabid guard dog, so I can’t post it. Maybe one day I’ll find a gif. I’ll leave you with two strong cuts from Eldorado. The first is “Heavy Love,” which is obviously a sister song to “Rockin In The Free World,” with its similar sonic texture and E minor riff. Listening is worth it just to hear Young’s voice go to pieces a la “Territorial Pissings” at the end (3:58 if you don’t wanna wait).

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And this is the title track “Eldorado,” which ended up on Freedom. Young employs a fingerpicking style redolent of 80s megastars Dire Straits, and he sings of mission bells and senoritas and golden suns rising on runways and Mariachi bands while playing the A minor chord, a chord strongly associated with Mexican music and Mariachi styles. It’s a cool verite approach, one that works much better than the machine gun effects of “Shots,” especially when the gun violence Young has been hinting at the entire song finally explodes in a shower of distortion at 4:40. Have you ever heard something so loud compared to the backing track? I remember showing “Eldorado” to my friend/bandmate James, and I told him to prepare himself for how loud it is. Afterwards, James said, “even though I was ready for it, that scared the shit out of me.” It is so fucking loud. Check it out @ 4:40. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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One last point I’ll make...the Spanish-influenced guitar lick you can hear at 1:06 is really similar to the pre-chorus guitar riff Young plays on “War of Man” from Harvest Moon. I don’t consider stuff like that to be self plagiarism. I think it shows a consistency, but also it’s a way to reward fans for paying attention. Frank Zappa was known to do the same thing, re-introduce little musical nuances he’d recorded years or decades before. It’s cool. It’s what makes a discography live on long after the artist has burnt out or faded away. If you’re interested, here is a wonderful live early version of “Eldorado” titled “Road of Plenty” recorded with Crazy Horse in 1986: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By6_oLYfrYk

#betterdaysareatoenailaway #neil young #interstate #shots #ronald reagan #1980s #re-ac-tor #1981 #David Briggs #Scott Young #ralph molina #synclavier #steve jordan #SNL #bruceberry #danny whitten #heroin

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deadcactuswalking · 4 years

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 22nd December 2019

It’s the special Christmas episode – or at least the climax of many – of REVIEWING THE CHARTS, where we discuss the UK Top 40 every week without fail, with a complete disregard for my deteriorating mental state. Let’s start with the top 10 and finish what is essentially season two of this show.

Top 10

I’m sure everyone knows the Christmas #1 by now. I’ll talk more about it later, I actually have a lot to say, it’s British YouTuber LadBaby’s “I Love Sausage Rolls”, debuting at #1 much like he did last year. I’ll elaborate in more detail once we reach the new arrivals section.

Steady at the runner-up spot is “Own It” by Stormzy featuring Burna Boy and Ed Sheeran, sadly pipped at the post even with the release of his sophomore album, Heavy is the Head.

At number-three, actually up one space this week, is “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi.

It replaces “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa, down one spot to number-four.

We have our first true Christmas song in the top five this year next, as “Last Christmas” by WHAM! is up two spaces to number-five. It isn’t the first time it’s reached the top five, or even its highest placement, but I think they’ll settle for top five this year.

At number-six, we have another debut, the second of three in the top 10, and first of two for Stormzy: “Audacity”, a pre-release single from Heavy is the Head, or “Audacitiy”, as the BBC’s page, in its typical fashion, misspells horribly. It features Headie One, becoming Headie’s highest-peaking song ever, tied with “18HUNNA” featuring Dave, and fifth UK Top 40, as well as second top 10 entry. It’s Stormzy’s 20th UK Top 40 hit and also his ninth entry into the top ten.

At number-seven, we have “ROXANNE” by Arizona Zervas, down two spaces to number-seven.

Also down two spaces, surprisingly, is “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey, despite the release of a new music video. In reality, all of the top 10 has probably gained in performance, and Carey here was a victim of LadBaby and Stormzy.

We have Stormzy’s third and final debut here, “Lessons”, at number-nine, this time solo, which is his 21st UK Top 40 hit and his tenth entry into the top ten.

Finally, at #10, we have a nine-spot crash for “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I, hurt by streaming cuts that dumb UK chart rules implement, but also would have possibly cost LadBaby the Christmas #1, and at least his song is vaguely Christmassy, unlike “Dance Monkey”, which would have otherwise spent a consecutive twelfth week at #1 hadn’t it jumped down to #10.

Climbers

We have one non-Christmas climber this week, and it’s “Falling” by Trevor Daniel up nine spaces to #26.

Fallers

We don’t actually have many of these, either, though, but we do have a handful at the tail-end of the chart: “Heartless” by the Weeknd is definitely in freefall, down 13 spaces to #35, whilst “Don’t Rush” by Young T & Bugsey with Headie One curiously goes down seven spaces to #37 after going up seven spaces last week, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi crashes down 11 positions to #38, and “Netflix & Chill” by Fredo collapses down 12 spots to #40.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

As always with these Christmas weeks, we have quite a few drop-outs, yet very little returning entries. Streaming cuts have dragged out “Memories” by Maroon 5 out from #10 (Thank God), and brought out two other garbage top 20 hits with it: “South of the Border” by Ed Sheeran featuring Camila Cabello and Cardi B from #13, and “Lose Control” by MEDUZA, Goodboys and Becky Hill from #18. Sadly, a pretty fantastic top 20 hit, Lizzo’s “Good as Hell” featuring Ariana Grande, is out too from #20. Also out from middling positions last week, #37 and #38 respectively, are “Down Like That” by KSI featuring Lil Baby, Rick Ross and S-X, and “Into the Unknown” by Idina Menzel and AURORA, from the Frozen II soundtrack. Oh, yeah, and “Professor X” by Dave is out from #40.

In terms of returning entries, we only have one revolving around pretty depressing circumstances. The early death of 21-year-old emo-rapper Juice WRLD, one that we have seen a lot on this show, has propelled his song “Lucid Dreams” back to #27. For what it’s worth, the song has grown on me a lot since its release, and I’ve said my peace on the matter on Twitter. Rest in peace, Jared Higgins.

There is one returning entry and one drop-out that I’ve missed, but we’ll talk about them later.

IT’S CHIRSTMAS INNIT

First of all, the non-movers, climbers and fallers: If “River” by Ellie Goulding counts, it’s down three spots to #11, but otherwise... “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl is at #14, “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens is at #16, “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” by Band Aid is up two to #17, “Step into Christmas” by Elton John is up six to #19, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Michael Bublé is down one spot to #24, “One More Sleep” by Leona Lewis is up four to #25, “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande is up three to #28, “I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday” by Wizzard is up five to #29, “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade is up five to #31, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee is at #32 and “Underneath the Tree” by Kelly Clarkson is up six to #33.

We have one Christmassy returning entry, and that is the festive albeit creepy “Santa’s Coming for Us” by Sia back at #36. Combined with the Christmassy new arrival and the songs within the top 10, that means we have within 15 to 17 holiday songs on the “Christmas chart” (More on that later). So, basically, we’re 50% Christmas here on the UK Top 40... arguably, disputably, whatever. Here are the Album Bomb(s)?

ALBUM BOMB(S)?: Heavy is the Head by Stormzy and Fine Line by Harry Styles

This is a pretty awkward album bomb as I’ve already covered most things about Stormzy in the Top 10 section and it’s really disputable if Harry Styles had an album bomb but he had one debut and one re-entry as well as a faller, all from the same album, so I’m counting that as an album bomb. Rod Stewart, however, the damned fool, didn’t get an album bomb however he got the Christmas #1 on the albums chart, trumping both UK rapper and songwriter Stormzy at #2, and former One Direction member and current rockstar Harry Styles at #3.

I haven’t heard Heavy is the Head but I’m excited to check it out. I’m weary of its length, but some of the features seem intriguing. Its impact on this chart is weakened by both UK chart rules only allowing for three songs and the fact that, well, it’s Christmas, technically. That would also explain why Harry Styles’ “Lights Up” dropped out from #33 this week, as it was the single that performed the least, whilst “Watermelon Sugar” is back at #18 and “Adore You” has dropped off one spot from its debut, landing at #12 on this chart. Before we even get to exciting new music from Stormzy, let’s cover some weaksauce garbage from Harry Styles.

#39 – “Falling” – Harry Styles

Produced by Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson – Peaked at #62 in the US

Aw, do I have to? Well, I’ve already said how much I disliked Styles’ sophomore record and why, back on last episode (And the last paragraph) actually, so I don’t need to bring it up again. “Falling” is Styles’ fifth UK Top 40 hit, and the third best-performing song from the album; three is all allowed from one album on the UK Top 40. Styles had an actual album bomb on the Hot 100, and this one charted decently high there too. Also, fun fact: since Trevor Daniel is still here, this marks the first time in forever that two identically-named songs with entirely different lyrics and content (I.e., aren’t covers) have charted simultaneously. Somehow, and I dread to think, the Trevor Daniel song may be better. The pianos here are reverb-heavy and saturated so much to the point where I geta feeling of drab, moist dread, which is represented in the production overall, especially when Harry Styles belts and his vocals clip pretty heavily in the mix here. The lyrics are specific and do resonate to some extent, especially the self-referential and dare I say meta second verse, and I can’t exactly say Styles’ delivery is unconvincing, despite it reminding me too much of Lewis Capaldi than it probably should – you’re a much better singer than him or this, Harry. If the production wasn’t so shoddy and it wasn’t four plodding minutes, perhaps this gross, distorted excerpt of a power ballad wouldn’t be so excruciating, but alas, here we are. Good effort, I suppose.

#9 – “Lessons” – Stormzy

Produced by Ed Thomas

I have no idea what to expect. It’s the penultimate track on the album and it’s produced by some guy I don’t know. I haven’t been this clueless about a song before hearing it on this show in months, but it’s actually pretty high here because of how it touches upon Stormzy’s personal life, specifically his relationship with television presenter Maya Jama... and I really want to like this. The song is honest and soulful, with Stormzy admitting his faults in the relationship multiple times, and I enjoy the theme of childhood that he toys around with in the verses, but it’s really vague to exactly how he “disrespected” her, and I’m not asking for a vent that details his entire relationship with Jama but it feels somewhat insincere if the closest you get to a specific memory is either having candles lit up, which is overwhelmingly common, and pacing around the kitchen after a fight, “like this s**t is foul”. Some of these rhymes are also pretty painful. Rhyming “Maya” with “Maya”, and then, “fire” with “desire”? Come on, man, you’re better than that, and there is a lack of internal rhymes or even a comprehensive flow to the whole thing. I do like the vintage R&B beat with some very 90s keys sprinkled through the fake finger-snaps, and the blocky percussion is pretty smooth, albeit too stiff to make the chorus work at all, as it’s just really odd, aimless, multi-tracked rambling, with really half-hearted singing vocals from Stormzy. I don’t know, I really want to like this, but the content is overly vague, the production is dull and uninteresting, and the performance is just the same, as he sounds like he hasn’t slept in days. Maybe that’s the point? Probably, but it doesn’t make this song any more endearing. Sorry, I really wanted to like this, so a half-decent single here sounds like the biggest disappointment, but it’s just passable at best, really.

#6 – “Audacity” – Stormzy featuring Headie One

Produced by Fraser T. Smith

This is the banger of the record, with an up-and-coming UK drill rapper, that would burst onto the chart with a wham... whilst also being right next to WHAM!, but that’s a coincidence. T. Smith is on the boards, Stormzy and Headie One are on the mic, and they sound hungry. Any time Stormzy starts off a track with that trailing “It’s like...” ad-lib, I know it’s going to be ferocious, and this is what this track is. Over looming 808 bass and crawling synths, Stormzy is losing his breath, rasping through his bars because of his insistency to do an angered one-take, like a madman, and it sounds angry and really violent. I’m genuinely kind of scared, it kind of works like Bobby Schmurda’s “Hot Boy” because its purpose is to paint such a vivid picture of gang violence that it gives you goosebumps. Stormzy is talking about inexperienced rappers dissing him... and in the first verse, he goes into detail about why he wants to kill this man, in an oddly calm demeanour before he starts losing it once he starts talking about how he’s going to “skeng-fry his dome”, even accepting the gunsmoke (Both literally and figuratively) that this person tries to use to intimidate Stormzy as just weed smoke, which sounds a lot more savage than I made it sound. Headie One is more melodic on this mix of nasty grime synths and UK drill bass beats, but his more casual delivery really makes the pretty funny bars somewhat intoxicating, especially when he says, “Knowledge is power, ask Gandhi”, which is just hilariously nonsensical... but it’s still not great. It runs way too long at four minutes, and feels pretty repetitive and like a drone by the end, especially due to lack of a true climax. Also the beat just fades out and leaves Stormzy’s isolated vocal, which is abruptly cut off by the end too, so that just sounds awkward. I wish I liked this more, but it sounds more like a weak “Wiley Flow” than the anthemic “Vossi Bop” or the pounding “Sounds of the Skeng”. I still like it, though, it’s just a fair bit duller than Stormzy’s usual offerings in this trap banger lane. Speaking of that, I listened to “Big Michael” out of curiosity and that was freaking amazing, so why didn’t that chart instead of these comparatively mediocre offerings?

One week, it’s “Blinded by Your Grace” / Next week, it’s bang you in your face!

NEW ARRIVALS

#34 –“Happy Christmas (War is Over)” – John Legend

I have no production or chart data for this one, because, guess what? It’s another Christmassy cover song released by an aging and increasingly irrelevant pop star exclusively on platforms that provide more sales and hence boost its false chart placement. I’m glad this is only a holiday thing because it’d drive me up the wall if this was done often. Legend released his Christmas album in 2018, called A Legendary Christmas, and it included many covers, including the infamous “woke” “Baby it’s Cold Outside” rendition with Kelly Clarkson on the 2019 deluxe edition. Of course, this song’s not on said deluxe edition for whatever reason... he really couldn’t just cover a nice old Christmas song, he had to do the controversial songs, huh? The whole album is really disposable garbage filled with novelty and commercialised merriment. I used to really like this guy but he is far beyond receiving my best wishes at this point in his career. Uh, the original song is a hot mess as well. Let’s just get to the meat and potatoes, no pun intended.

#1 – “I Love Sausage Rolls” – LadBaby

Produced by LadBaby

No, not DaBaby. LadBaby. Okay, so, first of all, this potentially isn’t the true “Christmas #1”, as after all, this chart was released before Christmas Day and doesn’t count sales that were made on December 25th, although the press seems to have accepted this as the Christmas #1, and have highly publicised it as such, so I’m allowing it, even though I guess you could dispute that. Second of all, LadBaby is a YouTuber who makes comedy videos or vlogs or something? I don’t know, I don’t pay attention. The video for this that they showed on Top of the Pops (Yes, this was aired on Top of the Pops) had his family in, all wearing sausage roll outfits, so maybe he’s a family vlogger? Speaking of those outfits, the same family is featured on the cover, which is a parody of the famous Abbey Road album cover by the Beatles. Not only is that not a Christmas album but it equally doesn’t work because this is a parody of a Joan Jett song, “I Love Rock and Roll”. Finally, LadBaby got to the top before with “We Built This City” in 2018, a parody of the Starship song with the exact same punchline as this one. Bottom line, this is just a novelty song with a dumb punchline and pretty terrible production, because as with all YouTube songs, it sounds cheap and very royalty-free. These guys can’t sing, especially not LadBaby himself, but it really doesn’t matter because we’re not supposed to actually listen to this. We’re supposed to listen once and have a chuckle, and move on, but sadly, this isn’t even funny enough for me to snigger. I’m not a fan, and if Tones and I’s song hadn’t crashed as hard as it did thanks to dumb UK chart rules, LadBaby would be even less liable to stick the landing next year, and I really hope he doesn’t.

Conclusion

On principle, I feel like giving a tied Worst of the Week to John Legend for his annoying exclusivity and really garbage album that “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” is connected to, alongside LadBaby, for hitting the #1 spot with a cheap novelty song in “I Love Sausage Rolls”, which is a joke he’s done before, instead of Stormzy or, you know, an actual Christmas song. In reality, I haven’t heard the John Legend song and I don’t even want to, and the LadBaby song isn’t really worth getting angry about. The Best of the Week is just as hard to pick due to the sheer lack of quality on display here, but I’ll give it to Stormzy and Headie One for “Audacity”, I guess.

I hope you guys enjoyed this second season of REVIEWING THE CHARTS – I know it was a rocky one, but we got there in the end. I can’t really say happy holidays because I’m a day or two late from Christmas but I’ll definitely say thank you for reading this past year. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more musical ramblings and I’ll see you next week – but that’ll be next season, and possibly next year.

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babypunter3000 · 7 years

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The only good things about Netflix’s Death Note Movie

1. Willem DaFoe Green Goblining it up as Ryuk. 2. L for the first half before Watari got Death Noted. 3. The rockin’ soundtrack. 4. The time that-Okay, you know what? No, I can’t even leave just one fully positive post about this you know how much goddamn BULLSHIT it was that Mia/Misa and L were adapted as waaaay more in the wrong than Light was? In the manga and anime, Light was CLEARLY the main bad guy, careening himself farther away from “well-intentioned” and “maybe he has a point” and into “irredeemable soulless fascist dictator” with every chapter and episode. Hell, in the FIRST BOOK AND EPISODE, he clearly states that he will be “the God of this new world,” and his general “I don’t give a general fuck about other people” attitude could already start to be seen. In this adaptation, Light’s all just love and an old soul wise beyond his years who wants to HELP the world out of the goodness of his heart and sense of justice. And at first, it’s not to bad, you think to yourself, “hey, this could be alright. A narrative about how absolute power corrupts absolutely with a kid who only wants to kill the really bad guys, and even then is super freaked out about it. sure, whatever” But no. NO. It NEVER turns that way! Light ALWAYS only kills for “the greater good” and is constantly portrayed throughout this movie as this well-meaning kid who’s just in so much over his head you gu-uys!

Meanwhile, Misa has been taken from her canon form as a devout Kira worshiper who was used and abused by Light to his own ends without a shred of emotion for her and has been turned into the love of Light’s life and THE REAL VILLAIN OF THE STORY! You see, Light didn’t really want to kill all those people and usher in a new era of Kira rule! It was all MIA’S influence and hen-pecking that drove Light to kill all willy-nilly! I mean, there’s this scene in the movie where Mia is showing Light a pro-Kira website where people are suggesting new people for Kira to kill, and Light brings up a point where some of the criminals could just be regular innocent people that have a beef with the poster. Mia basically tells him “Who cares? Any kind of petty crime or personal slight is good enough of a reason to kill for me! Let’s make out!” and they both go on their merry ways writing in the book. Like, fuck the writers for tossing out Light’s original characterization and motives to turn it all into a sexist, lazy, “It was all the EVIL WOMAN’S fault for tempting that poor boy!” narrative. And then Mia is killed off by Light on screen right after they have a fight where she is portrayed in the most clingy, shrewish way possible. She even says that she only killed all those people to get closer to Light. She had no justice-dog in this fight like the original Misa had. She was just in it so that Light would date her, and she somehow turned out to be the most murder-happy one after Light introduced her to the whole thing. And I’m sure that the neanderthal who wrote this drivel is patting himself on the back for writing such a great fucking script. And you’re supposed to feel bad because of course she dies by falling into a giant flower display and of course she has to be pretty when she dies. Fuck you. And while we’re on the subject of this movie going out of it’s way to justify and excuse A MASS MURDERER, let’s talk about how the movie treats L. For the first few minutes of his screen time, I honestly thought they did a good job. True, all he was doing was copying L’s mannerisms from the show and being deductive, but it was nice to see something from the books being portrayed accurately in this tire fire of a movie. But you know how everyone loved the original manga and anime for Light and L’s high stakes game of cat and mouse and how they would constantly one-up the other using their wits and intelligence and plenty of insanely thought out plans? Yeah, that’s also tossed right out the goddamn window in this one. Instead, we get an hour of L and Light basically shouting “Come at me, bro!” and emotionally lashing out at one another until one of them finally does something stupid enough to lose. It’s a race to the goddamn bottom, like the mental version of watching a drunken fistfight in a back alley. There’s no finesse, there’s no skill, just watching two guys shouting, “I KNOW YOU’RE KIRA!” and, “YEAH, WELL, FUCK YOU, KIRA’S THE GOOD GUY AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW ANYWAY?!” at each other for an hour. And L gets such a raw deal in this movie. I think he technically lives at the stupid non-ending (you don’t see Light die in the film, btw. You see Mia die, of course, because she’s an EVIL WOMAN!1! who DESERVED IT!!1, but of course not fucking Light), but even then he has even less dignity than in the manga and anime where he dies halfway through. L, in the manga, anime, and this trainwreck of a film, is the eccentric big-time elusive detective who picks up the task of finding out the identity of Kira to stop him. The only difference is that the manga and anime didn’t go out of their way to fucking destroy him. And I’m not just talking about the plot point in this failure of a motion picture that has Light easily put Watari’s name in the Death Note (yes, Watari is his real name in this and they just parade his name and face around without a worry in the world, I mean, what did you expect to happen?) that puts L into a tailspin. I’m talking about how the narrative treats L, the guy who’s trying to stop A MASS MURDERER from killing, as another bad guy, clearly in the wrong, because Light’s just trying to make the world a better place, yannow? First, he falls apart because Watari is missing and is in the hands of Kira, which okay, I don’t blame him, but he never gets past that. For the rest of the movie, he’s on the verge of tears, he can’t think straight, he’s blinded by emotion. He only manages to figure out a key point at the very end, and this was after Light openly confesses to what it is. Secondly, L is never able to officially out Kira. In light of this, his higher-ups unceremoniously fire him, leaving him an even bigger wreck. This happens around the exact same time Light is explaining to his dad what his master plan in the climax was, which is the only kind of smart thing that ever happens in this movie and is almost reminiscent of it’s source material. Point being, the narrative wants you to believe that Light is competent, L is incompetent. But you know what scene was the ultimate “fuck you” to L’s character as well as containing a horrible implication and clearly demonstrating a crucial flaw in the movie? Near the end of the movie, L has a gun pointed to Light’s head in a back alley. He’s desperate, and Light is shouting about the page of the death note stuck in Mia’s textbook that’s the key to saving Watari (because he’s such a GOOD GUY, you guys!) Since L has no goddamn idea what Light is talking about, and just knows that he’s the guy who killed 400 people and possibly his only friend, he ignores him, and turns to a man who just walked out of his shop, begging him to help and shouts, “He’s Kira!” The man stops and gets clarification that yes, Light is Kira, and then proceeds to knock L unconscious with a wooden plank to the head because he’s a fan of Kira as Light runs off to safety. Did I mention yet that L is black in this movie while Light is white? A black detective who’s implied to be the best of the best and is completely in the right is struck down because the bystander was a fan of the white mass murderer he was trying to stop. It doesn’t matter that “Oh, but Kira was only killing bad guys!” because fuck you, the movie itself established that Light and Mia were killing people on a whim and not bothering to check sources for libel. I will repeat, THE MOVIE POINT BLANK HAD A BLACK PROFESSIONAL STRUCK DOWN TO PROTECT THE WHITE MASS MURDERER THAT THE NARRATIVE TRIES TO PLAY OFF AS INNOCENT. Seriously, this whole movie exists around the premise that a greasy white boy who murders people needs to be cared about and protected from a woman and a black man who somehow convince him to commit more murder against his will because boobies or want him to stop committing murder at all costs. Ryuk, the death god that patiently walks Light through how to kill someone, doesn’t even get as many “DANGER! THREAT TO LIGHT’S SAFETY!” vibes as Mia and L do. The narrative is like, “Yeah, he’s a death god, what do you expect? BUT THIS WOMAN AND BLACK GUY ARE GONNA BE THE DEATH OF THAT POOR NAIVE BOY!” This kind of shit belongs in a trump rally, not in my movie based on a story where the main, privileged, young man was portrayed as an honest to God mass-murdering dictator who yes, must be fucking stopped. And you wanna know the dumbest thing about this movie? There are no stakes. None. The narrative wants you to care about the lives of a couple of murderers because they make a cute couple and are a pair of “good kids” who have glitter on their tongues (yeah) and are white (or at least, that’s what I’m guessing, since the only black character in the movie is treated as a hindrance and a joke even though he was in the right the entire time). Everyone in the movie’s world that isn’t a cop LOVES Kira. The movie is forever showing you pictures of people at Kira shrines, or holding, “I Love You, Kira!” or spraypaint on the walls that says “Kira Lives!” We never see the dystopian hellscape that ultimately was Kira’s world, where everyone was scared fucking shitless because Light was killing anyone who so much as looked at another guy funny. And don’t tell me that there was no crime ever in that world, there was just unreported crime. And we never see any followup to the scene where they just decide to kill people because anonymous sources online told them to. We never see any distraught partners breaking down on the news because their husband died of a heart attack for a crime he didn’t commit. We never see any innocent people die, or at least innocent people who are quickly brushed off as “cannon fodder” and are never mentioned again after they are killed (ie, the twelve FBI agents). Kira is just worshiped by EVERYONE to the point where if he just came out as Kira, nobody would be able to touch him because they’d be coming out of the woodwork to protect him (as demonstrated in the paragraph above). The only reason he DID possibly die in the end is because Light gave L the means to. If he never mentioned the Death Note, he would basically be unstoppable, because everyone in this movie is either SO DUMB or SO IN LOVE WITH KIRA. And while this movie is so bad it’s hilarious to watch and deserves a good MST3K-ing, it’s also so fucking infuriating with it’s fucking worship and embracing of this fucking white boy mass murderer to the point where they had to make characters from the original work into worse versions of themselves to prop him up while decrying anyone who opposes him as “the real bad guys.” These writers are the kind of people who pass a gang of white kids vandalizing a car to call the cops on a black kid sleeping in one. These writers are the kind of people who would say, “Well, of course she got raped, she constantly teased boys with her short skirts!” The writers are the kind of writers who would describe a white male shooter as, “teen genius suddenly snaps! Unfortunate incident for former varsity football player. His friends talk about what a great guy he was on page six.” Seriously, the next time someone scoffs at you for suggesting that white male privilege exists, show them this goddamn movie a bunch of grown ass adults made and went, “Yep, this’ll do!”

#death note #death note 2017 #netflix #netflix death note #death #murder #racism #sexism #I thought this script died in 2007 #rape

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ultraericthered · 2 years

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Anime Update V2 2

Noragami - Fitting that the title of this episode should be “Snow-Like” when it started snowing like mad where I lived at the time of me watching it. Hiyori’s little learning curve with how she goes in and out of her body at random points was as entertaining as I remembered, with Brynn April’s voice acting selling the hilarity of her reactions every time. Also learned the purpose behind the tail she sprouts whenever out-of-body, and why Yato is so useless without a Regalia. Which, speaking of, led us to a really well animated action scene at the end where Yato destroys a malicious spirit with a stray soul that he makes his new Regalia, complete with a rockin’ soundtrack! Shame the Regalia, Yukine, turns out to be angsty, petulant and ungrateful brat boy! Yato’s gonna have his hands doubly full now!

Hunter x Hunter - Watched only the 1999 anime this week since I needed to get it and the other one caught up with each other. To my horror, Episode 2 is an entire ass filler episode before Gon gets on the ship, and the anime uses this as the way to introduce us to Leorio, who’s depicted as being a lot more subtly skeevy and more competent compared to the 2011 version. Then Episode 3 contains the events that made up most of the 2011 anime’s Episode 1, and while the first half of it is decent, I found myself underwhelmed by the second half, especially compared to how the 2011 anime depicted these moments, with the sole exception being I still prefer 1999 Gon. Also for the dub translation, the 1999 version having it so that Kurapika misnames Leorio “Reolio” made a lot more sense than him saying his name right but Leorio insisting on being called “Mister Leorio” in the 2011 dub. (Ironically there’s even one point in Episode 2 of the ‘99 anime where Leorio doesn’t want to be called “Mister.”)

And on the matter of the voice acting in the dubs, I prefered the Captain’s voice in the 1999 version since it was Steve Olson, giving me pleasant G Gundam memories, and just sounded more natural, no offense to Michael McConnohie. Leorio’s voice actors (Johnathan Love and Matthew Mercer) are both equally great, with Mercer being a tad more over-the-top due to the character being so. But then there’s Kurapika and....no, Cheryl McMaster was a total miscast here. Her “serious” acting sounds too stitled and I can tell this is the voice of a grown woman rather than a boy in his early teens. It’s not the worst, but Erika Harlacher just gets the character down far better.

Love Live! Nijigasaki - So we got a lot more of Kasumi Nakasu than I’d been expecting, but I was very welcoming of that factor because the girl’s just so mad entertaining. She’s like Nico on an adrenaline high, with the key difference being that Nico was terrible working with others and getting along whereas Kasumi has a compulsive need to work with others and wants to be everyone’s friend since that boosts her narcissistic image-whoring. She’s also more fixated on the idea of “cuteness” as a thing, so she can be pretty chill and mellow with you if you keep up with the aestehtic appeal. Kayli Mills doesn’t do the sort of voice I’ve typically heard out of her when voice acting this role, which only adds to her enjoyability. Hard for me to recall much else that happened here since Kasumi stole so much of the episode, except I do remember the escalation of the Ayu-Bun gag, and the post-credits reveal that I already saw coming - that Nana Nakagawa, the Student Council President shutting down the Idol Club, is alter ego of Setsuna Yuki, the School Idol and leader of said club herself.

Date A Live S3 - As I was prepared for, this has now turned very Among Us, with Shido dating as many friends as he can in order to find the impostor. He dates Tohka, Yoshino, Yuzuru, and totally offscreen, his own male classmate Tonomachi! Despite all the humor, the air of suspense and paranoia is real. Like, any time one of the Spirit girls started acting sus, the possibility of her being Natsumi in disguise rears its head again only for the idea to be shut down by some plausible, in-character reason for the girls behavior, again and again. Then at the end, Natsumi makes good on her word and abducts one of Shido’s friends, Yuzuru in this case. This is scary shit here! Now Shido has to date his own sister and I’m still uncertain who the impostor is! What I am sure of is that the scene at the start with Sir Westcott at the board meeting was hardcore, and it really impresses me how Christopher Wekhamp is doing his voice now and sounding so identical to Alex Organ that it’s hard to notice the switch.

Fate/Stay Night - I very much enjoy seeing more from Rin and Archer, but the full story behind what’s going on with them is still unclear. Archer is apparently just the latest among many to fight “the Holy Grail War”, Rin is his summoner and master, and she really wanted Saber (the spirit Shirou ends up summoning at the end) for some specific reason. Also met Shirou’s douchetastic friend and Sakura’s older brother, Shinji, voiced in a smarmy, grating fashion by Doug Erholtz. How the two boys “friendship” held firm for as long as it did is one of the series’ greatest mysteries. Oh yeah, and during the fight with Lancer, Shido actually got temporarily killed. But Rin brought him back from the dead somehow. That was pretty weird.

Revolutionary Girl Utena - I’m really liking the dynamic between Utena and Anthy, and would probably like it even more had the dub not cast a voice whose pitch sounds too close to Utena’s own for Anthy, which does take me out of some of their exchanges. We not only got more from Touga and what a sleazy, arrogant and predetory scumbag he is, but we meet his younger sister Nanami who, in this episode, seems like an exact match for her brother in said qualities, with an aura that screams “Bitch Alert! Is Evil, Do Not Trust!”, which Anthy unfortunately misses and accepts the special dress Nanami wants her to wear to that night’s ball, where she schemes to pull some PG-rated Carrie type shit on her for having dared “steal” the attention of her brother so much. How petty can you get, girl? But of course, Utena saves the day by throwing her own custom “dress” over Anthy and getting a super sexy and alluring dance with her too! Nice to see her triumph in ways more than simply winning duels.

Sound! Euphonium - STILL could not get started on S2 because there was a special episode of the first season to watch, one that took place after Hazuki and Natsuki failed to make the tryouts, and what was going on with the reject group while the rest of S1′s events were transpiring. A lot of it brought focus back to Hazuki’s feelings of love for Shuichi, which had been rejected at the festival. Watching this flighty screwball of a girl trying to keep a positive nature in the face of personal troubles and struggling to be bigger than her own feelings was more capitvating than I’d thought it would be. The part at the very end with Hazuki running a good few miles back to the school and then all the way back to where she’d run from, wearing herself down yet never giving up and even getting super into it during the run back was one of the best things in this show I’ve seen yet.

MAR - Episode 2 was a bit dull coming off of Episode 1. Dorothy bowed out of it early on, which sucks because she’s already such a fun character. The main conflict was a very tired “Whoopsie! The MC and his new partner don’t get along very well!” one, complete with Babbo and Ginta parting ways at one point when you already know they’re going to regret that and get back together, so it just felt like time wasted. But what softened this blow was Babbo himself, especially since it’s this sort of role where Michael McConnohie’s forced snarliness and overacting work perfectly. Also, Ginta seems to be turning more and more into DB Abridged Goku, vocally and in his spacey, idiotic, action-obsessed character, and I somehow love that.

AMC: Gintama - Still working our way forward before we catch up to the time period that Episodes 1 and 2 were set in, this episode showed us how Gintoki first reunited with his old pal from the war, Kotaro “Cobra” Katsura, who was at first a radical extremist samurai who desires to remove those damn animalistic alien foreigners so that the Land of the Samurai can be reclaimed, and also their first run-in with the Shinsengumi. This show really is the most surreal thing because on so many lines I swear they’re Gag Dubbing it but no, it’s all the original dialogue, like the creator already Gag Dubbed his own work! By far the funniest part was the final few minutes, from the hilariously overacted delivery of “HE’S GOT A BOOOOOMB!” to Hijikata and Okita’s rerun show getting interrupted by a special news broadcast about what they’d played a direct part in making happen, this was probably the biggest laugh this show has given me to date.

#Anime Update #Anime Update V2

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njawaidofficial · 7 years

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How Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's "See You Again" Dethroned "Gangnam Style" as YouTube's Top Video

http://styleveryday.com/2017/07/13/how-wiz-khalifa-and-charlie-puths-see-you-again-dethroned-gangnam-style-as-youtubes-top-video/

How Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's "See You Again" Dethroned "Gangnam Style" as YouTube's Top Video

YouTube’s increase in users racked up views on this catchy pop hit, the music video reaching nearly three billion looks as of Monday.

Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again” music video featuring Charlie Puth didn’t inspire any viral dance crazes, shatter any cultural barriers or attract the attention of leaders around the world.

So how did the video, set to a clip from the Furious 7 soundtrack, became the all time most-viewed video on YouTube with nearly 3 billion views Monday, usurping the most-viewed throne from Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” which had held the record for nearly five years?

At 5:30 p.m. ET July 10, the “See You Again” video hit 2,894,026,649 views over 826 days since it was released on April 10, 2015, and whereas “Gangnam Style” was a catchy and comical viral hit that exposed the world at large to K-Pop, “See You Again” is emotional hip-hop ballad used to pay tribute to the late The Fast and the Furious star Paul Walker (and his character), who died in a car crash in 2013.

One reason: YouTube has simply racked up a lot more users.

In 2015, YouTube published a report noting the increasing pace at which videos were reaching the billion-view mark, and between 2015 and 2016, YouTube’s music users grew 17 percent up to 1.2 billion, according to Mark Mulligan, music industry analyst at Midia Research. There was also a 25 percent increase in total YouTube music video streams and a 7 percent increase in average monthly music video streams over this time.

“It’s pretty crazy that it impacted so many people,” Wiz Khalifa tells Billboard.

Another factor helping “See You Again” average more than 3 million views per day in 2017: Vevo, the music-video ad-sales platform owned by Universal Music and Sony Music. Mulligan says Vevo has been driving more music views lately with its recommendation algorithms, while YouTube’s autoplay function is resulting in more music-video plays per viewer session. The advancement of messaging apps that account for 7 billion monthly users globally have also driven discovery and link sharing.

“So, in short, expect records to get broken more routinely,” says Mulligan, who estimates the video has generated about $2.9 million for the rights holders.

For an example of what’s to come, one need look no further than the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” is making a strong case to be crowned this year’s song of the summer. The chart-topping hit’s video has more than 2.5 billion views racked up since it’s release in January and, now averaging more than 20 million views a month, looks on track to dethrone “See You Again” before long.

Ironically, when the “See You Again” video was first released, it wasn’t even on YouTube — it was on Facebook. The campaign was the first of its kind, partnering Khalifa, Puth, Diesel, Walker’s estate and Universal Studios to world premiere the video concurrently on the artist, actor and studio Facebook pages. The result was record breaking in itself, creating the biggest video premiere ever on Facebook, reaching 40 million views in just 12 hours.

A week later, the video was release on YouTube and was viewed 175 million times there in the first month, hitting the 1 billion-view benchmark in six months and going on to be the year’s most-viewed new music video, according to YouTube. Since, the video also saw viewership spikes around New Year’s Eve after Puth and Khalifa performed the song during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2016, as well as the release of Furious 8 this past April, which grew daily views by nearly 50 percent up to present day.

“I wouldn’t ever underestimate the power and the loyalty of the Fast and the Furious fans,” says Mike Knobloch, president of film music and publishing at Universal Pictures.

Along the way, Kevin Weaver, president of film and TV and executive vice president of Atlantic Records, says “multiple billions” of pieces of user-generated content helped boost the song’s performance, along with incredible support from the Furious 7 cast and franchise, which included Diesel singing the song onstage at awards shows. Meanwhile, the track spent 12 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart and ruled radio airplay.

“It was a hit song the way hit songs used to be,” Puth tells Billboard of his breakout track. “It became such a monster overnight, I’m pretty sure hit songs don’t happen like that anymore. A week after it came out, everyone was already singing along.”

Through it all, the song began to take on its own life, separate from Furious 7 and Walker, becoming an anthem much like Puff Daddy’s “I’ll Be Missing You” for anyone who’s had to say goodbye to a loved one. Only here, thanks to the massive reach of the film franchise, the international reach was huge — just 15 of the total views are from the United States with viewers, on average, watching about 75 percent of the video to completion, according to Atlantic.

“I think the reason it had such an impact and it continues to have such an impact is the personal connection that everyone who experiences the video has with it,” says Weaver. “It resonates with people in such a personal, profound capacity.”

“The song has taken on so many layers, layers that I never even fathomed when I wrote it,” adds Puth, to whom the most-viewed title holds particular meaning having begun his career posting videos on the platform.

The song “See You Again” closes the Furious 7 film in a touching scene where Walker’s character, Brian O’Connor, literally drives off into the sunset. Knobloch tells Billboard that although the song was released ahead of the film, its video was held until after its release so that the fans would have that association with it rather than something conjured from the music video.

“We wanted people to see the film first to experience Walker’s character’s sendoff,” Knobloch says. “Then the video was meant to be a souvenir piece to recapture that sentiment — strike the same chords but with the right context of hopefully the first experience of it being from the film.”

And while soundtrack songs are often trying to “level up” from the “basic standard template” of a music video cut with film footage, Knobloch says, with “See You Again” the feeling was that “people would probably want to have that retrospective film footage from shots of the movie.”

Weaver echoes this sentiment telling Billboard it was essential “that we conceptualized something that had an aesthetic, sense, feel that ties to the film.” To achieve this, he pointed to them even bringing in the same cars featured in Furious 7 and generally making sure it tied “into the fabric of the DNA of the film and the brand and what the moment at the end of movie was with Paul.”

While the sentimentality of tributing Walker has surely helped boost the video’s success, Knobloch is sure to state repeatedly that element came from an entirely earnest place and was not exploited as part of a greater marketing effort.

“We were very careful to not force feed this to people,” he says. “Vin [Diesel] and there other cast members, everyone’s well utilized in the marketing of the franchise and each new release of the film. This was not approached with that strategy play in mind.”

Puth expects he will “definitely” be dethroned soon. “But I’m just enjoying it right now,” he says.

Says Wiz Khalifa: “I think as an artist you hope, or at least I hope, that I can make music that people love for years to come.”

This story first appeared on Billboard.

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#Charlie #Dethroned #Gangnam #Khalifa #Puths #Style #Top #Video #Wiz #YouTubes

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