#and maybe that's sort of the vibe but it cheapened it a bit for me

[putschki1969]

Hello Puts!

I don't think I have seen you share your thoughts about Keiko's latest single. I personally really enjoy this release and I am curious how you feel about it?

Ugh, yeah, you got me there🫣I've been uncharacteristically quiet about Keiko's 「夕闇のうた」. Quite frankly, I've just not had enough positive things to say to warrant a proper review😭. As most of you probably know, I do not get any pleasure from lingering on stuff I don't particularly like, I simply move on and prefer to focus on things I actually enjoy. But hey, since you asked, I might as well write up a few things that have been going through my mind.

Disclaimer: Needless to say, this is all just my personal opinion. I am by no means an expert on music or singing, I am just a fan who is very invested in my girls but due to having a very specific taste, not everything works for me but of course that doesn't mean that it won't work for anyone else.

Let's start with the single's A-Side 「夕闇のうた/Yūyami no Uta」. It's not like I hate the song or anything, objectively it's a decent track, I just can't really get into it. There are some songs and melodies that immediately resonate with me, others grow on me over time and then there are some I need to hear performed live to properly appreciate them. In this case, none of these options apply unfortunately. We got our very first snippet way back at the end of November and to be honest, that didn't do much for me which already kinda tempered my excitement. Ever since then the song has had time to marinate but I haven't been able to warm up to it. Even the live performance at last year's Kaji Fes didn't have a noteworthy effect on me. My last hope was hearing the full studio version but my reaction was once again rather lukewarm. The visuals of the PV helped a bit to get me into a good mood for the song but ultimately, I was pretty much underwhelmed. And the worst thing is, I struggle to pinpoint what exactly is bothering me about the song. One thing I am definitely not a fan of is the overly rushed and repetitive drum-beat in the verses, for some reason I feel like it clashes a bit with Keiko's singing and cheapens the overall vibe of the song but that could just be my personal impression. I prefer a good build-up to a chorus and I don't think we are getting it here. Speaking of the chorus, the structure of the chorus doesn't work for me or maybe it's the melody (lack thereof?) that doesn't appeal to me? Not sure exactly but it's not giving me what I would have liked. The first part starting with "inori" is pretty generic and then we get a sort of crescendo for "utau/fureru" which feels oddly out of place, especially when it transitions right into the scat singing. Maybe there is too much different stuff going on or it's all happening too fast but it doesn't have the impact on me which it probably should have. I am usually a big fan of Keiko's scat singing, I mean, her yay- yay-yay part in YK's "vanity" or Kalafina's "Door" regularly gives me an eargasm so why the hell does it leave me so unimpressed in "Yūyami no Uta"???!!! I guess it's more of a combination of the melodic arrangement and the accompanying scatting which makes songs like "vanity" or "Door" so much more epic for me....? As for the bridge, it's okay I suppose. In her interviews, Keiko has mentioned multiple times how her progress as a vocalist has made it possible to tackle all these high parts and that just a few years ago, Yuki Kajiura would have assigned Yuriko Kaida or one of her other chorus singers to sing those sections. Keiko's higher registers are a hit and miss for me, sometimes they work, other times not so much. Here she sounds perfectly fine and I fully understand why YK would feel confident to let Keiko handle this on her own. But again, the whole part is just meh and by now I am convinced that it is because the song doesn't have a sufficiently nice melody to provide a good base for Keiko's singing.

I want to continue with 「夕闇のうた Special Edit ver.」 because I honestly feel like we have been robbed of something really good here. Whoever decided to bypass this in favour of the normal version should really start questioning their life choices. I am not saying that this version is perfect (we don't even get all that much to form an opinion on it) but from what I hear, it is superior in many ways and would have worked better as an ending (edit: apparently, it has actually been used as ED on the 3rd ep). That gorgeous strings intro alone takes the song to a whole new level, making it so much more melodic. And the somewhat obtrusive drums feel way more toned down here since they are introduced at a later point of the song to create more of a proper build-up towards the chorus. The chorus itself is pretty much the same from what I can tell but I wonder what the bridge and the remainder of the verses would have sounded like in this style. The ending verse of the song also works a lot better for this special edit, wish they had included all of it starting from "itoshii" and then concluded it with another strings section.

Now all that's left to talk about is the single's B-Side, 「燈命/Tōmei」. This song is a big no-go for me so I'll keep it short. The composition, arrangement and lyrics were all done by Saku who has previously worked with Keiko on "Ray" (Lantana), "Sakura wo Goran" (dew) and "YOUR" (CUTLERY). He was only in charge of the arrangement for"Sakura wo Goran" but out of those three songs, "Tōmei" feels closest to this one in terms of vibe and overall blandness. I've come to enjoy "YOUR" quite a bit (even if I am not so happy with some of Keiko's higher notes) and "Ray" is decent too but my entire body outright rejects songs like "Sakura wo Goran" and "Tōmei". Sorry🙈I don't even know what else to say. I listened to it and immediately was like, nope, next one please.

Phew, this turned out longer than expected. I feel shabby for going on and on about all the stuff I didn't like but oh well, what's done is done. Moving on...

#kalafina #keiko #reply #review #夕闇のうた #yūyami no uta #燈命 #Tōmei

[entamewitchlulu]

i went to see a special showing of dracula (1992) at my local theater for the halloween vibes and since i’ve also being enjoying dracula daily as my first official foray into the original dracula, i have some Thoughts

- there was no reason for this movie to be rated R. the gore was minimal at best and hokey at worst. there were a few sexually charged scenes and like, a handful of naked boobs, but not nearly as many naked boobs as I had expected from some of the content warnings i had been reading before i went to go see it

- they absolutely Wasted keanu reeves in this movie. they cast him as jonathan harker and idk if he was just not as good of an actor back then or if the script for him just sucked or if he was directed poorly but he was so stilted and boring and i was like man. he deserves better than this. my friend jonathan deserves better than this.

- winona ryder was really good though

- the movie made lucy a lot more...mean? like she is very much portrayed as leading on all three of her suitors, and being kind of flirtatious and seductive and even a little mean in the way she kinda pulls the three men around. in the book i got more of a sense that she was like...sweet and maybe a little bit silly, but she genuinely liked all three guys and cared about them a lot and wouldn’t have played with their feelings like that just because. it made it kind of cheapen her eventual turning and death

- van helsing was made to be Too Competent. they very much went with the tack that he already knew that vampires existed and was an expert on defeating them. They also made him weirdly like. rude. in the book he’s the sweetest old man who’s like, 30% sure vampires are involved but he’s never actually had cause to believe vampires are real yet so he’s trying to move cautiously so he doesn’t jump into a hysteria or jump anyone else into a hysteria. and i liked that more

- making it a romance between mina and dracula was suuuuuchhhh a mistake. I am not immune to Dark Lovers plots but i found myself just sitting there rolling my eyes any time the two of them had a scene together. the fact is just like...dracula isn’t actually sexy. there are plenty of sexy vampires in the world, but dracula isn’t. to me. he’s just a predator, and i don’t meant that in the sense that he’s abusive etc i mean that in the literal sense of the term, he’s a hunter at the top of the food chain like a wolf or a lion and adding romance to that just has no interest to me. he was a creature that simply had the appearance of a person.

- also, to be completely honest with you, dracula is an incompetent idiot and that’s what makes him so entertaining to me. he’s like, super powerful, seductive, has all sorts of intense powers, but he’s running around like a dumbass trying to make them all work. he SEEMS more dangerous because the rest of the cast is so overpowered by his sheer abilities, but like van helsing says, he’s very much like a child when it comes to what exactly he knows he’s capable of doing. Making him more of a master criminal makes him like every other sexy villain which just makes him more boring me.

- (again. i like sexy villains. I am not immune to a good sexy villain. but for me the fun of dracula is that he is just putting on the face of a sexy villain but is actually essentially just a very hungry carnivore figuring out how to get the tasty meal hidden behind all the newfangled mortal contraptions. this is probably a personal thing that most people will not resonate with and that’s fine.)

- but on the other hand of making dracula into a tragic figure who just wants his reincarnted love back, i truly think making mina into his reincarnated love just...takes away a lot of what i liked about mina’s character. it doesn’t really serve to give her any more agency than the book already had for her, in fact it almost makes her feel like she has less. sure, she seems like she’s more direct about what she wants in the movie, but the fact that she’s a reincarnation makes it seem as though she’s just this lady getting pulled around helplessly by fate. rather, in the book, mina is just an ordinary woman who gets caught up in everything, and Decides to do whatever she can in order to bring this monster that’s killed her best friend and tortured her lover and tried to turn her into a monster as well down. She uses his own powers against him when he forms a mind link with her. In the movie, van helsing insists that he hypnotize her to find dracula, but in the book, it’s mina who puts together that they have this potential advantage and seeks out van helsing to demand that he do this.

- idk i just. mina is my favorite character. and i just feel like the movie does a huge disservice to her by making her just a reincarnated suicidal love interest.

- anyway i’m complaining a lot but the the movie was still not bad at all if you consider it its own thing apart from the book. I think it was really entertaining in that sort of campy, silly special effects from the 90s sort of way. I almost choked trying not to laugh in the theater when we got to see dracula climbing down the wall like a gecko with his stupid long cape trailing after him.

- on a totally different note, i feel like the plot of this movie was super similar to the plot of Curse of Strahd? From just the briefest search i can’t find out anything specifically, but i almost feel like Strahd was D&D’s take on this version of Dracula, but casting Strahd’s “eternal love” as a much more dangerous and harmful force than Dracula’s.

- i am also open to suggestions for other dracula adaptations or retellings in any format (books, movies, video games, anime, manga) that you think are worth looking into. i’m kinda in the zone to look more into stuff about dracula atm, especially with the halloween season

#dracula #lulu talks

[thorne1435]

Folk Songs (1964): Ballo - Luciano Berio

No Time To Lose - Madison McFerrin

Plant Thief - Deerhoof

1 Thing - Amerie

16 Shells From A 30.6 - Tom Waits

on anon bc im shy and then if you think the music is I can preserve my dignity. i like your opinions tho

Ballo: I really liked this one. I'm particularly fond of the strings and snares. I think they work really well for it. Beyond that, I'm finding it hard to latch onto one particular part I enjoy. The way it accentuates its first beats is really hard not to nod along to. I'll probably be listening to this one on loop for a couple days. It's really good.

I'm tempted to recommend some Homestuck music in return but maybe I should save those for later... Anyway, I'm actually more inclined to say it vibes closer to "En route pour l'aventure!" which is something I haven't heard in years, so thank you for reminding me it exists.

No Time To Lose: Really beautiful lead voice. I'm not sure if their style is just a capella but I find the execution really interesting for this particular song. It gives it an airy quality that's kinda neat. Which makes me hope this is an occasional style for them, because that's just a neat sound to pull out of your back pocket. It cheapens it a little if that's just their style 24/7, to me.

Y'know what this reminds me of? Liana Flores.

Plant Thief: Lyrically, I find this one kind of lacking, but it also might be too artsy for me. Musically, it's phenomenal. It reminds me of KGatLW but like...I actually like it. Which is a pretty big improvement.

You might like something fuzzy and distorted. Try this.

1 Thing: This sounds so fucking familiar but I'll never place it. I don't want to call it fonky but I don't want to call it poppy. It's got a whole fuckin VIBE. Personally, I'm wondering if it's the sentiment or the sound you're listening for.

For the sentiment, you could try "Two Time", by Jack Stauber. For the sound, you might like something with a lot of percussion. But wouldn't we all? Good fucking luck, buddy. If you find some more shit like this, send it to me immediately, actually.

16 Shells From A 30.6: This song carries on a bit longer than it probably should, but that's sort of a fault of the style. And it is a good execution of the style. Very folksy, very blues.

Now, I don't usually do music like this so I'm having trouble finding some comparisons, but maybe you wouldn't mind "Devil For The Fire".

Pretty good picks. The only one I didn't really like was "16 Shells From A 30.6" though I'd be pretty stupid to say that it's "bad" because it's not. It's just not really my style.

#music share

[usernamesuggestionsarefunny]

Ok, so Spiderman.

I still hate the multiverse as a concept and how much it cheapens everything that happens in the MCU, won't explain why in detail again, but I admit I was sold on the childhood nostalgia with the previous two Peter Parkers and absolutely adored having them interact together (I wouldn't have minded if everything had been a dream or something though). I loved the jokes, the sort of friendship that formed between them, everything.

Seems the writters put a bit of effort into not making this completely sitcom-y and nostalgia cash grab, I am not gonna lie, and I was pleasantly surprised. Although it also had a bit of that vibe, but the plot was solid enough for a Marvel film. Maybe not, I am bad at spotting plot holes lol.

That scene where Andrew!Peter saves MJ is GOLD, so emotional, so fitting. They managed to give his unfinished story some sort of closure in the few minutes of screentime he had. How is that not AMAZING? Makes me even wish for a third TAS movie where he moves on.

I liked Tobey's moments as well although I was a bit disappointed he didn't talk more about his life and how he is doing in that universe, giving us some closure on his relationship with MJ, whether they are married, have children idk he looks like a dad you have to admit it.

The scene where May died was very emotional and sad. Now, I loved this version of May, she was fun, sweet, affectionate and motherly, and I am a sucker for angst (And Tom Holland's crying on cue abilities lmao), so it is not the death itself what bothered me or even that she is this universe's version of Uncle Ben, but I did think the famous phrase and her pushing Peter to do something as dangerous as trying to save those villains was sort of forced and inconsistent with her character in previous movies. I mean seriously, in the first Spiderman movie she was telling Peter: "If you see danger run the other way", and we didn't get much character development on how she changed her views or whether her desire for Peter to be safe depended on his apparent helplessness and changed upon learning of his powers. Not enough scenes to show this. Even if there were though, it seems letting go of Peter or admiring his urge to help others is something she learnt from him off screen and not the other way around despite her being his tutor. Willing to be proven wrong but I doubt it.

So yeah, I am sorry, I loved her character, I loved her death scene and I am looking forward to reading angst fics describing the effect this will have on Peter lol but I am not sold on her saying the famous "with great power comes great responsability" phrase and the way they only killed her so she could say that and Tom's Peter could have something in common with the other two. Seems like a very last minute creative choice that would have been better had we been shown scenes in previous movies of May being Peter's inspiration. This could have easily avoided also by having Tom's Peter recall an MCU Uncle Ben during a conversation with May.

May could have still died though, just with an original reason as to why. Yes, with her helping, but not necessarily as the main inspiration. Maybe in a way that showed her concern for Peter and dismay he was doing something as dangerous as portrayed in previous films. Similar as to what happened in the movie, but I would have enjoyed it more if she had lost herself a little, you know what I mean? More panic in her actions and reactions. She is a civilian, not a superhero. This is her BABY BOY fighting a dangerous man willing to kill him and she is seeing something like that up close real time on front of her for the very first time!! Panic a bit more, damn it!!!!!! (Nothing to do with the actress, she was great, this is about the writting/direction).

-

The ending was very sad.

Peter is completely alone :'(

Left me with a truly bad taste in my mouth lol. But a good bad taste in my mouth if that is even possible.

Looking forward to see what they are going to do with his character now but at the same time... bad taste. I don't know how to explain it lol

#spiderman no way home #spiderman #spiderman no way home spoilers #tobey maguire #andrew garfield #tom holland #peter parker #spiderman review #spoiler #spiderman nwh

[quillium]

How much do you vibe with the "paimon is a weakened form of the unknown god who lost her memories" theory? It has so many plot holes, but the shock and betrayal would be delicious, so I'm conflicted

Okay first of all your girl is not nearly smart enough to know anything about fan theories and their validity wiajogdsk second of all I don’t think I can vibe with it too much for two reasons:

1) If Paimon is a weakened form of the unknown god who lost her memories it sort of cheapens any reveal that happens. So she’s weaker and has amnesia... thus implying that there’s a larger force at play manipulating the unknown god as well as the Traveler or that it’s an Azhdaha situation? 

Either way, if Paimon is the unknown god I’d prefer she be specifically manipulating Traveler a certain way, however, she’s shown no signs of it, so I feel like storywise, I can’t see how it would work. I know it can, and I have faith in Mihoyo, but I just feel like I can’t see how they could pull a satisfying reveal as of the moment. 

To be fair though, we’re like... maybe at best a tenth of the way through the game? So that’s very much liable to change.

2) I just really like Paimon waoejigdk. I know a lot of people think she’s annoying or whatever but I love Paimon to pieces. She’s Traveler’s only constant companion and friend in a time where Traveler is most alone in a new and strange world and the implication that we can’t trust the person who was our only constant when we just lost the person most precious to us... I love angst but I think it’s important that it happens in a place where people can still rely on others. When Paimon says “we’ll always be together forever” and Traveler’s a bit quiet? It breaks my heart. Yeah Paimon let’s be together forever </3

Actually, I feel like an idea that’s even more intriguing to me is the idea that Traveler chooses to side with their twin for a bit and goes kinda evil and then it’s Paimon who brings them back. 

Like Traveler sees the truth of the world and wants to abandon Teyvat and side with the Abyss Order, but Paimon reminds them of their journey together through the world and how much they loved Teyvat, and Traveler has to make the choice to choose Paimon and Teyvat over their twin and the Abyss. I don’t think that’ll actually happen but aweiojgdsk I’m just a sucker for the power of friendship.

#genshin impact #aether #lumine #paimon #paimon is the unknown god theory #i guess aoiwjgldk #asks #anon #i know this isn't the content y'all came for sorry oaweigjldk #but i just love paimon this is a paimon stan blog

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 15 - 11

15. Ieva Zasimauskaitė - “When we’re old” Lithuania 2018

[2018 Review here]

~wen wir owld HOOOOOOOOOOOO~

So close to the endgame it’s time to open all of the emotional registers. Much like Hovi, I did not expect to love Ieva as much as I do, however unlike Hovi I had already fully embraced Ieva and “When we’re old” long before rehearsals started.

And for good reason because Ieva fucking disarms me every time without fail. She herself is of course a hilarious, relatably weirdo indie girl, this time in the guise of a Born Again Hindu who ~FELT A COSMIC PRESENCE~ on the stage with her. 😍 Telling the true story of how she overcame depression by falling in love with her hubby. Flanked by holograms that project Ieva’s life dream: to be happy and grow old with the love of her life. All my hopeless romantic triggers are activated by this song. ALL OF THEM.

People are generally divided on Ieva’s voice, but um hello welcome to BorisBubbles. I ranked Nina Kralic and Jana Burcheska hellow-high. I LOVE Ieva’s husky, nasal, ovine, falsetto whine of a voice. It makes “When we’re old” for me. Ieva injects so much vulnerability and authenticity into a song that whenever she performs it, all I can do is sit in silence, tears welling up in my eyes, bleating along with the WHAOHHHHHs. Time truly stands still during “When we’re old” and I’m speechless.

________________________________________________________________

14. Conchita Wurst - “Rise like a phoenix” Austria 2014

You can be damn’ sure the highest ranked powerballad on this list is “Rise like a phoenix”. It isn’t as much as a song as it is an INSTITUTION. 

Which is why, symbollically, “Phoenix” is a very important winner. It’s a plight for overcoming hate, for overcoming bullying, from being yourself in the face and of adversity and rising from the ashes reborn, reinvented, reinvigorated. Its presentation is provocative, yet secondary, putting vocals and song on the foreground. It is rooted in the political zeitgeist of its winners, like most modern winners, obviously, 

however, ask yourself this:

Would “Phoenix” have won if it hadn’t been a great performance of a great song? 

I don’t think it would have. Take away the powerful composition and leave just the politically correct message, and you get Bilal Hassani. Take away the beard and you have, well, a really good song bond theme by a talented vocalist, that probably would’ve finished top ten, if not top five in most years. 

It’s easy to get distracted by Tom’s stick because a “Bearded drag queen” provides a lot of cognitive dissonance, which I personally love because it forces me to think, keeping my mind sharp. The use of a gimmick does NOT cheapen the talent on display here, however. Tom’s delivery of the song is flawless, hitting every note, delivering both ‘feminine’ nuturing comfort and ‘masculine’ strength to his glorious song. He even throws in some small nuggets of fierceness, providing levity, reminding us of Conchita’s drag queen roots

The act is cut from the same professional cloth; it is maybe a tad provocative, but at it’s core it remains dignified and classy, maintaining a moral high ground that instantly sheds a bad light on any hater. You may pull her down, but she’s gonna FLYYYYY.

Conchita Wurst is the best winner of this decade, period. No winning performance is as ironclad, vocally, musically or stagingwise as hers. No other winner has shown as much raw performance talent as she has. No winner has been able to make such a statement while at their core maintaining a high-quality musical standard. No winner has been such a champion of those whose voices are trampled for being different. To use Conchita’s own words after she won: “WE ARE UNITY. AND *WE* ARE UNSTOPPABLE.” 

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13. Zlata Ognevich - “Gravity” Ukraine 2013

This is the last female fronted act from 2013, you know what that means: EPIC ENTRANCE TIME 😍

What a beautiful dreamscape. I felt bad ranking Elina Nechayeva in a fairly low 39th place, but honestly, “Gravity” vibes very similarly and does the same things a lot better: Breathtakingly regal woman, a mirage of near-divine grace, stunning visual effects... SIGN ME UP ALREADY. At the core we of course find Zlata, the winner of the Best Human Award in 2013. Zlata’s backstage bits were rife with personality facts that instantly endeared her to me. A praraphrased selection from her infinitely quotable interview gold: ”I PRACTICE BIG VOICE BY HOLDING BREATH UNDERWATER”; “I COME FROM PLACE IT’S CALLED CRIMEA, IS LARGE ::reads from online dictionary:: PEN...EEN...SYOO..LA(?) WITH BIG MOUNTAIN AND LARGE SEA ^_^”; “I LOVE UNICORN IS FAVOURITE ANIMAL”. GODDESS. 😍

Fortunately her overpoweringly loud, yet disarmingly weird personality is also omnipresent during her big screen performance. “Gravity” is a mirage of Disney mojo and Zlata absolutely fucking hits it like A SHTRIKE OF DUNDAR

I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a song that is legit quotable at every interval? There is not a single line in “Gravity” that doesn’t bring out the bedroom karaoke: “IMMA LIIIKA BADDERFLYYYYY.” “NOTHING COMES FROM PRIDE, -*HAYLALE*” “NOW I FEEL NO FEEEEE-AAAAAAR.“

And I’m not even done because Gravity ALSO features an excellent backing choir (the male backing vocalist is incredible). It’s just a perfect example of world music, conjuring three minutes of pure, unicorn-endorsed magic. IMMA LIIIKE A BADDERFLYYYYY. 🦋

________________________________________________________________

12. Juliana Pasha - “It’s all about you” Albania 2010

YUARDAWAN 😀 YUGIMMEDATSAMTINANEED 😀 ITZMI 😀 ENDAMFOLIN 😀

We are at #12, which means we’re at that Olympian milestone where every entity ranked is a fucking supernatural force. In Juliana’s case a forced of pure, unfiltered, streechy harpism. 😍 It is so weird to think that she was the first of Albania’s now iconic ‘Shrieking Boss Hag” archetype because it feels like a alliance older than time, sealed and styled in cuneiform onto a shard of Sumerian pottery, blessed by the Annunaki and then embedded into the muddy banks of the Euphrates. 

Anyway, Juliana earned my HEART once she greeted us with her uncanny-valleyesque diction and cheshire-catesque leering, all YUARDAWAN! and proceeded to throw everything, both vocally and facialexpressionly, into the mix, in ascending degrees of deafening loudness. 😍

With a criminally addictive electronic schlager song too boot! One which, like Zlata features an INCREDIBLE supporting cast in a bangin’ gospel choir, as well as a very generous dollop of ❤ ELECTRONIC VIOLA REALNESS ❤

One of the fave musicians of NaziPope, btw. “It’s all about you” is such a Triumpf of the Shrill. 😍

Anyway, this high quality list of ingredients make for a very replayable ride that never spoils or grows stale, no matter how often I listen to it. Which is actually a lot. I’ve looped “It’s all about you” at countless occasions since 2010, making it perhaps the song on this list that I have to the MOST often. (Or second most because there IS a song I still have to rank that may challenge Juliana for that title.) If that ain’t a hallmark for quality, I don’t know what is. 

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11. Koza Mostra ft. Agathonas Iakovidis - “Alcohol is free” Greece 2013

Has life been letting you down? Have you been struck by a financial crisis? Do you no longer know how to continue living. Fear not, because :cracks knuckles: we are about to embark on a MASTERCLASS of unabashed drunken REVELRY:

Um a small disclaimer though. This song has a really really, really, REALLY irresponsible title. DO NOT at any circumstance use alcohol as a coping mechanism, engage in drunk driving or other activities under influence that you may life to regret later, if you live to regret it later. Also don’t drink if you’re underage. Also also, alcohol can cause obesity and cardio-vascular arrest. and cancer, possibly. Drink, but do so RESPONSIBLY. 

HOWEVER, what if this song is... a PSA???😈 An Anti-Crisis PSA that is, lol. A group of folk hipsters literally PARTYING AWAY the misery of the financial crisis in a delightfully self-deprecating fashion is just the pinacle of fun for me and Koza Mostra fucking ROLL with it. Watching them dart out in all wind directions, interacting with each other gives me LIFE.

It’s exactly that sort of industriousness which sets “Alcohol is free” apart from other party songs. There is a LOT of randomness going on in the background and it gives you ZERO time to process all of it, making every rewatch an easter egg hunt.

This approach to staging usually doesn’t work, but here it is actually very intelligent and I’ll explain why: The act places a lot of focus on Agathonas (which it should because he’s the lead singer despite his featured status), but by the same token offers constant distraction by all the Koza Mostra shenanigans in the background...  In other words, it’s an act that forces your attention away from the main event by confusing your senses, requesting all of you concentration keep up with everything that’s going on... which is actually a brilliantly accurate simulation of how 'being drunk’ works.

(btw if you listen closely you can hear the sound of Agathonas tapping his skull lol <3)

So the next time you listen to this song, pour yourself a drink (ONE drink!) sit back and embark on a Waldo-esque hunt to see how many beautiful nuggets you can find hidden in that splendid act, as the upbeat sirtaki madness fills your head with cloudy thoughts. As far as I’m concerned, Koza Mostra have WON the Eurovision Fun Contest. 

EVERYONE RISE AND APPLAUD THE  10 BEST ENTRIES IN THIS DECADE:

From now on, I’ll only include maximum 2 songs per update :o

And in this update we finally say goodbye to Greece, Albania, Ukraine, Austria and Lithuania. Read my thoughts on them, below:

LITHUANIA

Lithuania was hands down the worst country in the 00s and look at their chart now. They are slowly getting their shit together and it shows. Keep on going, darlings!!

AUSTRIA

God Austria are so boring. At least they occasionally provide us with a great entry here or there, but they’re so inconsistent in their entertainment. 2 great - 6 okay - 1 terrible is NOT a great ratio by any means. 

UKRAINE

ALBANIA

Albania are very hit-or-miss, but I really like their presence in Eurovision actually. Like Georgia they entries are so left-field that they are always *interesting* even when they’re not good. Except “Fairytale”. Fuck “Fairytale”.

GREECE

Fuck this decade was ROUGH for Greece. They are a shattered nation and if you think this chart is bad, let me remind you that their best result in the past five contests is 19th place. Same in fact, as San Marino’s highest and lower than the highest placements of Albania, Montenegro, Slovenia, UK, Ireland, North Macedonia,...

#Eurovision #Eurovision Song Contest #Greece #Albania #Ukraine #Austria #Lithuania #koza mostra #Agathonas Iakovidis #Alcohol is free #Juliana Pasha #it's all about perspective #Zlata Ognevich #Gravity #Conchita Wurst #Tom Neuwirth #WURST #Rise like a phoenix #Ieva Zasimauskaite #When we're old

[killitquick]

Here Comes a Thought.

Sherlock watched as you interacted with the men in the bar you two had found yourselves in. John, Sherlock and you had decided to take a case from a woman who lived up in the county.  Her grandmother had met an untimely death and although the coroner had said all was well she just didn’t believe him.There wasn’t a lot of cell service. Which wasn’t that much of a problem for the three of you; until it was. The good thing was that the case was finished. The killer was her grandfather who had run himself into debt. He hadn’t realized  that he had been cut out of the will and all the money was to be sent to his grand-daughter. 

 The car you had rented for this case was supposed to be in tip top shape. However down a dark and twisty road the engine shuttered and spat and then then car rolled to a stop.  The two men had gotten out and started to push while you steered.  There was an exit a kilometer away which wasn’t that far. You had almost made it till a huge hill had gotten in the way of your advances. 

It was a warm summer night and you weren’t bothered by the walk You and John were laughing and Sherlock could feel his blood starting to boil. Sherlock wasn’t sure why he was feeling so much animosity towards John. He had a wife and a child and he knew that he was loyal. He trusted him with his life and his secrets but every time one of his hands landed on your body he wanted to throw him into a fire. 

The wind blew and you just knew.  The air was sticky sweet with the aroma of  fresh pine needles and dirt. It hadn’t hit yet but it was coming; rain. You looked up to the previously clear sky and come face to face with dark and heavy clouds. It wasn’t on the forecast but neither was your car breaking down. 

“ We should hurry, It’s going to rain.” 

“ How do you know?” Sherlock asks. 

He means it to be just a genuine question but his voice comes off clipped and harsh and he see’s the way you recoil. A pang or regret hits his heart but for some reason he can’t help but let the anger cloud his words. 

“ I can smell it, plus there’s rain clouds hanging above our heads” you point up 

Sherlock refuses to look to where you’re pointing. What did John have that he hadn’t? You had seemed to be  so enamored by him this whole trip and he had enough of watching the two of you.  

“ Improbable, you can’t smell the weather” 

You’re not sure why Sherlock was in bad mood, you just knew he was. You know better than to argue when he’s like this. He gets cold and mean and you don’t think your heart could take his slashing words. You had thought that he was getting warmer towards you.  Yet as soon as you moved in his direction he lashed out at you. You found solace in John. He assured you that Sherlock was just adjusting to his feelings . He likened him to a rabid, cornered raccoon. Any moves towards him would be perceived as hostile.

The three of you hadn’t walked quick enough and were soon caught in a down pour. The summer rains were warm though so it wasn’t so bad. You shot a look at Sherlock as you made it to the top of the hill. 

“ I told you so” slips from your lips before you can stop them.

 The wide smile on your lips dropped the second your eyes connected with his. The scowl that had graced his features hit you harder than you would have liked.  John notices the stare down the two of you were stuck in. It was the staring match of the century.

“ There’s a bar a half click from here” John says bringing you out of your stupor. 

The bar was busy and loud. The chatter overlapped the sounds of the rain hitting the tin roof. Sounds of clinking glasses and cheers slurred around  and you welcomed such cheery vibes.  John was at the telephone booth getting a hold of a mechanic and you were at the bar getting everyone a beer.  A man that had already had a few rocked up beside you.  He looked nothing like your Sherlock but he was still attractive. His breath smelt like limes and beer and you didn’t mind the flirty smile.  He was easy to talk to and you wondered if it was always supposed to be this easy. You hadn’t been in the flirting game for a while because you had been strung out on Sherlock. Plus with the crazy hours you worked a social life was hard to maintain. 

Sherlock could only see red as the strangers hand crept along the exposed skin of your hip. Your wet shirt clung to your body in a delicious way and he wasn’t surprised that other men could see your beauty. He was surprised that you were welcoming their advances though. He felt a pang of betrayal crawl up his throat. John was still on the phone with the mechanics office and so there was no one to stop him from marching over towards the two of you. 

Harry’s finger rubbed tiny circles on your hip as you waited for your drinks to be made. It was sending chills up your spine and if you weren’t already head over heels for someone you would have gone home with him. He was a nice bloke and you could see yourself being happy in his arms but not as happy as you could be in Sherlock’s. The curly haired man comes into your field of vision and your whole world is set alight. The hand on your hip falls away as you move your body towards Sherlock’s instinctively.

“ Hey Sherlock!” you yelled over the noise. 

“ I just wanted to know what was taking you so long.” 

“ Oh, well our drinks should be up next. I got a you a beer. I wasn’t sure if you were in the mood for wine or not” 

“ I’m not in the mood for anything.” 

“ Sherlock what’s wrong, you’ve been acting strange this whole trip.” 

Sherlock scoffs at the question. How could you ask him what was wrong. Like you cared about his feelings. You were so easily distracted by that man that your affections towards him felt cheapened.  Were you really into him or was he just there. Was he the only available man for you to cling to. The thought of him being nothing more than that, hurt on a level he didn’t even know he could hurt on. 

“ Don’t act as if you care.” the words fumble out of his mouth like putrid bile. It stings the whole way up and leaves a nasty taste in his mouth. 

“ How could you say that, of course I care!” you grabbed the man by the arm and led him out into the cooling night air. 

“ Please, you care for me the same way that you care for that man at the bar. Just the tiniest bit of attention and you’ll throw yourself down like a ten cent whore” 

The words hit like a slap to the face and Sherlock watches as you physically flinch. His heart yearns  to reconcile the second he see’s tears spring up into your eyes. He knows he’s acting irrationally but that was entirely your fault. You had done something to him to make him behave like this, you had possibly drugged him or put him under hypnosis.  Sherlock didn’t get emotional, not like this. Sherlock didn’t believe that it was his deep hidden feelings for you that had made him go bonkers. He didn’t believe the word jealous lived in his vocabulary when describing himself and yet here he was with the green monster sitting in his belly. 

You’re so shocked you can’t even say anything. You hadn’t shied away from the mans advances, but it was nice to finally feel wanted. To feel the warm hands of someone on your skin left you a little breathless. Even then it wasn’t sweet Harry you were thinking of.  It was so easy to pretend it was Sherlock.  You knew something like this would never happen with him and so you let yourself slide into the fantasy. You didn’t think for one second you were being whorish maybe  a little too flirty but it was all innocent to you. 

“ I was pretending it was you. You only give me an inch every mile. It’s like half a step forward ten steps back with you, Sherlock, but I love you anyways. I love you knowing full well who you are. It just felt nice to feel wanted. That doesn’t make a-a whore. It makes me lonely and a little desperate for affection but not a whore. “ You couldn’t help the tears that fell down your cheeks or the lump that formed in your throat. 

“ It makes you weak throwing yourself into another’s arms because I don’t bend to your every whim.”  his voice is as sharp as his tongue 

“ And what does that make you, jealous and too emotionally stunted to see it. ” you yelled walking away from the man

There was an Inn just down the street from the bar and so you left Sherlock to his thoughts. There was no point in shielding yourself from the rain. You were already soaking wet from the walk to the bar. You wrapped your arms around yourself looking for some sort of comfort as sobs wracked your chest and your hot tears mixed with the cold rain. It left you numb. 

Sherlock marched his way back inside and found John at the booth with the three beers you had ordered. John looked up expecting to see your smiling form behind Sherlock but was confused when he sat down across from him alone. 

“ Where’s YN?” 

“ Most likely booking a motel room for herself” 

“ and why’s that? Sherlock,what did you do?” 

Sherlock tried to ignore John’s expectant gaze but it was hard to with his head so full. Sherlock needed to spill the secrets of his mind and John was his confident. He trusted him with his deepest thoughts.  Sherlock too a big sip of his beer and let the buttery notes of pine fill his thoughts up for a second before he explained to John what had transpired between the two of you, 

“ I hardly think that counts as jealousy and I refuse to believe i’m emotionally stunted.” 

“ You’re an idiot and you are jealous. Go and apologize” John demands 

“ I’m not apologizing. I’m not wrong. She should be apologizing to me” 

“ You’re going to lose her. She’ll figure out that she’s too good for you and she’ll never come back, is that what you want?” John asks seriously 

Sherlock knows he’s being obtuse. He knows deep in his bones that he wants you to himself. That he wants your smiles and laughter for himself. He also knows he’s being selfish. He knows that he purposely gives you just enough attention to keep you from leaving but not enough for him to stay. He knows it’s not fair of him to deny you love but he was afraid. You were uncharted territory. You were a  place in his mind he wasn’t sure of. You had a hold on him that he couldn’t explain not even to himself and that terrified him. John was right though you would go off into the world and learn that you deserved more than what he was giving you and you wouldn’t come back.

There was knocking at your door. A loud banging that wouldn’t let up and you just knew it was Sherlock. You pulled the door open and looked up at the raven haired man. His gray eyes were bright with something you couldn’t figure out, but honestly you just couldn’t bring yourself to care.  The two of your stare at each other for a moment before Sherlock made a move. His large hands gripped your body as he moved the two of you into the tiny room. You wanted to just go with it but the tears he had caused weren’t even dry. Your tiny hands gripped his soaked button up shirt as he sat you down on the small table in your room. Sherlock stood between your legs. His body cold and wanting. His head was bowed to you and  he took a minute to gather his thoughts. You watched as droplets of rain slid down his wet curly tresses. The tiny drops landed your exposed flesh bringing you out of your haze. 

“ I was jealous of that mans hands on your body. I was jealous and I was hurt and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.” his baritone voice rumbles through your chest and you feel the butterflies erupt inside of you. 

“ Sherlock, kiss me” 

The request doesn’t fall on def ears. Pillow soft lips crashed into yours and you could feel all his love being poured into you. Things weren’t perfect but you’d work on that but for right now, all was well. 

A/N I hope you liked it anon. Requests 

#sherlock imagines #sherlock x reader #Sherlock Holmes x Reader #sherlock holmes imagines #sherlock bbc imagines #sherlock bbc x reader #x reader #imagines #imagine #fandom imagines #sherlock holmes fanficiton #fanfiction #bbc imagines #bbc x reader #fandom x reader

[maddiviner]

I’m back!!

Hey everyone. Hope your days are going well. I like to think, at least, that I am back on Tumblr and will be more active after this long, impromptu hiatus. I have many asks I should answer, many very late, but I’ll do my best to get to them. I’ve got some notes for articles on a lot of new topics, too!

If you’re wondering why I ended up absent for so long, well, it’s a matter of time and attention. Last winter, I started a new job at a distribution center here in town.

At this particular place, the busiest season is February through early May, so I was roughly working fifty or sixty hour weeks most of the time. This, naturally, takes up a lot of time.

What’s more difficult, though, is that it took up a lot of my attention, too, leaving me too exhausted to really write. Jason Miller writes about the economies of time, money, and attention in his recent book, ‘The Elements of Spellcraft,’ and so much of it resonated with me, especially lately.

It sort of came down to a hard choice, you know? I had limited time, limited energy, and a limited attention span, and I ultimately decided to just focus on my Craft rather than trying to write as much as I used to.

In the past, doing both was definitely a thing, but during a fifty hour week of pick-pack? Not so much.

Now, though, the mandatory overtime period at the distribution center is over for the summer. This means I’m now only going to be working a straight forty hour week, divided into four ten-hour shifts.

This gives me three days off of work to write, practice magick, and study. I’m very excited for this!

Since this all happened, my interests have changed a bit, and I’ve been learning new things about new topics. I’ve been studying animal-related magical practices, and am working on a sort of annotated bibliography reviewing the literature that’s available about that.

I feel like my animistic beliefs are getting more intense, just due to reoccurring experiences that reinforce them. It was hard to leave Kraków, Poland, because honestly, I felt like I had a special connection to that city and the spirits there. Since being back, though, I’ve rekindled my contact with the rural landscape and it’s really changed my Craft.

I’m also still working on some fiction that I hope to someday share on this blog. I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m writing this series of short stories that has a sort of “King of the Hill” meets “Dresden Files” sort of vibe.

I’m hoping to soon get some drabbles, short pieces, and character sketches up here from that. Maybe if I keep at it, it’ll eventually turn into a novel!

Another thing...

A while back, some folks were complaining on here that the aesthetic pictures with witchcraft themes (that show up in the tags) cheapen or degrade magick. Something like that, anyways.

I only saw bits and pieces of the discourse about it, but frankly, it’s ridiculous. Art is art, and I’ve written before about how aesthetics are power and helpful in bypassing the psychic censor to attain and shape reality.

Thing is? Not only do I adamantly disagree with the anti-aesthetics in magick perspective, but...

I disagreed so much that I immediately skipped over to another browser tab and, uh, bought a Nikon. Why? To take aesthetic occult-themed pictures. :-)

Granted, I’d been thinking of getting a Nikon for a while, but that was the deciding moment! So yes, expect some nice images once I get used to using the camera!

Take care, everyone! I’ve missed this community, and look forward to posting/writing/commenting more! Blessings to all who wish for them.

#magick #witchcraft #witch #witchblr #occult #eliza.txt #life update #aesthetic fun #animist #animism #spirits

[zak-bucks01-blog]

Experimental Music Composition - Church Walk Student ID: 21815459 Module: MC568 Experimental Music Composition

Introduction:

For this composition I have been tasked with the creation and conceptualisation of an experimental track along with writing a journal in order to document the experience and process. With the help of a hand-held recording device, I spent time field recording throughout the weeks, trying to capture sounds that I thought would be interesting to use in the production or sounds that would in any way compliment the overall finished composition.

The Concept:

The initial part of this process was coming up with a strong concept in which the following music could stand upon. This is the part of the journey that I found most difficult, trying to put some kind of a story or background/thematic idea to the music without it being purely technical is something that I have been aware of in music from other experimental artists, but never something I had ever attempted to do myself. I tried sitting down and listening to the reference music that I had heard in my Experimental Composition module but after some time trying this, hearing other people’s concepts behind their music was thought provoking but not entirely helpful in terms of having a sudden spark of personal inspiration. Feeling a little bit like I had already struck a creative block, I decided to think about the local environment and how I could manipulate it into sourcing creative sounds.

I felt that the best way to get started be to just spend time outside exploring, I did think of going to nature-based areas, woods and large parks to capture that environment but I thought that might leave me with some quite dull sounds to work with. Instead, I decided to go straight into the local town. It was just getting past 6pm, when I arrived and parked my car in a local, fairly dilapidated car park. I called the lift to reach the ground floor and suddenly realised that the mechanics of the lift were making a noticeable screeching sound as they were rising to my floor. To create this sound again, I took the lift to the ground floor, took the stairs back up to the top floor and called the lift a second time, recorder ready. The sound of the lift amplified through my headphones was intense, it enhanced the low-end bass frequencies, a rumbling sort of sound plus the high-end screeches of the mechanics sounded great. Once the lift arrived, I kept recording and deescalated to the ground floor. This time holding the recorder to the floor of the lift in order to capture more of the low end frequencies. I also captured the autonomous female voice, letting me know that I was “going down” and I repeated this process once more as I had realised the doors of the lift were making an odd “clinking” noise, they must have been slightly loose and were wobbling. I was unsure where to go next but then suddenly I noticed that I could hear church bells in the distance. Realising it was a Sunday, the local church was open. This is what sparked the concept idea for my track. Heading straight over - still recording, I captured the sound of church bells with increasing volume. I walked straight into the church and was greeted by a choir already set up directly in front of me and just by mere chance, then they all started singing at once. This seemed like such a perfect opportunity so I went to sit directly at the front pew to capture as much as I could. I recorded a few of their songs once I felt I had enough. Another set of recordings done. As I was on my way out, the organ player started improvising on the spot. After recording him for a few minutes I headed off back home to make a start on arrangement. The concept idea that had come to me while doing these recordings was based on religion, maybe in a controversial way. Since I had already recorded the mechanics of the lift before I heard those church bells, it gave me the idea that my concept could be a reflection of religion being a kind of industry/machine. The cross over between modern day industrial/mechanical sounds combined with the spiritual/spectral aesthetic related to religion could really make a haunting pair in my mind.

The Production:

I had a rough idea for a structure in mind at first, I wanted to have a full church choir recording acting as the main theme throughout the piece, along with the mechanical lift sounds to create some kind of noticeable structure, intro, verse, chorus etc. After doing some arrangement and sound manipulation with effects and pitch, I quickly realised that not only was this not working because the choir was over powering, even after EQing to reduce high and mid frequencies dramatically but also that the choir had its own tempo which was slightly out of time, trying to pin point it was very difficult. I did wonder if time stretching the audio would make a difference, but I didn’t go this far as I was also wondering why should I go along with a traditional song structure while creating an experimental piece in the first place. Instead, I left the church recording to one side and focused on the lift recordings. Firstly, I started by going through all the lift recordings one by one and cutting out the clips that had different qualities to them such as tonality or dynamic differences. I ended up having quite a wide variety to play with. After cutting out a piece that had more low end frequency than the rest, I added some basic reverb (EnVerb) to widen it out as the original recording was quite claustrophobic. I then had a try with effects like chorus and phaser but these seemed to cheapen and take away the uniqueness of the sound, a little bit too gimmicky. Finally, I came to experimenting with distortion, using a plugin called “PhatFx.” I also added some basic tape delay and a single band EQ along with a graphic EQ to remove a chunk from the overpowering bass frequencies that PhatFx provided. This worked wonders, I’ve always been a fan of overly distorted noise in music, a good example would be the lower end pulsating from “Merzbow – Requiem” (timestamp - 6:25). For the rest of the lift recordings that make up the “middle section” of the composition, I used the same plugins throughout with varying settings, particularly on EQ. I sometimes opted for a delay pedal found under the pedalboard plugin section purely because I find it easier to work with and is usually my go-to delay effect, I also added a tremolo effect from the pedalboard plugin to further compliment the disorientation. There are parts of my track that resemble a “scrambling” sort of sound, this was accomplished by simply using different lift recordings that had differentiating tonalities to them, some picking up more of the screeching mechanics and wobbling doors with less of the floor rumbles but is mostly due to the heavy amount of distortion which emphasised the differences. A good comparison to these sounds could be intro section from “The Body – For You” (timestamp – 0.00). Using multiple of these scrambling, static-like sounds and cutting them up appropriately, I managed to make a kind of disorientating rhythm section. This was very useful for me as the Experimental Composition module that I’m studying has taught me that sometimes it’s useful to have some concepts of familiarity when creating experimental music, but not too much. It provides the listener something to grab onto as it resembles a recognisable quality in a more generalised sense of music.

After working for some time on the lift recordings, I had created somewhat of a structural piece already and decided that it would be best to have the church walk recording as the “intro,” and the lengthy organ improvisation recording to be my outro, the lift recordings being the “middle section.” Moving onto the church walk recording once again, my original idea of having this be the main point of focus throughout the song was simply not going to work, it would be far to difficult for me to integrate this into the chaos of the lift recordings. I also struggled trying to edit the church walk, other than a bit of EQ to remove the mid and low frequencies and pitch shifting downwards by only 1 semi-tone to add some unsettling vibes, I didn’t do much with it at all except use it structurally for a build up into the mid section. I also barely used the church choir recordings that I had, sadly I just couldn’t find space for them to fit in. Instead, this was also added into the intro, I used the “one-two,” speech from the conductor as my own count-in and only a small snippet of the choirs first harmony. Again, I didn’t do much with this recording, I wanted to keep it as raw as possible to really make it feeling like you walked straight into a church. Lastly came the outro, I knew I wanted to use the organ players improvisation here so I went ahead and attempted to make it sound as unsettling as possible to fit the feel of my overall track, adding downwards pitch shift by 6 semi-tones and reverb but most importantly, an octave pedal plugin. This allowed me to really emphasise the lower octaves of the organ which turned it into something resembling the inside of your stomach while digesting some unhealthy food. Very unsettling, but some of the sheen from the original recording still came through which resulted in an odd mix of deep low end octaves but with a shimmering almost spectral like quality in some areas. The real challenge on the outro was some kind of bridge between the mid section and the organ outro, I tried a few options like repeating the “lift punch” section again but that seemed a little unimaginative. Instead I created another rhythm by cutting out a tiny part of the lift recording and looping it to create a clicking sound. This was a nice tear away from the chaos of the middle section and a bridge to the outro. By using the single band EQ, I was able to add to the build-up by increasing the frequencies every few bars, about 200 – 300Hz at a time. This ranged from 1440Hz to 2450Hz. I also used the lifts autonomous voice “down,” to drop into the outro.

At this point I felt the structure was complete, it has an intro, a build up into a mid-section and a bridge going straight into the outro. Some parts of the track have recognisable musical qualities while other parts are off putting and I would consider the piece to be at an experimental level. All that was left to do was some mixing, compression and fine tuning any effects that I already had in place.

Here are some screen shots of the various effects that I used:

[animalhead]

Top 10 Albums/Songs of 2018

Top 10 Albums of 2018

10. Death Grips - Year Of The Snitch - All I could think about on my first listen of this album was Michael Jackson. It's pure theater, pure performance. Multi-layered and captivating. Metal af.

9. Olafur Arnulds - re:member - For the past couple years I've managed to slip a random soundscape/classical album into my list which I'm sure everyone greatly appreciates. Well, this year is no exception. I'll explain myself again - I live in a noisy-ass, toddler-and-baby world and my brain needs some quiet every now and again. I won't pretend to know the state of modern classical music, or what makes a classical album important today, etc. I'll just say that listening to this album makes me feel good. Olafur Arnulds never fails to give me my space.

8. Ashley Monroe - Sparrow - Maybe the saddest album of the year thematically. I don't know if I've heard a more powerful blend of poetry, soul, and country music. Sparrow feels like a crossover, but a crossover from what to what? Where did she come from? It's like Bill Withers and Carole King secretly raised a kid in Nashville. "Hands on You" is the sexiest jam of the year.

7. John Prine - The Tree of Forgiveness - I think the last time I put John Prine on my Top 10 list, I said that I had a feeling it would be his last album. Thank god I was wrong. I can't remember where I heard this, but someone said that the genius of Prine is that he infuses the absolutely domestic with sacred meaning. It's so true: who else can sing about putting stuff on layaway and taking the garbage out and somehow make it seem like the meaning of love and life? And The Tree of Forgiveness proves that he hasn't lost a single step. Just listen to "Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska 1967" and then "Summer's End". Laugh, cry, repeat. I will forever love John Prine.

6. Sarah Louise - Deeper Woods - Joanna Newsom has been on hiatus and I've been getting desperate for the sort of ethereal, naturalist root music that she does so well. Luckily I found Sarah Louise, who has a Grace Slick-meets-Joan Baez-meets-Nico thing going on. I'll always be a sucker for stripped down spooky Robert Frost folk, and this one covers all the bases. Haunting. 

5. Remember Sports - Slow Buzz - I actually really liked this album so thanks TZ for recommending it; I wish I had more time with it prior to now.  Lyrically it is excellent - it's unique, vulnerable, smart, and relatable all at the same time. The vocals have that indie Pinegrove guts-exposure that makes it so believable. I would absolutely go to a show and stand in the back in my Violent Femmes t-shirt and nod along unassumingly. That said though, I can't get it out of my head that there is something so heartbreaking about this album - it's world-weary and it dares to ask the universe to give back the prom queen angst and Nick-and-Nora breakup 'sad's that were par for the course before weekly school shootings and nazis part deux. I respect it for that.

4. Mitski - Be the Cowboy - Such great instrumental breakdowns, such strange melodies, such a well-crafted album from start to finish. The way Mitski blends synth with acoustics with electric strings is perfect. She manages to be obscure and 'out there' while simultaneously being so open and accessible; no easy feat.

3. Hop Along - Bark Your Head Off, Dog - Hop Along was a breath of fresh air this year and I think I listened to BYHOD the most of any album. It's light and airy, but cutting and witty also. It plays like a 90s femme alt-rock collection and it's glued together with poignant lyrics. The vocals of Francis Quinlan are fantastic, whose improvised repetition and early indie style rings with the urgency of someone who knows something big is going to happen but can't get anyone to pay attention.

2. Saba - CARE FOR ME - Remember a little album called Good Kid, M.A.A.D City? CFM is the Chicago version. Saba takes you to the honest extremes of his emotion, pulling out raw despair and depression at times and love and hope at other times. No other album this year had me hanging on every word, rooting for the artist throughout the entire track list. To say the album feels like a movie seems to cheapen it, though it has the dramatic peaks and valleys of a blockbuster. No, it's a memoir. Saba treats the listener like a friend, venting and raging on "LIFE", laughing and dreaming on "SMILE", utterly disassembling the music industry on "GREY", and storytelling like a master on "PROM / KING". Listen to this again and then go amend your lists. Oh yeah, Chance is on it.  

1. Snail Mail - Lush - I have a hard time putting my finger on exactly why I loved this album so much this year. Maybe it's the vocals - smooth and swaying, sort of pissed off, sort of disappointed. Maybe it's the space - tracks are minimalist, echoed, and beautifully bare. I tend to lean toward the personality of it all. It feels like Lindsey Jordan is breaking free of something, and that gives the whole album an optimistic, eyes-on-the-horizon vibe that is intoxicating. Top notch album that defined the year for me.

Worst Album of 2018

Decemberists - I'll Be Your Girl - I used to get pumped when a new Decemberists album came out - their stuff was interesting, smart, nerd fuel. These days when they release an album, I only find myself thinking 'ugh just please don't be complete shit'. And this album wasn't exactly that, but it wasn't exactly anything. It's just the last of the crinkled post-its on the bottom of Colin Meloy's weird poem trashcan. There's no real heart or message anywhere. Their last good album was The King is Dead (and it was a really good album), but the band itself is increasingly feeling like Meloy's jackoff mirror. I'm pretty sure he's holding the rest of the band captive in his grapevine garland-draped, all-too-rustic cellar.

Top 10 Songs (that weren't on my Top 10 Albums) of 2018

10. Parquet Courts - "Total Football"  -  "...and FUCK TOM BRADY!"

9. Metric - "Dressed to Suppress"  -  Great track on a really fun album.

8. Natalie Prass - "Short Court Style"  -  Now That's What I Call Music 1,563.

7. Old Crow Medicine Show - "Look Away"  -  OCMS still finding beauty in the rust of the south.  

6. Kanye West - "Ghost Town"  -  Most heartfelt track on a decent, but maybe a little lazy (?) album.

5. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - "American Guilt"  - Making Americans examine our own social presence.

4. Israel Nash - "Rolling On"  -  Big full-bodied sound wall.

3. Courtney Barnett - "Need A Little Time"  -  CB gettin' deep.

2. Leon Bridges - "Beyond"  -  Pure, wonderful love song.

1. Dawes - "Crack The Case"  -  Beautiful. One of the best current singer/songwriters.

Top 5 Players from MTV's The Challenge (so sue me)

5. Sylvia - I don't know why I like Sylvia so much. She headbutted that drunken, cig-smoking mom, Marie. She's just a little firecracker. A fiesty underdog with a lot of heart.

4. Shane - Shane is a self-titled bitch. He's the snakiest, slimiest player there is. He actually threw an entire challenge so that a certain player on his team would be voted out.

3. Wes - Arguably the arch-nemesis of Bananas before Devin came along. Always hatching schemes that are way too complicated and get him thrown out.

2. Devin - The way this dude fucks with Johnny Bananas is hilarious. Someone had to come in and usher out the old heads - Devin is the man for the job.

1. Cara Maria - She's a force and completely independent. She was the first woman to ever win The Challenge solo. She can be a bit cringey sometimes, but she's a beast.

#top 10 lists #top 10 songs #top 10 #albums #rating #review

[adrastiana]

Dio returns! In hologram form

Posted on GameFAQs 12/8/17

Maybe I should try my hand at writing real articles someday. :P

I’m really on the fence about the burgeoning hologram technology that can “resurrect” dead musical icons. I don’t have a problem with it if the artist was asked beforehand. But it seems wrong to just do it with anyone regardless of their wishes. The image can be cheapened depending on how it is handled. But i feel that this type of performance is something that could become bigger. So we may just have to get used to it.

- - -

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/ronnie-james-dio-hologram-more-video-footage-of-dio-returns-tour-opener/ So after a few shows here and there the Dio Returns tour started off for reals on December 6th. There have been other hologram shows. But this one is a major world tour with a legendary metal god. Ronnie James Dio died of stomach cancer in 2010. So he is fairly recently deceased. A decade hasn't even passed yet. At least with hologram Tupac he died in 1996 and the first show was in 2012. So a decent amount of time had passed before someone decided "hey, let's bring him back!" According to this article the hologram is actually not a true hologram but a technique from the 19th century called "Pepper's ghost". https://gizmodo.com/5902625/tupac-hologram-wasnt-a-hologram I'm sure that some people who didn't understand the science of the era thought it was some kind of magic. Some probably thought the devil was involved. But these days we know such things are possible because of science. But there is something magical about bringing a legend back to the stage after they have died. especially for those who never got to see them perform. younger audiences can be introduced to something they'd only be able to see and hear in video and audio form. But is it disrespectful to the dead? I think it depends on whether or not the person was asked prior to death. There are many people speaking for Dio saying that he'd love this. And it's possible that he would have. After all, this is about as close to real magic as you can get. But Dio isn't here anymore. So he can't say whether or not this is what he would actually want. Some say Wendy Dio is just using this as an attempt to rake more money in using her dead husband's legacy. Others are simply uncomfortable with the fact that a dead man would be "resurrected" using technology. But is it that much different than a concert that features some pre-recorded content? The performance is only semi-live. I've seen a video of it myself and Dio is very small. He was a short man to begin with. But in the Blabbermouth article there's a comment that sums it up well: Is it just me, or does Ronnie appear to be scaled to the same size as the Stonehenge in "Spinal Tap"? There is a real Spinal Tap vibe to it. Watch a the videos in the article and see it for yourself. The hologram also gives off an ethereal sheen that makes it a bit eerie. Something like this works for Dio's image but might be a bit too bizarre for other acts. I'm wondering how many artists are thinking about the future of their careers after they die. I'm sure Gene Simmons will be right on board with this one. Will artists afraid of their legacy being tarnished start putting some sort of clause in their will so that their image cannot be used in this manner? Will some artists start planning for their holographic personas to take over as soon as possible after their demise? We've already seen actors "resurrected" via CGI. That's been going on for awhile. These days celluloid heroes never have to die. So musical legends might as well be able to taste that brand immortality too. But it still makes me a bit uncomfortable. In the future that level of discomfort some feel will probably be desensitized by the sheer commonality of holographic music performances. But for now it's so new that it still strikes some as nothing more than a cheap and disrespectful money grab. Maybe it's just something we have to get used to. Like VR it might be something that comes and goes until the technology hits just the right spot for it to be cemented in as more than just a fad.

#Ronnie James Dio #Dio #Tupac #holograms #music #GameFAQs #Blabbermouth #Gizmodo