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shakespeareallanpoe · 4 months

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Batfamily Secret Santa

With the holidays coming up here's my headcanon for what each of the batfamily members would get each other if they were doing a secret Santa. (And yes, I know Bruce is canonically Jewish, but I believe either Tim or Dick are some denomination of Christian so I'd imagine they have a mixed holiday celebration at the manor)

Bruce (got Stephanie)

Ok so Bruce is super generous on a good day and I can't imagine Steph wouldn't be dropping hints since Thanksgiving, so he'd probably give her everything she asked for plus a new movie Wayne manor doesn't have, so after the celebration they could watch it together as a one-on-one bonding thing since he's pretty big on quality time in some versions.

Dick (got Bruce)

Bruce really doesn't expect anything for the holidays which is perfect because I have this headcanon that Dick is actually really bad with giving gifts. Someone bullied your little sister? Not on his watch. Life advice? He'll pull from his past experiences to tell you what not to do. Emotional support? Bro he's there. But birthday/anniversary/holiday gifts? Expect a mug with Snoopy's face because you both watched Charlie Brown together once. In July. He's just that kind of gift giver. So I'm thinking Dick would get Bruce a dinosaur themed 1,000 piece puzzle because Bruce likes dinosaurs and he likes puzzles so boom! Match made in heaven, ya boi is a genius. 😎

Barbara (got Jason)

Babs is a pretty practical person so her secret Santa to Jason probably consisted of a gift bag with manly smelling body wash, a gift card to Barnes & Noble, and a CD mixtape of Jason's Spotify favorites so he can pop it into a car and listen to it during long car rides.

Duke (got Damian)

So Duke is a pretty creative person when he's passionate about a project and his ideas are definitely one of a kind, but I think for some time he would really struggle with coming up with a secret Santa for Damian because he isn't all that close with Robin. He knew Damian appreciated weapons but he's also the type of person to not want Damian to think that weapons are all he is by getting him one. Presents for Damian's pets are off the table since Damian spoils them on every day of the year, so Duke would probably gift Damian something for the child he is, since Damian never had a childhood. Maybe a telescope so Damian could look at the stars with his family on clear nights. Just like what Duke's mom gave him as a boy for the holidays one year.

Cass (got Dick)

Cass didn't receive material gifts for most of her life so she probably enlisted Alfred's help. Given that the butler knows Dick pretty well, they decided to give him a gift basket with blue ribbon that had a T-shirt of his favorite band, some flash fuzzy socks (Wally would approve), and his favorite holiday candy. Dick is really more of a quality time kind of person if you want to make him to feel special, so it didn't need to be elaborate anyway.

Jason (got Cass)

I don't care how much people try to make Jason into a sexist, ignorant-to-the-fine-arts kind of person. Jason doesn't give a fuck about gender stereotypes and he loves learning, especially about classical things like literature or fine arts. For his secret Santa to Cass he got them both tickets for a weekend trip to Russia to see a ballet in person in one of the grandest cities in Russia. Cass has obviously been to many places across the world, but it was always for a mission and nothing more. For the holidays, Jason gifted her two days where they could travel and explore the culture, living like locals or being those stereotypical tourists just for shits and giggles. Just a few days without work to relax and live happy lives as regular people. When Cass got her gift Jason pulled her aside afterwards to explain it, so she wouldn't cry in front of everyone. And she did cry. Just a little. So did Jason.

Tim (got Duke)

Tim wouldn't think too hard about Duke's gift since he knows the people Duke hangs out with. Or could find them. Getting Duke a gift was as simple as casually running into Duke's friends and asking them about what Duke likes. Not that he or Duke's friends ever mentioned this to Signal, so when he opened his secret Santa and found some hyper-specific things amongst some more generic gifts, he began to wonder just how much Tim knew about his life.

Stephanie (got Babs)

Steph is absolutely the type of person to get someone for Christmas something they want themselves. So a lot of the gifts Bruce gave her look similar to what Babs got from Steph. Not that she means anything by it, but in her mind if it's worth wanting, someone else close to her probably wants it too. And Babs doesn't mind. She already bought herself a new desk light after the old one got knocked down one too many times, so it doesn't matter if she has a cute keychain to go on it.

Damian (got Tim)

Regardless of his age I think a younger sibling will always be a younger sibling. Damian would probably give Tim a large fancy gift bag filled with tissue paper... and nothing else. He'd do it just to see Tim's reaction to rifling through the bag for several moments to come up empty. Then, when Tim admits defeat, Damian would hand over a gift he asked Jon to pick up for Connor, nicely wrapped with Tim's forged signature and everything. He wasn't about to get Tim a gift but it's okay because he knew Tim would've somehow forgotten to get his boyfriend a holiday gift anyway. (And he did)

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sagehaleyofficial · 2 years

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HERE’S WHAT YOU MISSED THIS WEEK (8.10-8.16.22):

NEW MUSIC:

Waterparks shared the music video for their recent track '”Self-Sabotage.” The live video was filmed onstage and backstage at their recent appearance at London's Brixton Academy.

Ice Nine Kills shared a new video for their recent song “The Shower Scene,” based off the horror film Psycho. The band also recently released an acoustic version of the song.

Anti-Flag shared another new song titled “The Fight of Our Lives” featuring Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath and Bad Religion’s Brian Baker. Their new album Lies They Tell Our Children is set to drop on January 6 next year via Spinefarm.

Coheed and Cambria shared a visual for their track “A Disappearing Act.” The song appears on the band’s most recent album Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind.

Sleeping With Sirens shared two new tracks that are set to appear on their upcoming album Complete Collapse. The first track is titled “Ctrl + Alt + Del” and the second, titled “Let You Down,” features singer Charlotte Sands.

Beauty School shared another song from their upcoming debut album Happiness titled “Oak.” The album is set to drop on September 9 via Slam Dunk Records.

Enter Shikari released their first new music in two years through a collaboration with Wargasm titled “The Void Stares Back.” The latter band are gearing up to release their debut mixtape Explicit, which will include the song “Fukstar.”

Maggie Lindemann shared another piece of her upcoming full-length album Suckerpunch titled “Self-Sabotage.” The album will be released on September 16.

Trash Boat celebrated the one year anniversary of their latest album Don’t You Feel Amazing? with a remix of their song “Alpha Omega.” The remix was done by the band Strange Bones.

Hot off the release of their new album Hotel Kalifornia, Hollywood Undead released a new music video for the song “Hourglass.” The song is a potent look at their home state, as well as the band's own relationship with each other and where they are from.

New Years Day returned with their first new music in three years in the form of “Hurts Like Hell.” The band's last full-length Unbreakable dropped back in 2019.

After releasing their new album Unwanted last Friday, Pale Waves released a new music video for the song “Clean.” The song is a love song that vocalist Heather Barron-Gracie says is for “for the LGBTQ community.”

TOUR ANNOUNCEMENTS:

When We Were Young Festival announced a series of special side shows surrounding their main event. The shows will include a 90’s cover set featuring Story of the Year, Sleeping with Sirens and The Summer Set at the Brooklyn Bowl, among others.

OTHER NEWS:

ONE OK ROCK's track “Wherever You Are” became the first of their songs to reach 100 million streams on Spotify. The track appears on the band's album Niche Syndrome, which came out back in 2010.

The All-American Rejects’ classic song “Swing, Swing” is now certified Silver in the United Kingdom. Their other songs “Gives You Hell” is certified Platinum and “Move Along” and “Dirty Little Secret” certified Gold, respectively.

___

Check in next Tuesday for more “Posi Talk with Sage Haley”!

#sage haley #posi talk #waterparks #ice nine kills #coheed and cambria #sleeping with sirens #enter shikari #anti-flag #beauty school #maggie lindemann #trash boat #hollywood undead #new years day #pale waves #one ok rock #the all-american rejects

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wyattvsmusic · 2 years

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Joey Bada$$ - 2000 ALBUM REVIEW

In the five years since the release of his last album, Joey Bada$$ hadn’t been as active as he usually is. Aside from his contributions to the Beast Coast album and the 3-song Light Pack EP back in 2020, Joey has been busy with other things outside of music. He had a daughter and continued his acting career, appearing in the first season of Wu-Tang: An American Saga, one of the Power spinoff shows, and the film Two Distant Strangers which won an Oscar. 2022 not only marks the release of Joey’s third album but also the 10th anniversary of his first mixtape 1999, which his new album’s title is a nod too. Though the cover and title are a nod to Joey’s beginnings, 2000 is definitely not a sequel to 1999 but instead marks the decade of Joey’s successful rap career. It’s much more polished in terms of production choices and mixing as this is a studio album full of original production mostly from longtime collaborator Statik Selektah who has produced a lot of Joey’s best music. The production is great and works well for Joey like always but the lyricism shines extremely bright on this album, which is also typical for a Joey Bada$$ album. Songs like Make Me Feel, Where I Belong, and Zipcodes sound like classic Joey. In terms of lyrical content, he spends most of the album reflecting on the past ten years, both in terms of his success but also sharing life experiences that happened along the way as well as honoring those close to him that lost, including Pro Era member Capital STEEZ and his cousin Junior B, who he dedicates the incredible Survivors Guilt to. Joey has mentioned Steez on many songs before, including #LONGLIVESTEELO but this song is easily the most vulnerable he has ever been about losing his close friend and family member. The beat is gorgeous and the hook is sung simply yet so beautifully as he says, “this one is for you.” He talks about missing his loved ones who came up with him and feeling guilty for being successful without them. It is moments like this song that we have been waiting for from Joey. The song Head High is also one of the better songs on the album, which he dedicates a verse to XXXTentacion as he tells a story of how their friendship came to be. I also love the hook on this one as he raps “This for my n****s who took the time to relax / huggin’ their block but the block ain’t hug ‘em back.” While a lot of this album is very reflective and introspective, he enjoys his successes on the album too on songs like Brand New 911 where Westside Gunn joins him for a verse and adds his amazing “BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM” adlibs to the track. There is also the song One Of Us with Larry June which I love the vocal sample on. While I love a good amount of this album as it sounds like the Joey we know and love, there are some dull moments like the intro with Diddy as well as Welcome Back with Chris Brown and Capella Grey which could have been cut from the album. That song really did not fit well with the album. I think the same thing about the hook on Cruise Control, though I do like the verses and the production. While 2000 accomplishes its goals of documenting Joey’s life since the release of 1999 back in 2012, it only somewhat meets my expectations. I am satisfied with the classic Joey Bada$$ wordplay and production choices and love the more personal songs on the album, the quality of the album as a whole doesn’t really hold a candle to his other albums. Besides that opinion which isn’t much of an actual criticism, I think that when you don’t compare it to anything and judge my own enjoyment of the album, it is really good and I am happy that Joey is back. 2000 isn’t anything groundbreaking but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. Joey is now in a very interesting part of his career as he has been in music for 10 years but is still only 27 years old. He has lived a whole rap career but is not even 30, making it seem as though he is only just getting started. 2000 seems like a major milestone for him, which is exciting because he is so young but has been rapping too long to be lumped in with the younger generation of rappers. 2000 is a very good album when you keep that in mind and enjoy the music for what it is and his reflective songs make a big impact for longtime Joey Bada$$ fans.

Fav Tracks: Make Me Feel, Eulogy, One Of Us, Head High, Survivors Guilt

#joey bada$$#Pro Era #Capital Steez #2000 #Diddy #Westside Gunn #Larry June #Chris Brown #Capella Gray #JID #1999-2000 #Statik Selektah

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pinkhairedlily · 3 years

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He waits for her to break the spell

Prompt: Dates | AO3 link here | Connect with me on Twitter. (Belated) Happy SS Month everyone! 🌸🍅🥗 @ssskmonth

A/N: Almost 3,000 words so this is quite lengthy as well. 😅

Waves break against the cobblestones on the shore. Sasuke picks apart the shiny seaglasses with his eyes as they glint against the fading rays of the sun. His legs alternately swing with her on the seawall as they silently watch the small fishing boats dock at a nearby port. A flock of seagulls fly above them, calling it a day and coming home.

He waits for her to break the spell.

They’ve been here before, and several times the gaps were filled in with laughters, awkward conversations, and hushed confessions. He grew up with her, their houses on the same block, same primary schools, same favorite parks, but he never talked to her. But he knew her name, and she knew his. They knew each other’s families. It was one of those instances when you just saw a steady familiar face as you go through the motions of life.

He took a month’s worth of leave after the unfortunate car crash, and he settled back in quite all right, much better than his older brother who remained catatonic and would never truly grieve until his adulthood. The first week after, she followed him home, a few meters trailing behind him but close enough that he was always in her line of sight. He didn’t mind; after all, their houses were on the same block.

Then one day, she pulled his drifting mind to safety when he almost walked into an open manhole. The distances between them shortened in the following weeks until she walked beside him, even with no conversation.

She brought him here on the eve of his parents’ first death anniversary. They raced against the looming cumulonimbus with their rickety bikes after she ambushed him in front of the school gates after class. And he followed her, even when she said nothing, even when there was a storm coming.

When they arrived at the dock, the fishers were hurriedly tethering their boats to the steel posts, knowing the possibility that they will be strung away but trusting the hold the rope has, nonetheless.

It was a big storm and large drops were starting to pour down, but she stood on the edge of the seawall with arms stretched out to her side, her rose hair in disarray around her face, her eyes closed to welcome the fall of the rain. And just as the usual, he followed her, his body straining to keep upright against the gusts. He remembered feeling the rain come down like pellets, and he was sure he winced in pain. For the first seconds of that moment, he regretted coming along with her. Insane, irrational, dangerous – two teenagers soaking up the storm. But he felt it welling soon enough, the emotion he spent twelve months bottling up. It began to rack up slowly, accompanying his deep breath, and following his exhale, continuous sobs lost in the whistle of the gale.

He waits for her to break the spell.

The place has become solace for him. His signal was sometimes a pebble thrown at his window at four in the morning. Huddled up in a blanket he bunched in his bag pack, they sipped hot chocolate from the same thermos, their legs brushing against each other as they waited for the sun to rise.

“I want to be in the same class as you,” Sakura said, the blanket completely covering her head except her eyes, and he couldn’t tell whether it was a joke.

“That’s very clingy of you.” He tried to lighten it.

“And beat you in recitations and assignments and grades.”

“Clingy.” He repeated.

She loosened the blanket from her head and stuck out her tongue at him. “So what?”

So what, indeed. He only realized this as he fell into a deep sleep after they went home – they missed the sunrise, and that was their first conversation.

Sometimes the signals were just a wave – after classes at the gates – and they would bike to the seawall, just in time for the sunset. He cannot exactly pinpoint the exact date he gave her a mixtape, but the following afternoon, she brought a portable cd player and they listened to it with an earphone each on their ears.

And he doesn’t know why or what it was that triggered him, but he held her pinky finger with the long earphone wire in between. His memory was of her laughing, removing her finger momentarily from his touch and engulfing his entire hand with hers. It was warm and rough against the surface of the seawall.

He waits for her to break the spell.

They ditched prom, she dressed in an emerald dress that matched the intensity of her gaze, in two-inch heels, and messy bun of pink curls, and he in a classic black tuxedo set handed down to him by a cousin in the next city over. They would have won prom king and queen, but they traded the first dance with the meandering waltz through the busy streets in his motorcycle.

It caught him offguard, the way she looked ethereal without the distraction of a busy port or its harsh blinding lights. She was in company with the murmur of the waves and the soft echoes of a bustling city at night and his silent presence. They stood on the seawall, hand in hand, and her head was at a perfect height to lay on his shoulders thanks to her heels. She did the gesture while humming a song by The Cure. It was on her mixtape, but the title escaped him.

“Why don’t we dance, Sasuke?” She lifted her head and twirled around on the precarious ledge, her trust solely on his grip on her wrist.

“You told me you didn’t want to dance.” He pulled her in closer and placed both of her arms around his neck while his hands went to her waist.

“I want the stars as our audience,” she chided as they swayed side to side to an invisible beat. She started to sing in an offkey manner, and she laughed in between words when Sasuke didn’t bother to hide his regrets.

We’re never done with killing time, can I kill it with you

Till our veins run red and blue…

We come around here all the time

Got a lot to not do, let me kill it with you

She laughed harder when he joined her, his deep, sultry voice accompanying hers in a disconcerted rendition of the song.

You pick me up and take me home again

Head out the window again

We’re hollow like the bottles that we drain

You drape your wrist over the steering wheel, pulses can drive from here

We might be hollow, but we’re brave

“And I like you.” He reached through the small gap between their faces and captured her lips in a kiss. Soft, plump, cold. And she opened her mouth in response, welcoming his tongue with a smoldering warmth. They found their way to his empty house, his older brother a shell of pill-induced sleep, and they fell on his bed skin to skin, teeth to teeth, bones to bones. Her dress and heels on his floor and her rose strands on his pillow, fanned out and clenched through his fingers.

He waits for her to break the spell.

She was moving away. She told him this a month before graduation. Medicine in her dream school. He congratulated her with a sincere smile. He even tucked stray hair behind her ear, and she smiled back just as brightly.

Two days before her departure, they met here again at the peak of the port’s busiest harvest season. She cut her hair and dyed it black. For a change, she said.

“Why don’t you come with me?” she asked unprompted. Before this, she gave him a box of memorabilia, of things she wanted to leave behind with him.

Things she wanted to do away with. Things she doesn’t want with her.

Sasuke smirked. He put his hands inside his jacket’s pockets, afraid of holding her hands. “Why don’t you stay here with me?”

“You’re right. That was a selfish question.” She waved her hands in front of her as if to dissipate the weird atmosphere. Then, she looked at him with those piercing jade eyes. “But I wish you would, get out of this city, see the rest of the world blah blah, you know the script.”

This isn’t a miserable town when you are here, Sakura.

“Leave the grief behind,” she finished.

The doubts crept in. “So it was pity after all.”

That hit her bad, and her face contorted into a series of emotions, too fleeting for him to name everything at once. But she never got full on angry with him. The most argument they had was a cold shoulder that lasted for a month. “I was just offering you a chance to start over.”

“As if I cannot start over on my own,” he supplied.

“In this place?”

“This is my home, Sakura.”

“This isn’t mine,” she replied. “I can’t stay here. You know my dreams.”

He knew them all too well. He saw the pamphlets and brochures of the university stacked on her desk, and the map of the world gobsmacked on the wall of her room with pins on specific places and post-its of attractions. It didn’t escape him that there was no pin for their city or a post-it with his name. It was a hovering observation that haunted his head for years, and that eventually, he would have to decide.

But the world was too big for him, too expansive that he was afraid of the grief he would have unlocked at every place he stepped in. Sasuke smacked his lips together and nodded. “Keep in touch, will you?”

His hands fumbled with a box inside his pocket. I can’t follow you everywhere, Sakura.

“At least don’t remember what I felt as mere pity.”

It was a desolate moment, their seemingly absent outburst of emotions contrasted by yells of traders in the small impromptu market that assembled on the dock. She nodded, both knowing that it was an empty promise. She proceeded to stood on tiptoes, and he met her movement with an embrace as their lips touched for what felt like was a final kiss under the searing sun.

He waits for her to break the spell.

The waves come after midnight, Sasuke noticed. Sporadic sleepless nights comes in twos or threes or sevens, and he would glance at his weather application on his phone, swiping until he finds her city and wonders what she’s up to.

The text found him at his third cup of coffee before sunrise.

“It’s a great day to be out and about, sun will be shining today!”

Her city was in the middle of a hurricane path.

But she wasn’t. She was in front of his doorstep several years after she went away. Rose hair, emerald eyes, and a smile that he constantly chased in his dreams. She was back for the summer only, a quick break, a breather in her other words.

His caffeine-induced soul followed her footsteps out of his house and through the grocery aisles. He doesn’t engage her in conversation, but she has her hand in his, twirling now and then, euphoric to be in his orbit for a moment.

And he lost control of the script he prepared in his mind and the list of reasons why he shouldn’t be meeting her again because he, too, was euphoric to revolve around her again.

To refamiliarize all of her contours, to explore the new dips and marks that carved her skin, to taste the places she went to, to get a glimpse of her new batch of memories, to fill his senses with her being.

He parked his car beside the seawall one night, and Sakura waved him over, two bottles of beer already drained beside her.

“I heard Itachi got married.”

Sasuke halved his bottle before replying. “Izumi. Gentle but firm, dependable also. They liked the mountains more than the sea so they’re on the other side of the city.” He paused and drank the other half in one gulp. “How was….the world?”

“Shitty.” Sakura laughed. Spite, remorse, regret. “Med school is all right, aced it, like how you aced your law school.” A proud smile right there, and he caught that she implied she was keeping tabs on him even though there were no letters and calls, only sparse texts in few and between of the usual how are you and the default reply of I’m okay. “The rounds are what’s bad, like I’m always giving away a part of myself every time I treat. I have self-awareness and I’m empathetic, but I can only give away so much. There’s nothing I can take in return anyway. And life is moving too fast. Someone’s getting married, someone’s having a kid, and I’m stuck in scut duty with 72-hour shifts and I come home to no one.”

“And you feel lonely.” Sasuke summed it up for her.

“I wish I believed you when you told me this was my home.”

She swooped in into his space to place her lips on his mouth, and he allowed her to fill him in. He lost all reasoning when she appeared in his doorstep at the beginning of this season, and he will again lose all reasoning when it was time for her to go back. So he savored all what she could give.

Even if she was oblivious that he has given all of him, for her to take and not return. Like a boat capsizing in the middle of the storm and following the waves down to the bottom.

He waits for her to break the spell.

He waits for her to break the spell. Stars dots the transitioning purple sky, and the seaglass now glints against the moonshine. She pushes the stop button of the cd player even though it was no longer functioning, and they don’t have earphones on.

“I’m getting married.”

He knows even before she uttered the words from her own lips. He saw the band on her finger when she drifted through the grocery aisles with a silver-haired man a day ago. He twirled her in between shelves regardless of the bemused faces of onlookers, and he made her laugh out loud to the extent that she clutched at her sides.

And Sasuke wished he didn’t hear her laughter through his rushing thoughts.

“Congratulations,” he simply says.

“It just happened. He’s actually a schoolmate of ours, but he moved out to the next state for senior high. Kakashi? Does the name ring a bell?” Her face is animated when she says his name. “We met in the hospital. Turns out he’s a resident there too.”

God forbid he remembers him. All his memories conjure is this seawall and her face, her rose hair, and her emerald eyes. Sasuke doesn’t know what to reply.

She sighs. “You know what I’m trying to say. We’ve always been two halves of each other.”

He doesn’t want to reply. He wants to ask a hundred questions instead. What things remind her of him? Does any sea, dock, or fishing boat transport her to memories with him? Does she see his face in the middle of grocery aisles? Did she ever love him? Did she ever have regrets? Would they have ended up together if he followed her? Did he fight for her enough to want her to stay?

“Just a minute,” he says, but it’s almost a plea. “Just a minute more.”

And she holds on to his hand and intertwines her fingers with his against the rough surface of the seawall. She scoots closer and lays her head on his shoulder, a bit broader than what she might remember, and he hopes to gods that she is memorizing his scent just as he is memorizing the curve of her head on his neck and the feel of her now long rose strands against his cheeks.

“I love you.” Sasuke doesn’t expect a reply, and even if she does answer back, he knows all too well that they don’t have the same gravity as his.

“I love you,” she whispers in his ear.

Not a minute later she stands up, dispelling the spell that hovered between them, walking towards a place he cannot follow no matter how he wishes. And he sits on top of the seawall an hour longer, alone with the shore, the stars, and the silent dock.

He pulls out the velvet box from his pocket and stares at the ring that should have been on her finger. He closes it and flings it to the sea.

What is wrong with me that I made a fluff prompt angst? Anyway, please listen to 400 lux and Hard Feelings by Lorde for full effects. Thanks for reading!

#ssm21 #ssm21d16 #sasusaku #uchiha sasuke #haruno sakura #sasuke #sakura #lorde

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jp-lovecraft · 3 years

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Oh man! The 9th episode of The Vampire Mixtape with DJ4AM featuring new and classic music by Maya Huyana feat. Planet Asia, Milano Constantine, Grand Kemist, Buddy Leezle, Marco Polo, YL, Yungmorpheus, Huey Briss, The Artifacts, K-DEF, ADAGIO!, 9th Wonder, Blacksheep, Q-Tip, Trugoy from De La Soul, Khemmeta, Doctor Ice from UTFO, Slum Village, Volume 10, Flued One, Fashawn, Intelligent Hoodlum, Smokey Robinson, Grand Invincible, The Harlem Underground Band and the one and only Physical Graffiti... happy anniversary to one of the most important albums in my universe: Step In The Arena by Gangstarr. LOVE!!! -DJ4AM. 1.Think Twice-Maya Huyana feat Planet Asia 2.Beyond Comprehension-Gangstarr 3.Vicious-Milano Constantine, Body Bag Ben & Supreme Cerebral 4.Azul-Grand Kemist 5.Precisely The Right Rhymes-Gangstarr 6.Hustlemans Anthem-Buddy Leroy 7.Yung Feathers-Marco Polo 8.Player's Ball-YL & Yungmorpheus 9.Signs-Huey Briss, Hugh Augustine, IAMNOBODI & Budgie 10.Left In My Dust-The Artifacts 11.My Girl-ADAGIO! 12.Lovesick-Gangstarr 13.I Confess / Last Days (DJ4AM Blend) Bahamadia vs ONYX 14.EBONYWOMAN!!!-9th Wonder 15.Birds Of A Feather-Blacksheep, Q-Tip, Trugoy, Mike G. 16.Everybody Rich-Khemmeta 17.Pistolgrip Pump vs Fall In Love (DJ4AM Blend)-Volume 10 vs Slum Village 18.Nobody Move-Doctor Ice from UTFO 19.Just 2 Greater-Flued One feat Fashawn 20.Being With You vs Lyrics 2 Go (DJ4AM Blend)-Smokey Robinson vs ATCQ 21.Street Life (Return Of The Life Mix)-Tragedy 22.Check The Technique-Gangstarr 23.Levitate-Grand Invincible 24.Rewinders-Celestaphone, Th' Mole & MC Paul Barman 25.Just To Get A Rep-Gangstarr 26.Who's Gonna Take The Weight?-Gangstarr 27.Smokin' Cheeba Cheeba-The Harlem Underground Band feat George Benson 28.THX1138-Physical Graffiti, Aliana & Lobofunk

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huahsu · 6 years

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YEAR OF WHAT HAPPENS ON EARTH STAYS ON EARTH

[longer version of what I contributed to the new yorker’s year-end package. you can read that here, and listen to the accompanying megamix the video team made! links to previous year’s lists at bottom.] I did not grow up going to church, and I am not a particularly religious person. A few days after the inauguration, I wandered into a nearby church and took a seat in the back pews. I’d gone there right after the election. There was some time for anyone with anything on their mind to stand up and speak. If you need others to pray for you, just let us know. A middle-aged black man in a leather jacket got up and began telling us about an argument he was having with a friend on Facebook. It was about the election, but it was actually about the intractability of racism. He was getting frustrated while describing it to us, in part because he seemed to value being the cool and level-headed one. Plus he was describing the kind of argument millions of people were having on the Internet. “I just hope he finds peace,” the guy said. He paused, then put his hands on his chest. “On a lighter note, today would have been Jimi Hendrix’s seventy-fourth birthday.” He opened up his leather jacket to show everyone his Hendrix t-shirt. “I just wanted to say that, because he was just awesome.” So I returned here, the day after marching through Manhattan with a poster that said “HOLD ON, BE STRONG.” I needed to be in a room that was powered by something other than hate--to be reminded of vision and purpose, even if they weren’t mine to claim. To listen to wisdom gleaned from a book I’ve never read, and pick and choose what I wanted. To hear others pour themselves into songs I never, ever sing along to. I wanted to steal their vibes. Instead of a hymn, they passed out small pieces of paper with the lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” This is not the type of church people come to for the music. The pianist started playing, and I remember thinking about how it felt like magic when I learned how to play those chords as a kid. I couldn’t believe we were doing this. We sang, tentatively at first, as though we could not believe these words in this space. Picture it: singing of “no heaven” and “no religion, too,” with humility and hope, inside a house of worship. It was like an admission that faith was inadequate. All we had was one another. “Imagine” is a song I’ve heard millions of times, the type of song that is so ubiquitous that we rarely bother scrutinizing its words, its vantage point, the possibility that someone wrote these words because he actually believed them. I sang along with a room of strangers, and we looked at one another, and, for the first time in months, I began to cry. TWO LYRICS THAT REMINDED ME OF POLITICS EVEN IF THEY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS "Wrote this shit January 21″ “Take me back to November / Take me back to November” “I’M AN ANGRY TEENAGER” Novelist, “Street Politician” ONCE THEY START, I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE END Jim O’Rourke’s recently unearthed cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” Kanye’s sitcom-length remix of “Bed” THURSDAY NIGHTS ON NBC Ross from Friends’ very Madchester guitar-y Boiler Room set DJ Seinfeld, Time Spent Away from U Nino Man, Jadakiss and Styles P, “Friends”

IN ANOTHER YEAR FULL OF NIRVANA/KURT COBAIN REFERENCES (DID YOU SEE JAY:Z’S JACKET?) MY FAVORITE SONG, PROBABLY: this Trippie Redd snippet

SOME VERSIONS OF THE NINETIES THAT WILL NEVER COME BACK THE WAY GRUNGE ENNUI HAS, BUT WERE SO POSSIBILITY-RICH TO ME BACK THEN Kicking Giant, This Being the Ballad of Kicking Giant, Halo: NYC/Olympia 1989-1993 Helium, The Dirt of Luck/The Magic City LIKE MANY WHO LOVED “A STORM IN HEAVEN,” I OVERLOOKED THEM AT THE TIME Acetone, 1992-2001 A REALLY GOOD BOOK ABOUT ACETONE, LOS ANGELES, DREAMS OF GREATNESS Sam Sweet, Hadley Lee Lightcap WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS IN 1994, 2002 OR 2017 Big Thief, Capacity CREDIBLE AND DOPE EARLY NINETIES R&B HOMAGE, SAX AND ALL Joyce Wrice, “Good Morning” SPEAKING OF THE NINETIES, LEECH MADE A MIXTAPE OF JUST THE FLOATY/DREAMY PARTS TAKEN FROM CLASSIC GOOD LOOKING/MOVING SHADOW SINGLES Leech, “Just the Liquid” FOR THE COMEDOWN, DARK-ASS STUFF ASSEMBLED EXCLUSIVELY FROM SLIPKNOT SAMPLES Croww, Prosthetics NOSTALGIA, ULTRA (UK GARAGE/BASSLINE EDITION) tqd, ukg SUMMERTIME ‘SECOND SUMMER OF LOVE’ VIBE Opus III, “It’s a Fine Day (Burt Fox remix)” UNEXPECTED BURIAL SUMMERTIME VIBES Monic, “Deep Summer (Burial remix)” NO REISSUE OR tk ANNIVERSARY TIE-IN, JUST SOME OLD SONGS I RE/DISCOVERED THIS YEAR Active Minds, “Hobson’s Choice” El-B, “El-Brand” Kamal Abdul Alim, “Brotherhood” Spiritualized in Reykjavik U2, “Numb (Soul Assassins remix)” U2, “Mysterious Ways (Massive Attack remix)”

SAME, BUT TAIWANESE INDIE ROCK EDITION Chocolate Tiger, “Piecing Together” REISSUES, OR: PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WEIRD AND SPACY#, OBSESSED WITH NATURAL BEAUTY## # Planetary Peace, Synthesis # Pauline Anna Strom, Trans-Millennia Music ## Pep Llopis, Poiemusia La Nau Dels Argonaut REISSUES, OR: WHEN I WAS A CHILD THERE WERE NO BETTER SONGS THAN THE ONES THAT PLAYED THROUGH TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE AND FOR SOME REASON THIS JOYOUS EP REMIND ME OF THAT SHEEN, THOSE HOOKS, THE PERFECT, THEATER-SIZED ECHO Om Alec Khaoli, Say You Love Me BEST ALBUM-LENGTH METAPHOR FOR THE CITY, ITS LIMITATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES Wiki, No Mountains In Manhattan SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE IT WAS DESCRIBED, JAMAICA VIA OUTER SPACE Equiknoxx, Colon Man I NEED TO GO OUT MORE Jex Opolis, “Mt. Belzoni” KH, “Question”

I LISTENED TO THIS ABOUT TEN TIMES, MY SENSE OF ENCHANTMENT GROWING AND GROWING EACH TIME, BEFORE REALIZING THERE WERE BARELY ANY DRUMS ON IT Mr. Mitch, Devout SERIOUSLY THE MR. MITCH ALBUM WAS REALLY MOVING AND FANTASTIC Mr. Mitch f/ Denai Moore, “Fate” CRAZY WISDOM MASTER Vince Staples, Big Fish Theory C’MON AND RAISE UP Rapsody f/ Kendrick, Lance Skiiwalker, “Power” SO ICEY Zomby, Mercury’s Rainbow ECHO PARTY Demen, Nektyr Evy Jane, “Give Me Love” THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST Vic Mensa, The Autobiography DUNGEON FAMILY, EVEN IN DARKNESS Earthgang f/ J.I.D., “Meditate” FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY Lee Gamble, Mnestic Pressure Pessimist, s/t NOT SURE HOW THIS BECAME THE DIWALI OF 2017 BUT OKAY French Montana f/ Mariah, Rae Sremmurd, PNB Rock, Belly, Elephant Man, Vybz Kartel, J Balvin, NORE, Wizkid, “Unforgettable” HOW ARE THIS MANY PEOPLE ON A FOUR MINUTE SONG? GOOD VIDEO THOUGH A$AP Mob f/ A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, Quavo, Lil Uzi Vert and Frank Ocean, “RAF” I LIKE IT WHEN FERG’S VOICE GETS ALL NAGGY Ferg, “Plain Jane” METRO BOOMIN MADE A BEAT THAT REMINDED ME OF RADIOHEAD Post Malone f/ Quavo, “Congratulations” THE MARIACHI VERSION IS PRETTY SWEET Brian Imanuel, “How I surprised Post Malone with a mariachi band” ”IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR LYRICS, IF YOU’RE LOOKING TO CRY, IF YOU’RE LOOKING TO THINK ABOUT LIFE...” JonWayne, Rap Album Two CORNBALL PIANOS AND THEN THAT SYNTH DRAGS, AND THEN THE DRUMS KICK Tee Grizzley, “First Day Out” “BUT WILD/WITH MY MONOTONE STYLE” 21 Savage, “Bankroll” Kodak Black, “Candy Paint” Rich Chigga, “Glow Like Dat” ANNUAL SPOT RESERVED FOR LA MUSICA DE HARRY FRAUD French Montana f/ Pharrell, “Bring Dem Things” WHEN LAETITIA SAYS HER OWN NAME ON “EMBERS” Vagabon, Infinite Worlds WHEN JESSIE LEANS INTO THE WORD “FUCK” Jessie Reyez, “Figures” THAT LIGHT MISTING, THAT CASUAL SPRITZ OF SYNTHS Lanark Artefax, “Touch Absence” A GOOD ANTI-DJT THING THAT CAME OUT EARLY THIS YEAR, WHICH FEELS LIKE EONS AGO Lushlife + friends, My Idols are Dead + My Enemies are in Power THE BABY, THE FLUTES, PIERRE’S OBNOXIOUSLY LONG TAG, THE JESSE LINGARD DANCE Playboi Carti, “Magnolia” ILLEST SHIT I SAW THIS YEAR, BABY-RELATED A child at a restaurant watching an iPad and an iPhone at the same damn time “[FREE] PLAYBOI CARTI TYPE BEAT” YBN Nahmir, “Rubbin off the Paint” GUNS N ROSES, BEFORE ONE OF THE WEIRDEST BEEFS OF THE YEAR Trippie Redd f/ 6IX9INE, “POLES1469″ SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO BELIEVE YOU CAN SING, AND DO IT WITH CONVICTION, AND I WILL LISTEN Trippie Redd, “Rack City/Love Scars 2″ ALL THE BACKGROUND NOISE/ECHOED-OUT ADLIBS MAKE THIS BlocBoy JB, “No Chorus Pt 10″ SMERZ HAS FUN DESPITE THE AWKWARD OF IT ALL Smerz on NTS IT SEEMS REALLY EASY TO MAKE A GOOD-SOUNDING SONG THESE DAYS Global Dan, “Off White” OF ALL THE DOPE SHIT THAT FUTURE APPEARED ON THIS YEAR, THE MOMENT I WILL REMEMBER IS That tiny pause before he sings “I need fresh air,” when he seems happy and content IS THAT A GEORGE MICHAEL SAMPLE? Mozzy, “Prayed for This” THE FIX C Struggs, “Go to Jesus” "IT’S COOL, BUT IT’S NOT...END ZONE” Lil Uzi Vert, “XO TOUR Llif3″ AN ALBUM BOOKENDED BY TOTALLY DIFFERENT KINDS OF COLIN KAEPERNICK/TAKE A KNEE REFERENCES Miguel, War and Leisure IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR Brockhampton, Saturation I-III SZA, Ctrl SPEAKING OF SZA: WHAT A GREAT TITLE, BESIDES IT BEING ONE OF MY FAVORITE ALBUMS OF THE YEAR Kingdom, Tears in the Club THE KELELA ALBUM WAS LOVELY, AS ARE THESE Kelela x Bok Bok, Dub Me Apart A RANDOM YOUTUBE COVER THAT I ALSO LIKED, BECAUSE IT CAPTURED HOW MELODIC THE ORIGINAL ACTUALLY IS Kathleen Nguyen covering Kendrick and Zacari’s “Love.” DAMN. WAS GOOD Almost as good as “The Heart Part 4″ LIKE A DE LA SOUL ALBUM, SOMETHING THAT I KNOW I WILL CONTINUE ENJOYING/UNDERSTANDING ANEW FOR YEARS TO COME Tyler, the Creator, Flower Boy ”BLONDED RADIO” MADE ME JOIN APPLE MUSIC Frank Ocean, “Chanel” Frank Ocean, “Biking (solo)” Tyler and Frank, “Where This Flower Blooms” MACH HOMMY MAKES GOOD MUSIC THAT’S HARD TO ACCESS “x Earl Sweatshirt” EP ty Soundcloud IT’S A WEIRD TIME B/W THIS BEAT IS SO DEMENTED Tay-K, “The Race” PROBABLY MY FAVORITE PHARRELL BEAT Kap G f/ Pharrell, “Icha Gicha” MAYBE THE GREATEST MUSIC EVER MADE, REISSUED Pharoah Sanders

REMINDED ME OF PHAROAH, WHEN IT WASN’T REMINDING ME OF BON IVER Joseph Shabason, Aytche AND I ENJOYED AYTCHE FOR SIMILAR REASONS I LIKED ZONING OUT TO Tom Rogerson and Brian Eno, Finding Shore ANNUAL SLOT RESERVED FOR MUSIC I LOVED THAT FEATURED HARP Alice Coltrane, World Spirituality Classics Vol 1

SAME, BUT FOR HARP STUFF THAT ALSO SHOUTS OUT WAWA Mary Lattimore, Collected Pieces ANNUAL SLOT RESERVED FOR TASTEFUL VIBRAPHONE Jenifa Mayanja, “Warrior Strutt” YOU TRYING TO GET THE PIPE, TO PLAY IT, OF COURSE, AS PART OF AN EXPERIMENTAL COMPOSITION? Mary Jane Leach, Pipe Dreams THERE’S A MOMENT DURING THAT BAD BOY DOCUMENTARY CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP WHERE IT BECOMES CLEAR THAT EVERYONE WHO WORKS CLOSELY WITH DIDDY EVENTUALLY TURNS TO GOD, AND IT WAS LIKE THE STRANGE OBVERSE OF Jay Z et al, 4:44 footnotes 2016, BUT I SAT IN THE MET BREUER AND WATCHED THIS OVER AND OVER FOR ABOUT AN HOUR Arthur Jafa, “Love is the Message, The Message is Death” I WANT TO WATCH THE FULL FOUR HOURS OF THIS Dev Hynes talking to Philip Glass TRICKSTERY BUT KINDA MESMERIZING! Klein, Tommy Lolina, Lolita EP Hype Williams, Rainbow Edition “NOT ANOTHER GOT MORE SEOUL, UNLESS YOU KOREAN” (CHILLWAVE REMIX) Mogwaa, Deja Vu “THE TING GOES SKRRRAHH, PAP, PAP, KA-KA-KA/SKIDIKI-PAP-PAP, AND A PU-PU-PUDRRRR-BOOM/SKYA, DU-DU-KU-KU-DUN-DUN/POOM, POOM, YOU DON’ KNOW” Big Shaq, “Mans Not Hot” IBID., BUT “PERKY” Drake, More Life I WANTED TO LIKE THE WIZKID ALBUM MORE, BUT THIS WAS AWESOME Tiwa Savage f/ Wizkid and Spellz, “Ma Lo” LISTENED TO THIS QUITE A FEW TIMES SIMPLY BECAUSE ”BREAKING NEWS: WILD GOAT ON THE LOOSE” IS A WEIRD LINE Lancey Foux f/ AJ Tracey, Kojey Radical and Jevon, “Wild Goat” UNITED TIL I DIE BUT AJ TRACEY’S TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR KIT LAUNCH FREESTYLE HAD ME BUZZZZZZIN AJ Tracey, “False 9″ DIFFERENT TIME OF DAY, KINDA LEFT ME SPEECHLESS Grouper, “Children” Colleen, A Flame my love, a frequency Kara Lis Coverdale, Grafts Ryuichi Sakamoto, async LEFT RYUICHI SAKAMOTO ENVIOUS Metaphors: Selected Soundworks from the Cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul FROM OMNI TRIO TO THIS, A PRETTY VISIONARY CAREER Robert Haigh, Creatures of the Deep A SONG THAT FEATURED TWO PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE PRETTY BIG IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS DJDS f/ Amber Mark and Marco McKinnis, “Trees on Fire” LIKE, THIS IS GREAT Amber Mark, “Lose My Cool” AWESOME YEAR FOR POTIONS Social Lovers, “Drop Me a Line” Boss, “Song for Gods” WHISKED ME BACK TO MEMORIES OF the enormous room Joakim, “Samurai” Calvin Harris f/ Frank Ocean and Migos, “Slide” Amp Fiddler, “I’m Feeling You” Chaos in the CBD, Accidental Meetings LIKE FALLING ASLEEP ON THE SUBWAY, OR A TRUCK HITTING A POTHOLE AND SPITTING OUT A RECORD COLLECTION, OR HEARING A NANOSECOND OF BRAND NUBIAN THROUGH SOMEONE’S HEADPHONES AS YOU PASS THEM ON THE STREET, IT’S A VIBE Standing on the Corner, Red Burns MIKE’S A SAVIOR Mike 1. I SPENT A LOT OF TIME THIS YEAR THINKING ABOUT THE STRENGTH, ELASTICITY, FRAGILITY, GRAIN OF THE HUMAN VOICE AND SOME OF THIS WAS TOTALLY NECESSARY AND SUBLIME Deep Throat Choir, Be Ok Diamanda Galas, All the Way Moses Sumney, Aromanticism 2. SO ACHINGLY GOOD AND INTIMATE, ESPECIALLY THAT FAINT CROAK IN THE FIRST CHORUS Rostam f/ Kelly Zutrau, “Half-Light” 3. OF COURSE THESE WORLD-MAKERS TOO Bjork, Utopia Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, The Kid Valerie June, “Astral Plane” 3a. A STRANGE PROPOSITION THAT I ENDED UP ADORING KAS covering Sade’s "By Your Side" THE BAY AREA IS JUST DIFFERENT Droop-E, Trillionaire Thoughts Lil B, Black Ken THE “BUILD YOU UP” VIDEO WAS FUN AND ALL BUT I’M REALLY GLAD THIS WASN’T THAT Kamiayah, Before I Wake THE BAY TO L.A. AND BACK AGAIN Mozzy f/ G Perico, “Blammatory” G Perico f/ Mozzy, “What’s Real” GYEAH MC Eiht, Which Way Iz West OUTRUN THE BEAT SOB x RBE, “Lane Changing 2″ BANDS THAT ALWAYS SOUND LIKE THEMSELVES, IN WAYS THAT I FIND COMFORTING the xx, I See You King Krule, The Ooz SAME AS ABOVE, MIDDLE-AGED DIVISION The Feelies, In Between Slowdive, “Star Roving” SOMEONE WHO SOUNDS LIKE NO ONE ELSE Jlin, Black Origami THE NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM Dreezy f/ 6LACK and Kodak Black, “Spar” I LOOKED UP EACH TIME THIS CAME ON THE SHUFFLE Shanti Celeste, “Loop One/Selector”

PROBABLY MY FAVORITE SONG GoldLink f/ Brent Faiyaz and Shy Glizzy, “Crew” OR MAYBE Jorja Smith x Preditah, “On My Mind” THIS WAS SICK TOO GoldLink & Co. covering Outkast’s “Roses” MAYBE THE BEST SONG J Hus, “Did You See”

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER YEAR WHERE MY FAVORITE RELEASE WAS PROBABLY FROM YAEJI, THE “GLASSES FOGGING UP” LINE WAS VERY RELATABLE Yaeji, EP2 THE SONG OF THE SPRING, SUMMER, WINTER I MEAN, IT’S WAYNE’S WORLD, WE JUST LIVE IN IT ### SIKH DEVOTIONAL MUSIC :: 2016 SPOOKY BLACK :: 2015

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brooklynfunkfactory · 4 years

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♥️+🔥+🎶 Repost @geology365 "Ge-ology Plays Ge-ology", (originally released in 2005) just turned 15!! 🎉🎂🎶 The album is a 'mixtape style' retrospective of past 12s, classic collaborations & rare unearthed beats composed, curated and MIXED throughout. Over the years, I've received lots of love due to this project, and I can't say THANK YOU enough to all of those who supported it. So many aspects of my current journey are a direct result of things put in motion through the success of this release, and I feel deep gratitude. 🙏🏾 So first off, I must give a big thanks to my dudes, Mike Malbon and Stephen Malbon of @frank151 , because they were the ones who initially approached me about recording a mix of my beats for a project they had in mind. Originally it was designed to be part of a special box-set concept featuring the art of the legendary @futuradosmil and featuring my beats & music as the soundtrack. But when the project didn't happen, my dude Peter Agoston started inquiring about me releasing the mix as an Album on his own independent label. Honestly, I was hesitant at first, but he stayed on me. And thankfully he did, because eventually I agreed, and we ended up releasing it...which led to me touring Europe with him ( @culturama ), @sadatx (Brand Nubian) and @darealgregnice (Nice & Smooth); including a few shows with @soulsofmischief (Hieroglyphics Crew) and @zion_i_crew on the bill with us. Great times and memories! But one thing I always wanted to do (which I received many requests for over the years), was to release an #unmixed version for the DJs or anyone who wanted the individual songs separately. SO I'M HAPPY TO FINALLY ANNOUNCE: In celebration of this milestone, I present to you a very special '15 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION' of "GE-OLOGY Plays GE-OLOGY"...the complete track list of 30 songs UNMIXED for the very first time!! 💥 You can find both versions of "Ge-ology Plays Ge-ology" and more on my Bandcamp page. Please click the link in my bio or visit the following URL: ⚡️⚡️ https://ge-ology365.bandcamp.com/ ⚡️⚡️ • Today is Bandcamp's "no-fee" day, which allows artists to receive a fuller portion of our sales. So thanks for (at New York, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CCMEhEdA5zd/?igshid=11orerbrorgy5

#unmixed

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fatsocknickels · 5 years

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GORANIMAL ENT RELEASED THIS CLASSIC DVD ON SEPT 12 2010

HAPPY BORN DAY

RAP BEEF STREET BEEF

#rapbeefstreetbeef #goranimalent #goranimaltv #street #nyc #absenceispoweralbum #absenceispowerfatsocknickels #entertainment #anniversary #celebrity #celebration #absenceispoweralbum #hiphop #boombap #rap #soundcloud #djpcutta #repost #beendointhis #happybornday #music #film #radio #radiohead #photooftheday #instagood #nofilter #tbt #igers #picoftheday #love #nature #spotify #artist #producer #editor #newartist #bhfyp #newmusicalert #youtube #youtuber #itunes #applemusic #tidal #worldstar #indie #undergroundhiphop #magazine #mixtape #viral #upcomingartist #instamusic #beats #unsignedartists #rapper #dj #trap #musician #hiphopbloggers #blackradio #ilovemusic #musicstreaming #digitalmusic #hiphopdjs #hiphopnews #motivationmusic #elevation #godsandearths #urbanradio #vkook #rapper

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dippedanddripped · 5 years

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his past Sunday, Supreme shared a very special video with its 12.9 million IG followers. The clip features Buju Banton toasting over King Tubby’s dub version of the classic “Love I Can Feel” riddim. Capturing a spontaneous moment of celebration, the video was shot just after the legendary reggae artist wrapped up a Supreme photo shoot at his Gargamel Music headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica. The voice you hear in the background throwing out ad-libs—“Oh Gosh!” … “Really & truly!”—is my own. Something magical happened in that moment, as it often does on this magical island. Right place, right people, right time.

I’ve known Buju since 1993, before he started letting his dreadlocks grow. At the time I was a senior editor at a new magazine called VIBE and Buju was the biggest dancehall artist on the planet. Fresh off the success of his classic album Mr. Mention, Buju had so many #1 tunes in Jamaica that people were comparing him to Bob Marley. Descended from Jamaica’s Maroon freedom fighters, the youth born Mark Myrie was the youngest of 15 children raised in a humble abode on Salt Lane, a desolate stretch of road in the slums of western Kingston. As a teenager he began deejaying (Jamaican slang for rapping) on local sound systems, using the microphone to transform his life, speak truth to power, and give voice to the voiceless.

When we first met he’d recently signed a deal with a major American label that would result in two more landmark albums: Voice of Jamaica and Til Shiloh. I will never forget hearing Til Shiloh for the first time inside my office at VIBE. Buju brought a cassette and we closed the door and turned up the sounds. “I’m living while I’m living to the Father I will pray,” he sang on “Untold Stories,” one of the album’s most haunting tracks. “Only H.I.M. know how we get through every day…”

Oddly enough, there was no elaborate plan to make this historic collab happen. It started as a casual conversation with an old friend from VIBE days who recently joined the Supreme team. “Are you going to the Buju show?” I texted him, referring to Buju’s triumphant homecoming concert at Jamaica’s National Stadium.

Performing before a crowd of more than 30,000, Buju became the first artist to headline that prestigious arena since—you guessed it—Bob Marley. The emotionally charged stage show kicked off Buju’s ongoing Long Walk to Freedom Tour (named after Nelson Mandela’s autobiography), a well-deserved victory lap following nearly a decade behind bars. The artist had been set up by a paid government informant and convicted on questionable charges following not one but two problematic trials. Refusing a plea deal on principle, Mark Myrie did his time and finally returned home last December.

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After spending time reconnecting with his family, he released his first recordings—the blazing sociopolitical critique “Country For Sale” as well as “Holy Mountain” and “Holy Ground,” which open and close DJ Khaled’s Father of Asahd album—leaving no doubt that Buju’s lyrical sword is sharper than ever. Aside from a brief statement to Boomshots, the media platform I founded in the 2000s, Buju has not given any interviews. Rest assured that the Banton has nuff things to talk about when he is good and ready. In a way, this collab is part of that conversation.

The Supreme squad didn’t make it to that first show, but a seed was planted. Boomshots was soon setting up conference calls with Buju’s management team and the iconic skate brand’s creative director. Before we knew it the date was set. I flew down with Reshma B a reggae journalist and filmmaker who’s been a key Boomshots contributor, to meet up with Supreme’s production crew for the shoot. Reshma wrote the first major piece about Buju’s homecoming for Billboard and she’s had a great vibe with him since they met. Our main priority was to make sure Buju felt comfortable and that everything flowed smoothly. It was good to see Buju’s father at Gargamel HQ that day, as well as Buju’s sons Markeem (who helps with his dad’s social media), and Jahazeil (who’s following his father’s footsteps into the music business). They seemed more excited than anybody over what was about to happen.

Supreme couldn’t have asked for a greater Photo Tee to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Buju joins an eclectic pop culture pantheon that includes Raekwon, Kate Moss, and Kermit the Frog. Judging by the initial IG comments, public reaction has been divided between ecstatic jubilation and too-cool-for-school remarks like “What do these hypebeasts know about Buju?” My hope is that the collaboration will introduce a world-renowned, GRAMMY-winning artist’s music and message to a new generation.

Of course, this whole thing is about so much more than a T-shirt. “Forward Ever,” Buju wrote on one of the box logo tees with a Sharpie. “Stand Firm.” I was happy to see this handwritten inscription included on the final shirt design. Name-checking classic songs by Jacob Miller and Peter Tosh, Buju made clear that he is determined to use every available platform to advance his lifelong mission of upliftment. The Long Walk to Freedom continues.

#supreme #buju banton #collaborations #music blog #reggae #streetwear blog #fashion blog

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airadam · 4 years

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Episode 128 : Crystalline Carbon

"...as long as I'm alive, I will make it."

- Kim Stephens

It's been a subdued start to the year in the main, and my equipment may have conspired against me, but nothing was getting in the way of the first podcast episode of the decade! There are definitely some popular classics in the selection, right next to brand new releases, and some slightly older tracks which deserve a second - or even first - chance in your headphones.

Twitter : @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Roc Marciano : Richard Gear

Roc is the absolute master of this style, and he's back with a new LP release, "Marcielago". If you like this vibe, then you're in for a treat as he carries it over the whole project. It's easy to forget that he's not just penning all those rhymes, but producing the beats as well. He's self-taught and beautifully individual in approach - a leader, not a follower.

[Alchemist] Mobb Deep : The Realest (Instrumental)

One of the most straightforward beats in Al's career - a two-bar loop with nothing added. It was originally going to be an interlude on the Defari "Focused Daily" album, but eventually became a standout on Mobb Deep's "Murda Muzik". This exact instrumental version is on the now-deleted "Gangster Theme Music" collection, but you could pretty much just loop up the start of the Mobb track :)

Trae Tha Truth : Even Tho Its Hard (sic)

A fairly recent release from Trae, taken from his eleventh album, "Exhale". This is a real struggle anthem, voiced by a man whose mic skills are too often overlooked. This is bell-clear rhyming, where you can pick out every single word - aided by the production not fighting him too much for focus. (Once again, this is a case where my digital purchase doesn't contain the credits to enable me to shout out the producer. Fix it, record companies!)

O.C. : The Chosen One

It's been a little while - well over four years - since we visited the "Jewelz" album, so it's about time we came back. Buckwild brings together the jazz and soul to craft the beat on this one, and O.C. strides over it like a king surveying his subjects. The whole album was criminally underrated when it came out, with many just expecting a re-tread of the "Time's Up" sound. A lot went into making it, and it took many listeners a while to catch up - but they did!

Flamingosis : You Were Meant For Me

A nice little piece from a New Jersey producer whose catalogue has a certain sunniness that you just have to listen to understand! Pick up the "Flight Fantastic" album and keep it in the stash until warmer weather arrives...

Statik Selektah & Termanology ft. Mtume : Never Let My City Down

Yes, Mtume of "Juicy Fruit" fame! The "Still 1982" LP from Statik and Term contained this little gem, where I'm not sure exactly who did what apart from the rhymes, but it works. Termanology's flow glides over this with confidence, and even the way the track winds down is expertly done.

9th Wonder : SuperChopFunk!!!!

Yes, all those exclamation points are part of the actual track title... Anyway, the beat is signature 9th Wonder material, drawn from his mostly-instrumental "Zion III" mixtape. With forty-two tracks in total, you can't say he didn't give you value for money!

Krumbsnatcha : Start Writing

I found this while having a flick through Spotify, and was glad I did! The "Iron Will Ninja Shinobi" album came out about a year ago, and it's good to see Krumb out there and still recording. The beat here is dark and menacing, sounding like a Hip-Hop contribution to the "The Terminator" soundtrack, and KS has no trouble matching that vibe on the mic.

David Bars ft. DJ Premier : Beat The Odds

If you don't know him already, it feels like you will pretty soon! Bronx native Bars getting co-signs from some of the best producers to ever do it - DITC, Beatminerz, and DJ Premier, who gave him this beat to rip! "The Bar Code" EP is the release to check to get a fuller picture of what Bars is bringing.

Meyhem Lauren ft. Big Body Bes : Badmon Ting

That "¡Caballito!" adlib will never fail to be amusing! Meyhem is not so much underrated as not well-enough known in my opinion, but he's a beast of an MC. "Gucci kicks got me looking like a pointsettia"? Come on now. Find this DJ Farhot produced track on the 2017 "Piatto D'Oro" album, named after a now-closed NYC restaurant - Meyhem does love the kitchen!

Natural Elements : N.E. Definitely

One of the great crews for the connoisseurs, NE were true kings of the underground right off the bat. Charlemagne provided the beats and L-Swift, A-Butta, and Mr.Voodoo brought bars by the trailerload! Many of the tracks from that era have been collected on the recently-released "1999 : 20 Year Anniversary" collection, of which this is one. Definite recommendation for those who like that real.

[Ali Shaheed Muhammad] Faith Evans : You Used To Love Me (Remix Instrumental)

I was happy to realise I hadn't already used this instrumental on a past episode! This neo-souled-out beat gave Faith's voice more space than the original from her debut album, which was dope in its own right.

Robert Glasper Experiment ft. Brandy : What Are We Doing?

One of the best tracks on the excellent "Black Radio 2", easily. The drummer pushes this one forward constantly, playing a little ahead of the beat as though not completely under control, and the bass and keys fill in a track that would tear down any after-hours spot. And those vocals...you might just write Brandy off as some pop artist because you know her radio singles, but you'd be very wrong. This is a track with the space to expose anyone lacking skills, and she slays it. Recognise!

Children of Zeus : Get What's Yours

New release from Manchester's own Children of Zeus, who are on a flawless run right now. A soulful motivational cut that opens up with the vocals of Tyler Daley before he goes back and forth with Konny Kon on the rhymes. The closing vocals and piano (if you go and hear the full version) round it off exquisitely. Get this on the "Two Syllables, Volume Sixteen" compilation.

Lauryn Hill : Lost Ones

The drums of the Zeus track reminded me of this, so I figured there was probably no better time for me to play it! For me, it's a battle between this and "Everything Is Everything" for best track on the only real Lauryn solo LP, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" - a monster seller for sure. By all accounts firing shots at Wyclef, you can feel the focused anger in this one.

Kool G Rap : My Life

This was a pretty big single from the Rawkus Records part of G Rap's career, which made noise on the 2002 Hip-Hop charts as well as being a mixtape staple of the time. V.I.C (from the original Beatnuts producer crew) brings the beat, and an artist called G-Wise shows out on the talkbox. The official release of "The Giancana Story" album contains this one, as well as an alternate version featuring Capone-N-Noreaga.

Pete Rock : Stop Dat (Instrumental)

Sparse mastery from Soul Brother #1. The most recent release of the 2004 Edo G and Pete Rock LP "My Own Worst Enemy" helpfully contains all the instrumentals for when you want some unfiltered PR, and so is a recommended pickup for DJs at a minimum.

Raekwon ft. Kim Stephens : Jury

Allegedly, this track is actually supposed to be called "Jewelry", but for a typo in the tracklisting! We close the episode with a second track taken from a poorly-received sophomore album, 1999's "Immobilarity". Infinite Arkatechz, who handled the vast majority of the production, clearly picked up a Chris Spheeris compilation and ran wild with it, but this was definitely the track where that choice made the most impact. "Andalu" has nowhere near the cold, pensive feel of this song, which is classic Raekwon for me, as he tells the story of the start of the Wu from his perspective. This month's epigraph could have been any number of the lyrics from here, which paint pictures and describe feelings that I expect many besides me will relate to. On top of all that, Kim Stephens does a great job on the hook, on what may be her only ever recorded appearance. This isn't a track you put in the middle of a mix, you either start with it or end with it.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

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bluewatsons · 4 years

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Stephen Piccarella, Charles Manson Was a Republican, The New Inquiry (August 5, 2019)

Long incorrectly associated in the public mind with the political left, Manson wasn’t merely conservative; he might as well have been a Fed

THE first time you see him, you barely notice him. He’s posing for a group photo, poking his head over the shoulders of two people you recognize. You have to see his face a few times before you begin to recognize him too, but soon enough you do. He’s showing up everywhere now, at a party with Sky Ferreira, in front of a media wall at a film festival with James Franco, on the beach with Justin Bieber. He’s slight and messy, but his face tattoo and rattail are distinctive enough to brand him somewhere between Jersey Shore and inzane_johnny. When you see him in one of Kanye’s selfies, you scroll through the comments looking for his name. A few of the commenters mention a Chad. You Google “kanye+chad” until you find a verified Instagram account with 100,000 followers. The bio reads “LOVExHATE // LIFExDEATH // ALLxONE,” and the handle is @ChadMansonOfficial.

You start following Chad on all social-media platforms. He often likes and occasionally reposts articles about himself; Vice develops a beat. Along with the rest of the world, you slowly get to know Chad and his singular lifestyle brand, part edgelord, part corporate woke. The elitist one percent has destroyed the planet and defrauded the people, and the only way to cope is to lean into whatever means to liberation remain. He’s nonmonogamous, advocates for entheogens and their potential to treat PTSD, and vehemently distrusts both political parties. Your friends tend to shrug off the rumors about his entourage of younger women and their creepy orgies. You’re not sure if you buy his message, but media personalities of various stripes have found something to like about him, from Tucker Carlson to Cum Town. Then the Fader runs the headline “Chad Manson at work on debut mixtape produced by Kanye West.” You wonder when the first single will drop, but it never does.

Instead, one morning, you wake up to a stream of push notifications. At a party at Franco’s house in Hollywood, along with at least six other industry personalities, actress Margot Robbie—no, Kate Bosworth—no, wait, Hilary Duff—has been hideously murdered by still unidentified perpetrators. Not quickly enough, police apprehend Chad Manson. Early reports suggest that Manson has been plotting against the cultural elite for years, coaxing stars like Ed Sheeran, Lil Xan, and the FuckJerry guy into his orbit. After a long investigation, detectives determine that Manson orchestrated the murders after hearing Kanye’s album Yeezus, reading its lyrics as coded messages from a powerful representative of the Black community about the coming armed battle against the white race.

AUGUST 9, 2019, will mark the 50th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders, better known as the Manson Family Murders, which took place in the early hours of the morning on August 9, 1969. In honor of the occasion, at least four new movies (Mary Harron’s feminist revision Charlie Says, Quentin Tarantino’s pop-historical epic Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the more straightforward biopic Tate, and the pure exploitation The Haunting of Sharon Tate) and a new season of the Netflix series Mindhunter will dramatize the events in some way this year. Whether these projects are motivated by revisionism or nostalgia is unclear.

The most famous piece of writing about the Manson Family—besides, maybe, Helter Skelter, the true-crime account by Manson’s prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi—is Joan Didion’s essay “The White Album,” now considered a classic of cultural journalism. In the essay, Didion writes, “Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, ended at the exact moment when word of the murders on Cielo Drive traveled like brushfire through the community, and in a sense this is true. The tension broke that day. The paranoia was fulfilled.” This declaration can be interpreted any number of ways, but in the decades since its writing it has been reduced to a single, simple notion: The Manson Murders were somehow specific to, revealed something about, and effectively concluded “the Sixties,” whatever that was. They broke a tension and fulfilled a paranoia we associate with a historical moment defined, loosely, by “countercultural” behavior and activity. This has become the dominant narrative of the murders.

After Manson died in November of 2017, a flurry of thinkpieces appeared, most of which hardened this impression. “At the time,” the Atlantic reported, “Manson was seen as emblematic of the counterculture, living on a hippie commune with his followers, writing music, and dropping acid.” An op-ed in the Guardian alluded to “the widespread belief within the late 60s counterculture that he was innocent, a martyr who had been picked on by police as part of The Man’s war against the long-hairs.” On the right, the likes of Ben Shapiro and Kevin D. Williamson saw an opportunity, exaggerating and fabricating sympathies between Manson and leftist radicals and, in more than one case, Barack Obama. Articles in Vice and the New York Times compared Manson (more accurately) to the alt-right, but the prevailing interpretation is not exactly a collective misremembering. Reviewing Helter Skelter in 1975, the New Republic wrote, “It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Counterculture of the 1960s—which offered us beautiful music, new ways to live our lives, and the will to end the war—gave birth as well to Charles Manson.”

Hard nothing. Hardly anyone seems to want to try. But it’s not the growing leftist movement that’s rehabilitating Manson. That credit goes to the alt-right, Netflix, and Quentin Tarantino. If the ’60s counterculture was a failed attempt to take down the U.S. government, the Manson Murders were a failed attempt to accelerate its racist program. The boomers and Generation X were content, even happy, to remember the ’60s univocally as a freewheeling adventure against the Man, including Manson, but the evidence is thin.

The most enduring connections between Manson and radical leftists were drawn by Bugliosi, a prosecutor, who had no ear for hippie irony and no understanding of the culture’s contradictions. In a chapter of Helter Skelter listing assessments of Manson from the left, he offers, “The underground paper Tuesday’s Child, which called itself the voice of the Yippies, blasted its competitor the Los Angeles Free Press for giving too much publicity to Manson—then spread his picture across the entire front page with a banner naming him MAN OF THE YEAR.” The endorsement is more likely a reference to the publicity Bugliosi credits the paper with admonishing. After an anecdote about Yippie party founder Jerry Rubin visiting Manson in prison, Bugliosi admits, “Yet Charles Manson—revolutionary martyr—was a difficult image to maintain. Rubin admitted to being angered by Manson’s ‘incredible male chauvinism.’ A reporter for the Free Press was startled to find Manson both anti-Jewish and anti-Black. And when one interviewer tried to suggest that Manson was as much a political prisoner as Huey Newton, Charlie, perplexed, asked, ‘Who’s he?’”

Bugliosi’s most unfortunate contribution to this argument is this quote from Bernardine Dohrn, delivered at an SDS summit not long after the murders: “Offing those rich pigs with their own forks and knives, and then eating a meal in the same room, far out! The Weathermen dig Charles Manson.” This is the quote that no right-wing publication can seem to leave alone. But Bill Ayers, placing the quote back in the context of the speech for which he was present, refutes any ideas of its sincere support for Manson. The occasion and the subject of the speech was the recent death of Black Panther Fred Hampton, which the Weathermen assumed, not unreasonably, to be part of a racist government conspiracy curiously Mansonian in design. The comparison to Manson was meant to lament the media’s focus on the sexier story of the Tate-LaBianca murders rather than what to the Weathermen was the much greater and more politically significant crime. “This is what screams for our attention and our response,” Ayers remembers Dohrn continuing. “And what do we find in our newspapers? A sick fascination with a story that has it all: a racist psycho, a killer cult, and a chorus line of Hollywood bodies. Dig it!” It was simple sarcasm.

Dohrn’s juxtaposition of Manson and Hampton echoes in Didion’s juxtaposition in “The White Album” of Manson and the story of Black Panthers leader Huey Newton’s arrest for the murder of Oakland police officer John Frey. Both cases came about because of a deliberate police effort to target the Black Panthers. The New Republic review explains that “Helter-skelter was Charles Manson’s design for Armageddon: by committing crimes like the Tate-LaBianca murders and leaving clues to throw the blame on black power groups, Manson hoped to force a police crackdown on the blacks who would retaliate with war against the whites.” If “a police crackdown on the blacks” was the first phase of Manson’s plan for race war, then the FBI was already years ahead of him. ANY examination of the Manson murders is incomplete if it ignores the U.S. government’s concurrent efforts to attack and undermine Black-power groups via espionage and violence, efforts made public in 1971 after the FBI’s papers documenting its counterintelligence programs were stolen and leaked to the press. After hearing The White Album, Manson directed his followers to murder Sharon Tate and her friends to try to frame the Black Panthers and incite a race war. At the time, we now know, police were seeking out the Panthers as part of a coordinated COINTELPRO effort, part of its aim being to demonize the Panthers as dangerous subversives with a threatening anti-white agenda. The main difference between Manson’s murderous efforts to provoke the Panthers and the FBI’s was scope. They were engaged in the same strategy and similar tactics.

Across five COINTELPRO programs, the FBI’s goals were broad but consistent: to suppress action by radical groups. The FBI wanted to neutralize any challenge to the prevailing order, of which white supremacy was (and remains) an inextricable part. One of the five COINTELPRO programs targeted white hate groups, but its documentation suggests that these groups only posed a threat to the FBI because their vigilantism threatened to subvert the government’s authority. Coordination between the different COINTELPRO programs to incite internecine struggle was also common enough in practice that the FBI might have infiltrated groups like the KKK to incorporate them into their operations against groups like the Panthers. The FBI workshopped so many plots against the Panthers that some of them probably sounded a lot like Manson’s.

The fantasy of white genocide that animated Manson permeates the highest levels of state power in this country. Manson may have been deluded enough to believe the Beatles knew who he was and cared enough about him to write him songs, but his racism wasn’t born of unique paranoia. Growing up in America in the middle of the 20th century, he could have picked it up pretty much anywhere. As is true of all white terrorists, what set Manson apart from other agents of white supremacy was not his hatred but his belief in his own personal importance.

The year 1988 was significant for white supremacists, many of whom use the number 88 as a symbol meaning “HH,” or “Heil Hitler.” Schreck and Rice both performed at an 8/8/88 concert that summer.All this notwithstanding, Manson’s direct connections to right-wing ideologues are not so easy to find. The best sources are in a document called The Manson File, published most recently by Feral House, an underground press with a record of publishing white supremacists, and an accompanying film called Charles Manson Superstar. The Manson File is a fanzine-style hodgepodge of drawings, photographs, and writings about and by Manson collected in 1988 by a group of Manson sympathizers including historically dubious experimental musicians Nikolas Schreck and Boyd Rice.* The file includes text by racialist extremist and Universal Order founder James N. Mason, whose name is so similar to Manson’s that even their fans occasionally mix them up. The equally choppy film includes a brief yet almost unwatchable interview with Mason, preceding a longer one with Manson.

Mason’s contributions to both productions are very hard to follow, both because they are extremely disturbing and because they make very little sense. Mason seems to refer to a years-long relationship between his Universal Order and the Manson Family, lasting at least into the ’80s, during which time the two groups discussed plans for race-based warfare on an ongoing basis. The book and the film both reproduce an image of the Universal Order’s official logo, a set of scales with a swastika imposed over the center. The logo was designed by Manson. A few years after the release of both documents, Mason’s collected writings were published, edited by Michael Moynihan, coauthor of popular Feral House title Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, recently adapted as a major motion picture that erases its white-supremacist origins. Mason’s writings have since been rediscovered and adopted by Atomwaffen Division, the neo-Nazi terrorist group whose targeted guerilla efforts to assault and supplant the existing social order continue as of this writing.

These are Charles Manson’s friends and fans: murderous fanatics, deranged occultists, addled hipster racists, and conspiracy theorists of the QAnon variety. In a word, Nazis. They read his words and follow his lead and hide in plain sight with the government’s blessing as long as they don’t get in the way. Sure, Manson hung out with Dennis Wilson and Neil Young, but only to manipulate them. He definitely never hung out with Bernardine Dohrn. He’s not your dad’s distant friend who took too much acid and went off the deep end; he’s at once less and more familiar than that. He’s the estranged cofounder of the giant media outlet that laid you off. He runs a YouTube music-review channel you’ve been watching for years. Actually, he has a solo show opening next week at a gallery in LA. Check your calendar. You’re invited.

#charles manson #politics #conservatism #public image #murder #crime #analogy #murder groupies #culture #killer fandom #fandom #subcultures #tate-la bianca murders #manson family

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thewritinglist · 5 years

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Albums of the “Year”

It’s very limiting to list my favourite albums released in the last twelve months, because years are an arbitrary concept, invented by humanity, and I also struggle to get away from my comfort zone of a few bands I’ve obsessively listened to and mentally catalogued. So, here is my top ten albums of 2018. They’re not necessarily from 2018, but they defined my year.

10. After Laughter by Paramore

For a long while, Paramore existed in my cultural awareness as one song, and a post on this very site about how Hayley Williams once caused a tour to be cancelled by getting her teenage self grounded.

That’s an unfair assessment.

The one song was Still Into You, passed on as part of a mixtape made by a dear friend to celebrate my first anniversary with my girlfriend. But after hearing Fake Happy on the radio at my former place of work (I didn’t love The Co-Op, but I have to hand it to their DJs and their fine taste), I had to google some lyrics to find it. The twelve songs tell an often deceptively sad story underneath the jangling guitars and synths that throw you and Paramore back together to the eighties. I listen to the music for the lyrics, and Williams really excels in adding sadness in the tone and not as something yelled.

Best song - Hard Times.

2017 - Fuelled by Ramen - Pop rock

9. Silver Dollar Moment by The Orielles

I discovered the next two bands by a moment of delightful chance, when indie band Little Comets opened their twitter account to female fans on International Women’s Day, and one recommended these two.

Opening track Mango really nicely sets the scene for forty-five minutes of dreamily delivered indie rock, especially in Esmé Dee Hand-Halford’s vocals and bass. It’s the sort of music that makes me want to close my eyes and gently drift my head from side to side, which is why I have a soft rule to listen to it mostly in the comfort of a closed bedroom. Labelling anything indie gives an impression of competent but basic guitar/bass/drums, but The Orielles do much more than that, there’s an injection of funk and weirdness that occasionally brings to mind Talking Heads, if you played them at half speed, and replaced Byrne’s sudden manic energy with languid relaxation.

Best song: Mango

2018 - Heavenly Records - Indie rock

8. Love in the 4th Dimension by The Big Moon

The second chance discovery, The Big Moon are definitely more conventionally indie than their precedents in this list, but I like the simplicity of not adding too much to a song. This album blasts, first track Sucker building quickly and simply to a massive chorus, which is easy to imagine reverberating around Rescue Rooms or Rock City to a highly appreciative crowd.

But it slows, too. Formidable’s verses have a solemn quality, with imagery of a capsizing boat and vague references to “did she make you swallow all your pride?” changing the atmosphere to something more confrontational, before the chorus rugby tackles the subject, with still soft vocals.

Best song: Silent Movie Susie

2017 - Columbia & Fiction Records - Indie rock

7. Harry Styles by Harry Styles

“Have you listened to Harry Styles’ album?”

The same friend that brought me the Paramore song asked me this on a Texas road trip with my girlfriend, having grown understandably tired of my musical choices. I said no, with an implication of “of course not”, because he was a he One Direction guy, and I hated them and all they stood for.

That is a poor assessment of Harry Styles’ abilities as a songwriter and musician. His self-titled debut, such a classic going solo move, is a mature change-up from the former One Direction star. An aeon away from upbeat teen-pop, now Styles is singing maturely and softly about sex, not explicitly but provocatively in Carolina. The use of “Good Girl, she makes me feel so good” is not at all subtle, and the album often feels like these are ideas and feelings that Styles wanted to get off his chest. These are not One Direction songs, and much as the Harry Potter series mature as the books passed and readers aged, Harry Styles feels like an album aimed at One Direction fans who are growing less interested in the innocent, good boy image they’d cultivated.

The music is clean and engaging, but more complex than those previous recordings. In all, the album manages something tough: It reveals a former teen star’s true maturity without the need to scream it explicitly. It feels confident in its identity, which is an achievement in itself.

Best song: Two Ghosts

2017 - Columbia - Indie pop/soft rock

6. Mean Girls - Original Cast Recording

Mean Girls, the film, holds up. Comedy, as I’ve learned just across my time at university, is the first genre to age badly. Punchlines need a target, and our understanding and acceptance of who and what is allowed as a target is ever shifting. So for Tina Fey to ingeniously target not the cattiness of teenage girls, which is a cheap stereotype that the mainstream media still loves to find and blow up (see: the majority of Taylor Swift coverage), but rather the expectation that they’ll do that, and the mentalities of teenager in general, savvily keeps it fresh.

Mean Girls, the musical, opened in 2017 and moved to Broadway in 2018. Music is written by Jeff Richmond, Fey’s husband and collaborator on both the seminal 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Nell Benajmin provided lyrics whilst Fey wrote the book, and together they brilliantly recreated the quotable magic of the original. Fey’s credit is limited to the book but at times her voice is loud and clear in the lyrics. The dumbest plastic, Karen Smith, sings an ode to Halloween, which begins with her muddling over putting it before world peace as a priority, and builds to her love of costumes: “I’m sexy Eleanor Roosevelt or sexy Rosa Parks” is such a Fey joke, fitting of the film. It’s also delightful to hear some extra input on protagonist Cady’s initial best friend Janis (Barrett Wilbert Weed, the best performance), a wonderful character who has the backstory most ripe for exploration in any future works.

Hey, I managed not to say fetch.

Wait.

Damn.

Best song: World Burn

2018 - Atlantic - Broadway

5. Be More Chill - Original Cast Recording

Be More Chill is an honest story of teenagers and mental health. Adapted mostly faithfully from a 2004 novel by young adult author Ned Vizzini, the story is of Jeremy Heere, a high school loser whose initial goal is charmingly low-key. He just wants to be a bit less awkward and able to survive high school, but quickly decides to sign up for a school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, following in the steps of his crush Christine Canigula, a theatre lover with, in her words, “A touch of ADD”.

It’s this detail that sets the musical’s story apart from the book. Mental health is a subtextual theme of the book, but Christine and her love of performing as someone else and occasional scatterbrain, makes it explicit. The main thrust comes when a jock named Rich offers Jeremy a Squip, AKA a supercomputer, taken as a pill, that invades your brain and tells you how to act and speak. It helps Jeremy enter the cool kids’ circle, but at the expense of his friendship with the proudly dorky Michael, who is delighted that humanity has stopped evolving because, in his words, “there’s never been a better time in history to be a looooooooooooooooser!”

In the final song, Voices in My Head, Christine and Jeremy finally bond properly over the voices they’ve both heard, and it completes a surprisingly moving story of mental health in a musical that is often bombastically big and ridiculous - the Squip is supposed to have Keanu Reeves’ voice. Joe Iconis’ music and lyrics are witty and engaging, perfectly fitting the clever and original novel, and the sadly departed Vizzini.

Best song: Michael in the Bathroom (George Salazar)

2015 - Ghostlight Records - Broadway

4. Worhead by Little Comets

Little Comets are the most exciting band in current music.

This is a bold claim, but I like to be bold. Little Comets, who hail from Jarrow in Tyne and Wear, write the most incredibly moving, lyrically dense and thoughtful songs you can find today. Every song on Worhead is affecting.

If you listen to their first album, In Search of Elusive Little Comets, the musical and lyrical progression in six years is astounding. The fun early indie rock has complicated and deepened, like a lake dug out from beneath its surface. By 2017, lead singer and writer Rob Coles’ grasp on lyrics had become masterful, and he uses images to generate feeling so well. The title and opening tack immediately point to a specific image: “Standing in a field of grass, looking for a blade of grass”. Coles is upfront about his political beliefs - a 2014 song titled “The Blur, the Line and the Thickest of Onions” explicitly denies and attacks the language of Blurred Lines, and their music is often loudly feminist. Worhead asks us “My sweetheart, can we lean more, to the left side, to the left side of everything”. À Bientôt angrily speaks to anti-migrant rhetoric from their perspective, even including the temporary sympathy caused by the image of the dead boy washed up on the beach, whilst Hunting is written from the smug, entitled view of Tory ministers, cutting, unafraid of retribution, safe from the consequences.

Density of ideas is a Little Comets staple, and the unapologetic thickness of the accents often need a trip to their website or Genius for understanding, but Coles also writes poetically when he pares his words down for romance. “Common Things” describes globetrotting, but in the context of not wanting it, because of the joys of being home, only needing an atlas under the mattress. Elegant domesticity is the only kind of love song that continually appeals to me. They are a continually astounding and unique band.

Best song:

2017 - The Smallest Label - Indie rock

3. Illinois by Sufjan Stevens

I hardly ever enjoy music purely for the feeling that the music imparts on me. Before I was listening to music critically, I saw an episode of Charlie Brooker’s excellent series Screenwipe, which discussed and took the piss out of all elements of television. In an advertising special, he mentioned that advertisers love music as it bypasses the logical part of your mind and is processed emotionally. There’s something romantic about that, but at the same time sometimes I wonder if that subconsciously put up mental guards, and I have to understand lyrics to understand the emotions.

Illinois is a rare exception.

Sufjan Stevens relased Illinois in 2005 and it serves as a sort of concept album about the American state. It covers points from its history: “Come on! Feel the Illinoise!” covers the historic World’s Columbian Exposition, and “John Wayne Gacy Jr.” is about the infamous serial killer and affords him almost shocking levels of empathy. Stevens later said that we’re all capable of what Gacy did, which is debatable.

But we’re all capable of the grief woven into Caismir Pulaski Day, which tragically tells the story of losing someone who died on the state holiday celebrating their Polish revolutionary war hero.

An independent singer songwriter with track titles as terribly long as “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!'” seems like someone addicted to acoustic guitar, but Stevens utilises piano, strings and horns, especially effective in the aforementioned ‘Come on’. The album is vivid and alive, and is really a practical tie for second.

2005 - Asthmatic Kitty/Secretly Canadian and Rough Trade - Indie rock/folk

2. Masseduction by St. Vincent

This year, I made a real effort, admittedly only in September, to get into new music. Reading an interview with David Byrne, I was intrigued by his mention of St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark. Anyone who can engage David Byrne is worthy of attention.

Inside the striking image and colouring of the artwork, Masseduction was first introduced to me in the opening scene of Bojack Horseman’s fifth season, replacing the standard use of Back in the 90′s by Grouplove with Los Ageless. The song, Clark’s depiction of Los Angeles, feels bleak and distant, the electronic music giving an disconnected vibe. It’s her relationship to the city, and the album as a whole is a series of looks at relationships. Pills is about a relationship with drugs, the title track and Savior are about sex. Happy Birthday Johnny, both slower and acoustic, feel related, as though they’re both about the same person, Clark coming to terms with the sadness of that loss.

Masseduction is endlessly listenable. It spans various pop genres, with enough variety to reward many listens and picking on many of its songs to focus on individually. Pills really does feel like withdrawal, with pumped up verses, an almost manic chorus, and a suddenly balladish final section, where the tone becomes surprisingly sombre. It works, powerfully so.

Best song: Pills

2017 - Loma Vista Recordings - Electropop/Glam Rock

1. The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society (50th Anniversary Edition)

The Kinks released Village Green Preservation Society on the 22nd of November, 1968, which sounds fine until you learn that The Beatles released The White Album on the same day, spelling inevitable and crushing doom, and the permanent departure of founding bassist Pete Quaife from the band. Quaife, who had grown tired of the industry and the Davies’ brothers warring ways, scrawled ‘daze’ on a tape recording of Days. But he left on perhaps the band’s highest note.

I don’t know what else can be said about this album. Even if every song isn’t a standalone masterpiece, with the strange fairy tale of Phenomenal Cat and the childlike Mr. Songbird only working in context of stories of the past, but they form a collective that is masterful in painting a rich story. It has the delicacy of a great painting, something that former art student Ray Davies must appreciate. And it is so distinctly Ray Davies in its voice, something only he alone could have written. It was their first album after a still somewhat mysterious five year ban from American touring, then the only real form of promotion, but it dismisses the cultural shift towards psychedelia with an almost passive-aggressive tone.

The weighty re-release is fitted out with sixty tracks, but they’re largely alternative versions of songs from the original album and the recording sessions, many unreleased, including the finished Time Song, and a lovely demo of Days, that proves that Davies was always a better writer than singer, bless him. Harmonies with his brother Dave always lifted the words, but they stand alone, as short stories, brilliantly formed.

VGPS contributes to their stereotypical image of proud Britishness, but there’s a look to the future and underlying sadness that add depth to the album. The original final track’s closing lyirc?

Don’t show me no more, please.

1968/2018 - Pye Records - Folk Rock

#music #music criticism #best of 2018

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demitgibbs · 5 years

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Nine Tracks To be Thankful For This Season

With so much negativity everywhere you look (and to be fair, there are plenty of problems in the world that need solving), it can be refreshing to indulge in some gratitude every now and then. So let’s be thankful for some of the good things that happened this year. Among them, FX’s Pose, the success of Love, Simon, the return of Will & Grace, the ouster of Roseanne from The Connors, and lots of new gay anthems. Here are the top tracks we’re most thankful for this season.

Wanna Be Me PrettiBoiRoq

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Everyone’s favorite twink returns with a nasty jam about self-empowerment and confidence. PrettiBoiRoq wrote “Wanna Be Me” in response to comments he received after the music video for his previous single, “You Don’t Own Me,” went viral on the internet and the adorable little red head was body shamed for not looking like porn star Arad Winwin, featured in the video. The song isn’t as pop-infused as we’re used to hearing from PrettiBoiRoq. It has a more trap sound to it that works. It allows him to flex a more traditional hip hop beat. The song’s music video is as bright and bad-ass as the song. It’ll make ya want to pinch the little naughty boy’s cheeks.

Kingdom: The MixTape David Hernandez

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From Pop to R&B, with influences of soul, no one song on the sexy American Idol’s new album is the same. Many reflect on the heartbreaks and loss he has endured over the last decade since rising to fame from the show. The title track is a mid-tempo power ballad that soars with electric guitars, triumphant drums and a grand piano. “Beautiful” is a pop anthem while “Last Supper” and “Animal” are beat driven dance numbers. Then there’s “Break,” an introspective mid-tempo song, where David opens up about his struggles with addiction. It’s a powerful album where David proves he is an adept salesmen of emotions, especially of matters of the heart and distance.

Time Travel Jack Tracy

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The latest song from Out actor/musician is a call to action, urging liberals to stand together and fight the oppressive right. With an 80s Prince-inspired militaristic beat, it stands apart from most anything else playing on today’s dance floors and that, along with it’s smart lyrics, is what it makes it special. The music video is a nod to Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation,” shot in black-and-white and featuring many of the same iconic dance moves from the 1989 hit.

Drama Queen Kfir

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The first single off of Kfir’s Free Delivery EP is catchy, funky and almost a futuristic throwback to the disco era. In addition to it being sung by a dreamy singer who makes his dance floor debut directly from the stages of Broadway, what makes the track stand apart from mainstream releases is it’s biting attitude that seems to take a page from queen of soul Aretha Franklin by unabashedly pointing a critical finger at people who fail to pay proper respect. It doesn’t get more NYC than this.

Self Control Kendra Erika

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Kendra Erika’s latest single release pays homage to her musical hero, Laura Branigan on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the deceased icon’s 80’s dance hit, “Self Control.” The song has become one of the defining songs of the 1980s and has received a number of recorded remakes over the years. Notable covers include Ricky Martin’s in 1993 and a hit dance remake by Branigan herself in 2004, the same year of her death from an undiagnosed cerebral aneurysm. Kendra Erika’s version, produced by Grammy Award winning producer Damon Sharpe, adds a futuristic new age spin to the dance classic. Its remix package includes exclusive productions by Ralphi Rosario, Moto Blanco, and Dirty Werk.

Fix Yo Face Epiphany Mattel

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Step aside Cardi B. Straight shooting hip hop trans artist Epiphany Mattel is here with a beat-driven hip-hop club banger that takes aim at all you perfect 10s who love to pretend like you can’t be bothered by the 5s and 6s at bars and clubs. #FIXYOFACE” is an incredibly playful song but its message is serious and right on point. Epiphany is the perfect artist to serve it. She is raw, unapologetic, provocative and she is making her voice heard by speaking the truth. You best listen.

Rainbow ECHO V

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“Rainbow,” the first single from the bands new EP, and its title track, is a high energy pop anthem with an explosive hook that will get listeners dancing and singing. The song reflects the group’s decision to be out and loud about their sexuality. It is intended to inspire fans to stand up and claim their truth, too, and why not? We should all be happy with who we are and find comfort in the fact that we are not alone.

Round in All the Right Places Tom Goss

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Five years after the release of “Bears,” an all grown up but still adorably youthful Tom Goss is back with a new song that reinstates his commitment to plus-sized men. “Round in All the Right Places” is so much more soulful than the comical “Bears”. The love pours out in this Harry Connick Jr. from When Harry Met Sally tune that brilliantly combines sultry, intoxicating lyrics with shapely tones. The song and it’s music video are a feast for the ears and eyes.

I’m in Love with You Jason Walker

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Two-time Grammy nominated dance producer Tony Moran and Out Music Award winner Jason Walker are together again in a brand new euphoric dance anthem. It is the third #1 from the power house duo whose previous tracks, “So Happy” and “Say Yes,” also climbed to the top position on the Billboard club charts. Written by Tony Moran, Ryan Shaw and Mike Greenly and produced by Tony Moran, “I’m in Love with You” is meant to be a bold declaration of the love we hold in our hearts for those who matter most to us and features another awe-inspiring vocal performance by Walker.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/11/07/nine-tracks-to-be-thankful-for-this-season/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/179868573520

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cynthiajayusa · 5 years

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Nine Tracks To be Thankful For This Season

Wanna Be Me PrettiBoiRoq

youtube

Kingdom: The MixTape David Hernandez

youtube

Time Travel Jack Tracy

youtube

Drama Queen Kfir

youtube

Self Control Kendra Erika

youtube

Fix Yo Face Epiphany Mattel

youtube

Rainbow ECHO V

youtube

Round in All the Right Places Tom Goss

youtube

I’m in Love with You Jason Walker

youtube

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/11/07/nine-tracks-to-be-thankful-for-this-season/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2018/11/nine-tracks-to-be-thankful-for-this.html

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