#I'm listening to all of their music rn | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

1pcii · 1 year ago

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wanted to start sharing some of my playlists cause they're getting to a point in pretty happy w them so I wanna start off with my one for the strawhats!

as the title suggests its still a huge work in progress but since it's also my only chronological/one you have to listen in order I also wanted to explain it a bit!

the first and second song from the opla ost are mainly to 'set the scene' so to speak, opening with 'my sails are set' which is set around post-arlong park which I feel perfectly captures the melancholy but also hopefullness nami (and almost all strawhats) was feeling about their past circumstances and joining Luffy. she is also the driving force of the ap arc which is the first major arc and what jumpstarts the rest of the plot.

'welcome to the grand line' moves both the story along to them being in the grand line aswell as establishing a more upbeat tone which is important for the next song.

now THIS IS where I start geeking out, for those who don't know, The Mechanisms are a steampunk concept band! following the story of a crew of immortal space pirates, each album having it's own storyline to it. 'our boy jack' is a revolutionary song against a corrupt monarch/government which I think first the alabasta/enies lobby saga so we'll. 'Jack' being Luffy and the song being from Zoro's POV. the references to fighting giants (little garden) being hunted (baroque works) drinking and sacrifice (dammit zoro) and having utter unwavering faith in the protagonist is just. so good to me. listen to The mechs, they're so good 😭.

'im going to be king of the pirates' is just another progression song tbh. I though it fit ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

these next three songs I put to represent the timeskip, 'get the band togeather' being the crew departing back to sabody/generally referencing how they were all doing their own thing for those two years but are now back with Luffy! 'planetary (GO!)' basically just being a high energy song hyping up their new adventures.

'wealth fame and power' title-wise carrying that same energy (and also another transitional song because the next one is just. such a huge tone shift)

now this one. THIS is the one I was most exited to add, if you don't listen to any other song PLEASE listen to this one. it's so dear to my heart I love it. 'Steamboat Shenanigans' is by another steampunk concept (/pantomime!!!) band I like called Steam Powered Giraffe. the scenario I imagine behind this is just, a purely domestic day on the thousand sunny. maybe a bit more Franky and Brook focused since the two main running motifs are music and the boat(/robotics behind it) itself. GOD it's just, such a fun song. makes you wanna smile and dance, I love it.

#psii.mp3 #music #my playlist #strawhats #straw hat pirates #straw hat crew #mugiwara crew #mugiwara pirates #nakamaship #I also have a good few ship playlists but they're all pretty short rn since Im not really used to listening to music through playlists #(or streaming in general)#but I'll probably post about my frobin/zolu ones soon since they're near 50mins each #tho I feel my zo/lu one is a bit samey to most w a few exceptions. I'm really happy w my fro/bin one tho (lots of spg in it because I #couldn't NOT take that opportunity w Franky being a cyborg man)#anyway please give this a listen if it interests you! ik steampunk folk may sound weird but I promise it's amazing! luffy didn't almost #loose to captain carmilla in the captain's poll for no reason ;)#1pc #one piece

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sendmyresignation · 1 year ago

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Favorite Albums of 2023 ^_^

To celebrate the coming of a new year, I wanted to spend this first week looking back a bit at the things I enjoyed both old and new. So I put together a little list of albums I spent a lot of time with this year, for a bit of personal posterity, a little of getting into the groove with music writing on a very conversational but nonetheless sincere level, and also just because I enjoy, on a base level, the exchange of music. So hopefully one person will give a new album a try, or somebody will tell me their favorite thing they listened to in 2023. That's all you can ever hope for <3

Here's the albums I loved that came out in 2023 itself:

100 gecs 10,000 gecs: If I’m honest with myself- my album of the year, both in what I spent the most time with and the tracks I’d hold up the most fondly by the end of the year. the high-octane blast of creativity in these short, sweet, never dull, and always inventive bursts made listening a very joyful experience. Hollywood Baby and Dumbest Girl Alive bangers of the year though one million dollars just oooozes and chirps sounds in the most satisfying way.

Paramore This is Why: very much preaching to the choir with this one. undeniable groove through everything– the whole thing brims with contained energy- like trapping a storm cloud in a bottle and displaying it like it's no big deal and then, every once in a while, electricity arcs through the room. The only issue is it ends on a bit of a weak note, with back-to-back ballads I don’t revisit often. but it's a minor quibble, they’re both distinct enough to stand on their own and neither is insufferably long. forgivable transgression.

Kesha Gag Order: This is self-explanatory, to me. Kesha was the first artist I ever truly fell in love with and everything she makes is like watching a flower bloom over and over again as I grow and change and wither and regrow right alongside. But on top of that, the record itself is so. powerful. Not in the cheap, congratulatory “you’re so brave way” but in the energy it radiates, in the way it stands its ground over and over. the way it grasps its own story by the throat and still lets you peak into all the messy pieces sliding out over the knuckles. Happy is one of those truly great album closers, but the whole album is so solid.

Vastum Inward to Gethsemane: Absolutely crushing in just about every way, This is like, the platonic ideal of death metal for me. Dense and malevolent as fuck, but there’s still room for these nasty riffs buried deep in all the disgusting muck. That opening guitar on Priapic Chasm is the sickest 8 seconds of the year.

The Gauntlet Dark Steel and Fire: At first glance, this seems like a textbook Bathory clone. And even if it was just that it’d still be amazing, I love that sound. But there’s space! and dynamic growth! And a growling echoing personality that every other standard in this space just never attempts. Even the hints of black ‘n’ roll and thrash are expanding a series of very narrow spaces– there are these mid-tempo stadium rippers scattered throughout the album that give the whole project gravitas which loops around and gives the faster stuff more swagger and aggression. really cool record.

McKinley Dixon Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?: I checked this out because McKinley Dixon has a great featured verse on Soul Glo’s Spiritual Level of Gang Shit. To make matters worse (or better, in terms of Shit I Am Interested In), the record’s named after Toni Morrison novels. To make it even crazier Hanif Abdurraqib opens the record (he reads this really beautiful passage of Jazz that's sampled later). An album so supremely up my alley I was almost scared the pieces wouldn’t fall together– they did! It's incredible! it's short but each second is purposeful and lush in a way that speaks to measure and care. the jazz isn’t just beautiful, it's a full embracing of the album’s central conceits (not just the Morrison, but the typography of cities, the people in them and the lives they live) and Dixon just oozes poetic ingenuity. Repetition is one of the best devices in his toolkit and nowhere is that more apparent than Tyler Forever which. man.... really really good project.

Tresspasser Αποκάλυψισ: catchy-as-fuck. not what you’d expect from an album which is very explicitly about debt strikes and anarchy. usually RABM (red and anarchist black metal) leaves me a little cold, a lot of bands in this loose conglomerate aren’t musically inventive. rabm isn't just a stand-in for anti-fascist bands, the projects associated with the label are usually politically lyrically explicit (sometimes in ways that are overtly shocking or simply following a trend). which is nice! and necessary in black metal. but it doesn't automatically make it… good. trespasser have always stood out within that paradigm. clearly grounded in what actually works in black metal (the drumming across their albums is crazy kick ass in particular) and i find myself humming some of these tracks which is such a hard skill to pull off in melodic black metal without being dull or predictable.

MEURTRIERES Ronde de Nuit: very surprisingly, a lot of this list ended up including black metal, which is uncharacteristic of me. but thankfully, MEURTRIERES is much more aligned with my tastes– epic old-school heavy metal with that galloping Maiden-esque bass and fiery, straining vocals that sit so expertly in the groove and then just push and push and push against it. simple, enjoyable, energetic.

Home Is Where the whaler: At its most basic level this is like. what emo can pull off when it wants to sound incredible. The swirling layers, the inclusion of shit like horns, the abrasive but catchy screams, crashes in and out of earshot, the rhythms!!! this is a very 2023 album, thematically and that's important and immediately apparent, but it's going to last much longer just with how the sound works and works and works until you find yourself continuously coming back, listening to it out of the blue.

Thantifaxath Hive Mind Narcosis: quote-unquote dissonant metal is so hit or miss for me. dissonance is oft a cover for boring, or unoriginal material that hangs its lapels on being disorienting or impenetrable. but when the tone is just right it swallows you up. Thantifaxath got the tone right; I was listening to this a lot while reading or writing during the latter half of the year because it just becomes a part of your world in such a wonderful, subsuming way. I really love these vocals too, they’re vaguely inhuman in a way that pairs so exactly with the balance of spacey and gross earthy magic, outside the world and grounded in flesh simultaneously.

Crotaline The Hemipenes Demo: This is my friends’ band. They are cool and talented and I love first-wave black metal. They are also people whose projects I listen to in a fundamentally different way; when they pull something off it's a little bit life-changing because you know that person, you’ve seen them do human things! And then they are capable of great art. It's weird and disorienting and one of the best parts of being alive. But I do also think their demo is good without quantifiers, it's exactly what they wanted, it's got riffs that sound gnarly on tape, and it's dedicated to salamanders. like what else could you need in life?

Dawn’s Reflection Demo MMXXIII: This short little demo is a perfect burst of raw-ass lo-fi black metal. Which I usually cannot stand. but for some reason is just incredible here. I think it's the way the riffs and vocals interact– there’s these really solid, almost crust-punky guitar lines that shine perfectly in this kind of (basically non-existent) production. And then the vocals just completely rip over them in the loudest most batshit way possible, but there are always pauses that allow the instrumental to recalibrate. The synths are just a fun touch that drone in the back until they’re pulled to the fore which makes for these great, dense peaks instead of overwhelming the balance. It works! I am always hooked!

And here are some new-to-me albums I listened to for the first time in 2023:

Nuclear Death …For Our Dead: Nuclear Death is already a favorite of mine (I feel like I never stop talking about them) but I finally got around to their demos/EPs this year. this one takes the cake, easily. Topping out at under 10 minutes, this record achieves a kind of demented brutality other death metal bands would kill for in a fourth of the time. It's a miasmic stormcloud of a project that proves (as everything they recorded did) that nobody can out-sick Lori Bravo.

Moral Decay To Build an End: This is a couple of kids in the 1990s writing a thrash record. Not notable in and of itself. However, it becomes clear immediately that these technically proficient metalheads are obsessed with emo. Like oldschool dc emocore. And it is thrown into their mix of sonic influences plainly and obviously. It is one of a kind. It shouldn’t work. It probably doesn’t, unless, of course, you are me and obsessed with it. The vocals on this are punky as hell and they work surprisingly well over these speedy, late-stage neoclassical thrash riffs. It's wild. I love it; the gem of the year!

Little Teeth Child Bearing Man: you will either love this or find it insufferable. Mathy emo-y touches, but this is freaky folk through and through. Flits in and out these crazy choral vocal moments and harmonies that fall in and out of comfort-level– lots of borderline screaming (or just gives up the ghost and becomes screaming). Everything devolves but the sense of melody is always lurking out of frame and comes back around to quiet and confessional. Manages artful and cathartic with a lack of grace and a hell of a conviction.

Helen Love Love and Glitter, Hot Days and Musik: the best punk understands punk is pop music. This is why I love this record. Helen Love loooovvess The Ramones, she does. And since she loves them so much she wrote dance music in their honor and got Joey Ramone to feature on the record. Incredible.

The BellRays Black Lightning: Soul-filled garage punky rock that’s just masterfully loud, catchy, and full of unlimited swagger. Lisa Kekaula’s vocals are clearly grounded in a long, long line of rockers and soul-stirrers but what stands out is her maturity and control which allows for the slow-burners to feel huge and impressive– she’s the center, the burning star of the whole enterprise.

Chinchilla 101 Italian Hits: this album is weird and, obviously, I love weird. Situated in the already weird San Diego post-hardcore scene, Chinchilla still stand out with their epic song lengths, murky 90s alt-rock depths, and the way Sioban Dixon’s vocals shift endlessly between a distorted fry, throaty shouts, and sweet elongated falsetto. So fun to get lost in these songs.

Heaven’s Gate Livin’ in Hysteria: German power metal is always good. Heaven’s Gate is so obviously following in Helloween’s footsteps but Helloween is one of the greatest metal bands on planet earth and they execute that Keepers era sound so well they make a little magic themselves. Add onto that an album cover with a dragon smoking a pipe… it's over, it was love at first sight.

A Few Honorable Mentions (if you've made it this far):

-Corinne Bailey Ray Black Rainbows (mostly here because I got to it wayy late in the year and haven’t sat with it long enough. but this was incredible all the way through)

-Smoulder Violent Creed of Vengence (was initially disappointed by this one and then I finally got a tape player for Christmas and it just… clicked in the new format)

-Be Your Own Pet Mommy (i love, love, loved be your own pet as a teen and seeing them return to music after so long with the same blast of energy is so cool. I just think the album overstays its welcome; the EP they released with just a handful of tracks just puts it into sharper relief too)

-Melissa II (incredible it was just such a good year for black metal it didn’t quite squeeze up there for me)

and that's it for me; Happy New Year may we all find new music to fall in love with in 2024 <3

#whew this isn't even like a quarter of the top stuff i loved this year- had a blast trying to listen to more new music #can only hope to keep it up next year!!#and this was a super necessary low stakes break from all Serious music writing I'm trying to figure out rn haha.#sometimes you Need desperately to talk about things you love :)#music recs #my posts

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