#OR guy pretending to have been on the album and 7 guys in their 50s asking them questions or praising them not realizing they're an imposte

[camrensrealbish]

Can we talk about this interview? #2

Interview published on 12th March 2015.

We’re not even 5 seconds in and Camila is brushing Lauren’s arm with her boob (and Normani slaps Dinah on the face). 

Camila’s sense of humor is seriously underrated. 0.30 “And I’m Camila...”

Around 0.50 Camila’s touching Lauren’s leg. Twice

“Hi guys, I’m Karla”

Lauren’s brushing Camila’s butt.

About the songwriting question; interesting to see how the “approved answer” has been changing over the years. In the interviews about their EP they were “grateful the label let them be a part of the songwriting process and have an input”. With “Reflection”  they had “an idea of what they wanted the whole concept and the sound to be like and the writers executed the idea for them”. With “7/27″ they “had more say this time round” whatever that meant. And with “Fifth harmony (ST)” they “finally had more creative freedom and wrote more than a half of the album”. You can see how uncomfortable they were talking about their input throughout the years and very much so in this interview. Around 2:50 it looks like someone told Normani to smile, because she looked so pissed. Lauren is just looking at the floor. The answers are always similar, even the wording, which makes me think it’s been rehearsed, new answer for each album.

Also, don’t you think that not letting them write was used in the whole breaking C from the group narrative? Because they knew that the girls were competent songwriters when they let them have an input on the EP. Why do that and take it away when writing for “Reflection”? It’s possible they started planning the whole narrative in  2014. What other (public) reason would Camila have to go solo, if she could write in the group? And how could THEY better LAND’s situation after C leaving? Easy. Let’s take the creative freedom away from them and give it back when it’s convenient for us. This way no input in Reflection < “more say this time round” in 7/27 < and finally getting to write on “Fifth Harmony” while being “the happiest they’ve ever been”. Ok, back to the interview.

4:15 “I hate to go here, but it’s five women” I wonder what Camila thought he was gonna ask.

4:44 Cue Lauren laughing at my joke

5:04 Camren moment. So underrated in my opinion. How they just forgot they were in the middle of the interview. They are facing each other and got so excited to share their thoughts. That moment was so good, that Camila even put two picture of them here in her birthday collage for Lauren’s 19th birthday. (Btw this collage is something a CS could make and Camila knows it.)

Ally’s trying to intervene, but they don’t notice her. So Dinah steps in and then they realize they should’ve not done that. Lauren says sorry three times! Once to the interviewers, second time kind of to the girls and the third time looking in front of her. I wonder who was listening behind the camera..

6:42 Camila’s touching Lauren’s leg and Lauren’s touching Camila’s boob simultaneously.

Funny how Lauren wasn’t even the second messiest in 2015 but was the messiest in 2017. She picked the bad habit from her in 2 years.

7:22 What did you say Camila? “Let’s do each other?” Honestly, Lauren’s reaction would fit.

Ryan Gosling, MCM. Straight enough for you, management?

8:05 Lauren playing with her zip a.k.a touching Camila’s hip

Look how much easier it is for Camila to come up with WCW even multiple ones. No Spiderman here.

What’s with the stage? They weren’t “kidding” when they said no. You can see Normani saying “no, we didn’t” to Dinah. And Camila was so quick to catch Lauren when she slipped. Something’s not right here. Probably the same story as with the songwriting.

Camila initiating a group hug.

Conclusions

A lot of touching, talking to each other and even whispering. Camren didn’t give a f*ck at the beginning of 2015. Camila doesn’t know how to pretend to be straight. Their label and management are a piece of shit. 

Previously: Interview #1 Camaustin and Brauren PRs. HALO Awards Nov 2014

[carebearbliss]

How NCT 127 would confess to you

A/N: This took way longer than it was intended, but here it is! Hope you enjoy~

Taeil

Taeil went over the plan at least 50 times to make sure the delivery would be as smooth as he hoped it would be

Probably couldn’t really sleep the night before cause what if you reject him????

Plans on singing a love song specially for you, like a private mini concert in a rented out café you two frequent a lot

When you get to your usual hangout spot, the lights were out and you were confused af

But then as the lights went back on again you saw Taeil standing on a makeshift stage and the café was decorated with cute fairy lights and balloons and all

Then music started playing as he serenaded you sweetly and honestly you were already sold from the minute he started singing ngl

Kinda messes up what he prepared to say to you afterwards because he doesn’t want to screw it up but also when he looks at you his mind kinda goes blank

So happy and relieved when you tell him the feeling’s mutual that he lowkey almost tripped on the way back to his seat cause he lost feeling in both his legs

Lots of shy and awkward gazing and blushing on both parts, but when you meet each other’s gaze he gives you the brightest smile ever

Overall just really adorable????

Johnny

I swear 10/10 this guy had something elaborate and romantic planned out the moment he realized his feelings for you

Would probably pull out something kinda cheesy to impress you, like playing your favorite song on the piano (or teaching you how to play,       o o f)

I can see him taking you on walks around the city afterwards, someplace quiet with a nice scenery that would provide a nice backdrop for his confession

Tells you he’s gonna go pick up a call real quick, then kinda disappears

You get lowkey angry like wtf Johnny w h a t are you doing, but then he sends you text messages to a sort of scavenger hunt

Was actually planning on just telling you verbally what you mean to him and how he feels for you but then realized he’s not really good at doing that face to face so this is his fun alternative

Anyways, he gives you hints and directions through text message and at each ‘landmark’ he directs you to, you find small notes where he wrote down what exactly he likes about you and moments he realized he’s in love with you

Basically the boi wrote you a love letter but scattered around at least 7 different spots while he’s hiding who knows where

By the time you get to the final spot you see him standing in front of you with a large bouquet in his hands (for you) and this silly grin on his face

Lowkey almost moved you to tears as he told you he likes you

You spend the night looking at the stars and walking hand in hand as you two talk about anything and everything at the same time

Taeyong

Y’know those smooth pick-up lines he pulls out of his sleeves? Yeah, prepare for those cause they are definitely coming your way

Would probably go for a sweet and sentimental confession

Lowkey tries to hint at his feelings for you by recommending love songs every now and then

One day he randomly shows up at your doorstep with your favorite flowers in one hand and a gift in the other (and also some snacks and sweets cause why the heck not)

I can see him gifting you something very meaningful, like a photo album with pictures of you two and places you went together or an entire playlist of songs that made him think of you

You thought it’d just be a normal hangout with your best friend

But then he tries to coyly recommend a song to you and asks you to listen to it and tell him what you think of it

5 seconds in you realize it’s actually him singing a self-made confession song for you

He gets embarrassed halfway through you listening to the song cause you keep staring at him with this touched expression on your face

But when the song’s over you’re just kind of left speechless until you tell him “me too.. I like you too” and it’s like his heart stopped skipping a beat and he was sent straight to heaven on earth

All in all just a really sweet and thoughtful confession asdfghjkl;

Yuta

Ever since Yuta realized how he felt toward you, he’s been trying his best to not impulsively blurt out that he likes you, especially because he’s not sure if it’s mutual

Occasionally can’t help but murmur “you’re so cute” under his breath when he’s spending time with you though

You know he tends to be quite playful and flirtatious around you, so whenever he tries to make advances you just play it off as him joking around (half the time he’s actually seriously stopping himself from stealing a kiss ngl)

One day he decides to ask you out on a date over the phone and you agree thinking it’s just him being goofy again cause what else could it be??

Yuta takes you on a hiking date, aiming to take you to this nice and scenic viewpoint and confess there

But things take a different turn when halfway through the hike you realize that he was actually being serious about this date and he realizes you thought he was playing around

Then he kind of goes off on this impulsive rant like ‘Damn it Y/N I’ve been flirting with you for an entire year why do you keep thinking I’m not being serious about this’ and yeah he kind of floops out that he’s been crushing on you ever since y’all met

So things didn’t really go as planned but you had a serious conversation about it and by the time you reached the viewpoint you were already holding hands and smiling fondly at each other :’)

Doyoung

Has been torn for weeks about how to confess to you and it’s showing

He wants to plan something that would make sure you knew how much he cared about you, so he scoured every possible source he could find, including the internet, all his good friends he could confide into, and even asked his parents who confessed to the other and how..

Anyways, when Doyoung meets up with you he still hasn’t made his mind about how to confess

And technically he wasn’t planning on doing so either, until he saw how battered up you looked from an ugly fall off the stairs last week and how you tried to hide that wearing a big hoodie and sunglasses

During winter

You thought he didn’t notice though until he kind of had enough of your act and just pulled off the hoodie from your head and took off your glasses to reveal this bigass purple bruise on your face, still evident beneath your make-up

Doyoung couldn’t help seeing you so vulnerable and inattentive toward your own wellbeing and so gave you an entire lecture nagging at you to be more careful

Over the next few days he comes by unannounced to check the safety of basically your entire home to make sure you wouldn’t trip again and also takes care of your bruise and minor grazes on your arms and knees

And it just so happened that he accidentally murmured “How did I fall in love with such a clumsy human being” just when he thought you didn’t hear it

You replied with “How did I fall in love with such a nagging mom-figure” and well, the rest is history :’)

Jaehyun 

Actually, you kind of knew for a while now that he probably had a crush on you because of that one time he accidentally sent a text to you that said “I don’t know what to do, should I confess to Y/N?”

You read the message before he quickly deleted it and since then both of you pretended that never happened

Anyways, I can see Jaehyun taking you out for a nice dinner at this new and trendy restaurant (complete with lit candles and fancy music and all)

He’d try his best to appear calm and composed, and he would’ve succeeded had his hands not been trembling when he poured more wine in both your glasses

Probably has this whole speech ready in his back pocket just in case he forgot what he wanted to say

But before he can start on that you casually say “So is this how you’re planning on confessing to me?” and Jaehyun automatically answers yes before he’s processed that you in fact knew all along how he felt for you

You let him finish his confession speech though cause he worked so hard on it, and you obviously accept to be his girlfriend

He even prepared a little surprise for you together with the staff, it was a cute cake with both your names in the shape of a heart

The date ends with you two talking and having fun conversations at the restaurant until it closed (and you had to be kicked out)

Jungwoo

I see so many ways in which Jungwoo would confess, simply cause he can be so shy and reserved but also really sassy and goofy at the same time

Anyways, I think he’d go for something a little more subtle than his hyungs would, kinda secret admirer style?

The first time you realized you had a secret admirer was when you found a note in your bag containing a compliment directed toward you and a cute drawing next to it

You thought it was really sweet and so Jungwoo continued sending you love notes and putting it in random but somewhat inconspicuous spots, like your locker, your books, etc.

This went on for a couple of months until one day Jungwoo decied it was time to make it known that he was the secret admirer, so he started announcing in a note that he was someone you knew well

That’s when you started finding notes at the most random of places: inside your phonecase, heck even the inside of your shoe

You had absolutely no clue who this person was and were growing kind of agitated at the fact that you couldn’t send him notes back, until Jungwoo slipped up once and complimented you in the exact same way as your secret admirer did

On the day he planned to confess, you were just casually studying together (or more like, you were trying to study and he was just staring at you boredly)

Jungwoo waited patiently until you finished, then told you you had something stuck in your hair

And as you reached for it, you found it to be a folded piece of paper stating “I like you”, with Jungwoo smiling knowingly at you

Mark

Would be a panicking mess, let’s be real

Asks all the hyungs for advice on what to do

Mark would take you to someplace special for the both of you, like the place you first met or where he first realized he has feelings for you

He wouldn’t hold a big speech or make it into a big event, he’d want to keep it simple and to the point so as not to burden you too much

I see him just wanting to make it a fun day when you two meet up, confession or not

Like a walk along the river or at a park, some icecream, maybe even biking or (roller)skating around and picknicking

Tries to find the right timing to break the news to you, fails miserably at doing so most of the time

You knew he had something to say though cause he avoided making direct eye contact with you throughout the entire day

But when he’s ready, he musters up all his courage, coughs a little as a way of making clear that he has something to say, and then just goes for it

Panics halfway through the confession, like he just turns into this shy blushy mess, especially when he stutters or messes up his words

Kinda rambles his way through it but looks you directly in the eye when he says that he likes you

Would add something like “I hope this doesn’t affect our friendship” after confessing cause that’s legit been the nr. 1 reason why he was hesitating confessing to you

Overall would be really nervous about it, but also very sweet and sincere!

Haechan

9/10 would go for an over the top public confession, just cause he can

You two met up at this arcade, your usual hangout spot to relieve yourselves from stress and play fun games together

You originally thought it would be just a normal day meeting up with your longtime friend, but turns out you were completely wrong 

Cause the minute you stepped into the venue, you were met with all kinds of festive decorations, balloons, and familiar faces shouting “SURPRISE!!!” at the top of their lungs

Turns out Haechan planned a surprise party for you complete with hilarious banners with him making heart signs

When you turned around to look at Haechan, he was kneeling on the floor holding a big bouquet of your favorite flowers and this giant teddy bear 

As he looked up to you, he asked you to be his girlfriend, to which you said yes and were met with a rainfall of confetti and cheering

You spent the day playing fun games with your boyfriend and friends

(And to Haechan’s discontent and envy, you kinda beat him at almost every arcade game there was to play)

[palettes-and-prompts]

100 First Meetings (Dialogue Prompts)

1) "Were you the one in the bathroom a second ago trying different lines in the mirror to work up the courage to ask that barista out?" 2) "Wow, you're cute." 3) "You come here often?" "This is a morgue." 4) "You! What the hell are you doing in here? We're closed!" 5) "Ahhhh! I hate my fucking life!!!" "Mood." 6) "You have magic?!" 7) "You don't look like you'll last a day here." 8) "You should leave before your date gets back from the bathroom, I saw them in here the other day popping the question to two different people." 9) "They never told me they had a younger brother/sister." 10) "Who's the twink?" 11) "I gotta ask, are you mad about something or is your face just /like that?/" 12) "You're my new roommate?" 13) "You're not married are you?" 14) "Hey, you're not dead are you? Cause I'm on probation and I can't afford to be involved in a fucking murder or something." 15) "So you're the one causing all this trouble." 16) "I need you to pretend we're dating so this dude will leave me alone." 17) "Honey, there you are I've been looking all over for you! Pretend you're with me so this person will go away." 18) "So you're the loud moaner from upstairs, huh, never knew you'd be so cute." 19) "You're not the pizza guy." 20) "You know, when I said I wish the love of my life would just fall out of the sky this isn't exactly what I had in mind." 21) "Any particular reason you're putting peanut butter in my kid's hair?" 22) "You made me dinner?" 23) "You've got the wrong room, but feel free to stay naked." 24) "You must be the motherfucker who broke my windshield!" 25) "Hi, you are very naked." 26) "You their new toy?" 27) "How'd you like to make fifty bucks?" 28) "I know I'm going to regret asking but who are you?" 29) "You got any friends?" "No." "Well you do now, come sit with us!" 30) "Cute face, I'd love to sit on it sometime." 31) "Where'd you find this dork?" 32) "Uh, there any particular reason you're screaming at two thirty-six in the morning? 33) "Out of curiosity, do you think you could lift a dead body?" 34) "If you don't let go of this bag of chips I swear to god I'll bring you to your knees in the middle of this fucking WinnDixie." 35) "WHO THE FUCK ATE THE LAST OF THE FUCKIN DORITOS, I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL-oh! I'm sorry, I didn't know we had a guest. If I'd known we had a guest I would've cleaned." 36) "Are you the vegan cannibal? Because I have so many questions." 37) "Ooh, hello Mommy/Daddy. Fuck, did I just say that out loud?" 38) "Am I dead? Are you an angel? Am I in heaven?" "Actually you're in a taco bell, you tried to do a kick flip on your skateboard in the parking lot and hit your head on the side of the dumpster." 39) "You brought a fucking guest to our SECRET BASE?! I'll deal with you later. Hi, hello, it's very nice to meet you please make yourself at home!" 40) "So, you gay or what?" 41) "No, sorry, we don't want any girl scout cookies." 42) "Holy shit, you just saved my fucking life!" 43) "Hey, honey, it's just me. You were in a really bad accident so don't try moving around too much, okay? How are you feeling?" "You called me honey. Do I know you?" 44) "Jesus, your face is about as red as your hair." 45) "Run along little ballerina, you wouldn't want to be caught hanging around the bad kids, would you?" 46) "No, I'm not the stripper, but I can be if you'd like." 47) "You ready to cut open some bodies?" 48) "Get in if you want to live." 49) "What are you looking at, short stack? Mind your own business." 50) "Your headphones aren't plugged in properly so I can hear everything you're listening to. I was going to tell you earlier but then you started watching the weirdest porn I've ever seen and I didn't want to embarrass you, but I'm about to leave so I figured I'd tell you before someone else sits around you." 51) "I don't know what they've told you but we don't need another member, go home." 52) "Hey, stop right there, you can't steal that! That's illegal!" 53) "Who's the nerd?" 54) "You look like the kind of person who wears days of the week underwear." 55) "So, how many pitchers of margaritas are you allowed to sell me?" 56) "My head fucking kills, I shouldn't have drank last night. Hey, wait, why do you and I have matching rings on our fingers?!" 57) "Congratulations, idiot! You just ruined a six month plan and now we have to start all over!" 58) "That is the ugliest shirt I've ever seen, where can I get one just like it?" 59) "I know you make straight A's, but I'm still not sure if you're really smart or dumb but really lucky. Because I've seen someone ask you what the square root of pi is and you answer with 'I don't know, I guess it depends on the flavor.'" 60) "Who the fuck let you in?" 61) "Hey, I'll give you twenty bucks if you take a photo with me to make my ex jealous." 62) "So, you eat ass or what?" 63) "You a cop?" "No." "Too bad, you would have looked good in a uniform." 64) "With a face like that I'll be whoever you want me to be." 65) "Hey, you have eyes, do you think this outfit makes me look fat? You can be honest, I can handle it." 66) "I'm just looking for a nice person to settle down with who'll fuck me hard and tell me they love me when they cum on my face, like, I feel like that's not too fucking much to ask for, you know? Anyway, I'll have a diet coke and the chicken salad, please." 67) "I swear to god, this is not what it looks like." 68) "First of all, don't you fucking come in here and try and start a fight with my best friend while you're looking straight goofy as hell in those fucking Walmart shorts and those thrift store crocs." 69) "HEY! YOU ACROSS THE STREET! YOUR DOG IS SO FUCKING CUTE AND I WOULD FUCKING DIE FOR THEM!" 70) "Anyone who says they don't like musicals is either lying to themselves, has never watched one, or is a heartless android sent by the government to blend into society and collect information about us." 71) "Asking someone out is easy, watch this. Hi, I think you're cute and if you're not seeing anyone do you want to go out sometime?" 72) "Hey, I saw you crying earlier when you stepped on a bug. Do you need me to, like, call someone for you?" 73) "I can't tell if you're really high and just hungry or if you're buying 28 family bags of shredded cheese at three am because you just love cheese. Either way you should probably also buy some laxatives or lactaid while you're already here." 74) "When I told you to make a power point about something you're passionate about for our first class meeting I didn't mean make a power point on 'How to Give Great Head' and I absolutely didn't tell you to include pictures." 75) "Are you wearing that tacky ass outfit because you genuinely like it or because you're a Leo and crave the attention?" 76) "Did you really just buy the last chocolate chocolate chip muffin? You are now dead to me." 77) "The fuck are you looking at loser?" 78) "Dude, books are just like subtitles without the movie." 79) "Hey, in your tinder bio is says your friends call you Badger Slammin' Sam and I literally only swiped right just to find out why." 80) "Are you hitting on me? Am I being punked? Are you a hooker? Did my dumbass friend put you up to this?" 81) "Hey, I need you to settle something for me and my friend. Which is the right way to pronounce carrot?" 82) "Do you believe in love at first sight, what about disgust at first glance?" 83) "Look, I'm not saying that MCR's last album changed my life, but I'm absolutely saying that." 84) "Can you move out of my way, I have to clean puke off the floor before I'm allowed to use my lunch break to cry in my car." 85) "Hi, I believe this very drunk person is your roommate, they told me this is the address. I caught them in my backyard playing with my dog again." 86) "I know you're probably not allowed to do this, but I kind of need to borrow an iguana." 87) "Hey, I saw you drop your sandwich in the parking lot earlier and start crying and I felt bad for not saying anything earlier, but I went to the sandwich shop and luckily the dude remembered your oddly specific order so I got you another one. I hope you get to feeling better." 88) "No, we don't sell 'that crazy kush' here, you can try Target." 89) "I was just calling because you sent me a picture text three weeks ago by accident with the caption 'When they let you deliver the digiorno after you clap them cheeks.' and I was just wondering if you could explain what that means because it's been keeping me up at night ever since you sent it." 90) "Hey, I just overheard you talking with your friends about how you put mustard, ketchup, and ranch on your macaroni and cheese and I just wanted to come over here and personally ask you which circle of hell you crawled up from." 91) "What the fuck is a diet water?" 92) "You guys here for the orgy?" 93) "Was that your scream? Why did it sound like a banshee?" 94) "I saw you pour two five hour energy shots into a cup of coffee earlier and then proceed to mix it with monster and red bull and like, dude I know this isn't really my place or whatever but I think you should probably go to the hospital. Like, I think you're gonna die." 95) "Your profile said you're a vegan but my profile says 'Only contact if you eat ass' and you contacted me, so what's the truth here?" 96) "Call me adorable one more time and I'll knock your teeth down your fucking throat." 97) "Move, I have to go fail my Stats test before I can go home and cry into a bag of hot cheetos while I rewatch The Office." 98) "I'm sorry, did you just order a fifty piece mcnugget for here, for yourself?" 99) "So, how do you feel about lizards?" 100) "Question, are you a top or a bottom, because you're giving off major power bottom energy but I'm not one hundred percent sure."

[asbcblog]

TOP SONGS OF 2020 WRITE UP!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6WDeuRMOV8neAhU2zd193d?si=lZ9gDIp0TsCCEOeCS7_QGw

1. I remember everything - John Prine

I was going to write an incredibly earnest and long review of this song that outlined just how much John Prine meant to me. I can’t really do it and I think this song probably says enough alone. With only a few chords he always manages to express all the little things that make love what it is, all different kinds of love. Long lasting, short moments, love with places, sounds, going places and staying home, endless family ties, and the often fragile but in the end tenable love between all human beings in the face of catastrophe. The pandemic stole a lot of things from a lot of people this year, including John Prine, but he will remain one of the greatest songwriters of all time and his songs will live on forever.

2. Dream Palette - Yves Tumor

I can’t drive but let’s pretend I’m driving, I’m in LA and it’s night time or something, my elbow’s out the window, don’t know why I’m wearing sunglasses, this song comes on the radio, I’m the coolest person alive.

3. Boylife in EU- Yung Lean

Not to repeat my review of Garden but when the chorus comes I feel like I’m on top of a really big hill and its pouring it down with rain and im screaming but this time its because of a no-deal Brexit.

4. Garden- Joseph Futak

My review was already used as part of Joe’s promo campaign and it said: “feel like im on top of a really big hill and its pouring it down with rain and I’m screaming when the drums come in x x”

5. Circle the Drain- Soccer Mommy

I like this song because I too, am often alone in my room, and I have also become obsessed with subtle breakbeats to an extent where people around me have become very bored of the subject.

6. The Brothers William Said- The Innocence Mission

I listened to this song over and over when I was travelling round London in January just after my birthday, it felt like I’d been listening to it for years, like it was in a movie I’d forgotten. It felt at the time like I was saying a lot of goodbyes, recognising that things weren’t really like they used to be.

7. On the Floor- Perfume Genius

Say it with me ladies: I CROSS OUT HIS NAME ON THE PAGE!!!!

8. Shameika- Fiona Apple

She may not believe it but I bet Fiona Apple looked tough with a riding crop.

9. Song for Our Daughter- Laura Marling

Everything about this is fantastic, mellow and bright at the same time. Every part is brought forward individually and no part of this song gets left behind. A stunning vocal from Laura Marling and purposeful lyrics set to a cinematically emotive instrumental. Pure magic as always.

10. Building site outside- Piglet

Not going to lie, I was in a very vulnerable emotional state when I listened to this song for the first time, but I think that makes it no less powerful and just, sad. The lyric ‘she smiled at me so much last time’ is just so simple and devastating that you forget this would’ve been on every indie film soundtrack from 2000-2008 if Piglet was an industry plant.  

11. I wonder- Shamir

One word: EPIC

12. Crimson Tide- Destroyer

Listened to this every time I came on my period this year.

13. In the Dining Room - Joe Pera talks with you

Adam showed me Joe Pera when I really felt incredibly sad at the very beginning of this year. It’s a show that’s made me feel good, no matter the circumstances. This moment in the show made me smile, and I love hearing Gene come in a bit too early.

14. Stupid Love- Lady Gaga

Shakin my little booty in the kitchen to this x

15. Might bang, might not- Little Simz

Livid we didn’t all get to go to End of the Road and see all the hot dad’s loving Little Simz.

16. Fire- Waxahatchee

A truly insane vocal. I listened to this song on my way to work almost every day from September to December and fantasised singing back up at some kind of outdoor gig in the summer and it made everything significantly less bleak.

17. Hannah Sun- Lomelda

This song is too nice and genuine for me to say anything other than, “really lovely song :)”.

18. Scroll of Sorrow- Machine Girl, guayaba

Listened to this a lot this year while sitting on my kitchen floor staring into an empty oven, wondering if I was ever going to go to a party again.

19. Build a nest- Jeff and Ruby Parker

Have put this on in the flat because the guitar solo reminds me of everything my dad listens to at home. A really great piece of music that kicks off a really exciting album.

20. Kiss me thru the phone- That Kid

Ned said yesterday that he thought it was funny how much the original of this song is so foundational to hyper pop and I agree. Also I’ve started saying ‘Bitch’ like That Kid does every time I stub my toe.

21. Cuckoo- Sam Amidon

I am punting down a creek, looking in the branches that hang over the water for the bird that shall lead me to my next clue.

22. Places/ Plans- Skullcrusher

Used this song to comfort myself in moments where I also just don’t understand why I’m not famous.

23. Sweetjoy- Jam City

Finally….. HAIM for dudes.

24. Clean Living- Slow Weather

I saw someone listening to this on the side of my Spotify so I decided to give it a go and it was a fantastic decision. It’s mental that half of this song is an outro.

25. Summer All Over- Blake Mills

Along with the music video visuals and the dampened piano tone, this wins the competition for least summer-y song with the actual word summer in the title.

26. Ready Cheeky Pretty- CHAI

All of my joy this year has been brought to me by CHAI. I have nothing negative to say about CHAI. If you have anything negative to say about CHAI you’re gonna have to go through me.

27. Diaphanous- Land of Talk

This band was recommended to me by a guy I was trying to flirt with at rough trade east but everything closed before I could impress him by saying ‘I think they’re really cool’.

28. Anything - Adrianne Lenker

Anyone who has ever attempted to write a song with me knows how much I simply love rhyming. Seriously though, every thing rhymes, brilliant stuff. (It’s also such a brilliantly full and constant song that still manages to move and remain exciting from start to finish. I imagine this is partially due to Adrianne Lenker’s almost nursery rhyme- esque structure and also due to her beautifully colloquial approach to family dynamics.)

29. Blow- Dj Gigola, Kev Koko

This song makes me wish I was Jason Bourne- just wanna jump really far while something explodes behind me.

30. Money Can’t Buy- Yaeji, Nappy Nina 

‘Well I’ll buy some Yaeji tickets, they’re for NOVEMBER, there’s NO WAY they’re gonna get cancelled’.

31. Only the Truth- Johanna Warren

When I first listened to this song I felt like I was floating in the ocean looking up at the stars as the drums came in on ‘what more can I do’. An incredibly beautiful and careful song.

32. Gasoline- Haim

2020 could probably be summarised with the phrase ‘WHY AM I NO LONGER IN CALIFORNIA? WHY DID I LEAVE CALIFORNIA?’ And this song is the 3 minutes 13 seconds seconds of escapism I needed to not topple into a full spiral.

33. Mapuu - Ic3peak

No one can convince me that Ic3peak are real people. They are a collective made up of child ghosts.

34. Don’t Worry- Bladee

Whenever I have an anxiety attack in the night I wake up and see Bladee’s ghost of the future over my bed, he says ‘Don’t worry’ and mumbles for a bit as I fall back into a peaceful sleep.

35. The biggest tits in history- The magnetic fields

The most relatable magnetic fields song imo.  

36. Sand Castle- nijuu

Yujin is a genius and my answer is yes, I do want to just walk for a while.

37. Curl Up- Darren Hayman

Ned reminded me how much I used to love Darren Hayman, and both of them have been a pretty big part of my year.

38. When Will Death Come- Sarah Mary Chadwick

‘Wow, mental voice’ - Ned, while doing the washing up.

39. Dear Dad - Sylvie Wiley

‘But I didn’t cry, you’d be proud’ Sylvie, I’m weeping forever.

40. 34+35- Ariana Grande

Hehehehehehehehehe

41. Garden Song- Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Bridgers is a pretty unparalleled lyricist and this song feels like a disconnected series of thoughts that somehow all make sense together and come to create something that doesn’t build, but all just kind of sits? What I’m trying to say is that I don’t really know what she’s talking about but like, I get it.

42. Ringtone (remix) - 100 gecs, Charli xcx, Kero Kero Bonito, Rico Nasty, 

I love the way it sounds like everyone got just one take and had to improvise all the lyrics but it still bangs.

43. Changer- Andy Shauf

Thank you lord for another album about a smaller than average man overthinking all of his social interactions with lots of lovely clarinet parts.

44. What’s your pleasure - Jessie Ware

My pleasure jessie? Probably just sitting by the fire with a tough crossword and a glass of merlot x

45. Slime- Shygirl

Shygirl’s series of singles this year made me even more livid that I had to take out my eyebrow piercing for my new job this year.

46. Sears Tower- Salem

Perfect halloween release.

47. Title track- happyness

Ned turned to me and said: ‘so is their new thing that they sound like Elliot Smith’ and I said: ‘and that’s a bad thing?’

48. Cross-sound ferry (walk on ticket) - Hamilton Leithauser

Have found unbelievable joy in chopping veg and shouting GREEEEEEEN PORT, NEEEEEEWWWW YOOORK alone in my kitchen.

49. Lowswimmer- Hailaker

I’ve loved hearing Jemima’s voice when I haven’t got to see her much this year. I normally take the piss out of the Hambledon line but I haven’t seen that this year really either. I guess we find sentimentality in strange places.

50. XS - Rina Sawayama

This song made me feel very decadent on those days where I didn’t wash.

51. Emily- Clem Snide

Let’s be more kind and brave in the face of it all.

52. Building a fire- Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

P.O.V you’re doing bushcraft in the garden with your husband Bonnie Prince Billy and he’s here to protect you.

53. Asexual Wellbeing- Okay Kaya

This song absolutely bangs but I am truly bewildered by the way they singled out the line ‘if they could put a pulse into a spinach leaf, can they turn the two of us into a tree?’ in the production as if that was a true piece of genius. As I say great tune tho.

54. Anthems- Charli xcx

The soundtrack to couch to 5k

55. Never Better- Kitty Fitz

A SE London queen bringing us huge pop tunes in 2020. So so excited to see what 2021 brings us from Kitty, she’s gonna be a real force!

56. Deep in Love- Bonny Light Horsemen

This is such a delightful song which (mainly due to the time I actually got around to listening to the whole record) for me really rang in the spring. A beautifully recorded testament to the feeling of love getting stronger meaning you have a lot more to lose.

57. Malibu- Kim Petras

My song of the summer, made me feel like I was at the beach when really I was in Lewisham.

58. Like I’m Winning it- Girlpool

I’m so delighted that the turn girlpool have made this year is towards dramatic goth music with breakbeats. Their voices both sound amazing and they look simply incredible.

59. Azad- Frazey Ford

I have no idea what she’s saying as always but I love it.

60. Helio- Charlotte Dos Santos

I’m literally so excited for what Charlotte Dos Santos is gonna put out next. The production is fantastic and her aesthetics are flawless.

61. Lost in the Country- Trace Mountains

‘I checked my email twice as I cried’. Safe to say we’ve all been there this year amirite girlies x

62. Unfold You- Rostam

I hated this at first, I thought, what’s this lo-fi beats to study to shit, but it’s now my classic ‘I’m just gonna pop to the shops, anyone want anything? x’ song. Huge.

63. Oh Yeah- A.G cook

One of 2020s realisations is that me and A.G Cook kind of look like we could be cousins.

64. Can’t cool me down- Car Seat Headrest

I would like to personally thank will Toledo for giving me a tune that got me off my ass when I was too warm to do exercise this summer.

65. Take back the radio- Katy J Paerson

In love with Katy J Pearson’s voice and the way this song builds. Just pretty flawless and feel good in my opinion. I think she’s such an exciting new artist who’s gonna be around for a very very long time.

66. Good Woman- The Staves

‘I’m a good woman’… speak for yourselves.

67. A Little Love- Jack Francis

Feel like I’ve been singing this song for about 5 years! It’s amazing and I’m so excited about what Jack’s going to bring out in 2021, he’s a genius and also the nicest man on the planet.

68. Lullaby No.4 - Snailbeach

This song makes me feel like I’m being hypnotised on a haunted carousel in a very relaxing way.

69. Boyfriend in every city- Roma Radz

Sucks that she can’t see any of her boyfriends cos of covid :(

70. Jaja ding dong- Will Ferrell

Get back in there and play Jaja Ding Dong !!!!

71. Highway- Jonatan leandoer96

Man, would be pretty sick to have 20 boys outside the club but alas the clubs are dead and I’ve only regularly texted about 4 people this year.

72. De nadie- Kali Uchis

Felt v sexy listening to this for the first time in a Morley’s in Honor Oak.

73. Weird Fishes- Lianne La Havas

This album was a pretty triumphant return for Lianna La Havas and me teenage self simply couldn’t be happier.

74. Micro Creature- Aya Gloomy

Love that despite everything about this song telling me otherwise, that the artwork for this single looks like Aya Gloomy is just chilling in the fields by my family home in Hampshire.

75. Si Ella Sale- Bad Bunny

Better get on the duolingo now if I’m gonna know what this guy’s saying at Porto next year.

76. Through my sails- Mountain Man

Truly gentle reimagining of an already incredibly beautiful song, mountain man make every word seem new!

77.Christmas Day (get me outta this funk) - Baggio and Blue 5 Years- Bath days

In joint 77th place are two banging Christmas songs that have soundtracked a pretty bleak Christmas period and have made me feel pretty joyous in their ways, despite one literally being called Blue Five Years.

[icaruspendragon]

— Get to know me! 

The last time I filled this out was in July of 2017 and I just wanted to see how my answers changed, the new answers are in parentheses. 

1. Who was the last person you held hands with? A boy named Igor (My husband John Paul)  2. Are you outgoing or shy? Shy (Shy)  3. Who are you looking forward to seeing? My mom today! (JP when he gets home from work lolol)  4. Are you easy to get along with? I would say yes, I don’t really fight with anyone. (same)  5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you? He already has haha. (same answer, different person) 6. What kind of people are you attracted to? Kind people. (same, also boys with long hair)  7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now? Yes (I sure hope so)  8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind? Igor (Zuko lmao)  9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? Nope (same)  10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? Patrick (JP)  11. What does the most recent text that you sent say? “You can be anything you want. I’ll support you.” ( “I was just training.” ) 12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now? The most recent Bastille album lol. ( Waves by Bastille, Rosie by John Mayer, Swimming In The Moonlight by Bad Suns, Thank Me Later by Anna of the North, and Jackie and Wilson by Hozier)  13. Do you like it when people play with your hair? YES ( same)  14. Do you believe in luck and miracles? Yes (kinda)  15. What good thing happened this summer? Going to Gay Pride in Nashville (I got married)   16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? HELL YEAH (ye)  17. Do you think there is life on other planets? Yes (same)  18. Do you still talk to your first crush? No (same)  19. Do you like bubble baths? Yes (same)  20. Do you like your neighbors? I don’t really talk to my neighbors (no i do not like them)  21. What are you bad habits? I doubt myself a lot. (I used to do a shit ton of cocaine and still want to do a lot of cocaine haha)  22. Where would you like to travel? YES (same)  23. Do you have trust issues? YES (same)  24. Favorite part of your daily routine? Cuddling with my cats after I wake up. (going to bed lol)   25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with? I love myself totally. (All I want in this world is a fat ass)  26. What do you do when you wake up? Check my phone. (crawl over my still slumbering husband to quietly get ready for work)  27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker? Neither. I am fine just the way that I am. (yeah same)  28. Who are you most comfortable around? Mackenzie. (JP)  29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up? Yes. (same)  30. Do you ever want to get married? I think so. (I am married)  31. Is your hair long enough for a pony tail? Yes. (same)  32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with? None. (same)  33. Spell your name with your chin.  bdfdfmkljde (ber5klkier) 34. Do you play sports? What sports? No, I’m in band. (no, but I was in band for 11 years)  35. Would you rather live without TV or music? TV (same)  36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them? Yes. (same)  37. What do you say during awkward silences? Nothing. That’s what makes them awkward. (lol, yeah) 38. Describe your dream girl/guy? Tall, dark, English major. (same)  39. What are your favorite stores to shop in? Amazon lmao. (i’m a slut for etsy and i greatly enjoy candy stores)  40. What do you want to do after high school? I’m already done with high school thank God. ( i dunno)  41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? It depends. (No)  42. If you’re being extremely quiet what does it mean? Nothing. (probably thinking about zutara tbh)  43. Do you smile at strangers? Yes, I’m from the South. I think it’s ingrained in my DNA to. (yeah)  44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean? Space boi (same)  45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning? That morning wee (work and wee)  46. What are you paranoid about? That none of friends like me and that they’re all just pretending. (same)  47. Have you ever been high? Yes. (same)  48. Have you ever been drunk? Yes. (same)  49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about? Oh honey. (nope)  50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore? Black. (yellow)  51. Ever wished you were someone else? Nope. (ye)  52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself? Nothing.(i. want. a. fat. ass.)   53. Favourite makeup brand? Probably Tarte. (NYX)  54. Favourite store? Ulta (I don’t really have one)  55. Favourite blog? I don’t have one. (I have so many now, omg @babytreehugger @hugs4zuko @pineapple-frenzy @bluelady-atla @aprilmayship and @firelxdykatara are a few of them!)  56. Favourite colour? Light green. (same) 57. Favourite food? Pasta (same)  58. Last thing you ate? Pasta lmao. (does espresso count? if not, then pizza for dinner last night)  59. First thing you ate this morning? I haven’t yet. (espresso, lol, i have yet to have food today)  60. Ever won a competition? For what? Nope. (do band competitions count? if so, yes)  61. Been suspended/expelled? For what? Nope. (same)  62. Been arrested? For what? Nope. (same)  63. Ever been in love? Yes. (yeah boiiii)  64. Tell us the story of your first kiss? I was in seventh grade. It wasn’t great. (that’s pretty much it)  65. Are you hungry right now? No. (also no)   66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends? No. (no, but more gently this time)  67. Facebook or Twitter? Facebook. (neither tbh)  68. Twitter or Tumblr? Tumblr (same)  69. Are you watching tv right now? No. (same)  70. Names of your bestfriends? Carleigh, Karlee, Maria, Mackenzie, Emily, Josh,  and Allen!! (same, but now i have JP, another Maria, Scott, Corbin, and pretty much all of my sbux coworkers)  71. Craving something? What? Not really haha. (same)  72. What colour are your towels? Different colors. (same)  72. How many pillows do you sleep with? Three. (five lmao)  73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? Yes. (yes)   74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have? I only have two with me at my apartment, but more at home. (five)  75. Favourite animal? Dragon. (same)  76. What colour is your underwear? Pink. (blue)  77. Chocolate or Vanilla? Vanilla (depends on what is being offered)  78. Favourite ice cream flavour? Vanilla (birthday cake)  79. What colour shirt are you wearing? Gray (red plaid)  80. What colour pants? Blue nike shorts. (red plaid. yes it’s 1:59 pm. yes i’m wearing pajamas)  81. Favourite tv show? Avatar: the Last Airbender.  (same)  82. Favourite movie? The Way He Looks (same)  83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2? Mean Girls (ye)  84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street? 21 Jump Street (ye)  85. Favourite character from Mean Girls? I don’t have one. (ye)  86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo? I don’t have one. (ye)   87. First person you talked to today? Sage (John Paul)  88. Last person you talked to today? Jaimy (John Paul)  89. Name a person you hate? I don’t hate anyone. (da president)  90. Name a person you love? Mackenzie. He’s kind of my hero. (Same, but also my husband I reckon)   91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now? No one really haha. (same)   92. In a fight with someone? No. (currently, no. in the past? yes. this question is weird)  93. How many sweatpants do you have? One. (still just one)  94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have? Four or five. (so many)  95. Last movie you watched? Logan (I have no idea about the last movie i watched and also no idea what movie “Logan” is)  96. Favourite actress? I don’t think that I have one. (same)  97. Favourite actor? Avan Jogia. (same i reckon)  98. Do you tan a lot? No. (same)  99. Have any pets? Yes, three cats! (same three cats and now a dog) 100. How are you feeling? Tired. But that’s nothing new. (lmao yeah same)  101. Do you type fast? Yes. (ye)  102. Do you regret anything from your past? Oh honey (ahaha :’) )  103. Can you spell well? Yes. (i am okay)  104. Do you miss anyone from your past? OH BUDDY (ye)  105. Ever been to a bonfire party? Yes. (same) 106. Ever broken someone’s heart? Yes. (same)  107. Have you ever been on a horse? Yes. (same, and never again)  108. What should you be doing? Sleeping. (writing or cleaning)  109. Is something irritating you right now? No. (no)  110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt? Yes. (ye)  111. Do you have trust issues? Oh yeah. (ye) 112. Who was the last person you cried in front of? My mom. (JP)  113. What was your childhood nickname? Gertie. (that one and also ‘berkel’)  114. Have you ever been out of your province/state? Yes. (ye)  115. Do you play the Wii? No. (still no)  116. Are you listening to music right now? Yes, the Danish String Quartet. (no)  117. Do you like chicken noodle soup? It’s okay. (it is still just an okay soup)  118. Do you like Chinese food? Hell yeah. (HELL YEAH)  119. Favourite book? Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. (same)  120. Are you afraid of the dark? I used to be, but not anymore. (yes)  121. Are you mean? No, being mean gets you nowhere in life. (no)  122. Is cheating ever okay? No. (also no)  123. Can you keep white shoes clean? Hell nope. (still nope)  124. Do you believe in love at first sight? No. (sorta kinda)  125. Do you believe in true love? Yes. (yeah)  126. Are you currently bored? A little. (no)  127. What makes you happy? A good book, a cup of coffee, and a cold rainy day. (same)  128. Would you change your name? I used to want to change it to something “normal” but not anymore. (I need to because it’s been six months since i got married and i have yet to legally change my last name)  129. What your zodiac sign? Gemini. I was supposed to be a cancer though, my mom just couldn’t chill lol. (same)  130. Do you like subway? It’s okay. (same)  131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?Probably just hope that it goes away. I don’t like change. (still same, except I’d probably tell JP about it)  132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? I answered this earlier, and it’s still Patrick. (Still JP)  133. Favourite lyrics right now? The song Blackbird by the Beatles in its entirety. (WAP, in its entirety) 134. Can you count to one million? Yes. ( probably? yes. will i? no.)  135. Dumbest lie you ever told? There is no telling. (that one time i faked my death when I was like, 14.)  136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed? Closed. (cracked open)  137. How tall are you? 5′4. (still 5′4)  138. Curly or Straight hair? I have curly hair. (same)  139. Brunette or Blonde? I have blonde hair.  (same)  140. Summer or Winter? Winter. (same)  141. Night or Day? Night. (same)  142. Favourite month? December. (same)  143. Are you a vegetarian? No, but I have been in the past. (no)  144. Dark, milk or white chocolate? Milk. (sameO  145. Tea or Coffee? COFFEE (BOTH)  146. Was today a good day? Yes. (it was alright I reckon)  147. Mars or Snickers? Neither. (same)  148. What’s your favourite quote? “fire cannot kill a dragon.” (anything uncle iron says ever)   149. Do you believe in ghosts? Hell yeah. (ye)  150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page? “He was so snug in there that he was able to pretend that he was safe at home, having survived the war, and that he was telling his parents and sister a true war story–whereas the true war story was still going on.” From Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. ( “‘They plant when they’re hot. It doesn’t mean they’re angry or hungry.’ I hesitated, watching her. ‘You’ve never seen one before, have you?’” From “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia E. Butler) 

[hmel78]

In conversation with Dave Sturt ...

GONG

In September of 2016, ‘GONG’ released their new album “Rejoice! I’m Dead” Some say it couldn’t, or shouldn’t have, be done. How could Gong exist without Daevid Allen? 

For those who are unaware Daevid passed away in March 2015. ‘GONG’ has had many, many line-ups - Formed when Australian beatnik/freak Daevid Allen quit ‘The Soft Machine’ and moved to France at the tail end of the ’60s. Since debuting in 1970 with “Magick Brother”, the band have remained fluid, even playing without their founder from the mid-to-late ’70s; fracturing and reassembling and constantly taking on new shapes and forms: an undeniably amorphous unit. David Bowie told Vanity Fayre in 2003 that Daevid Allen’s “Banana Moon” is one of his favourite albums, and today everyone from indie artists Temples and Ty Segall to hip hop artist Madlib and techno DJ Surgeon are inspired, and borrow, from ‘Gong’s’ music and ideology. The funky grooves, avant-garde flourishes and counter-cultural stance is timeless. So timeless that ‘Gong’ is proving that it can fully exist, even without their creator and guiding light.  “Rejoice! I'm Dead! came together over several weeks in an East London rehearsal studio. It depends on your knowledge of ‘Gong’ history and what you may feel constitutes as a Gong record, but “Rejoice! I'm Dead!” is classified as their 28th album and it would appear that the ‘Gong’ legacy is the strongest it has been since 1974 . In the words of bassist Dave Sturt: “You bet it's a fucking Gong record!” The current line-up features  Kavus Torabi (vocals/guitar), Fabio Golfetti (guitar/vocals), Dave Sturt (bass/vocals), Ian East (sax/flute) and Cheb Nettles (drums/vocals) - and unanimously they have taken on the mantle of “steering the Teapot further into outer space and the inner ear” ... Helen Robinson caught up with Dave Sturt recently, to find out more ...

HR :  ‘GONG’ has had a total of 52 official members in its 50 year history ; 47 past and 5 current.
What is it about ‘Gong’s’ music which compels musicians to continue to hold the band together in some shape or form?

Dave Sturt : An interesting question..... The Gong family is really unlike anything else. It's so much more than the 5 or 6 musicians on the stage. It's a worldwide collective of freaks, mystics or those who just don't quite fit in to the mainstream .... those who are searching for a different way to be.  It's an ongoing adventure- may it never stop. 

HR :   When you first joined in 2009 you were the new guy! Did you jel straight away? Had you been a fan prior to joining? 

DS : I knew of Gong back in the 70s but it wasn't until the 80s when I began to really appreciate what they had created. I had latched on to the Steve Hillage Band first - I really loved “Fish Rising”. So it was a real honour to audition for the band with Steve and Miquette. I felt comfortable right from the start. My personal journey melded with Gong's at just the right time – I had experience of many kinds of music but needed a focus. Gong wanted a creative bass player with something to offer . . . kismet!

HR :    At the time - alongside Daevid Allen - the line-up consisted of original member Gilli Smith who had returned to sing vocals, with two of the 1970’s staple members Miquette Giraudy, and Steve Hillage - what was it like having them all reunited in the same creative space?

DS : It was a privilege but, initially daunting. I had briefly worked with Daevid a few years before but to have them all in the same rehearsal room was something else. 

I began to get to know them properly in the tour bus around Europe - promoting the 2032 album.  They were all incredibly bright, free thinkers- truly inspiring. 

HR :    2012 saw another big shift in the band’s line-up -  you stayed ; was that by choice, or at the request of Daevid?  Who decided on who was going to fill the positions?



DS : Well I was very keen to continue with the band but it was Daevid who chose the line up that best suited his vision of where he wanted ‘Gong’ to go. On tour he spoke many times of his wish for Gong to continue without him and he chose pretty well.

HR :    Have the rotations of band members been essential to keep it fresh for the main body of songwriters ; for something ‘new’ to be brought to the table?  Or was it simply a tough band to exist in?

DS : Daevid never wanted to play safe. He always wanted to be surrounded by creative people so I guess that was the driving force.  Since Ian east and I have been involved the biggest change was when Steve and Miquette left to re focus on System 7.  Daevid was keen on making the band more guitar focused so Fabio was invited to join - and then later Kavus got the call. 

HR :   You’ve been with the band for the longest, out of the new line-up - do you feel that you have the chemistry right this time, to move forward as a unit and stay together?

DS : Absolutely - no question. This band is a perfect mixture of passion, skill and creativity. The gigs are a blast from start to finish – and we also have a great crew including the Fruit Salad lightshow and projections.

It feels slightly odd – being the longest standing member! It has been a bizarre eight years.

HR :    Following Daevid’s passing in 2015, and Gilli’s in 2016 - did you all consider calling it a day, or is it always going to be imperative to keep their spirits alive through the music?

DS : It was Daevid's wish that the band should continue. We were keen to carry on but unsure that it would work without him. We had gigs booked to promote the I See You album but Daevid was too ill to join us from Australia so Kavus took centre stage and we were astonished by the response. Also, previous members of Gong were very supportive.

Gilli's last tour with the band was in 2012 – and her health was failing then. She had to miss some of the concerts because of a broken foot. Our last gigs with her were in Japan and she spent the last few years of her life in a care home where she held court and entertained guests up until the end.

HR :   Cue studio album #28 - “Rejoice! I’m Dead”. 
It features Steve Hillage, Didier Malherbe, and Graham Clark, along with some post-humous vocals from Daevid. 
Did you feel that you needed to include these in order to transition the band from what was always essentially Daevid’s project, to a new stage in it’s development?

DS : That was partly the reason, but it felt completely in keeping with the the direction of the album. I was particularly keen to include the track Beatrix. It was such a lovely moment that I'd captured on my hand held recorder. We were in an apartment in Brazil - Daevid was listening on headphones to a jazzy musical idea of mine - and he began to improvise a poem about a very special woman in his life. It was so sweet and poignant. 

The album is obviously a reflection on Daevid and life and death so it's seemed completely right to have his presence in there . . . . it really felt as though he was in the studio with us as we composed and arranged the tracks

HR :   The album is receiving some rave reviews, and doesn’t seem to have disappointed the loyal following - were you nervous prior to it’s release, or confident that what you had produced was going to hit the proverbial nail?

DS : We were supremely confident that we had created something really special. The process of composing and recording was a joy. We just followed our own inner voice – without any pre-conceived direction - everyone contributed with ideas that we then arranged, juxtaposed and honed into a beautiful shiny thing.

HR :   With the current line-up being a relatively new group when it comes to working together as ‘Gong’ (not essentially new to each other), how difficult was it to write new material in the vein of some 50 years of compositions, which for the first time were not under the creative influence of Daevid, Gilly, or other alumni?

DS : We are all composers as well as players – and four of us wrote or co-wrote most of the tracks on the previous album I See You so we had no problem in continuing the process. The main key difference was the lyrics. We had no intention of pretending to write like Daevid or Gilli – that would have been completely bogus. Instead Kavus developed the main lyrical ideas throughout the time that the tracks came together – and a truly fine job he did! I wrote the lyrics for the track Model Village – the first time that I'd attempted such a thing.

HR :    For anyone who may be unaware of Gong, and their impressive back-catalog - could you describe the new album in a nutshell, and give virgin listeners an idea of what they can expect?

DS : The title – Rejoice! I'm Dead! - is a line from a poem of Daevid Allen's – 'All I Ask'. It completely summed up Daevid's attitude to death and it informed the concept of the album. That transition into the great unknown – something we all will face at some time. So – should we face it with fear and trepidation or embrace it as part of life's great journey? No one gets out alive so let's enjoy life, live it to the full and don't waste it by worrying about something that you can't avoid.So, the album is euphoric, inspirational and slightly ironic, with the occasional social comment. Musically it is, in turns, powerful; beautiful; intricate; and mystical.

I think I've finally achieved my aim of playing on, what may well be recognised eventually as, a classic album.

HR :   And down the line ... The band claim they you will continue to ‘fly the teapot further into outer space, and the inner ear! 
 Is it likely that any past members will be invited back to the fold for future projects?

DS : It's said that once you've been a member of Gong you never leave - so the door is always open. It's a very friendly, co-operative family – so everything is possible.

HR :   Outside the Gong realm, your solo album “Dreams and Absurdities” was released in 2015. Given all your other commitments, how long was it in the making? 

DS : Dreams & Absurdities came together slowly. It would have happened sooner if I hadn't been so busy over the last 10 years. I have a classic bass player mentality – I'm very supportive and unassuming and I give my all to whichever project I'm working on – which has meant that my solo album never became a priority, until, for some reason, everything fell into place.

HR :   It’s a  purely instrumental  record  - a departure perhaps from the music that people are used to hearing you play. Does it reflect your personal musical comfort zone?

DS : Well, some people will be very used to me working on instrumental albums. I recorded two with Jade Warrior and three with Cipher (my duo with Theo Travis). I find great beauty in instrumental music – especially when it evokes emotions of longing and soundscapes of imagined worlds.

HR :    The album features  a number of impressive guests - notably your  Gong colleagues, and Bill Nelson.   
Bill describes you as “an artist of the highest calibre” - coming from him that’s quite a recommendation isn’t it?!

DS : I am still truly astonished that I have been able to work with such great musicians – and to be held in such high regard by them is overwhelming. I've played with Bill for over 10 years now and it's been a joy. I was a big fan of Be Bop Deluxe and Red Noise and I've had the honour to play material from both bands with the man himself.

HR :   You’ve worked with a number of high profile musicians during your career - what was the most challenging project t o be part of?  And if you could collaborate with anyone at all - who would it be?

DS : The most challenging was probably a session early in my career when I was hired to play on an album by a Canadian band called Strange Advance. Also playing on the album were drummer Andy Newmark (John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Roxy Music) and Earl Slick (David Bowie). It was produced by the great composer and arranger Michael Kamen. It was a huge learning curve for me. It was a great experience but I felt that I was hanging on by my fingertips! In the end, things didn't go well with the producer/artist relationship – and the album was re-recorded in Canada with different musicians.

Who would I like to collaborate with? That could be a very long list! Peter Gabriel, Harold Budd, Jan Garbarek, Andy Partridge, Kate Bush, Steve Jansen, Bill Frisell, David Torn, Michael Brook, Zakir Hussein, . . . I could go on . . .

https://www.davesturt.co.uk/

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2009

20 to 21 years old. And so the 2000s end, not with a whimper, but with an explosion of upbeat, great pop songs.

Only one third of these lists left to make!

Disclaimers:

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

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

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

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

First to second and final year of my Master degree in Contemporary History. Also got two summer jobs that year. I was basically only researching and writing my master thesis at this point and trying to survive on a 50€ per month budget to pay for transport, clothes, driving lessons, and food apart from one meal a day. Needless to say, some corners had to be cut and my health wasn’t the best. I was also trying to register to pass some concours d’Etat to be a government worker considering there was 0% chance I’d be able to find a job otherwise with my qualifications and my mother had been trying to find an excuse to throw me out for more than four years at this point. Basically I was broke, stressed out and in panic mode.

Thank god, the music was mostly energetic and upbeat on the radio. I can’t imagine what my mood would have been like if the charts had been as horribly depressed as in 2018 or 2019.

This was also the year when my favorite music reviewer ever, Todd In The Shadows, started to make his first videos, so you might think his lists are going to influence mine, but as it turns out we have very, very different tastes for the most part (I mean come on, the guy hates Depeche Mode), so... not so much. But he helped me discover a lot of songs I would have ignored otherwise, so yeah, godspeed, Todd.

It should be mentioned that the two songs that I wanted to put at the top of this list before looking at the actual year-end lists turned out to be non-elligible and that is extremely frustrating. Obviously, as I mentioned in the previous post, there’s Life In Technicolor II by Coldplay, which has an incredibly fitting name since it’s one of their most colorful songs ever. But I’m not even sure I would have put it at #1 since this was the year of Mika’s second album, and oh my god, We Are Golden was FANTASTIC. It’s my absolute favorite song from the guy, the music video is incredibly fun, and I listened to that shit on a loop as soon as it dropped.

I usually don’t put such large links for non-elligible songs but the fact this isn’t elligible is nothing short of criminal. Check it out if you’ve never heard it.

As for albums from bands I liked... eh. Lacuna Coil dropped Shallow Life, which was not as good as KarmaCode, Pet Shop Boys dropped Yes which wasn’t nearly as good as Fundamental, Depeche Mode dropped Sounds of the Universe which was DEFINITELY not as good as Playing the Angel (I liked Wrong, though. But it’s not elligible), Eminem released Relapse which was joyless and pretty bad and he was kinda dead to me at that point (even if it wasn’t as terrible as Encore AND he had that song with Drake that was very good), Placebo released Battle for the Sun which was pretty great but still not as good as their previous two albums, Paradise Lost had Faith Divides Us Faith Unites Us and basically same thing there, and Indochine had La République des Météors which is imho their worst record in the past twenty years, by far.

Long story short, every single one of the bands and artists I loved who released an album that year let me down (except Placebo, maybe).

And then VNV Nation released Of Faith, Power And Glory, I listened to it, and suddenly I had a new favorite band, and everything was good and beautiful in the world again. Album of the year for me, hands down.

With that out of the way, a few honorable mentio-HOLY SHIT HOW MANY OF THESE ARE THERE, WTF

Replay (Iyaz) - A perfectly good and innocent little earworm.

Run This Town (Rihanna) - I don’t like the original very much (Kanye’s verse is atrocious) but I've had a mashup of it with Bach’s Tocatta & Fugue in D minor (yes you read that right) on my mp3 player for years now, so this has to count. The mashup is called Run This Town In D Minor. It’s one of my favorite mashups ever. I even made fanart of it once! Look it up if you can, the original video has apparently disappeared.

Circus (Britney Spears) - You know it’s a good year for pop when even Britney Spears makes music I like.

Magnificent (U2) - Wait, even U2 was making decent music? I had zero use for them since at that point Linkin Park had more or less taken over their ecological-musical niche of “mainstream epic-sounding pop-rock music with tortured vocals and Emotions(tm)” but that one was still kinda nice.

Même Pas Fatigué (Magic System & Khaled) - I’ve said that before and I’ll say it again but they always bring a smile to my face and I don’t get why it’s ‘cool’ to hate their songs in my country. Yeah, they often sound the same, but I’d listen to ten similar-sounding Magic System songs in a heartbeat whereas you’d have to pay me to listen to ten similar-sounding Nickelback songs.

Day n Nite (Kid Cudi) - This had a tendency to get stuck in my head, but not at all in an unpleasant way.

21 Guns (Green Day) - Much better than I remembered.

When Love Takes Over (David Guetta), Stereo Love (Edward Maya ft Vika Jigulina), Evacuate the Dancefloor (Cascada) - That year was full of catchy, stupid, energetic songs, wasn’t it?

Greenlight (John Legend) - If I had better taste, this would be on the list. Alas, you’re reading the top 10s of someone who once put Blue (Eiffel 65) in a #1 spot, so yeah.

In Your Hands (Charlie Winston) - Same thing, basically.

Like a Hobo (Charlie Winston) - “Like a hobo from a broken home, nothing’s gonna stop me”, said this very useful song. Now is a good time to remind you that my nickname at the public university was The Hobo. So yeah. I liked this song a lot and I still do.

Forever (Drake) - Drake and Eminem are both amazing on this track. Unfortunately there’s also Kanye West and Lil Wayne on it. But. Like. “I'm Hannibal Lecter so just in case you're thinking of saving face / You ain't gonna have no face to save”. Dude. Duuuuuude.

You Found Me & Never Say Never (The Fray) - Did I mention I really, really liked this band. I think I did. Several times.

Paparazzi & Love Game (Lady Gaga) - Would both have had a chance to land on the list without the incredible amount of great, catchy tunes that year had to offer.

C’est Dans l’Air (Mylène Farmer) - Mylène Farmer had THREE singles on the French year-end list and this is the ONLY one I like. Good electro, mediocre verses but a great chorus (and a weird and kind of hilarious music video). Basically a song saying we’re all going to die and she can only sing about it. It’s strange, it’s a bit dark in a fun way, but it’s sadly not enough to land on the list, and it was the last cut from it.

Phew. Making this list was like a Hunger Games of catchy, upbeat, stupid songs to find which one was the best. It’s not #1 but I’m still shocked I had to put it so high.

But first, the runner ups.

10 - Fire Burning (Sean Kingston)

US: #33 / FR: Not on the list

Yes, ALL these honorable mentions were kicked out to give the last spot on the list to this guy and a chorus that goes “somebody call 911, shawty fire burning on the dance floor, WOAH!”.

The fact that I don’t feel bad about it means this was the right pick for that spot.

9 - Rain (Mika)

US: Not on the list / FR: #22

Anybody else thinks Mika looks like the Fourth Doctor on this screenshot from the music video or is it just me?

Anyway. So yeah, as I said, We Are Golden would have topped this list if it had been elligible. Sadly, it isn’t, but Rain is. I don’t like it nearly as much as We Are Golden, but what can I say. It’s still Mika. I’ll take whatever I can.

8 - I Gotta Feeling (Black Eyed Peas)

US: #4 / FR: #17

I lost about 80% of the respect I had for this song the day I realised its untouchable, marvellous beat was very probably stolen from Take a Dive. I still love it though. Had a few actual parties in 2010 and early 2011 and this was garanteed to make everyone dance, even people like me who don’t know how to dance.

And then the dancefloor died instantly anytime anyone tried to put Boom Boom Pow on because it’s impossible to dance on that one. But that’s another story.

7 - Poker Face (Lady Gaga)

US: #2 / FR: #5

Needless to say this was absolutely everywhere and overplayed to death and beyond, and the fact I still wanted to listen to it and put it on my playlists really tells you how good I thought it was (and still is).

6 - Ça m’énerve (Helmut Fritz)

US: Not on the list / FR: #1 (...yes.)

This is a novelty song with a singer pretending to have a thick German accent, complaining about various things in France, like the fact he doesn’t fit the dress code for a club, that he wanted to buy a sweater with “Rock” written on it but it’s out of stock, that some girls can fit in a size 34 blue jean and not him, that there’s a queue of people trying to buy macarons at the Ladurée shop, and so on. And every time he concludes “that gets on my nerves”, said in a very flat tone. Here’s a translation.

It was overplayed as f█ck here. Think Despacito levels of overplay. But the beat is great and it’s still hysterical after having heard it about a hundred times that year.

Fun fact, while I was making this list and relistening to this song, my s.o said “haha that sounds great! What is it?” and I stared at him in disbelief. Somehow, he was completely serious. That’s like someone escaping the Great Macarena Onslaught Of 1996. What happened. How.

5 - Waking Up In Vegas (Katy Perry)

US: #36 / FR: Not on the list

Again, I must remind you that my s.o is a Katy Perry fan and that I’ve heard this song even more than the average radio listener did at the time, and it’s STILL #5 on this list. What can I say. It’s a ton of fun and one of my favorite songs from her.

4 - New Divide (Linkin Park)

US: #61 / FR: Not on the list

Is this their best song? Not by a f█cking mile. I thought it would be much lower when I started to make this specific list, but what can I say. Linkin Park is like that one old friend that you kept no contact with for years, and once you meet them again, it’s like they never left. Who cares if that wasn’t nearly as good as Numb or In the End? Not me, that’s for sure.

Also, “In every loss in every lie / In every truth that you deny / And each regret and each goodbye / Was a mistake too great to hide / And your voice was all I heard / That I get what I deserve”. Holy shit, dude.

3 - Good Girls Go Bad (Cobra Starship)

US: #43 / FR: Not on the list

BEHOLD. THE ONLY SURVIVOR OF THE 2009 ‘CATCHY UPBEAT STUPID SONGS’ HUNGER GAMES. THE CATCHIEST, UPBEAT-IEST, STUPIDEST OF THEM ALL. HERE IT IS AT LAST.

The thing I love about this is that it’s a song made by nerds for nerds and that the singer looks and sounds completely non-threatening. As Todd said in his own list back in the day, “that guy couldn’t make good MILK go bad” and that’s what’s so endearing about the song, I think.

Also yes, this is, in fact, placed above Linkin Park.

2 - Use Somebody (Kings of Leon)

US: #14 / FR: Not on the list

This was my #1 at first. I LOVED it. I even bought the album, even though, as you know, my funds were very low that year. That music is soaring. It’s majestic. Well, the lyrics aren’t that majestic and soaring, it’s about loving someone and trying to catch their attention, but the rest? Damn this is intense. It was also elligible for the 2010 list, by the way, where I ALSO wondered if it should be #1, but in both cases, it wasn’t meant to be.

And so this list of 2009 hit songs comes to a close.

It began with the forging of the Great 2009 Upbeat Songs. Three were given to the Punk Rock hits. Seven to the Dance Tracks. And nine, nine songs were gifted to the Radio Friendly Pop Songs, which above all else desired power.

But they were all deceived, for another song was made. Deep in the forgotten land of Synth Pop, in his Parents’ Basement, the Dark Lord Adam Young forged a master song, and into this song he poured his joy, his talent and his will to dominate all charts.

One song to rule them all.

1 - Fireflies (Owl City)

US: #60 / FR: Not on the list (76 the next year)

I know. It’s a meme nowadays. But still. Have you any idea how satisfying a song with an initial beat that looks like small pulsing yellow and blue lights in the dark ACTUALLY titled “Fireflies” is? How gentle it all sounds and looks, even when the music soars? The number of drawings and paintings I made just based on the colors of THAT song? It’s like a synth pop version of one of my favorite Mike Oldfield tunes ever, Weightless.

And then, on top of all the rest, how relatable was that guy’s body language and general attitude?? Before even knowing he was on the spectrum I was like “oh BIG mood.”

Also following his twitter was one of the best decisions I ever made.

So yeah. I would have loved to put Coldplay or Mika in that #1 spot, but I’m not too mad about it thanks to this wonderful little song and its author. Such a shame Deer in the Headlights and Alligator Sky aren’t elligible for the 2011 list.

Next up: Johannes finally moves out and finds a great job and starts living a little, plus here’s a #1 that will be difficult to justify

[hiiggsmonaghan]

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Are you fuckin’ kidding me--?

Alright, I’ll answer them ALL. 

1. Name: Higgs Monaghan Silver/Silvio

2. Nationality: Canadian/Acadian

3. Age: 22

4. Birthday: July 19th 

5. Zodiac sign (or your primal zodiac sign): Cancer

6. Gender: cis male

7. Sexuality: Gay

8. Your looks (add a picture or describe yourself):  This will have to wait until a special reveal. (Future cosplay things.)

9. What do you/did you study?: ... Does Egyptian history count?

10. What's your current job like?/What job would you like to have?: [Nervous laughter] I have no idea what I’d like to do for a job. 

-

11. Your birth order: First child

12. How many siblings do you have?: 1 “real” sibling, but so many siblings by bond.

13. Do you have good relations with your family?: Biological family? Absolutely not. Except for two of my cousins. They are cool.

14. How many friends do you have?: Too many that it’s obnoxious. [Just kidding, I appreciate you all.]

15. Your relationship status: Taken/Engaged

16. What do you look for in a SO?: Someone who can kick my ass. [Who can handle my anger outbursts]

17. Do you have a crush?: No. 

18. When did you have your first kiss?: When I was 14. It was forced and was a terrible experience. 

19. Do you prefer serious and meaningful relationships or casual dating/one night stands?: Meaningful ones, funny enough.

20. What are your deal breakers?: Overly clingy, too loud, not respectful of my music choices

-

21. How was your day?: Cold. Snowstorm happened today.

22. Favourite food & drink: Pizzas/cheeseburgers || Strawberry slushie with tapioca pearls/orange juice

23. What position do you sleep in?: Fetal position. [Hahahah... ha.]

24. What was your last dream about?: Cannot remember.

25. Your fears: The ocean [drowning], deep forests.. uhh... There are others but I cannot think of it at the moment

26. Your dreams: To be on my goddamn motorcycle, livin’ a good life without my mental illness in the way.

27. Your goals: See above.

28. Any pets?: Not yet! Planin’ to get a black cat soon!

29. What are your hobbies?: Music and readin’

30. Any cool places in your area?: Pfft, no. It’s so fuckin’ boring here.

31. What was your last awkward situation?: I was at Tim Horton’s and there was a baby cryin’ behind me so I looked over at it and played... peek-a-boo with them. It was...weird. But at least the baby shut up. The mother didn’t do shit to make the baby stop cryin’ so.. Great Parenting.

32. What is your last regret?: Well too many to really talk about but I’ll go with the funny route and my last regret was not goin’ to Burger King yesterday and eatin’ salad instead of a burger. 

33. Language/s you can speak: English

34. Do you believe in astrological stuff? (Zodiac, tarot, etc.): Not really. It’s all just whatever for me.

35. Have any quirks?: I bite my nails often... I pretend to conduct music while it is playing... uh...???

36. Your pet peeves: Everything.

37. Ideal vacation: Anywhere away from North America.

38. Any scars?: Many. 

39. What does your last text message say?: “Nah”

40. Last 5 things from your search history: Twitter, Vargskelethor’s twitch, Cloud Strife, YouTube, FF7 remake release date

41. What's your [device] background?: RK900 from Detroit Become Human

42. What do you daydream about?: Usually having super strength and throwing people whom bother me across the world or just... punchin’ them. 

43. Describe your dream home: A  simple house, really. Nothin’ too fancy. Just the idea of havin’ my own house? Even if it isn’t that big or anythin’... That is a dream for me. Oh, and I want it painted black. Hah.

44. What's your religion/Your thought about religion: I’d say I’m atheist but... I do believe in God. I AM God. :)

45. Your personality type:  ISTP-T

46. The most dangerous thing you've done: [Looks at the list of dangerous things I have done] ... There are too many

47. Are you happy with your current life?: At the moment? Yeah. There are things I am still angry about but it’s... fine.

48. Some things you've tried in your life: Smoking. Drawing. Singing. Writing. Playing the guitar. ???

-

49. What does your wardrobe consist of?: Black and reds. 

50. Favourite colour to wear?: Black.

51. How would you describe your style?: Goth/punk

52. Are you happy with your current looks?: Eh.. Not really but it’s all I got.

53. If you could change/add something to your appearance - impossible or not - what would it be?: Grow. Damn. Facial. Hair. Holy FUCK.

54. Any tattoos or piercings?: Snake bites. But I took one out so only one lip piercing now. And tattoos? Soon. Very soon. [Gonna be Higgs’ themed, baby.]

55. Do you get complimented often?: No and when I do I make it Stop. I hate it. Never compliment me. 

56. Favourite aesthetic?: Black/gold aesthetics as of late.

57. A popular trend that you dislike: Everything. I hate them all.

- [FINALLY THE ONES I WANTED, JESUS CHRIST]

58. Songs you're currently obsessed with?:  Allesfresser by LINDEMANN 

It’s a great song to listen to for me because I just punch my punching bag to this song. Makes my anger just... go away. It’s fuckin’ nice.

59. Song you normally wouldn't admit you like: .... Let’s Dance by David Bowie

I am a new fan of David Bowie. It just literally started in July or late June. I’m the typical metal head but for some reason Bowie just caught my ear? I dunno, man.

60. Favourite genre?: METAL. Well, Power Metal. I love all sorts of metal except for like.. most death metal/black metal. It is too much for me sometimes. But yeah, if yall are into metal... I’m all ears. I love talkin’ about metal.

61. Favourite artist/band/genre?: Well I already spoke about my favorite genre. For favorite bands? God... Uh.. I have a list here of favorite bands/musicians. Check it out if you’re interested. 

62. Hated popular songs/artists?: Honestly? I’m gonna be one of those guys and say pretty much everything on the radio these days. I don’t like pop/rap and all the most popular stuff. Turning the radio on is ear torture these days. Except for the rock channel, that one is okay most of the time.

63. Put your music on shuffle and list first 5:

1 - System of a Down’s Chop Suey in the Style of Ghost by Ten Second Songs

This guy is simply AMAZING. If yall haven’t already, you NEED to check out his channel. He is wicked talented and he has different styles for different songs. Like for example, Metallica’s Enter Sandman in the style of David Bowie. It’s amazing. 

Check him out. His YouTube is Ten Second Songs.

2 - City by Hollywood Undead

This one just gives me my inner Higgs’ vibes. That is really all I can say.

3 - Mein Teil by Rammstein

4 - Cars by Fear Factory

5 -  龍が如く極 - Turning Point [From Yakuza Kiwami]

Yeah, hi. Yakuza fan here. Do I have to say any more? 

64. Can you sing or play any instruments?: I can kind of sing, [very badly, mind you] and sort of play the guitar. I’m tryin’ to learn Come as You Are by Nirvana at the moment... but that’s about it

65. Do you like karaoke?: 

.... Yes. My inner Nishiki in me just cannot lie about this.

66. Own any albums?: Absolutely. I am a firm believer in albums rather than just buying them digitally. I love having an actual copy in my hands rather just on the computer. 

67. Do you listen to radio? What stations?: Not really. I only listen to the rock station.

-

68. Favourite movie/series?: Star Wars.

69. Favourite genre of movies/books/etc: Uhhh... I don’t know

70. Your fictional crush/es: Sam Fuckin’ Porter Bridges, General Hux, RK900...

71. Which fictional character is you?: [Chuckles nervously] 

Higgs Monaghan-- 

Too many to write down. I’ll just pass myself the trouble.

72. Are you a shipper? List your otps, if so: Eh not really. Only like.. Gavin/RK900 [Reed900] and General Hux/Kylo Ren [Kylux/Huxlo]

73. Favourite greek god?: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh? I don’t know?

74. A legend from where you live that you like: None.

75. Do you like art? What's your favourite work or artist?: I’m gonna be cheesy and say all of my friends because it’s true. I love my friends art.

76. Can you share your other social media?: Yeah sure. My twitter is @hiiggsmonaghan

77. Favourite youtubers?: Markiplier, Jacksepticeye... Streamers: Vargskelethor and Vinesauce

78. Favourite platform?: Tumblr and Twitter

79. How much time do you spend on the internet?: .. Too long

80. What video games have you played? Which one's your favourite?: Ones I have PLAYED that are my favorite: Pokemon, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy XV, Yakuza 0/Kiwami. 

I also have a lot a games I love that I just watched. Like a lot of Legend of Zelda games and of course Death Stranding!

81. Your favourite books (manga also counts): Anything really by William Blake. I guess that really isn’t a “book” but.. all I really read are poems, Shakespearean plays and Egyptian history books.

82. Do you play board/card games?: No

83. Have you ever been to a night marathon in cinema?: No

84. Favourite holiday: Halloween

85. Are you into dramas?: Not really.

-

86. Would you use death note, if you had one?: ABSOLUTELY. And I do have one. Well... a replica. Not the real one of course.

87. What changes would you make in the world, no matter how impossible, if you had the power to?: Get rid of the racists, rapists, pedos and homo/trans phobes. The world would just be more pleasant to live in, yeah?

88. Could you survive a zombie apocalypse?: Probably. Because I stay inside a lot anyway.

89. If you had to be turned into a paranormal being, what would it be?: A demon because I am that fuckin’ edgy.

90. What would you want to happen to you after your death?: VOID OUT, BITCH. Uh, I don’t know. 

91. If you had to change your name, what would be your pick?: I did change my name so I am happy with it. 

92. Who would you switch your life with for a week?: Uh.. No one. Can that be an option?

93. Pick an emoji to be your tattoo: The devil smiling one I guess?

94. Write 3 things about yourself - only one of them must be true

1. I am in a poly relationship while I am also engaged.

2. I have a knife collection

3.I still used an mp3 instead of using my phone for music

-

95. Cold or hot?: ... Cold because you can get warm with blankets and sweaters while if you are hot, it’s damn impossible to not be hot.

96. Be a hero or be a villain?: Hero in my eyes, but to all of you I’m the villain for some DAMN reason.

97. Sing everything you want to say or rhyme?: Sing I guess. Imagine singing in metal. Holy SHIT

98. Shapeshifting or controlling time?: CONTROLLING TIME.

99. Be immortal or be immune to everything aside from natural death?: Immune to everything. I’m sick of being sick.

====

And there you have it. I’m... fuckin’ DONE. This took literal HOURS, ANON. I hope yall read through this.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

The (indie) Kids Are(n’t) Alright.

[piece by Nick Southall of Stylus Magazine which has sadly been defunct since 2007; I’m reposting it here because I had to dig through the internet archive to find it]

The following was posted by one of our readers in the comments section of our recent Top 50 Singles of 2005 article. 

Posted 12/09/2005 - 08:07:34 AM by tintin1000: i hate this list. but before i get into a rant, i shall tell you all the "rules" which i relied upon to come to the conclusion that this list is a pile of steaming bullshit. (a) this is a snobby list (b) i understand that this is a list of singles, so it cannot include bands like deerhoof or anything because they don't HAVE singles, but ... (c) this is a lame attempt at justifying why you guys like top 40 chart songs ... a shoddly constructed "logical" justification of listening to top 40 songs, with the "indie mag," stylus, as a sort of buffer ... "oh -- we're really into indie music, so that means we can accept pop music from an "elevated" plane of existence or some bullshit like that. okay -- who the hell thinks that the friggin' backstreet boys write "better" songs than the mountain goats?! than the futureheads!? uh ... and sure -- the concept of r. kelly's trapt in the closet is cool, i think, but how in the hell do you distinguish which gwen stefani single is the "best" on the album? is it the originality of the song? nope? is it in the creativity? nope. is it the craftmanship? nope. is it the songwriting? nope. as far as i can tell, you guys compiled a list that should be dubbed "best singles that will get you crunked in 2005," but since you worded everything so perfectly, it sounds like there is an actual intellectual, logical reason behind the creation of the fucking whisper song. the whisper song is about fucking. since when has fucking merited any artistic credibilty? just plain, raw, primitive sex? if you guys like to dance to this shit, cool ... but don't be dumbasses and pretend that you listen to this shit because you actually think it actually has a true artistic quality to it ... damn. 

I usually try and avoid responding directly to people in the comments boxes, unless they ask a specific question about a piece or raise a factual error, because I think it’s slightly unbecoming for writers to be trawling their own work looking for flame wars, but I couldn’t help but respond to our friend tintin1000, initially with a couple of short notes in the comments box, and now here, in more length and with more thought. 

tintin1000 isn’t alone in his indi(e)gnation (I’m sorry, that’s a terrible forced pun)—you can see dozens, if not hundreds of other people spilling outraged bile into the comments boxes every week in protest at our temerity in choosing to review a country record favourably (and I’m not talking about Lambchop or Uncle Tupelo) or vote Kelly Clarkson as our single of the year ahead of, say, the latest 7” by The Ambivalent Corduroy Medical Students on Squirrel Records which features nine Canadian college graduates banging ukuleles and broken harpsichords and singing about their guinea pig’s gravestone. What’s wrong with us? Why are we pretending to like such manipulative top 40 pop shit? How could we possibly be so short-sighted as to not see the genius inherent in something like Pig On A Stick’s masterful limited edition EP, I’m Ugly, I’m Lonely, All My Friends Are Dead?!Especially when we lavish such shallow, fetishistic praise on hollow, manufactured acts. 

The thing is that Stylus has always loved pop, hip-hop and r’n’b singles, consistently voting them highly in the end-of-year singles lists over the last three years. Just look at the Singles Jukebox articles from the last 9 months—pop music is something we love and something we cover—we’ve never claimed to be an indie website any more than we’ve claimed to be an IDM website (something we used to get accused of every so often when we began). If you’re still not convinced, take a look at the Mission Statement; all we’ve ever been bothered about covering is music, not specific genres. 

So why are indieboys still so vehemently disgusted by our (un)surprising pop-centricity, our schizeclecticism, by the fact that some of us like country records and others like pop records and yet others really do enjoy Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (I’m still not entirely convinced that that particular band isn’t a complex hoax perpetrated by Derek Miller)? I’d wager, for a start, that the majority of our most vocal indieboy naysayers are probably in their late teens rather than their mid-to-late 20s, and that the music they like isn’t just a sonic preference based on what tickles the hairs in their ears in a pleasant way, but that it is a much more deep-seated culture-aesthetic choice. A choice as much about identity as music, perhaps. 

Which is fine, because adolescent cultural choices—hell, adult cultural choices too—are about identity. They’re about peer groups and aspirations and association. The music you like may well help determine the clothes you wear, the friends you keep, how you cut your hair—it’ll certainly determine which clubs or gigs you go to, and who you go with. It’s a chicken / egg conundrum, though, as to which comes first—the music or the identity. Do you like this music because of who you are, or are you making a definite effort to determine who you are and using the music as a tool to do so? Because like it or not, and whether you’re aware of it or not, your cultural choices are a signifier pointing towards who you are. 

Here are a handful of bands and what liking them says about you: 

Interpol - “I am deep, moody, urban and edgy, given to pathos and bad poetry. Please have sex with me, but don’t expect an orgasm.” 

Bright Eyes - “I have read a book about true love and am too scared to treat you badly. Please don’t have sex with me, as I will cry.” 

Embrace - “I really am in it for the music, because the public perception of my favourite band is terrible. Please have sex with me in a slightly dull, monogamous way.” 

Kompakt-style techno - “I transcend the body-mind divide by being intellectually into dancing. Please have sex with me on drugs.” 

Bloc Party - “I am very cool but not as alternative as I’d like to think, and I wish I knew more black people. Please have sex with me, but be careful not to mess-up my hair.” 

Girls Aloud - “I am a shallow pop whore. Let’s fuck! But it will be without true, meaningful emotion.” 

Arcade Fire - “I am into way more cool and obscure stuff than anyone else. Please let me say I had sex with you ages ago, before anyone else.” 

Oasis - “I am a piss-throwing troglodyte misogynist. I am going to date-rape you.”

Each of these assumptions says as much about the inferer as the inferred, if not more so. Each one is a value judgement based on cultural baggage, and everyone’s cultural baggage is different. Most internet-based discussion of music that I’ve come across deals not with what people like, but with what people dislike. What people like is a matter of assumption, some kind of unspoken test to see whether someone is cool enough to be spoken to, to be let into the secret club. You wouldn’t want someone uncool hanging around with the cool kids (on a messageboard, natch) and making them uncool by association because they like, heaven forbid, “The Whisper Song”, would you? 

Ah, “The Whisper Song.” Here’s what tintin1000 said about it: it sounds like there is an actual intellectual, logical reason behind the creation of the fucking whisper song. the whisper song is about fucking. since when has fucking merited any artistic credibilty? just plain, raw, primitive sex? This raises a whole other issue that indieboys can’t stand. Sex. It’s often been stated that indieboys are afraid to dance because they have an intrinsic “fear of the middle of the body,” a post-Victorian-era Catholic / Freudian guilt / paranoia about all things sexual which dates back, perhaps, to Morrissey’s fiercely foppish stance of asexuality and beyond, to Keats or Wordsworth or whoever, and the myth of the sexually-frustrated romantic, the idea that one’s art will be somehow purer if untainted by the dirty touch of lust. But go beyond that, go to Michelangelo sculpting David’s sensuous masculine frame; or all those countless portraits of St. Sebastian, pierced with arrows like an S&M; stunt gone awry, loincloth barely covering his genitals; all those pre-Raphaelite female nudes; every film to ever reveal more flesh than grandmother would like; to Led Zeppelin wailing about plain, raw, primitive sex and John Lennon trying to make the end of “A Day In The Life” sound like a great big musical orgasm. Very few people would question Björk’s artistic credibility, and she’s written countless songs about sex. People are rushing to proclaim Kate Bush’s Aerial a work of genius, and it’s positively dripping with eroticism. Sex is not the be-all-and-end-all of human existence, and to get too caught up in its alluring juices and scents can screw with your head (just ask Michael Douglas or any random Tory politician) but to claim that plain, raw, primitive sex has never inspired any worthwhile art is the folly of the hungry, short-sighted virgin. Pop music in particular (and The Mountain Goats and Deerhoof are as much pop music as Charlotte Church or Sisqo) is about sex. 

And of course sex is key to identity—as if I needed to say that after the assumptions about bands above. Anyone who ever wore skinny jeans or dyed their hair black did so because they wanted some of their idol’s allure by proxy, because they thought that listening to this record and wearing those shoes would get them laid. Everyone. Except me, of course, because I’m above it all. 

The problem with our intrepid hero tintin1000 is that he’s finding his identity, and is thus vulnerable to having the fragile foundations of that identity shaken. And so he sees Mountain Goats, an act he loves for their literate, melodic music made in the cottage-industry style, unadorned by commercial trappings but instead blessed with deep insight into the human condition, at number 50 on our list and is pleased, thinking, hoping and assuming that the rest of the list will continue to reaffirm his identity. Because he trusts Stylus, possibly, as someone he can talk to about these things. And there’s the fucking Ying Yang Twinz, wtf? And Gwen Stefani? And other music that is liked by the people he sees at college or in town and takes an instant dislike to for their shallow natures and unthinking ways, and it jars his assumptions about what it means to like Mountain Goats, about what it says about him when he realises what he thinks liking Kelly Clarkson says about other people. 

The thing is that once you stop worrying about what owning (and more importantly liking) a Girls Aloud record says about you, you can start taking it on its own merits, which are (generally) pretty plentiful. Something like Die Hard is a great film because it knows what it is and what it does and it executes its plan with zero faffing around—there’s no narrative fat in that film (unlike, say, the odious Goodfellas), every single event is a plot device, and there’s joy to be found in such craftsmanship, never mind the actual tangible visceral thrill of the finished article once we get past ontological rumination on the efficiency of the screenplay. Likewise Girls Aloud’s records are faultless exercises in meta-pop constructivism, not so much songs as processions of hooks and choruses with the boring, fatty verses left over for the likes of Okkervil River instead. And, of course, as with Die Hard there is the sheer physical joy of listening to them, of dancing to them, getting caught up in the beats and the insidious melodic hooks, which outweighs even the music-journalistic catnip attraction of playing spot-the-reference. 

And once you’re past the stage of crushing insecurity and aspirational identity positing, the idiocy inherent in statements like how in the hell do you distinguish which gwen stefani single is the "best" on the album? becomes clear. You distinguish your favourite (no such thing as objectivity, kids) Gwen Stefani song on Love Angel Music Baby in exactly the same manner as you would your favourite song on The Sunset Tree—by listening to the record and choosing the song that you like most, for whatever reason(s) it is that you ever like any song. Until your superego stops screaming at you that it’s bad to like Gwen Stefani though, that’s not going to happen. 

It works in stages though, this music / identity nexus. As a child one likes simple things, the multi-coloured hues of pop music perhaps, but once one senses the transition to adulthood one puts away childish things. By writing off whole areas of music for the simple reason that “it’s not the kind of thing someone like me listens to” you are, quite simply, denying yourself a whole lot of pleasures, both frivolous and profound. Malcolm X said in his autobiography that “children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,' and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.” It’s not just failing that we shouldn’t be ashamed of. A major finding in neuroscience in recent years is the extent to which our brains display advanced levels of ‘neural plasticity.’ We are not forever ‘hardwired’ for rigid modes of behaviour; we are not static ‘slaves’ to our DNA. There is a remarkable degree to which we can change ingrained patterns of thought, intention and practice. Our identities are not fixed, are not immutable—admitting that you enjoy a Britney record unironically will not destroy your future character. And that goes for an awful lot of things besides music. 

Of course this is all blatant assumption, and doesn’t mean anything at all. Except, perhaps, that you should give in to your ids, indie kids. 

[angstylittlecatboy]

I'm starting to realize that I love pop punk but hate pop punk's tropes (i.e. the stuff that isn't essential to the genre but is so widely associated with it that some people think it is.) Particularly, I hate how it’s associated with youth and teenage/college issues to a degree where guys in their 50s feel a need to write from the perspective of a teenager. I have a lot of beloved albums that are about teenage issues, but they’re written by actual people in the 16 - 25 range.

That’s probably why my favorite bands in the genre are Green Day, My Chemical Romance, and Paramore. All bands that don’t feel the need to pretend to be younger than they are. Green Day made three albums about teen shit when they were teens and the minute they made it big they started writing about things that are actually believably in their lives, MCR have always been a concept album band, and Paramore was never about teenage issues. I’m not a huge Yellowcard fan, but their last album is one of the few pop punk albums I’ll recommend to people regardless of music taste because of it’s maturity, and the only one I consider high art. Of the two newer Weezer albums that are lauded as returns to form, Everything Will Be Alright in The End will always be the better one to me because it doesn’t do the beach California thing (and I don’t care about the Beach Boys therefore I don’t care about White being a tribute to them.) And I also like a lot of ‘80s hardcore bands’ ‘90s forays into pop punk, i.e. Bad Religion’s Atlantic Records output or 7 Seconds’ Soulforce Revolution (and I don’t even like the latter band’s hardcore output.)

Pretty much I think this genre is more homogenous and manufactured than it needs to be.

[onewhoturns]

100 truths?

edit: fuck! forgot to mention I was tagged by @mocarro

1.) Real name: Turner 2.) Nicknames: Turner? 3.) Zodiac Sign: *sigh*  4.) Male or Female: (>.> not gonna include nb/gq/ag stuff? really? let’s fix that) 4.) Gender: female 5.) Nursery: the fuck does this mean, I’m painfully american 6.) Primary School: I did that, part private part public, G&T program (I’d regret it, but most of my teachers were good and I was comfortable being a complete nerd) 7.) Secondary School: not as good as primary, but that was mostly internal stuff, no bullying or anything 8.) Hair Color: dark brown 9.) Long or Short: used to be down to my lower back, now it’s shoulder length 10.) Loud or Quiet: loud. I tend to have difficulty regulating my volume, but have definitely gotten better about it now that I’m an adult and I’m more aware of it (also thanks to helpful feedback from friends, family, housemates etc) 11.) Sweats or Jeans: pj pants. or jeans. 12.) Phone or Camera: phone 13.) Health Freak: nah 14.) Drink or Smoke: occasionally drink (twice a month? ish? not very often at all, and when I do it’s small amounts. don’t think I’ve had any alcohol since... february? not trying to abstain, just not big on it unless it tastes good) 15.) Do You Have A Crush On Someone: nope 16.) Political orientation: uhhhhhh liberal I guess? I’d say it without reservation but I’m sure someone could jump down my throat about “the liberals” and I’m over here just like lgbtq+ rights, affordable college tuition, affordable health care, etc.  17.) Piercings: had my ears pierced for all of 6 months but as soon as I took out the studs they closed up before I could put in another pair. yeah. so... no. 18.) Tattoos: nah. thought about it, but nah. HAVE YOU EVER [BEEN IN]: 19.) Airplane: several times 20.) Car *Accident*: i guess? just a fender bender 21.) Fist Fight: nope, i’m weak af and not interested in physical confrontation FIRSTS: 22.) First piercing: ears 23.) First Best Friend: a girl named Beth in first grade, probably. but then I left after second, so never saw her again. 24.) First Instrument played: I’m sure I took piano lessons at some point. but did flute 5-6th grade. 25.) First award: I dunno, probably some participation award or something 26.) First Crush: Julio in kindergarten, apparently XD 27.) First Language: english. 28.) First Big Vacation: we went to maine all the time all through my primary school years LASTS: 29.) Last Person you talked to: out loud? grocery store cashier 30.) Last Person You Texted: if we’re counting discord @bloodofthepen, otherwise probably my mom. if we’re not counting discord but are counting messenger then my coworker/manager 31.) Last Person You Watched: watching jacksepticeye play observation atm 32.) Last Food You Ate: pirate’s booty 32.) Last Movie You Watched: uhhhhhhhhhhhh i dunno. just marathoned what we do in the shadows, though (tv show, not movie) 34.) Last Song You listened to: On Your Way - the Album Leaf 35.) Last Thing You Bought: groceries 36.) Last Person You Hugged: coworker on his last day saturday FAVES: 37.) Food: chocolate croissant maybe? idk, i like a lot of foods. burrata maybe. 38.) Drinks: water (boring, whatever) 39.) Clothing: pj pants and hoodies 40.) Book: His Dark Materials 41.) Color: no fave, really, though I do tend to ask for green for my discord color 42.) Flower: no fave cause I know nothing about flowers. 43.) Music: the Decemberists are up there, as is Death Cab For Cutie and Darlingside 44.) Movie: too many faves. here’s the top ten in no order. 46.) Subjects: psych

IN THE PAST YEAR I… 47.) [ ] Kissed in the rain 48.) [ ] Celebrated Halloween. 49.) [ ] Had Your Heart Broken 50.) [ ] Went Over the Minutes on Your Cell Phone 51.) [x] Someone Questioned Your Sexual Orientation. (tbf it was one of these ask meme things, and it wasn’t questioned as much as asked) 52.) [ ] Used a Weapon 53.) [ ] Breathed fire 54.) [ ] Had an Abortion 55.) [x] Done something you’ve Regretted   56.) [x] Broke a Promise 57.) [x] Kept a Secret 58.) [x] Pretended To Be Happy 59.) [ ] Met Someone Who Changed Your Life 60.) [ ] Pretended To Be Sick 61.) [ ] Left The Country 62.) [ ] Tried something you normally wouldn’t like, and liked it. 63.) [x] Cried Over The Silliest Thing 64.) [ ] Ran a Mile 65.) [x] Went To the Beach 66.) [x] Stayed Single CURRENTLY: 67.) Eating: gonna have some more pirate’s booty when I’m done typing 68.) Drinking: water 69.) Getting Ready To: stay up too late watching or listening to videos or podcasts or maybe playing a game who knows 70.) Listening To: nothing right this second, but I was listening to part four of Film Reroll’s ET game earlier 71.) Plans For Tomorrow/Today: first day off in a week, gonna sleep a lot and maybe wash my hair 72.) Waiting For: sleep YOUR FUTURE: 73.) Want Kids: nah 74.) Want To Get Married: idk, maybe if i meet someone great 75.) Careers in minds: no clue, I’m somewhat bemused that I’m still alive WHICH IS BETTER ON A GIRL/GUY: (again blatant nb/gq/ag exclusion) ON A PERSON/PARTNER: 76.) Lips or Eyes: uhhhh depends. probably lips? 77.) Shorter or Taller: not much of a preference, but probably taller just cause i’m already quite short 78.) Romantic or Spontaneous: (I’m really not a person to ask these questions, I have so little opinion on this sort of thing) probably spontaneous? I’m super adhd and also super depressed, and novelty is good for me. 79.) Nice Stomach or Nice Arms: (another question I have no strong opinions on-- and am not a huge fan of tbh) lately I’ve been a sucker for ladies with nice arms 80.) Sensitive or Loud: knowing when to be one or the other 81.) Hook-up Or Relationship: fwb/casual relationship 82.) Troublemaker or Hesitant: neither? confident but not a dick for the sake of making trouble. self-aware. HAVE YOU EVER: 83.) Lost Glasses/Contacts: don’t wear glasses but i’ve lost sunglasses before 84.) Ran Away From Home: no 85.) Held A Weapon, For Self Defense: nope 86.) Killed Somebody: who would admit to this? 87.) Broken Someone’s Heart: maybe. i’ve definitely turned people down before, and based on their reactions maybe. 88.) Been Arrested: no DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 90.) Yourself: I mean, I exist. I’m relatively confident about some things, and quite pessimistic and self-defeating about others 91.) Miracles: meh. not really. 92.) Love at First Sight: nah. interest for sure, and chemistry, but not full-on love 93.) Heaven: nope 94.) Santa Claus: nah (also: atheist jew, so not really my bag to begin with) 95.) Easter Bunny: nope (see above) 96.) Magic: hm, not per se, but there are so-called witches out there that I think can definitely affect their own lives and therefor the lives of others with the actions they take in the name of magic (so more of a “be the change you wish to see in the world” sort of thing than a love potion or lucky charm sort of thing. i guess i believe in the power of magic to individuals rather that magic on it’s own) ANSWER TRUTHFULLY: 97.) Is There One Person You Wanna Be With, Right Now: ehhhh not really 98.) Are You Seriously Happy With Where You Are, In Life: no, but there’s not anywhere else I can see myself either 99.) Are You Happy With The Person You’re With: no one? yeah, pretty okay with it. not interested in looking for anything else, anyway. 100.) Post as 100 Truths and Tag five People: @iron-moon @bloodofthepen @artemis-crimson @hirvitank @artabria (no pressure, and if anyone else wants to do it go for it)

[greeneyedgirl357]

100 Truths

Once again I have been tagged by my pal @basementmermaid so here goes nothing:

1. Real name: Robyn

2. Nicknames: I have a lot lol my mom calls me Robsy or Robsykins, and she used to call me Squirt and Robynski. Squirt is my favorite tbh.

3. Zodiac sign: Scorpio

4. Male or Female: female

5. Nursery: if you mean my room it was lit I had a mobile with dinosaurs on it but I did also go to nursery school and that was lit too we had snax

6. Primary: yeah! I dug it all right.

7. Secondary: would have been cool if I'd had more friends but it was otherwise pretty okay.

8. Hair color: brown

9. Long or short: mid-length?

10. Loud or quiet: quiet

11. Sweatpants or jeans: jeans

12. Phone or camera: camera

13. Health freak: not as much as I'd like to be haha

14. Drink or smoke: I don't smoke but I'm a sucker for wine coolers and a self-proclaimed beer snob.

15. Do you have a crush on someone: nope.

16. Political affiliation: registered unaffiliated. I try to be open-minded, whatever that means.

17. Piercings: two holes in my ears

18. Tattoos: none yet

Have you ever been in:

19. Airplane: I have actually

20. Car accident: thankfully no

21. Fist fight: no hehe

Firsts:

22. First piercing: my first ear piercing; I want to say I was about 9 or 10.

23. First best friend: my pal Mackenzie from pre-school. She used to get me in trouble all the time but eh we had a lot of fun together. We kind of lost touch after kindergarten and I don't really know her super well anymore.

24. First instrument played: piano I think

25. First award: A Honor Roll in the first grade probably.

26. First crush: I want to say pre-k? I was friends with two boys I really liked a lot but I wasn't really very forward and I kind of only saw them as friends.

27. First language: English

28. First big vacation: I flew to Arizona for a family wedding when I was a wee one, perhaps six months old?

Lasts:

29. Last person you talked to: my mom

30. Last person you texted: my mom and my sister (I was talking with both simultaneously)

31. Last person you watched: I watched some dude in a gas station parking lot go inside the store, get a Pepsi, and then leave

32. Last movie you watched: it was either Glory or National Treasure unless you count the video recording of a church musical I was in

33. Last song you listened to: "You Never Give Me Your Money" by The Beatles

34. Last thing you bought: glittery cat stickers

35. Last person you hugged: I think it was my sister

Favorites:

36. Drinks: Chick-fil-a lemonade, sweet tea, gas station slushies, root beer, and strawberry soda

37. Clothing: skinny jeans, my black converses or vans, or a button-down and my sperrys.

40. Book: oof that's hard to say but one big one is probably The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. It's one of the most formative for me anyway.

41. Color: all sorts of blues, peach, purple, certain greens

42. Flower: peonies, hydrangeas, roses, carnations, gladiolas, daisies

43. Music: certain classic rock, 80s new wave, 60s jams, current alternative/indie, classical, lo-fi beats to study to, vaporwave

44. Movie: A Hard Day's Night, That Thing You Do!, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Back To The Future...lots of 80s movies and some way back classics too

45. Subjects: history, English, science

In the last year:

46. Kissed in the rain: nope

47. Celebrated Halloween: yep! Pulled a last minute costume out of my ass and went to a bonfire.

48. Had your heart broken: nope

49. Went over the minutes on your cell phone: nope and I have unlimited data too

50. Someone questioned your sexual orientation: not that I know of

52. Used a weapon: I used a knife on a roast last weekend does that count?

53. Breathed fire: no

54. Had an abortion: nope

55. Done something you've regretted: yep

56. Broke a promise: I don't think so, I don't make a lot of promises.

57. Kept a secret: yes

58. Pretended to be happy: yes

59. Met someone who changed your life: no

60. Pretended to be sick: no

61. Left the country: no

62. Tried something you normally wouldn't like and liked it: no

63. Cried over the silliest thing: yes

64. Ran a mile: I jogged a mile on a treadmill

65. Went to the beach: yes

66. Stayed single: yes

Currently:

67. Eating: nothing

68. Drinking: strawberry Berlinerweisse (told you I'm a beer snob) mixed with strawberry lemonade

69. Getting ready to: either play the Sims or watch Gilmore Girls

70. Listening to: the album Talking Is Hard by Walk The Moon

71. Plans for today/tomorrow: game a bit, make dinner for my mom.

72. Waiting for: someone to express interest/attraction in me lol

Your future

73. Want kids: absolutely, at least 2-3.

74. Want to get married: yes

75. Careers in mind: librarian/writer/comedian

What's better on a guy or girl

76. Eyes or lips: eyes. I'm a sucker for nice eyes, and they're always the first thing I notice.

77. Shorter or taller: taller is nice but shorter is okay too.

77. Romantic or spontaneous: romantic

78. Nice stomach or nice arms: both

79. Sensitive or loud: sensitive

80. Hookup or relationship: relationship

81. Troublemaker or hesitant: neither

Have you ever

82. Lost glasses/contacts: not as of yet but I'm getting my eyes checked next week so that could change

83. Ran away from home: yes, twice that I can remember. I was probably 7 or 8? I got to the end of my street and then turned around. It was probably because I only packed pants in my bag. I remember only packing pants for some reason.

84. Held a weapon, for self-defense: not for self-defense but I threw a small boulder at my sister once.

85. Killed somebody: only in The Sims

86. Broken somebody's heart: not that I know of

87. Been arrested: no. I did get pulled over once though.

Do you believe in

88. Yourself: sometimes

89. Miracles: no not really. I'm a bit of a skeptic and I have to see physical proof of something to believe it.

90. Love at first sight: yes and no. The hopeless romantic in me really wants to say yes but I don't think you can really know if you love someone without having spent a lot of time getting to know them. I believe you can be attracted to someone at first sight but whether it's love really just depends. Who knows if that's true for everyone but that's my opinion.

91. Heaven: yes

92. Santa Claus: no but I like the idea of him and I'll still leave out cookies even though I know it's just my grandpa eating them

93. Easter Bunny: no but I like the idea of him too

94. Magic: yes

95. Is there one person you want to be with right now: yeah

96. Are you seriously happy with where you are, in life: yes, for the most part. It fluctuates, and to be honest I thought I'd be a little further along in life than I am right now, but I'm perfectly content to be where I am at the present.

97. Are you happy with the person you're with: I am single but my cats are pretty cool and I'm happy hanging with them.

100. Post as 100 truths and tag 5 people: I nominate @foryoublue46 @alloftimeandspace10 @thesearentthedroids94 @opidiod and whoever else wants to go for it hehehe

[thirstinmore-blog]

Best Albums of 2018

BEST ALBUMS 2018

20. Noname: Room 25

19. Jeremih & Ty Dolla $ign: Mih-Ty

18. Tierra Whack: Whack World

17. Parks Burton: Pare

16. Oneohtrix Point Never: Age Of

15. Angelique Kidjo: Remain in Light

14. Shannon Shaw: Shannon in Nashville

13. Curren$y & Freddie Gibbs: Fetti

12. Ariana Grande: Sweetener

11. Vince Staples: FM!

10. DJ Koze: Knock Knock

9. Mariah Carey: Caution

8. Courtney Barnett: Tell Me How You Really Feel

7. The Carters: Everything is Love

6. Snail Mail: Lush

5. Shannon & the Clams: Onion

4. Teyana Taylor: K.T.S.E.

3. Kacey Musgraves: Golden Hour

2. Blood Orange: Negro Swan

1. Dirty Projectors: Lamp Lit Prose

(Spotify playlist)

(Capsule reviews of Top 10 below) 

10. DJ Koze: Knock Knock.  The music writing trope of “a sounds like b + c” is as lazy as it is played, but sometimes you hear a record and those type of comparisons spring to mind, like when I first heard Saint Pepsi’s Hit Vibes and instantly thought of J Dilla making a disco record.  That was also my response to Knock Knock, which sounds like the Avalanches making a more patient update of Since I Left You for 2018 ears.  The record is long and lush, and draws from roughly nine billion different aesthetics, but its particular mélange still manages to sound fresh.  As with SILY, the album is best experienced as a complete piece of music (though several tracks, such as “Lord Knows” and “Scratch That” would sound great in a mix or DJ set).  Knock Knock takes the listener through ambling pathways that wrap around and revisit each other, like an evening stroll through the spacious Joshua Tree National Park depicted on its cover.  It’s nearly a two-hour journey, but it’s well worth the price of admission.

9. Mariah Carey: Caution.  Mariah got a dirty mouth and I’m here for it.  As mother, a twice-divorcée, a woman nearing 50, her work and her image are all her own; if she wants to include the word “fuck” in a bunch of songs on her new album (“GTFO,” “With You,” “The Distance”), then who the fuck are we to tell her no?   It’s a refreshing twist from someone whose public persona is often so curated, but I’m burying the lede.  The real story here is that Caution is a batch of excellent R&B songs from one of the genre’s all-time greats.  It’s not overwrought – by contrast, the album’s sultry blue cover art is indicative of the moods within.  The Ty Dolla $ign-featuring “The Distance” is laid extremely deep in the cut, assisted by some subtle production from Poo Bear, Lido and—holy shit, Skrillex?  Yup, and like Mariah herself, everyone involved uses an even hand and measured patience to let each song breathe.  

A personal highlight for me is “A No No,” which flips the Lil Kim/Lil Cease classic “Crush On You” on its head.  Here, where Biggie intones “he’s a slut, he’s a hoe, he’s a freak/got a different girl every day of the week,” there is no irony intended.  She gauges her suitors’ intent and responds simply: “that’s a no-no.”  In fact, the word “no” accounts for easily half the song’s lyrics, but it’s still a blast on subsequent listens.  But don’t get it twisted – highlights abound herein, from aforementioned singles “GTFO” and “The Distance” to the thoughtful, expansive, Dev Hynes-helmed “Giving Me Life,” which begins as a downtempo club hit and morphs into a surrealist dream.  Mariah Carey is one of the artists who’s been in my life the longest – I’m so happy she’s still killing it.

8. Courtney Barnett: Tell Me How You Really Feel.  Courtney Barnett is what I was raised to believe an indie rock star should be: an unassuming, smart slacker with regular clothes and the ability to unleash earthbound poetry and atmosphere-puncturing solos with equal aplomb.  That effortless cool permeates every facet of her work, from her casual half-singing style to her loose but proficient playing, a mighty guitar god in the body of a humble 31-year-old.  (That she recorded a collaborative record with renowned cool guy Kurt Vile should surprise no-one.)  But what’s really striking about Barnett’s work is her wryly observant lyrics; whether she’s describing the banalities of urban life (“City Looks Pretty”) or eviscerating toxic masculinity (“Nameless, Faceless”), her keen eye and incisive wit pervade every line.  Tell Me is the sound of a strong artist getting stronger.

7. The Carters: Everything is Love.  I often say that as I get older, my favorite elements of songwriting are editing and restraint.  That’s why I tend to hate double albums and love EPs.  I just believe that most double albums would be better if distilled down to one really strong record.  EPs, on the other hand, leave the listener wanting more.  Such is the case with Everything is Love, which reads like a Beyonce trap record with a number of guest verses from Jay. Regardless of speculation on who did the lion’s share of the writing on the record, both are in top form.  Bey’s signature vocal virtuosity is on display as ever, but the real delight is in her capable delivery as a rapper.  She glides effortlessly through triplets like “Poppin, I’m poppin, my bitches are poppin, we go to the dealer and cop it all.”  Big Sean could never.  Meanwhile, Jay turns in a few of my favorite bars of the year (and also a very slick Drake diss) on “Boss:”

“You not a boss, you got a boss. N*ggas gettin’ jerked, that shit hurts, I take it personaly.  N*ggas’d rather work for the man than to work for me.  Just so they can pretend they on my level, that shit is irkin’ to me.  Pride always goeth before the fall, almost certainly.  It’s disturbing what I gross.  Survey says: you not even close.  Everybody’s bosses till the time to pay for the office, till them invoices separate the men from the boys. Over here we measure success by how many people successful next to you.  Here, we say you broke if everybody is broke except for you. BAWSE.”

I don’t know if they intend to release more records as The Carters, but Everything is Love is a fun, successful experiment.

6. Snail Mail: Lush.  There’s no reason for a debut LP to be this good.  The record, from solo project-turnt-band of 19-year-old Lindsay Jordan is focused, clever, and sophisticated.  Every component of these songs appears exactly as it should.  Jordan’s songwriting is clean and incisive (“I hope whoever it is holds their breath around you/’cause I know I did,” she sings on album standout “Heat Wave”).  The arrangements are smartly simple; seldom do they deviate from the four-person rock lineup, so the embellishments that are included (the French horn on “Deep Sea,” the layered keys on “Speaking Terms”) really leap out.  The playing throughout is lovely, with Jordan’s beautiful guitar technique front and center (the finger-picking on “Let’s Find an Out” is a particular delight). Everything in its right place – only where Radiohead’s inward gaze can be mopey and self-indulgent, the core strength of Lush is its efficiency.  There’s no filler here – just the exact amount of support that each piece requires.  The drumming feels especially strong in this regard – there’s an economic directness in Ray Brown’s playing that prioritizes the backbeat over everything, including his ego. The fills that he does include are modest and workmanlike.

It’s right that the record would be released by Matador, because these songs are drenched in the influences of the 90s slacker rock of Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, Sleater-Kinney and Sebadoh.  And as with each of those bands, Snail Mail’s songs are buoyed by excellent lyrics.  Jordan doesn’t just sound wise beyond her years, she actually seems to have lived more in her 19 years than many folks twice her age.  There’s a subtext of sobriety in some of the songs (“It just feels like the same party every weekend, doesn’t it?” on “Pristine,” or “I’m so tired of moving on/spending every weekend so far gone” on “Heat Wave”).  Perhaps the self-reflection that’s required in recovery has helped to distill her worldview.  

And look, I don’t mean to be patronizing here – this album would be a major achievement from any person of any age.  But to hear an artistic vision this crystal clear and laser-focused from a 19-year-old is something truly special.  I can’t wait to hear what she does next.

5. Shannon & the Clams: Onion.  Upon first listen, Onion struck me as the best record the Clams have released to date.  Now, admittedly, I’m a sucker for keyboards, and the inclusion of organist Will Sprott is pure Patrick-bait.  But beyond my own tastes, the organ both fills out and anchors the Clams’ garage doo-wop sound.  There’s a welcome succinctness to Onion: the songwriting is tight, the guitar playing is melodic and utilitarian, and the vocal performances from both Cody and Shannon are more technically refined than in any of their previous outings.  One wonders if Shannon’s work on her own solo album (the very good, Dan Auerbach-produced Shannon in Nashville, which also came out this year) pushed her to improve her technique.  And don’t get it fucked up – this is still a Clams record.  It’s still shaggy and loud and rambunctious – but they’ve worked hard to reign in their wildest tendencies.  Some might say that it’s layered, just like-- *an oversized cane hooks around my throat and drags me offstage* ….Well…..let’s just say it’s good.

4. Teyana Taylor: KTSE.  Of all the seven-song mini-albums Kanye produced in Wyoming this year, KTSE is both the best and the least talked-about.  She arrives seemingly out of the blue, a fully-formed artist who knows her strengths exactly.  She has bars when she feels like spitting them, a beautiful husky alto when she feels like crooning, and a profound connection to multiple styles of club music that’s borne of her history as a dancer.  It’s become a bit trendy to nod to vogue & ballroom culture in the last few years, but while Drake’s Big Freedia feature on “Nice for What” feels a little forced, Taylor can walk it like she talks it.  A dancer by trade, her comfort in the ballroom is palpable. 

Ye keeps it simple, remaining comfortably in his wheelhouse and flipping excellent soul samples such as Billy Stewart’s “I Do Love You” (which he repurposes into a nostalgic 4/4 slapper on “Hold On”) and The Stylistics’ “Because I Love You, Girl” (which he expands into a melancholy mediation on the horn section of the original).  It’s a welcome return to form.

3. Kacey Musgraves: Golden Hour.  In her SNL performance earlier this year, Kacey Musgraves appeared as a flat-ironed, longhair disco queen.  As she slayed Golden Hour’s catchy lead single “High Horse,” I was reminded of Dolly Parton.  I’ve been spending a lot of time with Dolly’s mid-70s and early-80s catalogue this past year, having purchased vinyl copies of All I Can Do, New Harvest…First Gathering, and Dolly, Dolly, Dolly.  Parton is one of those artists whose discographies are so gigantic as to seem practically impenetrable, so I’ve been trying to hear as much as I can.  Dolly, Dolly, Dolly is an especially interesting entry: released in 1980, it was her 23rd album, and it represents a pretty clear swing for crossover success.  A handful of the tracks are straight-up disco, and these are what Musgraves called to mind.  I was thrilled – Dolly’s disco experiments were widely panned, but I think there’s a lot of good there, maybe Golden Hour would be an attempt to vindicate Parton’s vision?

Unfortunately or not, I was incorrect.  In total, Golden Hour bears more resemblance to Dolly’s friend & frequent collaborator Emmylou Harris (Kacey’s hair should’ve tipped me off, SMH).  It’s a beautiful, understated, and thoughtful set of songs that could fit as well on a folk radio station as a country one.  Like Harris, Musgraves has an innate sense of how to let a great song be great, hanging back in both arrangement and vocal performance.  She’s emotive when she needs to be (“Rainbow”), and contemplative as needed (“Golden Hour”), always letting her writing breathe.  Also, she has the confidence to bury the lead single so deep on Side B that you almost forget it’s there (and are thrilled when it is).  As a person who prefers the full album experience to that of a shuffled playlist, this is one of my very favorite tricks.

Quite simply: great songs + great arrangements = a surprising list-topper for me.

2. Blood Orange: Negro Swan.  For years, the roles of sexuality and gender in black identity have been foci of Dev Hynes’ work as Blood Orange.  He spent time with drag queens and sex workers while writing his debut album Coastal Grooves, and has often cited transgender icon Octavia St. Laurent as one of his primary influences.  But while these interests have colored his previous albums, on Negro Swan they’re the bedrock.  In a press release preceding the album, Hynes described the album as “an exploration into my own and many types of black depression, an honest look at the corners of black existence, and the ongoing anxieties of queer/people of color.  A reach back into childhood and modern traumas, and the things we do to get through it all.  The underlying thread through each piece on the album is the idea of hope, and the lights we can try to turn on within ourselves with a hopefully positive outcome of helping others out of their darkness.”

These ideas are fundamental to the songwriting, and they’re reinforced by snippets of conversations with Janet Mock and Kai the Black Angel (who adorns the cover in a durag and angel wings) peppered throughout the album’s 49 minutes.  On “Family,” Mock defines community as “the spaces where you don’t have to shrink yourself, where you don’t have to pretend or to perform, you can fully show up and be vulnerable in silence, completely empty, and that’s completely enough.”  That search for community, the desire to be seen and loved and supported as your whole self informs each of these beautiful songs.  Already a competent producer, Hynes continues to grow, selecting beautiful flourishes like the jangly, perfectly out-of-tune guitar on “Charcoal Baby” or the soft, echoing snare drum on “Dagenham Dream” to characterize the thematic content of each piece.  Negro Swan is a powerful and complete work of art.  It sounds like he’s finally found some answers to the questions he’s been asking. 

1. Dirty Projectors: Lamp Lit Prose.  On Lamp Lit Prose, David Longstreth appears to be having more fun making music than he has in years, probably because almost 100% of his band has turned over (kudos to longtime bassist Nat Baldwin, whose playing tethers him to his own beginnings).  Beyond the new Projectors themselves, Longstreth spent the months during the writing of the album making new friends in the LA music scene, and bringing them around the studio to record various parts.  Members of Haim contribute to album standout “That’s a Lifestyle,” Syd (of The Internet) anchors the refrain in “Right Now,” and Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold and Vampire Weekend alumnus Rostam Batmanglij stack harmonies onto the swirling ballad “You’re The One.”

I see LLP as the second half of a diptych begun by the self-titled Dirty Projectors, released last year.  While that record wallowed in the pain of a broken relationship with former Projector Amber Coffman, LLP reveals a healed and newly in love protagonist.  Both records feature David Longstreth at his most vocally competent: he’s now able to truly execute the melismatic R&B runs he lovingly wrote and charmingly attempted in his earliest work, his diaphragm now supports his every leap and bound, and his croon is sweeter than ever before.  But furthermore, both albums expand on ideas that have popped up throughout his illustrious and impressive body of work.  Whether he’s reviving the Rise Above era blasts of noisy guitars on “Zombie Conqueror” or revisiting the orchestral ambitions of The Getty Address on the stunningly soulful “I Wanna Feel It All,” Longstreth sounds like a worker with a complete toolbox and a detailed blueprint.  He’s been working at honing his craft for years.

I saw the Projectors in June, at a time when only “Break-Thru” and “That’s a Lifestyle” had leaked.  I didn’t know what to expect, being among the seemingly small minority of fans who liked their previous record.  But their set was staggering.  Flanked by his group of mostly-new faces, Longstreth was bouncing all over the place, proudly showcasing each instrumentalist & vocalist (seemingly everyone had at least one moment in the spotlight), visibly excited about playing with this group of people.  And that makes sense: LLP is Longstreth relishing the fundamental glee of musical collaboration.  The joy is positively bubbling over in tracks like “Right Now,” “I Feel Energy,” and “I Found it in You.”  To see him play these songs live is to wonder if he’s talking about the act of musicmaking itself when he sings: “Ask now, I’m in love for the first time ever.”

[astralgloss]

im a curious meanie so 1-134 muhahaha you get to relive the hell i just went through

etab i haTE U

1: Name

my name is marit lol but please just keep it mar

2: Age

i am 17 but i’ll b 18 in 2 months!!!!

3: 3 Fears

the dark, complete and utter loneliness, and clowns

4: 3 things I love

books, forest fruit tea, the sound of rain

5: 4 turns on

a nice smile that reaches the eyes, a nice smell, having a dog ngl, a soft touch

6: 4 turns off

extreme arrogance, insisting to pay for my meal if i want to pay bc its “what a man should do”, forcing lifestyles on me, not caring about my interests

7: My best friend

she does have tumblr but idk it but hey demi if u ever see this ur the bomb.com

8: Sexual orientation

im bi fam

9: My best first date

my bf and i went to amsterdam to go shopping and he followed me everywhere (even the bookshop even though he hates books) and idk i just love him it was a nice day

10: How tall am I

im 1,65m or 5′4″ but i can and will kick ur ass

11: What do I miss

nothing really??

12: What time was I born

ok so i asked my mom and she said i was born on a tuesday at exactly 12pm but i bet she’s lying

13: Favorite color

yellow!! im basic!!

14: Do I have a crush

well i sure hope so @ boyfriend

15: Favorite quote

to the stars who listen, and the dreams that are answered

16: Favorite place

my bf’s house tbh, specifically his bed

17: Favorite food

pizza, specifically the hot chicken one from ny pizza

18: Do I use sarcasm

nah fam (ofc i do im a little shit)

19: What am I listening to right now

god is a woman by ariana grande

20: First thing I notice in new person

how they look at other people when those people don’t notice it

21: Shoe size

38/39 idk the other size lol sorry 

22: Eye color

its blue but it changes with my mood (oh my god im so sorry im kidding please don’t hate me)

23: Hair color

im a blondie

24: Favorite style of clothing

sth casual but also a bit towards the punkish style, but i also rlly love looking tiny and soft and cute lol

25: Ever done a prank call?

ok so there’s this hotline for kids who have troubles with their parents and families but it was a shit hotline tbh so once i called it up with my friends pretending i was crying and the man on the phone asked me what was wrong so i told him that all my friends had fire type pokemon and i only had grass type pokemon and they kept beating me and i didnt know what to do and then man was so confused it was funny af

27: Meaning behind my URL

idk man i wanted a name that could b easy to remember and i was inspired by ridgeport tbh

28: Favorite movie

the perks of being a wallflower

29: Favorite song

Fav song atm is anything from p!atd's newest album and my fav song of all time is probably train of consequences by megadeth

30: Favorite band

megadeth lol

31: How I feel right now

pretty good but also annoyed bc i have to go to work in half an hour :(

32: Someone I love

my bf

33: My current relationship status

if u guys havent noticed by now im taken

34: My relationship with my parents

p ok

35: Favorite holiday

halloween/christmas

36: Tattoos and piercing i have

I have my ears pierced and thats it lol

37: Tattoos and piercing i want

i rlly want a few bookish related tattoos, like a tiny raven, a little lightning bolt, and the city of velaris and then i also rlly want a sleeve tbh but imma be a teacher and idk if i can :/ about piercings: i rlly want a helix or tragus and maybe get second holes in my hearlobes

38: The reason I joined Tumblr

ok so ive been on tumblr for about 5 years and initially it was bc i was Depressed™ and then about a year ago i found out about simblr and i was hooked

39: Do I and my last ex hate each other?

tbh i dont even talk to him anymore i dont rlly care about him in any way

40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts?

yes bih

41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted?

hes my bf so yea lol

42: When did I last hold hands?

wednesday

43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?

about 45 minutes bc im lazy and i keep getting distracted

44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days?

nope

45: Where am I right now?

in bed lol

46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me?

either my bf or my best friend

47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level?

depends on where i am

48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad?

mom

49: Am I excited for anything?

tbh moving out but thats gonna take a few more years

50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to?

*insert bf here*

51: How often do I wear a fake smile?

every time im at work lol

52: When was the last time I hugged someone?

wednesday

53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me?

lol bye

54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?

nope

55: What is something I disliked about today?

the fact that i have to work a day shift instead of an evening shift

56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

my internet friends tbh it’d be cool to meet all the people from my bookish discord or from @booptherat​‘s discord

57: What do I think about most?

what book i should read next

58: What’s my strangest talent?

i can finish a book in about 4 hours

59: Do I have any strange phobias?

not rlly? i hate the whole asmr thing tho ew

60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

behind lol

61: What was the last lie I told?

i dont remember tbh

62: Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

neither lol

63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

look im not saying that believing that we’re the only living species in the entire universe is narcissistic, but it is. also dont fuck with ghosts

64: Do I believe in magic?

hell yes

65: Do I believe in luck?

hell yes

66: What’s the weather like right now?

idk probably cloudy and windy

67: What was the last book I’ve read?

fahrenheit 451 by ray bradbury 

68: Do I like the smell of gasoline?

nah not rlly

69: Do I have any nicknames?

i guess mar?

70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had?

when i was 2 i fell from sth and slammed the corner of my eye onto the corner of a table and i couldve been blind but thank god im not

71: Do I spend money or save it?

both 

72: Can I touch my nose with a tongue?

yup

73: Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me?

post it notes

74: Favorite animal?

doggg

75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM?

reading lol

76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is?

idk man

77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it?

i gotta feeling by the black eyed peas lol

78: How can you win my heart?

give me a samoyed and a 1000 books

79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone?

“a boss ass bitch”

80: What is my favorite word?

fuck?

81: My top 5 blogs on tumblr

@cubersims​ @imvikai​ @ridgeport​ @cowplant-pizza​ @bloomlet​ @tiptoptab​

82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?

spend fiddies, pet kitties, hold tiddies

83: Do I have any relatives in jail?

not that i know of lol

84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power?

the power to choose whatever power i want at any moment

85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

“do you like working here?”

86: What is my current desktop picture?

its an august background from @emmastudies​

87: Had sex?

yes

88: Bought condoms?

no

89: Gotten pregnant?

no

90: Failed a class?

yes

91: Kissed a boy?

yup, i’ve been kissing my bf for about 2,5 years now lol

92: Kissed a girl?

yup, i’m living the bisexual dream lol

93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain?

yes

94: Had job?

yes, im working at a movie theater right now!!

95: Left the house without my wallet?

tbh all the time now that i can pay with my phone

96: Bullied someone on the internet?

yea i used to but that was when i was 12 and i’d like to say that i’ve grown a lot in the past 5 years

97: Had sex in public?

nope

98: Played on a sports team?

yes

99: Smoked weed?

nope, even though i live like 20 minutes away from amsterdam lol

100: Did drugs?

nope

101: Smoked cigarettes?

nope

102: Drank alcohol?

yupppp, i love me some raspberry cider

103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan?

nope

104: Been overweight?

nope

105: Been underweight?

nope

106: Been to a wedding?

yup

107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight?

lol all the time tbh

108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight?

yup

109: Been outside my home country?

yup, however never outside of europe tho

110: Gotten my heart broken?

a few times

111: Been to a professional sports game?

yess, i saw the dutch female volleyball team once!

112: Broken a bone?

nope

113: Cut myself?

yes

114: Been to prom?

we dont do prom in the netherlands lol

115: Been in airplane?

yes

116: Fly by helicopter?

nope

117: What concerts have I been to?

k3 (only dutchies and belgians remember this), one direction, megadeth, and ed sheeran

118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex?

yupp

119: Learned another language?

i mean im from the netherlands and im fluent in english thanks to myself

120: Wore make up?

yuppp

121: Lost my virginity before I was 18?

yes

122: Had oral sex?

lol yes

123: Dyed my hair?

nope

124: Voted in a presidential election?

not old enough to vote :(

125: Rode in an ambulance?

nope

126: Had a surgery?

nope

127: Met someone famous?

nope

128: Stalked someone on a social network?

nope

129: Peed outside?

a few times lol

130: Been fishing?

nope

131: Helped with charity?

yep

132: Been rejected by a crush?

a few times

133: Broken a mirror?

lol yes

134: What do I want for birthday?

some books, money, cake, more books, makeup

[kidsviral-blog]

If The Cast Of “Friends” Were Black

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/if-the-cast-of-friends-were-black/

If The Cast Of “Friends” Were Black

“The one where the gang tries to revive Freaknik.”

View this image ›

David J Bertozzi & Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed

1. “The one where Ross refers to Rachel as ‘bae’ and the internet explodes with think pieces.”

2. “The one where Joey gets racially profiled.”

3. “The one where the neighborhood surrounding Central Perk becomes gentrified.”

4. “The one where Joey confronts someone about ‘reverse racism.'”

5. “The one where Rachel and Joey argue about Beck beating Beyoncé for Album of the Year.”

6. “The one where Monica and Rachel side-eye the person asking about White History Month.”

7. “The one where the gang tries to revive Freaknik.”

8. “The one where Phoebe reveals she doesn’t know how to play Spades.”

9. “The one where Monica slicks down her baby hairs.”

10. “The one where Chandler explains why red is a flavor of Kool-Aid.”

11. “The one where everyone is trying to figure out who made the potato salad.”

12. “The one where Rachel answers the door wearing a doobie wrap.”

13. “The one with that girl who told Phoebe, “She think she grown, huh?'”

14. “The one where Chandler and Ross make fun of Hotep Twitter.”

15. “The one with Jenifer Lewis as Monica’s mama.”

16. “The one where Rachel teaches the art of the side-eye.”

17. “The one with Ross’ mama and nem.”

18. “The one with that woman who tried to touch Rachel’s hair.”

19. “The one where Joey uses unconventional lubricants to hide his ashiness.”

20. “The one with the white man who gets indignant toward Joey about LBJ’s portrayal in Selma.”

21. “The one where the gang fights tooth and nail to keep ‘raise the roof’ a part of black vernacular.”

22. “The one where someone compliments Phoebe on her tan, failing to realize that’s her natural skin color.”

23. “The one where Chandler admits he can’t do the Electric Slide.”

24. “The one with the dude who made him and his mama some to-go plates at the cookout at Monica’s house.”

25. “The one where everyone watches half-horrified, half-amused when Kanye says, ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people.'”

26. “The one where the secret about why ‘black don’t crack’ is revealed.”

27. “The one where Monica signs up for a Black People Meet account.”

28. “The one where Phoebe can’t stop raving about D’Angelo’s new album, Black Messiah.“

29. “The one with the white man who misquotes MLK Jr. in an attempt to guilt Phoebe and Chandler for exercising their right to protest.”

30. “The one where Tyler Perry casts Joey as the lead in his latest film about a single mother, with Joey playing the single mother.”

31. “The one where Chandler decides it’s time to bring back the Jheri curl.”

32. “The one where the gang has to explain that ‘Black Lives Matter’ doesn’t mean other lives are less important.”

33. “The one where everybody caught the Holy Ghost in church except for Phoebe.”

34. “The one where the gang doesn’t have the heart to tell Ross that his new girlfriend needs to use seasoning on her food, preferably Lawry’s.”

35. “The one where Phoebe decides to make a remix to “Smelly Cat” featuring vocals from Lumidee.”

36. “The one where it takes forever for Thanksgiving dinner to be prepared.”

37. “The one where everyone debates what counts as ‘thick’ versus ‘fat.'”

38. “The one with the debate about whether light-skinned Aunt Viv was better than dark-skinned Aunt Viv.”

39. “The one with the uncle who always asks for five dollars.”

40. “The one where the gang sets out to find the origin of the phrase ‘playing the race card.'”

41. “The one where the gang learns the importance of the phrase ‘Everybody ain’t yo damn friend.'”

42. “The one with the guy who asks Ross, ‘Why don’t you people just get over slavery?'”

43. “The one where Maxine Shaw from Living Single is Chandler’s lawyer.”

44. “The one where Monica breathes a sigh of relief because there’s another black person at work to vibe with.”

45. “The one where Ross pretends he isn’t home because a guest showed up uninvited.”

46. “The one with the white guy using slang words that went out of style two decades ago in an effort to seem cool to Ross, Joey, and Chandler.”

47. “The one with the chill-as-hell kickback.”

48. “The one where everyone gets dressed to the nines for Howard University’s homecoming.”

49. “The one where the show’s theme song ‘I’ll Be There For You’ is changed to a cover version because Monica swears her little cousin can sing it way better than The Rembrandts.”

50. “The one where you knew Ross was lying because his story began with, ‘See, what had happened was…'”

51. “The one where Joey’s dad visits and plays old school hits while repeatedly saying, ‘Y’all don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that. What y’all know ‘bout that?'”

52. “The one where Chandler’s mama was like, ‘I brought you into this world and I can take you out.'”

53. “The one with all of the haters spreading hateration in the dancery.”

54. “The one where everyone was running on CP time.”

55. “The one where the gang delivers the bloop to end all bloops.”

vine.co

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/michaelblackmon/if-the-cast-of-friends-were-black

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 1997

Holy shit, almost none of this comes from the US year-end list. That feels weird. But yeah, a great year for the kind of music I like in almost every musical genre possible on radio.

Also, we’ve entered a series of years where it’s gonna get increasingly harder for me not to make top 20s.

Disclaimers:

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

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

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

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

A few honorable mentions really quickly.

Men in Black (Will Smith) - I liked this way more back in the day.

Mmmmbop (Hanson) - Back then, if you were a kid, you were almost contractually obligated to like this.

Vivo Per Lei (Andrea Bocelli & Hélène Ségara) - This is supposed to sound grand and epic but it kinda falls on the “silly” side of the spectrum.

Tubthumping (Chumbawamba) - Will make the next list. Spoiler, I know.

I Shot the Sheriff (Waren G) - But it didn’t shoot this top 10 list.

10 - L’Empire du Côté Obscur (IAM)

US: Not on the list / FR: #92

This is a French rap song which samples some bits of the French dub of Star Wars, and it’s sung by a guy pretending to be the evil Emperor, trying to convince you to join the dark side. And he has an audible lisp. And the music video is just as ridiculous as you’d expect.

If you don’t think that falls into the “so bad it’s good” category, there’s nothing more I can do.

9 - Barbie Girl (Aqua)

US: #94 / FR: #4

This is the only song from the US year-end list on my 1997 top 10 list. And I have nothing to say about it. It was a ton of fun at the time, it’s still a ton of fun now.

8 - Meet Her At The Love Parade (Da Hool)

US: Not on the list / FR: #36

This is an endurance test more than a song, per say. And yet, I put it on the second cd compilation I ever made in my life, and I’d gladly listen to it.

I told you my tastes made no sense, didn’t I.

7 - Around the World (Daft Punk)

US: Not on the list / FR: #44

The only reason this isn’t higher is because I find it too repetitive to be listened to on a loop, and yes, I’m aware of how ridiculous that sounds after putting Meet Her At The Love Parade on the same list.

6 - Mon Papa à Moi Est un Gangster (Stomy Bugsy)

US: Not on the list / FR: #15

They say music can have a really bad influence on kids. And yeah, if this list was made according to each song’s impact on my life, this one would be number one. The title means “My Daddy Is a Gangster” and as you can guess it’s about a kid who’s dad is a gangster and he’s explaining how it impacts him (he’s never sure his dad will be here to pick him up after school, adults keep asking him questions, he sees his dad’s face in the newspaper...).

But the dad himself sounds like he genuinely tries to be a good father, and that song taught me some life lessons which definitely prove hip-hop has a bad influence on kids. See for yourself.

Fils, tu sais, la vie c’est pas un film, ça dure pas une heure et d’mi deux heures et puis on rembobine (”Son, you know, life isn’t a movie, it doesn’t last 1 hour 30- 2 hours and then rewind”) // Les gangsters ne font pas d’vieux os, si “ouioui”, paf, derrière les barreaux (”Gangsters never die old, and if you hear a siren, boom, you end up behind bars”) // Choisis le droit chemin, c’est le seul par lequel on n’se fait jamais attraper, retiens bien (”So pick the right path, it’s the only one on which you’ll never get caught”) // Le savoir est une arme, maint’nant tu l’sais, le savoir est une arme bébé, ne l’oublie jamais (”Cause knowledge is a weapon, and now you know, knowledge is a weapon kid, never forget it”)

(...) Ne jamais respecter quelqu'un qui ne te respecte pas (”Never respect someone who never respects you”).

See? A bad influence, I told you. Terrible life lessons.

5 - La Neige au Sahara (Anggun)

US: Not on the list / FR: #50

In a more mediocre year, any song in this top five could top the list. I don’t have anything to say about this one, just please listen to it if you don’t know it yet. It sounds fantastic and Anggun is a great singer.

4 - Bitter Sweet Symphony (The Verve)

US: Not on the list (...yet...) / FR: #96

This barely makes the year-end list but it still counts, dammit, and the next list was so difficult to make I might as well put it here while I can.

If you ask me how the second half of the 90s sounded, it sounded like this song, and it had the strange privilege of being the first song I loved that my mother openly disapproved of. And I was nine. Being a kid and having your own tastes? What a horrible notion (she’s always been fond of forcing her musical tastes on me and only offering cds she liked and I didn’t, which is why the first cd I ever received as a birthday gift was Celine Dion, and it promptly joined her cd collection instead of mine - insert gif of Kuzco making gifts to himself here).

And I loved the music video. I wanted to grow up and look as cool as this jerkass walking in a straight line without a care in the world. My favorite part was when he walks over the car.

3 - Ameno (Era)

US: Not on the list / FR: #26

So. Uh. This is a nonsensical song in vaguely latin-sounding meaningless gibberish chanted by a pseudo-medieval choir over a dance beat.

This is going to be one of those songs, isn’t it.

Yes. And I loved it to bits. And I have the album. Fight me.

2 - Hasta Siempre (Nathalie Cardone)

US: Not on the list / FR: #8

This was a huge hit here and- hang on. This sounds like one of these goddamn Mylène Farmer songs that keep appearing on my lists, doesn’t it. Uhhhhh. Well. It’s because the same guy who usually works on her songs made the music for this song. Damn it

Anyway, using this kind of music to make a modern version of Hasta siempre, Comandante was a genius move, and, again, I strongly recommend you give it a try if you’ve never heard it before (tw: firearms but only used on bottles).

1 - Alane (Wes)

US: Not on the list / FR: #5

This was one of the biggest summer hits here at the time and oh my god does this sound fantastic. That guy’s voice. That guy’s voice. That song always throws me back to when I was a kid and how great summer vacations at home could be, and. Ugh. I know I sound like a broken record but. Please just listen to it for yourself if you don’t know it yet. Quite possibly the ultimate summer song for me. Nearly untouchable.

Also yes, it was on the first list of my favorite songs I ever made.

Next up: this next #1 will sound absolutely insane to you if you’ve never heard it before but I swear it was a massive hit here