#album retrospectives

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Grishaverse text posts I made based on things my friends and I have actually said. In real life.

(Part 29, I’m pretty sure, but honestly I lost track)

Jesper: There is nothing funnier than falling down the stairs

Wylan: *unconvinced*

Jesper: It’s so funny! Have you never experienced falling down the stairs?

Wylan: Yeah, remember I broke my foot falling down the stairs!

Jesper, laughing: Well maybe that’s why you have a negative experience of it

Wylan: Yeah, MAYBE!

Jesper: Mm. Well just know that even if you’re deathly injured I’ll laugh if you fall down the stairs

Nina: I’ve decided I’m ignoring the weather and committing to my outfit choices based on what I want the weather to be. The gladiator sandals are coming out!!

Nina, later that same day: I have lost blood circulation to my toes

Nina, later that day when it’s sunny again and she’s discovered her feet are covered in blisters: I can feel my feet again, but at what cost?

(This was me but I stand by my actions bc those sandals are cute as heck)

Jesper: Maybe I could write my thesis on evidence that the Scythians were the original horse girls

Jesper: Time to listen to Take That’s Greatest Hits and hide under a table until my problems go away, I fear

[todays-just-a-daydream]

collecting signs of an oasis reunion from noel’s side and high up there is noel adding stand by me to his set in march 2024 while liam is touring with john squire. it was the first time he had sung it since the oasis split. in the entire touring history of nghfb all the oasis songs he played that was one he never touched. and then he kept playing it through the summer til the last show.

for receipts, here’s the stand by me entry on nghfb setlist.fm:

[schismusic]

Noctourniquet for Noctourniquet

A while back I reached out to Tumblr user @yourlocalsanitizedoctoling to thank her for her kind words regarding my piece about NIN's The Fragile. In her bio I read that she refers to herself as Noctourniquet, which was actually a bit of a conversation starter for us. Noctourniquet might be my favourite Mars Volta release; not the best – that would be Frances the Mute, of course – but the one that most resonates with my personal sensitivity. So that specific name took me all the way back to when I first listened to the record, sometime around December 2013. I don't exactly ever remember this time of year feeling especially magical or unique to me (and, for what it's worth, I suspect that my sister only really likes Christmas music more so than she does just about everything else about it), but I do remember how relevant this exact climate and weather were for my enjoyment of this record that I'd bought on a whim, as a massive fan of the first three Volta records, almost as if to prove all those professional reviewers wrong. I still maintain that they are wrong, and I still cherish the record to this day – way more so than their most recent outings, anyway, but also way more so than The Bedlam in Goliath, which is a story for another time. So I guess this was a sign to finally say my piece and own it, for real. Dear Tumblr user Noctorniquet, this one goes out for us, specifically.

So if you're familiar with the average Mars Volta record (if you're not, here's a little something) you might be feeling a bit confused right now. As usual, I'm not an inside guy, I bring nothing to the table – no scoop or profound insight or private information concerning the making of this album – but I have been listening to this record for more than ten years at this point and I feel quite strongly about it. For starters: TMV fans almost always make a point of underlining just how groundbreaking, daring, eclectic, et cetera et cetera et cetera the band was/is. And I mean, sure, I would be hardpressed not to agree with that, but part of the reason why I'm inclined to give them credit for this is the existence of Octahedron and, yes, Noctourniquet. The other part is the existence of De-Loused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute, more or less specifically: Amputechture is good and it tries a number of cool bits here and there but it's, you know, a very codified Mars Volta album for the time it came out at, and The Bedlam in Goliath is -- God, okay, let's take a deep breath and get this out of the way.

See, ideally this'd be a whole different post unto itself, a post that has more to do with the nature of music criticism and music fans than it does with Noctourniquet as an album. Look, it's simple: The Bedlam in Goliath is nowhere near as good as Noctourniquet or, fuck it!, even Octahedron, because it is not a good album by just about any metric. The long and short of it is: you know that meme that's like, this is what [insert band here] sounds like to people who hate them? Yeah, that's the entirety of The Bedlam in Goliath to me. It's overlong, overplayed, overcomplicated, its only direction is off the nearest fucking cliff, and I don't give a shit about any stories about ghosts and wiped hard drives and everything: how this is rated higher than Amputechture (or any of the releases after it) simply escapes me. I will say I'm sorry for the personal injuries sustained by the band, because I am a functioning fucking human being, but I'm sorry y'all: this is a bad album that displays no class at all. Except Ilyena, which is an honest-to-God good song, despite Thomas Pridgen's best attempts to deface it with sulphuric acid at every chance he gets to cram a fucking drum fill in.

Man, that's a load off my chest. DMs are open to death threats, by the way. Now back to an actual interesting record.

So the consensus about Noctourniquet seems to be that it's a record that displays the signs of a lack of internal cohesion, different visions for the project colliding and not merging properly, underbaked songs with uneven structures and glaringly lacking songwriting that manages to feel somewhat placeholder. I will go out on a limb and say this: all of this is true, actually, but this is specifically why the record should be cherished. Like, be fucking for real here: are we surprised that the band we all praise for their experimentation actually went out of their way to experiment with their sound? Worse than that: are we mad that they did, because this experimentation includes raising the synths' levels on the final mix? It's not like they completely abandoned guitars, or the occasional classic-Volta number, as per the song I just linked before this paragraph. There's just a whole bunch of stuff going on here (at least until track 8, but I'm getting ahead of myself). And the idea of future punk itself – it's not exactly new at all, one might argue that Noctourniquet is basically just synthpunk with extra steps, but aren't the extra steps kind of the point here? What truly makes Frances the Mute different from Brain Salad Surgery, Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Lateralus, Fear of a Blank Planet or even Script for a Jester's Tear, if not the extra steps?

One funny thing that I figured was worth including, since this entire post is basically turning into a journal entry. A friend of mine a while back posted an Instagram story with the song Nuclear Seasons. Wrong as I might be, I don't exactly expect The Mars Volta and Charli xcx to have much fanbase overlap, so in case you're not familiar it's one of the very earliest singles that Charli released as a signed artist (for obvious reasons, I'm not getting into the early mixtapes here, thank you for your cooperation). It's a whole bunch of Eighties clichés slapping you in the dick, ostensibly, but she does do one thing in the pre-chorus that just fucked me up hearing it for the first time. You'll hear it when you listen, I'm sure: there's at least two separate instances where Cedric Bixler-Zavala wrote vocal lines with that exact same sense of melody over Noctourniquet – the title track, for instance. This is to no one's detriment, but it does display very clearly just how zeitgeist-y the Mars Volta were being with this particular release. Some might potentially argue that it could be a net negative: after all, it's not like any of their other record felt particularly era-appropriate, if you ignore the smashing success of bands like Porcupine Tree, Muse and …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead at the exact same time in the exact same circles, which – after typing it and re-reading it black-on-white – sure sounds like a really hard thing to ignore, now doesn't it? I'd still argue TMV is the superior band (Source Tags and Codes notwithstanding, maybe), if only by virtue of them releasing a record like Noctourniquet at what one could argue was their most broken. Not even a year after this dropped, Bosnian Rainbows looked like they were the next thing, then Antemasque for like thirty seconds flat – before everyone realized that one song sorta sucked – and then relative radio silence for a while. We were, essentially, left wondering. At the Drive-In reunited and made a couple more records, then disbanded again, then The Mars Volta reunited, released the same exact record twice and I didn't like it either time. It was a victory lap that clearly displayed the band has learned nothing of what Noctourniquet truly had to offer.

Deantoni Parks has an absolutely inorganic approach to groove and drumming that completely altered the way Volta songs were written. It made them more alien, harder to quantify and yet at the same time tighter, more clinical, laser-focused. The Mars Volta can write a radio song, they've proven it time and time again, which is why they just did not really do it for this one. Even The Malkin Jewel – lead fucking single for this thing, mind you – starts out sounding like it's coming for your carotid with a bread knife, wearing clown shoes. It's this impossible song that makes no fucking sense and sounds outright goofy on multiple occasions, and then it coalesces and has that big ass ending that we should all love so much in an ideal world. What went wrong here? Absolutely fucking nothing. It sounds like that intentionally, and it's that intentionality that I cannot help but respect. On Imago, the band starts off with this delicate emo-ass acoustic guitar arpeggio and then proceeds to absolutely mangle the bridge with shimmering synth arps, and the percussion gets smothered in slapback delay that turns it almost annoying and the track might be one of my highlights, specifically because of this. Even when the band goes medieval on the listener and tries a couple of the old tricks, the results sounds ice-cold and mechanical, and god do I love this fucking record. See next exhibit.

Granted, the record does lose a bit of steam in the second half. In Absentia, yet another banger, unfortunately just sort of inexplicably ends there, just like that, almost as if it was willingly cut by the band around the seven-minute mark so as to not turn it into "your usual Mars Volta thing"; and the record itself ends on Zed and Two Naughts (pretty good track, taken in itself), which basically just cuts the whole thing off with no particular qualms or time for reflection. I will say the track sequencing could be improved a bit, with some cuts here and there: Trinkets Pale of Moon, for instance, could have made a fun B-side, but as a whole ass track on the finished record? Eh. But then, just as you're looking the other way, the band hits you between the eyes with Vedamalady. I really don't know what to say about this anymore.

Does this not prove my point? Why is there so much beauty in what is, ostensibly, considered a "minor release" by just about anyone I've ever talked to, apart from this one stranger on Tumblr? And why is the beauty so apparent in spite (or perhaps because) of the unfinished, brutalist, stark naked nature of a record that actively got Cedric and Omar to argue, so much so that they had to call it quits for a while? No surprises that there was potential here, seeing as Omar immediately recruited a keyboard guy (Nicci Kasper) and this exact same drummer to make a new band, Bosnian Rainbows, that feels like a direct evolution/iteration on his exact sound. It is also a band that I love to death, and we sorta deserved a second album honestly, but that's a story for a different time. Point being: Noctourniquet sounds like a band falling apart, it is ostensibly unfinished, has way too many ideas and it never quite focuses on one or the other, its identity crisis is clear from the first FM bell arp all the way to the sudden full band stop at the end. And yet it holds so much potential to make it burst at the seams, and this potential feels so untapped, raw – alive, ultimately.

[shinygoku]

Retrospective of my Beatles Albums Retrospectives

I'm not sure how to write a snappier title than that! Anyway...

12 Albums, 4 Bugs, 1 Band. And me, having a look, listen and a think at their work and writing it up~ However, while I successfully got each review out in time for the First of each month, I can't say everything was necessarily up to the standard deserved by such a body of work. But then, I also think most of what I said still holds, so this is also a summary as well as a few little corrections or instances where I may've changed my mind on individual songs. I wanna keep my original, possibly flawed, ones unedited to better compare now, and possibly again in the future ;3

Here's a link for each instalment:

Please Please Me

With the Beatles

A Hard Day's Night

Beatles for Sale

Help!

Rubber Soul

Revolver

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Magical Mystery Tour

The Beatles (The White Album)

Let it Be

Abbey Road

And now I'll summarise each, with the Moniker I assigned them with each review. Which I now see was originally to indicate the quality, and became more esoteric and tailor made in time lmao XD;;

Please Please Me – Decent!

Decent feels a bit like faint praise for my liking, and if I were trying to arrange the Albums by quality order, PPM would not be the lowest! It's charming and impressive and I docked too many points on the covers just as they didn't write 'em. As someone who can never see a live performance by 'em, let alone a Cavern Era type gig, this is all the more novel and valuable <3 Therefore I'm bestowing upon it a new moniker of Foundational !

With the Beatles – Improvement

Again I'm annoyed at how simplistic that is, and its not giving due credit to either it or PPM. The same flaws with my approach to covers apply too, but at least 3 of those are actually stand outs on this assortment (Please Mr Postman, Till There Was You, Devil in her Heart), and the Originals that I like most, It Won't Be Long and All My Loving, are absolute bangers. As with PPM, I will give it a new one-word summary... this shall be Elaboration

A Hard Day's Night – Uneven

Yeah, that one still holds up, and it does still irk me how the weaker half of the album drags the iconic and really nice songs down. And part of it is the passage of time and standards shifting, but there's a quiet undercurrent of spite, even in the prettier songs, which I find a little irksome. Like how If I Fell, in the midst of a serenade, finds the time to comment on how the Ex will suffer..... yay? Oh, John!

Beatles for Sale – Burnout Album

I mean, that's literally what it was XD;; However again I have a lot of fondness for it, and the covers ain't all my cuppa tea but I dig several anyway. However I kinda wanna drop 8 Days A Week from my Best 3 grouping and instead put I'll Follow The Sun there. Ironic as IFTS has a similar surprise spite section but 8 Days is indeed more paint by numbers for these here Bug Boys.

Help! – Promising

I think this is where The Beatles reach the perfection of "Old Beatles" style. The themes aren't that distant but everything's refined. The only song I outright think is out of place is Dizzy Miss Lizzy, and I think that was brought in as a quick replacement when they couldn't get Wait up to standard, everything else seems more intentional, even if I'm not wild on all of them. The titular song is bizarrely underrated for a well known number, and Yesterday foreshadows the more varied instrument use and genre dabbling.

Rubber Soul – Amazing

This might be my favourite of the albums, albeit not The Best and some of the numbers here are outclassed by later songs with the same theme, and yet I really dig this Experience. I came down pretty hard on Run For Your Life, but the tedious truth is that it's still an absolute banger, just one where I feel I gotta write an apology to Women after grooving to it. It's the first album I'd consider No-Skips, the first to use a Sitar (for better or for worse lol) and also the first song with a Girl Main Character, so there's lots of fun to be had here :3c

Revolver – Revolutionary

While Revolver leaves a high water mark, it's one I find to be polarised between songs I absolutely love and ones which I kind of dislike. And of course, this is the point where the Sounds become newer and less orthodox and more noteworthy. Unfortunately I am still not impressed by George's whopping 3 songs here =w=;;; – But I find it quite telling that a fab bit of rock in the form of And Your Bird Can Sing gets lost in the shuffle of other landmark songs from one album. So like, a very valid fave album for many, but I prefer a couple others~

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band – Intelligent

This one is a bit of a paradox. It's a very strong, impressive album. However for some reason it was the one most touted as The Greatest, which I would disagree with. But, the backlash to the hyperbole also goes too far and doesn't give this fun musical experiment and proto-Concept its flowers, which it does actually deserve! Not as The Greatest Of All Time, but as a look at The Beatles, Edwardian Style, and Liverpool itself, through glass coloured by cool and varied music. And getting robbed of Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane is a shame, but this does still have A Day In The Life as the grand finale!

Magical Mystery Tour – Eclectic .....oops

I... didn't notice at the time that I used the same Snappy One Liner for two albums! In a row! Oh my god!! (In my defence, it does fit both, but the idea was to have a different one for each! Fuck!). Retconning this one as Esoteric instead ^w^;;;;;

Anyway yeah. The MMT (Soundtrack Album) got pumped up with two incredible singles, and All You Need Is Love, and also Baby You're A Rich Man [which I've warmed up to a bit since, but not fully lol]. But they weren't really supposed to be there... As for the songs that were part of the Strange TV Special's soundtrack, it's pretty harmonious and themed, with interesting choices like a lyricless (but not vocal-less, there seems to be A Cappella chanting) song in the form of Flying, and a horrible dirge that I can't stand listening to with Blue Jay Way. But the Paul and the John songs here shine very brightly~

The Beatles [The White Album] – Eclectic

Yeah, I mean. This is the very definition of Eclectic, ain't it? Like Revolver in the polarised song types, but MOOORE. More songs, more wildly varied tones, more duds that I outright avoid, but still more absolute bangers. But!! More duds, or songs that jar so harshly with my own musical preferences, at least, that I have a harder time with this one. If I was feeling more generous, I'd say there's more for everyone, but I also like the Beatles when they make songs that sound Good, y'know? Not to box them into a genre but this feels like Quantity at the cost of Quality.

Let it Be – Sombre

HOWEVER all the criticism I have for the White Album is pretty minor compared to this somewhat underwhelming assortment. Which would have sounded a lot better if it didn't have a deranged, vile, disgusting, scummy, moronic, abusive, terrible excuse of a human being and record producer pissing all over it. BAD.

Y'see, some of the songs are really nice, some are just alright but, ghhhhh, I actively avoid listening to this whole thing and the stupid ass "wall of sound" claptrap. 'Oooh let's cover all the actual music with loud blaring orchestra so the actual compositions are hidden from ears' ...you can tell The Industry was up its own ass that drowning out the real music was seen as a good move. Insane, and not in a fun way, it just makes me angry and sad.

Abbey Road – The Best

Fortunately, the REAL last album by The Beatles is a tour de force of amazing, uplifting, thoughtful and indeed very catchy numbers~ I've only talked about it recently, and at quite a length too, so I won't repeat myself too much here. But it really is their strongest Whole Album of the lot, so even the songs I find weakest are still extremely popular (Maxwell's Silver Hammer, which I think is overrated lol) and enjoyable. And, god, what a Beautiful finale it is!!

💎✨

But before I wrap this up, I wanna highlight the Hidden Gems (or in some cases, most underrated song) of each album... using the Cool Taglines I made for said albums [don't worry, it's in the same order too lmao] !!

Foundational: Misery

The world is treating me baaaaaad, Miiiisery! And yet this is so dang catchy it doesn't feel like a downer, even when the lyrics are very explicit XD An early Original, written for someone else but not taken up, and I think the Bugs made their own version more uptempo than the song as originally presented.

Elaboration: Devil In Her Heart

But her eyes they tantalize! A strong showing from George and a really catchy song. Prolly partially overshadowed as it's a cover (as I've been guilty of too lol), but I always dig this one and the unorthodox cadence to the lyrics.

Uneven: I'm Happy Just To Dance With You

I don't wanna kiss or hold your hand... See, I don't have any Anti-George bias, just the sitar leaves me cooler lmao – but anyway! THIS song is sweet and warm, the only time John wrote a song specifically for George to perform, and something I think oughta have been done more! But this deserves more of a spotlight~

Burnout: No Reply

I know that you saw me, cause I looked up to see, your face ! I wondered if the first song on an album could qualify as Underrated, but I think Beatles For Sale as a whole is, and what attention it does get is pooled mostly into I'll follow the Sun, so yeah, I'm giving this its flowers! I'm A Loser also deserves more attention, for the record.

Promising: Act Naturally

They're gonna put me in the Movies, they're gonna make a big star outta me! Another incredibly strong cover, seemingly tailor made for Ringo to sing, given his charisma on the screen, his Catholic-Stained-Glass Sad Eyes and his own fondness for the Country and Western style. And it's one I go to often as I think he has a lovely singing voice and this is Peak Ringo <3

Amazing: Wait

'Till I come back to your side, we'll forget the tears we cried. I don't have that much to say, but knowing Wait was meant to be on Help! but they postponed it, I think it was worth the........ [title drop]. The drums here are also super underrated, and the maraca sure makes itself known~

Revolutionary: And Your Bird Can Sing

You tell me that you've heard every sound there is, and your bird can swing... This is, in my opinion, THE most underrated, overlooked song on an extremely popular record by the most famous band ever, and yet it's absolutely flawless. The guitar shredding and harmonies are insane here, in a very good way!

Intelligent: Lovely Rita

In a cap, she looked much older, and the bag across her shoulder, made her look a little like a Military Man... Innuendo heavy as this may be, there's oodles of charm in this one. It's hard to pinpoint an underrated song on this album, but this has a good balance of being really strong and yet getting less airtime.

Esoteric: Your Mother Should Know

Let's all get up and dance to a song, that was a hit before your Mother was born... That's right, this song is a strangely endearing spin on "your mom" lines. Well, that and connecting with the Older Generation for knowledge that's otherwise easily lost... so while the lack of lyrical variation may seem simplistic, it has enough hidden depth and infectious rhythm that does indeed make it easier to get up and dance to~

Eclectic: I Will

Will I wait a lonely lifetime? If you want me to, I will. This one is (quite rightly) loved by those who have heard it, but it seems to avoid a lot of Radars too! Maybe as White Album's overly long list of songs makes people black out between the more famous or infamous instalments. This is a song that many long to be longer... but oh god, the lyrics hit different when thinking about the Beatles Meta ;~;

Sombre: The Long And Winding Road NAKED

Literally any song and version without Shitty Wall Of Sound. Sorry. The better songs are well known already and the lesser songs are lesser for good reason :v but for the one I selected, yeah it's one of Paul's most emotionally raw and yet beautiful works, as it's supposed to be presented and yet the defaced one gets more airplay, undeserved as it is. So this version is of it is massively slept on. The wild and windy night, that the rain washed away, has left a pool of tears, crying for the day...

The Best Album: Because

Because the wind is high, it blows my mind... Hey look, a thematic link to my previous one! Again, every song here is a strong one, even real dark horse selections like Sun King, or ones that were in the medley like Golden Slumbers. I'm selecting Because as both another John song for a more balanced list, but also it is one that kinda slips between the cracks, compared to ones about The Sun, or Hammers, or Octopus Botany. And of course, it's beautiful in its own right~

🪲🪲🪲🪲

Well, that's 5 pages of retrospective and elaboration! It was more in depth than I expected lmao, but it was a lotta fun to revisit, all the moreso when the PPM stuff was written a whole year ago...!

Neeeext time on Bug Boys 2025: I'm still not sure to be honest XD;; - I think it's between Early Singles and the film version of AHDN, but I won't tie myself to one just yet. Still, as always I want it to be posted on the First of the Month, so tune back in when February begins~

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

But I still don't know how did it end? 😩

[silverzoomies]

That Peter x Reader fic you're working on atm looks DELICIOUS. Tell me more!!!!

oh man oh man oh man im so glad you asked bc i really love that one !! basically, concept is - it's the 90's and Peter's depressed for...reasons. lots of reasons. the fic will explain. but while he's depressed, he goes on this trip to miami with his boys. he meets reader at a club there and immediately assumes they're an escort. but they're actually, like...a hardcore fangirl. anyways, as usual, it eventually gets filthy.

it's a dreary, melancholy club vibe with lots of 90's neon and black lights and shit 👍👍👍

[tayfabe75]

"End of era. I can't make retrospective statements. It's why I've been filming this documentary for 12 years. Every single time a statement ends, the idea to follow that with a retrospective statement, something that looks back, something that is celebratory of a previous thing, blargh, it makes me wanna crawl out of my skin, I hate it. I just wanna go forward. This is the only record where I do look back a little bit. I mean, I think the only time I specifically do it is in 'Guys'. 'The moment that we started a band, was the best thing that ever happened'. It's quite sad. It was also one for the homies, you know. I wanted to write a love song for friends. People don't have that very much. I love that idea. And even if it was the fact that going through the DNA of who we were, to make this record, there's so much reference to old emo core, or house music that we were growing up with. It feels like we went right back. We went and found all the old photos, you know, of where we came from, is almost how it felt to make this record. When I made this record, I was like, '[beep], this is the last 1975 record, for ages'. Not the last 1975 record, but this is definitely us stopping making music for a bit. There's essentially been lots of different album out, for this record. We live in a world of, you know, iTunes uploads six months before the record comes out. Someone's like, 'we needed a piece of artwork,' and I keep going, 'Okay, 'I'll give you our piece of artwork'. The artwork changed every week. The artwork now is basically the most minimal version, example, of what we've had, and it's all been based on texture, and the concept of wabi-sabi. The record's been about deconstruction. The record feels like it should be just in a paper bag. I wanted to steal The Durutti Column idea. The Durutti Column, one of my favorite bands of all time, they made one record, the vinyl cover was sandpaper, so it destroyed any record that it was next to. I mean, oh my God, how [beep] badass is that shit? That is so my vibe. I wish that I had of done it, but the thing is I love that idea so much that I couldn't have passed it off as my own. I grew up in punk and hardcore. The most punk person that I have ever met in my life is Greta Thunberg. She gave me a sense of hope, do you know what I mean? We're all kind of wallowing in nihilism, and what's the point? And when you meet her, she don't give you a pat on the back, I'll tell you that much, but she [beep] means what she's talking about. We were talking about the Sega Mega Drive startup sound of The 1975, and we were talking about how that happens every time, and we were like, 'What is the most modern version of that?' And then the conversation became, 'Well, what is the most modern thing? What is the most modern statement?' And it was Greta Thunberg, we realized, we get Greta Thunberg to sing it. 'We are facing a disaster of unspoken sufferings for enormous amounts of people'. That idea was obviously exciting, immediately. Using that platform is a great thing to do, and it's also creatively exciting. The moment she's deemed, she's one of the most important figures of our generation, but I really like the idea of formally encapsulating that in a piece of music that therefore exists in pop culture, in the way that music does, and goes on a record. You know, no one's gonna find a tweet about Greta Thunberg in the rubble, in a thousand years, do you know what I mean? But if in a thousand years they found that record, that would move somebody in a thousand years, who finds that in the rubble."

May 22, 2020: Matty explains The 1975's Notes on a Conditional Form album. (source)

[radionotfound]

"American Idiot is special to me for many reasons. It’s not only the album that made me a fan, but it also came at a pivotal moment in my life. I was 15, finding my own identity and becoming more aware of the injustices in our world. I was forming my own beliefs, and questioning what I saw around me. This album echoed what I was feeling: restlessness, anger, sadness, angst. It encouraged me to forge my own path, fight for my beliefs, and speak out against society’s ills. It pushed me to keep moving forward when it felt like the world was trying to stop me. Whether it was following my passion for writing or standing up for myself, Green Day was there cheering me on."

Read my new retrospective on American Idiot and 20 years of loving Green Day on Green Day Authority.

Link in source.

[gxbtx]

Tenacious D

While uploading my step-dad’s old CD collection to my computer, I came across a very peculiar CD that caught my eye: a plain, black CD with the words “Tenacious D”. Upon first play, I’ve come to find that the band belongs to the comedy rock duo, Jack Black & Kyle Gass. 

Jack Black and Kyle Gass were solid friends throughout their 20s, creating music and performing live throughout the mid-90s. It wasn't until Jack Black’s breakthrough success in acting with his involvement in the 2000 film, High Fidelity, that the first record deal opportunity came to be.

In 2001, the rock duo created Tenacious D, a CD composed of several comedy sketches as well as a few solid stand alone rock ballads. From what I understand, Kyle Gass primarily plays the guitar to support Jack Black’s vocals, which are iconic in itself. Within the first few seconds of pressing play, my face lit up of excitement for what the next 51 minutes entailed. After coming across the gem that is the 2003 blockbuster School of Rock earlier last year, this preluding rock album was exactly what I needed in my life.

The album is composed of brassy chords, humorous vocal tenacity, and pure creativity & goofiness. The time period this reflects upon (nearly 24 years ago) shows me the younger antics Jack Black put out in his early career, closer to around my age. 

This album doesn't take itself too seriously, with parody-esque songs such as “Explosivo” & “Double-Team” bringing out that teenage boy feeling with its grunge rock presentation of dirty jokes. One thing about “Double-Team” I absolutely love, though, is the use of some digitized sound incorporated into the funk-inspired bridge to the chorus. 

It is by absolute surprise after listening to this album that he landed the role in School of Rock, which I can only assume had some strings attached (shoutout!) to this album; The juxtaposition to the juvenile nature of this album took me by surprise after being primed with the cleansed family-friendly image of Jack Black all my life. It was almost refreshing, in a sense, to see that even he had a juvenile sense of humor, seen in the comedy bit, “C*ck Pushups.” The vulgar language and sexual contexts gone over in this album was spun in a humorous, almost nostalgic way that made it comical and endearing. 

It is by no surprise, then, that there are a few rock ballads that stand alone as solid songs themselves. “Rock Your Socks” makes a mockery of the devilish, satanic fear mongering surrounding the early conception of Rock and Roll, adding an excerpt from Bach to show that they are classically trained from the “…School of Hard Knocks.”  Probably the most recognizable, the third track “Tribute” starts with a comfortable, blues-like riff that unfolds into what is claimed as the ‘best song ever’; the song is a story of how a demon challenges the duo to ‘create the best song ever or I’ll eat your soul.’ “Wonderboy” is a genuine rock ballad that borrows orchestral elements from The Beatles, catchy chord progressions from Green Day, and even a little bit of the Chicano solo skills of Santana.

Overall this project is inspiring in a way that the songs are so silly, that they truly are a testament to how easy it is to make a song; with the right friends around, a solid concept, and a good riff, you got the formula to create a staggering rock ballad.

[aeolianblues]

Kings of Leon: 2003 and 2008

Here are some of the Kings of Leon albums we were sent promotionally at my campus radio station.

July 2003, a promotional CD of Youth And Young Manhood, with the band's silhouette in a shiny embossing, which on digital versions is just replaced with a grey negative space.

In October 2008, we were sent Only By The Night, the album that truly broke Kings of Leon out of the realm of campus, indie and underground radio, and put the band on the commercial and national airwaves.

Up until this album, the band had been the dark horses of the indie scene: too alternative for commercial and rock radio, but too uncool for an indie scene synonymous with NYC nightclubs, haircuts on the front page of the NME and alternative city boy fashion. In a world of Karen O's style, Julian Casablancas' melancholy, Alex Kapranos' sharp dressing sense, Russell Lissak's hair and Pete Doherty's volatility, the Nashville band seemed a little out of place.

Then came the singles, Sex On Fire and Use Somebody, and suddenly the brothers (and friend) were in heavy rotation on commercial indie radio. Or so I'm told by my cohost, who has been a radio DJ through all those crucial early Kings of Leon years. Me, I was in primary school and didn't care for indie music, that's why I'm on campus radio right now.

Anyway, figured I'd post these since Can We Please Have Fun just came out. This one's for the Kings of Leon fans!

[drdemonprince]

Oh, my heart will fantasize of Eden

My love, my dream, make love to me

Surrender your spirit, sing my eulogy

Oh, my heart is chained to thee, my angel

You haven't seen the last of me, my love

I give you everything

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Sublime - Poolshark

[itsthegiz]

Bloc Party Evolution

[dayoungs]

2025 marks my tenth year being into kpop which is genuinely bonkers .. thinking of ways to possibly commemorate / celebrate (mostly for my own enjoyment)

[minnarr]

favorite kpop albums of 2024: 1. whu is me: complex - hui / 2. the winning - iu / 3. appendix: of all we have lost - billlie / 4. with you-th - twice / 5. haute couture - misamo / 6. i sway - (g)i-dle / 7. if this is love, i want a refund - kino / 8. rewrite - yerin / 9. [virtuous] - dreamcatcher / 10. bxx - purple kiss .

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I should leave this in a tag post so it's not on main but whatever, I'm in a mood and listening to "peace" for the first time in awhile along with this rambling mess from the other night puts me in my feelings because "[you know that I'd] give you my wild, give you a child" is such a vulnerable, raw, honest confession to share with someone (let alone put in a song on a Grammy-winning album) and I don't know how much clearer the pipeline from there to the events on TTPD could be but just. It's heavy, but obvious and understandable (to me). And I'm not about to delve into why because of reasons and also don't want to come across as projecting or speculating or whatever but. Once again I think if you're in a certain age bracket and life stage so much of this just makes sense inherently.