#also maybe these other Big Artists DO in fact have songs that would appeal to me more but its kinda the equivalent of watching food network

[musicarenagh]

Stranger: Vanda's Heartfelt Electro-Pop Masterpiece So let me tell you about Vanda, the indie-pop artist dazzling music lovers from Chicago to LA. After the release of her highly successful ‘Sober In Another Life’ album, she is back with ‘Stranger’ – a great break-up song that has people dancing while crying at the same time. From a very young age – Vanda has been involved in music and started dancing on stage at the age of three. Talk about starting young!Her love for real songs can be seen or heard in all she does or performs. This is not different from “Stranger”, where she overlays her distinct vocals over energetic instrumentals that you cannot help but sing along to for the next couple of days. Here, Vanda is revealing what influenced her, how she works, and her development as an artist in our live talk. She goes raw on effects of being an independent artist in the music industry, the artists who influenced her, and what she is looking forward to. For all her tattletaling, though, Vanda’s appealing to fans like nobody’s business. Just watch this one – she’ll be big in 2024! Listen to Stranger https://open.spotify.com/track/4vtTlFWYEPYTe4ReOh4ARK?si=ae10de2183b94c43 Follow Vanda on Spotify Soundcloud Youtube Instagram What is your stage name Vanda Is there a story behind your stage name? Vanda is my last name, actually. My full name is Michelle Vanda. Where do you find inspiration? Depending on what I am writing about, I find inspiration from my own interpersonal relationships. I also get inspired by other’s art, by psychedelics, connecting with universe, sadness, loss, love, the fact that we as humans experience such a range of all of these things in our lifetime. Its beautiful. What was the role of music in the early years of your life? I started singing at three years old so my parents put me in my first musical the same year and my entire childhood/teen years were spent on stage/in my dad’s recording studio singing and writing. Are you from a musical or artistic family? Absolutely. Every person in my immediate and extended family play an instrument. My dad is an audio engineer/guitar player, my mom is a singer. Both of my brothers play an instrument. I was the only lunatic to pursue an artist career :) Who inspired you to be a part of the music industry? I don’t think it was a particular person, but rather my obsession with music itself. I never could have imagined being happy doing anything else with my life since I was a little girl. How did you learn to sing/write/to play? I was in theater since 3 years old, so lots of practice but I taught myself the guitar at 12 and began writing around that time. What was the first concert that you ever went to and who did you see perform? The Spice Girls - LEGENDS! How could you describe your music? I would say I am still experimenting and evolving but maybe a cross between Alt r&b hyper-pop. I released a pretty ballad heavy album last year called, Sober In Another Life, so I would say I still am all over the place - depending on what I am going through at that time in my life. [caption id="attachment_56070" align="alignnone" width="2000"] My favorite place to be (and why I think I fell in love with writing so much) is entering that sacred flow space that any artist can relate to - there’s nothing quite like it - it’s quite therapeutic.[/caption] Describe your creative process. I like to lock into a sort of concentrated/channeled state when I enter a writing session, whether that be with someone else or myself, I treat the space/time with a lot of respect and ultimately attempt to let go of all of my preconceived notions of what I THINK a song should be and just feel where its taking me. My favorite place to be (and why I think I fell in love with writing so much) is entering that sacred flow space that any artist can relate to - there’s nothing quite like it - it’s quite therapeutic. What musician do you admire most and why? So many musicians I deeply admire

- currently in a choke hold by Chappell Roan - not only her writing, but the way she is bringing true alter ego artistry back into the music industry is so refreshing but with a much more authentic spin on it with her raw lyricism - it’s been such a treat watching her career explode this year. Did your style evolve since the beginning of your career? Oh yeah, absolutely. With anything, you get better as you go by learning from mistakes and it’s been the same with music. Stylistically, learning what works for my voice and what doesn’t when I’m laying down vocals has been probably the most notable evolution. Working hard to connect and not worry so much about the perfect note - its more about the feeling Who do you see as your main competitor? Myself, most definitely. We are all capable of succeeding to some degree and there’s room for everyone at the top but overcoming self doubt/imposter syndrome and focusing on creating authentic art without any outside influences/compromises is the ultimate goal for any artist. What are your interests outside of music? I love discussing/digesting new concepts whether that’s exploring spirituality, mental health, personal growth - I’m really into connecting with humans in general. Into visual media, movies, YouTube, musical theater. If it wasn't a music career, what would you be doing? FBI Agent - maybe my next life! What is the biggest problem you have encountered in the journey of music? It costs a butt load of money to be an independent artist!! https://open.spotify.com/artist/3CJddFphxb710FglSry6Sy?si=psPTl96KRYa5rJ5UjyziCg If you could change one thing in the music industry, what would it be? That songwriter/artists were paid more fairly. Why did you choose this as the title of this project? “Stranger” is the title of the song & the main hook - it’s about knowing someone so deeply at one point and now that you’re no longer together, you see a complete stranger. You know them but you don’t and the cognitive dissonance that comes with those complex feelings. What are your plans for the coming months? I plan on continuing to release a bunch of new music while getting a show together to start playing shows around the LA area. What message would you like to give to your fans? Just a big thank you to anyone who stuck by my side during my half year hiatus & I’m very excited to start pouring out these new tracks to you one by one forever and forever and forever until I die x

[love-takes-work]

Notes on SU Commentary Tracks

I watched the commentary tracks on the Complete Steven Universe DVD Set and I took some nerd notes.

The episodes with commentary tracks are “Reunited,” “Change Your Mind,” and “The Future.”

I’ll bold stuff that was maybe bigger news or more surprising for easier reading. And yes, some of this was already known from podcasts, other Q&As, or interviews, but I listed it if they said it again here.

Read on after the jump to read these and other highlights:

Steven’s original wedding speech

Older ideas on dialogue for Lapis when she came back to the beach

Scrapped concepts for the scene that ultimately included Steven communicating with the others in a mindscape

Discussions of earlier concepts for White Diamond having a power to “freeze” Gems into statues to make them perfect and having a gallery of them on Homeworld

Pink Pearl’s original fate

The translation of the writing on Obsidian’s sword

The origin of Pink Steven’s design

What Rebecca did to pitch the “SHE’S GONE” scene

Earlier plans to include Shep in “Change Your Mind”

An unused concept of how Steven feels about Biggs

The inspiration for the Heaven and Earth Beetles’ healed design

How Volleyball/Pink Pearl was almost a mini-villain

Discussion of how they did not get to share the origin of the Diamonds

Jasper’s scrapped participation in the movie

“Reunited” - 

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

In 2015, an episode idea called “If You Love Yourself So Much” was discussed but rejected. It included some early ideas that ended up getting incorporated into “Reunited,” most notably Garnet marrying herself and putting rings on both hands.

The idea of the Cluster arm wrestling was planned for a long time. A scrapped idea of Steven banging his fist on a vending machine to get some Chaaaaps was supposed to visually parallel some of that scene, but it was axed.

When they got pushback on the wedding idea, they kept adding more and more “high entertainment value” items like a big musical number so the episode would be absolutely unmissable and appealing to everyone.

The song at the beginning of the episode was meant to check in with the entire cast and sort of remind you they exist and what their state of mind is going into the wedding.

Ian made a comment joking about “All 15 people in Beach City” being in the audience.

Just about everyone on the Crew touched this episode, despite that there are four main storyboarders credited for “Reunited.”

In 2016 Ian Jones-Quartey proposed marriage to Rebecca Sugar. They felt like the characters based on them (Sapphire and Ruby) HAD to get married in the show now because otherwise it wouldn’t be honest. But then their characters got married before they did.

They really love the idea of having characters get married who have known each other for a really long time, versus the fairy tale trope of movies ending with weddings between people who have met very recently.

Steven’s speech as officiator at the wedding used to be longer in its first draft--it was described as being weird and full of jokes, and there would have been a scene with Pearl getting weepy and pulling tissues out of her pearl.

Ian mentions loving a joke Jeff came up with having Greg play one chord to make Steven fall asleep--it’s sort of a “dream” chord you hear in cartoons a lot before a dream sequence.

The Crew discussed what it might be like if someone had never seen the show before and started with this episode.

Ian really wanted Steven’s psychic powers to figure into the episode.

Blue using a sadness wave to attack the Gems was a very old idea they’d planned for a long time. So was Lapis’s arrival.

There was a discussion of having Lisa Hannigan performing her lines as Blue VERY early in the morning.

Ian was happy the sword got broken because it was so momentous but it was just a sword. And later appeared on a shelf in the house as an artifact.

Miki had drawn a torn dress for Garnet at one point so she could be shown fighting and moving around more accurately, and this led to a long discussion of whether Gem clothing can even actually get torn the way human clothes can. They concluded that no, it shouldn’t be torn, so they backed up and gave Garnet an open-front dress from the beginning so the fighting version would make more sense.

Lapis originally might have had a longer speech upon arriving back on the beach. They eventually decided to just have her say “Hey.”

The barn falling on Blue Diamond was an intentional Wizard of Oz reference.

They point out that Steven even once said “drop the barn on the beach” (in a previous episode, “Can’t Go Back,” which was also a Miki episode).

Destroying the house was a big deal, and they always thought they’d end up doing it but backed away from it until “Reunited.” They almost even did it back in “Coach Steven”! But it just ended up with a little damage to the porch.

The Crew thinks Miki is really good at drawing ensemble shots.

Rebecca was always overwhelmed whenever she got to have Patti LuPone record for Yellow.

Originally the giant figures of everyone’s statue bodies in the mindscape were too dark and had to be revamped so they could be seen.

An earlier idea of Steven’s “psychic-ghost-situation” had him as a ghost actually trying to interact with the other characters during fighting action, but it was pulled back to this mindscape so there wouldn’t be as much confusing action to keep track of and more focus on what Steven was doing to encourage his teammates and contact the Diamonds.

Hilary was glad not to have to block out a fight.

Ian mentions loving having Bismuth back in the group.

They originally wanted the “Diamonds sensing Pink’s energy” plot to happen when Steven was in the palace somehow, but everything got moved to this scene--which the Crew all agrees turned out incredible, like how cool it was to have Steven essentially reminding each character why they fight and summing up their whole arc in a sentence.

“Change Your Mind”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Kat Morris.

They like to refer to this episode as “The movie before the movie.”

They loved incorporating “princess tropes” into Steven’s time on Homeworld, which is why there were so many references to “mice” (well, Pebbles) making clothes, being locked in a tower, being reminded of his manners, loving animals and freeing imprisoned pets, etc. 

Deedee did the voice of the rainbow worm pet. She apparently didn’t find it memorable and was surprised when she was reminded she did the voice.

Rebecca was super excited for the confrontation with Blue.

There was some discussion of how Steven would have died of starvation if he didn’t have someone practical like Connie to remember to bring food.

They love working with the huge scale the Diamonds present.

The Crew always wanted to put someone in Blue’s hair loop. Originally they wanted Blue to tuck Greg in there when she kidnapped him, but they didn’t end up being able to do any hair-loop-carrying until this episode.

The Crew bantered back and forth about what the heck those Pebbles’ names were and how hard it was to track them.

They agreed that Paul draws the best Yellow Diamond, which makes sense since he also drew the first episode with Yellow (and her stink face). 

The scene where Yellow asks Blue to stop using her powers on her and then realizing she’s crying on her own was one of Rebecca’s favorite scenes to get to finally.

Steven Sugar thought Gems would spend a lot of time in their own chambers/rooms just not really doing much of anything unless they had to fulfill their purpose.

Some of the Homeworld ideas were based on a Soviet artist’s concepts, Boris Artzybasheff, and also many ideas were inspired by Busby Berkeley regarding how people were objects and furniture.

The mech was an old idea. Once they had the hand ship from “Jailbreak,” they knew there had to be bodies somewhere.

They focused a lot about what could be the coolest and funniest way for something to happen. The concept of the yellow and blue spaceship arms appearing out of the sky to smack the White Diamond mech around was one of those.

Rebecca really wanted things to look more and more cartoony and bizarre as you get deeper into Homeworld.

They spent a very long time trying to decide on characters’ new outfits.

The trash can lid is said to be a reference to “a flying bear cartoon” and they dance around speaking a direct reference because they’re not sure they’re allowed to say its name.

In discussing the powers of the Diamonds, there were debates on what White’s power would be; with Yellow being physicality-based and Blue being emotion-based, they thought White as identity-based made the most sense.

Different ways to express this were played with before settling on the idea that she thinks she’s perfect and others’ colors make them less like her and less perfect. But then she becomes a hostage to her own beliefs about herself because if she does anything that reflects on everyone else, so it’s best to do nothing.

They had some cool earlier ideas of White’s powers making statues out of other Gems and having a gallery full of frozen Gems, frozen by White to make them perfect.

They also weren’t sure what fate befell the original Pink Pearl and discussed whether she might have been destroyed. 

Rebecca discussed how creepy it was to have White Pearl speaking in Christine’s voice and not Deedee’s--that we should find it fundamentally disturbing at this point.

Tom Herpich came up with the crack on White Pearl’s face.

In real life, pink diamonds aren’t understood as well as yellows and blues. It’s more known what makes a diamond yellow or blue, and some of those facts Rebecca researched were originally woven into the speech White gave about their “impurities.” But it turned out to be too dry and most of it got cut.

Rebecca loves having Lapis with pants and sandals for easier cosplay.

Ian had to draw the scene where Steven is falling and fusing with inert characters--he wasn’t able to properly explain it to Rebecca so she had him draw it.

They really wanted Rainbow Quartz 2.0 to have a scarf, but they couldn’t figure out how to get that into Pearl’s design. They miss the scarf.

It was really important to have these Fusions display call-forwards of the Gems’ new outfits which we hadn’t yet seen.

Rebecca points out that Sunstone’s design breaks a design rule and she feels like Sunstone should have Garnet’s pant leg colors on their legs, but at the same time she understands the rule of cool and likes it like this.

It’s discussed how none of Steven’s fusion weapons are exclusively offensive weapons either.

Rebecca still really wants a suction cup Sunstone toy.

Sunstone’s ability to transcend reality and break the fourth wall was a joke that exploded in the discussion room among the Crew. As soon as the idea was pitched everyone kept coming up with ideas. Sardonyx’s fourth-wall-breaking is more snarky, but Sunstone’s is helpful.

Rebecca was disappointed that the rule about Steven’s clothes wasn’t always followed with having his clothes appear on Obsidian’s hand, but she was delighted that you could see them in one scene.

They spent a lot of discussion time on making sure Steven-Obsidian was different somehow from Rose-Obsidian. The hair is different.

Old versions of Obsidian were drawn with wrapped-together Twizzlers legs, which sort of is reflected in the present design.

The sword had been planned forever--and it first appeared in “Bubble Buddies.”

Miki worked on the Ninja Turtles show so Rebecca was really excited to see her depictions of Bismuth and Sunstone.

An early plan to have Obsidian draw the sword from their mouth was complicated because fusion weapons should be combinations, so they finally reached the solution of having them combine to make the hilt, then get the blade out of Obsidian’s mouth.

The blade of the sword is thought to say “We’ll always save the day,” but you’d have to ask Steven Sugar.

Another really old idea was climbing into the White Diamond mech eye.

Rebecca was disappointed that some of the merch made of White Diamond did not feature her cape sparkles.

There were many debates early on about where Rose might “actually” be. There were tons of references to this fundamental question throughout the show--introducing Lapis as a Gem trapped in an object, having Pearl ponder pulling Steven’s Gem out as a baby, straight-up wondering what would happen to him in “Bubbled” when Eyeball was trying to take his Gem, etc. They all decided Rose was definitely gone but that the idea of her possibly being inside him should be on his mind a lot, leading to disturbing images like dreaming about coughing up her hair.

Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond both challenged Steven about things he was very confident about, but White’s question of his identity got to him because he in fact is not confident about that.

The black and white eeriness of the fuzzy background and the other characters having their colors washed out helped make the scene in White Diamond’s head so disturbing and creepy.

The split screen showing Steven’s two perspectives was exciting to Rebecca, and was a pretty old idea. And she points out it sort of “breaks the show.”

The Gem Steven, Pink Steven, was represented by a slightly modified version of his model sheet. Everyone laughed when they saw what was getting used.

They decided that an earlier idea of Pink Steven looking angry should be replaced by an emotionless version of him. All the emotion should be with Organic Steven.

In the pitch meeting for this episode, Rebecca herself screamed “SHE’S GONE!!” and shocked the hell out of everyone. She pointed out how no one expected this of her because she’s pretty quiet, but she just wanted to shock everyone the way Steven would in the show.

They point out this is the first appearance of the geometric shield that got so much use in Future.

The fact that Steven is Steven is the ultimate reveal of the show. Usually in fantasy shows there’s some other kind of revelation, but Steven just being amazingly human and amazingly Gem and amazingly himself is wonderful here.

They like having the pilot reference with “What’s your excuse?”

If Rose had somehow still been alive in him, all of this would have been cheapened.

Ian loves that you can faintly hear Sadie’s concert from way out in space as the camera approaches Earth.

They got a lot more use out of the Beach-A-Palooza stage than they thought they would when it had to be designed for “Steven and the Stevens.” There was a joke about how at one of the conventions a real Beach-A-Palooza stage was constructed and they had a thought about how oh good, it’s getting reused.

Sadie having green hair in the finale was a late change but they liked showing her progression. 

They had originally kicked around the idea of Sadie already having her new partner Shep at this point, but decided to develop that in Future instead.

They compare White Diamond’s stepping gingerly into the fountain to skeptically getting into a public pool.

Some silliness they didn’t get to use was that Biggs would be “beloved by everyone” except Steven. They never got to cover it, but originally Steven was just going to not really understand why everyone loves her so much and doesn’t personally much care for her.

The Heaven and Earth Beetles are based on the Mothra Ladies.

The healed Gems’ horns are supposed to be side effects of the corruption that they continue to bear in the present.

Larimar and Orange Spodumene ended up different in the ending scene than they became in Future. Many of the designs were retroactively pulled into this scene after being designed for the movie.

Rebecca wrote “Change Your Mind” as a personal song to express her feelings surrounding her fight for the wedding.

“The Future”

Commentary with Rebecca Sugar, Kat Morris, Alonso Ramirez Ramos, Hilary Florido, Joe Johnston, and Ian Jones-Quartey.

The animatic for this episode ran SO long--they’re supposed to be just over 11 minutes but this one was 17 minutes.

Steven’s calisthenics routine, a callback to “Future Vision,” was on the chopping block to make the episode shorter but Rebecca wouldn’t allow it to be cut because she wanted to show that Steven’s been taking care of himself.

They were very excited to get a chance to cover some of the things in Future that they couldn’t squeeze into the original show, like the unbubbled Rose Quartzes, Volleyball, etc.

The new writers on the show also helped bring forward the idea of Steven finally making some of his OWN mistakes to fix.

This also helped construct the idea of Steven essentially being the “final boss” of his own battle.

Usually stories that involve someone being in a fight and winning don’t explore the effect just being in a fight has on a person, regardless of whether you won. 

Rebecca really wanted to play Ocarina of Time after beating it so she could go back to all the places and see how people were doing. She wanted this epilogue series to explore that a little too.

Little Homeschool is sort of a Tiny Toons reference--older cartoons teach younger cartoons how to be cartoons, and this is Gems teaching other Gems how to be Gems on Earth. 

Lamar came up with the silly joke about receiving that art set with all the different media types in it--the one artists are always getting from a well-meaning relative at holiday time.

A scrapped plot idea involved Volleyball/Pink Pearl as a sort of “mini-villain,” with a focus on her activating the un-activated Pearls.

There’s discussion of how victimization turns people into villains sometimes. But since showing that happening with Volleyball wouldn’t have served the interests of Steven’s arc, they couldn’t fit it in.

There was also a “very specific” Gem origin and Diamond origin story that’s quasi-religious in nature--it’s very cool and complicated. But they do not tell us what it is.

Ian and Joe both really wanted to have Jasper living alone in the woods and stacking rocks. They’re glad they got this series to do that with her.

There was originally an idea for a B-plot involving Jasper in the movie. They don’t discuss the specifics.

There were many ideas they didn’t get to work on because they would have started new arcs and Future was not about kicking new plots into gear.

“Mr. Universe” was the last episode they wrote/finished.

Miki really wanted to include a kiss between Connie and Steven to show their relationship was okay. Among the Crew everyone knew their relationship was basically eternal but Miki wanted to make sure WE knew that.

Steven driving conveyed momentum for Future; in the original show, we always came back to the laundry hand, back to home, but in Future that’s changed and home isn’t what it was. 

They were really excited that a gourd family made it to the crowd scene in Future.

Thanks for reading!

Note: The movie had some commentary tracks too, but the one on this DVD set is the same as the one released on the original standalone movie DVD, so I did not outline it here. Here is my post about the DVD commentary from the movie.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust, Volume 7, Number 8

Big Thief

Our August collection of short reviews contains more big names than usual with singles from Big Thief and Dry Cleaning, a digital compilation from Thou, live music from Obits and a side project from members of the Bats and the Clean. Never fear, there are obscurities as well, including an improv guitar player even Bill Meyer had hardly heard of, a Norwegian emo artist in love with Texas and a death metal outfit verging into psychedelia. Our writers, this time including Tim Clarke, Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Ian Mathers, Chris Liberato and Jonathan Shaw, like what they like, big or small, hyped or unknown. We hope you’ll like some of it, too.   

Marc Barreca — The Sleeper Awakes (Scissor Tail)

The Sleeper Wakes by Marc Barreca

Odd connections abound here. One might not expect the usually acoustic-oriented Scissor Tail Recordings to make a vinyl reissue of an electronic ambient music cassette from 1986, any more than one would expect its maker to currently earn his crust as a bankruptcy judge. So, let’s just shed those expectations and get to listening. Unlike so many lower profile electronic recordings from the 1980s, which seemed targeted for a space next to the cash register of a new age bookstore, this album offers a profusion of mysteries that compound the closer you listen to them. It’s not at all obvious what sounds Barreca fed into his Akai sampler. Japanese folk music? Church chimes? A log drum jam? Tugboat engines? One hears hints of such sounds, but they’ve been warped and dredged in a thin coat of murk, so that the predominant experience is one of feeling like you’re dreaming, even if your eyes are wide open.

Bill Meyer

Big Thief — “Little Things” / “Sparrow” (4AD)

Little Things/Sparrow by Big Thief

Who knows how much more music Big Thief might have released in the last 18 months if the pandemic hadn’t tripped them up? Given the creative momentum generated by 2019’s UFOF and Two Hands, it’s fair to assume the band have plenty of music waiting in the wings. “Little Things” and “Sparrow” arrive with no sign of a new album on the horizon, so are probably being released to promote Big Thief’s upcoming US and European tour. Both songs clock in at around five minutes and handle musical repetition in different satisfying ways. Reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everything,” but hyped up on caffeine, “Little Things” feels like an exciting new direction for the band. It cycles through its whirlpooling, modulated acoustic guitar over and over, the frantic little sequence of chords never changing; the interest comes from the ways in which the rest of the instruments bob and weave in the ever-shifting, psychedelic mix. “Sparrow” is a more traditional Big Thief song, sparse and sad. Its melancholic sway is enlivened by some beautiful wavering vocal harmonies as Adrianne Lenker paints a picture of a Garden of Eden populated by sparrows, owls and eagles, culminating in Adam blaming Eve for humankind’s fall from grace.

Tim Clarke

Simão Costa — Beat Without Byte: (Un)Learning Machine (Cipsela)

Beat With Out Byte by Simão Costa

Piano preparation often makes use of modest resources — bolts and combs, strings or maybe just a raincoat tossed into the instrument’s innards. By contrast, Simão Costa’s set-up looks like took all of the entries in a robotics assembly competition and set them to work agitating a snarl of cables that met the pirated telecommunication requirements for an especially crowded favela. But whether it’s twitching motors or Costa’s own hands doing the work, the sounds that come out of his sound remarkably rich and cohesive. He stirs drifting hums, metallic sonorities, and stomping rhythms into a bracingly immediate sonic onslaught.

Bill Meyer

Cots — Disturbing Body (Boiled)

Disturbing Body by Cots

Disturbing Body is the low-key debut album by Montreal-based musician Steph Yates, who enlisted Sandro Perri to produce. Where the songs are pared back to mostly just vocals and peppy major-seventh chords on nylon-string guitar — such as “Bitter Part of the Fruit” and “Midnight at the Station” — comparisons with bossa-nova classics such as “The Girl From Ipanema” inevitably arise. Where the tempo is slower, the chord voicings are less sun-dappled, and Perri’s arrangements call upon a wider palette of instrumental colors, the songs venture into more interesting terrain, calling to mind a less haunted Broadcast. There’s an eerie sway to the opening title track, backed by rich piano chords and clattering cymbal textures. Fender Rhodes and the light clack of a rhythm track give “Inertia of a Dream” an uneasy momentum. And forlorn trumpet, percussion and piano situate “Last Sip” at closing time in a forgotten jazz club. There’s something evasive yet subtly intoxicating at work here, the album’s ten songs breezing past in half an hour, leaving plenty of unanswered questions in their wake.

Tim Clarke

Dry Cleaning — “Bug Eggs” / “Tony Speaks!” (4AD)

Bug Eggs/Tony Speaks! by Dry Cleaning

A few months on from the release of their excellent debut album, New Long Leg, Dry Cleaning have put out two more songs from the same sessions, which are featured as bonus tracks on the Japanese edition. For a band whose unique appeal is mostly attributed to Florence Shaw’s surreal lyrics and deadpan delivery, it’s heartening to hear further evidence that it’s the complete cocktail of musical ingredients — Shaw plus Tom Dowse’s inventive guitar, Lewis Maynard’s satisfyingly thick bass, and Nick Buxton’s driving drums — that alchemizes into their winning sound. The verse guitar chords of “Bug Eggs” are naggingly similar to New Long Leg’s “More Big Birds,” while the instrumental chorus has a yearning feel akin to album highlight “Her Hippo.” Maynard’s bass tone on “Tony Speaks!” is absolutely filthy, swallowing up most of the mix until Dowse’s guitar bares its teeth in a swarm of squalling wah-wah, while Shaw’s lyrics muse upon the decline of heavy industry, the environment, and crisps.

Tim Clarke

Flight Mode — TX, ’98 (Sound As Language)

TX, '98 by Flight Mode

In 1998, well before he started Little Hands of Asphalt, Sjur Lyseid spent a year in Texas at the height of the emo wave, skateboarding and going to house shows and listening to the Get Up Kids. TX, ’98 is the Norwegian’s tribute to that coming of age experience, the giddy euphorias of mid-teenage freedom filtered through bittersweet subsequent experience. “Sixteen” is the banger, all crunchy, twitchy exhilarating guitars and vulnerable pop tunefulness, its clangor breaking for wistful reminiscence, but “Fossil Fuel” waxes lyrical, its guitar riffs splintering into radiant shards, its lyrics capturing those youthful years when anything seems possible and also, somehow, the later recognition that perhaps it isn’t. It’s an interesting tension between the now-is-everything hedonism of adolescence and the rueful remembering of adulthood, encapsulate in a chorus that goes, “Well wait and see if there’s no more history/and just defend the present tense.”

Jennifer Kelly

Drew Gardner— S-T (Eiderdown Records)

S/T by Drew Gardner

Drew Gardner has been popping up all over lately, on Elkhorn’s snowed in acoustic jam Storm Sessions and the electrified follow-up Sun Cycle and as one of Jeffrey Alexander’s Heavy Lidders. Here, it’s just him and his guitar plus a like-minded rhythm section (that’s Ryan Jewell on drums and Garcia Peoples’ Andy Cush on bass), spinning off dreamy, folk-into-interstellar-journeys like “Calyx” and “Kelp Highway.” Gardner puts some muscle into some of his grooves, running close to Chris Forsyth’s wide-angle electric boogie in “Bird Food.” “The Road to Eastern Garden,” though, is pure limpid transcendence, Buddhist monastery bells jangling as Gardner’s warm, inquiring melodic line intersects with rubbery bends on bass. Give this one a little time to sit, but don’t miss it.

Jennifer Kelly

Hearth — Melt (Clean Feed)

Melt by Hearth

This pan-European quartet’s name suggests domesticity, but the fact that none of its members lives in the country of their birth probably says more about the breadth of their music. The closest geographic point of reference for the sounds that pianist Kaja Draksler, trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, and saxophonists Ada Rave and Mette Rasmussen’s make together would be Chicago’s south side. Their dynamic blend of angular structures, extended instrumental techniques, and obscurely theatrical enactments brings to mind the Art Ensemble of Chicago, even though the sounds on this concert-length recording rarely echo the AEC’s. But it is similarly charged with mystery and collective identity.

Bill Meyer

Klaus Lang / Konus Quartett — Drei Allmenden (Cubus)

Drei Allmenden (translation: Three Commons) treats the act of commission as an opportunity to create common cause. For composer and keyboardist Klaus Lang, this is a chance to push back against a long trend of separation and stratification, with musicians bound to realize the composer’s whim, no matter the cost. Invoking works from the 16th century, he penned something simple, flexible and open to embellishment. Then he pitched in with Konus Quartett, a Swiss saxophone ensemble, to get the job done. The three-part piece, which lasts 43 sublime minutes, amply rewards the submersion of ego. Lang’s slowly morphing harmonium drones and Konus’ long reed tones sound like one instrument, enriched by tendrils of sound that rise up and then sink back into the music’s body.

Bill Meyer

Lynch, Moore, Riley — Secant / Tangent (dx/dy)

Secant | Tangent by Sue Lynch, N.O. Moore, Crystabel Riley

Electric guitarist N.O. Moore is barely known in these parts. I’ve only heard him on one album with Eddie Prévost a couple years back, and the other two musicians, not at all. But on the strength of this robust performance, which was recorded at London’s Icklectick venue, it would be a loss to keep it that way. They combine acoustic sounds with electronics, courtesy of guitar effects and amplification, in an exceedingly natural fashion. Each musician also gets into the other’s business in ways that correspond to the one spicy suggestion made by one cook that elevates another’s dish to the next level. Susan Lynch’s clarinet and flute compliment Moore’s radiophonic/feedback sounds like two flashes of lightning illuminating the same dark cloud, and her vigorously pecking saxophone attack mixes with Crystabel’s cascading beats like idiosyncratically tuned drums. This is one of the first albums to be released on Moore’s dx/dy label; keep your eye out for more.

Bill Meyer

Maco Sica / Hamid Drake Tatsu Aoki & Thymme Jones—Ourania (Feeding Tube)

OURANIA by Mako Sica / Hamid Drake featuring Tatsu Aoki & Thymme Jones

Ourania is named for the muse associated with astronomy in Greek mythology, and the album has an aim for the stars quality. In 2020, Chicago’s Mako Sica lost not only the chance to play concerts, but one third of its number. Core members Brent Fuscaldo (electric bass, voice, harmonica, percussion) and Przemyslaw Krys Drazek (electric trumpet, electric guitar, mandolin) could have just hunkered down with their respective TV sets. Instead, they booked themselves three other musicians who make rising above circumstances a core practice. The duo convened at Electrical Audio with Hamid Drake (drums, percussion, Tatsu Aoki (upright bass, shamisen), and Thymme Jones (piano, organ, balloon, trumpet, voice, recorder, percussion), rolled tape for a couple hours, and walked out with this album. The 85 minute-long recording (edited to about half that length on vinyl, but the LP comes with a download card) exudes a vibe of calm, even beatitude, with twin trumpets and Fuscaldo’s echo-laden, nearly word-free vocals weaving though a sequence of patient grooves like migrational birds on the glide.

Bill Meyer

Mar Caribe — Hymn of the Mar Caribe (Mar Caribe)

Hymn of the Mar Caribe b/w Rondo for Unemployment by mar caribe

Some musicians burn to make something new; others generate attention-getting sounds designed to maximize the potential of their other earning activities; and others, well, they just want you to sway along with their version of the good sounds. Mar Caribe falls into that last category. This Chicago-based instrumental ensemble has spent most of the last decade maintaining a robust performance schedule, and it would seem that recording is pretty much an afterthought; a photo of the test pressing for this 7” was posted in May 2019, but the release show didn’t happen until August 2021. Sure, COVID can be blamed for part of the delay, but one suspects that mostly, these guys just want to play, and they didn’t bother to stuff the singles in the sleeves until they knew when they’d next be leaning over a merch table. The titular suspends anthemic brass and pedal steel over a swinging double bass cadence, and if there was a moment during the night when the band invited the audience to pledge allegiance to their favorite drink, this is what they’d be playing while they asked. Guitars lead on the flip side, whose busy twists and turns belie the implied laziness of the title, “Rondo For Unemployment.”

Bill Meyer

Mint Julep — In a Deep and Dreamless Sleep (Western Vinyl)

In A Deep And Dreamless Sleep by Mint Julep

These songs traverse a hazy, dreamlike space, diffusing dance beats, dream-y vocals and synth pulses into inchoate sensation that nonetheless retains enough rhythmic propulsion to keep your heart rate up. “A Rising Sun” filters jangly guitar and bass through a sizzle of static, letting tambourine thump gently somewhere off camera, as voices soothe and reassure. “Mirage” pounds a four-on-the-floor, but quietly, angelically, like a disco visited through astral projection or maybe a really rave-y iteration of heaven. There’s an ominous undercurrent to “Longshore Drift,” in its growly, sub-bass-y hum, but glittering bits of synth sprinkle over like fairy dust. This is indefinitely gorgeous stuff, ethereal but surprisingly energizing. Dance or drift, take your pick.

Jennifer Kelly

Monocot — Directions We Know (Feeding Tube)

Direction We Know by Monocot

Directions We Know is an LP of free-form freak-outs generated by an instrumental duo that includes one musician who you might expect to perpetuate such a ruckus, and one that you might not. The more likely character is drummer Jayson Gerycz, who may be known for keeping time with the Cloud Nothings, but has shown a willingness to wax colorizing in the company of Anthony Pasquarosa, Jen Powers and Matthew Rolin. The happy surprise is Rosali Middleman, whose singer-songwriter efforts have kept her guitar playing firmly in service of her songs. She doesn’t exactly abandon lyricism in Monocot, but the tunes serve as launching ramps for exuberant lunges into the realm of voltage-saturated sound. On “Ruby Throated,” the first of the record’s four extended jams, Middleman lofts rippling peals over a near-boil of  drums and churning loops. By the time you get to “Multidimensional Solutions,” the last and longest track, her wah-wah-dipped streams of sound have taken on a blackened quality, as though her overheating tubes have burned every note.

Bill Meyer

Obits — Die at the Zoo (Outer Battery)

Die At The Zoo by Obits

Few aughts rock bands held more promise than Obits. The four-piece headed by Hot Snakes’ Rick Froberg and Edsel’s Sohrab Habibion emerged in 2005 with a stinging, stripped-back, blues-touched sound. Froberg’s feral snarl rode a surfy, twitchy amplified onslaught, that was, by 2012 a finely tuned machine. I caught one of the live shows following Moody, Standard and Poor at small club in Northampton the same year this was recorded (so small that I was sitting on a couch next to Froberg, oblivious, for 20 minutes before the show), and what struck me was how well the band played together. The records sound chaotic, and that was certainly there in performance, but the cuts and stops were perfect, the surfy instrumental breaks (“New August”) absolutely in tune. At the time this set was recorded in the Brisbane punk landmark known as the Zoo, the band was near the peak of its considerable powers—and regrettably near the end of its run. Die at the Zoo is reasonably well recorded, rough enough to capture the band’s raucous energy, skilled enough so you can understand the words and hear all the parts. It hits all the highlights, blistering early cuts like “Widow of My Dreams,” and “Pine On,” the blues cover “Milk Cow Blues,” and later, slightly more melodic ragers like “Everything Looks Better in the Morning” and “You Gotta Lose.” The guitar work is particularly sharp throughout, its straight-on chug breaking into fiery blues licks and surfy whammy explosions. It’s a poignant reminder of a time when American rock bands played ferocious shows halfway across the world (or anywhere) as a matter of course and a fitting eulogy for Obits.

Jennifer Kelly

A Place To Bury Strangers — Hologram (Dedstrange)

Hologram EP by A Place To Bury Strangers

A Place To Bury Strangers returns with a new rhythm section and renewed focus on the elements that made its version of revivalism the loudest if not brashest of the New York aughties. Sarah and John Fedowitz on drums and bass join Oliver Ackerman on the five track EP Hologram which is the most concise and vital APTBS release for a while. For all the criticism of copyism thrown at the band since their early days, APTBS has always been as much about Ackerman’s production skills and feel for texture as musical originality and the songs on Hologram sound fantastic at volume. Beneath the sonic onslaught of fuzz and reverb, not a brick is misplaced in this intricately constructed sonic wall. True “I Might Have” is pure Jesus & Mary Chain and “In My Hive” a Wax Trax take on Spector but Hologram is an endorphin rush of guitar driven noise bound to make one forget the world, if only for a while.

Andrew Forell

Praises — EP4 (Hand Drawn Dracula)

Jesse Crowe’s work as Praises has been ongoing since 2014, but has shifted in tone, instrumentation and emphasis since then. While the first two EPs have more of a full, rock band feel, the third one and 2018’s full-length In This Year: Ten of Swords took things in a more electronic, sometimes industrial direction. It was an even better fit for the rest, probing creativity evident in Praises’ work, and 3/4s of the new EP4 are in a pleasingly similar vein. The echoing, ringing denunciations of “We Let Go” and “A World on Fire” are fine examples of Praises’ existing strengths, but the opening “Apples for My Love” is immediately captivating in a very different way. Gauzy and rapturous, it’s a reverie that keeps the satisfying textural detail of the other songs but turns them to different ends. It’s not something that was missing from Crowe’s work before — again, the other tracks here are also very good — but a reminder that what Praises has shown before is not the extent of what they can do.

Ian Mathers

The Sundae Painters — The First SP Single (Leather Jacket)

“This is a supergroup, is it not?” someone asked the Sundae Painters bassist Paul Kean on social media last year, to which he responded, “Some may choose that title. We prefer superglue.” Kaye Woodward, his wife and longtime bandmate in both The Bats and Minisnap, takes the lead vocal on “Thin Air,” one of the pair of A-sides found on their new band’s debut seven-inch. From the outset, Kean’s unmistakable bass playing and Hamish Kilgour’s (The Clean/Mad Scene) drumming lock into a psychedelic march, with the other instruments weaving like kites above, vying for position on the same breeze. “You fight your way down/You fight your way up/You wait for the dust to settle,” Woodward sings. A few gentle strums cut their way through the parade, and a guitar calls out gull-like from above, before everything trails off as if something potent has just kicked in. On the flip side, “Aversion” has an old friend-like familiarity to it, soundwise (if not lengthwise) sitting somewhere between VU’s “The Gift” and “Sister Ray.” Things begin a little stand-offish, though, like you’ve interrupted a guitar pontificating to a rapt audience — it turns its head to look you over, falling momentarily silent, before picking right back up where it left off. Kilgour’s spoken vocals join the conversation, as the song builds towards a groovy kind of fever pitch. “You look a little stoned,” he says, before responding to his own observation. “Well me I’m a little bit groggy/But it ain’t too foggy/I can see some way of getting out of here.” By this point, both guitars (played by Woodward and Tall Dwarfs’ Alec Bathgate) are full-on screeching and howling, and as the song sputters to a sudden finish, our man’s left waiting for someone to buy him “a ride out the gate.”

Chris Liberato    

Thou — Hightower (Self-released)

Hightower by Thou

Hightower is the latest in a string of digital compilations from Thou, most of which collect songs that have been previously released on small-batch splits, 7” records and other hyper-obscure media that briefly circulated through the metal underground. You might be tempted to pronounce that a cynical cash-grab, but Thou has posted Hightower (along with previous compilations, like Algiers, Oakland and Blessings of the Highest Order, a killer collection of Nirvana covers) on their official Bandcamp page as a name-yo’-price download. Thanks, band. Beyond convenience, Hightower has an additional, if a sort of inside-baseball, attraction. The band has re-recorded a few of its older songs with its latest, three-guitar line-up. Longtime listeners will recognize “Smoke Pigs” and “Fucking Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean,” which already sounded terrifyingly massive back in 2008 and 2007, respectively. The expanded instrumentation, new arrangements and better production give the songs even more power and depth, all the way down to the bottom of the effing ocean. Yikes. And there are a few additional touches, like K.C. Stafford’s clean vocals on “Fucking Chained…,” which provide an effective complement to Bryan Funck’s inimitably scabrous howl. Rarely has being pummeled and feeling bummed out been so vivifying.

Jonathan Shaw

Tropical Fuck Storm — Deep States (Joyful Noise)

Deep States by Tropical Fuck Storm

Fueled by exasperation as much as anger, the new album by Melbourne’s Tropical Fuck Storm rounds on the myriad ways in which the world has become a “Bumma Sanger” as leader Gareth Liddiard puts it on the eponymous song about COVID lockdown. A roiling meld of psychedelic garage garnished with elements of hip hop and electronic noise it’s close in method and mood if not sound to another Australian provocateur JG Thirwell whose Foetus project girded maximalist surfaces with rigid discipline. If the Tropical Fuck Storm sought to mirror current conditions, they succeed but lack of clarity in both production and intent makes Deep States a frustrating experience. Backing vocals from Fiona Kitschin (bass), Erica Dunn (keys and guitar) and Lauren Hammel (drums) leaven Liddiard’s blokey pronouncements and there are some good sounds and biting words but the band’s determination to overelaborate and underdevelop musical ideas makes this album seem like a lost opportunity.

Andrew Forell

Marta Warelis / Carlos “Zingaro” / Helena Espvall /Marcelo dos Reis — Turquoise Dream (JACC)

Turquoise Dream by Marta Warelis, Carlos "Zíngaro", Helena Espvall, Marcelo dos Reis

Turquoise Dream documents an example of an encounter that is a mainstay of avant-garde jazz festivals, in which out of towners mix it up locals that they may or may not know. This particular concert, which took place at the Jazz ao Centro Festival in 2019, is one such encounter that deserves to live past the night when it transpired. It featured three stringed instrument players who live in Portugal and a Polish pianist who is based in Holland. But they don’t sound like strangers at all. Violinist Zingaro, cellist Espvall, and guitarist dos Reis blend like flashes of sunlight reflecting off of waves, adding up to a sound that is bright and ever-changing. Warelis, who is equally resourceful with her head under the lid of her piano as she is at the keyboard, adding fleet but substantial responses to her hosts’ quicksilver interactions. The result is music that is resolutely abstract but closely engaged.

Bill Meyer

Wharflurch — Psychedelic Realms ov Hell (Gurgling Gore)

PSYCHEDELIC REALMS OV HELL by Wharflurch

Wharflurch is just plain fun to say — but there are at least two ways in which the name also makes sense for the band that has chosen it: it has a bilious, nauseous quality that matches the vibe of the pustulent death metal you’ll hear on Psychedelic Realms ov Hell; and if you separate the words, you can conjure a sodden, rotten wooden structure, swaying vertiginously over a marshy expanse of water, which is filled with alligators and decaying organic material. Imagine that sway, and that stink, and then imagine yourself collapsing into the viscous fluid, soon to be gator chow. Sounds like Florida, and that’s exactly from whence Wharflurch has emerged. Which also makes sense. Is Wharflurch’s music “psychedelic”? Depends on what you hear in that word. If you want to see hippies dancing ecstatically on a verdant, sun-drenched stretch of Golden Gate Park, then no. But if you have spent any time in the warped, dementedly distorted spaces that psychedelics can open (less happily perhaps, but very powerfully), then yes. Wharflurch likes to accent its meaty riffs and muscular thumps with weird flutters and electronic effects that frequently have a gastric, flatulent quality to them. The saturated and sickly pinks and greens on the album art do a pretty good job of capturing the music’s tones. So do the song titles: “Stoned Ape Apocalypse,” “Bog Body Boletus,” “Phantasmagorical Fumes.” Still game? I’m sorry. But I’ll also be standing right there next to you, on that wobbly, lurching wharf, watching the gators swim near.

Jonathan Shaw

Whisper Room — Lunokhod (Midira Records)

Lunokhod by Whisper Room

That the title of Whisper Room’s fifth album is taken from Soviet lunar rovers makes a certain sense, given how potentially frustrating it might have been for the trio to be working at such a distance. Generally their other records are recorded live, in one room, seeing Aidan Baker (guitar), Jakob Thiesen (drums) and Neil Wiernik (bass) exploring simultaneously, hitting whatever junctions of psychedelic/shoegazing/motorik sound come to them. With Baker in Berlin and travel understandably limiited, this time they recorded their parts separately, layering them together (and bringing in sound designer Scott Deathe to add the kind of pedal processing their sound engineer normally does live). The result certainly sounds as collaborative as ever, seven seamless tracks making up nearly an hour that makes the journey from the friendly, clattering percussion of “Lunokhod01” to the centrifugal ambience of “Lunokhod07” feel perfectly natural. Even though it explores just as much inner and outer space as Whisper Room ever have, there’s something very approachable about Lunokhod that makes it one of their best.

Ian Mathers

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Ive never really understood the hype surrounding Taylor Swift - I mean, I like some of her songs, but im not big on modern pop music so generally she just doesn’t really click for me. But I find it interesting that theres quite a few of Beatles/Swift blogs - like, they should have very little in common given that they’re from completely different eras and all, but somehow people seem to find a lot of semblance between the two. << and thats not me shitting on any of these blogs btw! Hope I don’t come off as rude or condescending there <3

Anyway, I was just wondering what got you into Taylor Swift? (I think ive read your post on how you got into the Beatles)

Hi, anon! Don't worry, I don't think you're rude or condescending! I agree they don't have too much in common and I don't really like their music for the same reasons.* I do have a playlist of Paul songs that have similar vibes to Taylor songs but it's mostly lyric-based. (Also the Beatles For Sale songs actually have quite the Taylor-tinge because Paul and John were not immune to Country Music)

I saw @stewy say once that a possible reason there are a good handful of us Swiftie-Beatle People on here is the appeal of a vast discography, which I agree with. If you have an artist/group with 200ish songs, it's just really fun to really dive into their work and explore all the facets. I also think: we're talking about the most popular band of all time and one of the highest-selling artists of the 21st century. They have a lot of fans so there's bound to be overlap, regardless of musical differences.

Moving on to your question: Getting into Taylor was an extremely personal experience for me and so my explanation is probably going to be kind of long so I'll put it under a read more.

It was spring-summer 2014, I was 15. I had heard the more popular songs of hers starting with Love Story and enjoyed pretty much all of them (I always found her hopelessly romantic point of view fascinating) but before I got a Spotify account in 2013 it was difficult in general for me to really get into an artists' entire discography so most of her songs had flown under my radar.

At the time, I was in this very weird sort of codependent online friendship with this girl who was basically my first real best friend and my first more or less crush. She was very depressed and I was very much in an I Could Fix Her™ mood, except that I obviously couldn't fix her and it made me feel like I wasn't enough and she had begun pulling more and more away from me and not replying to my messages and it was simply driving me insane. I consider it the saddest period in my life.

at some point during this period, I started trying to connect with other people (all online, I didn't know how to talk seriously to anyone IRL) and explaining the issues I'd been having, and one of the people who brought me joy and whom I actually felt not drained talking to was a huge swiftie. And IDK the fact that she loved Taylor and the fact that talking to her made my life better (and also the fact that I liked all the Taylor songs I knew at that point) just made me decide to give her a listen. And I think that whole "large discography discovery" phenomenon really helped me at the time (funny, because her discography has doubled since then). It gave me something new to focus on; there were just so many songs to discover, all telling such rich stories. I also have always loved bridges, they are almost always my favourite part of a song. And Taylor, god-bless her, loves them too and always puts her ALL in them. Like pretty much every bridge of hers brings the song to the next level, and even a lot of her songs I don't adore tend to have great bridges (Stay Stay Stay and Paper Rings come to mind). I think one of her most underrated qualities is how good she is at song structure and really building up an entire musical journey with a song. She also almost always adds cool ad-libs in her second and third choruses to keep the songs interesting and dynamic (or at least since she's gone pop). Anyways, back to the story: Then Taylor announced 1989 as her next album and released Shake It Off, and it was just like this great happy thing for me to look forward to, when I had very little keeping me going. The era was promoting a lot of happiness which in hindsight was slightly fabricated and it was just a really great thing for me to latch onto.

At the same time I was coming to realize that I was gonna have to pull away completely from my friend and all those break-up songs just… Hit, y'know? Like, some people seem to think Taylor's a one-trick pony because she likes to write break-up songs but to me, break-ups are just like this moment where you as a human can potentially feel every single emotion, and Taylor's songs have covered every facet of the concept. Here are some songs I remember from that period, that all meant a lot to me at the time because they explained my own pain to me so well:

Haunted, for the absolute terror you feel in the first moments you realize someone is probably gonna leave you. Come on, come on / Don't leave me like this / I thought I had you figured out / Something's gone terribly wrong / You're all I wanted.

I Almost Do, for the inner turmoil you feel when you know you have to stay away from someone for your own good but you really, really have to resist just running back to that person. We've made quite a mess, Babe / It's probably better off this way / And I confess, Babe / In my dreams you're touching my face / And asking me if I wanna try again / With you / And I almost do.

Last Kiss, for that absolute sadness that comes simply with remembering everything that was good and not comprehending how it could've possibly ended. I still remember / The look on your face / Lit through the darkness / At 1:58 / Words that you whispered / For just us to know / You told me you loved me / So why did you go / Away?

Forever and Always, for that feeling of desperately wanting to hold on to what you still have but at the same time realizing it probably isn't going to last and having no idea how to fix it, plus feeling like the other person doesn't even care. So here's to everything / Coming down to nothing / Here's to silence / That cuts me to the core / Where is this going? / Thought I knew for a minute / But I don't anymore.

Dear John, my all-time favourite song, for that moment you find clarity and realize that you deserved better and that you were headed in an extremely dark direction because of this other person. [DISCLAIMER: my friend did NOT abuse me nor did we have some inappropriate age difference. But the way she would ignore me and her general moodiness really affected my own mental health and self-worth problems] You paint me a blue sky / And go back and turn it to rain / And I lived in your chess games / But you changed the rules every day / Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone / Tonight / Well I stopped picking up / And this song is to let you know why.

(She's covered more aspects of break-ups in other songs [cheating, divorce, feeling awkward around your ex amongst others], these are just the ones I remember being really important to me when I was first getting into her)

She really helped me feel a lot less alone during one of my loneliest periods and I really can't thank her enough for that. Soon after this, I started crushing on a girl in my class and Taylor's love songs started to take on a new meaning for me as well.

What's crazy to me is, when she went on hiatus for a few years, a part of me thought maybe I'd grown out of her and no longer had much in common with her, but when reputation came out I was pulled right back into my love for her as a person and musician and then when Lover came out I found that she was still explaining feelings to me better than I ever could (specifically with the songs The Archer and Cornelia Street). And now with folklore and evermore she's simply absolutely perfected her story-telling and I find myself deeply moved even by the songs I don't directly relate to. I feel like she has this amazing ability to find the absolute truth in the specific. I've never had a summer romance with someone who already had a girlfriend and mostly wanted to go back to her, and yet the bridge of august feels so real to me, y'know?

Back when we were still changin' for the better Wanting was enough For me, it was enough To live for the hope of it all Cancel plans just in case you'd call And say, "Meet me behind the mall" So much for summer love and saying "us" 'Cause you weren't mine to lose

It's hard to explain but looking at this, like it's so much more than the story it's telling. It's talking about how when you're young you really need so little to feel satisfied; how sometimes the idea of someone maybe spending time with you is better than actually doing things with other people; and how if someone using you without much thought can make you feel like you're not even entitled to grieve what you lost. Sorry. I'll stop. Don't want to go insane.

So, all of this is very personal and unique to me, but I think really the main thing that draws me to her is how vulnerable and honest she is about emotions, how eloquently she can explain the pain of being alive to me. Some people think she isn't the strongest singer, but I think, much like John actually, one of her greatest assets is how good she is at projecting emotion. The song happiness is a song I think has some lyrically weak moments but her vocal performance on it is so raw and devastating that every single line works even when, looking at it on paper, it feels like it shouldn't.

Hope this rambling made sense to you, lmao?? I love talking about Taylor though so thanks for the ask! Also very open to giving song recs if you do want to check her out more but I won't unless solicited to lmao *Sort of off-topic but I do think there's a relation between my fascination with the Beatles' history and my love for a great break-up song. I like pain I guess :)

[d6official]

DAY6: ‘We’ve Always Wanted to Go to India’

The South Korean rock band open about their songwriting process, their aspirations for future records, the definition of authenticity in a world that often dismisses artistry in K-pop and India

I caught up with DAY6 a few months ago via Skype–I’m told the quintet are in the middle of shooting new content for their fans and are dressed in their looks for a video, so it has to be an audio call. I can’t see them and they can’t see me, so of course there’s a lot of giggling, whispering, and moments of ominous silence that then have us all breaking into laughter together. It’s awkward, hilarious and everything you’d imagine a call with DAY6 to be. 

It’s towards the end of the year so there’s a lot going on in the band’s schedule, but they’re an unstoppable force, flying across the globe to complete performances in the U.S. and in Australia. It’s a pretty rare thing to have all five members be able to join in on a single call, so I’m happy to hear all their voices greet me. “We’ve just been on tour and we’re having a good tour so far,” says vocalist and guitarist Jae. “Everyone’s been really welcoming in their countries and really just turning up for us, so we’re happy.” 

DAY6 debuted in September 2015 with leader and guitarist Sungjin, bassist Young K, guitarist Jae, keyboardist Wonpil and drummer Dowoon. All members are trained vocalists, with Young K also doubling as main rapper, and every member contributes to songwriting and production. (The group did have a sixth member, a keyboardist named Junhyeok, but he left in 2016.) Young K also leads the songwriting process, with lyrical contribution in every single track on most of DAY6’s albums. 

The beauty of DAY6’s artistry lies in how versatile they are able to make each track within a single album–in one moment you’re listening to a stadium anthem that’s reminiscent of a young U2, and in the next there’s a segue into Killers-esque post-punk revival. If you’ve been a long-time fan, you probably already know this thanks to their genius ‘Every DAY6’ project through 2017, which saw the band release two songs on the sixth day of almost every month. The result? An expansive, experimentative discography which built two powerful albums– Sunrise and Moonrise–with B-sides that shine just as much as a lead single. Jae explains that there usually isn’t a set idea when they begin an album–a lot of the music is born through songwriting sessions with various producers, where each member gets to go explore any genre they want on their own. It’s a power they’re exercising more and more, especially all through the Book of Us series. “We didn’t really discuss a direction when we started,” Jae says. “Everyone just kind of did what we wanted, which is why the album is a jumble of this and that from everywhere.” In fact songs have a tendency to switch genres in between verses–a great example of this is DAY6’s 2017 single “I Wait.”

The group also credit the genius of JYP Entertainment producer Hong Jisang as a key factor in their creative process. “I think definitely one of our main influences is probably gonna be one of our main producers and that’s Hong Jisang,” says Jae when I ask the band about their musical influences. “He’s a writer that works with us very frequently. For most of our title tracks–actually all of them I think so far. But yeah, he’s definitely one of the main influences because he’s always been kind of our mentor since the beginning of our debut dates… even before that. So he’s been teaching us about songwriting, you know, tracking or melody writing. We have a little bit of a flow just because we’ve grown so close to him as a group.”

“Just one of the reasons why we try any kind of genre or any music is because people do have different tastes in music,” explains Young K. “So if they like at least one of them, then it’s a success for us. Another reason is because we do get to play almost all of them, almost all [their songs] at the concert. So, we do have a chance to show it to the MyDays and the crowd and you get a chance to have fun with it. And I guess it’s just what we aim for as a group.” They’ve stood strong and stuck to their guns when it comes to this process of songwriting and it’s the fuel that expands their creative process, ensuring they don’t stick to one particular sound or vibe.  

I remember back in 2016 when DAY6 began to get more popular, a lot of the attention around them was built of curiosity. As the first band under JYP Entertainment and the one of the first in the third generation of K-pop, both fans and industry professionals were curious to see where the Hallyu Wave would take them. The idea of an ‘idol rock band’ was new to the thousands of fans who had discovered K-pop after the 2016 boom of the genre, and DAY6 didn’t fit any existing stereotype–idol or band. They still don’t, and it’s a powerful statement.

This particular artistic evolution that we’ve seen with DAY6 isn’t easy to achieve in the K-pop idol-sphere of it all; our discussion about artistry in the glittering world of idol culture brings us to the topic of what it’s like to exist as what people believe to be a ‘traditional’ band in the middle of the ‘boy band narrative.�� I ask because it’s something I see often even in India–there’s this idea of authenticity always being tied to the more ‘conventional’ format of a band: artists with their instruments are deemed more ‘legit’ than pop acts. There is an unfortunate tendency among the general public to dismiss artistry created by pop stars and K-pop idols. DAY6 walk the line between the two worlds, and their path to finding that balance often demands a seesaw from one side to another. Have they ever faced a dismissal of their artistry because they’re idols who are also a band? 

“That’s a very deep question,” says Sungjin. There’s a long pause as he gathers his words and then continues, “I personally haven’t seen that big of a difference. We, as a team that emphasizes on writing songs and writing music to appeal to other people, feel that everyone who writes songs or does music has the same objective and goal, therefore [artistry] is the same thing [for every musician.] So we’re not trying to focus on those kinds of factors but just try to focus instead on our music and our creation process so that we could become more authentic artists that appeal to more people.” 

And what is DAY6’s definition of authenticity? 

“When the person who’s creating the music legitimately feels like it’s good music,” says Sungjin firmly.

Right now the authenticity in their songwriting comes from the ordinary. Lead lyricist Young K explains the members draw from everyday experiences and conversations to write songs that are relatable, raw and honest. “Lyrics wise, I could say, we got very cleaned up and very neat. During the times of Every DAY6 project, we were out of time all the time throughout the year,” he says with a laugh. “So, it gave me the lesson of like, always being prepared to write lyrics so that I could pick out a way to find motivation or inspiration. I don’t wait for that inspiration, I gotta always go look for it. For example during everyday conversation, if there’s something or if there’s a word if there’s a phrase that I like, I write it down on my phone.” He pauses for a moment and then sheepishly admits, “To be really honest, I haven’t been doing that for months now. I need to get back on it.” He also says rather than listening to new music, skimming through lyrics is always his go-to move when it comes to evolving his style of storytelling. “So I guess it’s just continuous experiences that helped me to grow and, like you said, evolve.”

I ask the band which of their songs they would recommend to a new listener to help them understand DAY6’s artistry, and there’s a collective hum as they contemplate. “That’s a really difficult question,” says Wonpil. “Maybe ‘You Were Beautiful?’” The rest of the band agree wholeheartedly, and feel the 2017 rock ballad does a great job of summing up who DAY6 are. It’s certainly a fantastic example of the band’s powerful songwriting and their uncanny ability to to delve into topics that are at times a little too real, a little too familiar. 

DAY6’s complex Book of Us series of albums have dealt mainly with the various levels of human interactions, emotions and relationships, each volume diving deeper into the complexities of what makes us who we are. The ‘Us’ in the titles can refer to DAY6 themselves, the relationship between them and their fandom MyDay as well as various other relationships the members might have in their lives. It’s also a general reference to the relationships we as human beings cultivate in our lives. The first album in the series The Book of Us: Gravity was one of their brightest releases, exploring youth and young love. The Book of Us: Entropy was a little heavier, a little more mature, exploring the beginning and end of relationships and how it changes a person. 

The band’s upcoming release of The Book of Us: The Demon is perhaps their most anticipated release yet. Set to drop tomorrow, May 11th, the eight-track EP already hints at a slightly darker route than its predecessors with its title, promising a deeper look into the core meaning of the series. The teaser for the lead single “Zombie” which dropped on May 8th shows the band wandering dazed through crowds while the track itself seems to build on angsty alt rock. DAY6 also dropped an album sampler that hints The Demon cruises through pop rock (“Day and Night”), blues (“Tick Tock”), post-punk revival (“Stop”), acoustic pop (“Afraid”) and more.

In true DAY6 style however, the tracks can change direction in-between, crossing genres from one verse to another. It’s all a surprise right up until we hear the record, which is one of the best things about listening to a new release from this band. While I’m not told any specifics, I’m assured that DAY6 plan to go bigger than ever before when it comes to future releases.  “We want to go to space!” exclaims Dowoon and the band agree enthusiastically. How does space translate sonically? “We want to go for a larger scale of music,” he explains. It’s about dreaming bigger and looking at ways to elevate DAY6’s musicianship. Jae adds, “Yeah, maybe going from just one acoustic guitar to like a full brass band or something.” We discuss possibilities of DAY6 working with an orchestra someday and it’s a pretty fantastic vision. 

Speaking of future plans, I decide to put them on the spot and ask about when we’re getting an India tour. “Whenever you guys call us, we are definitely there!” Jae assures me immediately. Young K and Wonpil explain they are familiar with Bollywood and eager to learn more about it. “I am aware it’s huge there. And recently Katy Perry did something with Bollywood?” asks Young K. We realize he’s referring to the pop diva’s massive November concert in Mumbai with Dua Lipa and he shares that it’s one of the reasons DAY6 are more eager to check out India’s concert scene. “Yeah, I actually heard it from my friend. They were telling me, ‘Yo, you should go to India’ and like wherever it is, we always want to go. If there are people who are willing to listen to us and enjoy with us at the concert, we want to go.” Jae adds, “You guys have a lot of people and for us it’s a new culture and we are always interested in going to different places and seeing new things, trying different foods… naturally the food! So yes, we’ve always wanted to go to India, so call us!” 

We spend the rest of our allotted time together talking planning a show in India for 2020 and although COVID-19 has postponed these plans for now, it’s something the band believe needs to happen. “We definitely wanna see you guys,” says Young K. “It’s always great to go to new places. Until the time that we meet, we want you guys to stay healthy and happy.”

By Riddhi Chakraborty

©️Rolling Stone India

[rockhopsblog]

Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN-- A New Hip Hop Legend

Whether tall tale, truth, or somewhere in between, 13 time Grammy Award winning rapper/songwriter Kendrick Lamar Duckworth’s rise to immortality is nothing short of a cosmic wonder. To go back to the beginning, let’s first take a look at his most recent solo project, 2017’s Album of the Year nominee and Best Rap Album winner “Damn”. The very last track of the album, “Duckworth”, tells of a saga that took place during the rapper’s infancy. The mythic-like storytelling follows the journey of his father, mother, and what would one day become the owner of the record label that propelled Kendrick into stardom. Kendrick’s father, “Ducky” supposedly worked at a chicken fast food restaurant, which “Top Dawg” Anthony Tiffith, proprietor of Top Dawg Entertainment, frequented. Tiffith was a notorious gangster on the block who aspired to be the first one from his neighborhood to reach the life of luxury. Tiffith went on to plan and subsequently rob the chicken place Ducky worked at, but spared his life because he had always given him an extra biscuit with his meals. Because of this decision, Kendrick grew up with his father around, helping to keep him out of the L.A. gang wars and keeping Tiffith out of prison so he could go on to found a record label. Things obviously could have gone very differently, but they didn’t. As Kendrick himself puts it: “Whoever thought the greatest rapper would be from coincidence? Because if Anthony killed Ducky, Top Dawg could be serving life, While I grew up without a father and die in a gunfight”.

Growing up in Compton, CA and making it out to be a success is no small feat. Throughout the years, one of Kendrick’s closest collaborators has been a rapper/blood gang member, Jay Rock, who too came from the neighborhood that Kendrick grew up in. Also a close friend of theirs- Schoolboy Q, a crip. Kendrick Lamar has been on the forefront of using his voice to unify people involved in gang violence and deterring those who may later fall into it. In 2015, Kendrick designed and released his signature shoe with Nike, aimed at the unification of people divided by the lifestyle that many of his friends and family became victims of during the tribulations of his youth. In 2007, a friend of Lamar’s called “DT” was gunned down by police for reportedly posing a threat, an event which seemed to Kendrick was all too common in his life. The silver lining, however, seems to be that there’s no shortage of the tales in Kendrick Lamar’s rap repertoire to depict the dangers and deeper meanings about the reality of gang activity, giving those steeped in that side of life hope for betterment and success. 

In the early stages of Kendrick’s career, he was selected to be in one of the first XXL freshmen, an annual group of rappers recognized by the hip hop publication as up and coming artists. XXL’s freshman freestyles were new at the time, and Kendrick Lamar’s verse in the cypher was prominently featured online and the cypher itself is often looked back on as a classic among those available on YouTube. Those who initially viewed the freestyle session may have come looking for other, better known rappers, only to find themselves stumbling upon the discovery of a young Kendrick Lamar. Around this same time, he released his first official single, “HiiiPoWeR”, which was produced by the now prolific J. Cole. These two, in their own rights, have become widely regarded as today’s best hip hop lyricists for their hard hitting and meaningful bars. Rubbing elbows too with Kendrick was the now superstar pop sensation and rapper, Drake. Drake, a Toronto rapper, has helped launch several careers through featuring on their music because of his viral popularity. When Drake and Kendrick collaborated on Kendrick Lamar’s “Good Kid M.A.A.D. City”, Drake’s career was still in its early stages, but their song together certainly helped garner a mainstream appeal for the release at the time. All in all, it is clear to anyone doing some digging that not only did Kendrick work hard at refining his craft to become prolific, but that he was also met with great fortune in making the correct moves early on in his career to find the notoriety that he now enjoys. 

Fueled by artists such as Tupac Shakur, Ice Cube, Kurupt and Eminem, Lamar has carried the torch forward from the 90s into the modern age of rap. During the famed “California Love” music video shoot featuring Dr. Dre and Tupac, Kendrick has claimed a small piece of hip hop legend by saying he was present in Compton, on the scene for the shoot. As a child, seeing such an idol and icon propelled his drive to follow in the footsteps of the greats of yesterday. In 2015, Kendrick sat down for an interview with the group N.W.A. who’ve had such classics as “Straight Outta Compton” and “Express Yourself”. In the conversation, Lamar said: “anything that I do, it always comes from what y’all done, I wanna get y’all take on my generation today and what we have as far as music”. In response, DJ Ren retorted “I like a few, I like you”. The metaphorical hand-off is evident, from O.G. approval to the strong impact in waves that Lamar has been able to produce from just four major label solo albums. From Anderson .Paak to Roddy Ricch, Kendrick has set out and proved more than he’d ever dreamed of.

Currently, Lamar has two triple platinum records as well as one platinum record which was maybe the most adventurous and critically acclaimed album, not only of his career, but of that decade. Rolling Stone magazine journalist Greg Tate called “To Pimp a Butterfly” a “masterpiece of fiery outrage, deep jazz and ruthless self-critique”.With songs like “The Blacker the Berry” and “Hood Politics”, the fabric of TPAB was woven to reflect the attitudes of a movement of racial justice and equality in a time of great struggle and oppression. Aside from exposing the brutalities of life as a black man in the United States, Lamar also presented the album as a platform to uplift and celebrate the accomplishments and great artistic devotions of black people from around the world. Many consider this album to be Kendrick Lamar’s magnum opus. He has shown that his work has staying power, and that his albums stand out among the formulaic pop-trap that reigns supreme on the radio. Perhaps TPAB has gone the farthest out of any other thing to help cement him as the king of hip hop and the greatest rapper of the generation. 

With a back catalogue so insanely successful you’d expect Mr. Kendrick Lamar to be universally beloved, right? Well, not so fast. No inspection of Lamar’s career would be complete without the mention of his ground-breaking verse on the song “Control” by Big Sean. Kendrick decided to seize the moment coming off of his first platinum album by going after 11 of the biggest names in rap at the time, including: J. Cole, Meek Mill, Drake, Big KRIT, Wale, Pusha T, ASAP Rocky, Tyler The Creator, and Mac Miller. Many interpreted his lyrics in which he called out these artists to be a diss, but we now know that it was, in fact, Lamar’s intent to light a flame under these artists to create higher art. The people named on the verse were people Kendrick truly believed had the potential to create truly classic works, and his bar “I got love for you all but I'm tryin' to murder you” was aimed at them because of the intention to hype them up to work harder and realize that they weren’t inherently owed the popularity bestowed to them. The so-called “Control verse” made such a splash that even rappers who weren’t even named in the song made counter-disses to the single verse in the form of an entire song. Most notable out of these songs were Joe Budden’s “Lost Control”, Joey B4Da$$’s “Killuminati Pt. 2”, and Lupe Fiasco’s “SLR 2”. Despite the negativity spawned from this verse aimed to do good in the hip hop community, Kendrick Lamar’s twitter saw a 510% increase in followers just days after the dropping of the single. If there even was any “beef” to be had regarding this song, it is clear who the real winner was.

From the president of the United States claiming his favorite song was a Kendrick Lamar song at one point, to winning a Pulitzer Prize for 2017’s “DAMN”, the mile-high accolades of Kendrick seem almost too good to be true. However, of all accomplishments, perhaps his greatest is his influence on music. Not only has he single handedly put on several label-mates to the mainstream, but he has risen the bar of what it means to write a good rap song in this day and age. Not content with people who churn out 30 song albums as a money grab, Kendrick has shown that effort is important, that careful construction of art is important. Lamar has also been credited as reviving the importance of the hip-hop music video. It is clear during a listening session on Spotify or YouTube that so many troves of artists, young and old, are attempting to emanate the same X factor that Kendrick Lamar Duckworth has been so highly praised for, and rightfully so.

[shinsorokiri]

UA Idol | Chapter Fifteen

Hitoshi Shinsou x reader

Word Count: 1,802

Warnings: Language, alcohol, drinking, drunk flirting

A/N: This is just a cute fun one. Alcohol man. She does shit to you. I hope you enjoy this one, this is a little bit of how Shinsou truly feels 🥺 I’m excited to write about the third challenge too, I think it’ll be fun. I also can’t wait to write for all the other characters too, this is gonna be fun as hell. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter!! :)

───────────────────────────────────

The first two days of Hell Week were officially over. It’s crazy to think that that was an actual thing. You’ve done two whole performances, and it was only over the span of two days. Literally wild. Luckily though, you’ve made it through the first to rounds. Now there was only the third, which you would get three whole days to prepare for. And thank GOD you did because the next one was intense.

After all the remaining contestants had gone and quite a few of them got wiped out, there were only forty in total left. This of course included you, Shinsou, Mina, and Denki as well as your new friends Kirishima and Bakugou. Of course, a lot of the people who stood out to you in the first round also got through, which you were happy about because they really deserved it. But with that, this next round was about to present half of the forty as the top twenty and the other half were about to head home.

“Alright, everybody. Congratulations on making it through to the third round! That’s not an easy thing to do, and you’ve all adjusted wonderfully to the group singing challenge to a duet challenge. Moving on from that though, is the solo rounds. You all are able to perform a song of your choice, but this round, as well as the last, it’s required to sing songs by artists that have already been out. However, there’s no list to choose from this time, so you can choose whatever song you would want to sing. You get two days to rehearse and let the band as well as the lighting and sound designers what you would like and work it all out with them! On the third day there will be sound check and then the performances in front of a crowd of people. This is the biggest test for everyone, you’re going to be able to show us how you interact with the audience, which is important for the live shows. For now, though, go get some rest and decide which song you want to perform. You all deserve it!” Toshinori told everyone, and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t excited to just sit. Literally, that’s it, you just want to sit.

Mina and Denki had other plans.

So here you were, at a club in LA, sitting on this random ass couch that’s conveniently placed away from everyone in there. Essentially everyone from the show is in there, but everyone is too busy getting drunk and dancing and singing with their newly made friends. That is, of course, except for you and Shinsou. Who’s actually been right next to you this whole time. The two of you were slowly sipping on some complimentary drinks from Mina and Shinsou that they told you they’d keep ordering until the two of you were sloshed. Which wouldn’t happen. There’s too much that the two of you need to decide to actually get drunk.

“So, have you thought about what song you’re gonna sing?” he asks, taking a sip of the alcohol in his hand. “No… I wish I could just bust out an original, I could do that easy,” you say, sighing. “Yeah, same here. I mean I have some options, but I wish I could just sing something that I want to share. Like with my own words.” “Yeah, same. Especially since, like, you know, almost every single song out there is about love??? Like, no thank you, dude. I’m tired of that shit.”

“And this is why I love to hang out with you,” he says, a small smirk on his lips. You give him a grin and raise your glass in a bit of a toast before taking a drink. He chuckles, his eyes never leaving you. While the two of you aren’t necessarily drunk, the two of you are tipsy. I mean, think about it. Mina and Denki have bought countless shots. And there’s always four. So now, you two are just kind of trying to relax while they talk up the two girls, they’ve been staring at for the past two days. You’re feeling it a bit more than he is, and he knows that so he’s keeping an eye on you to make sure you’re okay. That’s the sole reason he is staring at you. Only reason.

Okay.

So maybe that’s not the only reason.

Can you blame him though? You really are the prettiest person he’s ever seen in his entire life. Sure, it scares him, but he really just can’t help it. I mean, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him liking you, obviously. But the more time he spends with you, the more and more he just wants to hold you. And kiss you. And you know just be in a relationship with you. And maybe this is the alcohol getting to him, but damn. He really really likes you. And not just the way you look. The way you think. The way you act. Your voice. Your talent. Your humility. Everything about you is just so appealing and attractive. Weird how alcohol makes all of his thoughts that he tries to suppress flood his brain. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” he hears your voice, which pulls him out of his silent stare. The smirk on your lips makes him smile. “Yeah, but a picture doesn’t compare to the beauty of the real thing,” he responds, reveling in the fact that he just made you flustered. He can tell by the change of pitch in your voice when you tell him to fuck off. Not mention she almost dropped her drink.

He’s so relieved he probably won’t remember this in the morning. Oh shit, wait he’s drunk. This was what he was trying to avoid? What the fuck. That’s when he realizes that if he’s drunk, you are too. You drank the same amount as him and he’s a heavy weight, so if he’s drunk you are too. And he definitely notices as soon as you stand up to go get another drink since you nearly fall over. Luckily, he steadies you. Sure, he also feels not very steady on his feet, but making sure you were okay was the top priority right now. And he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the fact that he was holding you by your waist again. Just like when you two fell asleep together earlier. “Maybe that’s enough drinks for you,” he says, and you giggle. “Probably a good idea,” you respond, and he takes your empty glass before chugging the rest of his down. He takes the glasses and hands them to one of the workers before leading you over to Mina and Denki. “Hey, we’re going to head out. I think (Y/n) needs to take it easy for a bit,” Shinsou says, trying to pretend that he wasn’t on cloud nine with you leaning into him and happily humming to yourself. “Aw, but we’re just starting to have fun! This is Momo! Isn’t she pretty?” Mina says, motioning to one of the girls from earlier with black hair. “Not as pretty as Jirou. Come on you guys should totally stay,” Denki basically begs, but Shinsou shakes his head. “I’m gonna take her back to the hotel. I’ll text you when I’m there.”

Before Denki and Mina can protest again, he hurries and takes you out of the club. He calls an Uber, leaning against the outside wall of the club with you still attached to his side. He has his arm around you and is gently rubbing your side with his thumb. “You smell so good,” he hears you mumble, and he grins. “Thanks, kitten.”

“I really like it. You’re the best.”

He knows that you’re drunk, and he is too, but damn. That sounded so nice coming from you. He can’t help but full on smile. “You make me so happy,” he hears you mumble into his shirt, and he swears his heart skips a beat. “You make me even happier, kitten,” he answers, and it’s true. He hasn’t felt this good in a long time. And it’s not just the alcohol. It’s you. Even if he’s physically drunk right now, he feels this way around you all the time. He hears you hum a bit before looking at him with a big grin on your face. He smiles back, and before he even processes what he’s doing he kisses your forehead. Your reaction is adorable, considering you just bury your face into him again. He chuckles, not even feeling embarrassed. Thank you, alcohol.

Eventually the Uber arrives, and he helps you inside before telling the driver where you’re headed. You both get there no problem, and he helps you to your room. He gives you some Advil and gets you a glass of water, making sure you drink it. He helps you lay down, sitting next to you on the bed. He watches as you start drifting off, making sure you were comfortable and sending a barely legible text to Denki telling him the two of you are back home. When he thinks you’re asleep, he goes to stand up but is stopped by you. “Noooooooooo,” you mumble, and he looks down at you. You have your puppy eyes out and he feels his heart basically stop. “Don’t go, Toshi, you make me feel warm and happy and I sleep better with you.”

Toshi? Fuck, he likes the sound of his first name coming out of your mouth. He doesn’t even oppose. He immediately lays down next to you. “Yay,” you mumble, and he grins. “Jesus Christ, kitten, you’re so perfect,” he says, pulling you into him. You giggle. “Not as perfect as you.”

“Um, no, you’re 100% more perfect than I am. I mean, look at you.”

“Nuh-uh, everything you do is amazing. You’re amazing.”

“You’re more amazing than I could ever hope to be,” he says, sighing. How did he get this lucky? Truly, even if you two aren’t dating yet, how did he end up just be able to be here and lying down with you? He doesn’t deserve this chance. And he loves being able to actually see you as you drift off to sleep this time. The city lights shining through the window and falling on your face make you look even more like an angel. He would love to fall asleep like this every night. And he actually falls asleep decently early for him again.

He even somehow managed to sleep through the noise Mina made when she saw the two of you after stumbling into your hotel room.

And now there’s a picture of the two of you on her phone. Just wait til she’s sober and sees it. 

[bananaofswifts]

“I just need to make a better record. I’m making a better record.” That’s what Taylor Swift said with striking calm in one of the most memorable clips from her Netflix documentary, Miss Americana, after finding out that her 2017 album, reputation, had been shut out of the 2018 Grammys’ Big Four categories.

Her next release, Lover, didn’t quite live up to Swift’s ambitions, at least on the awards front: In 2019, its only major Grammy nod was for song of the year, for the title track. But now, thanks to her record-breaking, surprise (and surprising) pandemic release, folklore, she may have made a record that’s “better” in the eyes of voters. Swift’s only album to spend its first four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, folklore pushes her songwriting into new territory, trading stadium-pop sheen for the subtle, layered production of prestige indie-rock, thanks in part to an unlikely collaborator: The National’s Aaron Dessner.

Dessner, 44, has been making music for over two decades, collaborating with everyone from close friends like Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon — with whom he co-founded the band Big Red Machine and more recently the independent label 37d03d, a partnership with Secretly Group — to Mumford & Sons and world-class orchestras. With nine co-writes and 11 production credits (some of which he shares with Jack Antonoff), folklore is Dessner’s most high-profile project yet and could well get him a producer of the year nomination. (He previously won a Grammy for best alternative music album with The National at the 2018 ceremony.)

‘’Jack and I thought this would be a record we loved but had no expectations commercially,” says Dessner. “So the fact that it’s this weird smash — of course it would be amazing to win or be nominated. But it’s not on my list of things I feel that I need to accomplish in life. I really couldn’t be more proud of folklore. And also just like, ‘What the fuck, how did this happen?’”

You’ve said the best musical experiences you’ve had have come from moments of spontaneity. How does that apply to folklore?

It’s exactly that. I feel like I would not have been able to go toe-to-toe with Taylor in the way that I did if I hadn’t done everything else that I’d ever done. To me, making songs with your friends in some basement 20 years ago or producing records for totally unknown artists is just as important as when you end up, by some weird stroke of serendipity, in a crazy collaboration with someone who is so gifted. I had really run the gantlet of so many experiences that I was in a spot where when she came, there were fireworks, musically, between us. And we had the work ethic to see it through.

Once she reached out to you, how did you prepare to work with Swift?

Well, I’ve definitely listened to all her records — I do that from time to time, just binge-listen to certain things — and I could tell she’s a savant. She’s such a performer, but so gifted as a writer. She told me upfront: “Don’t try to be anyone other than yourself,” because she was really gravitating toward the emotion in the music. She didn’t want me to try and be Max Martin or Jack Antonoff. I didn’t go obsess over “Shake It Off” or something. I had a lot of music that I’d been writing when she approached me, and I just sent a folder because she asked. Hours later, [she sent back] “Cardigan.” It was an unusual vein that we struck.

Was there any material of your own that you didn’t want to offer up just yet?

Definitely. It was more that there were some songs that are specifically one thing or another. The Big Red Machine stuff is quite far along — and actually, Taylor has been amazing [at giving feedback]. I’ve shared all of that stuff with her, and she has been really helpful.

Does that mean we will we hear her on a Big Red Machine track in some form?

[Laughs] I can’t really say, so I guess I’ll say neither yes nor no.

How does a massive pop star releasing what feels like an indie folk album allow other artists to feel less confined by genre?

Taylor has opened the door for artists to not feel pressure to have “the bop.” To make the record that she made, while running against what is programmed in radio at the highest levels of pop music — she has kind of made an anti-pop record. And to have it be one of the most, if not the most, successful commercial releases of the year, that throws the playbook out. I hope it gives other artists, especially lesser-known or more independent artists, a chance at the mainstream. Maybe radio will realize that music doesn’t have to sound as pushed as it has. Nobody was trying to design anything to be a hit. Obviously Taylor has the privilege of already having a very large and dedicated audience, but I do feel like it’s having a resonance beyond that.

Music is already moving in that direction with artists like Billie Eilish. Why did that approach appeal to Swift?

I think for people to hear what she’s capable of. That song “peace” — when she wrote that, it was just a harmonized bass and a pulse. She wrote this incredible love song to it that’s one vocal take. I definitely felt like I was exposed to a truly great artist in that moment, just to see her to carve into this sketch in a substantive way. Billie Eilish is a great point: There are people who are pushing the boundaries of what is and isn’t popular or mainstream music. To have been part of it and see it actually happen, I almost felt like, “Is it really going to come out? Is somebody going to come tell us that we’re ridiculous?”

Was there any anxiety over fan and media reactions eclipsing the work itself?

I had moments of self doubt, for sure, but I think that’s part of Taylor’s brilliance and kind-heartedness is to make me and others around her feel confident. She repeatedly would say, “There’s no hierarchy. This is as special and great as anything I’ve done before, if not greater, so don’t worry.” She has dealt with so much spotlight in her life, too much probably, so she knows better than anyone the kind of whims of the zeitgeist, so she was leading in that sense. We were on the phone when it came out, and it was a really special experience… We were just on the phone as people around the world were listening and reviews were coming in and the truth is, it went so well, that I have never thought about it again. It could have been the opposite.

In 2016, you and your brother Bryce, Justin Vernon and others launched a week-long Berlin residency called People that evolved into an online community for artists to self-publish work in real time. What’s the status of that platform now?

At some point People magazine told us that they own the word people in any media context, so we changed it to 37d03d, which is people upside down spelled with numbers and letters. We decided to start a proper record label in partnership with Secretly Group, and we put out as much music as we possibly can with the idea that — and this is very much a part of folklore — eventually there’s a large community of people feeding into the music and making it as great as it can be. [We’re] trying to create a label that really embraces that, and where decisions aren’t commercially driven. If somebody comes to us with this crazy noise record, we’re as interested in that as hit songs on some other record.

You and Swift made folklore without ever being in the same room. How do you see the pandemic changing the music industry?

I do think the way that we’ve had to embrace collaborating remotely and being open to it is a powerful thing. Everything is on pause, and everyone is listening in a different way. I’d like to believe that this is a chance for some shifts to happen.

[unibrowzz]

Mod (finally) reviews all 67 winners of the Eurovision Song Contest Part II: The 1960s

Welcome back! To this...

Whatever you wanna call it, I can barely call half of these “reviews” but ANYWAYS.

The 60s are. Mid-table. Not a tremendously bad decade by all means, but they’re also the only decade to have three songs in my “would refuse to listen to” category, which is an achievement. 

I’m sure you can all guess at least two of those songs by now!

Without further ado, let’s move on to what I think of the winning entries from the 60s.

1960: Tom Pillibi

Country: France 

Artist: Jacqueline Boyer

Language: French

Thoughts: Whenever I was younger and enjoyed singing, I was frequently told that I had a "nasally" voice. I never knew what this meant, and I rarely heard my own voice to hear what it meant. Since people told me I had a nice voice, I continued to sing without fixing it. But now I'm older and know a tiny bit more about music, I can finally hear what they meant. Jaqueline here had a very nasally voice and a very high song to go with it. You can hear the notes being directed through her nose and sinuses rather than up from her diaphragm and mouth, resulting in a voice which sounds impressively high… but also very thin and flimsy. There's no resonance or depth to these notes, she sounds like a kid half her age trying to sing. Maybe that's what she was told to do, but given how this song is about a girl telling us about the shit her cheeky boyfriend tells her, I'd like to think not. Then again, this IS the 60s.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? United Kingdom- Bryan Johnson- “Looking High, high, high”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 54th

1961: Nous les Amoureux

Country: Luxembourg

Artist: Jean-Claude Pascale

Language: French

Thoughts: I know this song didn’t compete for France, but have you ever heard a more aggressively French song than this? This is one of the most sultry, seductive songs in this lineup; like it just feels like the song itself is trying to seduce me and is going to offer me a glass of fine red wine before leading me to a candlelit bedroom and a four-post bed with rose petals scattered across it or some shit. That or it's gonna blow a long stream of cigarette smoke right into my face. One or the other. Going back on track, I like this song. Granted I wouldn’t call it a favourite or anything, but it’s still a Hell of a lot more likeable than most of the other 60s winners, and Hell, you could even argue this one is a lot more admirable given how the lyrics of the song are intended for a male lover of the singer’s. Which, for the early 60s, makes this a bigger deal than it would be nowadays. The singing is buttery smooth, and the song itself has a bit of a skip to it. It’s a very appealing song, and one I appreciate just a little bit more than the other songs from the 60s.

Is this my personal winner for this year? 50/50

If no, what is? France- Jean-Paul Mauric- “Printemps, avril carillon”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 26th

1962: Un Premier Amour 

Country: France

Artist: Isabelle Aubret

Language: French (Translation: “A First Love”)

Thoughts: You know whenever you play a CD too much and it eventually becomes all scratched and worn down so whenever you play it it skips back to the same part over and over again before unsticking to play a bit more of the song, but keeps getting stuck over and over? Yeah, imagine a whole song like that. This song just drones on, with no charisma or vocal animation to break up the monotony. I don’t even think the rule “well it was the 60s” applies, since this isn’t really a song that needs flashy setpieces, costuming, dancing or anything; it just needs a charismatic singer. And, unfortunately, Aubret just isn’t one, in my opinion.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? United Kingdom- Ronnie Carroll- "Ring-a-Ding Girl"

Personal ranking (out of 67):  62nd

1963: Dansevise

Country: Denmark

Artist: Grete and Jørgen Ingmann

Language: Danish

Thoughts: Oh fucking finally, something unique for once. Which is very surprising because, from what I've seen and heard, the early contests weren't all that kind to songs which didn’t fit a certain criteria. If anything, most songs which came off as being unique with different sounds, instruments, and moods compared to the rest of their years ended up pulling up the rear in last place, more often than not with nil points. So it's nice to see a song which not only has unique elements to it (ie, a brooding sultry guitar accompaniment and a steady sweeping tempo), but is also in a stereotypically "ugly" language do well this early on.  Getting back on track, this is one of those songs I find tends to be a cult favourite, especially amongst vintage and retro fans. And why wouldn't it be? It's a breath of fresh air in an era where so many songs sounded exactly the same, just in a different language. This is one of the few fan favourite winners where I can see the appeal myself.

Is this my personal winner for this year? Yes

If no, what is? N/A

Personal ranking (out of 67): 27th

1964: Non ho l’Eta

Country: Italy

Artist: Gigliola Cinquetti

Italian: (Translation: “I’m not old enough”)

Thoughts: If that title isn’t off-putting enough, then I don’t know what is. You’re all probably well aware of this right now, but I don’t like this song. At all. Everything about it just makes me feel creeped out and kinda dirty every time I hear it, which is a shame because the melody on its own is very pretty. It’s the song equivalent of flicking through re-runs of Top of the Pops and landing on a segment where Jimmy Saville is hosting; it just sends a disgusted shiver down my spine and I have to turn it off as quickly as possible.  Which, given the lyrics of this song, is understandable. Think about it; you’ve got this visibly nervous, very young, still-legally-a-child-in-most-countries teenager, singing about how she “isn’t old enough” to be in a relationship with someone who seems to be older than she is. Maybe it’s just because I don’t speak any Italian, and the meaning is all semantic and context based, but this is my personal opinion at the end of the day, and, unfortunately, these lyrics just come off as really creepy to me. This song reminds me a lot of the song “Baby, it’s Cold Outside”, in that the lyrics used to be totally innocent and sweet, but to a modern listener come off as shockingly creepy and off-putting, and you’re not sure if it’s down to a change in slang and colloquialisms or if the past really was that messed up. Just like how in "Baby it's Cold Outside", a line asking "does this contain alcohol" now sounds like "have you spiked this with something", what was once “I’m too young and naïve to be in a serious committed relationship” now comes off as “I’m underaged, please leave me alone”. Doesn’t help that Cinquetti was underaged, hated the song, didn’t want to perform, and only showed up because she was forced to by a pushy manager. Which, for the 60s, was par for the course.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? Germany- Nora Nova- "Man Gewöhnt sich zu Schnell an das Schöne"

Personal ranking (out of 67):  66th

1965: Poupée du Cire, Poupée du Son

Country: Luxembourg

Artist: France Gall

Language: French (Translation: “Wax doll, stuffed doll”)

Thoughts: And now we come to Non ho L’eta’s ugly little sister in that, just like with that song, there’s a weirdly sinister edge to this one that I just can’t shake off. My French isn’t fantastic, admittedly, but every line of this song seems like it has another, less innocent meaning. Like the whole song is one big double entendre. Which, given how this was written by Serge “I made a 16 year old sing about blowing dicks when she thought she was singing about lollipops” Gainsborg, wouldn’t surprise me. Dodgy lyrics aside, this song is just… terrible. Songs which repeat the same motif over and over are a dime a dozen in older Eurovision, though most of them at least spice it up with a key change, adding more instruments to the instrumental, or even just having a nice melody. This? Is just an uncharismatic, uninterested teenager barking the same few notes over and over again ad nauseum. I know it was the 60s and that the contest was way more restrictive in how songs could be performed, but there’s just… no enthusiasm or animation or anything to make this charming or remotely enjoyable. It’s just shouty, unpleasant, and lacking any semblance of charisma. And I don't care if it's "important", it fucking sucks and we deserved a better song as our “first uptempo winner” of the contest.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? The Netherlands- Conny Vandenbos- “‘t is Genoeg”

Personal ranking (out of 67):  67th

1966- Merci, Chérie

Country:  Austria

Artist: Udo Jurgens

Language: German (Translation: “Thank you, my dear”)

Thoughts: I’m so conflicted on this song. It’s very beautiful, emotional, dramatic... BUT. I just find it so forgettable, I’m sorry. I’m struggling to even talk about it right now. Do you know how long it took me to even finish this mini review? Too damn long. I forgot all about this song mid way through it. So at the recommendation of a friend I put this one on so I could review it whilst it plays and… it’s just a very sleepy song. Udo Jurgens is a good singer, I won’t deny that, but, God, he sounds like he’s nodding off as he sings. The first minute and a half of this song sounds like one big yawn. And that’s over half the song wasted just building to a climax, since I don’t think this song has a chorus, and for a song this short and slow I just don’t think it’s wise to put your climax right in the middle. I feel it would be better if it had two climactic parts or just put the climax right at the end of the song so the whole song is spent building that suspense. Shoving it smack in the middle of the song just makes it feel shorter. Also the fact it’s a piano song reminds me of Non ho l’eta and I don’t need to repeat myself to remind you that’s a bad thing, so, moving on.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? Italy- Domenico Modugno- “Dio, come ti amo”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 45th

1967: Puppet on a String

Country: United Kingdom

Artist: Sandie Shaw

Language: English

Thoughts: You know, I was pretty shocked to find out this song is a Eurovision song. Partially because I didn’t realise just how old Eurovision actually is, and partially because as somebody who grew up in Britain in the 2000s, I was just bred to believe the UK is inherently shit, has never won ever, and is incapable of sending songs people actually cherish and remember. But that’s a rant for another day. Anyways, this is the song Poupée du Cire wishes it was. It’s charming, it’s bouncy, it skips along so merrily you forget how the lyrics have aged about as well as a pint of milk left out in the sun for too long.  Then again, I think the lyrics were outdated even back then. I suppose what sets this song aside from the other “60s entries with sexist lyrics sung by young women who didn’t want to be there” is that Shaw is a damn good performer, and hides her disdain expertly. If she wasn’t so vocal about how much she hates this song, you’d swear she loves it, her performance is that charming.

Is this my personal winner for this year? Eh

If no, what is? Portugal- Eduardo Nascimento- “O vento mudou”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 24th

1968: La la la

Country: Spain

Artist: Massiel

Language: Spanish

Thoughts: And the award for most creatively bankrupt name goes to…  Granted, 1968 was one of the dreariest years I’ve watched, so it’s pretty easy to see why a song like this would have done well. That said, this is a really bland song, and even in a year as dull as 1968, I still don’t think this should have won. It’s the kind of song which relies on repeating itself ad nauseum in order to get stuck in your head, and let’s be honest here, that makes it more annoying than anything else. There’s only so many rounds of “la la la” you can take before you feel like rupturing your own eardrums with a knitting needle after all. I don’t really have anything else to say about it, it’s just mildly annoying and not that good.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? Norway- Odd Børre- “Stress”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 55th

1969- Four Winners, One Contest

France: Un jour, un enfant

Artist: Frida Boccara

Language: French

Thoughts: Well this is objectively the best of the four songs we have here, and it’s also my favourite winner from France, so at least it has that going for it. Though, let’s be real, I’m hardly a big fan of France’s winners, or French ballads in general. So this is… a big emotional ballad. What more is there to say? It’s big. It’s emotional. The lyrics are nonsense because God help us if we have songs with strong emotions this early on in the contest. Summary: Very nice, but lacking substance. Personal ranking (out of 67):  21st

Spain: Vivo Cantando

Artist: Salome

Language: Spanish

Thoughts: I’m not really what you’d call an advocate for bringing back a live orchestra, but, man, songs like this sure turn me into one. The live version of this song is in a whole other league compared to the studio version; like it is just pure, infectious, Spanish cheer. It’s an absolute blast to listen to, and I strongly recommend checking out the live version before going anywhere near the studio. Summary: Infections, but choose live over studio because it’s better okay. Personal ranking (out of 67):  20th

The Netherlands: Der Troubadour

Artist: Lenny Kuhr

Language: Dutch

Thoughts: I mean.... The guitar solo is impressive at least. I’m sorry, I don’t see the appeal in this one. And I feel so weirdly alone in that stance. So many people I know have this song in their top ten best winners list and I just don’t understand it. I just find it very dull and repetitive, and the singer’s voice is definitely an acquired taste. To me she just sounds like she’s forcing her voice lower, like a reverse falsetto or something. And that’s all I really have to say about this one. I just… don’t  like it that much, or at least not as much as everyone else I know seems to. Summary: I don’t “get” it. Personal ranking (out of 67): 53rd

United Kingdom: Boom-Bang-a-Bang

Artist: Lulu

Language: English

Thoughts: Ah yes, the forgotten UK winner. Everybody knows Lulu did this contest once, and everybody knows Boom-bang-a-bang was a British entry, but I swear nobody knows she actually won. Probably because she had the audacity to tie with other countries, the horror. And that’s the most interesting part of this song because it’s otherwise  just kind of alright. It’s very twee and sweet, and if I didn’t know that “bubblegum pop” was a genre reserved for one-hit-wonder nobodies and not decade-defining names then I’d say this is a perfect example of it. It’s just a decent-ish fluffy pop song with very saccharine fluffy lyrics. Standard British Eurovision pap, if you ask me. Summary: Cute, but lacking substance. Personal ranking (out of 67): 25th

So who really should have won in 1969? Either Spain or Monaco if you ask me. That kid had charm.

[tigerkirby215]

5e Seraphine, the Starry-Eyed Songstress build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Jennifer Wuestling. Made for Riot Games.)

I mean I’m going to have to build her eventually, right? Honestly Tasha’s Cauldron comes out tomorrow so I may as well take a bit of a cheat day and make a build for the new champ. I mean I still have to and pick out a bunch of spells so at least I’m doing that?

Samira build is going to come out sometime in the year 3587 lol.

GOALS

Lookin' for a song in everything I meet! - Seraphine is a stage performer, rallying the whole crowd into song to make it loud and proud!

You're all breathtaking! - Seraphine can unite everyone around her with shields and heals. COUGH SONA COUGH.

Sing it with me! - When the time comes Seraphine can bring the whole world closer together! Good thing she isn’t mute.

RACE

I would really love to do a funny joke and say that Seraphine is a Tiefling or an Orc or something but no: she’s a Human. I can’t even justify any of the Eberron races so we’ll just be going for good ol’ Variant Human.

As a human you can increase two ability scores of your choice: pump up your Charisma and Dexterity to keep fit and beautiful. You can also learn a skill of your choice and for hearing so strong you can hear the voices of a dying nation inside your special necklace take Perception proficiency. You can also take any language of your choice so I’d suggest one that fits with your group, or whichever one you think is Korean. Actually I think Seraphine sung in Chinese which also made people mad? Man Riot can’t stop making her controversial, huhn?

But of course the main appeal of Variant Human is the free feat at level 1. I think Alert is pretty good for mimicking super sensitive hearing. Along with a +5 bonus to initiative you can’t be surprised nor can you be snuck up on. Being able to hear everyone has its perks, huhn?

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - If you’re gonna get the crowd to adore you you’ve gotta look the part.

14; CONSTITUTION - I don’t care if Seraphine is a squishy midlane mage we simply don’t need anything else more. Feel free to swap this out with a different stat if you want better roleplay but worse health.

13; DEXTERITY - You need to be able to keep your balance on a moving platform as well as be able to dance along with the K/DA crew.

12; WISDOM - Seraphine’s big thing is being able to hear the emotions of everyone. Knowing what makes people tick is Insight, which is a Wisdom skill.

10; INTELLIGENCE - Seraphine is just your average, everyday girl. Ditzy and a little clueless.

8; STRENGTH - Seraphine can best be described as “petite.” Muscles in the chest hurt your nice soprano.

BACKGROUND

Now you may not know this but Seraphine is a singer, which is a type of Entertainer. As an Entertainer you get proficiency in Performance (obviously) and Acrobatics as well as a music instrument of your choice (Indie Seraphine plays guitar so grab a Lute) and a Disguise Kit, so maybe you can disguise the fact that you’re a copy of So...

Being the premier superstar of Piltover means that you get to tour around a lot By Popular Demand. You can perform in exchange for a place to stay, and doing so will get people to notice you! "Music helps you keep your head up."

(Artist unknown. Blame LoL Wiki. Artwork made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - BARD 1

YOU MAY BE SURPRISED TO HEAR THAT SERAPHINE IS A BARD. As a Bard you get proficiency in three skills as well as three instruments! Choose whatever instruments you want (you mostly sing, and the majority of magical instruments are Lutes anyways which you’re already proficient in) (my secret advice? Pan Flutes and Horns have a few magic instruments) but for your skills take Insight to hear the crowd, Persuasion to rally the crowd, and Arcana to learn why your magic crystal is screaming.

You also get Bardic Inspiration! Seraphine talks about being inspired so she can inspire others, and you can inspire your allies with a d6 to add to Attack Rolls, Saving Throws, and Skill Checks!

But of course Bards are spellcasters with Spellcasting too! You can learn two cantrips from the Bard list: Prestidigitation will let you get some special effects on stage and Vicious Mockery doesn’t have to be mockery... It would just be a lot cooler if it was.

You also learn four spells from the Bard list: Comprehend Languages will let you understand everyone’s song, and Faerie Fire will let you light up their life. On the more unnerving end Dissonant Whispers will let folk listen to your crystal, and Detect Magic will let you tell exactly what kind of magic you’re hearing. That’s weird: why is the Hextech crystal radiating Necromancy?

LEVEL 2 - BARD 2

Second level Bards are Jack of All Trades, being able to add half their proficiency bonus to any skill check. Because you see the rhythm in everything! Additionally you get Song of Rest, helping your friends take a break and recover more health during short rests.

But most importantly you get another spell! Another way to cheer someone up is to give them a good laugh, and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter will make them do just that! Maybe they’re laughing about the fact that Riot keeps insisting your not a copy of Sona? Oh don’t worry the jabs at Seraphine as a character are just gonna keep coming.

LEVEL 3 - BARD 3

Third level Bards get Expertise in two skills: choose Insight to hear the souls of both cities, and Performance because... yeah duh. You don’t become famous in a day.

But much more importantly you get your choice of Bard College, and for the rich and fabulous the College of Glamour will make sure everyone loves you! You can now officially captivate the whole audience (up to your Charisma modifier) with your Enthralling Performance, charming them and making them idolize you and defend you on Twitter. To both shield your allies and speed them up with Surround Sound Mantle of Inspiration takes a Bonus Action to give them Temporary Hitpoints and let them take a reaction to move out of danger. Yeah this was pretty much on a silver platter for me so I figured I’d take it.

You can also learn another spell and for an effective Beat Drop take Hold Person, rooting them in place for long enough that your ADC can do their magic.

LEVEL 4 - BARD 4

4th level comes with your first Ability Score Improvement. Charisma is pretty much everything for us now so pumping that up would be helpful!

You can also learn another spell and another cantrip! For your cantrip Dancing Lights will let you light up your stage and also pulls double duty by letting your dumb human eyes see in the dark. As for leveled spells Suggestion is a more direct form of emotional manipulation, suggesting actions for the other person to take. These actions can’t be directly harmful or against what the character would normally do, but “you should buy my $30 release skin” is a fairly ordinary request, right?

(Picture from Seraphine’s Twitter. Yup Seraphine is definitely real.)

LEVEL 5 - BARD 5

5th level Bards get Font of Inspiration, allowing their Bardic Inspiration to come back on a Short rest instead of a Long rest. This is great because your Bardic Inspiration die also increases to a d8, increasing your Mantle of Inspiration Temp HP too!

You can also learn third level spells but the keyword here is can because I’m actually going to stick at second to take spells like Calm Emotions. Man you’ll never guess what this spell does.

While Calm Emotions is a nice spell feel free to deviate from my builds as you see fit. Like seriously a temporary ceasefire is nice but so is a huge Fear cone.

LEVEL 6 - BARD 6

6th level Glamour Bards can make people dance like they have a magical instrument from Ionia. Mantle of Majesty lets you Concentrate on a not-spell once per Long Rest and get the ability to cast the Command actual-spell as a Bonus Action for one minute. Command lets you make one word commands at your enemy as long as they can understand you and you aren’t asking them to do something harmful to themselves. So commands like “Dance!” “Sing!” and “Cheer!” are all viable (though perhaps not effective in a teamfight.)

You can also add another spell to your spell list but again the third level Bard spells aren’t too enticing to me, so take Enthrall to make sure they concentrate on you and you alone.

Oh and you get Countercharm, letting you use an action to give allies against Frightening and Charming effects. Or they could buy some Tenacity. Or you could get a Paladin.

LEVEL 7 - BARD 7

7th level Bards get 4th level spells and Confusion will get the crowd mixed up in the noise, resulting in a cacophony that would sound like unbearable noise to most. Because it is unbearable noise. But at least your friends can fight them in the madness.

LEVEL 8 - BARD 8

8th level Bards get another Ability Score Improvement. Do you know what’s helpful for a class based entirely on Charisma? Maxed out Charisma!

You know what else is helpful? Charm Monster, so you can talk to any crystal scorpions that might be looking for their family. I mean, assuming the Brackern speak human.

(Picture from Seraphine’s Twitter. Yup Seraphine is definitely real.)

LEVEL 9 - BARD 9

9th level sees your Song of Rest increase to a d8. Does this ability scale really poorly? Yeah kinda.

At least you get 5th level spells now. If you want some high notes that’ll dance around you Animate Objects will let you make a bunch of tiny objects to hit your foes! Honestly at this point all the Enchantment spells become uhhh... evil? So we have to go for a different school if we want “good” spells.

LEVEL 10 - BARD 10

10th level Bards get Expertise in two more skills: Persuasion will help you shift the hearts of a nation. Take whatever skill you want as your secondary one since it honestly doesn’t matter too much. (I personally opted for Perception.)

But more importantly it’s Magical Secrets time! This will let you get any spell from any class’ spell list and add it to your own! Most of the time when you get this feature you want to grab some stuff at the max level you can cast but I’m actually going to go down to third level for some support and buffs! For a healing aura around you take Aura of Vitality from the Paladin spell list. To quickly charm a crowd Incite Greed will force everyone to be charmed by you as they want to see your 50 dollar Brackern Corpse... I mean Hextech crystal.

Along with your two Magical Secrets you also get another cantrip. Message is always good to keep plans in team chat.

LEVEL 11 - BARD 11

11th level Bards get 6th level spells like Otto's Irresistible Dance, which forces everyone to get into the rhythm! It’s much harder to fight when you’re dancing: it’s like being stunned! Good thing only you can force a stunning dance on enemies.

LEVEL 12 - BARD 12

12th level Bards get an Ability Score Improvement but now that your Charisma is maxed you can grab Inspiring Leader to rally everyone together for an awesome performance!

(Artist unknown. Blame LoL Wiki. Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 13 - BARD 13

13th level Bards see their Song of Rest increase to a d10, and this is the point where I make a joke about Song of Rest scaling poorly.

You at least get 7th level spells, and because none of these really fit Seraphine I’m going to suggest Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion for a K/DA stage. But again I need to remind people that I’m picking options for RP and you’re welcome to build the character however you want. Take what you think will be useful and make your own song!

LEVEL 14 - BARD 14

14th level Eloquence Bards have Unbreakable Majesty! As a Bonus Action you can put on your Ultimate Skin to force enemies to make Charisma saves if they try to attack you. If they fail, they’ll target someone else! This is a great way to keep the damage off you since you don’t exactly have great HP or AC. Do remember that it only lasts for a minute though, but you can get it back at the end of a Short or Long rest.

Additionally you get two more Magical Secrets! If you want to sing to enemies far and long (but maybe not Wide) Gravity Fissure is a Dunamancy spell that forces everyone in a line to take a massive amount of damage and be pulled to the center of the spell.

Now that you got your ultimate the world is honestly your oyster. My recommendation to get a crowd to put their hands up would be Chain Lightning, but that’s more because the spell is good than because it fits Sera.

LEVEL 15 - BARD 15

15th levels get their maximum Bardic Inspiration die of a d12! This also means that your Mantle of Inspiration will now give everyone 15 temporary hitpoints! "Harmonize!"

LoL Wiki doesn’t let me link to voice lines anymore and that’s a true crime.

And hey; 8th level spells! If you want to make some Gamers™ mad about your “cash grab” Twitter account just inflict them with Feeblemind so they can spam pictures of Skarner like the marketing department gets to choose what the champion designers make. Because remember: even if Seraphine isn’t real the people pretending to be her are, so don’t be an ass please!

LEVEL 16 - BARD 16

Who likes ASIs? We haven’t used our hyper-sensitive hearing enough so take the Observant feat for a +1 to Wisdom and a +5 to passive Perception and Investigation. And the ability to pick up on lyrics by reading people’s lips!

Are there more useful feats? Yeah, but we build for character here. If you want a powerbuild check out Reddit.

(Picture from Seraphine’s Twitter. Yup Seraphine is definitely real.)

LEVEL 17 - BARD 17

17th level Bards get to pretend that Song of Rest is a good ability! It’s a d12 now so I’m sure it’s useful now that your party all have around 100 HP!

But you finally get access to your mythical 9th level spells! Honestly all the options are great for a girl who has everything, but I’m going to go for the fun Music Video option of True Polymorph. Turn Akali into a dragon! Turn Evelynn into a demon! Turn Skarner into a battery! The possibilities are endless! (Unlike the #BrackernRights memes.)

LEVEL 18 - BARD 18

18th level Bards get their last two Magical Secrets. This is also the last two spells you’ll be getting so better make them count! Of course the best way to make a spell count is to Wish for anything. With this you can finally unite Piltover and Zaun, as long as you believe enough! Or you can bring back Skarner’s family...

For something a little more in-character and a lot more immediately practical: Mass Heal is the perfect Catch-22 to negate any burst. A burst of 700 HP to everyone is never not useful for a bit of Redemption.

LEVEL 19 - BARD 19

19th level Bards get their last Ability Score Improvement: we have an uneven Wisdom score thanks to our last Feat so eh. May as well take Resilient Wisdom for better saving throws and even scores.

LEVEL 20 - BARD 20

20th level Bards have Superior Inspiration! When you roll initiative and have no uses of Bardic Inspiration left, you regain one use. That is literally how the ability is worded. I mean, okaaaaay? At least you can spam Mantle of Inspiration a little more?

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Whole world hears me now! - You’re a full caster with no multiclassing! 9th level spells: no strings attached! You’ve even got a nice spread between Concentration spells and Non-Concentration spells, as well as both utility and combat spells.

Everyone fights to be heard; I'll fight to listen - Being a Bard means you’re good at just about everything, and particularly good at a select few things. 29 Passive Perception? +17 to Persuasion?

We've only just met and I'm already inspired - Who would’ve guessed that a Support class built to support well would be a good support? You’ve got charms, heals, and CC a plenty along with Inspiring Leader to bolster everyone before a battle and Mantle of Inspiration to keep everyone moving with the music!

CONS

Stage fright? Never heard of it - A lot of your BADDEST™ toys are locked behind big spell slots. You’ve only got two 6th level slots, and just one 9th level slot despite having three different 9th level spells to choose from. Again feel free to build your spell list however you want as I just picked what fit in character.

Pretend it's a big rehearsal - Your DEX is meh, your CON is meh. 140 HP isn’t godawful but it isn’t great when you’ll likely have 14 AC at best with Studded Leather. You know what’s really hot right now? Tattoos. See if your DM’s a cool dude who’ll pass you a Rare Barrier Tattoo from Tasha’s to essentially get Medium Armor! Elven Chain is also nice and pretty.

Joy's too quiet without sorrow on the downbeat - I don’t want to make two points related to your stats but they’re the only thing that’s really hurting in this build. Your only good stat is Charisma: and everything else ranges from meh (+2 in DEX / WIS / CON) to bad (0 in INT, -1 in STR.) While you’ll still be able to roleplay with Jack of All Trades skills your Saving Throws hurt. Your concentration is bad and anything heavy will break your petite spine in two. Luckily INT saves aren’t common but anything Strength or Constitution based will quickly put an end to your performance.

Uniting the world in song isn’t easy, but if anyone can do it it’s you. Harmonize, move with the rhythm, and unite everyone through song. There’s nothing you can’t do, and no one can bring you down down down down down down. Well, except perhaps an angry crystal scorpion monster and his army of Twitter followers.

(Artist unknown. Blame LoL Wiki. Artwork made for Riot Games.)

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1980

Under the cut.

KC & The Sunshine Band -- "Please Don't Go" -- January 5, 1980

Is that falsetto in the opening or merely an attempt at it? KC & The Sunshine Band trying to do a sincere, sad ballad does not work. Now I have the dance remix by KWS that was a hit in the 90s (and apparently plagiarized from a Euro-dance group) in my head.

Michael Jackson -- "Rock With You" -- January 18, 1980

I thought I had never heard this song before until I heard the chorus. Oh yeah, this one. I don't know if Michael Jackson singing a sex jam would have worked for me before, well, all the child molestation coming to light. Now it really doesn't. There's only so much "separate the art from the artist" I'm capable of, though I am in favor of it. On another note, in the video, he's wearing the sparkliest outfit I have ever seen.

The Captain & Tennille -- "Do That To Me One More Time" -- February 16, 1980

I don't want to think about The Captain doing it even once. That is the problem with this song. Other than that, I think it's a perfectly acceptable cheesy love song. Well, except for the... plastic flute? I don't know what that is, but I'm not fond of it.

On a kind of strange note, I scrolled ahead, and starting here, I recognize almost all the songs for the next couple years on this list. Maybe they were played more on the oldies stations? At clubs? Restaurants? Maybe I came to musical consciousnous at three and a half years old?

Queen -- "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" -- February 23, 1980

 This is not a top tier Queen song, but Freddie Mercury belching would be better music than anything Barry Gibb did. Not top tier, but still very fun. And it's always great hearing Freddie Mercury do whatever the hell he wants to do with his voice. Here, he has fun doing a little bit of Elvis, but not too much. It's a rockability track by Queen. So it's great.

Pink Floyd -- "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" -- March 22, 1980

We don't need no education. This is a song about the horrible British teachers who used withering sarcasm and cruelty against the children under their care. (Like Snape, basically.) I think it's about boarding schools, since the teachers apparently have control over whether or not the kids get pudding. British boarding schools were terrible. British boarding schools are terrible, though they seem to be trying to be better. We'll see. They have hundreds of years' practice at bricking kids' psyches up in walls, and I don't trust them to change. Um, anyway, it's a good song, but not one I'd choose to listen to separate from the entire album.

Blondie -- "Call Me" -- April 19, 1980

This song actually does start with "Color me your color, baby." Or I suppose "colour" since Blondie are Brits. But it's not like the lyrics are deep -- if you can understand "Call me," you get it. I guess it's technically a love song, but since Debbie Harry sings in such an intentionally icy manner, it's anything but passionate. It's still fun and light and musically interesting.

Lipps, Inc. -- "Funkytown" -- May 31, 1980

This song is about moving out of a town that's stifling and to a town that's right for you -- "Funkytown." It could be any big city with a music scene. It's a dance song with very few lyrics, and yet the lyrics are important. The singer has "talked about it talked about it talked about it," but is determined to finally do it. It's a good funky disco song, and a good send-off for the genre's dominance.

Paul McCartney and theWings -- "Coming Up (Live At Glasgow)" -- June 28, 1980

It sounds a little bit like McCartney trying to do Philly soul, horns included. But lighter, because Paul McCartney. I can't remember the lyrics even just after I heard them, but it's a love song. Quite boring.

Billy Joel -- "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" -- July 19, 1980

I love a lot of Billy Joel songs. I don't really love this one. I like the sentiment -- "Oh, it doesn't matter what they say in the papers/ 'Cause it's always been the same old scene/ There's a new band in town but you can't get the sound/ From a story in a magazine/ Aimed at your average teen." He also criticizes the 80s' roaring materialism, which hadn't even hit its nadir yet. But I dunno. Maybe it's a little slow? It needs something.

Olivia Newton-John -- "Magic" -- August 2, 1980

I had never heard of the movie Xanadu until about a decade ago. It's a staple of bad movie sites. Its plot is bonkers, and some very 1980 blockhead is the male lead. The story would have made more sense and the movie been far better if Olivia Newton-John's character had gotten together with Gene Kelly, who's also in the movie, instead. Anyway, this love song is from the movie's soundtrack. It's got a little bit of that mystical vibe that Stevie Nicks did so well, and that always appeals to me. I can't pretend this is a great song, or even necessarily a good one. But it speaks to the 12-year old in me.

Christopher Cross -- "Sailing" -- August 30, 1980

This is the most Florida song ever. Because it doesn't sound like he really has a boat. "Fantasy, it gets the best of me/ When I'm sailing/ All caught up in the reverie, every word is a symphony/ Won't you believe me?" Musically, it sounds like it would go well with a sailboat. But almost none of us have sailboats. We have fantasies. It's a nice-sounding song, and if you think about it enough, it becomes more complex than it seems.

Diana Ross -- "Upside Down" -- September 6, 1980

I'm going to have to face up to the fact that I usually don't like how Diana Ross sings. She's too slick and detached for me, without lyrics that go with that. I cannot believe this woman was ever turned "upside down" by love. And of course the guy she's singing this to is cheating. But she's okay with it, because of course she is, he's just so awesome that she's singing to him "respectfully." I like this song musically, except for Diana Ross' emotionally distant singing, but I hate the lyrics, and I am extremely sick of this no-maintenance schtick.

Queen -- "Another One Bites the Dust" -- October 4, 1980

This might be the only Queen song I don't like. I'm not saying it's bad. It's probably very good. But I have heard the chorus way too much. Otoh, I've heard "We Will Rock You" even more, and I still like that. Maybe there's too much... stuff in this one? I don't know. It's definitely too repetitive. It's no "Don't Stop Me Now," that's for sure. Queen's best songs never reached #1 in the U.S., and I don't know if any came near until "Bohemian Rhapsody" hit #2 when I was in high school. But reaching the charts is a very bad sign of whether or not music is actually good.

Barbra Streisand -- "Woman in Love" -- October 25, 1980

I'm not going to go back to check, but I think Barbra Streisand has exactly the same pose and expression on the covers of all her singles. This one was written by Barry Gibb, oh joy. I wondered if this would be an additive or a multiplicative factor in how bad the song (which I had never heard) was. Something happened that I didn't expect: It made the song so boring it slips out of my head while I’m listening to it. There's the line "no truth is ever a lie." Brilliant, Barry, what a lyricist. Also, that line is not true. Barry Gibb was apparently not familiar with Othello. Anyway, since I'm just bored, I guess Streisand and Gibb together is actually better than them separately. Still bad, though.

Kenny Rogers -- "Lady" -- November 15, 1980

It's a love song in which the narrator sings that he's your knight in shining armor. That sentiment should be surrounded by more interesting music in some way. Something operatic, or mystical, or country, something. Kenny Rogers was never one of my favorites, but he's capable of something. This song is nothing. Lionel Richie wrote it, so of course.

John Lennon -- "(Just Like) Starting Over" -- December 27, 1980

This song hit #1 just after Lennon was murdered. I was 4 years old, but I actually remember when John Lennon was murdered -- I was in the car with one or more parental units (I don't remember who), and it came on the radio. I was upset. I knew Beatles music, my parents played it all the time, and I knew who John Lennon was. I'm still extremely sad about his death today. This song is about how happy he was with Yoko, all settled down and looking forward to a nice, calm, loving future together. Ugh I'm gonna cry.

BEST OF 1980 -- "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by Queen. WORST OF 1980 -- "Please Don't Go" by KC & The Sunshine Band

[morfinwen]

For the 10 facts ask: Christopher, Reagan, Connie, Q, Niner, and Darcy, please!

Here, have a readmore:

Ten Facts about Chris

1. His mother's ancestry is mostly Italian, with some of the nearby countries mixed in. On his father's side, his grandfather's ancestors came from England in the early 1800s, while his grandmother's parents immigrated from Russia.

2. While she's almost as insanely talented as Chris, his older sister Marie has focused more on scientific, technical pursuits in comparison to his artistic ones: he's into theater and music, she works for NASA.

3. He's actually pretty rich, relatively speaking. Both his parents came from well-off families, particularly his father's, and his mother was not too proud to accept help from her former in-laws after her ex-husband left and didn't pay his child support.

4. He's never been out of state, let alone the country. It's something he'd like to do, it just keeps getting pushed further down the list as he takes on other things.

5. Chris is generally a pretty even-keeled, if not positive person. But when he gets angry, he gets angry. It's usually pretty targeted at whatever/whomever made him angry, but it's safest to get out of the blast radius all the same.

6. It took him an unusually long time to learn trumpet -- unusually long by average standards even, not just his own. He still isn't sure he's got the hang of it.

7. His mother took them to Catholic mass a few times every year when he was growing up, always intending to make it more regularly.

8. He occasionally attends Catholic mass as an adult, but he also visits Russian Orthodox services. His grandmother took him to one as a child several times, and there are aspects of it that appeal to him more (like the music).

9. His sister is married and has two kids. Chris has met his brother-in-law a few times, his nephew once, and his niece never. It's a bit of a sore point between them.

10. Cats just love Chris, even ones that normally hate all people. He used to feed stray cats, and he visits an animal shelter regularly to say hi to all the cats that don't get enough love.

Ten Facts about Reagan

1. In every way but emotional, her aunt Jane did a decent if not good job raising her. Emotionally, it was a total failure. Reagan doesn't hate her aunt, but she doesn't miss her.

2. It bothers her a little that she doesn't miss the woman who raised her.

3. She takes after her father more than her mother -- she knows this mostly because her aunt kept complaining about how different she was.

4. She didn't get diagnosed with dyslexia until her first year of high school. She'd learned to work around it, for the most part, but the diagnosis gave her more tools.

5. Her aunt made her learn piano (because Reagan's mother played piano), but Reagan preferred the guitar. She still has some piano pieces memorized, but rarely plays.

6. She's got deft fingers. This was partially learned by sneaking money from her aunt when she refused to buy Reagan something (her aunt often refused, but Reagan only stole from her a few times), but mostly to sneak things into the pockets of kids who were bothering her at school. She rarely got caught.

7. More than once, Reagan has ended up in a "second-in-command" type of position: she doesn't like being told what to do, she doesn't like being in charge, but she doesn't mind telling people to do what someone else told them to do, and if someone proves to her they know what to do and have a good plan in place to do it, she'll go along with it.

8. She doesn't like the cold, or driving in snow, but the worst part of winter is how dark it gets in the afternoon.

9. She occasionally works on writing her own songs; instrumental, since she can't write lyrics worth a darn. She's never shared them with anyone.

10. She doesn't mind being tall in and of itself, but it makes clothes shopping hard, people are liable to comment on the fact that she's so tall for a woman, and she's hit her head on more than one low-hanging doorway.

Ten Facts about Connie

1. Plenty of people have assumed "Connie" is a girls' name. He doesn't mind. People only tend to tease him about it good-naturedly anyway.

2. Of all his many, many siblings, only his older brother Dylan ever really understood him: why Connie preferred reading indoors to rough-housing outside, why he spent more time on his science and math homework than playing sports, why he hated all those big group events. It would have been better if Dylan could be around more when he was a kid, but just having someone understand helped a lot.

3. While Connie was at college, a scandal broke out in his pack back home that ripped it down the line, and his parents were right in the middle of it. More specifically, his father was one of the causes of the scandal.

4. He hasn't talked to his father since.

5. He is more open to talking to his mother, but their conversations alternate between her trying to guilt him to come home, her being upset with him for being at college when it all happened, and her being depressed. He doesn't talk to his mother much.

6. He hates wearing pants. In professional contexts, he wears them because he has to, but otherwise he only wears shorts.

7. He hates wearing shoes, too. He's constantly having to buy new pairs, in part because he just doesn't take good care of the ones he has.

8. He can play the guitar and the cello, the former very well. Most people don't know this because he doesn't play often, and never in public.

9. He doesn't like to listen to music much, which is another reason people are surprised to know he plays. His mother made him learn.

10. Like a lot of werewolves in that part of the country, his pack had a church that was somewhat LDS, though it's questionable whether it would have been acknowledged as such by the official church. He's moved away from that, but Connie does believe in a God, he's just not sure which one.

Ten Facts about Q

1. He has a large number of contingency plans, for a large number of extreme scenarios. Some are more plausible than others. Some are considerably less plausible than others.

2. He was envious of his cousin, for having parents and for being so rich, for exactly two years. He has never envied him since.

3. His parents are not actually dead, they got involved with faeries, messed up, and are currently paying off their debt. Q has no idea.

4. He hates his aunt more than his uncle. They're both awful people, but Maitland is much more explicit in his awfulness, and if you have something to offer him, is willing to work around any dislike he may have of you. Chantal is manipulative, cunning, and always comes out on top.

5. Has the phone numbers of multiple celebrities, famous athletes, rich people, and foreign royalty saved from his days in boarding school. He doesn't reach out to these people often, but he keeps their contact info, just in case.

6. Gained a reputation in boarding school for being up for anything not stupidly dangerous or seriously illegal, as long as he was being offered money to do it.

7. Knows a ton of things about rich people, a bunch of common strategies for poor people, and absolutely nothing about the middle class.

8. Went by Dell as a kid, switched to Q when he moved to the states. Not particularly fond of either name, but they beat Quincy Odell.

9. He's never liked a girl strongly enough to feel it was worth taking the risk to ask her out. His one romantic relationship came about because she asked him out, and ended in part because he wore himself out trying to make it work by being who she wanted him to be.

10. Between a drug dealer roommate in LA and his cousin's ... friends, it's a toss-up whether he knows more professional criminals than royalty. Some days, he reflects on this, and lets out a soft, pained groan.

Ten Facts about Niner

1. After more than twenty years together, Niner's parents are still affectionate. Disgustingly, honeymoon-phase, over-the-top affectionate. None of their children can stand it.

2. She is going to master the fast part of "Hardware Store" by Weird Al. She's still struggling with the first few lines, but it will happen someday.

3. Gets along really well with Connie, despite werecats and werewolves not generally being known for getting along.

4. Gets along terribly with Aidan, though with no clear indicators as to whether him being a "bird" (phoenix) is part of that.

5. About the only people towards whom Niner will openly show affection are her younger siblings. She has a lot of them, but she adores each and every one of them.

6. Hates, hates, hates the vacuum cleaner. Just Ash bringing it out of the closet is enough to send her running, and she won't be back for at least two hours.

7. Wants to climb a mountain. Particularly Mount Everest, but she's accepted that she should start with one of the smaller ones.

8. She doesn't talk a lot about her past. Not because it was painful or anything, it's just not something she does.

9. In the latter part of her time on her own, she and another werecat split off from the group they were hanging with, as most werecats do when they form a relationship. Niner's relationship went south. Badly south. She's never spoken about it to anyone.

10. With the exception of cheese, she doesn't care about condiments on things like burgers or hot dogs. Just cheese, the works, lots of mustard, she barely even notices.

Ten Facts about Darcy

1. He comes across as the least upset about the move to Chicago, and he is. It bothers him more than he lets on, but Darcy doesn't have friends to miss like Kira, or feel half as cooped up in the city as Susanna.

2. People sometimes mistake him for the oldest, when he gets to talk on one of his special interests, or the youngest, when in social situations.

3. He has one, maybe two very vague memories of his parents. He insists he doesn't miss them, because he doesn't recognize his emotions for what they are, and because he doesn't realize that you don't need to remember someone well to miss them.

4. Darcy is unquestionably intelligent. He is a little lacking in common sense.

5. His special interests are math, science, and history. History is the most appealing to him personally, but people tend to be more impressed with his grasp of math and science, and he likes impressing people. He doesn't dislike math or science, either.

6. He was named after his mother's best friend in college, and his middle name is his father's best friend since childhood. He's met both of them, but when he was much too young to remember.

7. He's actually a decent actor, he has a great memory, and he gets terrible stage fright. There are a couple very awkward school plays in his past.

8. Darcy still has a crush on Kelsey, the pretty blonde high-schooler he had as a babysitter when he was six. In general, the existence of pretty blonde girls make him glad that a) he's naturally quiet around other people and b) he doesn't blush easily.

9. He typically spends his time in Minecraft building computers and playing very simple versions of Minesweeper and Solitaire on them. Susanna thinks he's entirely missing the point of Minecraft.

10. His ideal pet is a dragon.

Thanks for asking! 

[yoobangdaengi]

[ENG TRANS] Monsta X @Star1 Magazine November 2019 Issue Interview - FOLLOW, MONSTA X!

Monsta X met their overseas fans in 20 cities all over the world and wrapped up their third world tour successfully. The group finished the tour after five months and start to do their Korean promotion in full-scale. Monsta X is settling down as global idol through their big international fandom and their collaboration with famous international artists, such as wi..i.am, French Montana, and Steve Aoki. The expectation towards their constant growth and leap is increasing, as a group who broaden their stage to worldwide from Korea. Monsta X, who will start Korean promotion this winter after eight months, will show their improvement through their new mini album “FOLLOW : FIND YOU”.

How does it feel doing a photoshoot together with all members?

Minhyuk: We think it’s more fun and joyful because it’s been a long time since we shot a beauty pictorial together like this, beside jacket album photoshoot.

As beauty models, it looks like you prepared a lot so that the picture for the beauty pictorial comes out well.

Minhyuk: Because we are beauty models, we did many experiments so that our beauty pictorial will come out well. Basically, we pay attention to our skincare routine and looking at the other pictorials as reference for the sake of looking good visually. If we go to the studio for the photoshoot after learning for a bit, we’re able to show the pose more naturally in the studio.

You guys are active as beauty models, is there any Monsta X’s only secret method to take care of your skin at the change of season?

Minhyuk: The very first thing that happens in change of seasons is everyone’s skins become rough and dry. So we pay attention to the basics a lot. Especially, we apply moisturizer cream very carefully. Sometimes before sleep or when we wake up in the morning, we put on peel-off mask while moisturizing our skin. We spray mist occasionally while working to keep our skin moisturized. 

I.M: I’m the type of person who drinks a lot of water. It’s a fact that if you drink enough water, your skin would feel less dry. Also, even on days when we don’t have any schedule and our face is free from makeup, I always apply sunscreen. Even though the recent weather is cool, the sunlight is still hot so we need sunscreen. 

You’re going to have a comeback soon. You might feel nervous since it’s your Korean comeback after a long time, are you fully prepared for it?

Hyungwon: We anticipate it a lot since we will release a new album after 8 months. So we prepared a lot to show people our good side. It’d be nice if you are looking forward to our comeback. Wonho, Jooheon, and I.M’s self-composed songs are included in this album. Wonho’s self-composed song, “MIRROR”, is the song that he and Shownu performed on the recent world tour stage as a unit. I think fans would anticipate this song so much since this time we prepare it as the song that’s being sung by seven people. Shownu participated in writing the lyrics so it adds more meaning to the song.  Also, people will be able to enjoy the album more if they focus to learn the genre of “SEE YOU AGAIN”, Jooheon’s self-composed song, who previously showed various genre of music, and the charms from I.M’s self-composed song, “U R”, after the release of “MOHAE” that he composed in last year album. 

Shownu: Especially the title song “FOLLOW”, you can feel other different charms from Monsta X’s music up until now. The existing powerful vibe of Monsta X meets with a special sound and becomes a song with such a unique color. Besides, it’s certain that if you watch the stage together, you might enjoy Monsta X-like-style with your heart content. We finished our world tour and prepared the album so I felt the development of all the members.

You guys just wrapped up your world tour and prepared the album and it seems like we can feel the members’ development.

I.M: I think it’s true that various experiences allow for broad growth. While doing multiple overseas activities including world tour, I get to feel and learn many things. As we meet Monbebes from many countries, I get the feeling that there are so many people who love us. As much as my gratefulness for them, they make me determined to work hard to show them the good side of me in the future. Of course there are many people whom we haven’t met yet, we have to work hard so we can visit more countries, that goal becomes the stepping stone for our growth. Those reasons helped me a lot to think positively when we make a new album. Working together with international artists for our album influenced me a lot as well. The artists who receive so much love from all over the world like Steve Aoki, French Montana, and will.i.am, pouring great amounts of efforts and passions towards their own music. While watching them closely beside them, I think I know the direction Monsta X will take to move forward in the future. Even though I gained the lesson of musical skills, it went beyond that and made my thoughts about music get stronger. 

You’re receiving so much love from overseas. What is the secret of your global popularity? 

Jooheon: Actually since there are so many seniors who receive so much love from all over the world, it’s a big exaggeration to talk about the secret of our global popularity. But I think the reason why global audiences show their  interest in us is maybe because Monsta X’s music concept or visual. Monsta X is the group with the explosive energy on stage, that’s our attractive point. Our music colour is strong and the performance is powerful so when the fans see us, they’d think, ‘it’s so cool, the stage is full of fun’. Also in visual aspect, because we have solid and sexy vibe, that might be the reason why people love Monsta X.

What is Monsta X’s only method to overcome fatigue, since you guys frequently do world tours?

Wonho: When we are overseas, if the condition is okay, we go to good local restaurants and eat delicious food. It is one of our methods to relieve fatigue. Even though we can’t visit multiple places due to limited time, at least we go to one famous local restaurant and eat popular food. When we do that, it feels like we came for a trip and we feel happy. Also for me and Shownu’s case, we overcome our fatigue by going to the gym and working out.  But the most joyful method to heal the fatigue for us is communicating with Monbebe through live broadcast. Even when we’re overseas, we meet our fans by turning on the live broadcast at least 3-4 times a week. When talking with fans, even though I felt a bit tired or exhausted, those feelings disappeared, it’s so fun.

Are there any charms from each member that you want to take away from?

Kihyun→Wonho: When people think about Wonho hyung, mostly start to think about his muscular and sturdy body and also his work out hobby. But I hope people know that there are so many talents in him. You might already know if you listen to b-side tracks in Monsta X’s albums, there are many easy listening self-composed songs that Wonho hyung produced. The charm I want to take away from him is his skill of producing songs that are full of emotions. 

Wonho→ Kihyun: Kihyun has outstanding vocal and musical skill, but even without those skills, there are so many things that he is good at. For example, since his body balance is so great, when he does sport, he always wins. So even if he doesn’t sing and does things toward sports or physical education, he’ll be great.

Minhyuk→I.M: In front of the hyungs, I.M has energetic and cute appeals, yet on normal days, like when he works on his music or in daily life, he shows sensitive and genuine charms. I think I.M makes people feel at ease since he shows a calm and honest vibe. So I really like his naively honest side that everyone wants to be with.

I.M→Minhyuk: I like Minhyuk hyung’s ability to judge and understand something in a flash. When some problems occur, he grasps the situation quickly and he makes good decisions since he understands the situation.  We trust and follow those decisions as well. Also, he makes people around him feel delighted because of his cheerful and very bright personality.   

Shownu→Hyungwon: Hyungwon is very honest and has deep thoughts. So when we tell him about our worries, he listens well since he focuses on our story, and he gives suitable and wise answers for our worries. We lean on him a lot whenever we worry about something. He’s a friend who has unexpected charms since he is very bold and generous.  

Hyungwon→Jooheon: Jooheon has a personality that makes people around him happy. Because he is always smiling brightly and full of explosive great energy, he draws in a lively atmosphere whenever he goes. Also since he has good social skills, he approaches everyone in a friendly way and embraces those people well.

Jooheon→Shownu: Usually Shownu hyung is a trustworthy and honest person, but he’s also a witty and fun hyung. He has various charms, of course. Because he has warm nature, I think he makes people feel comfortable around him. That’s why it’s so nice being next to him. 

As a group of seven people with various personalities and charms, is there any hidden hobby you want to recommend to one another?

Kihyun→ Wonho: Hobby I want to recommend to Wonho hyung is rock climbing! His physical strength is already good by nature and since he likes physical strength, I think it'll be good for him. Also I want to go to a ski resort together with all members. It’ll be so fun if all of us gather together and ski.

Wonho→ Kihyun: I want to recommend surfing to Kihyun. Because both of us like active sports, I think it will be so great to go to the beach together, surf and eat delicious food.

Minhyuk→ I.M: I.M is good at speaking by nature and his English is great, too, so he has many cases of becoming our representative when we do overseas activity. Based on that, I think speech academy would be fun for him and it matches him well.

I.M→ Minhyuk: I want to recommend swimming to Minhyuk hyung. First, it’s counted as sport, and it’s a hobby that you can do constantly without minding the weather so even when we do our overseas schedule, he can keep doing it, that’s why I recommend swimming.

Shownu→ Hyungwon: I want to recommend jazz dance to Hyungwon. It might look awkward at first, but since he’s tall and has a good proportion, I think he’d look cool if he did jazz dance.

Hyungwon→ Jooheon: Because in daily life I like playing games and enjoying it so much, I think about how I do it together with Jooheon. It will be a nice hobby if we play it while relieving our stress and eating good food.

Jooheon→ Shownu: I want to go to an exhibition with Shownu hyung. Recently there are so many exhibitions, I think it’ll be fun if I silently go there with Shownu hyung, view various artworks and share related stories about them together!

The hardest point in a busy schedule like yours is to synchronize different opinions from the members. How do you guys solve the disagreement or to reach an agreement over a conflict?

Kihyun: At first, of course there are many conflicting opinions since we’re close in age and we always together in most of the schedules. At that time, we told and held conversation with each other openly, we shared about our struggles. I think because the members are not the type of person who scare of telling their honest feeling, it was easy to chat with them. Actually, from my opinion, in reality the only way to solve it is to meet and have conversations with the related person face-to-face. Come to think of it, now we harmonize our opinions naturally even when our opinions clash, based on the times we spent together. We knew about each other very well, so when one member has an opinion, we can sense roughly what the other members think of it. Now we’re very comfortable with each other.

One of Monsta X’s distinct charms is ‘masculine beauty’. You guys have sturdy body from working out so we can’t take out the masculine charm out of Monsta X, but what makes Monsta X more masculine?

Jooheon: Actually, Monsta X is closer to ‘intense wild beauty’ than masculine beauty’. I think the sexy and charismatic side of Monsta X stands out in our  music and visual, also highlighting that appeal. On the stage of our recent songs like ‘Shoot Out’ and ‘Alligator’, the members perform while paying attention to everything such as the gaze or choreography details. Those parts create an intense and wild vibe.

Shownu: We have many charms aside those mentioned. People might know by watching our special stage or concert that we can perform a groovy and dreamy vibe or sweet and soft image. So I hope people will remember Monsta X as the group who can absorb various concepts. 

We want to hear your plan for future activity or for the rest of the year

Wonho: I hope we can promote the soon-to-be-released “FOLLOW : FIND YOU” album successfully. Also after this, we will cooperate for the “Jingle Ball Tour” in the US in December for two consecutive years. So I wish we work hard together with the fans with great stage and nobody gets hurt in “Jingle Ball” concert until year-end stages.

What is your goal for  future activity?

All: We hope we can wrapped up this year well and pay back our fans who wait long with great promotion because it’s been a long time since we comeback with new album in Korea. In 2020, we want to show our cool, more various, and unexpected side of us, including overseas activity. Last year, when we talked about our goals for 2019, none of the members were able to imagine all the great things we achieved this year. We only talked about doing our best and working hard. But since many things came true, we’re praying those aspirations that are beyond our expectation and mind will come true in 2020 as well.

What is the thing you want to say to local and international Monbebes who always support you?

All: We think all of Monsta X’s happiness is made by Monbebe. We hope we can be together with Monbebe for a long time while leaning on Monbebe, sometimes as friends, family, or  loved one like now, no matter where you are and what kind of person you are. We always feel thankful and love you always.

Korean to English translated by: Tim (@yookiihyun)

[randomvarious]

Arthur Lyman Group - “Taboo” Shaken Not Stirred Song released in 1958. Compilation released in 1996. Exotica / Lounge / Experimental

So, there was this big Polynesian cultural boom in the U.S. in the late 50s and early 60s. Wanna know why? World War II vets. All those guys who were stationed in the South Pacific brought back with them a real appreciation for a bunch of different aspects of island culture. And some of those things really managed to permeate American culture, too, after about a decade. Hawaiian shirts, tiki bars, and surfing were some of the biggest examples. And on the musical front, a bunch of surf rock songs were implementing that wavy reverb sound that we all tend to naturally associate with images of Hawaii (listen from about the 25-second mark to the 40-second mark on this one if you’re not sure what I’m talking about). On top of that, in that timespan, Hawaii was campaigning to become a state and then became one, so that also probably sparked some added interest from non-Hawaiians in a formerly-exotic-and-now-suddenly-American culture. You can just picture the black-and-white newscasts with bullet-point-listed graphics with headings like “Who Are Hawaiians and What Do They Do for Fun?”

This sudden popular wave of Americanized Polynesian culture would prove fortuitous for the music genre known as exotica, too. Though mostly thought of as novelty, it still managed to sell really well. Exotica wasn’t purely Polynesian or Hawaiian though, and it probably still would’ve existed without as much American interest as it ended up garnering. It had a much broader scope, basically representing any sound thought to have come from the tropics, whether they actually did or not. And the genre’s king ended up being a Hawaiian guy named Arthur Lyman. 

Lyman’s music represented a mix of cool jazz and tropical sounds. And although many critics dismissed his tunes as inauthentic and kitsch, he was truly a master of both the vibraphone and marimba. Most vibes and marimba players were two-mallet guys, but Lyman managed to be a four-mallet guy, sporting a pair of mallets in each hand, that, when held right, could manifest the loveliest combinations of ringing, reverberating chords.

Look at him feeling it on this slow number:

Lyman would begin his career in Martin Denny’s band, the man who was known as the father of exotica (he’s not actually the father of the genre, though. That title should belong to Les Baxter). But soon after joining Denny, Lyman would leave and start his own band and thus become Denny’s fiercest competitor. In 1958, Lyman released his spectacular debut album, Taboo, which sold something like two million copies and hit #4 on the US Billboard charts. Contained on that album is, naturally, its title track.

What boggles my mind is how Taboo ended up selling millions of copies. I mean, it’s a weird album, and I like weird stuff, but you have to wonder what kind of vibe a significant chunk of Americans were on in the late 50s to make such a weird album like this go to #4 in the country. That’s a pretty remarkable achievement for any album, much less one that sounds as strange as this one does..But maybe Americans really just couldn’t get enough of the sounds of the tropics. I dunno.

Regardless, “Taboo” ended up being one of Lyman’s most celebrated songs. It’s exotica and it’s lounge and it’s in distinct parts. Some parts sound tailored to the cosmopolitan and open-minded, hipster-leaning frat brother type and the other to the unhygienic, bongo-obsessed, beatnik slob  You could play it in a swanky bachelor pad or in a starving artist’s hovel. Both settings were somehow appropriate. Made for taking in a nice cocktail or, alternatively, a nice cocktail of inexpensive street drugs. Your choice.

A fun fact about this song is if you listen closely, you can hear those corrugated bamboo sticks passing from the left ear to the right ear and back again. And that’s not because of the mixing. This was the pre-stereo, high-fidelity days. The musicians are literally running back and forth across the stage to play their instrument into different mics to yield a surround sound feeling. And the overall sound quality and acoustics on this are absolutely pristine for 1950s recordings, thanks to Lyman being allowed to record in Harry Kaiser’s aluminum dome auditorium in Honolulu for free.

Although the glut of Lyman’s catalogue would be celebrated for how his chilly  vibraphone rode over tropical rhythms, “Taboo” stands out for the bongo sessions, the flute, and just its overall unpredictability. The verse-chorus-verse formula is not something that typically suited Lyman well, unless he was recording covers (check out this sweet, subdued version of “Sunny,” for example). Here, we start with something almost conventional-sounding as Lyman and his band toy with volume by starting out soft and getting increasingly louder and more dramatic. Then we head for a sharp transition to tribal and furious bongo slaps and taps, which is then followed by a sedate section of breathy, snake charmer’s flute work. And of course, there’s bird calls and other whooping animal noises mixed in. It wouldn’t be an Arthur Lyman original without those. Those are all human-generated sounds, by the way.

Still confused as to how this was ever remotely popular and managed to garner such mass appeal though. It appears that despite how ordinary and white picket fence-y America seemed to be at the time, and contrary to what history often tells us, the 1950s were actually quite a wild and weird time for a lot of folks.

The first song off the first album from this god of exotica.

[dailyexo]

[INTERVIEW] Baekhyun, Kai - 190927 Billboard: “Why SuperM Is Being Touted as K-Pop's Avengers”

"With SM Entertainment’s newly formed supergroup, SuperM, the company hopes to reclaim its dominance as the genre continues to push into the U.S. mainstream.

There have been hip-hop collectives and rock supergroups, but SM Entertainment’s SuperM is being touted by the company as a boy band full of leading men -- and K-pop’s most impressive lineup to date, with seven members from SM’s most successful and still-active groups.

“I see this as a new challenge,” says EXO vocalist Baekhyun, who at 27 is the oldest member of SuperM and has emerged as its leader. “There are a lot of expectations, because even though this is new, each of us comes from a different [popular] group. But there’s this awesome synergy between us.”

The group -- which will release its self-titled debut EP on Oct. 4 -- also consists of EXO’s Kai, 25, who recently became the global face of Gucci’s new eyewear campaign; WayV’s Lucas, the 20-year-old Hong Kong-born rapper, and Ten, the 23-year-old Thai artist; NCT 127’s Canadian songwriter-rapper Mark, 20, and 24-year-old leader Taeyong; and Taemin, 26, who has been in the industry the longest, joining SHINee at 14. “Our team is the aces of aces,” says Taemin.

EXO has scored four No. 1s on Billboard’s World Albums chart; in January, WayV debuted at No. 4 on Billboard’s Social 50 ranking; NCT 127 performed on Good Morning America in April; and SHINee has won the Seoul Music Awards’ popularity honor twice.

As for SuperM, its name is a nod to its roots at Korean company SM Entertainment, formed in 1995 by producer Lee Soo-man. Since then, SM has expanded K-pop’s reach, first in Asia and then in the United States. Earlier this year, SM partnered with Capitol Music Group to build a bigger following for NCT 127 in the States. And in August, the two companies, along with Capitol’s independent distribution and label services division Caroline, announced they would launch SuperM together.

Capitol CEO Steve Barnett says SuperM will “be part of our legacy to the future,” and calls Lee the “godfather” of K-pop. Lee’s résumé proves as much. In 1996, SM introduced H.O.T., largely considered the first K-pop idol group, and has continued to produce acts with stateside appeal.

Many South Korean entertainment companies have followed suit: Big Hit’s BTS has had three Billboard 200 No. 1 albums; this summer, YG’s Blackpink became the first female K-pop group to perform at Coachella; and Starship Entertainment’s Monsta X collaborated this year with French Montana on a Mainstream Top 40 hit. All three have redefined what U.S. success can look like for Korean pop groups in the second half of this decade. And while SuperM may seem like SM’s latest effort to rival its competitors, it’s equally an attempt to revive one of SM’s key sonic legacies: SMP, or SM Music Performance. The company-created term refers to dance performances set to a fusion of pop-rock, R&B and hip-hop production. SMP was best illustrated by early-2000s releases from record-breaking boy band TVXQ!, which in June 2018 became the best-selling foreign touring act in Japan, and Super Junior, which has had 21 top 20 hits on Billboard’s World Digital Song Sales chart.

SM has had U.S. crossover success before: In 2009, BoA became the first-ever K-pop star to enter the Billboard 200, and in 2012, Girls’ Generation performed on the Late Show With David Letterman. In June, NCT 127 debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 with its We Are Superhuman EP. But SuperM, with its blockbuster lineup, is SM’s effort to lead the K-pop conversation in the U.S. market, as it once did in the early ’00s.

“I don’t want to compare SuperM to any of the other groups at SM, but if I had to describe [what] sets us apart, it’s the performance element,” says Taemin. “It’s not just dance, but includes vocals and rapping, where each member can showcase his ability and shine in a different way, that maybe they can’t in other groups.”

So far, SuperM has been tight-lipped about the sound and style of its album and doesn’t plan to share any tracks ahead of the set other than the already-released instrumental version of “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” One thing it has made clear, though, is its goal: “We’re doing something futuristic and more advanced than what the world has ever seen,” says Mark."

SuperM also arrives at a time when SM shareholders are demanding change. In July, SM rearranged its upper leadership at SM Entertainment Group and subsidiary SM Contents & Culture, and announced it would look to divest less-than-profitable business ventures -- mainly the SMTOWN Coex Artium complex in Seoul, a museum, café, theater and store that opened in 2015. If SuperM becomes a crossover success, the company could solidify its footing.

Despite the fact that SuperM already has debuted on Billboard’s Artist 100 chart without releasing a stitch of music, K-pop fans have expressed trepidation over its assembly. Immediately after Barnett and Lee announced SuperM at August’s Capitol Congress -- Capitol’s annual pep rally and presentation of upcoming releases — the hashtag #SuperMDisbandParty was created, as fans, concerned over how the supergroup would impact the futures of their favorite existing K-pop acts, demanded that SM and Capitol abandon the project.

SuperM isn’t fazed. Its members want to prove how strong they are as a whole -- especially when they’re together onstage. (The group is currently in rehearsals, but announced in a teaser Tuesday that it will be making its first-ever performance in Los Angeles at Capitol Records on Oct. 5 -- one day after the release of its debut EP.) “It’s always important to take the next step when people might not expect it,” says Mark. “We always try to make that challenge into something great for the fans -- and for us, as well.”

SM Entertainment’s Pre-SuperM Supergroups

S.M. the Ballad: SM vocalists from TRAX, Super Junior (and its sub-unit Super Junior-M), SHINee, TVXQ!, Girls’ Generation and EXO -- and two former SM members, one of whom is now in Cube Entertainment’s boy band Pentagon -- released two EPs under the name S.M. the Ballad. In 2010, one grouping recorded Miss You; in 2014, another recorded Breath, which hit No. 9 on Billboard’s World Albums chart.

Younique: In 2012, South Korean car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Company unveiled its new marketing campaign, “Premium Younique Lifestyle,” and worked with SM to debut a supergroup in promotion. Within two months, Younique -- members of EXO, Girls’ Generation, SHINee, Super Junior and Super Junior-M -- released PYL Younique Volume 1, featuring singer-songwriter BoA and rappers Dok2 and The Quiett.

SM The Performance: The choreography-heavy team has released only two singles since it formed in 2012, and they arrived five years apart. The group debuted with a Korean remix of Zedd’s “Spectrum” (off his 2012 debut album, Clarity) featuring members from TVXQ!, Super Junior, SHINee and EXO. And in 2017, it released “Dream in a Dream,” a solo single from WayV’s Ten that was branded a group track."

Photo links: 1, 2

Credit: Billboard.

[lacefedora]

I’m in a lot pain from some weird ear tube thing so I’m going to distract myself and just answer all the ones I haven’t yet on that ask meme i reblogged earlier

Animated character that was your gay awakening? Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing Though to go much earlier the fact that I found Jack Skellington, a literal skeleton so damn appealing was probably a good sign that I’m ace as hell

Grilled cheese or PB&J? Answered earlier

What show/YouTube video(s) do you put on in the background when you when you don’t have anything to watch but you want something on? Answered earlier

Your go-to bar order, if you drink? I like sweet wine and Sake best. but I’ll drink a Pina Colada or an whiskey sour in a pinch. I however hate bars and don’t go to them.

What’s your favorite pair of shoes that you own? I have these cute af little oxford pumps that are my faves, but I love all my shoes... I have a shoe problem

Top three cuisines? Japanese (including sushi and pastries), American-Irish pub food, and hmmm I really love Greek? I also love Indian food but it does not love me in return =(

What was your first word as a child (that wasn’t a variation of “Mom” or “Dad”)? My first word was actually ‘Kitty!’ while I attempted to chase a kitten.

What’s a job that you’ve had that people might be surprised to find out you’ve had? lol yeeeahhhhh can’t think of anything sadly

Look up. What’s directly across from you? A recliner currently covered in a sheet to protect it’s usual occupant from the heat of sitting in a fuzzy chair in a house without central air.

Do you own any signed books/memorabilia in general? Answered

Preferred way to spend a rainy day? Walking in it. I love walking in the rain

What do you get on your bagels? What WOULD you get if you had access to anything you wanted? Plain effing cream cheese. I don’t really like anything else on them... maybe sometimes some lox?

Brunch or midnight snacks? Midnight snack. Always.

Favorite mug you own I have a beautiful double walled bodum mug that has pretty flecks of gold inside the glass. it’s my favorite mug.

What coffee drink would you describe yourself as? french pressed with cream and sugar.

Pick a song lyric to describe your current mood (and drop the name and artist!) PAIN MADE ME A BELIEVER (imagine dragons)

Fruity or herbal teas? Herbal. i’m not actually a big fan of fruity teas, though there are exceptions.

What’s that one TV show that you’re a little bit embarrassed to watch but you still like nonetheless? Ummm I watch a lot of shows with my mom because we like to watch things together. Many of these are shows I probably wouldn’t normally watch on my own but have come to like all the same. Like Chicago Med and Chicago Fire. Or the new Reboot of Magnum P.I. (Jay hernandez is way better looking than tom sellick and the new Higgins is a babe)

That book you were forced to read for class but actually ended up enjoying? To Kill a Mockingbird. Great book. Almost every other one I was forced to read I hated lol

Do you match your socks? Answered

Have you ever been horseback riding? Answered

What was your “phase” when you were younger? (i.e., Mythology Nerd, Horse Girl, Space Geek, etc) Well first there was the obsession with Egyptology. And then I was just a great big Weeb. the biggest of Anime Nerds. if it was anime I watched it. All of it.

Have you ever been to jail? Not yet lol I hope not to

What’s your opinion on Lazy Susan’s (the spinning tray in the middle of tables)? Well i have one in my cabinet for bottles and spices so... positive?

Puzzles? Loooove puzzles. All kinds. Not geat at them but I have fun

You can only have one juice for the rest of your life, what is it? Pineapple Juice.

What section do you immediately head for when you walk into a bookstore? Answered

What’s one thing you’re trying to learn/relearn in your downtime right now? Uhhh nothing? is that something we were supposed to be doing?

Who’s your go-to musical artist when you’re feeling upbeat? Daft Punk

Where could someone find you in a museum? Looking at Stuff? That’s what museums are for. Possibly having an existential crisis over someones exquisite brush strokes depending on what kind of museum

What’s that one outfit in your closet you never get the chance to wear but want to? A) I have an amazing dress right now that I haven't gotten to wear anywhere because I got it right before quarantine B) I have a jedi tunic now and need to wear it

Rainbows, stars, or sunset colored clouds? all but... I do love sunset clouds perhaps a little bit more

If you could own any non-traditional pet (dogs, cats, fish, rodents, etc), what would it be? Answered

Do you have more art on your walls or more photographs? Me personally? Art. In my house? there are more photos

You have to get one meme tattooed on your body, what meme is it and where does it go? ‘Grandma It’s me Anastasia’ only with Obi-wan dropping his robes and it’s a tramp stamp

Pick a superhero sidekick to hang out with ROBIN ROBIN ROBIN, ALL THE ROBINS, EVERY ROBIN

Lakes, rivers, or oceans? I have no strong feelings about any or of them I’m afraid? I have a fondness and but respect for all large bodies of water. I was raised in the Desert.

Favorite mid-2000s song Answered

How do you dress when you’re home alone? Same pjs until they smell bad and sometimes lounging in a pretty dress.

Where do you sit in the living room (we all have a preferred spot, and you know it)? On the lounge end of the sectional. i like to stretch out my legs

Knives or swords? Daggers. I have 20

A song you didn’t think you’d enjoy but ended up loving Uh hard to say I tend to be unapologetic in my liking all kings of music

Pick an old-school Disney Channel Original Movie I was always fond of Luck of the Irish. You know where the kid starts turning into a leprechaun?  Also Zenon.

Are you a “Quote that relates to the photos” caption-er, an “explanation of where I took the photos” caption-er, or a no caption kinda person when you post pictures online? Uh where does ‘rambles and/or tries to be funny’ land?

Name a classic Vine I AM THE SAND GUARDIAN GUARDIAN OF THE SAND

What’s the freezer food that you stock up on when you go to the grocery store? pepperoni hot pockets and ling ling potstickers

How do you top your ice cream? You... I... Well... I put seasalt on vanilla ice cream then mix it in really good. it’s amazing.

Do you like Jello? Answered

What’s something that you don’t have a picture of that you wish you did? The fort my brothers built out in the woods when i was little.

How are you at climbing trees? Bad, but I sometimes try anyway