#also they rhyme to too to and to in one verse like????? come the fuck on

[bugintheruins]

ok i think i know why hte songs on dreamland don't grip me by the throat the same way the songs on zaba or htbahb do, esp looking at tangerine and hot sugar there is barely any tension in the songs, its all so static whereas in songs like walla walla or like acc every song from the other albums theres a fuck tonne of tension . idk dremland feels so flat compared to the older albums. some of the songs are good dont get me wrong but idk nothing on that album compares to anything on zaba

[whovianofmidgard]

I think the Noldor, but especially the Fëanorians would enjoy flyting.

If you don't know what flyting is, it's basically a form of improvised poetry competition between two and perhaps more people and the goal is to dish out the most offencive insults at your opponent as you can possibly imagine.

With how confrontational the Fëanorians are and also linguistically inclined it seems like a pastime they would engage in and use as a form of venting/hashing out conflicts to avoid resorting to physical fights.

I'd imagine Maglor and Fëanor would be unbeatable champions of flyting, both of them easily coming up with rhyming insults, and Curufin would be close behind, the three of them would have the largest vocabulary stored in their heads.

Maedhros is also good with words, but I think he would take his time to think through his verses, the poetry aspect of it not coming as naturally to him. He'd also probably only participate in friendly competition, he'd rarely have any real beef with anyone. Oh but when he does get angry it's a sight to behold.

Maglor wouldn't have much beef with anyone either, though he might fabricate some for the drama. He still participates in as many flyting matches as he can for the fun of it.

Fëanor and Curufin on the other hand are genuinely out there to call everyone a fucking idiot, full offence. If you get on their bad side or they just simply hate you, then get ready for the most cruel yet still somehow artistic verbal lashing you ever heard.

Caranthir would halfway through a flyting get too angry to express himself, and being tongue tied just makes him even more angry, falling into a negative feedback loop.

Celegorm has zero artistic bone in his body. Poetry whom? He just starts listing off the most crude insults and curses he knows. No rhymes, no rhythm, no musicallity to his cadence, just word vomit.

Ambarussa are clumsy in their rhymes, but they're entertaining to watch as they toss lines back and forth to each other, challenging the other to come up with a rhyme for their words. Also, the one who isn't performing the verse beatboxes in the background.

Nerdanel says one scathing haiku then leaves.

[drksanctuary]

In response to this post:

https://www.tumblr.com/avaetin/757041211064385536/do-we-mean-this-or-this-i-need-clarification

@avaetin Nico "pins the wizard" like this:

For Context: Nico finds himself in the underbelly of a magical scheme and doesn’t know how to navigate but some monster in the crowd seems to make some deal with him that gets him out of it more or less. He’s not completely sure what’s going on but he and the mysterious monster are escorted to a hallway and told to go through the one door on the side and to “not keep them waiting” and the door slams behind them.

Excerpt:

Nico walks down the hallway with the mysterious human figure, shrouded in black shadowy mist. Away from the prying eyes of the monsters down the corridor and who knows what on the other side of the doors, Nico takes his chance. He grabs at where the figures neck would be and slams it against the wall. It gives out a choke. "I don't know if you're here to actually help me or use me as a shield for whatever is coming next, but either way I have no reason to trust you. So we're gonna do exactly as I say got it??" The figure coughs and gasps. "Well," it says "that's certainly not a way to treat someone who's just ~cough~ saved your ass Di Angelo." The figure chokes out in a voice that has come to be familiar to Nico. The shroud of dark mist falls to reveal a smirking, freckled face. "And if you're gonna pin me to the wall at least buy me dinner first" Alabaster says, his grin widening. "You?" Nico says "And here I thought we were on a last name basis, yes ME. Now are you gonna squeeze tighter" he says with a playful wink "...or let me go?"  He finishes with a deadpan expression. Nico is actually unsure whether to let go or not. Alabaster isn't an enemy but he did trick him before, Nico’s  still not sure he can trust the guy. Also was he...flirting? (Now is to the time to think about that) "Listen I don't have time to unpack all of .../that/" Nico says with a gesture to Al's vague entirety before letting go of his throat. "Do you know where this thing  leads?" He points to the door at the end of the hall. Al gasps again and adjusts his shoulders and neck. "You do get right down to business don't you" "They are probably already wondering why we're not in there yet...you wanna make fucking small talk?" Nico scoffs. "Good point, but I thought I was to 'do exactly as you say'?" Al mocks him, overstraightening his shoulders, and feigning obedience. Not unlike a dog told to "sit".  Which was apt considering he was being a b- "So why are you asking me~" Alabaster adds, interrupting Nico’s thought. It's Nico's turn to deadpan "If you know something I don't...I want to know too so I can be prepared" "You want to know what I know and you don't?...hmm I thought we were low on time.” Nico winds up a punch and Al puts his arms up "Joking! Di Angelo,...goodness, you have no sense of humor" “ I’ll have you know I have a superb sense of humor.” He shakes his head and slugs Al’s shoulder.   “you’re just not that funny” “I’m hilarious” “You’re unhelpful” “oh you Olympian campers…never know how to do anything unless you have bloody prophecy huh. How’s this:  He recites a verse that is a vague warning of what’s to come that, while vulgar does, to its credit, rhyme Nico is irritated….and mildly impressed. “better??” Nico’s lips make a line that if it were anymore defined would achieve a level of straightness that would be unacceptable on his gay face.

[myloveismineallmine]

part 2!

honestly I have a lot ground to cover in terms of songs used for Carmy and Claire. Some are kind of sad. Some are really fucking funny. This one is kinda both.

We'll start with the first song we hear playing with Carmy and Claire: Strange Currencies by R.E.M.

The actual lyrics have little to do with what's going on in the scene, Claire and Carmen are conversing over most of the lyrics. It's not until the third verse that the volume increases and the lyrics become audible. But I'm still gonna talk about the first half of the song, because why not?

"I don't know why you're mean to me When I call on the telephone And I don't know what you mean to me But I want to turn you on, turn you up, figure you out I wanna take you on ..."

Okay, so this first verse is very Claire coded right off the bat. But I do think this song is actually more about Carmy's feelings, and really I can just about guarantee you it is because this song plays twice in the show. R.E.M. songs also have a tendency to play in scenes with Carmen specifically.

"These words, "You will be mine" These words, "You will be mine", all the time

The fool might be my middle name But I'd be foolish not to say I'm going to make whatever it takes Bring you up, call you down, sign your name, secret love Make it rhyme, take you in, and make you mine

These words, "You will be mine" These words, "You will be mine," all the time, oh

I tripped and fell, did I fall What I want to feel, I want to feel it now"

Do not lose hope, fellow sydcarmys. These lyrics are deceptively romantic. But yes, this is what is playing during the conversation w/ Carm and Claire. What is of more interest is the verse that we do finally hear:

"And now with love come strange currencies And here is my appeal I need a chance, a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance A word, a signal, a nod, a little breath Just to fool myself, to catch myself, to make it real, real"

So the show actually cuts to credits after "And here is my appeal." The rest of the song does play to the end, though.

Interesting that the one verse we hear is the one that just completely invalidates the romantic message of the song.

Like. I could end the post right here, folks.

But I will expand further-- this song, to me, is about Carmy trying to convince himself that he loves Claire.

"These words, "You will be mine" These words, they haunt me, hunt me down, catch in my throat, make me pray Say, love's confined, oh"

This is the final verse of the song. The words "catch in my throat." Probably because... he doesn't actually mean them. This is also foreshadowing that he feels confined in love with Claire.

R.E.M. has plenty of love songs. So the fact they used one where the message of the song is repeating the words "I love you" in an attempt to convince yourself/others you're in love is.....curious.

This song is also used a second time in the show, but in a very different context, so I wanted to touch on that too:

A distorted version of Strange Currencies plays as Carmen has a panic attack in the alley.

The first flashback we see is actually his intimate moment with Claire.

The next flashback cuts are all footage of Claire; drawings of her, old photos, and beauty shots. There is finally a flashback of Mikey talking about Claire mixed in, followed by more shots of Claire. After that, more shots of his family with Claire mixed in at random intervals. Throughout all of this, Strange Currencies plays with the audio distorted and words reversed. Until...

Strange Currencies begins to play as normal when the flashback of Sydney plays. Specifically the lyrics "These words, You will be mine, These words, You will be mine, All the time."

In the middle of this verse, after a shot of Carmy calming down, we immediately cut to Syd.

Then, on her: "The fool may be my middle name, But I'd be foolish, not to say."

After this lyric, the song fades out and we cut to a scene with Carm and Sugar.

I think there's a difference in the one audible verse during the Carm+Claire scene being one invalidating the romantic tone of the song, and the one that pays with Carm+Syd cutting off before the cracks in the romantic message of the song become apparent.

But I'm still not entirely convinced this song is really meant to be read as a true romantic one. Which is actually fine, since so far in my research I've already found a good amount of actual romantic songs used for Syd and Carmy anyway? This whole song just has very strong red herring vibes to me.

I'll be continuing these song analysis posts, and hopefully more frequently after I'm done with finals. Let me know your thoughts on this one.

[i0veless]

LET ME MAKE IT CLEAR :: KYLIAN MBAPPE

𖥻 SUMMARY ー [ best to eradicate rumours -  in style ] 𖥻 PAIRING ー [ kylian mbappe x fem! rapper/singer! reader  ] 𖥻 GENRE ー [ fluff, suggestive content?, texting au ] 𖥻 WORD COUNT ー [ 1.2k ] 𖥻 WARNINGS ー [ making out, long distanstance?, rumors, mentions of twitter - let me know if I missed anything ] 𖥻 AUTHORS NOTE ー [ anon requested, "could you, please write a story about kylian mbappe and a rapper reader who is like nicki minaj pls" personally, I loved this request and it got me listening to a lot of nicki's music again, and this was actually inspired by one of the queens iconic verses - so hope you like it. also sorry for the lack of posting I have been having major writers block and lack of inspo, hopefully I should get a lot more works out in the next 2-3 week ]

➛ previous | taglist | masterlist | next

The rumours were part of the job. Part of the job description is being a celebrity, and in many ways, it could both help and hinder you - especially if you were a woman. On the one hand, it could boost your career; on another, it could sink it faster than the Titanic. Y/N L/N, an influential rapper and singer, knew all too well the impact of having baseless rumours thrown at you. Her name was attached to everyone and anyone (at some point or another) with no rhyme, reason or proof. So it made sense that she chose to ignore most of them and focus on herself and her private life.

Yes, her private life was why everyone speculated, as people wondered who had stolen her heart. The rapper had stated that she was in a relationship multiple times but refused to specify with who as she wished for the relationship to remain private. But you know, the internet, they can't keep their noses out of other people's business. So naturally, the witch hunt began, and Twitter went up in flames every other day, trying to figure out who had captured the up-and-coming star's heart. No name was off-limits.

In the beginning, Y/N found all the hilarious speculation amusing, laughing about it with her friends (who were said to be possible love interests), but after a while, it started to get on her nerves. People were relentlessly holding on to the topic like a dog with a chew toy, and after six months and a discussion with her lover, she finally decided to put the rumours to rest - in style.

"Are you sure?" the rapper's close friend and manager Monica asked for the nth time of the night as they stood backstage. "I'm positive Mon. I've talked with Ky about it, and he agreed," the couple agreed they were going to reveal their relationship on one of the most important dates of the music calendar, the 67th Grammy Awards. But in a far more creative way than most normally would. As they say, nothing conveys emotions better than music.

"Now, welcome to the stage for her first-ever grammy performance Y/N L/N!" stepping out on stage, the air was heavy with tension as the crowd of fans and other music alumni were eager to see the artist who had been nominated for 5 Grammys preform. The lights dimmed, and the backup dancers got into their positions as the backtrack began to play.

"I never fucked Giroud. I never fucked Neymar. On my life, man, Fuck's sake. If I did, I'd menage with 'em, And let's eat my ass like a cupcake. My man full, he just ate, I don't duck nobody, But tape. Oh, and yeah, and by the way, my man's name is Kylian Mbappé." The audience was shocked at the freestyle rap, and the camera panned to the faces of other celebs to get their shocked reaction. The most notable one was that of the queen bee herself Beyoncé as she nodded in approval and bopped to the beat, while another memorable response was that of one of her best friends, Doja Cat, as she was losing it with laughter.

The freestyle then segued into her Grammy-nominated song Woman, as the flawless choreography and unforgettable spotlight moments made it one of the night's best performances. It ended in thunderous applause and multiple viral moments. As she walked backstage after the successful performance, she wiped off the thin layer of sweat from her forehead. She opened her phone to find it crowded with thousands of notifications, but the only ones she was only interested in were those from the love of her life - Kylian Mbappe.

KY KY

people are already talking lol by the way great performance mon ange your ass looked great on the carpet give me a private concert later?

Y/N only if you can keep up mon roi

KY KY you know I love it when you speak french ma reine

Y/N what can I say I have a great teacher

KY KY you know I can teach you so much more than french

Y/N really? I doubt it babe

KY KY come back home and I'll prove you so wrong mon amour

Y/N baby you know I can't I have press and shit to deal with

KY KY ik ik but a man can dream can't he

Y/N have fun entertaining yourself my dear

(5 photos attached) (2 videos attached)

KY KY your gonna get it when you get back

Another thing you should know about being a celebrity because it makes you an awfully good liar. Now there was no sinister intent behind Y/N lying to Kylian. The rapper just wanted to surprise him, so as she pulled into the new PSG training centre, she kept a relatively low profile as the new owner of five Grammys did not want to attract any unwanted attention. Walking to the reception, she was greeted by one of the coaching assistants and a few cameras. She had let them in on her plan to surprise her boyfriend, and in return for their help, they would get a video for their youtube channel.

As they walked towards the outdoor training area where the first team where hard at work, sure, they all looked hot, but Kylian was miles more than the others. Hot and sweaty, looking like some sex god rather than a Ligue 1 player. The number seven played a round of Tika taka with Neymar, Messi, Ramos, Hakimi and Veratti. He was oblivious to what was happening as Y/N slowly crept up behind him - placing a finger over your lips to tell his teammates to keep quiet after they noticed your presents.

"So Kylian, how's everything with your girl" Neymar, the little pot stirrer he is, had to milk this situation for its worth so that he could have something to tease his teammate with later. "Great man, I mean, god, she's perfect. I know it's a bit early to say, but I can see myself marrying her." safe to say everyone's hearts melted at the French player as he gushed over his girlfriend. Tried to hide, Y/N embraced her boyfriend in a hug from behind. "I love you too, Ky."

Turning around in shock, safe to say, Mbappe's eyes were larger than a football as he spun his girl in the air before kissing her. "What are you doing here? I thought you had work." the football star asked with nothing but love and affection as he buried his head in the crook of her neck. "I missed you. And I wanted to surprise you. Also, I lied." the rapper said, giggling at the look on his face. "Why you, little" With that, Kylian threw her over his shoulder and ran off with her as she screamed in fear and begged to be put down. Kylian refused.

As everyone watched the reunited couple get lost in their world, they couldn't help but smile at how happy the two made each other. "They are gonna get married," Ramos said, taking a sip of his water. "And I will be Kylian's best man," Neymar said jokingly. "Hate to break it to you, brother, but as long as I live and breath, that position is not available", Hakimi chimed in bluntly.

[eyeoftheb3h0ld3r]

dsaf is actually rotting my brain this is becoming a problem

ok so im listening to mumford and sons rn trying to work on homework

AND EVERY FUCKING SONG REMINDS ME OF DSAF

so please take what i relate every song in sigh no more to (spoiler warning. like really big spoiler warning.) oh theres a lot of text here too. read under the cut at your own risk 🤷‍♂️

sigh no more - dsaf 3 good ending, last goodbyes from jack. why does this song make me sad

the cave - also dsaf 3 good route but like the entire thing. ive analyzed the lyrics to this song so much its not even funny "so come out of your cave walking on your hands, and see the world hanging upside down" is literally so davetrap coded to me.

winter winds - FLIPSIDE DAVESPORT!!!!!!! this is self explanatory im pretty sure but uhm. dave dealing with learning to love properly

roll away your stone - dsaf 3 evil route!!! woo. this song to me describes jack's slow acceptance of henry's influence ("and darkness is a harsh term, don't you think? yet it dominates the things i see") and davetrap's trust of jack leading up to his demise ("don't leave me alone at this time, for i'm afraid of what i will discover inside", "and you, you've gone too far this time, you have no reason nor rhyme, with which to take this soul that is so rightfully mine")

white blank page - reality dave's feelings towards jack, the obsession. three cheers for toxic zombie yaoi!! anyways this song is rlly good at portraying that for me. "you desired my attention, but denied my affections, my affections, so tell me now, where was my fault in loving you with my whole heart?" ITS SO DAVE CODED.

i gave you all - henry's major influence of how dave turned out and how davetrap's relationship with legacy reminds him of henry. trust me on this one guys.

little lion man - jack and dave's relationship to me, how jack (imo) will lash out say things he doesn't mean ("i really fucked it up this time, didn't i, my dear?") self explanatory enough.

timshel - THE KENNEDY FAMILY!!! this is so the kenendy siblings to me. theyre all different and yeah they have their fights but they stick together ("and you are not alone in this, as brothers we will stand, and hold your hand") i feel like the first verse is more dee-coded to me- "and death is at your doorstep, and it will steal your innocence"

thistle & weeds - MY FAVORITE!!! anyways uhm. dsaf 3 for SURE. more good route to me. jack sort of being torn between what to choose, the flipside crew advising him what to do ("but plant your hope with good seeds, don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds" (thistle and weeds implying henry here)) etc etc. but also dave in a way?? like how jack could leave him ("alone in the wind and the rain, you left me, it's getting dark, darling, too dark to see, and i'm on my knees, and your faith in shreds, it seems", "i know you have felt much more love than you've shown")

awake my soul - flipside davesport to me. again. im so normal abt them. sort of like jack teaching dave what a healthy relationship is like ig

dust bowl dance - dave. definitely dave. listen to the song and you'll see why tbh.

after the storm - post dsaf 3 good ending!!!! with also hints of thoughts back to the henry fight ("and i took you by the hand and we stood tall and remembered our own land, what we lived for")

woo!!! that was a lot of typing. thank you for taking the time to read this im very normal abt mumford and sons and dsaf

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Hey there Slug! I hope you ain't too buys and might have a lil fun with this one! Of each individual character, what are your respective favorite songs of theirs and why?

This is an easy ask to answer, so I'mma clear it from the pile and get to some older ones eventually.

I assume you mean solo songs only, right?

Under a cut for length because there are a bajillion boys in this series

Ichirou: I like his VA's rapping work in just about everything; he's really solid. Stage Ichirou also has a youthful quality I appreciate a lot, but of the main series songs... probably Break the Wall. It's high energy in a fun way. It also ties into a creative project I've been chewing on for years that's near and dear to my heart, although I'm not sure if I'll ever put it to paper and share it anywhere.

Jirou: I think Jirou's VA has a very pretty singing voice, so I like his softer songs. In general, I admire the "softer" aspects of Jirou's character and think that's where he shines best. So probably School of IKB, although I adore his choruses in Re:start.

Saburou: Requiem. I'm very, very, very into things that commit to being over the top and goofy, and I also enjoy combining classical and baroque elements with other genres. What's not to like here?

Samatoki: Gangsta's Paradise. The high speed rap is technically compelling. I generally appreciate v. fast rap since I enjoy learning and singing them. If the stage plays count, I really enjoy the emotion Samatoki's stage actor brings to Come Back to Me.

Juuto: ...There is some interesting text in the Personality section of Juuto's wiki page. (I have it pulled up to quick reference the song lists.) If anyone with wiki edit powers is reading this, you may want to clean that up... Anyway, I feel like they give Juuto great background music in just about every song, but Uncrushable takes the cake for me. I really like the BG music in that.

Riou: Move Your Body Till You Die, hands down. Goofy as fuck. Also, great workout music.

Ramuda: I find his main voice pretty grating, and his usual styles of music aren't my favorite in general. So Ramuda songs don't do a lot for me. I appreciate Pink Colored Love for plot reasons, though.

Gentarou: The slower Hypmic songs rarely do a lot for me, but I found myself enjoying Yume no Kanata a lot. Not sure I know why, necessarily...

Dice: 3$EVEN was one of the first songs I really enjoyed in Hypmic, and I still like its high energy today. In general, I'm impressed by Dice's VA's rapping ability and appreciate his parts in group songs a lot.

Jakurai: Like I said earlier, I'm not usually a fan of slow songs, so none of Jakurai's solos or duets have ever stood out to me. With that being said, I think Jakurai's speech style and slower rhythms makes him more fun and easier to translate w/ full rhyme and rhythm than many other characters. Like I think Labyrinth Wall would be fun to do a full cover of with syllable matching rhymes and line length while simultaneously trying to stick as close to the core meaning and tone as possible.

Hifumi: Both Champagne Gold and Don't Stop the Party are high-energy bops and great for working out. Slight preference for the former. I also really like his singing voice in group songs.

Doppo: Doppo's angrier verses in group songs are fun, but I'm especially fond of BLACK OR WHITE. In particular, I enjoy the DOTAMA cover. I'm a big DOTAMA fan for both his lyrical strength and considerable rapping chops. He's got a lot of songs that are really punchy and angry in this exact vein, and I love throwing on a playlist of his stuff while grinding out tedious work projects. Hahaha. Just rapping along "I don't want to work. I don't want to work. I don't want to work. BUT HERE I AM, WORKING!!!!" furiously under my breath.

Sasara: Comedian Rhapsody is really fun. This is another song I would love, love, love, love to try and do a full translation w/ preservation of rhyme/line length/jokes. Not for sharing--at that point it's just kinda showing off--but it's fun to chew on bits of it when I have moments of free time.

Roshou: Like most of the slow song characters, Roshou's solos aren't my favorite. I guess I prefer Under Sail to Own Stage for its background music.

Rei: All of Rei's songs are wild to the point of me liking them for the goofiness. If you commit to the bit, I'll enjoy it 9 times out of 10. Doesn't matter what the bit is. Shiro to Kuro is probably my favorite. LOVE the "heh heh we are up to no good" NPC villain energy of that song. But also, shout-out to his singing in Enishi, even if it's nigh-on intelligible to me. I love the hell out of Enishi in general.

Kuko: The king of goof himself. Sou Gyaran BAM is probably my favorite, but I am--to some degree--into virtually every song he's in.

Juushi: Wow, I'm listed as a source on this wiki page, lol. Anyway. Juushi's aesthetic as a whole isn't my cup of tea, but I have a soft spot for Moonlight Shadow, because the first two times I heard it were on Spotify shuffle while I just so happened to be scrubbing a toilet. So for a couple months after, I would put Bad Ass Temple on every time I cleaned the bathroom. Hahaha.

Hitoya: One and Two, and Law is so fucking goofy. I adore it. The live version with the airhorn? Chef's kiss.

Otome: Fuck it, let's do the ladies too. Out of all of her musical appearances, I like Just Do It the most. It adds such an interesting strength to her character, and the English portions are done super well.

Ichijiku: Love, love, love her part in Verbal Justice for its strength. This is yet another song I think would be fun to do a hell TL of, and then I remind myself that trying to rhyme "Kadenokouji" in English is a fool's errand.

Nemu: Her singing voice in WINK is nice, but I love her part in Femme Fatale for its energy. "I'm Nemu, and this is my masterpiece" Fuck yeah it is

[taste-in-music]

My Top 30 Songs of 2023

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my annual countdown of my 30 favorite songs of the year. 2023 had a lot of great music releases, and I’m so excited to recount the songs I returned to this year. And now, let us commence with the list!

Here are 10 additional honorable mentions: "Wide Eyes" by Loviet, "I Cry When You Sleep" by Pearly Drops, "Dreamgirl" by Father Koi, "My Love Mine All Mine" by Mitski, "Batman Song" by Cat Missal, "The Neighborhood" by Grace Enger, "I Been Young" by George Clanton, "Bright Red" by Ryan Beatty, "Dumbest Girl Alive" by 100 Gecs, and "The Narcissist" by Blur.

30. Angora Hills by Doja Cat: “Angora Hills,” a hit off Doja Cat's latest album Scarlet, is airy yet effortlessly self-assured, trading between quick-spit rap verses and a chorus of kitteny coos. But don’t get too lost in the sparkling keys and cutesy voicemails. There’s a spark, an edge, a darkness lurking in the murky bass and ominous synths which lends the song a greater intensity. “'Cause love is pain but I need this shit,” Doja Cat raps on the second verse, playing out cleverly rhymes romantic fantasies with an exhibitionist spin. “I wanna show you off,” she suggests on the song’s chorus, the red-hot desire roiling just beneath the surface.

29. Slut! by Taylor Swift: I think everyone was a little surprised hearing “Slut!,” the first vault track on 1989 (Taylor’s Version). When I first saw that title, I thought I was in for a catchy package of sassy one-lines and circa-2014 pop feminism. Instead, we got a tenderhearted ballad of wispy synths and Swift’s insightful musings on love in the limelight. Commentary does creep in (“Everyone wants him, that was my crime,”) but Swift focuses more on choice imagery of a love worth risking it all for: aquamarine swimming pools, thorny roses, and lovedrunk confessions. Sometimes, the most defiant thing is knowing that no matter how people might try to strip you of dignity, they’ll never be able to take your love away from you.

28. Nothing Matters by The Last Dinner Party: All-female British rock outlet The Last Dinner Party made a splash in 2023 with their confrontational yet exuberant debut single “Nothing Matters.” For a song with such a nihilistic title, it packs a punch of gravitas and a wry sense of humor. Lead vocalist Abigail Morris knows just when to heighten the melodrama, stretching the word “sailor” into “say-lahr” and belting the final refrain to the high heavens: “You can hold me like you held her / And I will fuck you like nothing matters.” In the music video, the group stomps around a gothic mansion in frilly petticoats and leather boots, tearing up feather mattresses and lip synching down to a camera positioned six feet deep in a grave. It all exhibits a keen ability to balance out the toughness with a cheeky wink, making it clear the group is only just getting started.

27. Running Out Of Time by Paramore: Much of Paramore’s sixth album This Is Why tears into the absurdity and stress of modern life. On “Running Out Of Time,” Hayley Williams captures the breakneck speed of life accelerated by packed schedules and the 24 hour news cycle, describing a self-destructive ouroboros of trying to catch up with the clock, doing her best to do good and always coming up short. “Intentions only get you so far,” she sings, “What if I’m just a selfish prick…?” It captures the stress and self-doubt, but also the conviction to keep moving forward despite it all. Williams provides a spirited performance as always, her vocals cutting through a pop rock groove that provides just enough energy to keep you from falling down the doom spiral completely.

26. Designated Driver by Taylor Janzen: Taylor Janzen’s debut album I Live In Patterns offered up several tracks which balanced heartfelt lyrics with propulsive pop flourishes, but it was “Designated Driver” that maintained the most momentum for me throughout this year. Atop a steady thrum of shimmering synths, Janzen unpacks her mixed feelings on being the "dependable friend," cracking under the pressure like a windshield. As the song builds, Janzen unveils the self-doubt eating away at her, where the raw emotions draw the other person in to detrimental effect: “you put your trust in a daydream / ’cause you love this dying part of me.” Janzen has the acute ability to put language to even the most obscure shades of anguish and giving them a more anthemic spin. “Designated Driver” is the song you can blast to get you through the grief, even as the toxicity shrinks away in the rearview.

25. One Of Your Girls by Troye Sivan: “One Of Your Girls” is a song so smooth that it’s easy to miss the melancholy which saturates its sparkling chords and clever lyrics. Troye Sivan taps into unrequited desire atop a lush, bassy thrum, describing a love interest who “everybody wants,” but who needs to keep their queerness covert. Sivan ushers in the song’s sing-along chorus with a languid sigh, glazing his voice in vocoder to keep the ache at bay: “Give me a call if you ever get desperate," he relents, "I'll be like one of your girls.” Pair it with a gender-bending music video, and you’ve got a song that delves into just how far a person might go obscure the hurt and save face.

24. I Need A New Boyfriend by Charly Bliss: It’s been four years since Charly Bliss’s last album Young Enough, and in 2023 they blasted back onto my radar with the scuzzy, snarky single “I Need A New Boyfriend.” This time, Charly Bliss sprinkle their anthemic rock sound with a touch of hyperpopping, bleep-blorping synths and churning electric guitars. Frontwoman Eva Hendricks laments her loser lover who grouches through parties and gives backhanded compliments, her observations both witty and scathing: “It took me three years but I finally figured it out / I’m just too fun for him,” “’Cause even though we had a five year plan / I couldn’t stay with him another minute.” By the song’s riotous end, you’ll also have the conviction to kick such soul suckers to the curb.

23. Feather by Sabrina Carpenter: It’s rare that a bonus track from a deluxe edition from an album is the source of a pop artist’s ascent to stardom. Rare, but not impossible. Case and point: “Feather,” the floaty bonus track from the deluxe edition of Sabrina Carpenter’s fifth album emails I can’t send. A downy kiss-off about leaving an ex in the past, Carpenter dreamily narrates the steps to her ghosting process over a softly strut beat of key glissandos and memorable ad-libs. It’s the humorous side of “Feather” that makes it a notable hit in Carpenter’s catalogue, the touches of sarcasm cut through the sweetness and showcase her multifaceted charisma as a performer. That little chuckle she lets out as she says “I’m so sorry for your loss” is the stuff superstars are made of.

22. LEFT RIGHT by XG: There was a handful of weeks back in the spring where every iota of my brain space was taken up by XG. The global girl group broke through with videos of the group’s rappers adding their own verses onto iconic modern beats, (group leader Jurin’s verse over ROSALÍA’s “SAOKO” is a bop and a half.) In a departure from the bombastic samples and in-your-face performances of those videos, XG takes a subtler approach on “LEFT RIGHT,” an ebullient blend of R&B and pop that goes down easy but has the same insidious ability to get stuck in my head. The lyrics are goofy yet earnest enough to make up for it. This boy has the narrator’s heart “Spinnin’ round and round / Just like my Pirellis, burning on the ground.” When a love is so strong it can pull you any direction, you’ve got no choice but to kick into gear and let the vibes carry you away.

21. Hummingbird by Metro Boomin ft. James Blake: When I took my seat in the theater to watch Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse, the second installment in Sony’s stunning animated superhero franchise, I knew the music was going to slap, (the needle drop for “What’s Up Danger” from the first movie is one of my all-time favorites.) While the soundtrack has many a banger, it was ultimately the tender hearted “Hummingbird” that I latched onto. James Blake lends his silky soft vocals to wistfully pine for a love that always remains just out of reach. Metro Boomin elevates the distance Blake describes with spacious and spacey production, dappled with piano and a chirpy sample of Patience & Prudence's "Tonight You Belong to Me." It’s a love song that spans time and space, across the Spider-Verse and well beyond.

20. Patty's Diner by Upstate: “Patty’s Diner” by Upstate came to me via a recommendation from a friend, (shoutout @bellamysgriffin) and I don’t know whether to thank or throttle her for it, because it’s one of the most potent tearjerkers I’ve heard in recent memory. Upon my first listen, I found the song to be starkly understated, nothing but a plucked guitar and traded verses from both lead vocalists. The central character is Patty, a diner owner who passed away from cancer. Now, her memory lives on in late-night radio commercials and fading recollections of her kindness, all recounted with a melancholy shrug. In its staggering simplicity, “Patty’s Diner” captures something potent about the grief we hold for loved ones: it can come with a smile as well as tears. Take a page from Patty’s book and keep pushing forward. What else are we supposed to do?

19. There It Goes by Maisie Peters: On her sophomore album The Good Witch, Maisie Peters writes a lot about the breakup experience. A whole number of spunky kiss-offs from that record could’ve landed on this list, but as the autumn chill locked in for the final months of the year, I found myself more and more drawn to the album’s penultimate moment of reprieve. “There It Goes” shows Peters letting go of the relationship by pivoting towards self-improvement. Atop a warm strummed guitar groove, she lists off the steps to reconnecting with her friends and herself: going to yoga class, reading novels, stumbling through the streets of Stockholm. Much of The Good Witch focuses on the thunder of emotions which come from heartbreak. “There It Goes” is the calm after the storm. It demonstrates the much harder to describe but no less essential development that happens after growing apart: growing up.

18. Only Love Can Save Us Now by Kesha: On her latest album Gag Order, Kesha pivoted from the party anthems that put her on the map in favor of a sparer, darker sound. Then halfway through the album, “Only Love Can Save Us Now” swings in to prove that Kesha can still serve up a barn-burning banger if she wants, and thank god she does. On “Only Love Can Save Us Now,” Kesha unloads a list of unapologetic declarations over a typewriter-clack beat, each line wry and searing: “Yeah, I'm possessive / Maybe I'm possessed, bitch / Fuck yeah, I'm selfish / Shut up, eat your breakfast.” The chorus kicks in with a rollicking guitar, gospel choir, stomping drums, and jangly pianos which all lend a folksy intensity. “I don’t got no shame left,” Kesha sings in the song’s final moments, “Baby, that’s my freedom.” It’s a moment of deft catharsis on an album so heavily defined by what it holds back, a defiant invitation to exorcise your regrets and then invite your demons to come and join the dance party.

17. Mother Nature by MGMT: It’s been five years since MGMT’s last album Little Dark Age, and it feels like I’ve lived a whole lifetime since then. “Mother Nature,” the lead single off their fifth album Loss of Life, shows that MGMT have seemingly grown as much as I have. The song is warm and welcoming, built from sunshiny strummed guitars I’d usually expect from Alex G or Big Thief. But the stargazing, larger-than-life scope of the group’s past work remains, merging the mundane with the magical. “I wrote the fairytale on the midnight drive,” Andrew VanWyngarden sings in the song’s opening moments, “Wanting to know if I'm more than alive.” The rest of the song walks this line between enchantment and ennui, alluding to a greater darkness looming just beyond the horizon. The bridge makes a swing for the anthemic, describing a castle siege over scuzzy wails of distorted synth, a last swipe for hope “before the fantasy is cast into the fire.” I can’t wait to hear how “Mother Nature” fits into Loss of Life, but it’s a song that is determined to live life to the fullest, even in the most barren of landscapes.

16. brrr by Kim Petras: Over the past few years, Kim Petras has become one of the pop landscape’s most audacious players, knowing when to wallop her listeners with unrestrained discussions of sexuality and when to play it coy. She finds a perfect balance between these realms on “brrr.” Built off a beat of squelchy synths and throbbing bass, “brrr” is equal parts daring and alluring. Petras addresses a love interest who puts up thick walls of ice around their heart and makes it clear that she sees right through the charade. “I’m not one to be afraid,” she lilts teasingly on the pre-chorus. Instead of being put off, she buys in, the implication clear as she delivers the title line with a wink and a smirk: “...you think you’re so cold, brrr.” Leave it up to Petras to make even the iciest of imagery steamy as hell.

15. labour by Paris Paloma: It starts with a low male voice, way back in the mix, counting her in on four. Then, the storm clouds roll in. On social media, “labour” by Paris Paloma has been deemed an anthem of female rage, but unlike the immediate, memetic quality of its viral peers, “labour” understands that rage needs time to simmer before it explodes. Paloma airs out every grievance of how this women’s work batters us in body, mind, and spirit, ruthlessly recounting bursting capillaries, cracked skin, every bullshit archetype and patriarchy-serving expectation thrown our way. Paloma knows that at the end of the day, no amount of spectacle could hit harder than the all-too-simple truth at the song’s core: “It’s not an act of love if you make her / you make me do too much labour.” Her vocals layer and layer until the final chorus slams into you like a tidal wave of anger, and by the song's final moments, Paloma has made the narratives made to hold us back into something wholly her own.

14. Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus by Nicole Dollanganger: Of all the tales Nicole Dollanganger spins on her album Married In Mount Airy, “Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus” is by far one of the most elusive. Dollanganger offers up a foreboding atmosphere of feather-light strings and dark ambient reverb. The imagery centers on rebirth, the baptismal potential of a tepid pool, bodies reclaimed by nature. It has little to do with the gory bacchanal of the mythical moment in the title, but the insinuation remains, seeping in at the seams to suggest violence and regeneration as potentially interconnected. On an album so concerned with all the evils of men, perhaps the most terrifying thing of all is what lies beyond our standard perception of human actions, of nature locked in shadow. On "Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus," Dollanganger offers a glimpse of this disembodied face in the darkness, one  we’ll never be able to truly know.

13. Sandrail Silhouette by Avalon Emerson: "Sandrail Silhouette" opens DJ Avalon Emerson's album & The Charm, reintroducing a new side of her craft. A departure from the electronic spin of her past work, the song feels organic yet gleaming, constructed of a move-and-shaker groove of rich strings, shuffleboard keys, and gloaming skids of bass. Emerson’s vocals waft over the landscape with the calming timbre of someone telling a bedtime story, stringing lyrics together like beads on a friendship bracelet. It’s an environment that’s easy to get lost in, so much so that it hit November before I even bothered to ask, what even is a "sandrail silhouette?" I have no clue, but it’s not so much about the words themselves as it is about the feelings they evoke, a wistful nostalgia that is aching yet hopeful. This feeling comes across in obtuse details (“Go ask a sequoia”) and stunning clarity alike (“Tell me I got more time / When all my friends are having daughters.”) Like the yearning for the past Emerson describes, my love for this song is hard to put into words. It’s easier to just sit back and let myself feel it.

12. WHAT A MAN by DEBBY FRIDAY: “WHAT A MAN” by DEBBY FRIDAY simply slams so fucking hard. I don’t know what else to say. From the very first listen I came to immediate conclusion that it slammed into oblivion and was one of my favorite songs of 2023. "WHAT A MAN" unfurls like an erotic noir thriller, all churning bass and musings on a love that’s slipped the narrator’s fingers. DEBBY FRIDAY’s lyrics are obtuse yet evocative, contributing to the seductive atmosphere: “I held a heart / It wasn’t mine / When he came looking / I wasn’t kind.” Stacks of escalating synths ratchet up the tension until all hell breaks loose on the back of a scorching electric guitar solo that’d make Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera jealous he didn’t come up with it first. It’s the kind of song that rips loose and is over all too fast, asking for forgiveness in the aftermath of ruin, and never, ever permission.

11. Top Dog by Magdalena Bay: Hands down the best pop song of the year to reference Laura Dern, a race that should by all means be a lot more competitive than it is. From its opening references to the actress, synth pop duo Magdalena Bay make it clear that this isn't a song where they're going to be taking themselves too seriously. Everything about "Top Dog" oozes lackadaisical confidence, all with a cheeky wink to the listener. Against a backdrop of strummed guitars, they pepper in samples of cameras snapping and, fittingly, dogs woofing. Not only that, but they also add in a healthy dose of aughts nostalgia with a synth palette that feels directly pulled from dial-up bleeps, Motorola ringtones, and 8-bit power-ups. Mica Tenenbaum’s vocals are a pitch-perfect balance of airy nonchalance and self-satisfaction, traversing through the goofy canine metaphors without once sounding like she’s forcing a punchline to land. It makes for a song that’s loopy, loping, and effortlessly fun.

10. Honey by Samia: It’s hard to pin down what makes the title track of Samia’s sophomore album so special. “Honey” is subtle yet anthemic, an ever-growing conviction coming into fruition over the song’s duration. “I’m not scared of sharks / I’m not scared to be naked / I’m not scared of anything,” Samia sings in the song’s opening moments, going on to narrate a continual climb towards self-confidence and determination. My favorite detail is the gradually growing backing chorus which appears and reappears with more intensity with each new iteration of the song’s main refrain. “It’s all honey,” Samia repeats, over and over at the song’s close. All the times I’ve listened to this song, and I still haven’t pinned down an exact meaning for that line, but maybe that’s the point. The nonchalance, the uncertainty, the acceptance that no matter where life takes us, it's sure to be sweet.

9. Welcome To My Island by Caroline Polachek: In the opening moment of Desire, I Want To Turn Into You, Caroline Polachek shows off the titanic potential of her voice, letting out a dexterous, breathtaking belt that warps and careens into the stratosphere. Even if the song was just comprised of its first thirty seconds, it’d probably still be on this list. But then, of course, there’s the rest of “Welcome To My Island,” a facetious introduction to the sonic space Caroline Polachek will go on to explore over the rest of the album. Over a glimmering, twitchy beat, Polachek half-raps, half-belts a series of pitches for her personal paradise of waving palm trees and placid oceans. On the song’s bridge, she gets more vulnerable, revealing the pathos amongst the phthalo blues: “I am my father’s daughter in the end,” she sings like she’s on the brink of tears, “no nothing’s gonna be the same again.” But when the groove snaps back over an outro of brassily tuned guitars and defiantly chanted “hey hey hey”s, it’s clear that Polachek’s island is worth booking an extended stay, self-doubt be damned.

8. bad idea right? by Olivia Rodrigo: “bad idea right?,” the second single on Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album GUTS, followed on the heels of operatic ballad “vampire” by not following it at all. Like the preceding sophomore single “deja vu,” it’s snarkier, wonkier, and (in my opinion,) way more engaging. While Rodrigo undeniably knows how to pen and pull off a dramatic power ballad, her comedic chops deserve recognition too. On “bad idea, right?” she chattily recounts a night of terrible decision making, tossing out hilarious, memorable one-liners at a dizzying rate: “…you're callin' my phone, you're all alone / And I'm sensing some undertones,” “I only see him as a friend / (The biggest lie I ever said,)” “I just tripped and fell into his bed.” The production ups the ante with a strutting bassline, ad-libs which drive every line home like Rodrigo’s inner monologue coming to life, and a squealing guitar solo in the song’s back end. " All in all, "bad idea right?" captures the tumultuous clownery that having a crush conjures up, self-aware embarrassment colliding with lovesick horniness that makes you look a wealth of poor choices the eye and brush it off with a “fuck it, it’s fine.”

7. Echolalia by Yves Tumor: Echolalia is baby babble, the sounds humans make when they don’t have a grasp on language, but still need to communicate some innate need. On their latest album Praise A Lord Who Chews, But Which Does Not Consume (Or, Simply, Hot Between World,) Yves Tumor taps into these primal urges, transmogrifying them to a cosmic level through the medium of phychedelic rock. Such is the case on slow burning second single “Echolalia,” a hazy whirlwind of devotion and desperation. “Looked up to god,” they sing in the first verse, “You looked so good.” Tumor’s voice stays in their husky lower register, gritted out with hushed intensity over an alluring blend of gleaming synths, burning bass, and heaving breaths. “The way I’m thinking, is this unnatural?” they inquire in the song’s final moments, then lay their hesitations to waste in the heat of the moment, “you look so magical." At its most intense, “Echoloalia” strips away the set dressing of pretty words and veneers, unveiling the desire, hunger, and everything that simmers just below the surface, begging to break free.

6. Casual by Chappell Roan: I’ve long bemoaned how many a great pop album has been brought to a screeching halt by a ballad haphazardly thrown in to make things more “emotional.” A pop artist holds genuine promise to me when they’re able to clear this hurdle and make an album’s slower moments just as compelling as the bops. I'm glad to announce that Chappell Roan pasts this test with “Casual,” a mid-album on her debut album The Rise and Fall Of A Midwest Princess. On "Casual," slower pace of the song provides space to let Roan's simmering frustrations with a one-sided situationship reach a breathtaking boiling point. Roan pines for something more official with a girl who insist on having “no connections,” pointing to front seat cunnilingus sessions and dinner dates with her maybe-belle’s parents as proof that they're much more than a casual fling. Eventually, Roan just can’t take it anymore. “I hate that I let this drag on so long,” she confesses at the top of her lungs, “you can go to hell.” It’s testament to Roan’s promise as an emergent pop force that she can establish compelling stakes which make the emotions of her ballads tangible, never skippable.

5. A&W by Lana Del Rey: I already gushed about “A&W” back in March for how it showcases Lana Del Rey’s versatility as a performer, her veracity as a lyricist, and her astuteness in curating her personal history. As the year progressed, “A&W” kept pulling me back into its tumultuous depths, trying to parse its meaning and always falling just a bit short. Over the course of the song’s two-part structure, Lana Del Rey deftly maps a trajectory from childhood innocence to reckoning with how the world will wolf women down without mercy, their physical bodies exploited as their humanity goes unseen. “It's not about havin' someone to love me anymore,” Del Rey states, “No, this is the experience of bein' an American whore.” Lana Del Rey has grappled with these themes of for her whole career, walking the line between nostalgic recollection and ironic deconstruction, but on “A&W” they sharpen into focus and hit both the heart and gut like never before. That switch up into the second half of the song still sends a chill down my spine every time it’s ushered in on the back of those skittering trap drums and roiling bass. “A&W” is everything that makes Lana Del Rey Lana Del Rey, it's alluring, eerie, it’s Venice, bitch, and it’s one of her best songs, period.

4. Boy's a Liar Pt. 2 by Pinkpantheress ft. Ice Spice: When I listen to “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” by Pinkpantheress featuring Ice Spice, I feel the popular music landscape shifting beneath my feet. A strange thought to have about a song that’s so pointedly small in scope. Even with the Ice Spice verse extending the length of “Boy’s a Liar,” the song just barely exceeds two minutes. Given such restrictions, the amount of detail both artists manage to cram in is nothing short of impressive. Pinkpantheress jam-packs the beat with bouncy synths and a drum pad which races like a fluttering pulse. Ice Spice spends most of her verse telling off the useless titular liar, but adds in a one-two punch of vulnerability near the end with a heartened confession: “…I don't sleep enough without you / And I can't eat enough without you / If you don't speak, does that mean we're through?” “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” is more than just a rare remix that exceeds the quality of the first installment. It’s the bona-fide hit of the TikTok generation that feels fully born of the app’s tendencies, it’s mile-a-minute pacing, nostalgic skew, casual intimacy, and brutal honesty all rolled up into an inescapable earworm. I’d take part three in a heartbeat.

3. Psychedelic Switch by Carly Rae Jepsen: Throughout her career, Canadian pop connoisseur Carly Rae Jepsen has captured love from all angles, rendered its scope of e•mo•tion in a slew of shades. “Psychedelic Switch” off her latest album The Loveliest Time shows her setting the disco ball to spin, covering the entire spectrum of light and color in one go. Over a pulsing, dance-floor ready beat, she swirls together metaphors with the precision of a gourmet mixologist, taking odds and ends of all things dreamy to capture the onset of a whirlwind romance. This love is like a psychedelic trip. It’s like lucid dreaming. It’s like meditating. It’s sunsets and paradise and coming home. It's the all-encompassing rush of euphoria that only pop music can capture. Jepsen finishes off the concoction with a dash of sighing violins, a twist of bass throbbing like a heartbeat, and a couple drops of reverb-washed ad-libs. Every one of Jepsen’s album cycles has the fan-favorite standout to add to her growing canon, and from the very first listen I knew “Psychedelic Switch” had cemented itself within her ranks of cult classics.

2. Not Strong Enough by boygenius: When Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers, and Julien Baker announced their first full-length project as the singer-songwriter supergroup boygenius, the record, (the record,) had the aura of something larger than life, a culmination of three generational talents celebrating their chemistry as collaborators. If there is any song on the album that captures this magic, it’s “Not Strong Enough,” a song which burst out of the gate sounding like an instant classic. “Not Strong Enough” chronicles the search for identity amidst uncertainty, the line “I don’t know why I am / The way I am” may just be its driving force. And boy does it drive, as the singers search for clues listening to The Cure while drag racing down canyon highways, skipping old exits, roving out in search of a meaning that may never materialize. This freedom and frustration culminate on the bridge, where Dacus’s mastery of vocal dynamics takes center stage. “Always an angel / Never a god,” she sings, starting off with a whiff of timidity before escalating to belt it up to the heavens, backed up with stunning harmonies from her peers. An angel may only ever be second-best, only ever identified through its relation to a higher power, but that just makes the journey towards self-actualization more transcendent.

1. Sepsis by Blondshell: For the longest time, I was determined to put any other song but “Sepsis” at the number one spot on this list. Initially, my pick from Blondshell’s self-titled debut was “Kiss City,” an amazing song, but sadly not the one I played over and over, screaming along because the lyrics hit too damn close to home. Much of Blondshell grapples with addiction, and on “Sepsis,” Sabrina Teitelbaum explores how the validation one gets through situational flings is one hell of a drug. Atop the ebb and flow of electric guitar, she interrogates the tendency to keep returning to a man she should be avoiding, a dick with a front-facing cap who’s bad in bed. Still, she keeps coming back, pissed therapist be damned, because “if I’m in love, nothing hurts.” Teitelbaum hones these observations through the metaphor of curing ailments and fast-acting sickness, “he’s going to start infecting my life / it’ll hit all at once like sepsis.” It’s a metaphor which exposes how self-destructive these habits are. “What if I’m down to let this kills me?” she howls at the apex of the bridge before, the sentence slurring into a frustrated scream as the entire song tumbles back into a cavalcade of fiery chords. If there’s anything “Sepsis” and my relationship to it proves, it’s that confronting these unhealthy habits is difficult, but essential. Sometimes, you’ve got to recognize that these coping mechanisms aren’t a “cure” and are only “making it worse.” It’s only then that true healing can begin.

Thank you so much to anyone who has interacted with this blog over the past year. I hope you all are having a happy holiday season!. My top 10 albums list should be out soon. See you then!

[defira85]

On Repeat Playlist Tag Game

Rules: Shuffle your repeat playlist 10 times and tag 10 people. Tagged by @flymmsy! ❤️

Hmm. This is going to be an indication of how heavily BG3 has taken over my playlists because I'm looking at this list it's given me and like... only one of these isn't a ship song. No wait, two aren't ship songs, and of those two, one is still a song I use for writing Kass. So really one song that isn't BG3 flavoured

Tagging: @sithrightsactivist @angelicfangirl @thegingerjedi @mhara @darkfeanix @tiefighter @zeowynda @anarchyinplasma @maeglinhiei (Mae why will it never let me tag you) @meredoubt

It's Durgetash, it's Kass and Enver, I can't pretend that it's not. It's both of them mourning the lost months, it's both of them convinced they're the ruin of the other. It opens with a verse about corrupting an angel and dragging them down to earth, and yes it's Enver thinking about seducing a demi-god, but it's also Kass ruining herself by becoming Torm's valkyrie so she can fight Bane

God, I was going to say this is THE Durgetash song for me (and god the music video does a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard too) but there's still 8 songs to go so I can't promise that. Needless to say I have been known to put on a 1 hour loop of this song when I'm writing Kass and Enver

Insert Llamas with Hats gif "I Will Not Apologise For Art". This song fucking slaps. I've loved it for years. It's Kass and Enver

I actually got into Teddy Swims from some of his covers, I LOVE his cover of Make You Feel My Love and was hoping that would turn up but I do love this one. I have this one on Rhyme and Gale's playlist, Carmela and Astarion's playlist, and Kass and Enver. It is really good

Tommee Profitt is genuinely one of my favourite artists, and his collabs with Fleurie are always golden. This cover of Avicii's Wake Me Up is just haunting, and it turns such a bop into a song that will linger in my soul forever. It's one of my solo songs for Kass and also for Rhyme, because if I'm not torturing one of them I'm torturing the other

This is the song I had playing when I wrote Enver's death. I had Kass say "come home with me" because I was crying that much over this song

I love The Hu, and I've seen people drag this version because they think Jacoby Shaddix looks out of place but it's??? Fucking great? I mean my favourite song by The Hu is Song of Women ft. Lzzy Hale but this is great. I played it a lot when I wrote the Battle for Baldur's Gate scenes

This is it, the ONE non shipping/non Baldur's Gate related song on the list. Paris Paloma is fantastic. I play this on repeat CONSTANTLY.

This is one of my more generic 'set the mood when writing' songs, so it's not really a song that belongs to anyone in particular. Although for some reason it seems to come up a lot when I'm writing Carmela, which fits. Golden paladin suddenly confronted by the uncomfortable shades of grey morality in the world

THIS IS THE SONG KASS AND ENVER FUCK TO, THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT

[peopleiveghosted]

anti-hero is not "overrated" it's actually just that good, an essay of sorts

so. earlier today, i was talking to myself (as you do), and while pacing my sister's living room floor, my imaginary conversation partner had some Bad Opinions about taylor swift's "anti-hero". and i was so mad at myself for not being able to immediately put to words why this song deserves all its hype, is a lyrical masterpiece, and means a lot to me, that i immediately sat down and almost gave myself carpal tunnel while typing out this line-by-line analysis of its lyrics. nothing i say could ever be as eloquent or well-put as the lyrics themselves, but nevertheless, in case anyone needs to be validated in how much they love this song, or doesn't understand why this song is such a hit with so many people, here it is. here goes.

-

VERSE 1

I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser

bam. open with an absolute BANGER of a line. this line does one of the things that taylor does best, which is flipping a well-used and overly trite phrase on its head. how many times have i heard the phrase "older and wiser"? and how many times have people told me that those who are older don't actually have their lives together, don't actually know what they're doing any more than i do, and that they're just as lost no matter how much more "life experience" they have? this line also sets up the theme of feeling like you'll never learn, and continuing down a road to ruin because you don't know how to do anything else, which becomes very prevalent throughout the song

Midnights become my afternoons

line 2 continues along the same vein of flipping things on their head. older doesn't equal wiser, midnights are actually afternoons. the theme of the album comes in (things that keep her up at night). in plain words: she's wide awake at midnight

When my depression works the graveyard shift / All of the people I've ghosted stand there in the room

okay i really didn't want to say "cmon. it's self-explanatory." but CMON. IT'S SELF-EXPLANATORY. that's a fucking GENIUS LINE must i REALLY explain it? if i MUST, it's following the last line (about how she's wide awake in the middle of the night) to say that her depression is what's keeping her up, and when her depression keeps her up, the people she's "ghosted" (if you're not a native english speaker/are unfamiliar with the colloquial definition of this word, it means to avoid/ignore someone, often with no explanation. not replying to texts, ignoring them on social media, not answering their calls, blocking them, etc.) are like actual ghosts, haunting her, standing there and watching her with accusatory gazes in the middle of the night. aka she cant sleep because she's thinking about all the people she's hurt or cut off in the past.

-

PRE-CHORUS 1

I should not be left to my own devices / They come with prices and vices / I end up in crisis (Tale as old as time)

okay. quadruple rhyme? all right, taylor, i see you. spitting fire. continuing the story from the first verse, she's by herself (left to her own devices) and going down a late-night spiral, and when she's left to her own thoughts bad things happen. and i'd argue the second part of the line (they come with prices and vices) is ambiguous in who she hurts. the last part (I end up in crisis) implies she's the one hurting herself when she's left to her own thoughts, but "prices and vices" doesn't say who's paying the price (her or the people around her?) and when someone gives into their vices, they often hurt their loved ones too. this line is mainly about self-destructive tendencies, late-night spiraling, bad thoughts, the consequences of bad thoughts, but i'd also say that combined with the fact that it immediately follows "all of the people i've ghosted" this line is also about how she's self-aware of all the people she's hurt. and that's the source of her "crisis" (though, of course, it could be a nod to 'existential crisis' which has become a phrase that's well known amongst our generation). "Tale as old as time" --- she's not special. everyone has experienced this. but also, she's done this so many times, but she never learns (gotten older, but not wiser)

I wake up screaming from dreaming / One day, I'll watch as you're leaving / 'Cause you got tired of my scheming (For the last time)

ANOTHER QUADRUPLE RHYME. here enters the elusive "you" she's addressing. they seem to be a partner, or at least someone very close to her. the idea of taylor "scheming" or being a mastermind/manipulator is one that's existed in media and is acknowledged/addressed throughout this album, but even within the context of just this song, it nods to the fact that she likes to overthink, is anxious and overplans, stays up all night. she's obsessive, and she thinks she'll end up alone because of it (meeeeeeeeeeeeee)

-

CHORUS

It's me, hi / I'm the problem, it's me

memeable. catchy. a very simple line, but that's what makes it such a gut-punch. the epitome of what someone who literally can't sleep at night because of things they've done or at least think they've done says to themselves

At teatime, everybody agrees

she's imagining everyone she knows over afternoon tea talking about how she's the problem and how they hate her. i have also done this. i think most people who are anxious, especially socially anxious, have wondered if everyone actually secretly hates them, and are just too polite to say so to their face.

I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror

another "c'mon it's self-explanatory" line. my jaw literally dropped when i first heard this line. she'd rather blind herself, hurt herself by staring directly at the sun, than face her own reflection. she can't bear to look at herself. self-loathing at its peak

It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

this can very easily be read as taylor talking to her fans: it must be so hard being my fan, when i'm the "anti-hero" aka someone who lacks all the traditionally heroic attributes. but in other words, outside the specific context of taylor and her fandom, this line can read as "i'm the opposite of everything people like or want to champion. it must be so much work, loving someone like me."

-

VERSE 2

Sometimes, I feel like everybody is a sexy baby

"sexy baby" is meant to be an oxymoron here. she thinks everyone but her has found out how to be both "sexy" (mature, attractive, confident) and a "baby" (innocent, young, blameless). knowing taylor, it's likely specifically a nod to the stereotypically (but not necessarily exclusively!) female experience of having to be both sexy but not too sexy as to be a slut. you have to have it, but not flaunt it. you have to be physically mature (have that hourglass figure, tits and ass, etc., and be aware enough of it to know how to look good but not TOO good) but mentally pure (like a child, untouched by the world, not jaded, still full of wonder despite everything). i've heard people say this line makes them feel uncomfortable, because the idea of "sexy babies" is weird and off-putting to them, but that's kind of the point. it's an uncomfortable idea because it shouldn't exist and mixes two concepts (sexiness and babies) that people don't often put together, thereby showing how society puts an impossible, unnatural, and perverse double standard on people (particularly women).

And I'm a monster on the hill / Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city

she thinks she's the opposite of the idealized "sexy baby" expectation that, in this moment, she imagines everyone else has managed to achieve. she's just this big monster. "too big" to me clearly speaks to body image issues. and it might be easy to be like "it's taylor swift, what does she know about body image issues?" but that's like. kinda part of why this line hits? even taylor swift has these problems. and the image of something large and unsightly and inelegant, moving in such a way that's more like "lurching" and coming to destroy everything you love…and the fact that that's how she sees herself, at least in this moment? more self-loathing, obviously. that's the theme of the song

Pierced through the heart, but never killed

continuing the monster metaphor. she's the monster, so people attack her, and it hurts. it pierces her straight in the heart. but it never kills her. and in the movies, in this story, people always want the monster to die. the monster is the antagonist. so not only does she have to live through and suffer this pain, this pain that pierces her straight through the heart, she thinks no one wants her to live, that no one's on her side, that no one's cheering for her. she's attacked over and over, but she always gets back up, and that's a bad thing, because she's the monster. her efforts to keep going is to the detriment to everyone/everything around her, she's a blight just for existing.

-

PRE-CHORUS 2

Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman? (Tale as old as time)

triple rhyme! sorry for constantly pointing the obvious out, but it amazes me that not only does she manage to eloquently state these complex ideas in very few words, but she manages to rhyme at the same time. i'm so bad at rhyming, so this just blows my mind, even if here the last one is more of a slant rhyme. it's still close enough to work and be satisfying. the opening words are "did you hear" which again, refers to how she's imagining what everyone must be saying about her. and the covert narcissism that's actually altruism? like…i have this exact fear. "am i really altruistic/a good person? or am i only pretending to be a good person because i'm a narcissist who wants praise and attention, only doing it because it looks good to other people rather than out of any innate goodness (like a congressman just trying to win an election)?"

I wake up screaming from dreaming / One day, I'll watch as you're leaving / And life will lose all its meaning (For the last time)

she has a fear of losing that important person and having nothing left. and this time, she won't survive it. following the second verse, to me it also means that she won't get back up this time, it's the end of the line, the monster will finally be slain (and isn't that what everyone wants anyway?)

-

CHORUS 2 (repeat)

BRIDGE

I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money She thinks I left them in the will The family gathers 'round and reads it and then someone screams out "She's laughing up at us from Hell"

okay this part actually took me quite awhile to figure out. but once i got it, it absolutely destroyed me.

i (me, the person writing this analysis) have these things i call "fear fantasies." basically, if you think of a nightmare (a bad dream you have while sleeping) and a daydream (a happy thing you imagine while ur awake), then a "fear fantasy" is a nightmare/daydream where you're awake, but your mind just spirals into this nightmare of an overly-specific, self-punishing, weirdly gleefully masochistic imagining where something terrible happens to you or someone around you. i feel like a lot of people with anxiety will know exactly what i'm talking about. but if you're lucky enough to not count as one of those people, just know this: some people spin stories of worst-case scenarios in their head that are highly specific, highly unlikely, and very terrible for no decipherable reason other than perhaps self-torture and an inexplicable craving for suffering and self-punishment. it's irrational, hard to explain, and mostly, not under our control. it just happens.

that's what she's describing here, though she does describe it as a "dream" instead of a "daydream" so it's not an exact match with my "fear fantasies". basically, she has this dream, and it's a dream where she hypothesizes about something terrible happening. it's overly-dramatized, probably unrealistic, definitely a case of catastrophizing. in fact, in the music video, she plays it for laughs, like she's making fun of her own imagination. but in actuality, when she's imagining it in the middle of the night, or dreaming, it probably feels very real.

and what is that worst-case scenario?

the worst-case scenario isn't even that her family hates her so much they kill her because all they really want is her money. it's the idea that that's all that will be left of her legacy, which she didn't even bequeath to anyone, because she lived knowing she was unloved and hated. "what if, after everything i've achieved, it all amounts to nothing because i have no one to share it with? and what if that was my fault? what if, at the end of it all, i have nothing left in me but my spite, so i die hated by everybody while hoarding my money?" it's not just "what if i had a daughter-in-law that hated me" it's "i put no one in my will out of spite, because i hated them too, i was the problem, and maybe even, i deserved to be killed for being so horrible and petty, and so, my death is not a cause for grief, and my only revenge is their outrage." it's "my existence is one that's so loveless that all i can breed is hatred, amongst those closest to me and within myself." it's "i'm so profoundly lonely, and i can't think of a reason for why i'm so alone except that something must be very wrong with me, but i don't know what it is or if it's even possible to fix it, so i'm just going to lie here and imagine what the end of such an existence would look like: ugly, nothing but petty drama, inconsequential, ultimately forgettable, and full of hate, just like the rest of me."

-

and then the song begins to wind down with the breakdown of "it's me, hi, i'm the problem it's me" repeated over and over until she hisses "everybody agrees, everybody agrees" just to drive home that idea of literally everyone hating her, including herself.

and finally, the chorus one more time. ending with "it must be exhausting, always rooting for the anti-hero" aka, as i said, "it must be so hard, to love me" (which is why no one does, not even myself)

[milksockets]

when do you come up with verses? how long have you been making music?

i've been writing my whole life but it was in rehab that i started doing it consistently. according to my instagram archive, i recorded my first "track" (generous) in 2017. i like to think i've gotten better since then, but...

i have zero musical talent; i've quit every instrument i tried to learn. i took an ableton class and let's just say it didn't quite take. for a little while i really wanted to be able to do everything myself -- meaning produce the beats too -- but i've come to accept that i do not have a musical mind. there's no shame in utilizing other people's skills to create.

i guess i have somewhat of a *thing* about wanting to feel complete ownership of what i record/collage/write/fuck. however, my brain simply doesn't operate in a way that translates into actual music.

when it comes to writing verses overall, i generated a 120-page doc of sonnets during covid, so i pulled from those. i also have a lengthy list in my phone notes of words + phrases i hear or read. rhyming in new ways that i find amusing and/or clever brings me brief joy.

basically, i just find writing (and rapping, to a certain degree + in a different sense) to be one of the very few pursuits i can say i genuinely enjoy. however, like so many other examples, the whole thing has become [hopefully not] irreversibly intertwined with the need to share + receive validation.

and that saddens me.

[mightnotfeelrealbutitsok]

Fav part of every TTPD song -

Fortnight = the outro. thought of calling ya/nother fortnight lost in america/buy the car you want but it won't start up til you touch touch touch meee. it's so crazed

TTPD = who's gonna hold you like me? who's gonna know you if not me? and all its repetitions

My Boy... = the second half of each chorus. cause it fit too right.../cause i knew too much... perfectly bitter

Down Bad = bridge bridge bridge. I loved your hostile takeovers encounters closer and closer all your indecent exposures how dare you say that it's !!!

So Long, London = bridge! AND YOU SAY I ABANDONED THE SHIP/AND MY FRIENDS SAID IT ISN'T RIGHT TO BE SCARED

But Daddy I Love Him = i'm running with my dress unbuttoned screaming but daddy i love him i'm having his babyyy - whenever it comes up

Fresh Out The Slammer = as i said in my letters now that i know better i will never lose my baby again (so satifsying)

Florida!!! = bridge and fuck me up Florida

Guilty As Sin? = what if he's written mine on my upper thigh??!! in the last chorus, obviously

Who's Afraid...? = so who's. afraid. of me. in the outro

I Can Fix Him = on a six-lane Texas highway, his hand so calloused from his pistol softly traces hearts on my face?!?! pop off with the imagery taylor, and so ethel-cain-core

loml = the last chorus. it just keeps going. what a valiant roar what a bland goodbye/i'll never leave never mind/your arson's match your sombre eyes!! (this song is becoming such a favourite)

I Can Do It... = he said he'd love me all his life!-- but that life was too short... and its counterpart: he said he'd love me for all time!-- such a good illustration of having to keep those miserable thoughts in check

The Smallest Man... = well clearly the whole raging bridge (YOU SAID NORMAL GIRLS WERE BORING BUT YOU WERE GONE BY THE MORNING)

The Alchemy = i can't lie. no part of it really wows me.

Clara Bow = i'm not trying to exaggerate but i think i might DIE if i made it/DIE if it happened - prechoruses

The Black Dog = the choruses, particularly the one that comes first and last. you jump up but she's too young to know this song that was intertwined with the magic/tragic fabric of our dreaming!!

imgonnagetyouback = say you got somebody i'll say i got someone too EVEN IF IT'S HANDCUFFED I'M LEAVING HERE WITH YOUU

The Albatross = also a song that does not hit me at any point. sorry.

Chloe et al. = the choruses. say i loved you the way that you were/say you've always wondered... also i/you just watched it happen... :(

How Did It End? = bridge bridge bridge the unsympathetic unfeeling roboticness and post-mortem detail and the rhythm and rhyming oh my god (say-it once-a gain-with feel-ing)

So High School = ARE YOU GONNA MARRY KISS OR KILL MEEE and also truth, dare, spin bottles... and all that. satisfying rhythm and rhyme strike again

I Hate It Here = choruses. the I read about it in a book when I was a precocious child/I dreamed about it in the dark the night I felt like I might die line. and no mid-sized city hopes and small-town fears i'm there most of the year cos i hate it here....

thanK you aIMee = lowkey an annoying song for me.

I Look In... = the verses, especially all the south south south and now now now now downtown downtown downtown parts

The Prophecy = and i sound like an infant feeling like the very last drops of an inkpen, a greater woman stays cool!!

Cassandra = so they killed Cassandra first cause she feared the worst is the best line but i don't particularly like this song.

Peter = THE WHOLE SONG. love. verses and choruses and bridge. chef's kiss. maybe best moment is YOU SAID YOU'D COME AND GET ME BUT YOU WERE TWENTY FIVE

The Bolter = verse 1. childhood anecdotes always hit

Robin = the bridge, I cry, reminds me of Ronan, you got the dragonflies above your bed, the echo of you have no idea...

The Manuscript = verse 2, the theme of growing up again, she wished she was thirty/she only ate kids' cereal

that's all thank you bye

[catbooknerd22]

ttpd thoughts

loving fortnight 

the echos in headphones in fortnight>>>>> 

apartment, department rhyme in ttpd is so satisfying 

i also love the “im not patti smith” and all the other artist references in ttpd

WAIT IS SHE CALLING THEM TORTURED POETS?????

“you’d kill yourself if i ever leaved” (ttpd) thats so fucking toxic bro 

i love the beginning of mbobhft

why are so many of these songs so sad/hurtful/heartbreaking and yet the tone makes them a bop

“fuck it if i cant have us” (down bad) why is this kinda relatable and also not- 

lowkey sounds like tay and joes relationship was really toxic 

“i stopped cpr / after all, it’s no use” (so long, london) - it’s def a reference OR the reason for the heartbeat in you’re losing me

i need to play so long london and london boy at the same time and i need for them to match (they prob wont but its a NEED)

the intro to daddy i love him sounds like miss americana eras tour version/the opening of the eras tour when the clock is ticking and then the montage of “it’s been a long time coming” starts

but daddy i love him ??? omg

love the florence and the machine verse in florida

so many florida references in the beginning of the album? then they stop after florida??? tay what is this

also several references to texas 

note that drug problems have been mentioned several times - “my drug is my baby?” - was taylor’s love/obsession with joe like a drug problem and it ruined their relationship that way??

“who’s afraid of little old me? they should be” jaw DROPPED

“i’m so depressed i act like it’s my birthday… every day” (icdiwabh) 

icdiwabh is a bop

ICDIWABH IS MY SONG STOP- “i’m so obsessed with him but he avoids me like the plague” 

icdiwabh also sounds similar to you’re losing me around 2:03

“i was grinning like i’m winning, i was hitting my marks, cause i can do it withe a broken heart” sounds similar to “no one wanted to play with me as a little kid, so i’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since” 

“i’m a real tough kid, i can handle my shit, said baby gotta fake it til you make it and i did” —OMG????

the breath at the beginning of the smallest man who ever LIVED????? LAST KISS TAYLOR IS BACK

taylor explicitly saying fuck you to the person who the song is about- (joe?)- she’s never done that before holy shit

“i dont miss what we had but will someone give a message to tsmwel” - “you go talk to your friends talk to my friends talk to me”

“once your queen had come” - SHITTING ON BRITISH PPL??? LMAO

TSMWEL CHORUS???? STOP- 

she is destroying joe

“who are we to fight the alchemy” - LIKE HOW IF YOU HAVE TOO MUCH OF THE CHEMICAL FORM OF LOVE YOU BECOME OBSESSIVE??? IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED WITH THEIR RELATIONSHIP??? OMG 

clara bow is giving the lucky one x mean

“you look like taylor swift in this light” what????

i love her for name dropping herself

“old habits die SCREAMING” the instrumental there??? genius songwriting. it sounds like screaming 

the black dog entirely is incredible

i relate to imgonnagetyouback so much its a lil concerning 

wait so high school is actually really cute i hope its about travis

it has so many references too i love it 

also, its relatable 

another fuck you in thanK you aIMee?? woah

wait actually thanK you aIMee is really cute 

but also toxic damn

but what is up with the capitalized letters? KIM??? i wonder if that’s the name of the person who the song is actually about - WAIT DIDNT TAYLOR HAVE BEEF WITH KIM KARDASHIAN??? IS IT ABOUT HER OMG

(the prophecy) - “slow is the quicksand” kinda parallels “green was the color of the grass” in invisible string, it’s the same writing style

“even statues crumble if they’re made to wait” - “i feel like my castle is crumbling down”

the amount of parallels - im sure there are some i haven’t noticed, too, jesus

the prophecy hurts 

the bolter is giving elementary school girl who can run really fast and all the boys are in love with her 

[afemalesebastian]

So my current musical fixation are the Kinks. Past couple of weeks, I've been going through and listening to basically their entire oeuvre. Here, in no particular order, are my recommended tracks (that AREN'T "Lola", "You Really Got Me", "Waterloo Sunset", etc)

"Village Green Preservation Society" - God save Donald Duck, indeed. I wholeheartedly endorse the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium and the Skyscraper Condemnation Affiliate.

"State of Confusion" - Honestly, this whole album is a banger (gotta love "Young Conservatives", a 'get-off-my-lawn' song about young Thatcherites). 'I don't know whether I'm coming or going / Can't cover up 'cause it's obviously showing... Am I overdrawn, am I going in debt? / It gets worse, the older that you get.' Rock and roll is such a young person's genre, there are a paucity of good songs about the problems of middle age. The music video for this is also great - Ray Davies' facial expressions are delightful.

"The Way Love Used to Be" - UGH SO BEAUTIFUL

"Have a Cuppa Tea" - 'Whatever the situation, whatever the race or creed, / Tea knows no segregation, no class nor pedigree / It knows no motivations, no sect or organisation, / It knows no one religion, / Nor political belief.'

"Shangri-La" - probably the saddest song I've ever heard about upward mobility.

"Lavender Lane" - best song about gentrification EVER. So good. Especially like the musical quotes from "Waterloo Sunset". ("Demolition" off Preservation Act I is also excellent on this topic.)

"Alcohol" - sounds almost like it was influenced by Cab Calloway, very speakeasy. "Holiday" is also good for this.

"This Time Tomorrow" - 'On a spaceship somewhere sailing across an empty sea...' Just beautiful - perfectly combines 'life-on-the-road' loss with 'the-old-ways-are-vanishing' loss.

"Autumn Almanac" - COTTAGECORE ANTHEM

"Celluloid Heroes" - a million times better than Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" any fucking day of the week.

"Some Mother's Son" - heartbreaking anti-war song - the words should be engraved on a memorial.

"Sweet Lady Genevieve" - I understand why Preservation is so polarizing amongst Kinks fans, but I probably fall more on the love than hate side. This song reminds me a little of Stan Rogers' "Witch of the Westmoreland", although much more overproduced.

"Dedicated Follower of Fashion" - I know this is very top 10, but how could I not include a song that starts with a quote from Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel, and includes the phrase "Carnabetian Army"??

"Better Things" - 'Hoping all the verses rhyme / And the very best of choruses, too.' This is one of my go-to cheer-up songs. It's really good to see you rocking out and having fun!

Anyway, I should probably stop while I still can (Honestly, I could effuse about Kinks songs for days. And have. My poor husband.). But I have really been loving the Kinks lately.

[randomvarious]

London Hip Hop Playlist

Something that Brits really seem to go absolutely fucking nuts over are breakbeats. They singlehandedly invented jungle and drum n bass with them, as well as the genres of breakbeat and breakbeat hardcore as well, and out of breakbeat also came big beat, which was that fun party stuff that was huge in the late 90s and early 2000s that was made popular by people like Fatboy Slim, the Chemical Brothers, and The Prodigy.

But another thing that Brits naturally applied breakbeats to was hip hop, which, after it had managed to make its way from New York, led to the formation of a UK-specific genre in the late 80s called Britcore. And Britcore featured people (almost strictly blokes) spitting furiously over slammin' breakbeats. Basically, if you love old school rap records like I do, you are *really* missing out if you never messed with any of this stuff at all, because while the US continuously led the way, the UK was cooking up some seriously overlooked unique fire on the back-burner that never really managed to make it into the American hip hop diet.

So, here's a bunch of dope rap tunes from London that span from the late 80s to mid-90s, a lot of which are Britcore tracks. And my #1 favorite among all of these is, hands-down, "Doomsday of Rap," by Hijack, which isn't just the greatest Britcore song that I've ever heard, but is also, to me, just one of the best pieces of old school hip hop that's ever been made, period. In fact, this tune, which lays ferociously raw lyrics over a sample of the Incredible Bongo Band's iconic "Apache," actually helped Hijack to catch the ear of none other than Ice-T, who then signed them to his own Rhyme Syndicate label. And "Doomsday of Rap" is probably one of the least obscure songs among this set here, but considering just how irresistibly good it is, a Spotify play count of around 75,200 still feels a bit low.

Another banger on here, though, which does have an obscenely low play count is Kobalt 60's "Kaos From Order," which seems to sample its breakbeat from Tom Jones' "Looking Out My Window," and also adds these forceful "ba-ba-ba-ba" male vocals in the second verse too. And I have no idea where those specific vocals come from, but they really enhance this whole track, overall, which is only sitting at a little under 1,900 total plays.

I also included a couple cuts from a slick-tongued ragga hip hop star originally from Jamaica named Daddy Freddy, too, who moved to London and then made some choice tracks, like "Go Freddy Go" and "Haul & Pull." The version of "Go Freddy Go" that I've added has about 16,700 plays, and a remix of "Haul & Pull" that was done by Bobby Konders has about 32,900.

This playlist is ordered as chronologically as possible.

Lady Sugar Sweet - "Sugar Sweet" Thrashpack - "Trigger Happy" Hijack - "Doomsday of Rap" MC Duke - "I'm Riffin" MC Duke - "Gotta Get Your Own" Hardnoise - "Untitled" SL Troopers - "Movement" Standing Ovation - "Onslaught" Daddy Freddy - "Go Freddy Go" The 3 Knights - "Burial Proceedings" Militant Posture - "Dawn of Terror" Brothers on Organised Missions - "B.O.O.M." Brothers on Organised Missions - "Delivering the Answer" Kobalt 60 - "Kaos From Order" Daddy Freddy - "Haul & Pull" Killa Instinct - "Un-United Kingdom"

And, of course, there's a YouTube version of this playlist too, which includes a couple more gems that aren't on Spotify, like a tune that's actually not Britcore, but takes a page out of Pete Rock's relaxational jazz-rap stylebook instead: 499's "Don't Categorise Me," which has around 11,600 plays across a bunch of different uploads on YouTube.

Demon Boyz - "Rougher Than an Animal" 499 - "Don't Categorise Me"

And this playlist is on YouTube Music as well.

So, with the unveiling of this playlist, we start with 68 minutes worth of tunes on Spotify, and 78 minutes over on YouTube. And because the YouTube version has that 499 track, I definitely recommend you check out that version rather than the Spotify one 😊.

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

[kohburgers]

mini post of songs that remind me of eric — 🫐 !

the smashing pumpkins (the gnashing blumpkins)

- pennies: the intro is just so him. nothing else 2 say

- bodies: i feel like this song can be connected to how i see my attachment to him and how he saw the people that failed (??) him in his life. “come into my life forever,” hits so hard for me cus i know that if i haven’t outgrown him by now, i prob never will. especially when so many others who’ve surpassed my age are stuck on him and the case in gen. i also feel like i’ll never be able to ‘escape’ him cus of his mark on the world and how he’ll continue to inspire so many others in that way.

- to forgive: holy fucking shit the first time i listened to this he was literally the only thought in my head. “ten times removed / i forget about where it all began,” “holding back the fool again / holding back the fool pretends.” this song is just the embodiment of what i imagine he felt near the end. never fails to make me cry like a little bitch

- farewell and goodnight: reminds me so much of his humanity, of how much he tried yet still felt like he could never get it right. “heart strung is your heart frayed and empty / cause it’s hard luck when no one understands your love / its unsung.”

- blew away: eric’s version of dylan’s beautiful (lol) “please don’t ever leave / and i will grieve, and remember thee / hope to meet you there.”

hole (so funny cus if he hated sp no way he felt any better abt hole or courtney love 😭)

- northern star: “and blackest night and i wait for you / it’s cold in here, there’s no one left / and i wait for you,”

“he’s so cold / he will ruin the world tonight,”

“ghosts that haunt you with their sorrow / i cried cause you were doomed.”

- honey: “and everything you ever said, now tears me all apart,”

“he goes down, down to his bitter end / he knows now, now you can’t touch him,”

“i hold onto you like the death of an angel / and i hold onto you with all the life that’s in me,”

“why was i not good enough to save you from destruction?”

- pacific coast highway: “go with your gun in my hands,”

“i knew a boy, he left me so damaged / do you even know the extent of what you ravaged?”

misc. (basically just single songs from bands that i can’t compile into their own category)

- under the milky way by the church: “wish i knew what you were looking for / might have known what you would find.”

- stuck on you by failure: this song is more for me and how i feel abt never being able 2 escape him.

“i claimed i didn’t care for you / but your verse got trapped inside my head, over and over again,”

“i thought i’d drop you easily / but that was not to be / you burrowed like a summer tick / so you invade my sleep and confuse my dreams / turn my nights to sleepless itch,”

“stuck on you til the end of time / i’m too tired to fight your rhyme / you’ve got me paralyzed,”

“even when i’m alone / i hear your mellow drone / you’re everywhere inside of me.”

and uhhh i have a whole playlist dedicated to him w a lot of other songs but these r just the main ones that scream Him and im too chickenshit to link my profile here cus im paranoid ✊😭 but mayhaps…. one day…. mayhaps….