#and the band's style tends to be not on the darker side like that song but they changed it up it seems for that one | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gointothevvater · 3 years ago

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Her full profile is finally here! Seven pages of information! I may have gone down the rabbit hole just a tiny bit!

St. Cecilia Jameson

Gender: Cis female

Status: Alive

Occupation: Singer for British rock band Stiletto ("Like the knife or like the shoe?" "Yes.")

Family: Elizabeth Robinson, née Wallis (Mother), Bryony Robinson (Older half-sister), Esme Robinson, née Davies (Grandmother, deceased), Herakles Zafeiriou (Biological father, though she's never met him), Evander Zafeiriou (Older half-brother, who she's also never met, though they've exchanged family photos and stories via email)

Voiced by: Florence Pugh (Speaking), Lzzy Hale (Singing)

Age: A few months younger than Pickles

Date of birth: December 15 (Sagittarius)

Place of birth: Oxford, England

Birth name: Felicity Robinson (Initially, only Sammy knows this, though the rest of SnB learns it at Esme's funeral)

Nicknames: Ceelie (By Pickles and Sammy, mostly, though the Dethklok boys pick it up eventually), Star (By Magnus), princess (By Skwisgaar)

Ethnicity: Half English, half Greek (Though she's unaware of the latter for most of her life)

Height: Five-foot-one

Sexuality: Bisexual

Relationship status: It's complicated. It's always complicated. She's unlucky in love.

Current location: London, England

Appearance: St. Cecilia is a petite woman (She's half a head shorter than Pickles!) with golden skin and long white-blonde hair, which she wears in a high ponytail. She has thick, dark brows and bright brown eyes (Skwisgaar says she has "wolf eyes"). She has three white marigolds tattooed on each shoulder, a labret piercing, and a vertical collarbone piercing at the hollow of her throat. Her ears are pierced three times each, in which she wears two silver hoops and a silver stud on each side, and she has a small black star beneath each eye. She has a Christina piercing, nipple piercings, and a belly button piercing. She has a No Time For Antivenom tattoo on her sternum, and a European robin tattoo at the back of her neck. Along her spine, she has a tattoo reading "to thine own self be true." She has a shitty stick-and-poke crown tattooed behind her right ear. She has a pear body type, with wide hips, a small chest, and an even smaller waist (Nathan can encircle her waist with his hands). She typically wears a black muscle shirt, ripped dark jeans, heavy boots, black driving gloves, and a studded black leather collar with a D-ring at the front. She also wears a Gibson pearl guitar pick on a necklace, which was given to her by Pickles when they first started dating in the 80s. She wears a silver cuff on each ear, and her tongue is pierced with a simple silver stud.

During flashbacks to the Snakes N' Barrels era, she's shown with darker blonde hair cut in a mullet style, and only her labret and ear piercings, plus one on the right side of her nose. She wears a cropped white tank, with high-waisted jeans and black Converse sneakers. She wears mismatched armbands, one black, one striped, and the same collar she wears in the present.

Her more casual look consists of a black button-up shirt with the sleeves pushed up, which she wears tucked into a pair of leather pants. She wears pumps instead of boots, and her hair is twisted up in a clip. She keeps her collar, but doesn't wear the pick necklace or her ear cuff, and she switches her hoop earrings for studs. She doesn't apply her stars.

For fancier occasions, she wears a black dress with spaghetti straps and a very short, flared skirt, black opera gloves and black strap pumps. She, as always, wears her collar with it, and she pulls her hair into a high bun.

Personality: St. Cecilia is cocky, witty, and teasing, but ultimately good-natured. She's a bit selfish and stubborn, but she does everything with 110% effort, hoping to impress people, even if she winds up getting hurt in the process. She'll do literally anything for validation. To say she's vain would be an understatement. She's something of a coquette who flirts with both men and women, and is she has a tendency to "think with her dick," as Tony once put it. She's slow to anger, but quick to jealousy, and she holds grudges for far too long. She's the playful type, but it's largely in a chill way. She's an obvious extrovert, and the role as frontman for Stiletto came very naturally.

Skills & Hobbies: St. Cecilia writes good poetry, great song lyrics, and terrible erotica. She likes plants and is quite the chess player (Though she hasn't managed to beat Charles even once), which she learned during her school days. She also learned to fence, ride horses, and speak fluent Latin there.

Musical Talents: She's a classically trained singer (When she was little, she was part of her church's choir), and she writes most of the song lyrics and some of the music for her band, Stiletto. In Snakes N' Barrels, she played lead guitar on a white Jackson Pro Series Rhoads RR3, but during their reunion concert, she plays a more modern Gibson Explorer '76 Reissue 2010 Cherry. She took piano lessons for several years as a child, and she's still pretty good. Nothing outstanding, but if Stiletto needs to incorporate a piano into a song, she's perfectly capable of playing it herself.

Relationships:

-Pickles the Drummer: Their relationship is a complicated one. They've known each other for ages, and they've been together through the highest highs and the lowest lows, all the way down to rock bottom. She partially blames him for her late teens and early twenties being the fiasco they were, and she cut off contact with him for a long time after the SnB breakup. During the run of the show itself, the two reconcile somewhat and even become more or less friends before Abigail shows up and things start to crumble again. They have a hard time admitting it, but there's love between them, and there has been for a long time. They're both afraid to try getting together again, though, as there's a mutual fear of the relationship ending as it did the first time, with them hating each other again. They're back together at the end of Doomstar, but there's no way of telling if the love between them is enough to keep them together or if they'll just fall apart all over again.

-Magnus Hammersmith: They were more off-and-on than anything, but they were together for years, even though quite a bit of it was long-distance. It wasn't supposed to be a serious thing. It was just supposed to be a quick fuck. Then it was supposed to be a performance to annoy Pickles, but Magnus quickly realized that St. Cecilia's feelings for Pickles were too strong for her to be any use to him in his revenge plot. The basis of their bond formed because they understood each other on a level they've never known with anyone else: Former Snakes N' Barrels guitarist St. Cecilia Jameson and former Dethklok guitarist Magus Hammersmith both understand on a fundamental level what it's like to be left behind and forgotten. Magnus caught a bit of feelings, and when Roy Cornickelson's funeral came around, Magnus warned St. Cecilia not to attend. It was their last interaction, and it forever cast him in a positive light for her, even after she learned what he was doing with the Metal Masked Assassin.

-Nathan Explosion: They get along pretty well. Their first meeting was at a singers-only Crystal Mountain party, and they ended the evening with a quickie in the coatroom. He wrote a song about the encounter, but Pickles never figured out that it was about St. Cecilia, which Nathan thinks is just the funniest thing. He mostly sees St. Cecilia as one of the guys once she meets with Dethklok again for the SnB reunion. It's a "been there, done that" kind of deal. She's not brutal, but she's funny and she's fun, and goddamn, is she pretty, and they would absolutely hang out if they could get their schedules to line up.

-Skwisgaar Skwigelf: St. Cecilia is nothing short of enchanted by Skwisgaar. It's not a crush, exactly, but she has a huge amount of admiration for him. They've practiced together a time or two, but she's a little rusty and winds up with her fingers bleeding because her calluses have gone soft. He tends to tease her over her soft hands. A guitar god, he tells her, can't have hands like a princess. His calling her “princess” becomes a bit of a thing for them. The two of them often have brunch together, talking shit and drinking. She's good for him; He's never had a female friend before.

-Toki Wartooth: Within the series itself, St. Cecilia hasn't given Toki much thought. He's cute, but he's just sorta there. His incident during the SOBERTOWN USA concert really scared her, and she more or less avoids him after that. Post-DSR, though, their relationship changes. He, like her, was hurt by Magnus, and even with him dead, Toki misses him terribly. St. Cecilia misses him, too. As sad as it is, this becomes their common ground. Their other connection, odd as it sounds, is pole dancing. St. Cecilia does it for exercise, and Toki did it for money, and they often compete to see who's better on the pole.

-William Murderface: St. Cecilia actually has a begrudging fondness for Murderface. He's awful, but he's also pretty funny, and she likes to hear him talk about knives and medieval weaponry, as her family home is full of such things. They clash over things, of course, but she likes being around him more often than not.

-Charles Offdensen: St. Cecilia really likes Charles, actually. He's basically the only person on the show who's really "on her level" class-wise. He attended Harvard, and she attended Oxford, so they have a great deal to talk about. They play a lot of chess and fence on occasion, and if it weren't for her feelings for Pickles and his obligation to the Church, they just might have gotten together.

-Dick Knubbler: They're friends, in a way. She thinks he's kind of a weirdo, but he knows how to have a good time, so as long as he isn't hitting on her, she likes being around him.

-Abigail Remeltincdrinc: They became friends mostly due to the fact that they were both women in the music industry (And both working for Crystal Mountain) and supporting each other seemed the right thing to do. Abigail getting involved with Dethklok and catching Pickles's attention quickly became a sore spot, and they drifted apart after that. After DSR, things got even worse. Abigail, naturally, is glad that Magnus is gone, while St. Cecilia is devastated by the loss. They had something of a falling-out over it, and they haven't really spoken since.

-Edgar Jomfru: Despite being very different people, St. Cecilia really enjoys Edgar's company. He merely tolerates her at first, but she grows on him, to the point where they're legitimately friends come Doomstar. The two of them often have lunch together on the roof of Mordhaus so they can get some fresh air.

-Family: St. Cecilia's family consists of her mother, Elizabeth, her older sister, Bryony, and her now-deceased grandmother, Esme. St. Cecilia has a very formal, cold relationship with her mother, and she has no desire to change that. As far as she's concerned, her mother doesn't deserve to have a good relationship with her. St. Cecilia adores Bryony, though. Though Elizabeth brags about her, Bryony remains modest and is very close with her sister because of it. Though there's seven years between them, they may as well be twins. Esme, who passed away in 1993, was more of a mother to St. Cecilia than Elizabeth ever was, and St. Cecilia still misses her terribly. She was a big part of getting SnB off the ground, and the boys even came to her funeral.

-Snakes N' Barrels: St. Cecilia adores all the boys, of course, but Sammy is the only one she really kept in touch with after the breakup. He was her favorite long before Pickles joined. There was a pregnancy scare not long after the band took off that somehow, against all odds, brought the two of them even closer. Sammy was St. Cecilia's first love. Her relationships with Tony and Snazz were much more professional, though none of them were anywhere near professional. The crown tattoo behind her right ear was done by Tony on a drunken night in, and it was too good a night for her to even consider covering it or getting it removed.

-Stiletto: She gets along with them all quite well! She's known Niamh McLoughlin, their bassist, the longest, and their friendship dates back to their school days. Lex Clarke and Priyanka Dayal, the drummer and the guitarist respectively, came as a package deal, as they've been more or less married for years. St. Cecilia adores them and the sweetness of their relationship. She's a little envious of them, actually, though she would never say so.

History:

-Childhood: St. Cecilia was born in Oxford, England to Elizabeth Robinson. She was raised more or less at her family's girls-only boarding school, away from her mother. When she was fourteen, she fell off a horse during an equestrian class and badly injured her shoulder. She was one of the popular girls during her school days, up until she hit fifteen and decided that she was no longer a child and had a right to demand respect from her emotionally distant mother. She quit the piano lessons she had been taking for several years and took up the guitar, though it aggravated her injured shoulder and even as a teen, she developed a dependence on painkillers. This rebellious period stretched until she was sixteen and ran away with the help of her grandmother. St. Cecilia was given her name just before she left, so it would be easier for her to hide, as well as a hefty sum to tide her over until she could get herself settled. She was only in LA for a few weeks before she met Sammy at a bar where the SnB prototype band was playing. Naturally, Snazz and Tony weren't thrilled with the idea of Sammy's kinda-sorta-girlfriend trying to become their lead guitarist, and when Snazz disparagingly referred to St. Cecilia as Yoko, she broke his nose (How could he have not expected violence when a Beatles-loving British girl was called such a horrible thing?). This earned their respect and is an event that they laugh about to this day.

-Snakes n' Barrels era: St. Cecilia stuck with the band for several months before they found Pickles, and she was smitten with him the moment she heard him sing. Esme was an important source of financial support during their formative years. The band made it big after not too long, and they all grew quite close. St. Cecilia ended up in an ill-fated off-and-on relationship with Pickles as time went on, and to this day she doesn't remember the first time she told him she loved him. It wasn't long after his first OD and his following stint in rehab that she told him, and they were both drunk in celebration of his release. His tolerance, even post-rehab, was far higher than hers, though, and he remembers, though he sometimes hates that he does. Though there was genuine love between them, the stress of the band and both of their substance abuse problems drove a wedge between not only the couple, but also the entire band. Coupled with Pickles fucking groupies behind St. Cecilia's back and St. Cecilia's becoming a rather serious Vicodin addict to combat the pain in her injured shoulder, the band was doomed. Pickles came to see St. Cecilia off on her flight back to England, saying he would meet her there when his next residuals check came in, but he never made it, and they didn't speak to each other for years afterward. It hurt, but St. Cecilia supposed it was for the best. A clean break, and all that.

-Preklok: After SnB broke up, St. Cecilia returned to Oxford, staying with Bryony in their mother's guest house as she tried to figure out her next move. Despite her gift for writing lyrics, she had no talent for writing books, and that idea quickly went down the drain. She still received a large amount of money in residuals, but she was reduced to a mere socialite, though it mostly agreed with her. At her mother's insistence, she attended a few classes at Oxford University. She absolutely loved it. In 1992, Esme passed away. St. Cecilia only told Sammy about it, but he took the initiative and brought Pickles, Tony and Snazz with him to the funeral. St. Cecilia was initially pissed, but she really appreciated the support. That was the only time she saw Pickles between SnB's breakup and their reunion concert. He was devastated when her parting words to him were "I love you with everything I am, but I never wanna see you again." In the mid-90s, she posed for an issue of Playboy, and Pickles has a copy of the issue tucked away somewhere. It wasn't until 1998, when she moved to a little flat in London, that St. Cecilia reunited with her school friend Niamh and the idea of Stiletto came about. They found Priyanka and Lex at an open mic night at one of the local clubs, and they hit it off, both as friends and as bandmates. They played at many clubs and pubs, and they were soon found by a scout at another open mic night. They signed with the UK branch of Crystal Mountain Records and were assigned the surly but efficient Melinda Glasscock as their manager, and within three years, Stiletto was huge, due in part to St. Cecilia's residual fame from Snakes N' Barrels. Their first tour was through Europe, but the second came to America, where St. Cecilia met Magnus in a bar post-show. They got on really well, and she invited him to her hotel room for the night. They exchanged numbers and got quite close over time, with her even flying him out to London from time to time so they could hang out. Magnus knew who she was from the start, and while he planned to use her feelings for Pickles to get her on his side, that soon faded and he came to genuinely like her. She wouldn't learn who he was until later on. A few years before canon, she had a quickie with Nathan in a coat room at a singers-only part at Crystal Mountain records, and he used the fact that she couldn't fit her mouth around his dick as inspiration for Dethklok's infamous song "Glasgow Smile."

-Season 1:

-St. Cecilia's first mention within the confines of canon is during Performance Klok, when Pickles mentions he hasn't been in a serious relationship since the '80s despite the fact that he would certainly thrive under such attention.

-She first appears in Snakes N' Barrels, during the documentary the Dethklok is watching. The guys are a little critical when they (Save Nathan, who's known for a long time) learn that part of SnB's downfall was due to Pickles's failed relationship with St. Cecilia. There's some comedic nonsense talk about fucking one's guitarist before Pickles goes to speak with Charles. Though St. Cecilia is working on an album with Stiletto when she's asked to go the reunion, she manages to push through and finish in time, though she arrives nearly late. She finds Pickles backstage, and when he sweeps in to kiss her, she pulls away a bit, saying they can't do this, as she's spoken for. She lets him hold her close, though. The rest of Dethklok finds them like that, and St. Cecilia excuses herself to go find Sammy, Tony and Snazz. There's some talk about Pickles not leaving Dethklok, which he says he won't, but they're rather worried after catching him with St. Cecilia in his arms. Meanwhile, she manages to find the boys, and they meet with Pickles backstage. While the boys partake of the Totally Awesome Sweet Alabama Liquid Snake, St. Cecilia doesn't, as she once humiliated herself by passing out on stage and doesn't wish to repeat the incident. She presses a kiss to Pickles's palm before they go on stage, an old ritual that they were never able to shake. What happens is far worse than someone just passing out, and she and Pickles leave the stage amidst the chaos while the medical Klokateers take care of the boys and see them off to the hospital. It's a disaster. She's embarrassed and angry, and she turns down Pickles's offer of a ride home and calls someone instead, as she didn't get her money converted and can't pay for a cab. This someone turns out to be the man who's claimed her, Magnus, and Pickles is none too happy about it. He tries to stop her from going with him, but it doesn't work.

-She isn't seen in Dethkids, but she is mentioned. When Pickles starts drinking harder than usual, he finally gives in to the urge to call her, to talk about how Sammy and Snazz and Tony are doing, and to tell her that she should steer clear of Magnus. He's so drunk, though, that she barely has even an idea of what he's talking about.

-Offscreen, but somewhere between the two SnB episodes, Magnus and St. Cecilia abruptly break up. She has a feeling something was going on with him, but his sudden disappearance really hurt her. They had been together off and on for years, after all. A few weeks before he left, he bought her a little pink knife and showed her how to use it, just in case he wasn't around to protect her. When he left, he left his guitar behind, and she still has it as of Doomstar.

-Season 2:

-She's mentioned by Seth in Dethwedding, though only as "that British chick" he thought Pickles would eventually have married. Pickles nearly decks him for even mentioning her.

-St. Cecilia's next appearance is in Snakes N' Barrels II. In part one, during the advertisement for the SOBERTOWN USA concert, she's missing from the band lineup, and Pickles is both relieved and a little concerned by her absence.

-In SnB II part two, Nathan, Skwisgaar and Toki find her among the crowd at the SOBERTOWN USA concert. Nathan asks if she wasn't invited to play, but she says that she was: She just didn't think it was right to play without Pickles. Realizing that Pickles is sneaking around backstage, she leaves to go find him and try to keep him from doing something he'll regret. She only finds him just as Tony, Snazz and Sammy start freaking out, and she only just manages to keep Pickles from killing Rikki Kixx, though she honestly doesn't mind the thought of him dead. She pulls Pickles away from the stage, where he calls the Klokateers to take care of Sammy, Snazz and Tony, and she sets to icing down his bruised knuckles. She tells him that she and Magnus broke up, and he's thoroughly pleased about it: She's too good for him, anyway. That irritates her a bit, but she tells him to call her sometime, though she insists he do it when he's not drunk off his ass.

-Season 3:

-Ironically, when Pickles calls her in Dethhealth to inform her that he's dying, he's in fact drunk again. She wants to go to Mordhaus to see him, but he tells her to stay where she is, as he doesn't want her seeing him like that, though she's seen him at rock bottom as it is. At the end of the episode, he's drunker and higher than ever, but he calls her again to let her know he's all right. She can't understand him, though, so he puts Nathan on to explain. She’s thoroughly relieved, but she’s still considering going to Mordhaus to see him. She implores of Nathan, "Take care of him, all right?"

-Offscreen, in the time between Dethhealth and Dethmas, Pickles goes to London for a while to appease St. Cecilia, and to their mutual surprise, it's not really all that different from how it was when they were actually together. There's lots of cuddling and kissing and great sex and just... Hanging out. It's easy for them to be together. They have their share of problems, but the old spark between them is still there. Pickles is honestly a little scared of that: What if he falls for her all over again just for her to break his heart like she did last time? The fact that she has Magnus's guitar makes him doubly suspicious. He starts drinking harder than ever to drown out the thoughts of her.

-In Rehabklok, when Pickles's drinking is brought to the attention of the band and he's sent to rehab, he tries for a while to blame it on St. Cecilia. She broke his heart, and he drinks to cope. It makes perfect sense, until he starts to really think about it and realizes that he's equally at fault for how their relationship (And also SnB) fell apart. He realizes, after many years, that he hurt her as badly as she hurt him. And that makes him feel even worse. He talks the doctor into letting him call her to apologize, but it doesn't go well: She's a little offended that he would even consider blaming her for his drinking, given he was a drunk long before they met. "Is that what I am to you now? An excuse to get drunk and act a fool?" Not long after that, Pickles realizes the real cause for his drinking.

-Just before Charles goes to speak to the UN in Doublebookedklok, he calls St. Cecilia and cryptically asks her if she speaks Latin. She owes him a favor for getting her out of some legal trouble, so she can't really refuse. Several months before, she punched a scummy paparazzo who called Magnus washed-up, and Charles used his reeducation program to keep those involved from pressing charges or damaging St. Cecilia's reputation.

-Season 4:

-In Fanklok, before Charles meets with the band to discuss Klokikon, he welcomes St. Cecilia to Mordhaus and presents her with an ancient-looking journal that belonged to Aurelius Isambard, one of the original prophets of the Church of the Black Klok. She's taken down to the basement, where she's introduced to Edgar Jomfru, and gets to work.

-In Diversityklok, after he's spoken to Edgar, Charles speaks to St. Cecilia. He finds her engrossed, but thoroughly worried. She asks if this is real, and she's even more worried when he tells her it is.

-Offscreen, St. Cecilia has been hard at work translating the journal, and she's come to a passage that seems to describe the growing tension between the band. It also mentions an approaching star, and she takes to sitting on the roof at night to observe the sky.

-In Prankklok, when Pickles tells Nathan that he's not allowed to drink any tequila during their friender-bender, Nathan tells him he can't visit St. Cecilia when they stop in London. Pickles reluctantly agrees. Not long after, we see Pickles on his phone, though, debating on calling her just before he notices the storm warning.

-Offscreen, St. Cecilia approaches Charles about a phrase repeated over and over in the journal: Fata sidus oritur, the star of fate is born.

-After Charles breaks the news about Ice Festival to Skwisgaar in Bookklok, he goes to speak with St. Cecilia and Edgar in the basement. She's tacked two star maps to the wall: One from the previous week and one from the previous night. There's a spot near the center of the first map that seems bigger on the second one. She looks like the world is ending when she tells him it's the Doomstar. It's real. It's coming? When? Soon, she says. Far too soon.

-When Charles tells the boys he's going out of town in Dethcamp, it's to take St. Cecilia to an observatory, where they meet with Ishnifus and spend a few days tracking the Doomstar's movement as it comes closer and closer to Earth.

-In Going Downklok, when Pickles shows up all decked out for his meeting with Abigail, Nathan is quick to ask, "Don't you have a girlfriend?" Pickles insists he doesn't; He and St. Cecilia was hurt and angry the last time they spoke. On top of that, he believes she's all the way in London, and Abigail is right there.

-Offscreen, between Dethdinner and Breakup Klok, St. Cecilia is tagged in the video of Pickles leaving Dethklok by a drunken Toki. She's incredibly hurt. Pickles has nothing, he said. She, apparently, is nothing.

-In Breakup Klok, Pickles tries to call St. Cecilia to invite her to his wine tasting, but she refuses to answer and sends him straight to voicemail. Towards the end of the episode, after the escape from Salacia, Charles requests a check-up on Edgar and St. Cecilia back at Mordhaus, and Pickles is stunned and angry to learn that she's been more or less within arm's reach for months. Had he known, he's certain things would have been different-- He wouldn't have tried to make a move on Abigail and he wouldn't have fucked up his chance to get back with St. Cecilia again.

-Offscreen, St. Cecilia speaks to Charles about staying at a hotel for a few days, just until Roy Cornickelson's funeral, after which she'll return to Mordhaus and her translation work. The day of the funeral, though, she receives a call from Magnus telling her she absolutely cannot attend, as he can't guarantee her safety. It's the last time she has contact with him before his death. We also see her watching the news about Dethklok's breakup and the insinuation that Abigail caused it, and St. Cecilia chucks a bottle at the TV, mirroring Pickles's actions in SnB II.

-In Church of the Black Klok, St. Cecilia is fetched from the hotel by Klokateers and taken to the Dethsub, where she meets with Charles, pointedly ignores Pickles, and goes to work with Edgar instead.

-The Doomstar Requiem:

-In "One of Us Must Die," St. Cecilia can be seen on one of the slides, staring up into the sky with Isambard's journal held to her chest. Towards the end of the song, reading from the book, she sings, "Dethklok, they must be rejoined/Evil, it must be destroyed/No more apathetic stoics/They can learn to be heroic/Write the song that will be our salvation..."

-In "Training," while carrying the journal, she sings the lyrics, "As the prophecy foretold, the Doomstar has been born/And you all will be endowed with a power known to none." Nathan, Skwisgaar and Murderface are looking at the art of the Prophecy, but Pickles is watching her. Ishnifus places a hand upon her shoulder, and they sing together, "The Deth lights are within you all waiting to be woken/And when the five are united, the evil will be broken," in a show of solidarity.

-In "En Antris et Stella Fatum Cruenti," just after Ishnifus is killed and the Doomstar goes red, we see a shot of Charles, Edgar and St. Cecilia at the Church, watching the sky.

-In "Morte Lumina," in a mirror to Nathan and Abigail's kiss, we see Pickles approach St. Cecilia, and she presses a kiss to his palm (Which is a really significant gesture between them) before he pulls her into his arms.

Trivia:

-The stars on her cheeks are actually a makeup trick, as she's afraid to have a needle so close to her eyes.

-She smokes Honeyrose Cherry cigarettes (Which have roughened her voice a bit), but she doesn't drink to excess, save when she's with Pickles. He's a terrible influence on her, but she adores him just the same. Considering him and Magnus, she has rather bad taste in men.

-Her signature scent is Estée Lauder's Cinnabar, which features notes of jasmine, orange blossom, cloves, and patchouli. She uses a cinnamon body oil when she wants to get Pickles's attention. It always works.

-She wants nothing more than to be loved, but she's keenly aware of the fact that most of the people who "love" her only want to coast on her fame. It's resulted in her having a hard time trusting people. The fact that Pickles and the rest of Dethklok don't need to coast off her is part of why she likes them so much.

-She's an iced coffee addict, and she prefers chocolate, caramel, or hazelnut varieties.

-She was raised Catholic, and while she lapsed a long time ago, she has occasional bouts of Catholic Guilt. Her name is related to her religion, as St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music.

-Her preferred alcohol is Bombay Sapphire gin, though she also likes white wine and champagne.

-She's a plant mom. Her flat is full of plants, including a little devil's tongue cactus she bought at a farmer's market in LA when she first came to America. It's traveled the world with her! It lived in the cupholder of Snazz's van for several years, and now it lives in her kitchen, perched on top of the microwave.

-She has a pretty serious oral fixation. She's always got something in her mouth: A cigarette, a pen, a popsicle, someone's fingers, a dick. Depends on her mood. Getting her tongue pierced helped a little, as she can play with the stud, but some habits just can't be broken.

-She and the rest of Stiletto own a condo building in London together, and she naturally has the penthouse to herself. It's very airy and open, with lots of mirrors and plants and exposed brick. One corner of her living room is just a huge window that looks out on the city. It's her favorite feature. Magnus is too nervous to go near it.

#this is a lot but i feel like she feels like a real character almost #Metalocalypse #nathan explosion #pickles the drummer #skwisgaar skwigelf #toki wartooth #william murderface #charles offdensen #magnus hammersmith #mtl #my mtl #st. cecilia jameson

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ichika27 · 3 years ago

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The World Ends with You

(Yeah, it’s the same screenshot I used for my post about ep. 1. I couldn’t get a new one so...)

Ah, first week without the TWEWY anime to look forward to. I’m actually kinda sad cause I’d miss waiting for the episode every Saturday night (Ani-One posts theirs on that day here). I have some stuff I wanna say about the anime so I thought I’d make one of these plus this is a good way to end the twewy anime blog post series I make every week. I’ll try not to spoil until the very bottom of this post which will have a spoiler warning.

Also, this will be very long and rambly as most of my fandom posts are haha.

Story:

A boy named Neku wakes up in the middle of Shibuya with no memory and finds himself as a player in the Reaper’s Game. For a week he must partner up with a girl named Shiki and both of them must complete missions, battle creatures called noise, and survive as failure meant erasure.

Characters:

Neku Sakuraba - our main protagonist who somehow lost his memories and is now playing the Reaper’s Game. He’s a loner who isn’t too keen on getting close to anyone let alone working alongside anybody - unfortunately for him, it’s a requirement if he wants to survive. As a player he has an assortment of abilities to fight off noise and other enemies (in the game this meant he can use a lot of different pins).

Shiki Misaki - the nice and friendly Shiki becomes Neku’s partner in the Reaper’s Game. Unlike Neku she has knowledge of the game and fills Neku in on things he doesn’t understand. Her ability is to control her stuffed toy called Nyantan/Mr. Mew which she uses in combat.

Beat - the tough skateboarding player, he’s somewhat more like the typical hot-blooded shounen protagonist when compared to Neku. He’s protective of those he care about especially his game partner, Rhyme. He uses his skateboard in battle.

Rhyme - Beat’s game partner who is a lot kinder and calmer than him. Rhyme tends to be the one to reason with Beat when needed and the two are always seen together.

Yoshiya Kiryu - a mysterious boy who seem to know more than he lets on and acts at times acts suspicious. He prefers to be called by the nickname Joshua.

Sanae Hanekoma - a cafe owner who helps out Neku and the others and would give them advice. His advice prove to be very helpful and Neku takes them to heart. Seem to have a lot of knowledge about the Reaper’s Game but doesn’t seem to be a reaper himself.

Thoughts:

(I tried my best to not be spoilery in the character descriptions so some names weren’t written in full)

The World Ends with You (or in the original Japanese “Subarashiki Kono Sekai”/It’s a Wonderful World) is an anime based on the video game of the same name. It had to compress an entire game’s worth of story within it’s 12 episode run which meant they cut out a lot of things and combined some scenes to quickly run through them. It’s theme song is the anime version of the game’s original OP “Twister” although this wasn’t what was originally planned but an incident involving the band who sang the original theme forced them to make changes. The original voice actors from the game also reprised their roles for the anime. The series is created to be watched before the release of the long-awaited sequel game.

The art style is made to be similar to it’s game version (with a bit of change to adapt it as an anime like when it comes to body proportions). They also retained the effect of the characters from the UG (players/reapers) being brightly colored while those from the RG having darker/muted colors. While the noise are obviously cg, I personally liked this since they’re said to be from a different plane anyways so it’s a nice contrast to those from the UG and RG. They had to update the setting though as years had passed since the original game’s creation and they had to model anime version of Shibuya to what it’s real life counterpart now looks. The characters are also given smartphones instead of the flip phones they had in the game (anime-only watchers who are gonna play the game would have to get used to them still using flip phones though lol).

Okay so story-wise... it’s rushed. Of course it is. They shortened it so that what’s left would mostly be important plot points from the main story but they cut out many scenes that consist of character interactions and several little things that could’ve fleshed out the characters more. The gameplay is also made simpler with some mechanics taken away and the mini games weren’t adapted (RIP to Reaper Creeper and Tin Pin Slammer, especially the latter as you’re severely missed). The game boast an assortment of characters and some NPCs have their own stories but due to the anime’s limited run time, they had to either be cut out (and are just given cameos) or given smaller roles (and their stories weren’t adapted). They did, however, give a few bits and pieces of information that weren’t in the game such as some details about certain characters and one supporting character was given a bit more screentime that they did in the game version.

Despite the rushed nature of the series (which may or may not affect how one views the story itself), the anime made sure to adapt several important scenes and the dramatic stuff is made worse... like, they really had to make some deaths harder to take. The battle scenes were nice as well although my biggest complaint about them is that the boss fights were over too quickly. There were scenes that were changed for the anime version and there are those that I liked and those I didn’t but there are many which I think was as good as the game’s version.

Do I recommend the anime? The game is better, the characters and story are more fleshed out and the way the character/relationship development happens is better paced so of course, me, biased already would tell you to play the game instead if you haven’t yet. Do I recommend those who played the game to watch the anime? Yes! Yes I do. I think the anime is better watched when you’ve played the game and know the stuff that they cut out cause it’ll make better sense that way. Plus I found it enjoyable seeing the scenes from the game animated and the characters are speaking whole dialogues and moving. It’s great!

Even if the anime wasn’t perfect, like I mentioned before, they did their best to condense the entire main story in a 12 episode series and it tried to be as faithful as it could to the original story so despite the deviations when it comes to how things got to the way they did, if you summarize important plot points, they would be the same (with some details changed). Overall, it was very enjoyable and it wasn’t as bad as I feared when I heard how many episodes the anime was going to have.

Some spoiler thoughts:

It would’ve been better if the anime had more episode count than just 12. Cramming a 3 week story of game into just 12 made the thing very rushed with Week 1 only getting three episodes, Week 2 getting four, and final Week getting five. They had to get to the good stuff so they cut off a lot of scenes where the characters are interacting with each other which means they suddenly get character developments and relationship developments too quickly. It might not be that obvious to anime-only watchers but to me, it felt kinda sudden and it feels like it doesn’t work out well story-wise since Neku had to learn how to trust other people and make friends and with how he started vs. how he came out of it contrasting each other.

By the way, they made the characters look good in the anime. Especially Joshua. Have you seen Joshua? He’s so pretty in the anime. I want a picture of him I could stare at anytime I want to (I do not own a phone, sadly).

I like how they gave Eri more scenes though and that they changed her outfit for the anime so she won’t look exactly like UG!Shiki. All of her scenes though made me feel like I wish the anime gave closure to Shiki’s own story by showing us her and Eri making up. Another scene I liked in the anime is Neku’s fanboying of CAT when he finds out the truth. It was adorable.

Some info was taken away from the anime. Beat and Rhyme leaving home had scene dialogue and unlike Beat just narrating it in-game but they didn’t mention specifically why he was angry and his trouble at home. Joshua wasn’t present when Sota and Nao gave Neku a pep-talk either which is a shame cause I think that helped Josh as well.

I mentioned before how the anime made things go too fast. They cut off chunks of not-main-plot story that let the characters interact with each other more which means each game day is shortened as well. I think it made sense that Neku wakes up at the scramble in the end and not stressed out because he didn’t go through as much as his game counterpart did. That said, game Neku learned a lot from more than just the main cast in the game compared to the anime so I like his character development in the game better.

They took away Tin Pin Slammer. I am sad and disappointed. I was hoping so bad for Another Day to be adapted even if it’s an OVA. That and the ramen incident are part of Josh’s week which meant some side of him wasn’t shown (I mean, anime fans don’t know he wasn’t there on week 3 since he’s busy playing a kid’s game elsewhere and how he could talk about food like he is from a cooking anime). Speaking of Josh, they made him very suspicious from the get-go in the anime. I understand as there’s a limited run-time and they can’t really afford to be subtle about it but it meant some of the fun interactions with Neku is gone and so are some scenes where they actually got along. At least they had ice cream together, I guess?

(I have more to say when it comes to Joshua cause he’s my fave character but this is long and my thoughts on it would make this way longer. I might make another post.)

In the end, it wasn’t perfect but the anime was fun and enjoyable enough that I found myself looking forward to it every week. Seeing scenes I recognize from the game in animated form (with voice acting!) felt exciting and awesome. I’ll miss this show and I still wish it was longer.

If you’ve read this far well, thank you. And also I’m confused why but still hopefully that was a good time-killer. I have so many other things I wanted to comment on but that’s for another time. Maybe.

#Subarashiki Kono Sekai #subaseka #the world ends with you #twewy #sana_post

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years ago

Text

chapter four: the prince

Greg's small box of French fries filled up the whole car with that fresh hot smell, such that Alex had a difficult time resisting in taking a couple of himself.

“You should'a gotten the big one, Greggy,” Chuck teased him.

“Yeah, I definitely should've,” Greg said as Alex took another two for himself. “Alex has pretty much eaten half of it already.” He turned his attention towards Sam. “Give her some.”

“Oh, where are my manners?” Alex brought his attention to Sam as he held two French fries in hand, both those thick crinkly cut ones straight out of the fryer. She took one for herself while he took the other one. Hot and fresh and with a small bit of allspice mixed in as well. Alex tilted his head back so he could better swallow his down.

They made their way along the 210 Freeway when Tiffany peered out the window with a look of confusion on her face.

“What's the matter, Tiff?” Chuck asked her.

“Wait. Which way is it?”

“What, Elsinore?”

“Yeah. I forget.” She laughed at that. “I forget which way we go!”

“Hey, little Sammich, you're from around here,” Chuck called back with a glimpse into his rear view mirror, ��where do we go?”

“Follow the signs at the interchange up here, Chuck. It's alright, though—I always got turned around down there in Orange County a lot. Especially now that I haven't lived around here in the past three years. My dad did, too.”

“Doesn't help there's an Orange County back in New York, too,” Alex pointed out in a low voice.

“I do, too,” said Chuck, “—and I was born in L.A.!”

“Just when you think we all know our geography real well.” Sam chuckled.

“Right? I also had a good li'l drink just now with my girl over here, too. Think that might have something to do with it.”

“Sometimes I feel like I'm in something that doesn't know its geography very well,” Alex couldn't resist chuckling at that himself, and Greg almost choked on one of his French fries laughing along with him. Within time, Chuck changed over freeways and they made their way back to that house down in Lake Elsinore. Night had fallen over the entire side of the hills, far and away from the ambient glow from the city of Los Angeles itself.

The house was dark as the five of them rolled up to the same place by the curb as before, right on the other side of the lake and within the line of sight to the back door. Even in the dim light, Sam could tell that the glass pane of the kitchen window had been returned to its spot. Chuck kept on going into the cul de sac and turned around, and drove back there. Even from across the street, it was hard to see if any signs of life emerged from the house itself.

“Doesn't even look like anyone's home,” Tiffany said aloud.

“At almost ten o'clock at night?” Sam pointed out. “With this family? Someone's definitely home right about now.”

“Want me to walk you back there?” Alex offered her.

“Alex, if you're gonna walk back her there, I'm comin' with,” Chuck advised him as he unbuckled his seat belt and climbed out of there so Sam and Alex could climb out together: before she did, she picked up her bag of Death Angel night shirts from the floor. The cool breeze from the lake itself fluttered through their hair; Sam shuddered and Alex and Chuck huddled on either side of her. They used the ambient light of the street lamps across the way from them as their guide along the sidewalk there; meanwhile, the latter grazed his hand against her shoulder but he never put his arm around her given Tiffany was right behind them. Sam kept her eye on the windows on the second and third floors, all of them dark and shadowy with the nightfall around them. The ambient light from the street made her wonder about the house back up in Reno.

If Bill overreacted to Chuck and Greg taking Sam out of the house for a while, she shuddered at the thought of him overreacting to her desire to call her parents about their divorce.

Chuck opened the gate for them, but he stood there in anticipation. Alex led her to the back door and then he held back so she could tend to the door herself.

Sam jiggled the handle with her free hand and it wouldn't budge.

“He locked you out?” Alex asked her, stunned.

“I guess so,” Sam replied. “Well, and the door was locked when I got out anyway.”

“Go around,” Chuck advised her, and she and Alex made their way back to him right as he quietly shut the gate behind him. Sam led the way back to the front door of the house, which was even darker than the back. She could still envision Marla's rental car parked there at the curb.

“Can you see?” Chuck asked her as he and Alex lingered behind her.

“I don't know,” she confessed. “There's the walkway—and here's—the front step here.” She groped around the door panels until she caressed the cold metal of the doorknob. She jiggled that as well with her free hand.

“Well, the house is locked,” she said, “and now I have nowhere to go. I have to call my mom, too.”

“We're staying all the way up in Corona,” Chuck told her.

“Holy wow. So—go back the way we came.”

“Yeah,” he replied with a bit of reluctance.

Sam snickered at that. She was in fact telling the truth: despite her hailing from the area, she often found herself turned around by the sheer vastness of the whole area that it made her wonder if that was in fact how she thrived in the New York City metropolitan area for such a short amount of time.

Careful not to fall off the step, she began back down the walkway with Chuck and Alex, and towards the street. The three of them doubled back to the car parked away from the side of the lake: in the dim light, Sam saw that Alex had his attention fixated on the lake waters next to them. Even with no moon out that night, they still shimmered and glowed with a bit of extra light.

“Those black waters,” he muttered.

“I remember when I was little I used to think there was a sea monster of sorts who lived in this lake,” she said.

“A sea monster, like in Loch Ness?” he chuckled.

“Exactly, yeah!”

“The Elsinore monster,” Chuck added with a bit of a giggle.

They crossed the street from the sidewalk, such that Sam recalled the night before the Day of the Dead, where they congregated together in the park in Cliff's honor. Even though there was not a lick of rain to be found anywhere, she felt that to be the case around there. In the dim light, she spotted Greg leaned against the outside of the car, and he opened the door for them. Pale yellow light washed out of there and onto the black pavement.

“Nothing?” Tiffany called out to them from the inside.

“Both front and back doors are locked,” said Chuck as he pulled the seat back for the three of them. “And by the looks of it, there is no one home there, either.”

Alex climbed into the back first and then Sam followed suit into the middle seat, and Greg rounded it out before he tugged the driver's seat back towards him. Chuck climbed in right there and fired up the car once again. The noise of the engine sliced through the quiet night that she swore it would wake the dead at any given moment.

As they rolled forward, she nestled down next to Alex in the back seat. The first time she actually could for real at that point. She never touched him but she felt his jeans brush against her own. He still smelled of that soft cologne, that same soft aroma that she had picked up when they were laying on the grass together.

The safety of the back seat. The safety of that hotel room up in Corona. The safety of Alex, her new best kept secret.

What used to be a thirty minute drive now took them nearly an hour in order to reach the outskirts of Corona given Chuck kept on shifting his weight in the seat.

“Is everything alright?” Greg asked him.

“Yeah—just did a lot of driving lately is all. We're also going on tour soon, too.”

“Oh, yeah!” Alex decreed with a snap of his fingers. “Monsters of Rock. We're taking Megadeth's place there.”

“And then we're playing two shows around Christmas,” Chuck recalled, “and then we're going over to Reseda shortly after New Year's.”

“And then we go back in the studio to make a third album,” Alex added.

“Wowie,” Sam declared. “Wait, you guys are gonna be at Monsters of Rock?”

“Yup, on the twenty seventh and twenty eighth!” Chuck said. “Gonna be in Germany this time around. We know how much you loved that last one in England, too. Right, Alex?”

“Ohh, god, how could I forget,” Alex himself laughed.

“We'll have to bust you out the back door if we have to,” Greg assured her.

“Yeah, for real!” Chuck laughed again.

“I'd love to go to Germany,” Sam proclaimed.

“And the boys are gonna be with you, too, right?” Tiffany asked.

“Yeah, Anthrax is joining us over there,” Chuck explained. “We have the two German dates only—I forget Dave's reason but they can't come along right now—but Anthrax themselves are going on throughout the tour, all the way to France. Oh!” He smacked the rim of the steering wheel.

“What's up?” Tiffany asked him.

“Sam, you remember that song that Anthrax did? The last time you saw them in New York with me and Eric? That one that he and I both thought was gonna be a hit, 'Antisocial'?”

“Yeah—kind of?” she replied. So much had happened since those two nights in January that she had difficulty thinking about that one song in particular.

“Joey said it was a cover by a little French band called Trust. Apparently, they're going to be headlining the French date of the tour with them!”

“Wow, really?”

“Yeah, Charlie was telling me about that last night. He goes 'that is so trippy that we're touring with Trust and we happened to cover a song from them on our new record.' Small world.”

“We're gonna be playing with them,” Alex started, “Anthrax.”

“Yeah, we're gonna be headlining with them plus Iron Maiden, Kiss, David Lee Roth—from Van Halen—Great White, and a little band called Treat.”

“Treat and Trust,” Sam chuckled.

“Sounds like a spin on 'trick or treat',” Tiffany joked, and Chuck laughed out loud at that.

Soon, the long low ranch style houses of Corona emerged within their view and Chuck took the second stop off to that little hotel off the side of the road. He and Tiffany ducked into the front lobby while Sam, Alex, and Greg reclined in that smooth leather back seat. She glanced over at Greg.

“Thank you for the fries, by the way,” she told him, to which he shook his head.

“It's what I get for smoking a little doobie before the show,” he replied, and he chuckled at that. She then turned her attention to Alex nestled back into the corner of the seat as if he was cold.

“I didn't get high, just for reference,” he assured her.

“Explains why you smell good,” she said, and Greg chuckled some more.

“They just smelled good!” Alex insisted. He gave his black curls a little toss back with a flick of his head. She eyed the center of his neck and that prominent Adam's apple and the underside of his jawline. His deep eyes thoughtfully gazed back at her from the shadows: that little plume of gray over his brow seemed to be far brighter right there, even in the darkness.

“You're like a dark prince,” she remarked.

“Me?” he laughed at that.

“Yeah—from the dark hair and the little streak of gray—you're the prince who came to save me from the tower.”

“Greg and Chuck were the ones who got you out of there, though,” he pointed out. “I was just sitting there in the back seat when the whole thing went down.”

“But you're still like a prince, though,” she insisted, “a dark heavy metal prince from an ancient time—probably more so than Joey.”

“Joey and Chuck are the wise Indian chiefs,” he said. “If I'm the prince, what's he?” He nodded over to Greg in the opposite seat, and Sam took a glimpse back at him.

“He's the court jester,” she told him.

“Hey, why does he get to be prince and I'm just jester?” Greg demanded, hurt.

“Okay, you're the knight,” she corrected herself.

“The knight! Not the Black Knight, though.”

“No way, unless you wanna start biting people while you're laying on the ground.”

“Nah,” Greg shook his head.

A tap on the window grabbed each of their attention and Tiffany cupped her hands around her face as she peered in at them. Alex reached past the seat and he lifted the door handle so as to let her into the car.

“C'mon, you three little birds,” she encouraged them. For a second, Sam flashed back on the Stormtroopers of Death tour, wherein she saw Charlie and Marla as the parents who drove the car for her on the way up to Poughkeepsie: Chuck and Tiffany had taken on that role at that point. Alex climbed out first, and then Sam followed and lastly by Greg.

“Okay, so we're going to have to sneak in a bit,” she was telling them as they made their way around the white stucco side of the hotel to all the rooms there. Sam almost had to bow her head a bit just so they could make their way past the windows into the front lobby. Chuck already stood there by the door with the key card nestled in between his fingers.

He unlocked the door for them and Sam bowed her way in first, and Tiffany, Greg, and Alex followed right behind her.

“Why'd we have to sneak in?” Sam asked Tiffany.

“Because we paid for a room for four people, not five,” Chuck explained. “If nothing, we'll make it look as though you're just visiting us.”

“She technically is, Chuck,” Alex pointed out.

“Technically but they don't know that, though, Alex,” Chuck insisted.

“Okay, so who's sleeping where?” Greg asked them.

“You three can take that bed right next to us,” Tiffany pointed out. “They're both big enough so we can sleep in them comfortably.”

Sam showed Alex a little smile and he raised his eyebrows at her a bit, but his facial expression never changed a bit. As far as she knew, he still felt unsure of her. If only she could find out what he genuinely felt about her as she took her seat on the edge of the bed closest to the door and the window.

“I have to call my mom,” she told him.

“Please do. I'm sure she'll be happy to hear your voice—I know my mom always is with me.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Greg added.

For a few seconds, she forgot the number back to the house up in Reno but then she recalled it once she dialed the first three digits. She held the phone up to her ear and waited for a few seconds.

“Hello?” Esmé answered.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Oh, hi, Sam! I was just going to ask Marla if you got your new phone number yet. How's everything going?”

“Um—” She froze when she remembered that she had asked the three men right in front of her to keep it all under wraps, and thus she had no idea as to how to break it to her mother right there. “Good. Everything is good.”

She shuddered at the realization that she had just lied to her own mother.

“That's good. Well, you know how I was thinking of moving down to Los Angeles when all of this is said and done?”

“Yes?” It took Sam a few seconds to recall the conversation that she had had with Esmé while she was still back in New York.

“Well, it might be sooner than you may think, my dear. Ruben and I are about to go through all the proceedings in the coming weeks. We'll be able to finalize it sometime near the end of the year.”

“How long does it take?” That gave Sam an idea.

“Well, for your father and me both, it took about a week in order to properly file and we're about to go through all the proceedings. Should take some time, but it should be final come December.”

“So—three months?”

“Give or take. We've had to sign some papers both, you know come to a mutual agreement and whatnot.” Esmé fell silent for a moment.

“Everything okay?” Sam asked her. Tiffany took her seat on the edge of the bed across from her and raised her eyebrows at her.

“Yeah,” Esmé replied in a wistful tone, “I thought for sure that your father and I would be together forever. We were supposed to grow old together. But it's over now. I wanted to be closer to you and he wasn't willing to leave for New York with you and me. Yes, your own father wasn't willing to leave the West Coast for his girls.”

Sam's face fell. She thought about what Esmé had said to her about Ruben possibly not even being her true father.

“How's Joey, by the way?”

“They're on tour right now, so he's stylin' right now,” Sam answered in a single breath.

“Aw, that's good! You know, as long as your father and I have lived in the southland, we never got to see a concert together?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I would've loved to have seen The Beatles when they were together. But of course, that was the middle of the Sixties—when I was pregnant with you and when he and I were thinking of settling down in Elsinore to raise you.”

Sam peered up at Alex, who congregated on the far side of the room next to Greg with a bottle of water and his shirt slung over his shoulder. Her mother didn't even know that she was in the same room as them, especially Alex himself. But she gazed on at the smooth skin upon his deep bare chest. Even though he was to turn twenty in the next month, he still had a little bit of a full waist, made ever so slighly fuller by the tightness of his jeans.

“So I'm thinking that I can find my way back down to the City of Angels by Christmas time or by New Year's,” Esmé continued on.

“What's Dad gonna do?” Sam asked her.

“No idea, to be perfectly honest,” Esmé replied. “He tells me he'll still be here in Reno, or he might go to the Bay Area.”

She raised her eyebrows at that.

“He might go over to the Bay Area?” she echoed that, and Alex, Greg, and Chuck turned their attention to her.

“Might, though,” Esmé pointed out. “It's a possibility, but he might just stay here in Reno for all I know. I have no idea yet.”

“But, you're going to be down here, though,” she recalled.

“Right. I've been looking at apartments and houses near the beaches, like Santa Monica or Manhattan—I might go out to the islands, like Catalina. I'm going to have the money soon enough so I can afford to live out there.”

“Oh, just think of Catalina,” Sam said.

“I know, right! I can actually say that I live out on an island. But that's what's happening right now. I'm glad you're nearby us again so I'm able to see you more.” She had a comfort in her mother's words right there: even though she was far away from her true home of New York City, she could seek refuge in her parents and their proximity. Indeed, Greg and Chuck took their seats on the edge of either bed from her in anticipation.

“Anyways, I have to go, sweetie—it's getting late,” Esmé told her.

“Yeah, I agree,” Sam said.

“I have a busy day tomorrow, too. But—you sleep well tonight. I'm glad you're near us again. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Mom. Good night.”

They hung up at the same time and Sam sighed through her nose, and then she returned to Chuck on the edge of the bed opposite to her.

“Don't wanna pry but—care to share?”

“Well, I wanted this to be a secret kept between me and Alex,” she started, “but my parents are getting divorced. My mom's coming down to the L.A. area, or she might go out to Santa Catalina Island, while my dad might go over to the Bay Area.”

“Wow!” Tiffany declared with her mouth agape.

“Yeah. Which means that they're gonna be selling that house in Reno—the house I used to know so well. At the same time, I can say that it's going to be a honor to have my old bed in a brand new place on Catalina Island.”

“You should buy that house, though,” Chuck suggested.

“I don't have the money, though,” Sam pointed out. “Besides, I can only focus on getting out of that house in Elsinore—or at least finding a way out of that nonsense that he had gotten me into there.”

“Wow,” Greg remarked with his arms folded across his chest.

“So you guys wanna turn in for the night?” Tiffany offered them.

“Might as well, babe,” Chuck replied with a yawn.

Sam had to change her clothes in the bathroom, but she changed into one of the Death Angel shirts she had bought for herself, one that was a little too big for her, and then she padded out of there without any pants on.

“Cute,” Tiffany noted with a chuckle as she made her way over to the bed closest to the window. Greg dropped his jeans and he climbed into the bed right next to her. Alex pushed the slightly ajar door open and he showed them the little white bucket of ice in one hand while he locked the door behind him with the other.

“Sam's gonna be snuggled in between two boys,” Tiffany joked.

“Lucky girl,” Chuck added which brought another laugh out of her.

“Yeah, Alex,” Greg said, “you and her oughta do something together when the three of us fall asleep.”

“We'd have to wake you guys, though,” Sam pointed out.

“Besides, you're legally married now,” he declared. “I can't do that.”

“He won't suspect it's you, though,” Sam insisted. “He's never even seen you before. Besides, I'm sure that if you and I have an affair with each other, it's got to null the whole thing.”

Greg giggled at that but Alex rolled his eyes instead. He set the bucket of ice down on the nightstand and he headed into the bathroom with his pajama bottoms. Sam then turned to Chuck and the expression of mischief on his face.

“So after The New Order, what's next?” she asked him.

“Not sure,” Chuck confessed as he flicked on the television.

“Whoa,” Greg blurted out at the news report and he pointed towards it.

“What's up?” Chuck asked him, and then he gaped at the screen on the other side of the room. “Hey, Alex!”

Alex bowed out of the bathroom with no shirt on and his gray flannel pajama bottoms on part of the way.

“Huh?”

“Jean Michel Basquiat died,” Chuck told him.

“What!” Alex was stunned and he looked on at the screen himself with his mouth agape. Sam recalled seeing his name in passing while in Bill's art history class and yet he never went into him in depth. All she knew was he was a graffiti painter somewhere in Manhattan: she wished to know more about him. She wished to be away from Bill's holier than thou approach to everything.

“His art's gonna go through the roof now,” Tiffany said.

“Hell yeah. Probably going to get more rare, too.” Alex returned to the bed right next to Sam, to which she shook her head at the sight before her. To not have known more about him before he passed.

“Heroin at twenty seven,” Chuck said, “that's just not right.”

She glanced over at Alex and the look of concern on his face. She had to show him her artistry at some point herself, especially once they switched off the light for the night.

She lay down in the middle of the king sized bed, right in between those two boys: Greg lay flat on his back and with his hands upon his chest while Alex lay on his left side and faced the side of her head. At one point, she rolled her head over the top of the pillow for a better look at his slumbering face.

She thought back to when Joey watched her sleep.

He wished she could see what he saw in her, and she also wished Alex could see what she saw in him, especially with the sight of him sleeping right there before her. His eyelids were smooth and gentle such that they accentuated his eyelashes; his skin seemed smoother in appearance, and the plume of gray had been buried in the pillow. He actually resembled to a little boy laying there especially with his fingers out from under the edge of the blankets.

He never seemed so soft than he did right there next to her, such that she wanted to hold him. Hold him like a little doll.

A loud knock on the door stirred him a bit, but he never awoke. Silence settled over them again and Sam didn't move a muscle.

Another knock.

“WE CLOSED!” Chuck shouted from total dead sleep, and Alex snorted at that; a smirk crossed his face but he never woke up.

But Sam kept her eyes fixed on his slumbering face, all the way until she fell asleep herself. If only he could see the softness that she saw in him right there.

Come the next morning, the fog rolled into the southland for the morning, such that it made even the most bone dry of plants feel more at ease with everything in the state of California. Chuck and Greg headed out of the room to fetch breakfast, while Tiffany continued to sleep in the neighboring bed.

Alex leaned back against the headboard with his hands rested upon his lap as he watched the news report for that morning. He didn't even look tired upon his waking up.

“So you go back to the house in a bit,” he said in a low voice, low from the sleep and low enough so as to not wake Tiffany.

“Yeah, I think we're gonna try again,” Sam told him as she continued to lay there flat on her back next to him. “I mean—it makes sense, though.”

“Still gonna be hell of a time getting you back there, though,” he pointed out.

“Well, we're going to have to go back to the house, though,” Sam said as her face fell. “You guys are going to be going on tour soon and I've got nothing better to do, too.”

Alex squinted his eyes and he was silent for a good long minute.

“Let's see... what's today, the twelfth?”

“The thirteenth,” she replied.

“Oh, damn.” He raised his eyebrows at that. “Well, we leave for Europe on the twenty first—it's a Sunday. If he seals you up into the house, we are literally going to have to bust you out of there. I don't know how we're going to do that, but we'll find a way.”

The door swung open and Chuck and Greg stepped inside with cups of coffee and boxes of breakfast. Alex then returned to Sam.

“We will find a way,” he whispered to her.

Once they had drank down their coffee and ate their breakfast, they all piled back into the car and returned to the house in Lake Elsinore. That time around, Tiffany walked back to the front door with her. The sky hung low with the marine layer overhead, perfect for the return to the three story house. No signs of life on the outside, but Sam was sure that Bill and the girls were awake at that point.

“I hope we can have you come along with us to Germany,” Tiffany confessed to her as they reached the front door together.

“I hope so, too!” Although a voice in the back of Sam's mind told her that it was going to happen one way or the other. “So you guys driving back up to the Bay Area?”

“Yup, we should be back there in a few hours. If you need anything at all, call me and Chuck.”

She threw her arms around Sam and held her close to her chest for a good long minute.

“You be careful here, okay?” she told Sam.

“Yeah, I'll try to,” she vowed. “You guys take care, too.”

Tiffany patted her shoulder and then Sam turned to the door. The knob turned that time and she ducked into the house.

“Anyone home?” she called out as she shut the door behind her. She had her purse over her shoulder and the little bag of Death Angel shirts in the other. No sooner had she closed the door when he seemed to have come out of nowhere and he stopped her right in his tracks.

“Where have you been!” Bill demanded with his hands pressed to his hips.

“I was with friends, I told you,” she replied, nonplussed. “I literally told you right before I left. I'm also going to need you to stop freaking out whenever I even so much as want to do something with the people I like.”

She rolled her eyes and she tried to step past him towards the stairwell.

“Hey—” He shoved her towards the wall and then he pinned her there. “—don't get smart with me, young lady. I am your husband. You are to listen to me and only me.”

“I want a divorce,” she blurted out right into his face.

“What?” He laughed at that.

“I want a divorce, Bill. I don't deserve any of this. I want a divorce.”

“A divorce? Fat chance. Go upstairs, young lady.”

“I want a divorce!” she commanded.

“You say that one more time, the next time the girls and I go somewhere for a whole day, I'm locking you in the house. I literally cannot afford a divorce.” He showed her a smug smile but in his eyes, she saw anger embedded within.

She then thought about what Alex had told her, in that they were leaving for Germany on a Sunday. Indeed, she knew that she could time it right. And thus, she let her nostrils flare and she made her way back upstairs. She had to time it just right, lest the whole thing go straight down the tubes. All the times they were out of the house, she took the cordless phone for herself and she made call to Marla to check in and also to say what was going on, and then another one to Chuck.

Marla hadn't landed a job at the school as of yet but they did tell Bill that his paychecks were done from there on out. He had no money coming in for the time being now; Marla herself meanwhile had an interview with the shop Belinda worked at.

“Genie and I are going to Albany!” she declared.

“Might be,” Sam corrected her.

“Bel told me it's a real possibility right now.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“What're you going to do about my couch, though?”

“I'll take it with me,” Marla promised her. “Bel needs a couch anyway.”

On her phone call to Chuck, she told him what had happened and she added that because it was a Sunday, she would have to time it to the absolute day in which she could say it to him. And that was the day. That was the Friday before they left for Germany.

“I'm gonna need you guys to come and get me out of here on the morning you leave,” she told him.

“We're gonna be pushin' it,” he confessed, “'cause of the flights from L.A. instead of the Bay Area and everything. But we can totally do it, though. We'll have to leave the Bay Area early so we can get there before he has to leave.”

The front door opened right then.

“I gotta go,” she told him in a near whisper. “He's home.”

“Be careful,” Chuck advised her, also in a near whisper.

She hung up and then she stepped out of her room. She descended the stairs to the second landing and there he was, by the door. He glared up at her.

“Bill, I want a divorce,” she said in a strong voice, and he sneered at her with that.

“We will do no such thing,” he stated in a curt tone, “not in a house of God.”

“We will—and there will be hell to pay if it doesn't happen.”

“Locking you in the house then,” he said in a singsong voice.

And indeed he did. Over the Saturday morning, he had put glue on the doorknob and he spent all day reversing the locks on the front and back doors, to which Sam just had to laugh at. He was going to all this trouble just to keep her in the house. Come Sunday morning, he had locked the doors and he took the girls through the garage door, to which he barred shut with a series of boxes. All the while, he hid the keys.

Sam peered out the top window and watched them leave for church and Sunday school, perhaps the last time the girls could ever attend a private school from that point onward. But this was her life regardless of that. Within a few minutes time, she recognized that hatchback clear across the way. The morning sun kissed his crown of jet black hair and that little plume atop his head: she could see him even from far away.

“There you are!” he called up to her.

“The doors are locked,” she told him.

“The doors are locked?” he echoed her.

“Yeah. I don't know if I can open the windows.”

He nibbled on his bottom lip and he opened the gate, and he made his way over to the kitchen window. She could hear him struggling down there.

“Alex!” she called from the top window. He peered up to her from the grass down below, slightly out of breath.

“You seriously can't get out?” he called up to her.

“Both doors are locked shut,” she told, “and the windows are, too. Bill hid the keys so he literally barred me in here.”

“Hey, remember what I said we're going to have to literally bust you out of there?”

“Yeah?”

Alex nibbled on his bottom lip and then he turned his attention to that car across the lake.

“Hey, Chuck!”

Sam watched him walk on back towards the other side of the lake. All the while, she wondered if either Marla or Aurora were willing to do such a thing for her. She watched them converse about something together, and then Chuck nodded his head at him. Eric joined in right behind them with something elongated in hand.

The three of them made their way back towards the house as if they were about to take a man out together.

“Time for plan B,” Chuck was saying as they came back within earshot.

“Wait, you guys have a plan B?” Sam called down.

“Come downstairs to the back door here,” Eric said. Without sparing further expense, Sam scooped up her things and she bowed downstairs to the second floor and then the ground floor. She sprinted down the hall towards the door right as she spotted Chuck's head outside of the kitchen window. He nodded at her and then gestured to the window sill itself.

“Huh?” She moved in closer to the window to figure out as to what he was saying to her right then.

“Stand back,” Chuck hollered through the window.

Sam nodded and then leaned her back against the wall with her things and then—

THUD.

“Well, Jesus Christ, Chuck, you don't have to be a baseball player,” Eric scoffed. “Here, I'll get it.”

Sam awaited another few seconds and then, that long object speared right there the window. She stepped out of the way as it landed onto the linoleum before her. They had taken a aluminum baseball bat and Eric had hurled it through the window pane. Splinters of the glass shattered apart and spread out right there across the sink basin and the linoleum.

Sam then bowed towards the window with a look of amazement on her face.

“We're supposed to protect our female fans, remember?” Eric recalled for her and he reached out through the gap in the wall for her. “Here, gimme your things first.”

She handed him her overnight bag as well as her purse and her journal, and he handed all three to Chuck for safe keeping. And then the same as before, but this time around there was no threat of Bill right behind her and thus she could take her time climbing out through the broken window. She set one foot on the edge of the sink basin and she hoisted herself up with the help of the faucet.

“You got it?” Eric asked her; she took his hand and then, careful not to cut herself on a shard of glass, she rested her knee upon the sill. Alex hurried over to help her way through the hole there. His hand rested upon her stomach once she was part of the way out of there.

“Okay—you got it?” Eric gently coaxed her once more.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

But then she lost her balance and she fell past Eric and onto Alex. He fell onto his back and she landed on his chest. For a few fleeting seconds, she thought about that daydream she had had before. She lifted herself off of his little body and she noticed that the top button on his shirt had come undone, and he showed a little bit more of his chest for her. His black curls spread out from his head and his lips were parted in stunned fashion for her.

“My prince,” she said to him in a light whisper, and he raised his eyebrows at her. She then climbed off of him and he sat upright on the grass. Eric helped him up from there and then the four of them headed on back to Greg, whom of which awaited them right next to the car there by the curb. Eric hurried along side right next to her.

“We may have broken the law but what he was doing was way worse, I would think,” he told her in a low voice.

“Far worse,” she replied. “Locked me up in the house without any hope of escape. He didn't even tell me when he was coming back, either!”

“Yeah, he can deal with a broken window for a bit,” Eric concluded. Chuck carried her purse and her overnight bag in both hands as if they belonged to her, but she didn't see her journal anywhere on his person. She hoped that he didn't drop it somewhere back there, lest she knew that someone could find it for themselves. She need not feel paranoid about it all. Even though she was legally married to Bill, as far as she knew, therein lay nothing about her staying behind for him there at the house, especially after what he did to her back there, either. Eric did in fact have a valid point.

They reached the car within time and he stuck her things into the back part there. She turned her attention to Eric and Alex, the latter of whom held her journal in his hands.

“Chuck dropped this,” he told her, and he handed it to her, and then she remembered that he hadn't really seen her art at that point, either.

“Thank you,” she said to her prince, unbeknownst by the fact that he was talking to the artist who made those drawings for Charlie that whole time. He showed her a sweet little smile.

“I didn't look inside—just to give you your privacy,” he assured her as she climbed into the back seat, right next to Greg and in turn right next to Alex himself. Eric took to the passenger seat, and then Chuck rounded out the inside behind the wheel.

“Tiff and Louie are already at the airport,” he told Sam.

“Goodie! By the way, where'd you find a baseball bat of metal?”

“Some dude named Frankie Bello,” Eric replied as he took off his leather gloves, “he painted over that thing, too, so there's no finding us, either.”

Chuck then fired up the car and they headed into the cul de sac once again, and they doubled back up the street. “Next stop—Deutschland!”

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asgardian--angels · 4 years ago

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Recommend some good folk metal music please

:D i never thought i’d see the day when someone actually wants to know more about the music i listen to *cracks knuckles* my time has come

I apologize in advance for this novel. Feel free to skip to the recommended tracks lol.

Most folk metal comes out of northern Europe (Finland, heavily) though you can find it all over the world (Hu Band comes to mind but I mean, it’s on every continent). I am one of those people with like, a small handful of favorite bands that I listen to mercilessly so I am sure that I am only representing a miniscule percentage of what’s available out there. What’s great is that folk metal is much more versatile than many other genres in its sound; the essence of folk metal is simply to 1) utilize traditional (or rather, in the sense of a metal band, non-traditional) instruments such as violin, accordion, brass ensemble, bagpipes, what have you, and 2) have lyrical themes which revolve around regional folklore, mythology, cultural heritage, or place (what I particularly like is a frequent reverence and respect for nature). Other genres of metal (death, black) have the second element but not the first, and tend to incorporate darker overall tones and consistently harsher or lo-fi vocal styles and sounds. Folk metal can be a gateway genre into metal and can often be quite hopepunk (if you will). Because of these criteria, the actual sound of folk metal can range from sea shanties to ‘spooky walk in the midnight woods’ to scathing social commentary to SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SH

Basically you can find a range of styles within the genre that fit what you’re looking for, from those that have an orchestral, ballad feel, to things that border on death metal but have a hurdy-gurdy in there. There’s also a much higher percentage of female-led folk metal bands than other metal genres.

I’ll go through my top picks.

Turisas. These motherfuckers. My boys.

Turisas is based in Finland, but sing primarily in English (with occasional Finnish, a smidge of Greek and Swedish too). Four albums out to date, fifth in progress. Sound is absolutely fucking bonkers god tier shit, if I may say so myself. Every single song sounds like you’ve been transported into an Iliad metal musical. Heavy use of a full orchestra and choir, along with sick violin and accordion solos. Their lyrical themes focus heavily on ancient Greco-Roman and Viking military history - but before you raise any red flags, rest assured they’re liberal as fuck and trust me the tea is scalding when Mathias feels like making a Point about Then and Now. No seriously, I don’t know how to express the beauty and depth of his songwriting - Mathias Nygård is an incredibly talented composer, musician, and songwriter (nay, POET), and an extremely intelligent and down to earth guy. There are plenty of bands that are happy to write Viking songs about pillaging and glorious death in battle and all that (Alestorm comes to mind), those are a dime a dozen. Turisas makes history come to life in a way that transports you back in time and thrusts you into the living breathing world of the past. They deal with the horrors and tragedy of war from both sides, consequences and motivations, fears and pride and loss, home and family, despair and hope. They write songs about people, big and small, and their role in weaving the great tapestry of history. And the best part is that it’s informed - Mathias does his damn research and the tales he tells are rooted in fact. He brings them to life so we can experience what it must have been like for those real living people, with the goal of forcing us to confront our own selves in them. He’s a modern Homer, I shit you not.

Did I mention there’s a song about pirates that’s actually really complex and nuanced, about how the hypocrisy and vile colonialist deeds of emperors makes them no different than the criminals they persecute?

Or that they do a badass cover of Rasputin?? yeah?????

Anyway enough gushing. Their second and third albums (The Varangian Way, Stand Up And Fight) are consecutive concept albums that follow the story of the Varangian Guard (the legendary Viking battalion that defended Alexander the Great) so the songs are actually chronologically linked to tell this epic tale. It’s a fucking listen, lads. The Varangian Way is probably my favorite album. But all their albums are top notch.

My favorite songs: End of An Empire (this one comes for 2020 hard), Piece by Piece (AKA die fascists 2k20), Cursed Be Iron, Among Ancestors, Greek Fire, Miklagard Overture (you gotta earn this song tho, it’s the finale)

Good first listen picks/hits: Battle Metal, To Holmgard and Beyond, March of the Varangian Guard, Ten More Miles, One More

Finntroll. These other motherfuckers. My other boys.

Another big name in the Finnish folk metal scene. As you can see, their band revolves both aesthetically and musically around Scandinavian troll folklore. Yall weird elf-fuckers who like the really big ears? Here you go. Look at those ears. They’re good friends with Turisas. Both love their facepaint.

Musical style leans much more towards black and death metal influenced, with a heavier, fuller sound and growling vocals. But it’s an incredibly rich and creative aural tapestry, with layers of masterfully executed sound that’s a real delight to lose yourself in. Use of fiddle, brass, keyboard, accordion, and banjo, and strong folk melodies make their sound unmistakable and unique. They are known for their ‘black humppa’ beat, which basically gives the effect of feeling the primal need to stomp around loudly to their music. It’s great cardio. They also utilize orchestra in some great intro tracks. They know their stuff.

The majority of their songs are sung in Swedish (they do some English cover songs which are FANTASTIC holy SHIT), but don’t let that stop you. The mood and power and emotion of their music transcend language, and you can be sure the lyrics are about either trolls, witches, the dark woods, spirits, or something of that ilk. I think Swedish as a language works very well with this kind of music, and honestly having it in English would lose something.

They have been around a long time and so have many albums, but I personally have only listened to the last three which feature their current singer, Mathias Lillmåns, whom I adore. Those albums are Nifelvind, Blodsvept, and their recent release Vredesvävd (that i’ve had on repeat since I got it three weeks ago). I’m sure their other ones are great too, I just can’t make a personal recommendation since I haven’t heard them.

My favorite songs: Galgasång, Tiden Utan Tid, Ylaren, Skogsdotter, Två Ormar, Ett Norrskensdåd, Skövlarens Död

Good first listen picks/hits: Forsen, Under Bergets Rot, Häxbrygd, Trollhammaren (older song), Solsagan

I’ll go through these other ones a little faster, I haven’t heard quite as much from them but I do love them.

Korpiklaani.

Great, full folk sound, utilizes a lot of folk instruments including some less commonly seen ones like hurdy gurdy. Songs are mostly in Finnish but plenty in English too. Jonne Järvelä has a really unique voice that grows on you, but it’s not for everyone. The band started as Sami folk, and Jonne is trained in Sami yoik singing, which makes an appearance in a few songs. I prefer the Finnish tracks, as a lot of the English ones are drinking songs lmao. But again, really well-executed music with layers of sound that keeps you hooked. I haven’t heard enough of their discography to really recommend enough to cover everything.

Song picks: Minä Näin Vedessä Neidon, Metsälle, Ämmänhauta, Lempo

Moonsorrow.

Definitely a darker, black-folk band. Probably not a great pick if you aren’t accustomed to black metal - very long tracks (8-15 mins is standard), growling/shrieking vocals, a ‘thinner’ but encompassing wall of sound usual of black metal, but with the benefit of wonderfully entrancing dark folk elements and chants. It’s done really really well. Sung almost entirely in Finnish (apart from cover tracks). Lyrically, focuses on themes of Norse mythology, man vs nature and similar elements. Definitely one of those bands whose music gets you into a zone. I can lose serious time just putting a whole album on and letting my mind wander elsewhere. My favorite album is Jumalten Aika.

Song picks: Ruttolehto Sis. Päivättömän Päivän Kansa (my fucking FAVORITE), Suden Tunti (well known hit), and also uhh check out their cover of Non Serviam cause it’s a fucking banger

Other bands that I like what I’ve heard but really can’t say much about them, whoops - Tyr (from the Faroe Islands, great stuff, Faroese is a baller language), Ensiferum, Nightwish (female-led).... I’m open to suggestions. Like I said, there are folk metal bands all over the world, and each is intrinsically linked to a sense of place and cultural identity that makes them unique. I’d love to hear about more tbh.

#koschei-the-ginger #folk metal

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soaptunes · 4 years ago

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my top 75 quarantine records: 75-66

wahoo! we actually begin this list with a controversial lowball rank, i think. bandcamp links as always where applicable!

youtube

#75. doom - born like this (2009) the masked mc's first appearance on this list comes with what i regard as his weakest solo album, actually his final one as well. this is a much darker effort than most of his other records, his verses spinning more genuinely twisted and gross yarns than his usual cartoonish villainy. it is also worth mentioning that there is an entire song on this that's dedicated to being homophobic, specifically towards, uh, batman? there's enough great wordplay and slinky beats on this thing to satisfy, though, and i did enjoy it. worth a listen just for the tracks where doom decides to kick it into his top form.

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#74. the lemon twigs - do hollywood (2016) half beatles worship, half pure cabaret silliness, the lemon twigs for me are an extremely hit or miss band. i think they miss slightly more than they hit on this record, as they have a tendency to cover a lack of strong songwriter with extended noodling instrumental passages. THAT SAID, when they hit, they hit hard enough to make you forget they ever missed - the formula does work, provided they actually stick to it and don't lose the plot.

youtube

#73. car seat headrest - how to leave town (2014) similarly to doom, car seat headrest was an artist that i decided to check out the back catalogue of, and found it extremely rewarding!!! how to leave town was one of the lower-impact ones for me, just because of how dense and long-winded some of the songwriting can be. that's not necessarily a detractor for a lot of people, but it's hard for it to sustain my attention for that long. that said (becoming my catchphrase), it has so many amazing moments of pure catharsis that the project is still super compelling as a full listen. as individual tracks though, if you're not in for an hour, they tend to lose me.

youtube

#72. third eye blind - s/t (1997) i think there are a lot of people on this earth who would have my head for ranking this above how to leave town, but i really did enjoy this just a little bit more. it's not perfect, again, not every song hits, but when it does hit it is muscular, catchy as hell, and a good precursor of where the better side of scraggly pop-punk like PUP and knuckle puck would go in the next few decades. the guitar tones on this thing are way better than they have any right to be, too, what a satisfying flavor of crunch.

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#71. molchat doma - etazhi (2018) if you liked the genuine viral hit "sudno" enough to check out the full album, you'll probably like the rest of it too. molchat doma's coldwave sound is down to a formula here, as listening to the full record repeatedly can get... well, repetitive, but each individual song IS worth it on its own. this is a really good album for playlistification, the hooks hit and the songs totally work, it's just a lot of the time they all fall into a similar niche. this is a problem that i think they fix on their much better followup, monument - which is unfortunately ineligible for this list 'cuz i listened to it right when it came out - but etazhi is more than good enough to represent the dark and gloomy fun i had with molchat doma this year.

youtube

#70. ministry - psalm 69: the way to succeed & the way to suck eggs (1991) the 90s industrial scene was a scene that i knew absolutely nothing about, and had very little motivation to get into, since i was born just a tick late to experience it and it seemed kind of like a "you had to be there" thing. it took halfway-befriending a bizarre older coworker who lived and breathed industrial music to get me to actually check some stuff out, and i'm happy to report, you don't have to have been there to get it. if you have a tolerance or love for punishing, breakneck beats, crunched-to-shit guitars, and devilishly soothsaying lyrical content, ministry is probably up your alley. definitely something to lose your mind in the pit to.

youtube

#69. hotel mira - divorce (2016) this one caught me totally off guard. soundwise they're nothing special, a pretty standard hard-rock leaning alternative group (who recently changed their name away from the turbo-cringe jpnsgrls), but their melodic sense is some of the sharpest and catchiest ive heard in this style in a long time. damn near every song on this is sticky as hell, and they cover a huge range of emotional ground, from barn-burning romantic odes, to stoner anthems, to this one, which uses a circus as a metaphor for performing in your daily life when you're suffering from depression. shoutout especially to the charisma of the singer, who doesn't have the most amazing voice in the world but makes up for it with dynamism, character, and passion to spare.

youtube

#68. the drums - abysmal thoughts (2017) jonny pierce has a remarkable gift for making teeth-rottingly sugary songs that conceal layers of eerie darkness underneath them. whether it's the oddly sinister videos, the emotional strings, the cyclical song structures, the unsettling phrasing and acidic bite on some of the lyrics... there's a lot of strange touches all over this jangly, surfy, catchy as fuck record, and it makes for a breakup album that keeps you on your toes the entire run. it's only this low because of a few unmemorable songs, but this is definitely my favorite drums album.

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#67. panic! at the disco - vices and virtues (2011) there may be later panic albums that attained more commercial success by hewing more to the pop side than the oddball side, and there may be earlier panic albums that lost themselves a bit by hewing to the oddball side and getting caught in fanciful concepts that didn't give their sharp hooks enough room to breathe. for my money, though, this may just be the finest of them all, one where brendon's pure pop and vocal acrobatics share equal room with his sole remaining bandmate's punk inclinations and their shared love of theatrics, and neither buries the other. super underrated album in Serious Critical Circles.

youtube

#66. hayden thorpe - diviner (2019) look. i will be honest with you. do i miss wild beasts? yes, absolutely, they were one of my favorite bands for a long, long time, and this hayden thorpe solo album can't quite replace the absence of the full group. buuuuut..... was a huge part of why wild beasts appealed to me over other similar bands thorpe's striking and distinctive falsetto? yes. am i glad i can still scratch that itch with new stuff? holy shit, yes. this album is quiet, reflective, and emotionally open, and hayden's voice is as rich ever. i'm fine with this outcome as long as i can still hear him.

tune in next time for 65 thru 56!

#album reviews #music reviews #hayden thorpe #wild beasts #panic at the disco #the drums #jonny pierce #hotel mira #ministry #molchat doma #third eye blind #car seat headrest #the lemon twigs #mf doom #Youtube

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mythgirlimagines · 4 years ago

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Anon KG Characters With DVHS Talents

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MYTH: Former SHSL Blogger

One of the six chaperones of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate and Wyre’s childhood friend. As the mastermind behind the blog “Ms. Myth’s Scenarios”, she gives off the aura of being withdrawn and timid. But if you talk about her three interests, “Fantastical Butterfly”, “REBULLET” and “Zachary Carlton and The Titans” within earshot of her, prepare for a total mood shift from Myth, as she becomes more peppy, cheerful and energetic. As she usually spends her time cooped in her room, Wyre usually has to drag Myth out of her room to go on their daily jog together.

Clothes: The same clothes from her original design, except with her hood up and badges of her fandoms replaced her heart badges.

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WYRE: Former SHSL Track Star

One of the six chaperones of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate and Myth’s childhood friend. Having mastered a bunch of sport competitions from a young age, the one main sport that truly caught her attention was Track and Field. Despite her loud, rough-around-the-edges and delinquent-esque personality, if you manage to get on her good side, she is a very supportive and friendly, if overbearing friend. Rumor has it, that she runs laps in ridiculous costumes during charity runs, in order to raise money for medical research and orphanages.

Clothes: A brown and black tank top, matching track shorts and red and white track shoes.

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SCAR: SHSL Lucky Student

One of the attendants of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate. Having experienced bouts of misfortune after misfortune ever since she was a little girl, she’s managed to convince herself that she was the mortal vessel for the goddess of bad luck, Misfortuna, and crafted a persona to match. Even after winning the annual lottery for Hope’s Peak, she still carries her Chuunibyou persona to the classroom. But her classmates can break her facade quite easily to reveal a concerned mom friend, who just cares too much for her friends.

Clothes: The same clothes from her original design, except with bandages covering her hands instead of surgery gloves, and the red cross symbol being replaced by a green clover design.

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FUSION: SHSL Linguist

One of the attendants of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate. With a penchant for picking up and learning about customs, languages and vocabulary from around the world, he has managed to master speaking in 10 languages on a conversational level, as well as reading and writing in 10 more languages. Traveling with his family is one of his major passions, as it allows him to pick up on languages much quicker. But one of the things he likes even more about foreign countries than the variety of languages is the variety of delicacies.

Clothes: An oversized grey bomber jacket with country flag badges sewn into the sleeves, for every language he has mastered speaking, black pants, and white and blue striped sneakers.

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FUSION II: SHSL Astrologer

One of the attendants of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate. As the the genius behind the astrology/satire blog, “COUNT YOUR LUCKY STARS”, she has a biting sense of wit and sarcasm that even bleeds into her star-reading predictions, which is the main reason for her massive fan following. Yet, despite her sarcastic and sardonic predilections, she somehow manages to startle people with her surprising accuracy down the line. If you ever find her in the Hope’s Peak’s hallways, you’d have to snake yourself around the massive line that are her adoring fans.

Clothes: The same clothes from her original design, but with star buttons on her gakuran and a galaxy design on her skirt.

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JANON: SHSL Archer

One of the attendants of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate. While Janon may have a cute appearance, don’t even try to say that to their face, unless you want an arrow in yours. Having been sent to a kyudoka’s temple by their parents to cure their lazy and rebellious behavior, they have mastered the art of the bow and arrow with relative ease, but sadly their surly and lazy attitude still remained. If they want something from the other side of their room, they’d aim an arrow tied to a rope at the object, fire the arrow at the object, and reel the object back in.

Clothes: A pink bunny hoodie and black surgical mask, over a black and blue hakama, white socks and black sandals. They carry a black quiver on their back that holds their bow and arrows.

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SPARKLE: Former SHSL Guitarist

One of the six chaperones of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate. With a lifelong dream of having her dazzling self be noticed by one and all, she’s turned to practicing on her signature glittery and purple guitar, which comes in both electric and acoustic form, until she formed her band “SYMPHONY OF SEQUINS”. Sparkle and her band managed to hit platinum with their two hit songs, “Supernova” and “Diamond Amongst The Coal Mine”. Because of her bombastic and loud personality, she isn’t exactly good with the whole “incognito” thing, not that she’s complaining about the attention.

Clothes: The same clothes from her original design, but with her sparkly purple guitar and a colorful music note design on her black skirt and a music note scrunchie holding her bun up.

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EGG: Former SHSL Carpenter

One of the six chaperones of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate, and Wet Sock’s twin. Egg has a “reputation” of sorts at Hope’s Peak’s for being cursed beyond all belief, leaving people unnerved at thier eccentric mindset. They’ve gotten into Hope’s Peak for their mastery in the art of woodworking, making expertly-crafted toys, furniture, and even entire buildings and wooden statues. Their most famous work yet, is “Twinship”, an uncannily accurate, yet distorted, wooden sculpture of the twins in an odd yin-yang-like pose.

Clothes: A brown and red plaid flannel shirt, a yellow tool belt, and the same pants and shoes from their original design.

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WET SOCK: Former SHSL Historian

One of the six chaperones of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate, and Egg’s twin. Having been ostracized by others for their interest in medieval history, particularly the darker and torturous parts of the Middle Ages, Wet Sock has adopted a prickly, cynical and knife-obsessed personality to combat this. Wet Sock got into Hope’s Peak for furthering and contributing to historical research on medieval torture devices. If you manage to not get turned of by their personality and approach them, you’d find out that deep down, they’re just a lonely kid who needs a couple of friends in their life.

Clothes: A red sweater and a brown vest, a yellow pocket watch, and the same pants and shoes from their original design.

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CURIOUS: SJHSL Herbalist

One of the two SJHSL students volunteering for the SHSL Internship program. With a wide botanical knowledge and a heart equally as wide, Curious is the founder of “The Green Hand”, a flower shop and grocery store hybrid famous for both their wide selection of flowers, fruits and vegetables and the high quality and long life of said flowers, fruits and vegetables. Curious is a kind soul, if a bit of a pushover, who’s always happy to help others. If they’re not tending to Hope’s Peak’s massive greenhouse, they’d be found helping out others with various tasks.

Clothes: A white button up shirt, a green tie with a daisy on the front, green overalls with sunflower buttons, black boots, and green gardening gloves.

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NERD: Former SHSL Massage Therapist

One of the six chaperones of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate. With his neurotic, temperamental, and hostile personality, a massage therapist is one of least fitting talents he can have, but somehow he manages to do his job well enough to catapult him into SHSL status. He will die before admitting it, but he’s secretly really concerned about both his friends, their health and their wellbeing. The embodiment of the phrase “tough love”, he’d give you a full body massage, while loudly scolding you on your poor posture and lack of exercise.

Clothes: A black polo shirt, black pants and black and white sneakers.

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ELDRITCH: SHSL Songwriter

One of the attendants of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate. Eldritch has a massive passion for music, but due to his crippling stage fright and anxiety, he can’t perform on stage and become a musician like his wanted, so he retired backstage to become a songwriter for various bands. Eldritch is famous for his signature style: eerie and futuristic songs with anarchy/rebellion related lyrics. His paranoia stems from a past incident, in which one of his musical rivals stole and plagiarized Eldritch’s written lyrics, while framing Eldritch as the thief.

Clothes: A brown hoodie with black music notes all over, over a black band t-shirt, grey sweatpants, black socks and purple slippers.

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DREAM: SHSL Friend

One of the attendants of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate. Famous around her hometown for being a popular and friendly person, even with the town’s most unpopular people, Dream can make friends with anybody, regardless of their attitude or beliefs. Dream just has this way of seeing the goodness and positive qualities in even the worst of people. With her sunny, positive and energetic attitude, Dream revels in socializing with others and thanks to her contagious personality, others most definitely feel the same way.

Clothes: The same clothes from her original design, only without her satchel and with normal pink barrettes.

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IRIS: SJSHL Charmer

One of the two SJHSL students volunteering for the SHSL Internship program. One of the most popular kids in both her schools and her neighborhood, her optimism, contagious energy, and clumsy and dorky charm has earned her tons of fans at both her elementary and middle school. Despite her large fan following, she is just too kind-hearted to even think of taking advantage of her popularity, which in turn, has earned her even more followers. And of course, you can bet that her following only increased when she was scouted to Hope’s Peak’s Junior High Division.

Clothes: A pink hoodie over a lighter pink dress with a heart design at the bottom, grey tights and red mary janes.

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FANCY: SHSL Hairdresser

One of the attendants of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate. As the head of the hairdressing salon “Fancy’s Follicle Furnishing”, they are able to flawlessly style anyone’s hair, regardless of the length, texture or manageability. They are equally concerned with their own appearance, as much as other’s appearances, being regularly found staring at a mirror, making sure every hair on their head is in place. Having started out with cutting, decorating and tying up mere wigs and doll’s hair, they’ve eventually managed to practice and succeed at cutting real people’s hair.

Clothes: A black apron filled with hair care products, over a white button up shirt with rolled up sleeves, white gloves, black pants and black shoes.

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PURPLE: SHSL Ice Skater

One of the attendants of Hope’s Peak’s annual field trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate. Known in the figure skating community as “The Polar Pixie”, her performance on the ice is hailed by most critics and fans as “poised”, “peaceful” and above all else, “perfect”, or at least, that’s how she is on the ice rink. When off of the ice rink, she is very timid, socially awkward and easily frightened, usually seen hiding behind trees, poles or even taller people. If you manage to lure her out of her hiding place with candy, you’ll find out that she has nothing but nice words to say, even if it sounds like she swallowed a thesaurus.

Clothes: A purple sweater with white snowflakes on it, over her purple and white figure-skating outfit, black tights and white and blue sneakers.

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Thanks to Fusion II for giving me this idea! I’m very proud of you, sweetie!

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I love seeing yall with DVHS talents!!!

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nuflashprose · 5 years ago

Text

It was a Who's Who of the East Village scene—the legends of Post Pop Art gathered at the Pyramid Club in New York on September 4, 1986. Among the guests were Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Marcus Leatherdale, Ann Magnuson, Karen Finley, John Sex, Wendy Wild, Steve Rubell, Andy Warhol and, of course, Madonna. They were gathered to celebrate and support one of their own, the artist, Martin Burgoyne.

Though a central figure in the scene that would become the hallmark of the era, and a contemporary of many of the leading names in art and music of his generation, Burgoyne is little known outside the Madonna fandom. Shortly after arriving in New York to attend the Pratt Institute, Burgoyne met Madonna and the two moved in together after Madonna was robbed by neighborhood kids who stole her music equipment and Burgoyne (who lived in an adjoining apartment) was robbed two days later. Burgoyne was instrumental in the early stages of Madonna's career: According to Edo Bertoglio, whose film, New York Beat, resurfaced years later as the indie hit Downtown81, starring Jean-Michal Basquiat and Debbie Harry, "Martin Burgoyne... always advised [Madonna] on where to go, how to dress, with whom to go out, what were the right places." Burgoyne did the art work for the cover of the single, "Burning Up," which later appeared on Madonna's first album. The first album was originally called, Lucky Star, and Burgoyne designed the original art work (it was abandoned in favor of the famous black and white photo that graced the cover). Later, Burgoyne designed album covers for DJ Jellybean Benitez, the Jamaica Girls and General Public. He worked as Madonna's road manager for a brief tour promoting her first singles and was a dancer for Madonna's first live performance of her single "Everybody," at Haoui Montaug's No Entiendes, a cabaret show Montaug hosted at Danceteria.

Like many artists who went on to become famous, Madonna and Burgoyne worked and played at Danceteria in the early 80's, where among the crowd of then-unknowns was another Who's Who of the era: Madonna worked the coat check, the Beastie Boys were waiters, Keith Haring painted Danceteria's interior and worked as a bus boy as did David Wojnarowicz; while LL Cool J and Debi Mazar worked the elevators and Sade tended bar. By that time, circa 1982, Danceteria eclipsed its predecessors as the hub of the art/club scene of the day, and Madonna and Burgoyne were regular fixtures. "They were like fraternal twins," wrote Jordan Levin in the Miami Herald "Cherubic urban imps with identical curly blond hair and precisely ragged, tight black clothing." Though Madonna's irrepressible energy and unrelenting ambition were off-putting to most, Burgoyne, by all accounts, was universally liked and admired. "He was... much beloved and lusted after," wrote Levin, "an incandescent boy even in the darkest after-hours club."

When Madonna was practicing her pirouettes at Martha Graham, modeling nude at the New School and playing at Max's Kansas City, CBGB's and dives in New Jersey—striking her best Pat Benatar pose while doing her Chrissie Hynde imitation—the punks and art students of the East Village were gathering at Club 57 and the Mudd Club. Sibling clubs with a fair amount of sibling rivalry, each was a Warholian mix of art, theatre, film and music. The clubs held the first showings by soon-to-be-renowned figures like Kenny Scharf (whose first show was at Club 57 in September '79), Keith Haring (his Erotic Art Show premiered in August 1980), and Jean-Michel Basquiat (whose No Wave band, Gray, played at the Mudd Club) amid live music by punk and New Wave bands, screenings of No Wave films by Amos Poe (among others) and a constant rotation of New Wave cabaret acts like John Sex (whose Acts of Live Art premiered in April 1980) Wendy Wild, Karen Finley and Ann Magnuson who was also the manager of Club 57.

Born of the vestiges of the punk scene at CBGB's, Mudd Club was the anti-Studio 54, albeit with its own door policy and just enough star power (Bowie, Warhol, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg frequented the club; Bowie filmed the video for his song "Fashion," there) to give it a celebrity sheen while maintaining its street cred. Mudd Club was the darker twin to the decadent free-for-all and campy shenanigans of Club 57, which, in addition to art and cabaret shows, hosted Ladies Mud Wrestling and a Monster Movie Night. Still, enough competition existed to inspire Steve Mass, owner of the Mudd Club, to lure Ann Magnuson to come to work for him in 1981 and where Magnuson went, others followed. Haring became curator of Mudd Club's fourth floor art gallery, though by that time (after the New York/New Wave show at PS 1 that year, often regarded as the Armory Show of the 80's) Basquiat, among others, was commanding thousands of dollars and selling to wealthy collectors despite considerable debate over whether the work was worthy or mere novelty. At the same time, the music in the clubs was also changing. Many of the East Village artists were graffiti artists themselves or were in with the graffiti artists like Fab Five Freddy and Futura 2000 who in turn were familiar with both the punk/New Wave bands of downtown and the rappers and break dancers of the emerging Hip Hop scene in the South Bronx. That the seemingly disparate groups—artists, musicians, rappers—of seemingly disparate styles would eventually converge was all but inevitable.

Anita Sarko began her stint as DJ at the Mudd Club shortly after arriving in New York in 1979, spinning an eclectic mix of oldies, rarities, punk and New Wave, playing anything that got people moving. Sarko eventually left Mudd Club for Danceteria in 1983 and there she co-hosted No Entiendes with Haoui Montaug, famed door man of Hurrah, the Mudd Club and Danceteria. Like Club 57 and the Mudd Club, Danceteria was a Factory-like mix of art, film and music and was also one of the first clubs to have a video lounge on its third floor, modeled after the video monitors that were installed at the Ritz (arguably the first club, in 1980, to have videos) and Hurrah, the club now credited as the birthplace of the video VJ. It is due in part to the performances that were filmed at the club and then played in Danceteria's video lounge (and earlier at Hurrah) that many of those early performances by Madonna, New Order and the Beastie Boys as well as Wojnarowicz's band, 3 Teens Kill 4, are available on YouTube and social media today, not to mention an installation at MOMA.

In videos and photos of Burgoyne and Madonna taken at the time the two are nearly identical due in no small part to Burgoyne's androgyny and gender-shifting fluidity. The two appear like an inversion of early photos of Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith: Both blond, seraphic and playful where Patti and Robert were shabby, dark and brooding; New Wave chic where Patti and Robert were gothic proto-punk. In one set of pictures Burgoyne and Madonna are dressed identically in ripped denim and white T's, arms covered in black rubber bracelets, a mop of gold hair spilling out of the caps they are both wearing. In another, they both don pink punk wigs (Madonna wore hers on an early appearance on British television). In another set—taken during the filming of Desperately Seeking Susan—Madonna sits on Burgoyne's lap, both dressed in identical jeans, leather boots and leather jackets. What is most striking in the photos, however, is Burgoyne's blatant femininity: Like Madonna, he dons armfuls of rubber bracelets, large hoop earrings and wears nail polish, black eyeliner and lip gloss, his lips pursed—like Madonna's—kissing at the camera. Though he was fond of the leather attire common to the clone and S & M scenes of the gay community at that time, he also cultivated an androgynous look more common among the British New Romantics (who in turn were inspired by the glam rockers of the previous decade), a gender-fluid look that even at the time set him apart from the other downtown denizens of New York’s Lower East Side of the early 80’s. Though certainly, even at that time, artists like Mapplethorpe, Peter Hujar, and Wojnarowicz and performance artists like Jobriath, Klaus Nomi and Stephen Varble incorporated homo-aesthetics in their work, for Burgoyne it was more than a performance or a pose or even mere fashion; it seems—even in the most casual or private of photos—to have been his way of being in the world. Madonna’s own homo-aesthetic—and her influence on the artists who subsequently followed her—owe a debt to Burgoyne’s early influence on the fledgling diva who, clearly—given the mirroring of Burgoyne evident in the photos—took much of her own homo-aesthetic directly from Burgoyne (among others). According to Christopher Ciccone, in his admittedly trashy biography of his famous sister, it was Burgoyne who introduced Madonna to the seedier side of gay life, an edgy underworld that would become a prominent feature of her later, post-Sean Penn work. “He openly [played] on the dark side and [liked] it,” wrote Ciccone. “Perhaps due to her friendship with Marty, S&M [became] one of the leitmotifs of Madonna’s career.” Further, observed Ciccone:

“Marty [introduced] Madonna to photographer Edo Bertoglio and his girlfriend, French jewelry designer Maripol, who designed those seminal colored rubber bracelets that everyone else in the Village is now wearing as well. However mainstream and oft-imitated her concepts would later become, Maripol’s influence on Madonna’s image can’t be understated, as she is responsible for creating her punk-plus-lace look.”

Neither, then, can Burgoyne’s influence be underestimated. However, like many anonymous gay men who dressed, shaped and helped form a Diva who would go on to, in Madonna’s own words, “rule the world,” Burgoyne has gone virtually unheard of and—like his own work—remained all but obscured.

There are photos of Burgoyne clubbing with Keith Haring and a later photo of Burgoyne riding in the limo with Warhol on the way to Madonna's wedding to Sean Penn (Warhol was Burgoyne's plus-one at the wedding according to Warhol's diary); in all the photos of Burgoyne from that time it is clear that these legends adored him; both Haring and Warhol wrote in their diaries of their devastation at Burgoyne’s death. However, Burgoyne remains elusive in most of the candid pictures taken at Danceteria or the Mudd Club or such celebrity gatherings; he is there but immersed in the crowd or just off to the side. In one photo, for example, Burgoyne peeks out from the edge of the picture, eyes locked with Madonna as she commands the center of a dancefloor. In the video of Madonna's performance at Live Aid, Burgoyne is there just off stage while Madonna sings a medley of her hits. Sean Penn and Keith Haring are just off stage to her left; Burgoyne is opposite, crouched on the floor nearby to Madonna's right, watching from the wings.

Like Warhol and the Warhol superstars, this generation of young artists, writers and performers coveted celebrity and were eager for the riches and success that were the zeitgeist of the greed-is-good 80's. After Basquiat's first showing at Nosei in '81, and Haring's first showing at Tony Shafrazi in '82, the art world took notice. The Whitney Biennial in '83 legitimized the East Village art scene and with legitimization came money and the beginnings of the gentrification that has left New York homogenized and unrecognizable; unlivable for anyone but the wealthy even to this day. When Haring was attacked at his '85 showing at Shafrazi by purist horrified by the gentrification in the Village brought on by the influx of money and notoriety, the East Village Eye declared that the scene was officially over before it started: "We, who were the first to take credit for the birth of East Village art," wrote Carlo McCormick, "now want to take credit for killing it." Then, in February 1987, Michael Musto of the Village Voice issued the final blow when he wrote about what he called, “The Death of Downtown,” following Warhol's passing. Martin Burgoyne died three months earlier of complications from AIDS surrounded by his parents and friends, including Haoui Montaug and Madonna, who held his hand while he died. In 2015, 2017, and again in 2018 to commemorate World AIDS Day, Madonna tweeted photos of herself and Burgoyne from the old days. "If we only knew then," she wrote "all the things that would happen."

According to Keith Haring's journal, he saw Burgoyne on the Fourth of July 1986 and Martin told him that he recently tested negative for the HIV virus. "But when I saw him," wrote Haring, "I saw death." Jordan Levin saw Burgoyne around that time outside the Pyramid Club, complaining of exhaustion and recurring bouts of the flu. “When I got sick," Burgoyne later told Michael Schnayerson from Vanity Fair, "they thought I had measles, so I stayed in for a month.” By August, according to Warhol in his diary, Burgoyne was sick and preparing to return to Florida where his parents lived: "[W]hat they thought was the measles wasn't," Warhol wrote, “And I said that the people we knew who had "it" had had the best care money can buy, and they were the first to go, so I didn't know what to say.”

By late August, when Warhol saw Burgoyne backstage after Madonna's play,Goose and TomTom, Burgoyne's face was covered with sores. He asked Warhol to draw a picture of him for a party to raise money for his medical costs to be held at the Pyramid Club in September. Warhol drew the picture and Keith Haring designed the invitations for the benefit, held on September fourth.

A feature about the party and the group of artists gathered there appeared in the New York Times. Hosted by Burgoyne's friends and caregivers Deb Parker and Jody Kurilla, guests and performers included Madonna, Haring, Warhol, John Sex and Wendy Wild, Haoui Montaug, and Walter Durcatz (DJ at Danceteria and the Pyramid Club who left Danceteria when someone fell down an elevator shaft). Marcus Leatherdale did a slide show. Karen Finley—the poet and performance artist who was later one of the notorious NEA Four—also performed. According to the New York Times, Burgoyne was told three weeks prior that he had ARC (AIDS related complex) and was too weak to dance, but joined in, "kissing and hugging his friends." ''We have all been friends for years and years," Haring told the New York Times, "since the days at Club 57.'' Six thousand dollars was raised that night to help pay Burgoyne's living expenses. Steve Rubell noted, "We know many AIDS patients who have been deserted, treated like lepers by their own families.'' AIDS had, by 1986, become an all-too-common occurrence for most in the once thriving East Village scene. Most at the party knew several friends who had already died. ''It's like a war is going on,'' said designer, Katy K. Reports leaked in The New York Post and the National Enquirer that Madonna's former roommate was dying of AIDS and that her support of her friend had caused strife in the notoriously volatile marriage of the Poison Penns. Sean Penn is often portrayed by Madonna's biographers as homophobic and paranoid about AIDS, but not so, according to Jordan Levin: "Martin was frantic," when the stories came out according to Levin, "[H]e'd been publicly branded a plague outcast who horrified his best friend's husband.” "`Sean isn't angry at me,'” Burgoyne assured Levin, “'I saw them last week and he hugged me. How can they do this?'" It was Sean Penn, in fact, according to Madonna biographer, J. Randy Taraborrelli, who traveled to Mexico at Madonna’s behest to obtained experimental drugs they hoped would prolong Burgoyne's life. By October, however, he was too sick with "cancer," Warhol wrote in his diary, to attend Kenny Scharf's Halloween party with Warhol. On November tenth, Madonna appeared in an auction at Barney's in which denim jackets designed by various artists and modeled by various celebrities were sold to raise money for St. Vincent's AIDS ward. The model, Iman, wore a jacket designed by Keith Haring; Madonna wore a jacket designed by Martin Burgoyne who was, himself, receiving treatment at St. Vincent’s. "I had a dream last night," Burgoyne told Vanity Fair two weeks before his death, "that I went to the art-supply store and there were so many things I wanted. But I couldn’t have any of them. All I want to do is work, work, work," he said, "And I can’t, can’t, can’t."Before 1980, there were fifteen AIDS-related deaths in NYC; by 1981 there were seventy-four AIDS related deaths when The New York Times reported on page twenty that year about a "rare cancer" afflicting gay men. In 1982, there were two hundred and seventy-six AIDS deaths and eight hundred and sixty-four AIDS deaths the following year. "Health Chief Calls AIDS Battle 'No. 1 Priority'," read a headline in the New York Times on May 24, 1983—the first time AIDS made the front page of the paper. By 1984 there were one thousand nine hundred and sixty AIDS deaths in New York City and by 1985 the number of deaths doubled. President Ronald Reagan, in a response to questions at the National Institute of Health that year, mentioned AIDS publicly for the first time, stating that he did not think children with AIDS should be allowed to attend school until it was certain the virus could not be passed by casual contact. He did not mention the epidemic publicly again until 1987. By 1986 there were six thousand four hundred and fifty-eight AIDS deaths in New York City alone. Martin Burgoyne died on November 30th, 1986. He was twenty-three years old.

#Martin Burgoyne #Madonna #Keith Haring #Marcus Leatherdale #New York #1980's #East Village #New Wave #No Wave

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littlecafe · 5 years ago

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Hi! If you have time, could you make a sun pisces, moon scorpio, rising gemini playlist? 🙈😊

hello anon thank you for your request!! you were the only one that asked for 3 signs and it was interesting to try and make this, i posted it yesterday night~

i won’t go into too much depth on each individual sign here in this post since i’ve already talked about scorpio and gemini as individual signs if you want to read about them in more detail (albeit in a more sun sign way, the signs do come across slightly different for moons and risings and of course for other planets as well)

i have no done pisces sun yet but a few of the playlists do have pisces placements so i’ve briefly talked about that also, mainly tapping into the pisces intuitive sense, creative and dreamy sides

what i will try and talk about here is the group of signs together and how they might interact and how i tried to display that in the playlist, i’ll be referencing what i’ve said before as well from the posts i linked so yes here we go!!

pisces and scorpio being both water really gives a lot of intuitive sense and emotions at the core (sun and moon) but they’re masked by the more playful nature of gemini, pisces and scorpio as signs also tend to want to lay low while gemini wants to talk and explore so there is that constant push and pull of energies, there is a chance to fall into a more imaginary state of living especially if they are away from people and reality for too long

this combo also seems very creative, smart and quick as pisces and gemini are both mutable signs, really adaptable to circumstances even with the fixed moon

i mention that i accidentally made the playlist too sad and i think that was because i was too fixated on the darker side of pisces, since paired with a scorpio moon i thought maybe there’s a possibility of that coming out more? but i feel like i just completely lost my balance since i want the playlists to convey more of a neutral stance

for the playlist, i did still keep a more water baseline with the fun air energy weaved in....i have no idea if that makes sense but basically my key for this playlist:

pisces: dreamy aspects in sound or lyrics, if i’m being honest pisces in this playlist is mostly blurred and mixed into scorpio or gemini, oddly that ends up matching the sign due to pisces’ fluid nature to adapt and fit in no matter where

scorpio: bass, darker, heavier sound (heavy like the feeling of being in humid weather), definitely brings the overall energy of the playlist down compared to if i were to only do pisces & gemini

gemini: fun/interesting melody or instrumental, lighter airy sound, rap or repetition/layering to convey the talkative nature of the sign

so now that we’ve laid that out, let’s talk more about individual songs and you can match it up the sounds to my key!! first off, au revoir by glen check, the song that starts the playlist and i wanted this song in there specifically because of their remake of it for their dingo x nike live, the original (one in the playlist) is more of a gemini/pisces energy while their remake you can feel the addition of scorpio energy added in so i really wanted to show the difference between the two and the change in mood

famous by taemin, in my opinion, was the best match i could find that balances all 3 signs very well! you can still feel the quirky gemini air peaking through even with the heavy bass and similarly, i can’t stand the rain by superm also manages to show this dynamic well and adds the push and pull factor i mentioned above since the song itself is also like that

twenty-three by iu is a good combo of pisces/gemini, lyrically and music video wise, as it depicts the struggle of adulthood and also talks about her public image, people’s judgmental perception of her (”being seen through the sunglasses, i’m used to it now”) i think some pisces can relate to her troubles as well with people forcing their own perceptions of you onto yourself

zgzg by saay, martini blue by dpr live, ride on the wind by kard are all examples of more gemini influence than scorpio, very fun and with ride on the wind almost losing the scoprio sound completely! it showcases a light airy sound coming from the collab of good air and good water energy

i also tried to layout the playlist to have heavier scorpio influences felt towards the end to emulate when your moon sign can be felt most and that’s when you are comfortable or at night after a long day and you sit alone thinking to yourself, so the last 5 songs on the playlist is where you can feel the whimsical fun air dampen down, i think you can hear this well in mong by lim kim, as well as in her lyrics: “i’m in heaven up above.....suddenly, i’m feeling cold heart, i'm sinking”

lastly, the final song on the playlist, ana by loopy is definitely a darker place than the rest of the playlist, it talks about the struggles of depression and thoughts of being not good enough for those you love (if you’re very sensitive to this topic i’d say to steer clear of this song), very pisces/scorpio lyrically coming across more gemini/pisces musically

i hope i made some sense here, i knew it would be more complicated since this is my first 3 sign playlist so i wrote out a key this time so you can see (and then hear once you listen to the playlist) what elements i was looking for in music

ok!! finally my fun “what artist did i think of for your sign?”, honestly much more complicated because (again) this was 3 signs so i thought more towards a genre at first which is psychedelic rock (dreamy, airy, dark checks all the marks) and i did have a band i thought of and listened to a lot but i found out the singer has said some problematic things in the past (3? 4? years ago) so i’m not going to link them, if you’d like you can google it yourself and come to your own conclusions whether or not you’d like to listen to them but they’re called thornapple

so instead of them i’d like to recommend another! her mv is what i used for the image of the playlist (i think the video suits these signs well) and her name is airy, she is a new artist that also utilizes this style of music~ because she is new she doesn’t have many songs yet but according to her interview here, she will be releasing new music this year so look out for that if you enjoy her style C:

#if i have typos i am so sorry #every time when i'm typing this i just think 'oh i'm not writing as much this time'#and then when i'm done i scroll up to this huge wall of text that i just spewed out like oh #for the graphic i didn't even have to change much i think it matches so well with the signs ;u;#busy dreamy kinda hard to read that was what i was going for visually for the graphics #Anonymous

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obtusemedia · 5 years ago

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The best songs of the 2010s: #100-76

Happy 2020! Now that the previous decade has finally finished, it’s time to commemorate the 2010s. The decade in which I grew from an awkward teen to an awkward adult. And a decade with a ton of great music. Let’s dive right in: these are my 100 favorite songs of the 2010s.

#100: “Monopoly” by Danny Brown (2011)

Danny Brown is so delightfully grimy. He’s like a cartoon sewer rat come to life, rapping about pills and making hilariously crude jokes. In an anti-drug PSA, he’d be the sketchy weirdo trying to get a kid hooked on bath salts or whatever. And for a quick shot of his non-replicable style, it’s hard to do better than “Monopoly.”

Rapping over a glitchy, menacing beat with his trademark squawk, Brown lands oddball punchline after oddball punchline. In a span of less than 3 minutes, he threatens to defecate on your tape (and he has to clarify that too — “No, literally, shit all on your mixtape”), compares himself to Ferris Bueller sipping wine coolers and then closes his track by describing a woman’s vagina as “smellin’ like cool ranch Doritos.” And that last insult is the perfect distillation of Brown: the Adult Swim of rap. But much smarter than that would imply.

#99: “Shutdown” by Skepta (2015)

At the 2015 BRIT Awards, Kanye West performed “All Day” with a massive crowd of grime artists on stage, all in black, with flamethrowers shooting fire into the sky.

Four days after the performance, Skepta — one of the artists on stage with Kanye — released “Shutdown.” It’s a much more fitting song for the intimidating, energized and proudly British crowd of MCs than a middling Kanye non-album cut.

“Shutdown” is the kind of song a rapper releases when they’re at the peak of their powers. Skepta was absolutely at that point in 2015, and so his finest single sounds like a coronation. His gruff delivery isn’t too loud, but it’s firm and confident. He knew he was the best MC in Britain, and “Shutdown” cemented that status.

#98: “Amor Fati” by Washed Out (2011)

Washed Out was one of the brightest voices in the turn-of-the-decade chillwave movement, and with cuts like “Amor Fati,” it’s not hard to see why.

The big single off his debut, “Amor Fati” gives you a similar sensation as taking a shower: Pure bliss and warmth cascade around you. It’s a bit repetitive, but the song is clearly meant to set a mood more than anything else, so that’s excusable. If you need an entry point into chillwave, you can’t do much better than this.

#97: “Los Ageless” by St. Vincent (2017)

St. Vincent’s trajectory this decade took her from an art-pop weirdo who collaborates with David Byrne to a more mainstream art-pop weirdo who collaborates with Taylor Swift. But in that process, Annie Clark was able to pull her sharpest hooks out and put them in use in deceptively dark songs like “Los Ageless.”

With its sleek new wave production from Jack Antonoff, “Los Ageless” could’ve easily fit on most pop records. But Clark’s atonal, shrill guitar bursts and increasingly disturbing lyrics differentiate it. The song’s themes gradually shift from “lol Los Angeles is fake and plastic” to something more tragic. The desperate (in a good way) chorus says it all: “How could anybody have you and lose you/And not lose their minds too?”

#96: “I Like It” by Enrique Iglesias feat. Pitbull (2010)

I’m aware how ridiculous putting “I Like It” — a disposable, trashy club pop hit most people might not remember — on this list. Admitting I that I love this song probably guarantees that I’ll never get a job at Pitchfork.

But then those fuzzy, cheap synths come crashing in. And Enrique Iglesias sings his sleazy come-ons in an auto-tune slurry. And Pitbull delivers a gloriously ridiculous, very-2010 verse that references both the Tiger Woods cheating scandal AND the Obamas (along with gratuitous Spanish and a Miami shoutout). And then there’s the final touch: a prominent sample of Lionel Richie’s cheeseball classic “All Night Long.” It’s too much to resist.

What can I say? “I Like It” hits all the pleasure centers (including nostalgia, seeing as it came out in the middle of my high school tenure) in my brain. It’s a beautifully stupid, hedonistic highlight of the 2009-12 pop golden age.

#95: “The Wire” by HAIM (2013)

Retro-pop standard bearers HAIM had plenty of great singles this decade. But one of their first, the groovy breakup anthem “The Wire,” is still their best.

Unlike many most breakup anthems, which tend to be wildly emotional, “The Wire” is matter-of-fact. The relationship simply isn’t working, and it’s time to end it. That’s that. You’re going to be okay.

The verging-on-curt lyrics mixed with the Haim sisters’ groovy early ‘80s rhythm makes for a pop jam that’s perfect for any “It’s not you, it’s me” moment in your life.

#94: “Helena Beat” by Foster The People (2011)

I know they represent the mainstream selling-out moment of the magical late-’00s MGMT/Passion Pit/Phoenix moment, but I have a soft spot for Foster The People. Their debut album, Torches, might not have much indie cred, but it’s all-killer-no-filler and stuffed with monster hooks. And despite “Pumped Up Kicks” being the big hit, I’ve always preferred the album’s opening track, “Helena Beat.”

With its shuffling disco beat and Mark Foster’s piercing falsetto, “Helena Beat” is likely about as close as alt-rock ever got to the Bee Gees. The lyrics, which tackle addiction, are much darker than “Staying Alive,” but it’s got a similar sense of propulsion.

And let’s not forget — Foster wrote jingles before starting a band, so he can get melodies stuck in your head. And once you’ve heard “Helena Beat,” good luck getting it unstuck.

#93: “Redbone” by Childish Gambino (2016)

“Redbone” might be the smoothest R&B cut on this list. Which is why the song’s sense of dread and paranoia makes it stand out.

Donald Glover’s scratchy, passionate falsetto isn’t conventionally pretty, but it works well while singing about some unknown boogieman who’s “creeping.” That’s why “Redbone” was a perfect fit for Get Out, because of its lurking dread underneath the comfortable exterior. This is the song that cemented Glover as being a true renaissance man, rather than an actor with a weird musical side project.

(of course, this still isn’t Glover’s greatest musical contribution — that would be the iconic “Troy and Abed in the Morning” jingle. Especially the night variant.)

#92: “Do You” by Spoon (2014)

Spoon has been America’s most consistently great rock band for the past two decade now. Even calling them “consistent” is practically a cliché.

So all you need to know about “Do You” is that it’s another solid Spoon song in a vast catalog of Spoon songs. Lead singer Britt Daniel is still effortlessly cool, the guitar-driven groove is simple and it all goes down easy. By 2014, Spoon had nothing left to prove, except how long they could keep up their streak.

#91: “I’m Not Part of Me” by Cloud Nothings (2014)

Cloud Nothings’ finest moment is four and a half minutes of pure angst and crunchy guitars. Squint hard enough, and “I’m Not Part of Me” is one of the closest approximations to ‘90s alt-rock. And while the Ohio band isn’t necessarily reinventing the wheel here, refining what made past music so great can be just as effective.

#90: “Hello” by Adele (2015)

Despite only releasing two albums this decade, Adele casts a major shadow over the 2010s. Although I find both those records to be a little on the bland side, there’s a reason she was/is a juggernaut. And the example of her prowess is “Hello.”

“Hello” has everything you’d want in an Adele song: It’s about not getting over a breakup, a very relatable topic, and Adele gets to show off her cannon of a voice. But it also has a secret weapon compared to other Adele ballads: ‘80s power-ballad production! The bombastic chorus has more in common with Heart’s “Alone” than any of Adele’s previous hits, and it’s a perfect accompaniment to one of the decade’s most melodramatic singles.

#89: “Slumlord” by Neon Indian (2015)

Despite putting out two essentially perfect albums this decade, Neon Indian’s mastermind, Alan Palomo, doesn’t really have that one mind-melting single. Yes, “Polish Girl” was a decent-sized indie hit, but it’s nowhere near his best.

But “Slumlord” comes damn close to perfection. It’s not quite as heavy on the melted-VCR aesthetic of other songs on Palomo’s best album, Vega INTL. Night School, but it makes up for that with an irrepressible ‘80s techno groove. “Slumlord” is one of those songs that could ride its beat forever — and it kind of does, with the “Slumlord’s Re-lease” coda following it on the album. It’s a nocturnal synthpop jam that even those allergic to keyboards couldn’t resist.

#88: “The Bay” by Metronomy (2011)

While most synth-weilding indie acts were trying to ape MGMT’s high-pitched fever dreams in the early ‘10s, Metronomy decided on a different, sleeker path with their 2011 album The English Riviera. That album’s best single, “The Bay,” is an immaculate blend of silky smooth yacht rock and nervy, tense new wave. Those two opposite styles shouldn’t work together, but Metronomy managed to pull it off regardless, creating the perfect beach anthem for awkward hipster Brits.

#87: “bad guy” by Billie Eilish (2019)

I expect the 17-year-old Eilish will likely be remembered more as an icon of the 2020s than the 2010s, as she has a long and promising career ahead of her. It’s like how Lady Gaga is much more of a figure of this decade, despite her earliest hits arriving in 2009. But “bad guy” — the kind of left-field, innovative pop single that signals a new era — came out in 2019. And it’s too damn weird, catchy and just plain fun to leave off this list.

#86: “Latch” by Disclosure feat. Sam Smith (2012)

It’s a bummer that Sam Smith turned out to be such a bore, because “Latch” — his introduction to the world — is pure electricity.

Smith and fellow Brits Disclosure, who provide the pulsating, sensual production, were a dream team on “Latch.” All Disclosure needed to do was give Smith plenty of room to unleash his golden pipes, complete with a few futuristic touches. Smith delivered on his end, proving his worth as one of the best vocalists for conveying drama on the dancefloor.

#85: “Need You Now” by Cut Copy (2011)

No, it’s not a cover of the Lady Antebellum hit of the same name.

There were plenty of ‘80s-inspired epic synthpop bangers this decade; some groups made their entire careers off of them. But what sets Cut Copy’s “Need You Now” above the rest is its sense of patience. It’s an incredibly slow burner, building the tension with a thumping beat and calm vocals until it all explodes with a dazzling climax nearly 5 minutes in. Af that moment, the Aussies fulfill their promise with a euphoric release of synths and thundering drums.

It’s not a complicated concept for a song, but Cut Copy executed it perfectly.

#84: “The Mother We Share” by CHVRCHES (2013)

Glasgow new wave trio CHVRCHES never really lived up to their promising 2013 debut album, which opened with the anthemic “The Mother We Share.” But man, what a way to start a career.

"The Mother We Share” is all icy synths and furious drum machines, the sounds bouncing off each other like a hall of mirrors. And lead singer Lauren Mayberry’s quiet but confident vocals add the necessary human touch, conveying a tragic feel to the song’s triumphant chorus.

#83: “Night Shift” by Lucy Dacus (2018)

One of the most ferocious, biting breakup songs of the decade, “Night Shift” is a showcase for Lucy Dacus’ vivid storytelling. The Virginia singer-songwriter spends the first half the song setting the scene of a crappy ex trying to halfway make amends, while Dacus’ character holds herself back from lashing out. She saves the visceral emotion for the second half, when the grungy guitars kick in and Dacus lets out a wounded howl, proudly stating that “I’ll never see you again/If I can help it.” “Night Shift” is a tour de force of indie rock songwriting that rewards patience.

#82: “Round and Round” by Ariel Pink (2010)

Much of indie-rock trickster Ariel Pink is a little too jokey and off-putting for my taste. But on his defining single “Round and Round,” he sprinkled in just the right touch of weirdness into a song that otherwise could’ve been a massive easy-listening hit in 1980.

The quirks throughout “Round and Round” — the woozy, off-kilter production, the lyrics that seemingly make no sense, Pink answering his phone in the middle of the song — are enjoyable. But the song’s true strength is in its chorus: a sudden punch of roller-disco AM-lite harmonies that cut through all the song’s oddities. It’s a double-shot of warmth and nostalgic beauty that feels comfortingly familiar, yet still thrilling.

Pink seemed to know the chorus was the key to “Round and Round,” as he makes the listener wait nearly two minutes for it. But its inevitable release is a truly magical moment.

#81: “4th of July, Philadelphia (SANDY)” by Cymbals Eat Guitars (2016)

Heavily referencing an early Bruce Springsteen classic in the title of a song that sounds nothing like Springsteen is quite the flex. But New Jersey indie-rockers Cymbals Eat Guitars pulled it off regardless.

“4th of July” is a clanging, anthemic scuzz-rock track about going through an existential crisis in the middle of Independence Day. While everyone else is making plans for the holiday, lead singer and guitarist Joseph D’Agostino is howling away, “HOW MANY UNIVERSES AM I ALIVE AND DEAD IN?!?” It’s one of the hardest-rocking mental breakdowns put on record this decade.

#80: “I Like It” by Cardi B, Bad Bunny and J Balvin (2018)

Rapping over extremely-obvious samples has been a time-honored tradition in hip-hop, from the Beastie Boys trading verses over The Beatles to Puff Daddy jacking the chorus from one ‘80s hit and the beat from another in the same song.

But Cardi B, and reggaeton superstars Bad Bunny and J Balvin sampling the boogaloo classic “I Like It Like That” was an inspired choice. The trio’s verses are all delicious fun, whether they’re bragging about eating halal in a Lamborghini or referencing a classic Lady Gaga hit.

But that sample, combined with a trap beat and Cardi’s swaggering charisma powering the chorus, is what makes “I Like It” a classic.

#79: “Sign of the Times” by Harry Styles (2017)

Most former boy band members aim for a grown-and-sexy pop anthem once they go solo, whether its Jordan Knight, Justin Timberlake or Zayn Malik. But the standout member of the 2010s’ standout boy band, Harry Styles, chose took a sharp left turn into melodramatic classic rock instead. And it was a brilliant decision.

"Sign of the Times” is about as close to a classic Beatles or Queen power ballad we got this decade, with its clanging Western guitars, lush strings and thundering drum fills. Styles doesn’t have Freddie Mercury’s gravity-defying vocals, but his immense charisma powers the song anyways. It’s not 100% clear what “Sign of the Times” is about, but with its cinematic scope and cryptic lyrics, it’s likely about the apocalypse. And there’s not many superior songs to cry to while the bombs fall.

#78: “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn (2010)

The ultimate crying-on-the-dancefloor anthem, “Dancing On My Own” has already become a standard.

But Swedish alt-pop icon Robyn’s combination of icy synths and heartbroken, jealous lyrics can’t be replicated. Just ask Calum Scott, who slowed down the track into mushy, piano-ballad goop. Yikes.

What makes “Dancing On My Own” brilliant is its resiliency. It’s not a mopey song — Robyn is defiantly still grooving despite her crushed feelings. It’s a siren call for all those who have been hurt and know the only proper way to work out their emotions through cathartic dancing.

#77: “Trap Queen” by Fetty Wap (2015)

“Trap Queen” is an incredibly fun hip-hop banger, but I don’t think I can extoll its virtues quite as well as Fetty Wap’s hype man at the end of the track. So I’ll let him speak:

“YOU HEAR MY BOY SOUNDIN’ LIKE A ZILLION BUCKS ON THE TRACK?! I GOT WHATEVER ON MY BOY!!”

Amen. It’s a real shame Fetty wasn’t able to keep his momentum rolling past a big 2015, but at least we’ll always have the magic dying-walrus energy of “Trap Queen.” HEY WHAT’S UP HELLOOOOO

#75: “R U Mine?” by Arctic Monkeys (2012)

"R U Mine?” offers Arctic Monkeys fans the best of both worlds. On one hand, you have their AM-era slinky swagger. But it also retains the furious rock-n-roll energy of their early days.

Alex Turner sounds like a smooth-talkin’ cowboy here, but the music is anything but smooth. It hits like a semi-truck, with a calvary-charge guitar riff and so many thunderous drum fills you’d think you were listening to the E Street Band.

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zaynmalikupdates · 6 years ago

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Zayn defines himself as an artist in solid sophomore album ‘Icarus Falls’

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2018 BY SALEM SULAIMAN

Grade: 3.5/5

After a hiatus of nearly three years, Zayn’s long-awaited sophomore album, Icarus Falls, has arrived and has shown a more mature side of the artist to his fans.

After leaving the immensely popular boy band, One Direction, in 2015, Zayn’s fate was uncertain — many questioned whether he had the talent and appeal to be successful as a solo artist. The release of Zayn’s debut album, Mind of Mine, a year later, was the introduction of a new, sulky R&B persona. Its sultry songs were a turn away from the fun and upbeat music of One Direction and marked the beginning of a new, rebellious image for the pop star. Mind of Mine fared well with fans and was relatively critically successful, but it wasn’t enough to solidify his personality as an artist and a public figure.

With Icarus Falls, however, Zayn does this successfully. Through his exploration of different styles and a simultaneously overarching and cohesive mood, Zayn creates a solid album that helps define his style and personality as a brooding and enigmatic pop star with R&B tendencies. Like his last album, Icarus Falls presents a consistent selection of R&B tracks and incorporates enjoyable pop moments that create a sense of balance throughout the album.

The album is 27 tracks long — a length that is daunting at first but seems to work considering its organization. It’s divided into two parts, with the first half being full of head-in-the-clouds romance and the second exploring the artist’s battles with fame and relationship issues. The album’s two sections are separated by “Icarus Interlude,” a moody midpoint that marks the transition and exacerbates the contrast between the first and second halves.

Icarus Falls begins with 12 love songs that dance between R&B and pop. The romantic first track, “Let Me,” sets the tone well: Its acoustic instrumentals and R&B rhythm complement Zayn’s smooth voice as he lovingly propositions, “baby let me be your man, so I can love you.” The album continues with several other serenades, from the more upbeat pop song “Imprint” to the slow and dreamy “Stand Still.” “There You Are” stands out as a classic boyband moment, while “I Don’t Mind” incorporates experimental vocal moments and fun background beats. That being said, Zayn plays it safe and falls a little flat on songs such as “If I Got You” and “Talk to Me.” They aren’t weak songs, but the beats feel repetitive, making them seem like unnecessary additions.

After this comes the slow and sulky “Icarus Interlude,” the point at which the album turns away from sweet romance and explores darker themes. Sampling the guitar of Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang,” Zayn shines in “Good Guy” as he claims, “don’t you fall for me girl, I’m not the right kind.” Other highlights include the electric guitar-backed “Sour Diesel” and the sultry “All That.” In “Good Years,” Zayn details his anxieties surrounding life in the spotlight, followed by his equally honest expression of romantic hopelessness in “Insomnia.” While the songs in the second half are more brooding in general, it has its fun and catchy moments — “Rainberry” and “Entertainer” are notable additions that lighten the mood and add an upbeat note to a largely dark collection of songs. The album’s second half as a whole is sincere and raw, and its assortment of R&B beats and classic cadences make it an enjoyable selection that does its job well.

The album’s drawn-out length — it runs at an hour and 29 minutes — is more of a minor pitfall than an outright failure. While the length makes sense considering the double-album structure, it still feels tedious at times. But the addition of experimental tracks such as “Good Guy” alleviates this drawback and keeps things interesting.

Icarus Falls is a solid moment in the development of Zayn’s public persona and style as an artist. Though the album can feel too long and tends to fall flat at times because of its repetitiveness, the decent amount of explorative material and well-thought-out structure make up for it in part. With a balance between consistency and an exciting novelty, the album is an enjoyable listen and solidifies Zayn as a music industry and pop culture star.

(via The Daily Californian)

#zayn malik #online article #review #icarus falls #the daily californian #10.19.18

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thatswhenyourefrom · 6 years ago

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Cotton teeth - the snake the cross the crown

My freshman year of high school was a highly formative time in finding music. I completely understood what a record label did. Less on day-to-day business type of way and on more of a curation level. I understood that record labels exist as touchstone for a scene or a style of music. You could regularly find new artists by simply going to the website for the record label of a band that you currently like, look at the roster, and bam, you’re full up on new music. Hit one of those band names into Limewire or PureVolume, and you’re rolling. This is exactly the method I used to stumble upon The Snake, The Cross, The Crown.

It was kind of undeniable that in the mid-2000’s, there was a scene that existed that was all about screaming and teens with bangs in their face. [Call it emo, screamo, i don’t care. It’s hyper timely and that scene as a whole is long out of style. But that’s okay. If you like it, enjoy it. It rocks it’s exciting.] Plenty of these bands landed on the same few record labels like Victory and Equal Vision, to name a few. I would scroll through websites and just listen and try to find something that spoke to me. Every once in a while, I’d find something that I liked, but usually it would be more of the same. I was sitting in an echo chamber of the scene. Occasionally there would be a weird signing that would be vastly different than everything else on the label. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. When I got to the S’s on the Equal Vision page, I found the band with the long name and their song “Empires”. And I was captured.

The song is twangy and dark. I thought it a good skateboarding song for some reason. (I made a skate video for a high school video project and this was the song. Also looking back, this is not at all a good skate song.) The song offered a perfect bridge into the folk music I would learn to like. The singer croons over a guitar that is slow, but carries momentum. Not sad or desperate; just sentimental. (I wish I could speak on this lyrics in the song, but even after a decade of knowing this song, I have no clue what they are or what they are about.)

For a year or two, I kept this single song on my MP3 players (not always iPods in my day). This was another band I was afraid to venture into in the event that the rest of their music was not very good. I was afraid of shattering my perception of something I held so true to myself. This song lasted as such for a long time, until one night I realized i was a glutton for punishment. I went to the band’s PureVolume page and found another song on the page; “The Sun Tells the Moon”. I genuinely stared at the computer screen for minutes contemplating clicking play or not. Finally, i decided to tempt fate, convincing myself that if it was something I didn’t like I would call myself a glutton for punishment. I clicked play and a kick drum started a tempo, and when the singer rolls in with a high pitch, pulled back wail, I knew I had another song to add to my list.

I was in love. “The Sun Tells the Moon” is a much bigger aggressive song than “Empires” but still not angry like one would expect from mid-2000’s Equal Vision band. At this point, I knew I needed more. I’m two for two. Let’s go. So I found more. I tried two songs that are the two most folky songs from the album, “A Brief Intermission” and “On The Threshold of Eternity.” These two songs clicked with me.

“On The Threshold of Eternity” is a great song with Beatles-esque vocals. Constant acoustic guitar strums keep the song going. The song I take to be about standing in the front of existence trying to make sense of “why am I here”. (Personal interpretation) This is a huge concept to bring into a little folk song. “A Brief Intermission” is a much more folky, storytelling song, but a sorrowful one of a family splintering and a son (child) not really understanding what is going on. Beautiful songs that kept me hooked for years.

It’s not a big secret that I am a fan of The Early November and thus, the lead singer Ace Enders. Once upon a time, he went on tour with The Color Fred (Fred mascharino of Taking Back Sunday) and Craig Owns (Chiodos, Cinematic Sunrise, a million other bands). Mike and I went to go to this show at The Pike Room in Pontiac to see Ace Enders and no one else really, but what we did not know was that Enders dropped off the tour right before hitting Michigan. We go to the show, he’s not there, we are bummed. Trying to find th best in a bad situations, the best part of the night was actually that a local band called The Silent Years opening the show, but that’s another story for another time. After the show, broken hearted, we tried to get as much cheap merch as possible. I bought a Color Fred EP on CD and got an Equal Vision sampler from Craig’s table. You know how car rides home from shows go; you look for something to listen to on the way home, so you grab your new merch and put in the sampler. I saw that there was a TSTCTC song on this sampler that I have never heard. A new song. This song changed my life.

In the rough of young people expelling feelings about girls and being a teen, there’s a gem of a folk song on this sampler that starts off with a deep folky voice that goes “Well if both of these horses just lay up and die…” It starts off with voice and an acoustic guitar. It tells you a story. It’s a father. A song about a dying man (possibly from war) who, as he realized death is upon him, is sharing an ethereal experience with this loves and family in understanding his own passing (personal interpretation). The song walks you through this story and is peppered with explosions of full band performance. After the first explosion, we ease back into more story from dad. It heaves and ho’s until it ho’s on a story beat about everyone coming to terms with the passing and then builds into death catching up to the man. At this point, the song crascendoes into a partial repeat of the first verse and a brand new verse crossing and complementing each other in a loud, open, cohesive mass of music. The song is a masterpiece.

There are more to come.

I believed this song fully. I didn’t change any paths to go get this cd, but I always looked for it when I went cd shopping. Not long after hearing that song, I was at FYE at Great Lakes Crossing, back when it was large enough to cut through the middle of the mall. [Side note, this was a heaven. Such a beautiful place for media. Second and Charles is a spiritual successor.] While flipping through the S’s, i saw a whole divider for The Snake The Cross The Crown. This blew my mind enough. Seeing the new CD, “Cotton Teeth”, blew what was left. Literally the only Equal Vision release with that comes with a sticker on the front to tell you to listen if you’re a fan of The Band. Could anyone ever imagine that? Incredible. I remember telling my dad this is the CD i wanted and he looked that the recommendations sticker, and gave out a little chuckle. He is a fan of The Band. (We are a fan of The Band.) I bought the CD and was so excited to listen to it. Pop it in and guess what: all folk.

“Cakewalk” starts the album with some slow guitar plucking and the singer letting out a direct song about wanting to play music forever (keep this in your pocket). “I want to live on a stage. I want to play the guitar. And I wanna get paid.” All of the lyrics. So simple beautiful. The song starts lonesome and grows into a full band performance with a great drum pattern that includes the whole band. This song is to sing along to. The next song “The Great American Smokeout” reminds me of a campfire song. It sings along in such a fun foot-tapping way, but also has it’s own personal progression. Throughout the song, it sets up patterns and changes them up to keep the song exciting. It would still be fulfilling even it just played through, but the dynamics are so enjoyable. Track three, “Gypsy Melodies” is the usual one you show people when you introduce this band. Again, feels like a campfire song or a road song. Take your pick. I heard the song on a rainy day. I was at Mike’s house once and I showed him this song on a rainy day where we were inside playing cards and when I heard the song I thought “this is it; this is how this song is meant to be experience.” The title track continues the folk tradition set by the last songs. Songs about or at least from the perspective of families. This song is much more involved from the full band. Slide guitars and bass right from the beginning of the song, all the way into the finale with guitar solos and the whole lot. An amazing continuation. “Electronic Dream Plant” is not a song I was prepared for.

Track five is a seven minute epic that lands every beat it tries. It starts off with a piano. The singer comes in and softly calls over the keys. Drums and harmonies build the song more. By the second verse, guitars, bass and drums are singing along with the singer. After the second verse, you know this song is going to get huge. A reverb laden guitar solo, cooling you down with the melody of the verse three. The rest of the song builds on what is established and tells the love “I don’t want to go without you so I just wanna go with piece of mind.” Then tells them “Save your sorrow.” The song plays out and gets larger and bigger and maintains beauty. Never abrasive. A masterpiece in my own opinion. (There’s some “na-na-na’s” at the end that tend to remind the listener of The Band’s “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down.”)

Track six is the aforementioned “Behold the River”. Name another album that has two massive masterpieces in a row. We then go to “Hey Jim”; a darker, guitar rock song. I have no interpretation on what the song is about, but it feels like a night drive through the south. There’s these beautiful glowing keyboard sections. After the first verse, they emanate sound. As per usual, they know how to crescendo. This band knows how to write an amazing melody to repeat and keep on. If this crescendo doesn’t get stuck in your head, you don’t have a head. “Floating In And Out” sounds like it comes from the progressive era of Mander Salis, but also tends to transcend that this album. The song has this incredible section where it stops and starts a new drum pattern that the singer sings over. “Maps” is a fan favorite. This song epitomizes the entire album. Family perspective. Growth into a crescendo. No matter how you look at this song, it’s powerful. This song sounds like less of a story though. It feels like it’s personal. And it cuts the same way. The last song is a song that still dumbfounds me but I never skip it. “Back to the Helicopter” is a noisy experimental finale. But it still feels like the band. It’s like they sucked out all of the beauty and story from the first nine tracks and were left with this Eraserhead-like fetus that was birthed of the band. It has power. Aggression. But it’s a bastard of everything from “Cotton Teeth”. Oddly beautiful.

I bought this CD in 2008. I still hold this CD very close to my heart a decade later. It is one of the few CD’s that stays in my car. The real shame of this album is that it doesn’t know where it belongs. Certainly not with Equal Vision. It belongs with me. But everyone I’ve shared this album with doesn’t feel a thing. I have an intense connection with this entity and I want the world to know but they ignore it. Imagine if it were a person. I am annoyed.

I gave up trying to share it years ago, but instead let it be my friend. I sing with it in the car. I lay down with it. I spend time with it. It’s my imaginary friend.

The band would continue to have one more release in 2009, but not a standard album. A documentary.

In 2009, the band was the subject of a documentary called “On A Carousel of Sound, We Go ‘Round”. The film documents the band on tour (if I recall with mewithoutyou and Manchester Orchestra; an insane tour), playing live songs in different places, and an set of entirely new songs which comprise the album of the same name. [You can see this release as a doc with a soundtrack or a new album with a documentary.] In the documentary the band plays these songs with such emotion and power in such an intimate way. Once you know the songs, you need to see the documentary. The band also speaks out on being where they are in life without ever really making it (again maybe because of the market) and how difficult it is to be touring. I ‘m really left with the sense that there was a bit of defeat from this group. And I do not blame them. I have tried to vouch for them.

Since the release of “On A Carousel of Sound….” the band has gone quiet. They have not released a lick of music or any update since then. They have disappeared. They are ghosts. But what they have left me is a brother. If it is a ghost, they still haunt me and always will. “Cotton Teeth” is baked into me. Without it, I would never have found the love for The Band, Songs: Ohia,Right Away! Great Captain, Townes Van Zant, and many others that I can call folk. I will celebrate this album forever, even if it is only ever me and him celebrating.

#by luke #r

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colombia-chan · 6 years ago

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My Candy Love 30 Day Facts Pt. 10

Although Evie’s taste in music, movies, cartoons, anime, books, manga’s, tv shows, and games varies she does have certain genres she prefers best in certain things.

Video games- She prefers games with choice systems, romance options, and story elements, RPG style games, rhythm games, and visual novel based games. So most otome games, Persona games, bioware games, and dancing/music based games, with the harvest moon and rune factory series on the side... and sims who could forget the sims.

Cartoons- They can’t be simple turn your brain off shows, she likes cartoons that don’t talk down to their older and younger audiences. So think Steven universe, Avatar the last Airbender, Gravity Falls, and Star vs the forces of evil

Anime- Same as the before, though she tends to enjoy the random comedies and darker genres the best, and by darker its mostly shows that make you think. Her favorite changes all the time but Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, and FLCL are the ones that never change

Music- Jumps all over the place, like her J-pop more the K though, she really likes the rock and electric genre, though a favorite bands goes between Queen, Linkin Park, Skillet, Pink, Katty Perry, Twenty-one-pilots, to even Daft Punk

Books- same as music, but she tends to enjoy reading more fantasy based things, and actually not a big fan of solely romance focused books. So Harry potter, and a song of ice and fire and the Nancy drew series are main ones she likes.

Tv shows- Not much a live-action show person, the series either has to have really good comedy, good characters, or a compelling plot line to keep her in, just... No soap opera’s she really doesn’t like them. Think the Big Bang theory, Breaking Bad, Z-Nation, House, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and The walking dead as her main sources of live action television viewing. She’ll admit to liking most cooking shows though...

And finally Movies- these vary but she does tend to go more for the feels focused works or paranormal genre, as well as musical based works (though mostly with animated movies)... Except for the Addams Family, that’s her absolute favorite movie of all times and she will enjoy it as much as she damn pleases.

#mcl #my candy love #30 day challenge #my candy love oc #mcl oc #oc #candy #mcl candy #my candy love candy #favorite music #favorite movies #favorite shows #favorite animes #favorite mangas #favorite games #mcl evie #my candy love evie #mclul evie #my candy love university life evie

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jaketheaudiophile · 4 years ago

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Best Albums of 2020

Hello again friends! Another year has passed and therefore it’s time to reflect on the music and art we enjoyed in the past 12 months. Per my annual tradition, I’m dusting off this ol’ blog to write about my favorite albums and songs of a year that will likely live in infamy in the history books. I’m trying to reflect on the positive in both this essay and my personal mindset, so let’s not discuss social distancing or vote counts or contagious viruses or hand sanitizer and instead focus on the things that distracted us or powered us through them in the form of music.

I generally do a personal Top 15, so I decided to stick with that again for this year’s shenanigans. Best songs and potentially another new list idea soon to follow. And, as always, I welcome dissenting votes or other recommendations from those who read and agree and/or disagree.

Let’s do this!

HONORABLE MENTION:

Snooze

“Still” EP

Self-released on November 27

I normally don’t include EPs in my end-of-the-year lists unless I create a separate list devoted just to them, or 2 years ago when my favorite release of the year was an EP (shout out to Invalids). Snooze’s 2019 release “Familiaris” was my favorite album of last year, and this new EP brings a lot of the same energy and sound, but with a much different mood and circumstance. Bassist Cameron Grom tragically passed in 2020 after a lifetime of battling illness, leaving Logan Voss as the primary songwriter and lone consistent band member. Voss partnered with YouTube drum sensation and producer Anup Sastry for “Still”, and the results are certainly massive and memorable. The songs seem to be significantly sadder and more drawn out on “Still” but the circumstances certainly explain these changes. I’m grateful Voss managed to still put something out that is unique and makes me smile even during his heartbreak and struggles, so this EP is definitely still worth mentioning.

#15

Alpha Male Tea Party

“Infinity Stare”

Released December 4 via Big Scary Monsters

Both this album and the Honorable Mention are ranked pretty low on my personal list despite my personal adoration and affinity with each band. This is entirely based on how little of time has elapsed between their release dates and my compilation of this list. With some additional time to listen and process, I might have put them both higher, but without that I’m inclined to still mention them here but can’t in good conscious put them further up the rankings. Similar to Snooze, Britain’s AMTP took a slightly darker, more morose mood into their newest full length, but there’s still enough ass-kicking riffs and grooves to still inspire movement and energy. Bassist Ben Griffiths has come out of the shadows a bit more on this release as well, sharing the spotlight easily with guitarist Tom Peters and proving that he’s better than just holding down the lower notes. This album’s release was also a complete surprise, so kudos to the band for keeping things under wraps and giving fans an nice year-end present.

#14

Elder Brother

“I Won’t Fade On You”

Released October 2nd via Pure Noise Records

Elder Brother has been an object of my adoration for the past few years, but I’ve never been able to fully embrace an album of theirs as a whole. 2020’s release is no exception, unfortunately. They’ve penned some of their best songs to date (such as the gorgeous slow jam, “Projector”) and have expanded their sound with a full backing band. Unfortunately, meandering songs like “Hair” just drag away energy, and the second half of the album really just sort of panders around without resolution. The first half is top notch, but they really end with a whimper instead of a bang. Still, the great songs do shine brightly and warrant this album being included at this spot.

#13.

Jeff Rosenstock

“NO DREAM”

Released May 20 via Polyvinyl Record Co.

Speaking of surprise releases, perennial punk powerhouse Jeff Rosenstock put out “NO DREAM” with no promotion whatsoever. This left fans obviously surprised and that shock was quickly overwhelmed by a super high energy record full of infectious melodies and garage-rock aesthetics. There are a few clunkers but otherwise this is a charming and pleasant listen with some surprisingly deep and brutally honest lyrics and subject matters by Rosenstock. It was also cool to see Jeff get some solid publicity from this record such as an appearance on Late Night with Seth Myers. More attention for musicians like Rosenstock who have clearly put in the hard work is a worthy cause, so props to him and his merry band of misfits.

#12

Knuckle Puck

“20/20″

Released September 18 via Rise Records

Chicagoland’s Knuckle Puck have been one of the more impressively consistent pop/punk bands of recent years. I’ve always admired their skilled dual vocal arrangements, clean-boosted guitar tones and monstrous hooks. I definitely enjoyed this release but I also have a hard time distinguishing a majority of the moments after the record has stopped spinning. When it’s on, it’s pleasant and fun, but I’m hard pressed afterward remembering what songs are on this release and what are on previous years’ albums or singles. More KP music is never a bad thing, but hopefully future releases give them more sticking points.

#11

Unwed Sailor

“Look Alive”

Released July 12 via Current Taste

After over a decade of near-radio silence, Unwed Sailor have come out with guns blazing in the past two years. Johnathan Ford has put together a new band (most recently including longtime Minus The Bear drummer Erin Tate) and has churned out two full-length records in back-to-back years. I personally prefer 2020’s “Look Alive” slightly to 2019’s “Heavy Age” as it feels more of a throwback to the simpler, jammier Unwed Sailor releases of old. The record doesn’t really have any down points but also tends to drift along without a ton of memorable moments, oddly. Still, though, Ford and company seem to be on a torrid pace and I’m all in favor of enjoying the ride.

#10.

August Burns Red

“Guardians”

Released April 3 via Fearless Records

The model of consistency. August Burns Red are a well-oiled machine at this point. Every few years they hunker down in the studio and churn out another genre-setting collection of catchy metalcore songs. Drummer Matt Greiner is the most outstanding on this release (as per usual) with some truly jaw-dropping fills and beats, and the production for this record is top notch as always. It’s sort of hard to explain what’s good about this because it’s anything and everything. You can set your watch to this band and I’m grateful every time I put them on.

#9.

Melted Bodies

“Enjoy Yourself”

Released September 18 via Plastic Smiles

Another year, another band that Anthony Fantano turns me on to makes my AOTY list. The Internet’s Busiest Music Nerd didn’t formally review this album but did say they kicked ass in a “Y U NO REVIEW” segment. After a few moments of listening, I sprung for the album and it completely took over my music library for the past few months. I equate them as a sort of bizzaro hybrid between “Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job” and System of a Down, with Mike Patton-esque vocals, brutal but fun breakdowns, unique electronic elements and overall weirdness. Seemingly containing every genre of music all at once, this album is all over the place in all the best ways. What an amazing debut. It’ll be fun to see where these oddballs go from here.

Beach Comber

“Parting Cuts”

Self-released on April 24

What a fun surprise this record was; in retrospect it feels like that was a recurring theme for bands and artists in 2020. Beach Comber is Rory Friers, riffmaster general from And So I Watch You From Afar. This album doesn’t sound like anything his main group has put out, but instead was meant to be a wedding present for two of Frier’s friends that would never see a mass release. If there’s one good thing that COVID did, it was to encourage Friers to put this out as a pay-what-you-want release to gather some funds in lieu of touring and playing shows. Because of this, we were blessed with a very different but exceptional collection of minimalist, varied low-fi rock. It feels like a lost Anathallo album or Sufjan Stevens b-side collection, and was a welcome breath of happy fresh air.

Hot Mulligan

“You’ll Be Fine”

Released March 6 via No Sleep Records

It feels like every year I’m thanking my buddy Steve Lee on this list for getting me hooked on a quality emo record. He first sent me the incredibly fun video for “*Equip Sunglasses*”, but I wasn’t immediately hooked. I couldn’t quite get into Nathan Sanville’s scream/sing vocal style at first, and thought the band was slightly generic. Still, I found the song getting stuck in my head for roughly the next rest of my life, and eventually checked out the full album, and was pleasantly surprised by the subtly complex intertwining guitar leads and arrangements. Also, kudos to the band for writing pointed and brutally honest lyrics on topics that some bands wouldn’t touch (go read the lyrics for “Digging In”). And yes, Sanville’s vocals eventually ended up really, really growing on me. These young men from Lansing, MI should be proud of themselves for their strong stances and songwriting, and it’ll be fun to see what they put out next.

Man Man

“Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between”

Released May 1st via Sub Pop

After a few years of relative silence, Philly-based weirdos Honus Honus and Man Man gathered up another pile of instruments and multi-instrumentalists, and the result is yet another collection of supremely catchy songs. Longtime fans like me knew what they were getting, but I think this is one of Man Man’s most complete and accessible albums yet, with not a moment wasted or thrown in without thought. There are so many fun little vocal quips (The random “Went straight to voicemail!” in “Goat”; the solo chorus of “Sucking diiiiiiick” in “The Prettiest Song in the World”) that make the listener smile every time. Everything feels planned out and executed flawlessly, which is impressive when each song features several guest musicians (including Rebecca Black!) and a rotating cast of instruments and players. Keep being weird, Man Man. We don’t deserve you.

Protest The Hero

“Palimpsest”

Self-released on June 18

It had been 7 years since Canada’s Protest The Hero put out a full length after leaving the world of record labels and crowdfunding campaigns. It wasn’t without its difficulties, largely due to singer Rody Walker running into vocal issues during recording sessions. Thankfully, he was able to overcome his difficulties and frankly, he killed it. There wasn’t much more life-affirming than hearing him hit ungodly high notes at the end of “From The Sky” and his joy-filled delivery was infectious on every other song. And of course, the rest of the band also fully delivers with their usual technical brand of metal. No complaints at all, hope the next one doesn’t take 7 years to show up.

Caspian

“On Circles”

Released January 24th via Triple Crown Records

I was very excited about this release from basically the end of 2019 on, as these Massachusetts instrumental rock mainstays released the single “Flowers of Light” at year’s end. Thankfully, the album delivered in spades, and it is easily my favorite instrumental release of 2020. Well, that’s not technically true; 2 of the 8 songs have vocals. One welcome addition is an awesome contribution by Pianos Become The Teeth’s Kyle Durfey for “Nostalgist”, who fits the band like a glove. The second vocal track is the lovely eponymous closing track, which gives a pleasant change-up conclusion. Caspian’s three guitar approach means the listener always has a wide swath of atmospheric noise and full bodied sound, and the formula is definitely still working. There’s a reason this sextet are revered, and “On Circles” is the band firing on all cylinders.

Touche Amore

“Lament”

Released October 9 via Epitaph Records

Touche Amore has been one of my favorite bands for several years running, so expectations were very high for their fifth release. 2016’s “Stage Four” was a massive success but is still very hard for me to re-listen to or encounter due to the heaviness of the album’s subject matter, and “Lament” is at least a change in that pace. Jeremy Bolm is never one to pull punches or address the uncomfortable, and his vocal delivery is as engagingly abrasive as ever. Bassist Tyler Kirby is the most obviously improved, but that may also be the production choice of Ross Robinson, who seems to have received as much publicity by working on this record than the band did. All in all, more the same is never bad with these screamo mainstays.

Into It. Over It.

“Figure”

Released September 18 via Triple Crown Records

Evan Weiss is the one reliable dude. We get a new Into It. Over It. record every 3 or 4 years, and they’re always great. His songwriting and arrangement skills are top notch, and there’s enough cool little moments or unique additions to keep the listener engaged throughout the entire album. Weiss’s skills as a guitarist are in the spotlight as always (”We Prefer Indoors”), but drummer Adam Beck proves his talents throughout (”Brushstrokes”). What truly makes the album great for me are the little moments of variety or subtle changes in instrumentation or delivery that pop up in every song. The best example is the middle of the second verse of “Living Up To Let You Down”, when the band changes up the straightforward beat and chord progression to deliver a double-time feel with differently punctuated guitar chord hits (this is very hard to describe in writing; just listen to the song at 1:28). If the songs on their own weren’t catchy or well-rounded on their own, this album would be great, but it’s the moments like this that truly push it out on top. This record lived up to every high expectation I had and I’m thrilled that Mr. Weiss is a part of my life.

END

“Splinters From an Ever-Changing Face”

Released June 5 via Closed Casket Activities

But enough about positive thoughts and happy feelings...Every piece of writing or commentary on 2020 will likely point out how bad of a year that we all just experienced and how grateful we are to be moving forward. I definitely agree with this sentiment for the most part but do feel like we had a lot of interesting positive moments in the year in general. However, with that logic, no album better summarizes my general aesthetic towards this weird quarantined year than this ungodly amalgamation of brutal hardcore this supergroup has wrought. Counterparts vocalist Brendan Murphy sounds like a completely different beast with a lower delivery and growl than his fans traditionally encounter, and guitarist and wunderkind producer Will Putney makes this record sound horrifying, hellacious and, well, HEAVY. Add in some unnerving audio samples and the fact that most songs are between 1 and 2 minutes, and I can’t think of anything else to best summarize my feelings toward 2020. This was the perfect album to put on and let loose any angry or negative thought with the ferocity of the tsunami of sound this group created, and should be commended as such.

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