#anthem gifs

[artemispt]

I CAN’T 🥹

[eye-of-the-purricane]

Janelle Monáe - Lipstick Lover

Official Music Video (2023)

[rikaouob]

[hab-a-nice-day]

—Lane Hutson, Montreal Canadiens, October 14, 2024

[roseillith]

ANTHEM (1992) dir. MARLON RIGGS

[meatmasochist]

[insatiable 🖤 for the 🪦]

[readandwriteclub]

[gaybaseball-fan]

[trainno4]

So I already mentioned I was trying to attempt to make an 8-bit Sprite of one of my OCs, but I technically already did this one time. Using MegaMan as a base, I made a sprite of one of my own OCs named, Anthem! And I’m really proud of how he came out! And wanted to try and make a full sprite sheet for him. I…never finished, but I still got very far, and made some neat animations for him. Making a sprite of Starfall kinda got me in the mood to sprite Anthem again…and I figured I could use a neat drawing to hand onto my wall…and I had old graph paper lying around…and you know the rest.

Anthem was new here, so I decided to add a quick little drawing of what he usually looks like next to the sprite. Maybe could be a little better, but it gets the point across. I also decided to add the version of Anthem’s sprite I made on the computer, but decided to make a neat new little animation for him. It’s not too crazy, initially I wanted him to be more animated, and move his body more…but I was on a bit of a time crunch, and figured keeping his body in a static pose was best for now. At the very least his face is plenty expressive like I wanted it to be, and I added a neat little smear frame! I’ll try to touch it up later though..but not “soon” later though.

Either way, my respect for sprite artists continues to grow the more and more I keep experimenting with this style…god I can’t imagine making 16 or 32-bit stuff…at all….

That said, I can probably post the other animations I made someday later too! But for now this is what I’m posting! Hope you guys enjoy! (And sorry again about the long post-)

[masterandapprentice]

Hours ago, watching today's Euro matches, when listening to the Austrian and Dutch anthems before the start:

"Where's Red Bull? Where's Max?"

I had the same feeling xDD

[officialeggpuffs]

German Soccer 

[rikaouob]

[roseillith]

ANTHEM (1992) dir. MARLON RIGGS

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #656

Top Ten Leonard Cohen Songs

Welcome to another edition of “I didn’t really have time to write anything this week so it’s going to be a really quick one”. Which is a bit of a shame, because I like going deep when I do these music lists.

I was quite old when I got into Leonard Cohen – well, in my late twenties, I guess. I think the first time I really knew who he was was after hearing Rufus Wainwright’s cover of Hallelujah on the Shrek soundtrack; yes, I am that basic. Then, a bit later on, he became one of the artists I liked listening to and discovering more of back when I was working in an office for CITV; I’m pretty sure I never managed to get one of his songs on air the way I did with everyone from Nick Cave to Tenacious D, but he was still an ongoing presence.

The older I get, the more I like sad songs. Well, not sad, exactly; melancholy. I don’t think Cohen really wrote sad songs. He wrote about sad experiences, but he always seemed to approach it with either a sense of whimsical, dry amusement, or else to seek the goodness in the bad. A tragic breakup is grist for the mill; the joy of loving exceeds the sorrow of parting. Towards the end of his life, his music took on even more of a philosophical bent, and his album You Want it Darker is full of songs by a man accepting his fate with a sombre, but not bitter, sense of reflection. Life is full of wonder; there is heavenly in the earthy.

He was also a supreme lyricist, and I’ve always been drawn to very lyrical, poetic songs. “He was reaching for the sky just to surrender” is an absolutely fantastic line that I think of almost daily; of a different bent but equally as good, “If you want another kind of lover, I’ll wear a mask for you,” is hilarious. But possibly my favourite line of his, from Anthem, is a very simple one: “There is a crack, a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.”

What I’m saying is, Leonard Cohen was very good, and here are my favourite of his songs.

Hallelujah (1984): yeah, okay, basic entry but what can I say? The lyricism, the imagery, the musicality, everything about this is so top-drawer. It’s almost a ballad, almost a lullaby, and the images are both beautiful and frightening. But it’s the themes – of love and despair, of divinity and grimy, mucky carnality – that resonate the strongest. Basically, it’s a song about how getting your rocks off is better than God, and we have to respect that.

Anthem (1992): there’s a beautiful melody attached to lyrics that are epic and almost apocalyptic; a story of wars and destruction, of corruption and despair, but elegantly and optimistically arranged. And the refrain: a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. This juxtaposition is what I love about Cohen: beauty in darkness, light at the end of the tunnel.

The Stranger Song (1967): more in the earlier, folkier Cohen vein, this is one of his songs about crappy men making things crappy for women. But again it’s the lyrics that are so fantastically artful; the ongoing imagery of games of poker, the long lines building rhythm, the use of repetition, all combines in sublime fashion. It’s a darker song than it sounds like, sadder and more threatening, but no less beautiful for it.

You Want it Darker (2016): from early Cohen to this, the last album before his death. Almost accusatory in its lyrics, it once again references poker, references scenes of horror and death, and – indeed – is pretty dark. Cohen’s vocals, now a rattle of rusted metal, speak of age, wisdom, and a great weariness. You want it darker? Fine. Here’s death.

First We Take Manhattan (1988): I did a bit of reading on the background of this song, and he originally wrote it for someone else, who recorded a very different version. But Cohen’s version is darker, trippier, his use of synth feeling both of its time and also giving the lyrics – the sinister, threatening ravings of a supervillain, or the anguished wail of the disenfranchised – a deeply dark atmosphere, like an eighties horror film.

Chelsea Hotel #2 (1974): one of Cohen’s most famous songs, set in one of New York’s most famous hotels (namechecked as recently as this year by one Taylor Alison Swift), which features – among other rockstar trappings – Cohen receiving fellatio from a famous singer (not Taylor Alison Swift). It’s got a wry sense of humour (“You told me again you preferred handsome men / But for me you’d make an exception”) but also picks at the darkness of relationships, celebrity, and culture.

Closing Time (1992): yes, there’s darkness here ��� there’s darkness in, like, all his songs ��� but this is definitely one of the funnier ones. A sly interpretation of an Irish pub folk song, it manages to be a funny depiction of a bar full of old soaks, but also – somehow – pandemonium, or limbo, or some kind of biblical halfway-house. Is it about sex, or death, or both? Who cares when it’s this much fun?

A Thousand Kisses Deep (2001): a song structured like a poem, four-line stanzas of ABAB, again with imagery of gambling (“the odds are there to beat”) and warfare (“blessed our remnant fleet”), and once more dealing with dark, romantic thoughts. It’s the way all of these elements blend, the very evocative imagery of each verse, that coalesces into a song of slightly threatening beauty.

The Future (1992): although from roughly mid-way through his career, Cohen already sings this with a distinctive rattle in his voice. It’s a brutal song, an angry cry of horror as the narrator demands terrible things, creating an overriding atmosphere of oppression. Despite this, the tune is fast-paced and almost jaunty, giving the whole thing a surreal and excitingly malevolent air.

Leaving the Table (2016): another late-era Cohen; another one explicitly associated with death; and another one filled with poker metaphors. Is it a song of regret? Acceptance? Joy? Is the narrator talking to someone here, saying goodbye; or is it a hello to an old acquaintance he’s meeting on the other side? Like so much of Cohen’s work, there’s a delightful ambiguity; an the overriding theme is once more one of shoots of joy springing from the tundra of sadness. There’s a lot of shit out there. But it’s all okay in the end.

[gaybaseball-fan]

[pluto-bringer-of-gloom]

Me vibing to songs that are in a language that I don't speak a single word of: