#but like idk i just think its interesting a lot of the mainstream press seems united in justice being served despite reffing being bad

[nicklasbackstroke]

I find it fascinating that so many davo haters are acting like there's no way that he's going to get suspended bc he "gets away with everything" when like every media pundit is like "actually no, he's almost guaranteed to get suspended, it's just stupid that garland didn't have a penalty called against him before mcdavid started throwing around crosschecks". Even the media guys sucking his dick the hardest are saying he deserves a suspension comparing it to amatts.

[monkberries]

They dealt with all of the above. Ringo was treated as a joke for pretty much everything, especially since this was the era of prog rock. His personal life was also tabloid fodder. George was derided as being a dour spiritual nut who was out of touch. He along w/ Ringo didn't get the respect he deserved as a guitarist bc his style wasn't in at the time & people knew little about his role in The Beatles. All credit went to Lennon/McCartney. 1/2

John had the benefit of having the rebel genius image, but even he became a source of ridicule with all the stunts he pulled with Yoko and the way his career declined after Imagine. He wasn't deified to the degree he was in the 80s. I'm not trying to say Paul never had a hard time, but the way this fandom talks as if he is the only one who faced extreme criticism or disrespect just tells me they haven't looked much into the other Beatles' lives. The man is more admired than most musicians. 2/2

(IDK if this screenshotted anons were from the same person or not, but I’ll just answer them in this one since it’s all the same subject.)

Here’s what I think is valid, as I see it: Paul fans are upset by the way his music was treated by the music press, especially in the first few years of the 70s, while the music of the other three were generally given at least the benefit of the doubt. They’re not upset about the tabloid gossip, the purely personal stuff – they are upset, specifically and with good reason, at the way Paul’s music was treated and the way the music world’s personal dislike of him seeped into their music reviews. I’m gonna focus in on 1970 through the end of 1974, since this is where a lot of the complaints spawn from, and things start to shift in a big way in 74. You didn’t ask but contemporary writings about their early solo music is something I’m fascinated by anyway and you turned the wind-up toy key in my back, so. Off I go. This is gonna be so, so long.

At different points in the decade, all of them were subject to a sullying of their personal reputations. That is where I do agree with you: all of them were subjected to that by the press, to varying degrees, at varying times, and for various reasons for each of them. That is just what happens to public figures the longer they are public figures. Tabloids mess with everyone no matter how beloved they are. 

However, that’s not what I generally see Paul fans getting upset about. What I see is that they’re upset at the way the much more legitimate and widely respected music press approached Paul’s music and talent in general. It is widely received knowledge now that the critics treated Paul’s music differently than they did John’s and George’s and even Ringo’s; the trashing was not “equal.” They came at John and George with the assumption that their talent was real and ongoing outside of the Beatles, their genius unquestionable, their motives pure and well-intentioned and honest. Paul was not afforded these assumptions. Some examples to show what I mean, most of them found through wikipedia, rocksbackpages, or rollingstone.com.

John

Plastic Ono Band was Robert Christgau’s number one album of 1970 in The Village Voice. from Creem’s review: “John's record, of course, has been righteously raved over ever since its release, justifiably. It's interesting and even enlightening to see a man working out his trauma on black plastic but more than that, it's totally enthralling to see that Lennon has once again unified, to some degree, his life and his music into a truly whole statement.” From High Fidelity’s review: "a tremendously exciting listening experience, perhaps the best any Beatle has ever offered." In their Imagine review, Rolling Stone called POB “perfect.” A couple reviews in the mainstream were more mixed, put off a little by the rawness of it, but overall the rock world quickly grew to see this album as a work of genius.

Imagine was even more widely well-reviewed, despite a mixed review from Rolling Stone (John fell out with Jann Wenner around this time, curiously). Here’s a passage from rateyourmusic.com: “Imagine was actually one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the year, aside from this tepid review in Rolling Stone. Indeed, much of the rock press seemed palpably relieved that the former Beatle hadn't gone completely off the deep end. ‘It's the best album of the year, and for me it's the best album he's done, with anything, or with anyone, at any time,’ Roy Hollingworth wrote in the 10/9/71 issue of Melody Maker. ‘The album is superb,’ Alan Smith agreed in the 9/11/71 issue of NME. ‘Beautiful. One step away from the chill of his recent total self-revelation, and yet a giant leap towards commerciality without compromise...I have no criticism at all.’”

Some Time in New York City was admittedly John’s nadir, and the press was vicious about it, both personally and musically, deeming the album egotistical, lacking in energy, and devoid of sincerity. However, many maintained a reverence for the genius that came before it and hopeful encouragement for the future. Rolling Stone said that “The Lennons should be commended for their daring;” Creem said it wasn’t half bad; and even though NME’s article was scathing, it ended with a plea for John to return to form, saying, “Don't rely on cant and rigidity. Don't alienate. Stimulate. You know, like you used to.”

Mind Games, though reviews were mixed, fared far better in comparison. Again, there is a hopeful tone to the reviews, a sureness that John can do better. From Rolling Stone talks about the music being a return to POB form, but the writing is his worst yet; however, Landau qualifies this by saying the lyrics aren’t “offensive, per se, just misguided... [John Lennon’s admirers] might even be able to withstand something more challenging” and then praises John’s voice, his production, and a few individual songs. In Melody Maker, Ray Coleman says, “if you warm to the rasping voice of Lennon and, like me, regard him as the true fulcrum of much of what came from his old group, then like any new Lennon album, it will be enjoyable and even important.” Christgau is more middling but also says, “Still, the single works, and let's hope he keeps right on stepping.”

Walls and Bridges seems confusing to reviewers in retrospect. They couldn’t seem to come to a consensus on it. The musicianship was widely praised, for the most part, though Rolling Stone criticized the first side on this front; reviewers alternately said it was “the latest chapter in John Lennon’s Identity Crisis” (Creem) and “truly a superb album by any standards” (Melody Maker). Throughout the Rolling Stone review, the author is able to thoroughly critique the songs, for better or worse, with a neutral affect and without resorting to insulting John personally. He ends the review on a positive note: “When one accepts one’s childhood, one’s parenthood and the impermanence which lies between, one can begin to slog along. When John slogs, he makes progress.” Again, even though the reviews aren’t all positive, we can see, especially and most importantly in the most influential rock magazine of the time, the acknowledgment of his talent, a sense of excitement for what John will do next, and a belief that his work is authentic and honest.

George

All Things Must Pass, I mean. Apart from a couple of outliers like Christgau in The Village Voice (he called it “overblown fatuity”), it was incredibly, almost universally beloved by the music press when it came out. There was quite a bit of surprise that such a talent had been under everyone’s noses all this time, but I don’t think anon is quite correct that all the credit for the Beatles went to Lennon/McCartney. For example, Ben Gerson in Rolling Stone recognized George’s talent within the Beatles like this: “Up until now, George has been perhaps the premier studio musician among rock band guitarists. From the electronic whine which began “I Feel Fine” to the break in “Hard Day’s Night” to the crazed, sitar-influenced burst on “Taxman,” George exhibited an avant-garde imagination and a technical flawlessness, as well as the ability to stay within the bounds of a song, which has remained unparalleled.” In Melody Maker, the feeling of journalists was summed up thusly: hearing the album was “the rock equivalent of the shock felt by pre-war moviegoers when Garbo first opened her mouth in a talkie: Garbo talks! – Harrison is free!" The personal nature and honesty of the lyrics were praised as well; Time described it as an “expressive, classically executed personal statement.” Ben Gerson did call his proselytizing offensive, but in the next sentence says that George redeems himself from that with the personal plea in Hear Me Lord.

Concert for Bangla Desh - again, some cynicism from Christgau in The Village Voice (must have woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day) and of course tax issues dogged it later, but overall, for the rock press at the time, this was a crowning achievement that George pulled off. He was praised all over the press, countercultural and mainstream, for his live musical talent, the group of musicians that joined him, the lack of political motivation, the sincerity and goodwill, and George’s ability to bring back  "a brief incandescent revival of all that was best about the Sixties" (Rolling Stone). To this day he is credited with creating the model for future charity concerts. 

Living in the Material World - Nothing could have topped the one-two punch of ATMP and the Concert for Bangla Desh, but honestly, LITMW came pretty close for some journalists. Rolling Stone again praised George’s honesty and authenticity: “ Despite the occasional use of “psychedelic puns,” Harrison’s lyrics are so guileless they convey an extraordinary sincerity that transcends questions of craftsmanship. Similarly, the devotions we are called upon to share with Harrison, though they communicate no specific, private torment, do have the authenticity of overheard prayers and are therefore sacred.” Melody Maker said, "Harrison has always struck me before as simply a writer of very classy pop songs; now he stands as something more than an entertainer. Now he's being honest." The pushback against his pious attitude and lyrics picked up some steam with this album, particularly with Christgau (again) and Tony Tyler of NME, who called it “so damn holy I could scream.” However, it was far from the consensus opinion at the time, and with the biggest rock magazine in the world at your back, you can withstand quite a bit.

Dark Horse, oof. That poor man. It did get some positivity in Billboard and Melody Maker, but my god, the reviews for this album and its subsequent tour were so cruel. I suspect when these anon(s) talk about the others being treated terribly by the press as well, this, along with John’s STINYC, is one of the examples they would give, and they’re not wrong about that. This was the point where George’s piety and what they perceived as a sanctimonious attitude finally started really getting to everyone, and the album plus the tour was the perfect opportunity to dogpile on him. I guess it was to be expected; no one can ride that high forever, and the press loves to knock people over and kick them while they’re down. Rolling Stone called it “disastrous,” “shoddy,” and called his guitar work “rudimentary,” eventually declaring that George had “never been a great artist.” This from the same magazine that was practically worshipping at his feet the year before. Yowch.

Ringo

Sentimental Journey - The less that’s said about this album, the better.

Beaucoups of Blues was actually quite well-received. No one called him a genius for it, and it wasn’t a serious personal record and therefore wasn’t treated that way, but journalists seemed uniquely able to let themselves enjoy this record despite the serious/political/personal tone of most musicians at the time. Melody Maker believed Ringo had  "conviction and charm" and that because of that, the album stripped away the serious “hip posturing” and let you just enjoy the music on its own terms. The Village Voice said that Ringo was “good at making himself felt.” Although Rolling Stone’s tone was a bit more cruel than other magazines (there was a crack somewhere in there that Ringo wasn’t as smart as John), it also called him lovable and the record “a real winner” where the songs “sound terrific.”

Ringo was a total smash and I think people forget this. It’s remembered only because it’s an album that was worked on by all four Beatles, but actually, the critics fuckin loved it. Ringo was praised in Rolling Stone for his unpretentiousness, sensibility, and essentially collaborative nature: “Ringo was always the figure of conciliation within the Beatles, undoubtedly the most genial, conceivably the most sensible, and the one with the smallest musical axe to grind. His very lapses bespoke the esteem in which the others held him; had they not liked him so much, those perfectionists would never have allowed him to sing. Perhaps because as the drummer he stood outside the process of creation, he had the best perspective from which to see the Beatles as a unity. Ringo has never had any pretense of self-sufficiency. Once he had gotten his special projects out of the way (projects for which John, Paul and George's talents would have been unsuited anyway) Ringo was ready to call upon the three most obvious people to assist him with writing, singing and playing. As Starr's first "pop album," Ringo signifies a homecoming, not just of family, but in musical style as well.”

Goodnight Vienna was kind of a minor album for Ringo, but still, reviews were pretty good. Rolling Stone praised his “unalloyed sincerity which is his trademark and trump card.” Yet again, we see the theme of authenticity popping up in these reviews - if you are perceived as authentic, honest, and sincere, that takes you a long way with music reviewers in this time period, and Ringo was nothing if not wholly, completely himself.

Paul

McCartney - One of the main complaints of Paul fans is that Jann Wenner forced Langdon Winner, the author of the review for this album in Rolling Stone, to rewrite his article and put a more negative spin on it. The result is that Winner praised most of the music but totally undermined his own praise by questioning the authenticity of the tone and deriding the press release that came with the album as much as he praised the music. He ends the article like this: “I like McCartney very much. But I remember that the people of Troy also liked that wooden horse they wheeled through their gates until they discovered that it was hollow inside and full of hostile warriors.” This was a huge blow at a time when personal authenticity and substance were considered paramount. Melody Maker also questioned the legitimacy of his genius, saying “With this record, [McCartney's] debt to George Martin becomes increasingly clear.” Most other reviews weren’t any better.

Ram, I mean, Jesus Christ the reviews for this. It’s a widely respected album now, even made the RS top 500 albums of all time list last year, but at the time people were still so angry with Paul for supposedly breaking up the Beatles that they were still taking it out on his music a year later (imo). Landau in Rolling Stone called it “emotionally vacuous” and said it lacked conviction, saying also that it was “so incredibly inconsequential and so monumentally irrelevant you can’t even [hate it]; it is difficult to concentrate on, let alone dislike or even hate.” NME called it “the worst thing Paul McCartney has ever done.” Threaded through these reviews is a belief that the songs are devoid of meaning and that Paul’s happy domestic front is just a frustrating lie; Christgau in The Village Voice said he was “infuriated by the McCartneys' modern young-marrieds image” - infuriated because he clearly doesn’t believe it, rendering Paul dishonest and his music inauthentic. Once again journalists are unable to review Paul’s music without sniping about him as a person.

Wild Life - Though the situation remains largely the same - reviewers refuse to take him seriously, believe anything he says, or treat his musical talent as anything but vacuous fluff - the reviews aren’t quite as bad as they were for Ram and a bit of positivity begins to stir. It��s evident especially in the Rolling Stone review, where Mendelsohn wonders if Paul is making crappy fluff on purpose to piss John off because it will sell just as well anyway. It’s not much, and on top of the fairly strong criticism there is almost no hope for future Paul releases: “My own conviction is that we'd be foolish to expect anything much more earth-shaking than Wild Life out of McCartney for a good long while... In the meantime the reader is advised to either develop a fondness for vacuous but unpretentious pop music or look elsewhere for musical pleasure.” But it’s something.

Red Rose Speedway Paul continues to be lambasted by a lot of the press on this album for being lightweight and having no meaning behind his songs (at this point it’s just repetitive to quote the articles, just trust me that they say basically the same thing they were saying for the past three albums too), BUT I think a nuance that gets forgotten in all of this is that Rolling Stone gave it kind of a decent review. It seems like they finally quit gatekeeping and realized that songs don’t need to have some deep personal meaning to be good. Kaye is still not very nice about Paul’s lyrics but he recognizes that he doesn’t have to take Paul’s music on the same terms as he takes John and George. Paul’s music is less personal, but that doesn’t make it unworthy. He calls it “pleasant, accessible without concentration” and praises Paul’s voice and arranging skills. It feels like for this album, Rolling Stone took the stick out of its own ass when it came to Paul and finally relaxed enough to receive Paul’s music on his terms rather than theirs. Which, imo, primed the rock world for...

Band on the Run, Paul’s comeback. Even though Christgau in The Village Voice remained unconvinced (he called it “a pleasant piece of hackwork”), almost everyone else adored it. It seems weird to us now, but the general sentiment seemed to be that people were surprised by how good this album was. NME said, “The ex-Beatle least likely to re-establish his credibility and lead the field has pulled it off with a positive master-stroke”; and although Landau’s review in Rolling Stone overflowed with praise, he also said, “I'm surprised I like Band on the Run so much more than McCartney's other solo albums because, superficially, it doesn't seem so different from them.” 

I hope I’ve been able to demonstrate a general trajectory with the musical reputation of each Beatle here. John starts off on two incredible high points, crashes and burns, and then works his way back up. He DEFINITELY missed with STINYC, but even when he followed it up with Mind Games, there was still a hopeful tone to the reviews, sort of like, “Ah, well, the last two weren’t great but we’re still looking forward to what John will give us next.” Until the Dark Horse tour/album, which did sour the press on poor George, the music press adored him. It was hit after hit with him. He could not miss. Three high points, one after the other, then a monumental crash. Ringo seems to stay fairly high, even if the records aren’t serious records. All three of them start out incredibly well, and the music press was able and willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Paul was given none of that. Perhaps because he was out of step with the attitudes about music at the time, perhaps because journalists hated him for breaking up the Beatles, perhaps because they believed John when he painted Paul as “establishment,” perhaps a combination - whatever their issue was, Paul was given no benefit of the doubt to start with, no faith in his genius, and no belief in his authenticity. He was just a hack to the music press for the first few years of the 70s; he started at the bottom and was forced to work his way up, unlike the other three. It started, imo, when Wenner forced the journalist who wrote the McCartney review in RS to rewrite the article, and it spiraled from there. He was seen as hollow and uncool, as one of the anons said, “straight” in the parlance of the time - straight meaning “establishment.” This is kind of where I do start to roll my eyes a little bit at stans, when they get upset at people calling him “establishment” and trying to prove that actually he was so anti-establishment that people couldn’t handle it or whatever, without trying to understand what the word “anti-establishment” meant at the time. But there are also really substantive arguments you can make that say Paul’s music was not taken seriously because of a personal grudge against him.

I’m not saying that all of them didn’t have run-ins with the music press. I’m saying there is nuance here that I don’t think these anons are allowing for in the first few years of that decade. They came at George and John and Ringo with a positive, or at least neutral, slant most of the time. They came at Paul with a negative one. Case in point are the reviews of Band on the Run that were surprised at how good it was. That stuff gets people’s hackles up. The others didn’t have positive reviews rewritten to be more negative. The others didn’t have albums savaged that are now on the Rolling Stone top 500 albums of all time list. I do agree that John, at least, and George post Dark Horse, had a harder time with the music press than people generally remember or care to think about – deification is retroactive, I guess, and as Paul fans we should definitely recognize that Paul wasn’t the only one who went through a rough time with the press. But I do think Paul’s situation was made uniquely and unjustifiably difficult for those first few years.

I mean, at the same time, I cannot stress enough how much this did not affect his bottom line. Despite the horrible reviews, Ram still made a ton of money, McCartney made a ton of money, Band on the Run and Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway all made a ton of money. He had a fanbase, a huge one, that followed him loyally and faithfully through the early 70s as he was getting savaged by the press, and through the middle and late 70s when he was touring. At some point, you have to step back and go, wait. Why does any of this matter? This was 50 years ago. He was a multi-millionaire then and is a billionaire now. And you are right; whenever people over-generalize and try to make the case that Paul was always badly reviewed and the others were press darlings, I tend to get annoyed because they’re totally missing the actually interesting nuances of the situation (that can be easily found online! I found most of the music reviews through snippets on Wikipedia!) In conclusion, I guess my point is that both “Paul was vilified while everyone else wasn’t” and “everyone was equally vilified” paint the events of the early 70s with brushes that are too broad and miss the nuance that was evident in the way the press interacted with their music.

[regularbeans]

Best Artists of 2019

Hello and welcome to me forgetting how I do these things.

So as you may have noticed I got into kpop last year and then I continued getting into kpop this year. This year I got to know a lot of other artists in kpop and mostly spent my time listening to one specific artist (you will never guess whom) so this list is... just that ok. Also this category used to be called best newbies and only included artists I got to know in a specific year then I changed it to include any artist I listened to a lot but with a few exceptions all the music I listened to this year were new discoveries for me so...

Idk why I always overexplain these, huh.

Honourable mentions go to Monsta X, Nu’est, Chungha, Sunmi, Stray Kids, Bolbbalgan4, The Boyz, and returning artists Mamamoo ♥♥

7 - NCT (the whole of it but mostly 127)

As a baby kpoppie NCT always seemed so intimidating to me with its many many members but the few songs I liked from them upon first listen eventually lured me into getting to know them. Now I’m no expert but to me NCT is a little frustrating because I feel like the label could do so much more with them (and by more I don’t mean to make certain members work even more). I have to admit I often don’t feel like a proper fan because I don’t follow them very closely but to me their music is always the best part of the package and I care very little for their vlogs and... whatever else they’re doing, honestly.

But as a group I feel like they really could do anything as they’ve already explored so many styles and concepts there really isn’t anything that doesn’t sound like them. My personal favourites are Superhuman, Touch, and Boss but this year NCT Dream made a really good comeback I was 100% on board with with Boom, and Wayv’s debut Take Off was also 👌👌👌👌👌👌

6 - Oneus

I didn’t know a whole lot about anything when these guys debuted and I didn’t even know Valkyrie was their debut song for a long time. It was nice and I didn’t really keep them in mind any longer until they were on Weekly Idol with the other group I’ll talk about in a bit and then I mean, I just had to adopt them, I think we all did at that point. It was also around the time they had their first comeback and it was 👌👌👌👌👌👌 but they still only lived in my tiny brain as a group I’ll eventually get into. And then they released 가자 and I did!

They have two amazing rappers and a fairly versatile vocal line and a style that allows for both dynamic bangers and less radio friendly albeit still addictive tunes that defines their sound even further. I don’t know a lot about how they well-promoted they are, I know they have a shitton of schedules so I hope RWB calms the fuck down eventually and paces themselves because these boys are really promising.

I guess checking their title tracks, Valkyrie, Twilight, and *cringe* Lit should have to suffice but also Bingbing and Blue Sky.

5 - Tomorrow x Together

I never said I didn’t like them so stop staring at me.

Obviously their debut was exciting and interesting and I was really looking forward to seeing what they would be like. It wasn’t 100% my cuppa though Crown was an amazing song, I was still happy for them and excited to see how they would evolve overtime. I kinda fell off the bandwagon around May and June cause they weren’t really putting out content based around music and I’m not super interested in variety shows and reality shows unless I’m really invested in the members, but their first comeback was also 👌👌👌👌👌👌👌 The songs are really poppy and catchy and cover a variety of themes I think most people interested in getting emotional value out of music can relate to and Yeonjun and Soobin are just, simply put, my boys.

If I could have one comment on what I’d like to see change in the future it’d be the endless masking and layering of the vocals. I can just about tell their voices apart in certain songs but then they pump ‘em full of effects in other songs and I’m jus like whomstdve the fuck am I listening to?

Check out Crown and Run Away, their two title tracks so far and also my personal favourite, Magic Island and maybe Can't We Just Leave the Monster Alive? too and this one as well whatever.

4 - Taemin / Shinee

I’ll put these two together because yOU CAN’T SEPARATE THEM OKAY I mean it is true that Taemin’s solo material is vastly, vastly different from Shinee’s music but uh this is how I decided.

Shinee is very fun, very diverse, they have the most heart-wrenching songs and then the most upbeat melodies that kickstart the serotonin-production in my brain just like that. I mean they are just vocal powerhouses and they’re using it, but in the same time they have like, these low(er)-energy bops that are just so pleasant to listen to.

Shinee’s weird cause I have a Shinee playlist where I put all the songs I liked from them and I think I don’t know the title of a good half of them but I don’t think I’ve ever pressed the skip button while playing that playlist.

And then Taemin is just very different on his own. Vocally he’s way more strong than Shinee’s music would have you believe, and though he has a sexy concept going on most of the time he’s also not way over the top with it which is... weird to say because he’s very theatrical sometimes. But especially if you compare his most recent material to his solo debut stuff he just looks and sounds way more relaxed in what he’s doing (it’s almost as though he’s matured a little over the years. but only a little). Things you love to see: that.

From Shinee: Symptoms, Countless, The Reason, Drive, Don’t Let Me Go, 1 of 1 From Taemin: Stone Heart, Want, Move, Under My Skin

3 - Day6

I want you to picture this: me, crying.

I had heard about Day6 from one of my two kpop mutuals on twitter lmao but I always heard Days Gone By mentioned as the best song ever and when I checked it out I didn’t think it to be very special at the time. It was only because I thought Time of Our Life was ok and cute and Shoot Me was very catchy that I made a playlist with all their songs on it and listened to it one time when I had to walk a mile to the train station at five in the morning. And then I heard 121U and Headache and that was it.

I don’t think I say anything outlandish if I say Day6 could be from any other part of the world if you take a look at their sound. They’re very easy-listening pop rock, they’re the kind of melodic rock music I loved when I was in high school. So what makes them special?

That I love them, that’s what >[ I don’t think they have anything more than any other group in their genre but I think they just have everything to steal my friKKEN HEART. First of all I don’t know what kind of demon deal JYP made to get a hold of four vocalists like this, I mean they’re all different but instantly recognisable and their range is just ????????? I think Jae is considered the weakest vocalist (outside of Dowoon but I mean he’s drums) and even the notes that boy belts out are blowing my mind. He has a very natural, almost untrained-sounding tone, Sungjin’s very raspy and emotional, Young K’s voice is very open and full (I think he actually has the biggest range? I could be wrong), and Wonpil has that boyish, charming, kinda slippery but still stable voice that first grabs your attention.

And of course a lot of the writing credit goes to the group’s very own Young K which makes me feel a lot closer to them when I’m listening to their songs. So good job, guys, on everything.

Truly, though, getting to know Day6 has just been so special this year and it just goes to show how even mainstream pop music in korea can be so diverse and anyone could find something they like at any corner.

Holy fuckbucket, what should I even recommend? I guess listen to Shoot Me, 121U, Headache, then also my first favourite song, Somehow, my current favourite song Beautiful Feeling and my current second favourite song I Need Somebody and also their most recent comeback Sweet Chaos and my recent new discoveries Lean On Me, Goodbye Winter, I Would and but also just check out my Spotify playlist for them I literally love every single song on there. Fuck, Like That Sun, Letting Go, Sing Me, Rescue Me, 365247 i’M DYING HERE, SUNGJIN

BITCH, LIKE A FLOWING WIND

2 - Seventeen

hOkkkaAyy

For the longest time, well, for about five months I guess, I thought these guys would be first place on this list forever. They were the ones who broke the big BTS spell I was under for the second half of 2018 and I really just, fell facefirst into the diamond life. Getting Closer didn’t quite get me in the first round and even Home was a bit like, okay, cute, best of luck for them. Then something happened and both Getting Closer and Home just hit me like a fucking truck even though they’re on two opposite sides of the scale. You know. The song scale. The famous one? That one.

I made a tweet once that I still agree with, that loving Seventeen really is just cutting your own heart up into thirteen even-sized bits and every single bit is filled with so, so much love.

Like many/some(?) of the groups I love, Seventeen is self-composed and for that I am so grateful because their label Pledis is a shithole so thank fuck to Mr. Lee Jihoon for carrying the industry on his back.

The group consists of three units, all of which have their distinct strengths (except for the performance unit, those theatre nerds just had to be good at everything, didn’t they) and Seventeen makes time to explore all of those units, sometimes even making other subunits from different boy configurations (or boyfigurations for short) and somehow it manages to feel balanced and patient and not rushed.

And I especially love how admittedly they started to stop caring about what the public expects from them and they’re exploring concepts that excites them personally. They caught a lot of flak for releasing songs like Hit and Fear after the astounding success Home had back in January and a lot of fans and non-fans alike quoted the groups unwillingness to keep doing what has been proven to work as the reason of their diminishing sales and public interest.

And even though I personally enjoy their brighter concepts also, I just, I can respect that attitude, you know? At the end of the day Seventeen has an obvious and visible love for their own craft and there’s nothing more enjoyable than that.

Now I’m really in trouble as to what to recommend, they have so many different types of songs x”) Okay, Our Dawn is Hotter Than Day, Clap, Adore U, Home, Getting Closer. Also Hit. And like, a billion of their b-sides, just check my spotify playlist for them ok.

1 - Ateez

*feeling of fear*

Do I even have to go into why I love Ateez? Every time I think about them and just how big a part they played in my life this year I get this overwhelming urge to express just why and just how much I love them.

This year I really just... lost the ability to be happy about things that used to give so much happiness. It’s been a sad and scary downward spiral that I just don’t have enough strength to stop so I guess it’s no wonder that I’d latch onto the first thing that becomes an everyday positive presence in my life. Ateez and the memories connected to them this year have been the reason for the few and far between moments of happiness in my life in 2019 and for that I’ll forever be grateful.

It’s like. When it hits, it just hits, you know?

And I just can’t, can’t wait to scream my little heart out to their songs in March with Linn okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

I guess if I could just have one wish it’d be for them to play Twilight, and Treasure, Illusion, Say My Name, Utopia, Hala Hala, Win, Mist, Wave, my whole Spotify playlist.

[gotatext]

          whats up ! its ur local feral goblin nora ( 23, she/her, gmt ) bringing u yet another baby i dug out of the trash and vomited onto the dashboard. a fake psychic slash rodeo bull sensation studying at hendrix but born in marfa, texas. luvs wearing gingham print dresses and cowboy boots n always in loads of rings and necklaces w flowers in her hair. very into art and pornography, and particularly the combination of the two. wants to do a PHD on gender studies and female autonomy in porn (yeehaw!). this is a pinterest board. without further ado, here’s frida !

hendrix template.

( cis-female ) haven’t seen FRIDA CALHOUN around in a while. the ELIZA SCANLEN lookalike has been known to be (+) SCHOLASTIC & (+) PLUCKY, but SHE can also be (-) DOGMATIC & (-) SINGLE-MINDED. The 18 year old is a FRESHMAN majoring in GENDER STUDIES & VISUAL ART. I believe they’re living in AUDAX, but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( nora. 22. cowboy time. she/her. ) 

 aesthetics.

a red gingham print dress from your childhood that tugs at the seams and hitches at your thighs. brown cowboy boots still thick with the dirt of a marfa desert. stripper heels decorated with hello kitty stickers. a crystal ball you bought for a dollar from a one-eyed woman at a thrift store. dead flowers clinging to the braids of your hair. a rucksack permanently packed for the move. a streak of red across your lips. roller blades, cut knees, not eating your greens. smiling with a mouthful of blood. the female orgasm cut and pasted from pornhub and superimposed onto renaissance art. sweet wrappers scattered over the vinyl seats of an older man’s car. also this pic here is a big frida mood

connection to eva & did they choose her name during the watershed?

study abroad mentor. when frida moved to the netherlands to study, she was assigned a mentor to help her settle into campus life, since she was not of dutch heritage. eva was her mentor for her first few weeks of study, though they weren’t really friends. occasionally they hung out if they saw each other out at night, but they weren’t like... super close.

ok,.... so first up ! despite going to uni in amsterdam, this gal was born and raised in the ole’ U.S of A. she’s from marfa, texas. it’s a very arty place. she was surrounded by art wankers as a child and it kind of educated her to a lot of shit, but also meant she grew up p fast?? like she learned about sex and death and violence from all these art people who thot they were Freeing her Superego n makin a genius child bt rlly.... they shd hav just let her play with dirt rather than showin her artistic representations of the inside of a dead bird.

 BACKSTORY TIME.. her mother was from the wrong side of the tracks, wanted 2 go to art school and started working as an erotic dancer to pay for college but then jst.... ended up staying there. one of those girls u see in the documentaries who had Big Plans but ultimately never got to pursue them n jst got.... sucked in by the money

 frida was raised in dressing rooms surrounded by sparkly costumes and nipple pasties and leotards and the like. as a kid she’d try to trot about in her moms heels n yearned for the day she’d be able to be on stage. 

if you’ve seen pretty baby its a bit similar to tht..... her mom works in a brothel n has her quite young n the expectation is her daughter will probs end up working at the brothel too when she's old enough. no1 really expected frida to get into a good uni or anythin

frida was p much raised by the town, to be honest. most of her youth was spent scurrying about half naked in cowboy boots and glasses too big for her face. a smol feral child

as a kid used to lie about being able to see dead people bcos she thought it’d make her seem cool and interesting to other kids n it got the attention of the girls her mom worked with. but when her mom realised people were willing to actually believe a 7 year old had seen their dead scorned lover, she saw it as an opportunity to swindle some extra cash and registered her as a child psychic n started putting adds out in local papers for palm readings and tarot predictions. 

when her mom hit 30s she couldn't hack being a sex worker any more, so she set up her own fortune telling business and hired a load of the girls from the club to be fake psychics. it was sort of a fortune telling parlour slash brothel, bt they kept tht very under wraps. palm reading upstairs, handjobs downstairs. the reason why some of the women from the strip club agreed to work there was because it was a business actually run by a woman who got what was going on, n not jst someone trying to make quick cash out of old men wanking

as a child, frida was on a few tv shows in the netherlands  making psychic predictions in front of live tv audiences and attempting to reach out to the spirits of their loved ones. this con continued into her teenage years, she even did youtube videos n had minor success, though she was accused of being a cheap horoscope predicter and packed it in shortly after a twitter backlash. 

if pressed, frida still claims to have a gift, but that it's not as simple as switching a light on and off, it comes when it comes, you can't summon it, and that's how she gets out of being labelled a fraud if anyone who recognises her demands a reading.

ws street smart, but also did super well at school? quite charming as a kid and good at winning adults over because of a life growing up basically conning rich white women out of their money just by telling them stuff they wanted to hear. was moved up a grade in junior high and graduated early. attended a summer school, before choosing to study in amsterdam because of the appeal of the red light district. very interested in the lives of sex workers and the way they express themselves. is only a freshman but, is like, 50% through her degree already jst cos she’s..... super passionate about her subject getting recognised as a legitimate brand of academia

she wanted to study gender performativity in the lives of sex workers and plans to do her thesis on the porn industry. it might be because of her childhood, growing up surrounded by sex workers, but she's obsessed with it, looks at mathematical structures and symbols in porn through a lens of politics and art history. very interested in visual art.

some ?mildly amusing? facts

owns 4 tarot decks and a crystal ball she bought frm an old lady with one eye

favourite drink is cherry coke

part of a burlesque collective at hendrix university who run speakeasy nights. is trying to set up her own small-scale grassroots burlesque group in one of the more mainstream clubs along the strip bcos there’s so much money and female tourists go wild 4 it

sells nudes on twitter. whenever she gets low on cash she contacts one of the seedy old men who used to visit her mom's club to venmo her $500 in return for pictures

that girl who’s always harping on about body positivity on instagram while wearing cute underwear and looking absolutely bomb 

really good at rodeo bull riding. the club in marfa had one so as a youth she got really good at it bcos she was constantly tryin to outdo her friends on who could stay on for the longest. a video of her staying on one for like 4 minutes after downing several jager bombs went viral once.

smol baby. 5′4. wears a lot of cute summer dresses n big boots. gingham is her usual dress style, or like red plaid, n then she’ll either have big white cowboy boots with spokes on the back or the really long doc martens. also owns a lot of abba-esque gogo boots and 90s creepers. flats?? who are they. has her hair in braids a lot, and usually has flowers or feathers threaded through it to add to her whole “mystic” vibe

micro-doses acid for mild depression bcos she didn’t believe in “that CBT bullshit”, thought that therapists, like her, were jst con artists so always a bit spaced out

her flirting technique is absolutely offering to read your palm. she used to do it all the time at school its how she met most of her eighth grade boyfriends. 

volunteers at one of the local galleries but mostly just rants to old white dutch men about how cis white men have dominated art for years :/ is one of those SJW-types but only?? when it comes to art?? 

has a pet rat called popeye

takes photographs of dead animals to use in her art and often posts them side-by-side with stills of women in porn to show the shelf-life of female sex workers in a patriarchal-dominated industry or some bullshit idk

big into spoken word poetry, even if its shit. likes savage depictions of femininity

wrote a thesis on art as an act of masturbation that got published 

big into capitalism and commodity culture. loves it.

wanted plots, fucker

ppl who are also studying @ hendrix but speak english !! bcos frida finished her exams a year early at like 17 n just up and left to amsterdam cos she knew if she got in-state tuition she’d never leave texas, she came to the netherlands with like, 40 dollars and a phrase book. eva was kind of her study-abroad mentor to help her settle into amsterdam campus life

ppl she met at an inter-school maths championship competition or something really fuckin nerdy like that. she probably got entered in a spelling bee or two, she was her high school’s pride and joy until people started calling her a slut in toilet door grafiti 

hook-ups !! frida does not do relationships, she had several girlfriends as a kid but she enjoyed the thrill of the chase more than being with one person. pan, but not about befriending straight men. very much fuck-em-and-chuck-em wham-bam-thankyou-ma’am when it comes to guys. that said, if u think ur character cld get under her skin n try n change that by all means be my guest

other ppl who wld be in burlesque with her. also she goes to strip clubs n peep shows like every day, thats basically research for her, so if ur characters would be into strip clubs they might see her there

she volunteers at a few galleries, tht is also a possible place where they cld kno each other from

i feel like she’d be on student council if they had one of those. shes that kind of bitch, turning up like elle woods with a big feather pen or a light-up heart marker, slamming down some truths before upping and leaving to go for her 11am chai latte break

mayb someone she’s trying to coach into being more body confident through self-expression in burlesque.

som1 who attended the art institute in marfa for a summer n maybe knew her when she was a bit younger ??? idk

drama. angst/ horror. someone accuse her of being a fake psychic and she’ll predict your horrific untimely death

nice bike rides in amsterdam please

yea like this if u a) want to plot or b) think the self is as undefinable social construct and i will slide in ur dms to further discus ruckus  x x

[mindthewolves]

some thoughts, filed under: pacific rim

[this is gonna be full of spoilers. fair warning. but also curious what others thought of the storytelling in the movie.]

-the voiceover backstory was long and seemed like kind of a storytelling crutch. the thing is I don’t think the story needed to start where it did, with the onset of the kaiju attacks. it would’ve worked just as well to open at the height of the jaeger system, and cobble together the backstory from news footage (sans voiceover), the celebrity status of jaeger pilots (& specifically I would have loved for this to focus on POC pilots as an inversion of the directionality of media consumption today, which largely faces toward US/western media), and raleigh’s pov. it took quite a while for pacific rim to find its footing in terms of characterization, and introducing raleigh and his brother in this way - focusing on more of their daily routine and the sibling dynamic - could have helped the story gel sooner and heightened the emotional impact of yancy’s death.

-but one possible reason this wasn’t done is because drift compatibility and the entire premise of the jaegers is difficult to show without a narrative voiceover. potential workarounds: retrospective news footage of how the jaegers were conceived, engineered, and troubleshooted; or (and more interesting to me) a scene involving pilots who weren’t drift compatible. this is something pac rim never got to show, and given that compatibility is seen as rare and special, I’m curious what incompatibility looks like – bigotry, possibly, given the overarching theme of unity tying the film together. and assuming people are fluid & have the capacity for change, is it possible to fall in and out of drift compatibility, i.e. if the pilots discover something about each other, if the relationship becomes rocky, etc.?

-been thinking about ways the neural drift could be portrayed other than wandering through each other’s childhood memories, and I think sense8 does it more effectively in terms of how it overlaps narratives and shared experiences. in your eyes is another movie that plays with a similar telepathic bond in a very effective way. 

-it’s a movie made for the big screen visual; there’s so much detail to the kaiju and a lot of thought has gone into the monster anatomy, their evolving modes of attack, etc.

-so much so that there are more kaiju than speaking role women in this movie, more kaiju than speaking role POCs, and (subjectively; tbh I haven’t tabulated) the kaiju get more screen time than the female or POC characters. I’m also not sure why the kaiju are all nicknamed. like if you are hunting and tracking a group of things for a length of time, I understand; but for an enemy that appears singly and is dealt with immediately? why would you name it? (also the naming choice for the main jaeger...just no.)

-ok the racial politics first. I loved stacker’s portrayal, how his authority and the burden of command flows from him as easily as breathing. it’s never questioned. even when raleigh disagrees, he presses up to a point, but ultimately defers. & stacker is three-dimensional in a way that sidesteps tropes of black men in authority positions being angry or intimidating, or being sidelined or killed off for the advancement of a white character’s narrative: he has the people he wants to protect, he's willing to make the hard choices but is set up as the moral center of the story, and he has the weight of his own history behind him. the fact that he’s ostensibly drift compatible with anyone speaks to a remarkable capacity for empathy and understanding. ofc it’s found family that always gets me though, and the scene where mako very subtly gestures to herself to alert him to a nosebleed says volumes about their relationships, about the secrets she keeps for him, and the vulnerability he lets her see.

-mako on the other hand does fall into a number of racial stereotypes: all asians know martial arts, all asian women are demure and defer to authority. from a purely storytelling perspective, she makes for a good foil to raleigh’s more impulsive character, and they’re evenly matched. but when you take into account the larger pattern of racial stereotypes in mainstream media, this particular characterization irks me to no end (see: sense8, street fighter - legend of chun li) and this trope needs to die. also it irritated me that she had so little agency; she doesn’t fight (much) for herself to become a jaeger pilot, she stands back as raleigh decks chuck on her behalf, and later she’s ejected from the jaeger when raleigh decides it’s time to go it alone. she doesn’t make a ton of choices in this story. from a gender standpoint though, I definitely appreciated the restraint in terms of not sexualizing her as a character – the jaeger uniform she wears is the same as raleigh’s, she’s not shown in various states of undress, and the romantic subplot I was sure was going to rear its head just...didn’t? kudos.

-for a story set in hong kong, there are a bunch of white people. just sayin’. and sure the apocalypse could conceivably be postracial, but that’s not what’s happening here. the asian actors are background, and it’s most notable in the scenes with newt in the bunker – he’s always centered, and the camera singles him out while everyone else is just noise. the other jaeger candidates are indistinguishable from one another and unnecessarily, poorly matched against raleigh. mako is the only asian actor with more than a token line (and is, notably, japanese rather than chinese). non sequitur but it’s also not apparent to me why raleigh magically speaks japanese, or why it’s even necessary to include that detail in their meet cute. stacker speaking japanese I can buy, given their father-daughter dynamic, but raleigh doing the same sets off red flags for me.

-as a disclaimer I tend not to like action scenes for their own sake (avengers & batman v superman, boring; wonder woman: riveting, because the emotional stakes were palpable) but these definitely felt too long because the characters and stakes weren’t sufficiently fleshed out and there was so much attention paid to the kaiju when they were fairly monotone villains.

-like there was so much characterization that could have been capitalized on here, which is why I think pac rim has such fic potential: lots of space to fill in the blanks. and that’s not a bad thing, to leave those gaps. but at the same time I think the emotional beats of the movie hit late, and maybe they could have been played up more.

-for one I didn’t realize the striker eureka pilots were father and son until they were saying their goodbyes on opposite sides of an elevator door (see there are these great moments) and therefore when stacker sizes up the son, his mention of daddy issues seemed heavy-handed and not borne out in the previous narrative. idk maybe I missed something earlier on, entirely possible. I completely missed how the dog was a surrogate for the father-son affection until the elevator scene.

-second, the jaeger pilots just kept dying in droves towards the end of the movie but for a group of people with a skill set so rare and so valued? I wanted their deaths to be played up more. I wanted a funeral or at least a tribute to the wei triplets and the kaidanovskys, possibly also dredging up the jaeger carcasses from the sea. it didn’t have to be elaborate, but it would have made sense to take a moment. (it’s been a while since I watched battlestar galactica, but something that has always stuck with me – however vaguely – was the way the raider pilots would touch the memorial wall as they filed past, the sheer emotional weight that went into those few frames.)

-but geez the shoe motif. it was a neat metaphor for the theme of togetherness lacing through the movie, as well as for the concept of drift compatibility. & I liked how the two pairs of shoes contrasted each other. stacker gives mako (what I assume to be) the second shoe, making a complete pair, and it’s a little kid’s shoe that embodies unity and family and an innocence of heart. but when hannibal gets eaten, the gold-plated Shoes of Avarice TM are separated.

-the questionable science: the striker eureka is purely electric, and goes out of commission when an EMP hits, whereas the mark-3 jaegers run on nuclear energy AND YET power off when the plug is pulled? but wait it gets better. stacker’s been warned that he’ll die from radiation poisoning if he steps foot in another jaeger, and the emotional beat when he takes herc’s spot plays off his knowing sacrifice. not sure what he thinks he’ll die from though, because he’s stepping into a solely electric-powered jaeger.

-nitpick: why is there so much shouting in the jaegers. why the need to talk if you’re in each other heads.

-also from a safety design standpoint it seems like a terrible idea to have the pilots standing, with zero support in case of impact.

-also if the kaiju are so invincible and any non-jaeger weaponry doesn’t make a dent, someone explain to me how in the stinger, hannibal cuts his way out of a kaiju GI tract with a tiny tiny knife.

-soundtrack: it always feels like I have no vocabulary to describe art or music, but I liked how the electronic/percussive elements echo the construction material of the mechas onscreen, kind of like an onomatopoeia. the orchestral undercurrent carries the heroic tone of the movie, but it’s stained too with foreboding by the foghorn blasts. & the beat idk but it reminded me of the give-and-take choreography of a fight or of a dance, possibly also the synchrony between jaeger pilots.

-way better meta about the symbolism in the changing colors of jaeger pilot armor here:

Raleigh goes from a white uniform to a black one, which is a classic Manichean Heresy. One could argue that the switch symbolizes a loss of innocence, but I would say that it goes much deeper than that (though I would also argue that this is treated by the film as a positive thing – Raleigh trades innocence for wisdom in this equation). A Manichean Heresy is an inversion of traditional symbolism. In his white uniform, which would traditionally symbolize purity and righteousness, Raleigh and Yancy make a mistake that ends in his Yancy’s death, the near destruction of G*psy Danger, and Raleigh’s fall from grace. When he returns to the world, as a savior and mentor, he wears a black uniform.

When I realized this, it took me a while to figure out what it meant. It wasn’t until I considered Stacker Pentecost’s uniform that I understood. Stacker shifts from a dark silver uniform into a black one. This transition is less extreme than Raleigh’s, though I think in a lot of ways they mirror one another. It is never stated that Stacker or his partner made a mistake that led to his partner’s death, therefore it makes sense that Raleigh and Stacker would be represented in visually unique manners, since their narratives have different trajectories. Thus Stacker’s transition into the black uniform is likely representative of his gained experience (and his eventual – spoiler alert – martyrdom), because he was presented to us (in literal messianic imagery) as a fixed moral point even from his introduction.