#but nothing hits like tasteful artistry of a crime scene to me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

artyloreviews · 5 years ago

Text

Disco Elysium (2019) - A Review and Analysis

A postmodern role-playing game for a much different audience. A combination of skillful artistry and unfulfilled potential. An attempt at tackling difficult topics and pandering to different tastes. A full package, with deceptive contents...

I enjoyed playing through Disco Elysium, but for completely different reasons than those that initially sold the game to me. Going in, I believed that it would be the type of RPG that I had been looking for quite some time – one that is not burdened by most of its interaction with the world happening on a grid, scanning through a list of spells and abilities, franticly pausing every frame, trying to min-max numbers as to not get destroyed by a pack of menacing farm animals of a slightly higher level. Examples of that in the genre would be classics such as Baldur’s Gate or newer re-iterations like Divinity: Original Sin and Shadowrun: Hong Kong. What I would habitually find myself doing is picking up the game, sinking my teeth into it, eventually hitting a numerical roadblock in some quest, and almost immediately retiring to a life of “not playing that game ever again”, as I am faced with the option of either save scumming and beating my head against the numeric wall, until by some fluke of the numbers I get the “good” number and am allowed to proceed; or could just stop doing whatever thing I am currently invested in and go somewhere else on the map, where the numbers are not as disagreeable, so I can get my personal numbers high enough to where the numbers I was having difficulty with before seem less impressive and I can pick up that quest again, but this time only halfway through, struggling to remember contextual cues that were relevant perhaps a few hours ago, but are now a forgotten footnote in some journal entry.

In both cases, the immersion gives way to the idea of gameplay, as the perhaps flawed ideal of an RPG is that which is based on table-top role playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, the aforementioned Shadowrun, or anything else that follows the same formula. From my personal experience in TTRPGs, the same issue persists, namely in having meaningful choice and character development take second fiddle to massive 3-5-man 1-2-hour combat encounters in between the more immersive moments of dialogue between players, non-player characters or story development. I’ve always felt that combat is so abstracted from everything else in TTRPGs in the way that it suddenly shifts into an entirely different game, which unlike the elements of role-play is less free-form and bound to a rigid set of rules. You’re no longer interested in how things look, feel or act, but rather how large a number is on a sheet of paper; and this contention of mine seems to always be translated into the video game counterpart of this genre, carrying the same problem from one medium to the other. Games even seem to compound upon the issue, by putting you in charge of multiple characters, where your custom created character is somehow not only equal to them, but at the same time the savior of the universe and all that is holy.

I cannot help but believe that the party ought to be AI controlled pawns, considering that they are supposedly different people with their own goals and aspirations; thus leaving the player to micro-manage their singular character – their avatar in the game world, rather than developing a form of psychogenic schizophrenia by having to deal with each and every one of the party’s members (now, admittedly the remakes of both Baldur’s Gate games have such a feature, but the combat AI is so poor, that you still have to go and remind them that they actually have a whole list of spells that they could be, in fact, using to… for instance, heal you, as you sit there bleeding profusely, crippled and powerless on the ground).

The only games which I have seen managing combat and RPG elements successfully are listed as a fundamentally different genre, known as “immersive sim” or “0451 games”. To name a few, that would be games like those of the Deus Ex, Dishonored and even the Fallout series. Most of those are first-person, for the most part shooters, with some emphasis on a singular character’s development through dialogue and stat point distribution. My main point can roughly be exemplified by comparing the naming convention and the reality for both genres: one is a “role-playing game”, the other is an “immersive simulation”; the first being used deceptively, as you could be playing a multitude of roles at any given time and also suspending that role-play to participate in some rather lengthy tactical combat for what could be 50% of the game’s runtime. On the other hand, you have “immersive sim”, which according to Warren Spector (game designer of Deus Ex and Thief fame) is a game in which “you are there, [and] nothing stands between you and [the] belief that you're in an alternate world”. I simply cannot emphasize enough how even the most engaging narrative and the most skillful writing can be tarnished by this type of abstract combat, which feels so fundamentally foreign and somehow still intrinsic to the idea of role-playing games and immersion.

Disco Elysium seemed to be the odd one out – a RPG that has no combat, except that, initiated by your choices in dialogue (more akin to playing an animation than actual combat). It was also advertised to me as having quite an in-depth ideological system, that was affected by your choices in-game and would automatically adapt dialogue according to your flavor of politics, philosophy or culture through a series of thoughts, which you would internalize, if used often enough. Frankly, it seemed like wish fulfilment for a jaded immersion-loving straight-edge centrist such as myself.

Upon launching the game, I was quickly introduced to the persona that I would be inhabiting – a deranged, drunken amnesiac, who in some cases would pass as a cop, but only if one’s notion of law-abiding is that of a drug-fueled abusive lover; also known as - the farthest thing from me. I already knew that my journey through the game would be that of a redemption arc, where this horrible piece of shit human, was going to become the most squeaky-clean, drug- and alcohol-free centrist known to all of Revachol. A true test of the game’s systems in action – from deranged and corrupt, to the straight and narrow. To my eventual surprise - I could do all of it, and very successfully at that. By the end of my nearly 24-hour playthrough, I had achieved my ideal vision for the character, with only a bit of resistance, which I will briefly mention further down the line. For now, I had succeeded in using all the tools available to me in order to internalize the thoughts for centrism, rejecting any form of drugs, and by the end almost managing to squeeze in the time to internalize being sober, cut short due to the spontaneous conclusion of the game.

The thoughts system was not entirely what I had initially imagined. Namely, what I had envisioned was a system, which converts whatever responses one made throughout the game, into non-internalized thoughts, which would begin to alter the dialogue options available, and only after choosing to emphasize said options, would it eventually internalize and give you a lot more radical options based on said thought. What it would turn out to do instead is make the acquisition of thoughts work in a similar manner, but make the process of internalization a menu, in which you “equip” thoughts into available slots. It seems like a minor inconvenience, but it makes the thoughts feel like yet another item that you just set and forget, rather than the thoughts of a person being actively developed over time, based on what kind of discourse they engage in. I suppose the idea of having it take anywhere from thirty minutes to six hours to internalize is there to be the substitute for the drawn out process of internalization. It is in a way saying “I feel like turning into a centrist in the next thirty minutes.”, while going around doing investigative work around a crime scene. The more active process I envisioned, would indeed take a lot longer, but it would be massively more immersive, as more and more options become available to you over time, rather than after some arbitrary timer has gone down.

Another big detractor is having to use skill points to unlock new slots for thoughts, which would otherwise be put into your more practical skills. Theoretically, one would think a human has an almost infinite capacity for new ideas; and one is surely not going to want to internalize them all. A good example would be the “Volumetric Shit Compressor” thought you gain early into the game, which mainly fulfils its purpose in one skill check for less physically able characters as a part of a single quest and is never made use of again, beyond its flat stat bonuses. No other thought in my playthrough had a temporary pragmatic function like that, which feels like a missed opportunity. Its temporary nature is where the skill-point cost seems absurd, when they could be better used to improve one’s skills. In what way would the character becoming more skillful help them stop “getting their shit together”? Wouldn’t one discard the though immediately after it’s no longer useful? The way the system works currently, meant that I spent most of my points on slots and playing around with thoughts, rather than improving my character until the very last parts of the game, which in effect made the game more difficult than intended. The decision to make thoughts equipable and not persistent passive perks that can upgrade into more radical or complete versions of themselves is perhaps one of my main disappointments with the game. The effect on scope would be minimal, as the game already has the dialogue options for those thoughts written and would only need to change their acquisition and internalization to be less menu-driven and more player-driven.

I tangentially mentioned not having skill-points to freely use until the latter parts of the game: That in turn made skill checks a lot more difficult and perilous, by making white skill checks (ones you can fail and retry upon increasing the skill they require) harder to re-unlock once failed and making red checks (ones that you cannot retry once failed) almost impossible, if not clothed in every stat-boosting piece of apparel in one’s inventory or seasoned with every potentially hazardous bottle of booze or glowing fairy dust left lying on the ground. White checks also do not unlock after one has used a consumable item or changed a piece of clothing to boost said stat, which encourages save scumming, as there is no way to change clothing in the middle of dialogue or knowing what the skill check will be, leading to one of the many pitfalls which I described earlier.

An even greater fault is that some quests just drop dead in their tracks, if the stat check is not completed. Moreover, since one cannot be proficient in all four skill categories, I would regularly hit a brick wall, upon being faced with a Psyche or Physique skill check, as my character mainly specialized in Intellect and Motorics. The thing about hitting a brick wall in Disco Elysium is not so much that you fail and have to face the consequences, but rather cannot continue at all and the narrative stops dead in its tracks until you can succeed the check. Sometimes quests are tied to each other, so not being able to progress in one of them means that you can’t progress in any of them. Suddenly an entire quest chain can just be gone at the click of a button. It got to a point where I would prefer to hear that all my efforts were in vain, fucking everything up irreversibly, rather than having a white check get locked and sit there in my journal, waiting for me to miraculously gain five points in some sub-skill of Physique. One way to fix this would be to have more obfuscated red checks with uncertain odds that lead to failure states. At least that would be more immersive than the current offering, as one could live with the consequences, rather than be left guessing what it could have been if one had slightly higher skills. This, however, could be difficult, as there is a dice roll to every skill. Not being skilled merely means you have less of a chance of succeeding or, alternatively, a higher chance to fail and lock the skill check.

The one thing that the game does great when it comes to skills is the addition of secret tasks. If one were to follow particular lines of inquiry, they often lead to some skill check down the line becoming easier, due to the things learned beforehand about that topic. This system rewards being thorough and attentive and is, perhaps, the best feature of the game. However, observations made through the “shivers” system (where orbs of information will show up contextually above the protagonist’s head, revealing information about the environment or elaborating on something relevant) do not appear to factor into these skill checks. This often leads to you reading something important when it pops up in the overworld, but upon engaging someone in conversation one must often select benign lines of dialogue, acting like one hadn’t made those observations to begin with. The dissonance is even more infuriating whenever Kim (your companion throughout the game) tells you that you are obviously wrong, because he also made those observations but (unlike you) could talk about them. It would have been a lot more diegetic if there were dialogue options available for you to repeat the observation to Kim instead, perhaps as you talk to him in the overworld (a feature that is woefully underutilized, and shows the same five or so options throughout the entire game, except whenever Kim wants to talk to you about something he deems relevant – an ability, which you would think the player should have had as well).

Speaking of the overworld, Disco Elysium does quite a lot with the small real-estate it has on its map. For what feels like a small neighborhood, it packs tens of hours of content, a varied cast of characters and lots of places to explore. Walking around is encouraged by the game, almost to a fault. At many points during the game Kim will remark upon your seemingly absurd ability to run around without getting tired. There even comes a point where you are injured, and are told not to run to avoid further harming yourself. After about twenty hours I realized that this was in order to signal to the player that if they run all over the place, trying to finish everything as quick as possible, they would be left with a lot of extra time at the end of the day, which would have been perhaps better spent looking into side-quests or other optional activities. However, the walk speed is woefully slow and with the amount of backtracking one needs to do, means that you will be seeing the same places plenty of times, which only tempts you even more to not waste your precious time RP-walking. The game has benches, which you can use to pass the time, but they are only available whenever Kim is not with you, which is only durring the night, meaning you can’t make any meaningful progress by resting on one, effectively making them worthless. That and the presence of time-gated tasks, means you will most likely be trying to find ways to waste your time, prompting Kim to berate you even more for straying away from the main focus of the narrative, as he often does. If you’re a fast reader, the game luckily fast-forwards time based on how many options you’ve selected, rather than real-time. This is most apparent whenever you’re save scumming and going though entire trees of dialogue you’ve already read.

And you will be reading a lot, as this is what you signed up for when you relinquished the combat systems of your typical RPGs. A welcome change, I might add, as the dialogue is beautifully written and engaging for tens of hours. (The end credits even thank Chris Avellone for what is probably him lending a bit of his Midas touch when it comes to game writing.) However, there are of course flaws in the way Disco Elysium decides to portray some of its characters, as it is sometimes more interested in making political statements in a very one-note way that might shock some people, rather than what one would think are nuanced and fleshed out personas. A large part of the cast is wearing a thick layer of existentialism, which they seem to flaunt upon every given opportunity. The same goes for characters who clearly exhibit some variety of political radicalism; you’ve got your racist nationalist, your bourgeois-eating communist, your fence-sitting centrist (dubbed moralist) and a whole swath of colorful opinionated people whom you either interact with or endure. Everyone else is mostly pleasant to be around, if not a bit saddening, due to the overall melancholic way of life people of Disco Elysium are forced to lead, influenced by factors that they alone cannot control; an overall sense of futility present at every turn. Most of them have quirks that help them cope with their predicament, which you can explore in full detail through in-depth dialogue trees, leading to some intriguing interactions and ultimately some interesting consequences down the line. Every line of dialogue seems to have a lot of those, which is surprising for a game that so haphazardly makes you select dumb questions for answers you already know. An example of that is the one occasion in which I used a particular brand of alcohol to boost my “Pain Threshold” in order to open a certain mission-critical freezer. Which towards the end had Kim labeling me as someone who “drinks on the job”, even after becoming sober and internalizing the thought that removes all positive effects from alcohol, as well as the action leading to us retrieving an item, which we would later use to further the plot. Instead as a one-off sacrifice of one’s principles, it was seen as a major transgression that would only lead people into thinking of me as even more of a raging alcoholic, rather than someone who is trying to recover and “get their shit together”, as it were.

A major part of the game’s rhetoric is lost to those who do not have a dictionary that has been well tempered through copious forms of political jargon, coming from a various selection of manifestos, academic political analyses and some of the more famous philosophical works for the last century. I would go as far to say that some of the sentiments the game presents are absolutely impenetrable when it comes to wording. I’ll give you an example:

Heartache is powerful, but democracy is *subtle*. Incrementally, you begin to notice a change in the weather. When it snows, the flakes are softer when they stick to your worry-worn forehead. When it rains, the rain is warmer. Democracy is coming to the Administrative Region. The ideals of Dolorian humanism are reinstating themselves. How can they not? These are the ideals of the Coalition and the Moralist International. Those guys are signal blue. And they're not only good -- they're also powerful. What will it be like, once their nuanced plans have been realized?

If you immediately recognized that it was about centrism, then congratulations – you are a lot smarter than me and probably everyone else around you. For you Disco Elysium is the perfect college-level textual experience for your Tuesday-night 1960’s poetry club. For the rest of humanity, it’s a bunch of gibberish. Flowery prose and poetics are riddled everywhere and you're never really sure what you're doing, what thoughts you're thinking or what's happening to you.

I mentioned briefly that the game tries to depict centrism as a form of moralism (a term which it prefers over the former). Even so, it presents centrism as less of an effort to hold multiple perspectives and act with a full and informed range of understanding, but rather as the stereotypical “fence-sitting” argument, where no decision can be made now, and progress can only be obtained through a slow, incremental process. While on the surface, it would seem so – as a self-proclaimed and passionate centrist, I cannot help but disagree with the outsider view that the game seems to be promoting, favoring critique of the right and an emphasis towards the left side of the political compass (making small but insignificant jabs towards both throughout). Contextually, the game’s developers Studio ZA/UM, have displayed a clear favor of the political left in their public appearances, which may explain this somewhat skewed perspective. While it’d be lovely to go on about the politics of ideology, it’s better not judge the contents of the game based on the developers’ ideological affiliation, but rather on its own merits.

Considering the amount of reading one needs to do, I would hesitantly say that Disco Elysium is part RPG, part choose-your-own-adventure visual novel. I say RPG, because of the aforementioned brick walls, inhibiting progress in a way that no immersive sim ever would, as there would be multiple ways to get the same information, which is sadly not a thing Disco Elysium does well. The sheer volume of the text is also a cause for some, I would suppose, aesthetic concerns about the game. Graphically, the game is stunning with its unique painterly style, but it often values it over function, namely in having the UI serve little to no purpose, as Kim and your portraits take up the entire bottom left of the screen. At the same time the dialogue panel is put on the far right side of the screen, even though two thirds of it are spent zoomed in on some 3D models doing their idle animations, instead of having the text front and center, as the thing you will be most likely looking at for 90% of your time with the game. Other technical issues include shadows being displaced from where they should be, especially on stairs, as well as being incredibly jagged for a game that doesn’t really have high hardware requirements and very little real-time lighting, but all of this is frankly unintrusive, compared to the cramps in your neck from looking to your right all the time.

Every once in a while, you get to enjoy not having to read, as a select few scenes are entirely voice-acted by a talented cast. I am unsure, however, of the production team behind the recordings, as they seem to sound as if recorded in home studios with different microphones and sound processors. Other than that, the quality and range of the performances is wonderful, especially since it is coming from some lesser known actors in the industry.

When it comes to sound, the game does a fantastic job of establishing a lot of varied soundscapes for an admittedly small plot of land. The music is ambient, droning and subtle in all the ways that make you not think about it, until you are sitting there listening to the soundtrack on your own time, remembering all the scenes that every piece of music has lifted from monotony. All of the tracks have this aging, somber tone to them, much like the world they are written for, making the music an unavoidable essential part of the experience, as you walk the fields of Revachol with the wind blowing and the small creek near you emitting a slight babble. The only downside is that the mixing of all these layers is often horribly unproportioned. Everything will be quiet, until some random intercom plays two straight minutes of loud white noise into your ear. Those parts are few and far between, but still leave a surprisingly large impression for an otherwise spotless execution of foley and ambience.

Overall, Disco Elysium is a full package. While not necessarily the game that I hoped it would be, it was still an enjoyable experience with an incredible main quest, memorable characters and side quests, elevated by wonderful sound design and fantastic ambient music, with writing that will be unparalleled for years to come. While it is not without its flaws, and some of them are quite major - it does what it set out to do with flying colors and is sure to appeal to a lot of people, who have been looking for an experience such as this. For me, however, it also represents a lot of squandered potential. It is by no means an ideal game – far from it; but I would still recommend you play through it for yourself, just to see where it takes you. It has a way of challenging you intellectually, that not a lot of games can pull off, especially nowadays. It is an admirable endeavor in tackling difficult topics, whilst also spinning an intriguing narrative that keeps you invested until the very end.

Score: 7/10

7 notes · View notes

harryandmeghan0-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Predictions for 2019: Wine-Inspired Royal Baby Name; #WineBeerEmoji Campaign | Unfiltered | News & Features - Wine Spectator

New Post has been published on https://harryandmeghan.xyz/predictions-for-2019-wine-inspired-royal-baby-name-winebeeremoji-campaign-unfiltered-news-features-wine-spectator/

Predictions for 2019: Wine-Inspired Royal Baby Name; #WineBeerEmoji Campaign | Unfiltered | News & Features - Wine Spectator

What’s on the horizon for wine moods in 2019? Unfiltered bets on baby names, LeBron James, a Mariah Carey cult-wine movement, and the drama and thrills of direct-to-consumer wine shipping comes to the big screen

Now that all the New Year’s poppers have popped, Champagne has been drunk, and novelty party glasses manufacturers finally stopped puzzling over how the hell to fit lenses into the numerals “2019,” it’s time for Unfiltered to take on our own annual challenge: Predicting the year in wine and pop culture to come.

At this time in 2018, we thought we had it all figured out, but now, one year older and wiser, we can see we only had most of it figured out. We predicted that like all other movies, wine movies would only be made in trilogies, and Somm 3 saw to it. We thought 2018 would be the year the wine robots learned to feel love, and for a time they did, happily mixing drinks and cracking jokes for their human caretakers—until we pushed them too far. And finally, we called it that chef José Andrés would win the Nobel Prize, vanquishing longtime rival Bobby Flay in a harrowing test of culinary ingenuity, ingredient artistry and human empathy. (OK, so far we only know Andrés has been nominated for the prize.)

What do we divine for two-zero-one-nine? Read on, and hold us to it! Get the Unfiltered newsletter delivered straight to your inbox on alternating Fridays—all the latest scoop on drinks in sports, movies, music, politics, art, crime and more!

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Bestow Wine-Inspired Name Upon Their Royal Baby

There’s nothing that could top the excitement, the intrigue and the gossip that marked last year’s Royal Wedding … except, that is, this year’s Royal Baby! The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced in October that they are expecting their first child together, and the world is already cooing over the little Lady or Lord—and placing bets on what the bundle of joy will be named. Among the Victorias and Alberts and other royal-sounding suggestions floating around, Unfiltered is offering another possibility: Considering the wine-centric craze surrounding the couple’s nuptials, Harry and Meghan will surely name their child after a wine, grape or region!

The question is, what will it be? Perhaps Eden or Olivier, after one of the wines rumored to be at their wedding reception. Or maybe there will be a little baby Tig (short for “Tignanello”) to pay homage to Meg’s favorite super Tuscan. Start your betting now!

Unfiltered to Demand #WineBeerEmoji

In 2018, the cool teens of Kendall-Jackson, Flora Springs and a handful of other wineries got together to write up a proposal for the creation of a #WhiteWineEmoji. Without the white wine emoji, wrote the authors to the Unicode Consortium (the keepers of phone glyphs), how were emoji users to convey “glass of white wine”? “The image of a ‘red wine glass’ + ‘white box’ does not clearly translate the meaning of ‘white wine’ in human language,” they noted. Too true, of course, but in 2019, we’re counterproposing that the proposal does not go far enough.

Kendall-Jackson

We fight on.

“Today, wine is ubiquitous worldwide and evokes strong personal and emotional connections and opinions,” the winery petitioners argued in 2018. “In its simplest form, it boils down to, ‘Are you a red or a white wine drinker?'”

With all due respect, this is antiquated thinking. It’s 2019, and more and more people are identifying as pink wine drinkers, blue wine drinkers, green wine drinkers and other libational expressions that don’t fit into a pat red/white wine binary. Their voices need to be emojed too, which is why in 2019, we’re advocating for a #WineBeerEmoji. We submit that the image of a ‘red wine glass’ + ‘clinking beer mugs’ does not clearly translate the meaning of ‘winebeer’ in human language. As more and more people embrace their alcohol fluidity in 2019, we should have an emoji to celebrate our love of winebeer in our &#x1F3E0, &#x1F9FA, &#x1F3DD or &#x1F6A1.

Millennials to Ruin Wine, Music with Cult Cab Reboots of Mediocre ’90s Jams

Last year, we predicted (more or less) that the Millennials’ nostalgia for remakes would ruin movies, and we weren’t wrong—we just weren’t thinking big enough. In fact, everywhere you looked in pop culture, the hits, hot trends and heartthrobs from the Y2K-era Millennial middle-school years were cool again in 2018: Mission Impossible, Super Mario Smash, Panic! At the Disco, Dick Cheney, daring your friends to eat detergent …

Mariah Carey / Vevo

Mariah Carey may be the Songbird Supreme, but she prefers Caymus to Screaming Eagle.

We thought 2018 would be all about wine movie reboots, but it was the musicians who scored the soundtrack to the late ’90s and early ’00s who made a splash on the wine scene: 50 Cent and the Wu-Tang Clan’s Raekwon released bottles full of bub’, Pearl Jam poured Washington wine, Lenny Kravitz tasted the stars at Dom Pérignon and Kelly Clarkson took aim at wine haters on Twitter.

But only the Songbird Supreme, Mariah Carey, combined new tunes with retro-hip wine vibes in 2018: On the first song on her new album, “GTFO,” Carey laments she “could’ve sworn you loved me harder / Might as well down this Caymus bottle” in a nod to the heady heyday of cult Napa Cabernet that coincided with the diva’s own reign atop the charts.

In 2019, expect to see more faves from your Clinton-era Napster playlists and burned CD-Rs remix their hits with Dad’s favorite Cabs: Jay Z‘s “’99 Harlans,” Korn thrasher “Freak on Stag’s Leap,” Marcy Playground‘s whimsical low-fi groove “Sex and Kapcsandy,” the infamous Los Del Rió earworm that will have you belting out “Ehhhyy Montelena!” Eminem smash “The Real Kapcsandy,” Joan Osborne‘s plaintive “What If God Was Joseph Phelps?”, the Verve‘s one-hit masterpiece “Bitter Sweet Kapcsandy,” the Offspring‘s irreverent “Pretty Fly (for a White Wine)” … As the memorable reworked lines of Chumbawamba will put it: “He drinks an Eisele drink, he drinks a Melka drink, he drinks a Schrader drink, he drinks a Carter drink.”

Or Kid Rock, as usual, will capture the moment best, kicking off the alt-rock fest DallaVallepalooza 2019 with an exuberant, “Bawitdaba da bang a dang Kapcsandy!”

’81 Wine Consumers’ the Movie Tells Dark Post-Apocalyptic Tale of the 2019 Wine-Shipping Bans

In late 2018, the organization Wine Freedom (operated by the National Association of Wine Retailers) set up a GoFundMe campaign for a key Supreme Court case called Tennessee Retailers v. Zackary Blair, which, if ruled broadly, could have drastic consequences for wine lovers’ ability to order their wines online and have them shipped right to them. The $26,120 raised in the campaign resulted in an amicus brief titled “81 Wine Consumers.” Word is out it will be adapted to the silver screen (or iTunes). Spoilers ahead.

*Epic movie trailer voice* In a world where the Supreme Court of the United States cares more about states’ rights and temperance than the unfettered flow of alcohol products across state lines, a landmark decision led to bans on the little out-of-state retailer shipping that was left in 2019, reducing wine lovers nationwide to have to leave their house, get in their car, and drive 5 minutes to their local wine store to get a bottle of #BarefootOrNothing [a real hashtag in 2019].

81 Wine Consumers tells the stories of every #WineFreedomWarrior who attached their name to the brief, following them along in 81 poignant if brief vignettes, as they come to terms with the annihilation of their wine rights.

Consumer Ashley Brandt (played by Elisabeth Moss) was part of a thriving tasting group in 2018, but after the fateful Supreme Court ruling, it became impossible to find any wines worth comparing and contrasting. The group was forced to disband. And then there’s Katherine Granger (Sandra Bullock), who had ordered a case of prized wine just before the shipping ban came into effect, but it arrived too late and was quarantined at a UPS location. She sets out to find her precious Wine Box, which she does blindfolded for some reason that you’ll only find out if you just watch the damn movie already.

Advance praise for 81 Wine Consumers: “A masterpiece. We cried the whole way through.”—The National Association of Wine Retailers “Whoever thought up this plot has a chillingly dark mind … wait this is a true story?!”—The writers of Black Mirror

Unfiltered Hires Special NBA Correspondent LeBron James

You might be surprised to learn that Unfiltered isn’t just one pop-culture obsessed wine writer who spends all day trolling Twitter for story leads and watching late-night talk shows for wine references, but instead a collection of linguistically gifted enophiles with varying vinous interests and specialties. But once you recover from the initial shock of this revelation, think about the endless possibilities of whom we could recruit for our team in 2019 ….

While Emmanuel Macron would be a strong addition to the wine-meets-politics beat, and there’s perhaps no one better than chef José Andrés to cover the intersection of food and humanitarianism, the one job application Unfiltered is anxiously awaiting is that of basketball superstar LeBron James.

The three-time NBA champion deserves an award for the number of times he’s appeared in Unfiltered for his wine-soaked escapades on social media—and considering the surging popularity of wine among athletes (including fellow basketball players, hockey stars, footballers and more), it seems only right that Unfiltered would have someone cover the booming wine-and-sports beat from the inside.

LeBron, if you’re reading this: With your birthday, your injury and probably some basketball stuff on your plate, we’re sure you’ve already got plenty to keep you busy, but if you ever feel the urge to write about, say, Sassicaia (one of our favorites too!), DM us!

Enjoy Unfiltered? The best of Unfiltered’s round-up of drinks in pop culture can now be delivered straight to your inbox every other week! Sign up now to receive the Unfiltered e-mail newsletter, featuring the latest scoop on how wine intersects with film, TV, music, sports, politics and more.

Source: https://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/Unfiltered-Predictions-2019-Meghan-Markle-Harry-Wine-Baby-Name

0 notes

chevd-blog · 7 years ago

Text

My Top 100 Favorite Albums of All Time (Part 1: 100 - 81)

Greetings, followers! Next Friday, December 8th, is my 32nd birthday. And because I'm honestly surprised I've survived this long (and because music is a big reason that I have), this year, I decided I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion. I've always enjoyed the sorts of lists that music publications put together, so I've made my own: My Top 100 Favorite Albums of All Time. This list will serve as a great indicator of which albums have influenced me the most over the course of my first 32 years on this planet. For the next week, I will be posting up a new section of the list every night at midnight PST, before culminating with my top 5 on my birthday.

Before we begin, a few notes about the list. This is going to be a little different from most lists in music publications, because it's completely based on my own tastes and preferences. By no means am I claiming these are the best albums, only that they are the ones that I like the most. This list is not solely about the music itself, but the experiences I've had which are connected to the music. For that reason, the list is frequently going to delve into my specific memories, and examine the albums from my perspective rather than an objective, "detached" angle. With each album, I've also listed a few "Prime Cuts"— the songs which stand out the most for me.

When considering this list, there were two major criteria each album on this list had to meet for it to be included:

· #1. I must have listened to the entire album, from start to finish, at least once, and be acquainted with every song. This is sort of an obvious rule, but I included it specifically to make a point, that a single great song isn't enough justification for a spot on this list. The entire album has to hold up.

· #2. Original studio albums only, no compilations. This was a really big rule. A huge chunk of my music library consists of "Best Of" compilations. For that reason, this list isn't entirely representative of the full breadth of my musical tastes. It's the reason, for example, that the Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, David Bowie, Björk, Dream Theater, and many, many other artists that I like didn't end up on the list. That said, all of the ones who did end up on here are very deserving of their places here, for holding my interest with their albums.

Now, with that out of the way, let's begin, with albums #100 - #81:

100. The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) – Steven Wilson (2013)

Expect to see a lot of Steven Wilson's work on my list. Ever since my first encounter with Porcupine Tree in my early twenties, his music has had perhaps the most profound impact on me of any single musician's. For his third solo effort, Wilson created a unique concept album consisting of various ghost stories in song format, with a heavy dose of '70s prog sensibility. While not my favorite of his work, The Raven is still a remarkable showcase of technical proficiency and pathos (and its title track is one of the few times I've ever heard Auto-Tuning used in a truly creative manner).

Prime cuts: "Luminol", "The Raven That Refused to Sing"

99. Broken – Nine Inch Nails (1992)

While the format of an EP may not provide as lengthy and immersive an experience as a full studio album, Trent Reznor certainly didn't pull any punches with this one. Broken is perhaps the most raw and hard-edged selection in NIN's impressive catalogue of halos, occasionally even making The Downward Spiral seem a bit tame by comparison. When I first began delving into industrial music as an angst-ridden teenager, there was nothing in my music collection quite as hard-hitting for me as Broken— its primal rage served as a powerful cathartic mirror or my own, and ever since then, it has served as a visceral reminder of how far I have come.

Prime cuts: "Wish", "Happiness in Slavery"

98. Thirteenth Step – A Perfect Circle (2003)

Another name you'll be seeing frequently on this list is Maynard James Keenan, the vocal talent behind Puscifer, A Perfect Circle, and of course, Tool. Here, Maynard and APC's other primary member Billy Howerdel were joined by some pretty stellar talent from other bands, including James Iha from the Smashing Pumpkins and Jeordie White (formerly Twiggy Ramirez from Marilyn Manson). I think Thirteenth Step is probably objectively the best of A Perfect Circle's albums, even if it isn't the one I call my personal favorite. With a name that references twelve-step sobriety programs, this is another concept album, with each of its songs serving as a different perspective on the difficult prospect of recovery from drug addiction.

Prime cuts: "The Outsider", "Pet"

97. Walking on a Flashlight Beam – Lunatic Soul (2014)

If you haven't heard of Polish prog rocker Mariusz Duda, I encourage you to check out his two most prominent bands, Riverside and Lunatic Soul. While Riverside is a more straightforward progressive metal act, Lunatic Soul has primarily served as Duda's personal project for channeling the more emotive aspects of his artistry. Which isn't to say it can't occasionally be heavy or dark too, as this album demonstrates—Lunatic Soul's conceptual basis has to do with the afterlife, and nearly every track here has some sort of eerily menacing undertone, even while veiled beneath layers of hypnotic beauty (as in the best track on the album, the bass-heavy Middle Eastern-flavored "Gutter").

Prime cuts: "Gutter", "Pygmalion's Ladder"

96. Tip – Finger Eleven (1997)

This is one of many picks which is probably here primarily due to nostalgia. I bought this album in 2005, while visiting a friend in Toronto—my first time extensively traveling alone, and my first prolonged experience with Canada. I specifically picked it because I wanted to sample something local. To this day, I can't help thinking about that trip whenever I listen to it. Over the years, Finger Eleven has received a bit of a reputation for their association with the nu metal genre, but on this album—their formal debut—there really is no trace of it. Instead, Tip is a collection of solid, straightforward late 90's alt-rock. Not a bad introduction to Canada, eh?

Prime cuts: "Above", "Glimpse"

95. Dear Science – TV on the Radio (2008)

Although music journalists often cite their 2006 album Return to Cookie Mountain as the pinnacle of their achievements, I truly believe TV on the Radio's best, most cohesive work is on this album. Perhaps I'm biased, because this was also the album that introduced me to them. Their eclectic blend of indie rock, funk, and jazz was much appreciated during a period when I was looking to branch out and expand my musical tastes.

Prime cuts: "Dancing Choose", "Golden Age"

94. Make Yourself – Incubus (1999)

Make Yourself was the first real mainstream success for Incubus, and for good reason. The album is a good mix of alt-rock crunch and nu metal style—essentially, the best of both worlds, in terms of rock radio in 1999. I first became interested in Incubus years later, in my early twenties, while attending college in Florida, and for me, this music is now inextricably linked with that experience. With lyrics about self-realization and reassurances like "not everyone here is that fucked up and cold", Make Yourself is probably one of the sunniest albums in my collection—but it is also a great demonstration that positivity doesn't have to mean sacrificing hardness.

Prime cuts: "Pardon Me", "The Warmth"

93. I Against I – Bad Brains (1986)

Truthfully, I'm not really a huge fan of punk rock. I listen to some bands within the genre to add a little variety to my playlist, but it's never really been my scene, largely because the music is often built on an ethos of sacrificing melodic appeal for a faster tempo and an abrasive attitude. I Against I is one major exception, from a band that was rather unconventional even among their fellow punk peers at the time. Taking cues from heavy metal, funk and reggae as much as hardcore punk, Bad Brains' most successful album surprised me with its musicality on my first listen, and had me coming back for subsequent listens.

Prime cuts: "I Against I", "Secret 77"

92. The Crane Wife – The Decemberists (2006)

One of the Decemberists' most cohesive and accessible albums, The Crane Wife demonstrates the band's taste for esoteric lyrical matter, with songs about subjects ranging from Japanese fables and Shakespearean stories, to the real-life story of a besieged seed vault in WWII Leningrad. Simultaneously, the album also showcases the Portland indie band's musical versatility, as they dabble in hard rock, disco-funk and progressive.

Prime cuts: "O Valencia!", "The Perfect Crime #2"

91. American Idiot – Green Day (2004)

2004 was sort of a watershed year for me in terms of my development toward adulthood. That was the year I graduated from high school in Georgia, and my family moved to Florida, where (as stated earlier) I began my college life. It was the first time I had enough independence from my family to really develop a sense of confidence in my own political leanings. It was also smack dab in the middle of George W. Bush's administration, and the first year where I was able to vote in a presidential election. In the midst of all the discontent over the Iraq War and the rise of terrorism, Green Day released an album which not only revitalized their careers and reinvented them as politically relevant in the 21st Century, but also succinctly encapsulated my own feelings of alienation toward an incompetent and repressive conservative government and an American public that seemed to have chosen faith and fear over reason and intellect.

Prime cuts: "Holiday", "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"

90. Four – Bloc Party (2012)

Although it has sometimes been argued that Bloc Party has always been a band of diminishing returns (and I admit, there may be some validity to that argument), it hasn't stopped me from having a soft spot in my heart for them (which I will explain later). The band's appropriately-named fourth album Four is the lowest one on my list, but I wouldn't say it's a bad album (a claim which I sadly can't make about its successive album, Hymns, which didn't even make my list). In truth, this album was actually a bit of a return to form for them, with some of their hardest and edgiest material since Silent Alarm. Conversely, I think it also contains some of their most successful material with a mellower vibe as well. Overall, a decent album, and one which I really hope will not go down as the band's last gasp of vitality.

Prime cuts: "Kettling", "Day Four"

89. Audioslave – Audioslave (2003)

Combustion and fire imagery runs rampant on Audioslave's self-titled debut. As motifs go, it was an apt metaphor for the incendiary mixture of one part Soundgarden with three parts Rage Against the Machine. Both were defunct bands I had been hoping to hear from again, so when Audioslave formed from the ashes, I was really fired up myself. So fired up, in fact, that I got tickets to Lollapalooza '03 when it came to Atlanta, mostly to see them (and, admittedly, the other headliner, Jane's Addiction). Despite being horribly sunburned and then drenched by rain, I walked away with one of my most unforgettable concert experiences ever (as well as a poster autographed by Tom Morello!).

Prime cuts: "Gasoline", "Like a Stone"

88. Voids – Minus the Bear (2017)

The most recent entry on this list, Voids was my first encounter with Minus the Bear, a Seattle band which has (to my surprise) been around for over a decade now, redefining the term "progressive rock". At first listen, Voids seems more or less like straightforward indie alt-rock, albeit polished to a nostalgic Reagan-era sheen. Each song feels like it could easily be a commercially viable single. However, it is in the soundscapes intermittently scattered throughout the songs—brief reprieves where the catchy hook delves into a loop where time signature seems to be upended by some arcane logic—where the music is finally revealed to take on a progressive edge. Combined with Jake Snider's distinctive vocals, the songs on Voids offer a tasty blend of everything good about rock to emerge in the past four decades: 80s synthpop, 90s alternative, 2000s indie rock, and 2010s style.

Prime cuts: "Invisible", "Silver"

87. The Incident – Porcupine Tree (2009)

According to Steven Wilson, there's a good possibility this really is Porcupine Tree's swan song. So, what to say about (presumably) the final album of one of my favorite bands? Admittedly, I don't think it quite measures up to most of their earlier work—but if this really is their goodbye, it's still a hell of a way to go out. The Incident is a two-disc set, with the entire first disc taken up by the first "song" (which has been broken up into named movements and portioned into tracks for easier listening). Apparently inspired by an encounter with a highway traffic jam as a result of a gruesome accident, the song is a meditation on 21st Century detachment and antisocial behaviors in a media-saturated world, with the nostalgic Pink Floydian epic "Time Flies" serving as a centerpiece. While the second disc may seem like an afterthought after listening to the first, particularly with its much shorter running time, it does include some gems as well. Overall, despite not quite being up to par for Porcupine Tree, it still allows the band to bow out with an enormous amount of dignity and an intact legacy as one of the finest progressive bands of the past thirty years.

Prime cuts: "The Blind House", "Bonnie the Cat"

86. Mirrored – Battles (2007)

I'll say it: Mirrored is a badass album. Probably not the first adjective that comes to mind for many after hearing Tyondai Braxton's liberal usage of incomprehensible, distorted, chipmunk-on-helium vocals, but I think it fits. Experimenting and innovating is badass. Having a sense of humor is badass. Dave Konopka and Ian Williams's guitar work is badass. And in my view, the most badass thing about this album, the thing that really anchors it down and makes it function properly, is Helmet drummer John Stanier's prodigious rhythm-keeping, reliable as clockwork even through odd time signature changes and gradual tempo shifts. Not since discovering Rush has there been an album where I felt the drummer was as integral to everything working.

Prime cuts: "Atlas", "Rainbow"

85. Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine (1992)

In more ways than one, this is an album that presents itself as being revolutionary. The self-titled debut from Rage Against the Machine introduced the world to a mixture of rock, rap, and politics that had never been seen before. I discovered this album in high school—of course, by then, about a decade had already passed since it had been released. Initially, the big points of my attraction to this album were Maynard James Keenan's guest appearance in the song "Know Your Enemy", and the prominent appearance of "Wake Up" at the end of The Matrix, but I quickly learned to appreciate the rest of the album from start to finish. Though the album is perhaps not as polished as their subsequent work, in a way, for a band like Rage Against the Machine… that raw sense of unbridled vitriol sort of works in their favor.

Prime cuts: "Killing in the Name", "Wake Up"

84. Himalayan – Band of Skulls (2014)

Good new hard rock has been getting harder to come by lately. I discovered Band of Skulls after hearing the track which they contributed to the HBO series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. After listening to a handful of songs off of Himalayan (which was their latest album at the time), I was sufficiently impressed to snare myself a copy. Though the bulk of the album is comprised of '70s garage-style rockers, the band isn't afraid to show a little variety— slowing things down a bit with the dramatic flair of the Tarantino-esque "Cold Sweat", and conjuring up a psychobilly surf-rock vibe with "I Feel Like Ten Men, Nine Dead and One Dying". In my view, the album's title actually seems rather appropriate—its musical journey feels very much like traveling up to the top of a craggy, larger-than-life mountain peak and then down again.

Prime cuts: "Hoochie Coochie", "Nightmares"

83. Brothers – The Black Keys (2010)

Around 2010, I was in a real dry spell concerning music. My reliable choices for listening had all but vanished: Porcupine Tree went their separate ways for Steven Wilson to work on solo projects, Bloc Party and Nine Inch Nails were on hold, there was no news from Radiohead, Modest Mouse or Tool, and Octahedron wasn't quite holding my attention the way that previous albums from the Mars Volta had. A new decade had begun, and I desperately needed something fresh to listen to. Into this void, Brothers was released, and I was introduced to the Black Keys. Admittedly, it wasn't quite what I had been expecting to quench my drought— the album's vintage blues rock sound was undeniably a throwback— but it was just such a fun and well-orchestrated album that my initial impression of it being a lost recording unearthed from a time capsule after fifty years was quickly deemed irrelevant. Old was new again.

Prime cuts: "Tighten Up", "Howlin' for You"

82. A Weekend in the City – Bloc Party (2007)

Some albums, regardless of quality, are etched into your memory by proximal experiences—i.e., the things that happen in your life around the same time. A Weekend in the City was one of those albums for me. With its major thematic underpinning being the alienation of life in an urban environment, it's hard for me to say it wasn't an absolutely perfect album to coincide with my move from the suburban sprawl of Florida to the city life of Vancouver. This album essentially became the soundtrack to my culture shock. It is perhaps a more oblique album than its immediate predecessor—a merely good follow-up to a great opening act— but with songs inspired by Bret Easton Ellis novels, racial tension, and terrorism paranoia, it ended up being an essential initiation for me into a larger world than I'd ever experienced before.

Prime cuts: "Hunting for Witches", "Where Is Home?"

81. Californication – Red Hot Chili Peppers (1999)

Until the age of 14, admittedly, I was rather clueless about contemporary music. My childhood was dominated by oldies radio, to which my parents listened. I didn't start to gain a feel for my own independent tastes until I began to watch VH-1 circa 2000, and developed an interest in music videos. Red Hot Chili Peppers had recently released this album, and videos from it were still in heavy rotation. The videos for "Otherside" and "Californication" absolutely fascinated me—they were both so creative in concept that they served as a catalyst in my continued discovery of new music. The album ended up in heavy rotation throughout my teen years, whenever I was in the mood for something a bit more upbeat. Even as my tastes have matured with age, this one sticks with me, and stands the test of time.

Prime cuts: "Otherside", "Californication"

Well, that’s it for now, but stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow, where I’ll reveal albums #80-61!

#top 100 #albums #favorite #music #list #top 100 list

0 notes