#he's literally on all of their album covers and most of their songs feature him

[angbands-last-hero]

[alltheweirdkidsinoneplace]

Eddie Munson + potential Iron Maiden references

because I'm hyperfixiating and desperate. Also apparently not everyone was raised on 80s metal, so this might be new to some people and gatekeeping is lame. None of this is confirmed obviously and I'm probably reaching but here we go

let's start with the most obvious one: This is Iron Maiden's mascot. His name is Eddie. He's been on every single album cover, most single covers, merch, posters... He looks a little different every time, but he's always undead.

This is the cover artwork for the 1982 album The Number of the Beast. It features A huge version of Eddie, controlling the strings of a red, devil-like creature, which in turn holds the strings of a tiny version of Eddie. The Devil (Vecna, there I said it) is not shown to be aware of Big Eddie controlling him. It's all very double agent, The Spy parallel. Also if you take just the frame of Big Eddie's hand and the devil, it looks A LOT like Eddie Munson's puppetmaster tattoo. With a little fantasy and even more reaching there's also some vaguely mindflayery shape in the background of the image.

(probably irrelevant but still fun fact: This album was released on March 22nd 1982 - EXACTLY four years before Eddie Munson became the main suspect in Chrissy's death)

This one speaks for itself. We've all seen the Eddie prequel book that's gonna come out later this year with literally the same title as this 1983 song.

Interestingly, Eddie has batwings here, aka KAS THEORY CONFIRMED?

This one, holy shit. This is the artwork for the 1986 (!) album Somewhere in Time, and if the year and title weren't enough, there is so much more.

1. Again starting with the most obvious: There is a graffito on the wall to the very right that literally says EDDIE LIVES.

2. Under the graffito we see a hand reaching up from the ground (grave?). The version of Eddie that we get here is a cyborg, and the hand on the ground looks very cyborg-esque as well. The band members are seen a little towards the left as normal humans, so it's not like everyone's just a cyborg in this world. Ergo the hand belongs to a second Eddie, which is very in line with the whole "there is another timeline with shadow selves"-theory.

3. The red clouds in the background are very vecna-y.

4. The little winged figure from the Flight of Icarus cover is seen left of the big tower in the middle.

5. The neon sign of the movie theatre to the very bottom left contains the words "Live After Death" (illegible here, but it's there!)

6. The lyrics on this album! In particular Wasted Years, featuring the lines "But now it seems I'm just a stranger to myself

And all the things I sometimes do, it isn't me but someone else"

- again, very much in line with shadow selves. And even more Stranger in a Strange Land:

"Was many years ago that I left home and came this way

I was a young man full of hopes and dreams

But now it seems to me that all is lost and nothing gained

Sometimes things ain't what they seem

No brave new world, no brave new world

No brave new world, no brave new world

Night and day I scan horizon, sea and sky

My spirit wanders endlessly

Until the day will dawn and friends from home discover why

Hear me calling, rescue me

Set me free, set me free

Lost in this place and leave no trace

Stranger in a strange land

Land of ice and snow

Trapped inside this prison

Lost and far from home

[...]

They found his body lying where it fell on that day

Preserved in time for all to see

No brave new world, no brave new world

Lost in this place, and leave no trace

What became of the man that started

All are gone and their souls departed

Left me here in this place so all alone"

Does that sound like someone left for dead in the Upside Down or is that just me?

7. idk a fuckload more in the cover probablay because it's wild.

Bonus Metallica fact: Master of Puppets was released on March 3rd 1986. Eeven if he bought the album the day it was released (he would) that would have given him under three weeks to rehearse it so much that he could give the most metal concert ever on March 27th.

Anyway that's just from the top of my head; I might add on to it if/when I think of more. PLEASE spam me with your theories I beg you.

Side note: Contrary to popular belief, if you got into metal because of Eddie: That's awesome! Welcome! Again, gatekeeping sucks; we've all had our minds blown by a Metallica song for the first time at some point, so let's be nice to the newcomers.

[extraordinaryhistories]

#15 – 'Kill' (A Sun Came, 1998)

In 2016, a man named Marc Rebillet (yes, that Marc Rebillet) decided to search through a dumpster outside Sufjan’s studio in DUMBO, Brooklyn, which is a very mature and adult thing to do and reflects fantastically on Marc as a person, and certainly should have no consequences on his thriving music career. In that dumpster, he found an odd-looking CD – an unreleased album with a black-and-white cover titled Stalker, claiming to be performed by Sufjan Stevens. It had been recorded some time in the 1990s, and on a quick listen (the album was swiftly leaked online), it certainly sounded like early Sufjan, back when he did wild electric guitar freak-outs; his hushed but nasally vocal tone from that era is unmistakeable.

Everything seemed normal, except for the fact that the album was about tracking, sexually assaulting and then murdering people. It contained songs with titles like ‘I Know Where Your Kids Go to School’, ‘Baby Give Me a Feel’ and ‘U Kan Wrun But U Kan’t Hyde’. None of it was metaphorical. Sufjan recorded a noise rock album in the 90s that was quite literally about fucking stalking people. And then, not five years later, recorded ‘For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti’. It boggles the mind.

At the time that Stalker was released, a significant portion of the Sufjan fan community cast doubt on the veracity of the leak. One of the major concerns was that the subject matter was far too direct, far too gruesome, for a Sufjan song. He would never be so brutally direct. He would never. Right?

‘Kill’ is a song by Sufjan Stevens that features the following as its chorus: ‘I want to kill him / I want to cut his brain / And when it's over / I know I'll feel okay’. Ah. Case closed.

The third-last track on A Sun Came, ‘Kill’ is a knotty piece of songwriting that may be the most multi-layered lyrical construction in his early work. Even purely on inspection one can see this to be true – it is a song with a clear narrative, some clear themes, a roiling balance of light and dark within it, which is far more than can be said for much of this era. But then you get to the allusions this song pays to other literary and musical sources, and things only begin to complicate further. I, personally, have not quite made my mind up about ‘Kill’. It is a song loaded with possibility.

An initial reading of ‘Kill’ gives the strong suggestion of a relationship narrative, and I do think that this is what lies at the song’s core. The relationship in this song need not be romantic, but given the sheer depth and fury of the passion here, it seems highly probable. There is a narrator who exists in what is very much a lopsided power dynamic with another (male) figure; very rarely is the narrator an active subject in this song, instead being subject to the figure’s curation and exploitation. The figure ‘took the stable / Bred me to be a mare / Made the brethren able / Gave me a room’, all of which are ostensible acts of kindness that nevertheless confirm a ruler/ruled dynamic. 

We receive that same confirmation in the next verse. ‘I never asked him / I never meant to stay’, says the narrator, and very quickly the song sours. The narrator finds themselves being used and abused, ‘never [leaving] the stall’ while their partner readily leaves their side. Any sense of a romantic relationship in an ideal sense – two partners, ‘riding side by side / Into the frontier’, tackling the world’s challenges as a single, symbiotic unit – is long defunct. Only misery remains for the narrator, with hope long-dashed by a pattern of careless exploitation.

With this as our narrative foundation, we reach the song’s climax, one of the most striking and instantly memorable moments in his catalogue on account of how utterly depraved it is. We are left with no doubt that Sufjan’s narrator is in a state of abject misery up to this point. But misery in Sufjan songs is so often detached, poetic, dejected, somehow fundamentally stoic. Not in ‘Kill’. The narrator has no remaining emotional bandwidth for stoicism. All that’s left is a carnal desire to exact onto the narrator’s partner some fraction of the pain that the partner exacted onto the narrator, and the only way to do this is through murder. 

You will not find a gnarlier image in the Sufjan catalogue than ‘I want to kill him / I want to cut his brain’, and the reason it has so much guttural power is because it does not quite read as psychopathic or unstable. The narrator only wants to do this. They never will, and likely never even could – the verses of this song are in the past tense, and by the time we reach the present tense of the pre-chorus, the partner has left the narrator forever. ‘Kill’ is a logical conclusion, an exhausted final attempt to lash out in a situation where the narrator knows they have no power to do so. When the chorus finally breaks down at the end into a futile repeated ‘I want’, the song’s message is complete. It is violent, but the violence is less a horror tale, more a tragedy.

This is the interpretation that a direct reading of ‘Kill’ provides us, but there are all sorts of semantic curios in this one that complicate interpretation. I am, of course, referring to the extended horse metaphor that this song seems to be pushing. Both narrator and villain are referred to as mares in this song; there is talk of stalls, of stables, of riding into battle in a literal sense. It is rather late for me to mention that ‘Kill’ has a source text, but it seemingly does – Sufjan cites an obscure Sherwood Anderson short story named ‘The Man Who Became a Woman’ as the basis for this song, but has refused to elaborate further. The surface-level parallels are very clear given that ‘The Man Who Became a Woman’ is a story about a horse trainer, but from there the complications begin, because Anderson’s story is a) incredibly obtuse and b) seems to reckon far more with gender, and to a lesser extent race, than it does dysfunctional romance as a theme. The narrative in ‘Kill’ certainly does not retell that of its source material, at least not in a manner discernible to the listener. But the connections are there nonetheless.

A Sun Came is an album that brims with loving, albeit surface-level, tributes to Sufjan’s musical and literary influences, and ‘Kill’ is one such example. But Anderson isn’t the only reference point for ‘Kill’. It is highly probable that Sufjan is intentionally referencing Elliott Smith’s ‘Roman Candle’ in the chorus of this one. Sufjan sings ‘I want to kill him / I want to cut his brain’; years earlier, Smith sang ‘I want to hurt him / I want to give him pain’. And this is almost certainly intentional given Sufjan’s professed admiration for Smith and the various comparisons that have been made between the two songwriters over Sufjan’s career. (What makes things even more interesting is that ‘Roman Candle’ is a song about Smith’s violent step-father. The same systematic patterns of abuse are present in the lyrics of both songs, albeit expressed with more eloquence in Smith’s. Even if not Sufjan’s own stepfather – Lowell Brahms is by all accounts a beautiful, caring soul – one wonders if the subject of ‘Kill’ might have a real-life referent.)

One could spend days attempting to decode ‘Kill’, and this is fortuitous, because musically it does not offer much. The bulk of the song consists of a repeating guitar figure that has a sort of leaden weight to it, dragging it down into the muck. It is vaguely reminiscent of – and inferior to – the ‘Abraham’ ostinato that Sufjan would pen a few years later, but this one is played almost entirely on the lower strings and as a result lacks the same ethereal pop and spring that many Sufjan songs capitalise on. There is some double tracking, especially in the chorus and pre-chorus, but it doesn’t add anything substantial to the arrangement. Neither does Sufjan’s strained, upper-register vocal melody, but there is certainly a sort of confessional quality to it that suits the subject matter. 

All of this comes together to create a song that is resolutely, undeniably un-fun to listen to. It is most likely for this reason that Sufjan chose never to play this one live, unlike some of the other stripped-back folk ballads on A Sun Came. When Sufjan dips his toes in depravity – ‘John Wayne Gacy Jr.’! ‘Saturn’! – incredibly compelling, listenable, rich things tend to emerge, but at this early stage of his career, it seems that the pieces are just not quite in place yet. But there’s no denying that ‘Kill’ is a fascinating and in many ways remarkably compelling song, just one that does not feel as listenable as it could be. It’s fine. Early days yet. All of these songs helped create our modern concept of Sufjan Stevens.

[clubnate]

I am not the anon who followed for cobra and now will accept my fate as a tai fan, but please, please, please explain the connection between The Academy Is and Cobra Starship.

Unabridged is preferred tbh.

i got 2 anons about this and this is literally the thing i'm the most insane about omg ok warning this is gonna be long cause i'm just gonna include everything ive got on my google doc about this

TLDR; same record labels, snakes on a plane, lots of tours together, music videos, webshows and general friendship is the conncection

It starts pre-cobra with midtown. iirc, tai were just fans of midtown pre-tai and in the early days, they're from chicago and came up in the same scene as fob, mike carden (tais guitarists) old band had fob open for them and he was even asked to join fob in an early version of it, so fob, tai and midtown all eventually become friends which is when they met gabe and eventually they toured with midtown twice in 04-05.

2006- midtown dies in 05 and from the ashes rises COBRA STARSHIP. Cobras gets signed to fueled by ramen and decaydance records, which is the same 2 labels as TAI. while gabe's working on the music, tai's bassist, sisky finds out about snakes on a plane and suggested submitting their song to be on the soundtrack. Then william beckett the singer of TAI suggested to gabe that this would be perfect for cobras and he should put a song forward, which he does. Gabe makes some changes to the lyrics, adds william, travie and maja and Bring it (snakes on a plane) was born. (source) Sometime around 2006-2005 gabe briefly featured in the music video for 'the phrase that pays'

2007- things ramp up and they start touring together. Both bands are supporting acts on the honda civic 2007 tour and are featured at 3 separate Decaydance fest shows in Paris, Kohn and London. They also do a series of international festivals together like reading and leeds, pukkelpop, summer sonic, ect AND they do an australia tour just the 2 of them, this was all through summer. At the end of the year cobras jump on TAI's headliner tour, they weren't supposed to butviva la cobra came out earlier than planned so they had no tour to promote it so tai let them open for the last month or so. Both were also apart of the MTVu campus takeover this year. TAI had a webshow and cobra are featured multiple times from 2007-2008, this is actually where they got the idea for cobra cam and even stole TAI's camera man to film it. also somewhere someone released official merch that included cobra, TAI and fob that said 'gabe is not a ynonym for sisky' and they promoted it together.

2008- Both bands are part of the lineup for warped tour this year, snakes was played a lot and when suarez had to leave the tour for a couple days, sisky and the butcher (TAI's drummer) covered for him. TAI's album was released in august and featured backing vocals from Ryland, Alex and Gabe, and every member of cobra is mentioned in the thank yous. Right after warped both bands go to australia and opened for panic at the disco (bonus info: victoria, sisky and ryan went bar hopping for ryans 22nd), then right after they go and do a japan tour with the hush sound and the cab. For welcome to the new administration, suarez remixed TAI's song 'automatic eyes'

2009 onwards- Things slowed down after this. The butcher is briefly featured in the good girls go bad music video. in 2011 both band play at the 15th anniversary of fueled by ramen, this ended up being TAI's last show before they split. After they split, butcher was the drum tech for cobra from 2011-2012. When TAI had a reunion in 2015, suarez played bass for sisky with carly rae jepsen so he could play on their reunion tour. Also around 2015 Gabe and Mike started TAG music together, i think mike has left since then though.

Extras: at every TAI show since their 2022 reunion they have played snakes on a plane, with gabe or without. Gabe also always does backing vocals for the song 'classifieds' if he's there. Sisky used to do travies rap during snakes if he wasn't there, he did it a bunch on warped 2008.

Sisky commented this during cobrakkah in 2021 and i think about it a lot tbh. I think they were just best friends who got to tour the world together in their youth and are still friends and still hold a lot of love for eachother :,)

hope that wasn't too much, i'm pretty sure i covered everything that i know about. Decaydance is my favourite thing so i have a google doc of all their connections so i remember them all :D

something to add would be that TAI are opening for fob on the 3rd in LA and a few cobras live there, so i wouldn't be suprised if they show up for snakes on a plane!

EDIT: if you want photos of any of these things I mentioned I probably have some so please ask! and if you don't want to, search my tag #thepolycule and there's a bunch of photos of decaydance bands hanging out together, including TAI and cobra

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 21/09/2024 (The Weeknd, Tate McRae, Chappell Roan, Teddy Swims, Playboi Carti)

For a fourth week straight, Sabrina Carpenter is at #1 on the UK Singles Chart with “Taste”, and it seems like everyone on the pop music roster has returned this week. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, brief discussion of Palestine, allegations, queerphobia

Rundown

As always, we start the episode with our notable dropouts, those being songs exiting the UK Top 75 - which is what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, we bid farewell to: “Red Wine Supernova” by Chappell Roan (I��ll explain why towards the end), “Houdini” by Eminem, “Pink Skies” by Zach Bryan, “Like a Prayer” by Madonna, “i like the way you kiss me” by Artemas and “The Man Who Can’t be Moved” by The Script. It’s not that large a list of songs, but these are all pretty big hits during the past year, this is almost a clear-out week of some summer tracks.

As for what takes those songs’ places, well, we have plenty of new arrivals to fill that void but there are also some notable gains, and returns, for that regard, with “Fortnight” by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone back briefly at #75 from when it dropped out to #76 last week (“Gata Only” has company, I see), and a much more interesting re-entry with Charli xcx bringing “Talk talk” back to #24. The song peaked at #47 on album release week, but with the Brat remix compilation announcement, Charli released alongside it a new, mediocre version of this track featuring Troye Sivan - who’s credited by the Official Charts Company, for once - and Dua Lipa - who’s not credited by anywhere. As for the gains, we see solid boosts forEDM to-be-hits “TOO COOL TO BE CARELESS” by PAWSA at #66, “Cry Baby” by Clean Bandit, Anne-Marie and David Guetta at #51 and bizarrely enough, the song I literally nearly forgot to review until the episode was finished last week has scooted up to the top 40 - “Embrace It” by Ndotz is at #36 because, sure, I get the appeal. Other than JADE’s “Angel of My Dreams” at #19, however, much of what we need to talk about in the top 40 is relegated to tracks debuting there this week.

As for our top five, “Die with a Smile” by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars continues a rise at #5, but the rest should all be standard: Sabrina Carpenter has “Please Please Please” at #4 and “Espresso” at #3, Chappell Roan has “Good Luck, Babe!” at #2 and of course, Sabrina also has “Taste” at the very top. Now there are many… interesting debuts up and down the charts, mostly in the top 40, but we start with, well, maybe the least coherent.

New Entries

#72 - “KEEP UP” - Odetari

Produced by Odetari

Okay… so, this might require some explanation. Odetari is a rap-singer from Texas who has been carving out a place online, particularly TikTok, through his success in bringing some underground hyperpop-adjacent trends into a more mainstream place. Alongside other acts like 9lives and 6arelyhuman, who, trust me, have names just as alien to me as they are you, his work encompasses distorted club beats using a similar bitcrushed technique to “hexd” or “surge” music, rapping like a digicore artist over Jersey club, and generally, being high-pitched and annoying. Bizarrely, he’s been popping up mostly on the US dance charts for a year or so now, and has attracted an audience that probably belongs in some form to the “scene revival”, with his woozy, punched-up rave beats and Auto-Tuned vocal fitting right into that sound. “KEEP UP” has crossed over to a more general audience to give him a breakthrough outside of his demographic, so part of me was hoping he did something a bit different in this one. Uh, no.

This is far from a bad thing necessarily for as much as I feel like I’m some boomer trying to hear most of this guy’s material, there’s something about this track in particular I actually really enjoy, and I think it may just be up to the fact that it is so relentlessly catchy. The self-produced saw sounds straight out of the NES, sure, but it’s overwhelmed by the punchy hardcore kicks, which soon evolve into a drum pattern so distorted it becomes a bitcrushed mesh alongside Mr. Odetari’s hook which has already made itself home in my head. Genuinely, it’s an annoyingly catchy, stuttering hook that has such a good first half to the main melodic idea that it doesn’t matter that the second half of the phrase trails off into barely-words bullshit. It’s nothing new, it’s just addictive, and I think I understand the virality now, even if I get the feeling that I don’t fully “get it”. As for the lyrics, Odetari is genuinely not saying anything. There is no lyrical conceit or motif to the song, and I am absolutely confident in saying that I’m not missing anything in that regard, as the verses, similarly full of vocal manipulating and stuttering ad-libs crowding the mix, sound like loose freestyles he decorated with production to fit in with the one good idea he had: the undeniable chorus. I also enjoy how this is one of few songs to do the cheap, TikTok-variety slowed-down outro with tact and reason: the transition is solid and exciting, the synths take on a new, eerie tone with the pace shift, and the third verse - or I suppose, bridge - is the most focused on the song, being a whole lot of flexing but more cohesive than anything else he has going for him. So, yeah, oddly enough, I really enjoy this, though I don’t think I’m fully there into delving into the Odetari back catalogue. If you can call having barely two years worth of singles and EPs a back catalogue.

#59 - “Disco” - Surf Curse

Produced by Jarvis Taveniere

Surf Curse are, fittingly, a surf punk band from Nevada whose back catalogue has been bubbling under for years now: they seem to have very little success, even now signed to a major label, with their new output but every so often, their years-old songs will get a viral buzz and streaming traction, with some popping up on the charts. I actually covered them way back in 2021 when this happened for the first time with “Freaks”, a song that was originally released all the way back in 2013, but hey, it’s been three years since, I’m sure that people have caught onto their newer work and no, this “new” song is five years old and has already sold 95,000 copies overall. I liked “Freaks” for as much as the Nick Rattigan-fronted band could get me to like a lo-fi indie snippet that didn’t have much to it, so I was honestly hoping to get a refresher on these guys that involved actually fully-fledged songs. This is closer, even if it’s barely longer than “Freaks”, mostly because of a more professional mix, though still with some imperfect lo-fi elements that punch it up a tad, though the song is still barely there. The lyrics about seeing a girl at the disco and being in adoration about the way she dances are… unbefitting and ultimately not interestingly phrased, the stop-and-start rhythm in the chorus’ end is not that inspired, almost expected, and the main riff just reminds me of “Freaks” again, which the entire song resembles quite a lot, and maybe a bit of early Vampire Weekend. Some of the lyrics come off as somewhat obsessed or creepy, especially given the allegations that followed the year after this song’s release, but it doesn’t have the rougher, darker edges of “Freaks”, which I relistened to and still enjoy, to integrate that into its appeal. I have heard better in indie surf-rock, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the least interesting of it is what ends up charting. I guess it’s okay, but it’s definitely not original or even likeable.

#47 - “Tony Soprano 3” - Nines

Produced by RQ1of1 and JC3

UK rapper Nines is back with an album on the 27th, and what better way to announce a forthcoming project than with completing the trilogy of his “Tony Soprano” series of freestyle-liked tracks just meant to serve as Nines talking his shit to convince you to care about the project on the way. The last installment peaked at #10 but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t upped the quality with this latest edition and… well, the spoken part at the start seems to indicate this forthcoming record is his last, but other than that, there’s absolutely nothing of interest here. Nines is sloppy as always, with a vocal mix that is obsessed with stuttering and other effects that seem completely unnecessary for a song that should be about bars, of which Nines has very little, over this basic trap beat that admittedly has a nicer loop this time. There are sone nice references and I do respect ending the track by calling out social media for allegedly shadow-banning his account after he showed support for Palestine, but considering the rest of the track is about how he thinks he’s the GOAT and this is tacked on clumsily to the end, it instead appears somewhat self-serving, unfortunately. Overall, like I say about most of Nines’ tracks that end up charting, I don’t think it’s much of note at all, but this one is perfectly serviceable outside of odd production choices, which is more than Nines sometimes provides so that’s something, surely.

#32 - “ALL RED” - Playboi Carti

Produced by F1LTHY, Lukrative, Lucian, Ojivolta and Twisco

Atlanta legend and trap pioneer Future has just released his rawer, messier set of hype anthems, MIXTAPE PLUTO, which may have an impact next week but more importantly for us today, makes this lead single from Playboi Carti nearly entirely obsolete. Carti has been teasing singles for the entire year and a bit from an upcoming release, I AM MUSIC, but much of this has been on YouTube and other platforms instead of the major streaming services, whether that be for sample clearance, label nonsense, general “mystery” or because the guy hates his fans, probably a mix of all of the above. A lot of those newer songs and leaks have featured Mr. Carter experimenting with his voice in strange ways, but primarily using his newer, deeper voice he introduced on “FE!N” last year, to mostly boring results outside of “2024” (released in 2023), I like that one, though that features a mix. There is something really funny to me, therefore, that after a mish-mash of genuine experimentation and unwarranted hype and acclaim from fans and industry alike, that his proper lead single is just a Future impression on a F1LTHY beat. The beat’s obviously hard-hitting enough with his twisting synth loops and bass-heavy menace that comes naturally with F1LTHY territory though with six producers credited here, two of which being the very creative Ojivolta, I did expect more detail or at least some progression here beyond just plugging some new synth flares in and out. Carti is in typical lyrical territory, though I don’t think I understand the main conceit of the chorus that his neck tattoo is shutting anybody up, exactly, because if anything, the Satanic imagery is what gets people talking about the mysterious and violent “red” aesthetic Carti’s been working with since he discovered rage beats. He does end up sounding more distinct from Future on the one verse, but by that point it’s just a middling Whole Lotta Red leftover. I can’t call it bad because there is energy and intensity here to justify its existence, I just feel like it could have been much more.

#28 - “Bad Dreams” - Teddy Swims

Produced by Julian Bunetta, Matt Zara and John Ryan

Colour me surprised that Teddy Swims is sticking around. “Lose Control” seemed out of nowhere but is one of the biggest songs of the decade so far, despite sounding like pretty much nothing out, and “The Door” is the kind of follow-up that he probably needed to show an upbeat side, so I was interested in this newest single, not from his breakthrough album, that might just be the deal-maker - or deal-breaker - for if Mr. Swims can continue his hit-making career past that one good year, as this was released last Friday and didn’t have the slow burn of the others. Given the high debut, I have a feeling the Swimster does fill a void and will be here to stay, but as to how I feel about the song, I am somewhat disappointed in the producers going for a more typical, 2020s subdued indie-pop guitar lead and tone amidst the more classic soul groove, because whilst it mixes the guy better into his closest contemporaries on the charts - he’s closer to Sabrina Carpenter of all people than anything - it also takes some of the loveable bombast from his prior hits out of the occasion, with the malformed post-chorus, consisting of a weak “woo”, rising strings, and stray claps accompanying some brief phrases that feel more like vocal riffs than a fully-written conclusion to the chorus, wherein he longs for his partner not to leave him because without them, he gets “bad dreams” - probably more so referring to how distraught his mental health can be without relying on someone else. Obviously, he sounds great, though he has some room to belt here and shows some restraint, which could be odd for that kind of content that almost comes across as begging, so I feel like even his vocal performance is slightly underwhelming here… which sums up the song in general. It’s fine, it’ll be successful, but it also doesn’t seem like the most memorable third act to me.

#21 - “Pink Pony Club” - Chappell Roan

Produced by Dan Nigro

We switched out our Pokémon, so to speak, with “Red Wine Supernova” and thanks to the three-song rule, Chappell Roan’s fourth-biggest song currently has dropped out from the top 40 and been replaced with the third. OCC are ridiculous, but to be fair, this rule was built to prevent album bombs, not the - somewhat unforeseeable - case that an artist would have an entire album be full of sleeper hits that have been out for at least a year but seem to all have a domino effect on each other until she’s one of the year’s biggest new stars. Those following this year would know I’m still somewhat torn on Chappell’s hits thus far, not really fully convinced by them outside of “HOT TO GO!”, and honestly mostly for somewhat nitpicky reasons, songs just not connecting nearly as much as they should for me due to lyrical gripes or structural oddities that put me off from the entire package and I’m glad that we finally have one that’s a bit simpler to explain: I think it’s boring. With that said, I really enjoy the idea of the lyrical narrative here, functioning as the clearest example of her album’s story regarding the young queer girl in Middle America - Tennesee in this song’s case - longing for the fictional, openly gay nightclub “the Pink Pony Club”. Her attendance would disappoint her mother but might be worth it for the joy and self-realisation, and she eventually progresses into actually being at the club and promising that her hometown still means a lot to her.

Now, like all Chappell Roan hits, here comes the “but”: I don’t actually like the way the lyrics progress with little variety that changes tenses but doesn’t have a meaningful impact on the content despite her journey, there’s not much nuance to how Tennessee is depicted outside of just the generic hometown she loves but has to get out of. More detail to why either Tennessee or Santa Monica actually matter, or if there are any specific areas outside of the fictional club that stand out to her journey, justifying why Tennessee still matters and not just her mother’s love. It relies in part to a sociopolitical content that it barely discusses, and it extends its length with an incessantly catchy and incredibly well-performed chorus but one that fails to have more of a gut-punch impact like it could, alongside solos that more often than they should go for warping down instead of soaring like they should when working in an 80s synthpop and AOR framework. The staccato string and synth stabs in the pre-chorus are cool enough but the mix stays too minimal with its gated drums to really have that full feeling, to make the club actually seem like either a dream or alien to the Tennessee girl. It even fades out like a classic 80s song, which is just a cop-out nowadays, and whilst I do have these specific problems… the main thing they all contribute is taking my interest out of vocals and drums that I otherwise would really love, making a song that, to me, is kind of a bore. I know I’m not making any friends by being consistently critical of Chappell Roan on Tumblr of all places, but I’m sorry, she still doesn’t excite me the way she has many others.

#14 - “It’s ok I’m ok” - Tate McRae

Produced by ILYA

I won’t even try and resist the easy joke of Ms. McRae outright stating what could well be my opinion of the song and her artistry in the title of the track. Thankfully, I don’t really agree with that statement - last year’s Tate McRae album was far from OK, more just outright garbage, but this one could be better. As in, this song really could be better, it’s not enjoyable at all. I’m nicer to late 2000s and early 2010s crunk-influenced pop but the mix emphasises this thin high-frequency DJ Mustard synth before emphasising an even more annoying sound, a clambering drum loop that completely demolishes the mix outside of Tate McRae herself, who was clearly listening to Ciara because she’s whispering incoherently about relationships, except without her Petey Pablo. It’d be The Kid LAROI, by the way, which should show how far we’ve fallen as a society. This half-rap chorus is honestly kind of pathetic in its attempt to sound carelessly “cool”, mostly because of the layers of background vocal riffing that refute that, and I genuinely could not make out half of the second verse so I’m not sure if I should even be trying to dig into the kiss-off where McRae - lying to herself, presumably - allows her partner’s new girlfriend to just take him because she’s TOTALLY over it. It’s not a bad idea for a song, I could see these lyrics working, maybe in a peppier context, but this production’s too dire outside of a genuinely nice atmosphere in the echo-drenched, sprawling outro, which really just sums up and repeats the song’s main conceit in less time than the rest of this mediocrity. Once again with McRae, I think I’ll pass. Also, Ryan Tedder is a co-writer, do not think you are safe on this one, Mr. OneRepublic, I’m actually pinning most of the blame on you just because I know your track record.

#12 - “Dancing in the Flames” - The Weeknd

Produced by The Weeknd, Max Martin, Oscar Holter

The Weeknd is back… but he’s also seemingly going away for a long time. Abel Tesfaye is finishing his trilogy that started with 2020’s After Hours, continued with 2022’s Dawn FM and now concludes with 2024’s Hurry Up Tomorrow out later this year. At a concert in Brazil, the singer teased a multiple of songs, including a Playboi Carti collaboration that has gone pretty viral but naturally in the era of TikTok slow-burn marketing, and the fact that Carti doing a normal, respectful and successful rollout for an important release, like The Weeknd has a track record of doing, is unheard of, that one will hate until the album, and for now, we get the Max Martin lead single because… who else? The two never miss together in making something that will most likely be a hit but I understand how one could be tired of the 80s synthpop pastiche by now and whilst this is anecdotal, I do feel like there was significantly less hype, at least from what I’ve seen, about not necessarily the album, which is still exciting for everyone, but this song in particular, which is yet another one of those pastiches. It’s got the same gated drum effect though they feel a bit thin outside of the fills, it’s got the same cute synths but with a much wonkier lead this time around, and whilst Abel will always sound great on record, he also phones that chorus in a tad, and it sounds especially so in the droll verses, with his now signature “Hey!” added in seemingly as a reminder that yup, this is the “Blinding Lights” guy. I don’t know about this one, it just seems like a mediocre rendition of something he’s done before that also misunderstands part of his appeal, with poetic but unsubstantial lovelorn lyrics that hint towards being more about his relationship with the music-listening audience given the reference to his “final odyssey”. It does intrigue me to where that outro is leading on the album, with the pattering out of the song into a darker atmosphere that will give this overly light and fluffy song some more balance, but other than that, I don’t care about this one way or the other.

Conclusion

That seems to kind of just be the theme of the episode: a lot of generally okay songs but mostly filling in for what I’ve already heard before. We really have three unique songs then a set of reruns, like the network ran out of new shows midway through the primetime block. Embarrassingly enough, Odetari runs away with the only song I even like here, “KEEP UP”, as the Best of the Week, whilst Tate McRae takes Worst of the Week for “It’s ok I’m ok” - though it may not sound like it in my review, “Disco” by Surf Curse was awfully close as the Dishonourable Mention, what a lazy and off-putting song. As for what's on the horizon, I could hazard a guess that Future and maybe Katy Perry land a song each, but it's a long shot regarding everything else. For now, thank you for reading, rest in peace to Tito Jackson, and I'll see you next week!

[strange-doll-child]

Do you have any songs you associate with the Organist or Shadow Piantist? Or any other ghost you like for that matter?

YESS I DOOO- GODDD I BEEN WANTING TO TALM BOUT MY HORRIBLE MUSIC TASTE EHEHEHE

I have spotify playlists for both The Organist & The Shadow Pianist but most of those are just music w/ their instrument lol

BUT for songs I associate with the haunts 👀👀 Wellllll-

Master Gracey got assigned the song "Nothing's New" by Rio Romeo, it makes me think of him(Evil Dorian got a song or two as well, mainly the song "Not Evil" from The Lego Movie 2 lol) maybe a little bit of "For the Departed" by Shayfer James too

Ghost Host got three songs by Shayfer James, which are "Where We Belong", "Villainous Thing", and "Diggin' Up Hatchets" from the Counterfit Arcade album - Of course "The Family Friendly Noose Song" is also there like- Hdhsh

Give me the song Headless Waltz by Voltaire at take a hot guess/lh (Reminds me of Hattie and maybe the headless husbands)

Madame Guillotine from The Scarlet Pimpernel gives me Constance vibes. idk makes me think of her probably because of the beheading thing and literally nothing else heh

I have a Heartbox Playlist I'll leave it at that

VICTORRRR- I have so many songs for the organist heheheheh- the worst one I have for him is "The Art of Poisoning" since I picture he got poisoned heheh, "Angel of Music" from PoTO for obvious reasons dhhshd(For SLG!Victor we got "Secrets of Wysteria" by Steam Pianist and "Stuck Inside" by Black Gryph0n because child murder)

Charlie/The Shadow Pianist doesn't have a lot, but I do picture him with/to the song "Dark is Rising" by the Poly Sulfer Band, most of the music I picture for the attic pianist is just piano music thoughh

"Dance to Forget" by TryHardNinja makes me think of Victor and the ballroom, actually- I wonder why lol

"Weight of the World" by Shayfer James gives me a bit of Alistair maybe, maybe(Genderbend specific but Alicia has the songs "Nothing" by Emilie Autumn and "I Hate My Mom" by GRLwood)

"Phantom Dancing"(CG5) and "1000 Doors"(TheLivingTombstone) give me vibes of the mansion in general and "A Million Ways to Die" ofc- Oh! And "The Greatest Show Unearthed" by Creature Feature

"Concertina Ballerina" by Alternative Radio makes me think about Sally Slater, hehe

OOOO, I know "Trouble" by The Blasting Company makes me think of Ezra specifically- "Search Party" as well, but that can be for all 3 Hitchhikers

Fuckin uhhhh Phantom 5 has a couple I think to them about like "The Hearse Song" and "The Red Shoe Parade"(Specifically the English cover by Mothy)

"Stuck With You" by Voltaire gives me duelists, kinda, yeah, heh

Those are kinda all I recall, I do have songs I think of for my OCs, but this is kinda strictly canon haunts, heh

[vivianbernadetteaurora]

Rihanna the woman every1 loves 🥂💎🌟💄👩🏽‍🦱🧚🏽‍♂️♓️💖

I was listening to a post the other day on TikTok about how Rihanna was in this country. Well was in America at the age of 16 with no parental supervision or anything studio with Jay-Z and Connecticut, which is really weird. How would you get over here unless she hadn’t some formal form, some people believe that Jay-Z is actually worse P. Diddy, and I definitely believe he’s had some form of a relationship with Rhianna. Let’s not forget as well. Diddy everyone think he’s been bad for such a long time when the whole incident happened with Rhian and Chris Brown who was the person who was trying to put Chris Brown up and put him somewhere safe where he didn’t, maybe get hounded by or whatever which I’ve always thought was really strange, know that Chris is actually being part of his part and let’s say his crew.

The first song was Mr DJ replay pon de replay which was so popular at the time it was played everywhere and it was his young girl from Barbados so nobody has hurdles at the time. This was 2005 or 2006. I think it was 2005 the summer of 2005 was it Two years later this woman will become one of the biggest stars in the world like just like Aaliyah, Beyoncé. She had so many different errors now but this video is basically saying is how is this girl? This young teenage girl come to America without our parent supervision what if this guy who’s in his 40s or late 30s Singing you’ve got talent at the time there is another act called Tia Maria who Jay was working with as well but Beyoncé supposedly said I’ll choose Rhianna over her. She’s more talented. I think so the story goes and the rest they say is history

Has become one of the most popular women in the world she doesn’t do music anymore. What to do with her marketing and in the makeup industry which is a very wealthy industry and also underwear. I don’t think she’s made a record now since about 2017.

Let’s go 10 years prior 2007 in the United Kingdom. It’s a summer and out this banger called umbrella the irony was this summer. It literally rained all summer along and this the anthem and it’s what feature Jay-Z at the beginning. Good girl gone bad kind of the same marketing that that face that Beyoncé had because when Beyoncé started out, she was meant to be this good Christian girls singing gospel on some of the last traps on their albums of Destiny’s Child, now she’s basically, a white woman I don’t even know where that is she doesn’t do interviews anymore which fair enough if you don’t do that’s fine but it’s like some people say about the fairies. I’m not with a lot of the time he’s a clone there’s a clone there’s big Kanye and there’s a little Kanye, Kanye went against the grain of which took a lot of courage with that behind them and how big they are together as a couple they are promoted is the biggest power couple in the world .

Nobody can be on their level apart from maybe someone like Rihanna and Taylor Swift they are the only , were close to them and I believe that Jay-Z was initially interested in a right. God bless her soul Aaliyah was not interested – and I think this is one of the things for the big fallout I can almost even believe the fairy that they got her gone and the fact that she’s not even with us anymore for people who don’t know was big in the 90s and the early 2000s before she died in 2001 so very early 2000 she initially started her career by working with Kelly when she was very very young her uncle introduced them and she had her first agent nothing but a number which he is creepily on the cover of with her in the background very scary and now we know what happened with him and secretly he groomed her like he groomed everybody else who is in his life I’m glad he is locked away some people to come out and it only comes out because of blackmail just it will happen with him soon, also worked with Timbaland and Missy Elliott. She had many people she worked with in her life. She was becoming a superstar in her own and then she does her music video for rock the boat where they fly to Barbados and she gets a plane and ends up dying in the plane crash a very small where a lot of people i’ve said she didn’t wanna fly in that scared many different stories are there for things like this? So you have to put your story together and find out the truth but at the time she was becoming a huge superstar she was slim with dark hair the opposite of Beyoncé with her light and curvy body .

All these girls have a similarity I’ve been groomed into the industry by Jay-Z R. Kelly or P. Diddy but they’re all immensely talented. I never thought Rhianna was very talented when you see clips her but she’s got that star quality that you can’t explain it with her 2010 was her peak. Her best album I believe was allowed which came out that year and had hit such as only girl in the world California king bed and love the way you lie.

 is just very sinister and you’ve got these people has been in becomes more accessible and acceptable to them. They become monsters. I’m watching right now and I’m telling you I know my mum really liked him and he was very popular actor but the abuse he did to these young men And then had the audacity to being gay as an excuse is disgusting. I do sometimes wonder with Rhianna what she’s had to do and it does make me sad and apparently she’s had a lot of problems with drugs and it’s one of the reason she doesn’t sing anymore, but I hope she’s in a better place, I hope empty space. I hope children have given her that feeling that she needed she’s only two years older than me. She’s my brother‘s age and she achieved an incredible amount.! counterpart at the same time as successful, in the same way anyway at Perry and Kia who’s careers were nothing compared, to the point where Rhianna even performed on stage with Britney Spears. I wish Rhian nothing but luck and the rest of her career and she’s a pioneer for women and people have been through stuff and I love her xxxxxxxx

[heybaetae]

what do you think the member's myspace profiles would've looked like? who would've made it look pretty and who left it on default lol

LMFAO THIS QUESTIONNRHEJJS. i fucking loved myspace so much. let me think on this ok let’s get into it.

namjoon would have a layout, but a very clean, neutral one with meticulously organized photo albums for nature photos, museum photos, and book quotes he likes. his about me section would be some philosophical quote and his profile song is probably something by nas. he writes a lot of cryptic blog posts

jin has a layout but he changes it every week because he gets bored with how it looks, so you never know what his page is gonna look when you click on it. he tends to troll jungkook and hobi’s comments with “w4w???” because he knows neither of them know what that means. in true jin fashion, his default pic is him holding up a giant fish. he thinks the games on myspace are lame and he has no problem commenting on tom’s page to let him know

yoongi keeps his page pretty minimalistic like namjoon, but he likes darker, cooler tones on his layout and he posts videos from his studio a lot. he’s friends with a lot of athletes and producers and whenever he changes his profile photo, people go absolutely insane. he receives thousands of marriage proposals a day and his favorite feature is the “who i’d like to meet” section of his page where he lists all the people he’s a fan of and wants to work with some day

hobi has the most colorful layout of everyone and he LOVES those flashy glitter text gifs, so he has one that says “I LOVE U ARMY” and little animated snoopy graphics. he spent the most time making his page look perfect and he’s very organized with his photos. everything fits an aesthetic and he comments on all the tannies photos, statuses, profiles, bulletins, everything. fashion brands are spamming his inbox on the daily.

taehyung doesn’t have a layout at all because he doesn’t have the patience to learn html, but he does a have great jazzy profile playlist and yeontan is his profile picture OBVIOUSLY. he doesn’t have a top 8, he has a top 1 and it’s just jimin. he really likes posting bulletins to share youtube videos of old movies. his photo albums are kind of a mess but people love his chaotic, grainy images of random stuff around his house, his mirror selfies, or his paintings. the wooga squad leave him really sweet comments

jimin has a profile, but he rarely logs in. his layout is pastel colors and he often confuses the status update box with the little description next to his profile photo. he spams taehyung’s comments with hearts to bury the ones of certain others. when his “online now!” thing comes on, it’s a major event and his comments get flooded so much that it overwhelms him and he logs out again for a few weeks. he’s not sure how to comment back directly, but he’s really grateful everyone says hi to him.

jungkook has an all black page with galaxy-like animations. he learned how to do html so he could design it himself. his playlist is all demos/covers he made himself because he figures army would much rather hear him sing on his own profile than someone else (he’s right!). he goes MIA a lot too, so his “last login” date sometimes becomes a meme amongst the fandom which results in counting exactly how many days we last heard from him. when he remembers his password though, he’s on there for hours posting lots of bam photos, boxing videos, and doing bulletin surveys for fun. he threatens to block jin literally every time he comes online because he genuinely has no idea what he’s asking and he whines about it in hobi’s inbox too.

[greensparty]

Concert Review: Pearl Jam

9/17/24 @ Fenway Park (Boston, MA)

Just last week I got to see Jane's Addiction literally implode onstage. This week I got to see their alt-rock peers in Pearl Jam play a lot nicer. This was PJ's second night at Fenway Park of this tour. Let me just say at the onset of this review that there is a reason Pearl Jam is considered one of the greatest live bands on the planet! I was lucky enough to see them in Aug. 2000 at Great Woods in Mansfield, MA. I, then, had the pleasure of seeing them in 2018 at Fenway Park (read my review here) and was struck by how they had actually gotten better since the first time I saw them 18 years earlier. I also got to review their 2017 live CD / DVD Let's Play Two, which covered their 2016 shows at Chicago's Wrigley Field, and it showed the sheer fandom that singer Eddie Vedder had for the Chicago Cubs. Which is why it was classy to hear him speak so respectfully about Fenway Park and its history and place in baseball history. Bassist Jeff Ament wore a Larry Bird t-shirt and guitarist Mike McCready wore a shirt of the band Boston. So the fact that PJ are returning to Fenway Park was something super special!

PJ onstage

Going into this concert, I knew it was going to be an epic show, but I was speechless by where I was watching from. I was on the turf at Fenway Park, easily the best seats I've ever had for a concert at Fenway Park! I felt like I was at the center of the universe - unbelievable! I missed opening act Glen Hansard, who performed with Olivia Vedder (yes - the daughter of some guy in PJ). I was a fan of the 2021 Flag Day soundtrack that featured Glen, Olivia and her dad, so it's too bad I missed it, but fortunately Glen Hansard came out in the middle of PJ's set and sat with Eddie Vedder for a cover of "Falling Slowly", Glen's famous song from Once.

One of the many cool visuals during PJ's performance

PJ brought their A-Game to Fenway. Not just Eddie, but Guitarists McCready and Stone Gossard, bassist Ament, drummer Matt Cameron and touring keyboardist Boom Gaspar and multi-instrumentalist Josh Klinghoffer (he appeared on Eddie's 2022 solo album Earthling) were all in top form. They did a ton of hits off of Ten, Vs., and Vitology, and some songs off of albums they've released since (although surprisingly nothing off of Binaural, Pearl Jam, or Lightning Bolt), but what I was most excited to see in this concert was hearing them do songs off of their most recent albums Gigaton and Dark Matter. Sadly for everyone Gigaton had the misfortune of being released in March 2020 shortly after lockdowns and we didn't get a proper Gigaton tour. At this show, the only song they did off that album was "Superblood Wolfmoon". It would've been cool to get some of the other songs off that album like "Retrograde", but beggars can't be choosers. But since Dark Matter is the newer album, that overshadowed Gigaton and they played five of the 11 songs off the new album.

Vedder takes center stage

Gossard's solo

no this wasn't taken during "Red Mosquito"

McCready's solo

nothing like playing Fenway Park

Highlights of the show for me were "Daughter", "Untitled", "F***in' Up" (a Neil Young and Crazy Horse cover they've been doing for decades now), "Why Go", and "Yellow Ledbetter". Earlier this year, Eddie hinted in the press that the band may only be around for another album or two. While I hope that's not the case, this particular show is very much a tough act to follow. But if anyone can top themselves it's PJ!

For info on Pearl Jam

[allnightlongzine]

My Chemical Romance Dissolves Its Bond

ANDY GREENWALD | March 25, 2013 | grantland.com

The first time I met Gerard Way was February 2003 in Chicago. I was fleeing a blizzard on the East Coast and profiling the Used, an up-and-coming screamo band from Utah whose singer, the maniacally disheveled Bert McCracken, was in the news for dating, then dumping, Kelly Osbourne. Gerard’s band, My Chemical Romance, was opening for the Used at the time and he and McCracken were well on their way to forming a chemical-based bromance of their own. One night the two kept me in the room with them until dawn as they drained the minibar, sent the concierge out for smokes, and made increasingly frequent trips to the bathroom. (Gerard later told me that bender was the inspiration for a song called “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison,” which featured the lyric “do you have the keys to the hotel? / ’cause I’m gonna string this motherfucker on fire.”) Onstage, assuming they were able to stumble up to it, the pair were complementary as well: two stringy suburban weirdos peddling punk uplift bruised and blackened with mascara and talk of murder.

There were differences, though, too, and these were key to everything that followed. Flicking boogers and cackling like a banshee, Bert wore fame like a leather jacket. He flashed and strutted, naturally assuming the role of dangerous front man whether he had a mic in his hand or not. Gerard — a scared and sensitive wannabe comic-book artist who formed a band out of either depression or desperation in the wake of 9/11 — wore a leather jacket like a suit of armor. When I interviewed him in Brooklyn, a year later, for the release of what would turn out to be My Chem’s breakthrough album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, he refused to remove the stinking, sweat-stained garment despite the rising temperatures and the concerned looks of the yuppie clientele surrounding us at the coffee shop. It was what he needed to become a rock star, he said, or at least to not feel like a fraud.

It was his costume, the first of many to follow, and it instantly set him apart from the schlocky flock of adenoidal whiners that flooded the charts — and kept me eating! — during the emo boomlet of the last decade. Where other bands bleated about their breakups, My Chemical Romance snarled. Gerard, his kid brother Mikey, along with guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero, refused to wallow in self-serving grief. How could they when they so clearly weren’t “o-fucking-kay”? They were misfits and dungeon masters, drama nerds and otakus. Most of all, they were performers, using light humor and heavy makeup to celebrate the majesty and ridiculousness of first feelings: love, death, the pain of piercings both literal and otherwise. They ganked attitude and artifice from Bowie and Queen, stole moves from the ’70s campfest Phantom of the Paradise, and dueted with Liza Minnelli. In the video for “Helena,” a Catholic funeral explodes into a goth Busby Berkeley review. It wasn’t a sing-along, it was a rallying cry. Plenty of bands had angst. My Chemical Romance had style.

Rock critics have long fallen back on superhero mythology to describe musicians; it’s a handy way to add grandeur to what tend to be fairly rote backstories, bending boring arcs of rehab and redemption into the Hero’s Journey, all in a quest to avoid quoting the drummer. But My Chemical Romance was the first group I covered that actually used that mythology for themselves. Gerard called his band “an idea,” labeled his fans an army. From album to album and show to show, MCR reinvented themselves across a multiverse of possibilities: They were soul-reaving vampires exacting revenge, the ghosts of a marching band returned to serenade you home, a gang of outlaw futurists using lasers and jazz hands to free the world from monochrome mediocrity. They had artistic ambition in a rock era that actively discouraged it, and they pursued it passionately without even a dash of irony. In that, they were just part of a great tradition of hardworking, self-made dreamers to emerge from the swamps of New Jersey, a wallet chain that stretches from Springsteen to Snooki. “We’re all about being the escape artists, throwing the fuckin’ straitjackets on, covering ourselves with chains and having somebody push us in the river. And then trying to get out of that,” a bleached-blond, clean-and-sober Gerard told me in 2006. We were sitting on a balcony overlooking Milan at the time, because the music industry was absurd back then and would fly you to places like that to interview people like him. “I think the world is ready for spectacle, for something big,” he said excitedly. “They’re ready for heroes, for something to believe in.”

Parts of the world were, anyway. The ravenous MCRmy spanned the globe, from Mexico City to Manila, a polyglot, multilingual militia that took solace in the band’s underdog triumphalism — and sometimes even took to the streets. I’ve never witnessed such intense fandom, before or since. Still, the resolutely black-clad supporters seemed skeptical of their beloved band’s slow progression into the light. 2010’s Danger Days was, to my ears, a glorious glitter-bomb of panic and disco, effortlessly mixing Detroit boogie with Weimar cabaret, summertime pop radio with Euroclub stomp. Gerard’s hair was a vibrant red — more Kool-Aid Man than arterial blood — and his new stage style was loose and breezy. The album eked out a platinum plaque, but its reception felt culturally inert, as if My Chemical Romance’s creative maturation had somehow skipped the groove of fight-or-flight survivalism that once grounded their fantastic excess. Gerard truly believed he was saving rock and roll by running around in the desert with a ray gun, but it was doubtful he could save his band from suffocation at the hands of a dying industry or the smothering embrace of fan expectation. He still believed in rock stars, but he also very much believed in Batman.

The last time I saw Gerard Way was in October at a comic-book convention in Las Vegas. His hair was its natural black but his mood was bright. He was in his element, there to celebrate his idol turned pal Scottish surrealist Grant Morrison. The event felt like a coming-out party for everything My Chemical Romance had screamed and bled about; it was a peaceful gathering of light-sensitive weirdos held in the shadows of the most garish place on earth. He and Mikey both talked animatedly about the sessions for their upcoming fifth album, which were well under way. But it did strike me that the larger battle had already finished. Gerard has a successful second career writing comics and movies and a pleasant life in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. He’s free to doodle and daydream without worrying about the vagaries of record-label drama, the vast machinery required for global touring, or the fragile egos of increasingly far-flung co-conspirators. It turns out Gerard Way was the hero in his own story after all, and, unlike the “Patient” he played in the Black Parade, he wrote himself a happy ending.

He couldn’t quite manage the same for his band. My Chemical Romance announced their breakup on Friday night. They didn’t die in a gunfight or explode with the intensity of a million suns. Instead they just posted a note on their blog and called it a day. There’s talk of intramural squabbling and adultery scandals — feel free to Google; I’ve no interest in spreading the muck — but to me it feels more natural than reactive. What villains were left to face? What demons left to conquer? My Chemical Romance always aimed for the top, but the top no longer exists; all that remains is a vast, niche-y middle. Rock bands don’t want to be big anymore. Hell, if they’re smart they don’t want to be rock bands at all. In that, My Chemical Romance really were “The Kids From Yesterday,” the more or less last song on their more or less best record. “We’ll find you when the sun goes black,” Gerard sang, but I hope it doesn’t take that long for him to reboot. The thing is, I think the music industry needs a skyscraping fabulist like Gerard Way a lot more than he needs the music industry. For now, all I can do is take comfort in the fact that even Batman died once.

[stellarsalad]

An Amateur Pop Music Historian's Top 15 Hit Songs Of Literally 1984: Prologue

This is inspired by music critic Todd In The Shadows' yearly best and worst lists; his methodology is to look at the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 chart for a given year. In lieu of this year's chart of the most popular singles looking increasingly bleak, I decided to look back and remember what I enjoyed most about the 1980s: music!

I say 'enjoyed' as if I was alive (I wasn't), but I love much of the 1980s (and 1970s) music that I've heard, enough for me to hold it in significantly higher esteem than the music that would follow. (Though 2000s pop is growing on me more.)

Before I count down my favorite hit songs of 1984, though, a couple disclaimers. 1: I'm limiting myself to the Billboard Year-End list. Otherwise, there'd definitely be favorite songs of mine I just didn't remember, and so I can forgive myself for not putting Shout by Tears For Fears on the list despite it coming out that year. (It is, however, at 21st on the 1985 chart and would be on my list from that year.)

2: I have not listened to all 100 songs on the list. In fact, there are a substantial number of bands and artists I haven't ever heard of, like The Pointer Sisters, who have three hits on the chart at 18, 48, and 76. So, to give an idea of how seriously my opinions should be considered, how many of these songs have I heard?

35. (To incriminate myself further, zero of those are by Madonna.)

...I'm okay with that. There are enough songs here that I legit love enough to give them a place on the list.

So, before the list: any songs I don't like and want to point out?

Yeah. Every song can't be a winner. So here are some Dishonorable Mentions: • The Longest Time by Billy Joel (at 89 on the chart). He released some great music this year, and you'll see him on the top ten, but this is quite possibly my least favorite song of his. It just does not work for me. I do not enjoy it. • Eyes Without A Face by Billy Idol (at 37 on the chart). Not terrible, but it just doesn't do anything for me. • 99 Luftballons by Nena (at 28). There's nothing about the song itself I dislike, but nothing about it I like, and it is, through no fault of its own, associated by me (even just a cover) with the opening of the mistake of a film that is EuroTrip, one of the worst and least enjoyable movies I've seen in my life. As far as 'ooh the lyrics are dark when you really listen!' songs go... give me 1999 by Prince instead. • Somebody's Watching Me by Rockwell (at 26). It's... carried by the Michael Jackson feature. Which does not help my perception of this song as discount-brand Thriller. But I do enjoy the talk box effect. • Hold Me Now by Thompson Twins (at 23). Kind of just... bleh. Contrast between low and high-pitched vocals is like alternating between my ears getting pounded by a hammer and stabbed with a needle. But there are, thankfully, way more songs that I liked this year. Honorable Mentions: • Thriller byMichael Jackson (at 78). It's Thriller! What else can I say about it? • You Might Think by the Cars (at 65). I like the Cars a lot, and this song is just plain hooky. It's not their best song, but let it be said: the Cars were just an unusually talented band. They were so incredibly legit, as songwriters and as musicians. • I Want A New Drug by Huey Lewis and the News (at 55). Do you like Huey Lewis and the News? When Sports came out in '83, I really think they came into their own, commercially and artistically. Jokes aside: I just plain enjoy this song's melody, guitar, and keys. I love the sound of the 80s when done well, and it's easy to make sound good, like here! • Uptown Girl by Billy Joel (at 39). Not every lyric delivery in here does it for me, but this is an infectious song. Good thing it's also a good one! • Let's Go Crazy by Prince (at 21). The success with which Purple Rain hit the charts is one of the times that a pop musician's success was completely deserved; that album rules. Let's Go Crazy is a fantastic, party-perfect first track, and while there is even more convincing proof of Prince's status as in a talent class of his own... Let's Go Crazy is convincing enough. • Girls Just Want To Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper (at 15). I, too, want to have fun, and this song is just that! It's restrained enough to not be crowded instrumentally, but peppy enough to be not only interesting, but the opposite of boring. • Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr. (at 9). Ghostbusters is a movie I like nothing about, but my god does the theme song slap. I also want to thank Ghostbusters for contributing to Bustin by Neil Cicierega, which, and I cannot overstate this, changed my life forever and is, through butterfly effect, responsible for this post. • Owner Of A Lonely Heart by Yes (at 8). As a Rush fan, I am glad to see prog rock representation here, even if this is eighties pop-ification of it, and not nearly as good as how Genesis executed it. But the instrumental... goes hard in mashups. That's admittedly why this song is here. • Footloose by Kenny Loggins (at 4). Movie's okay. Song is fun! The synths and guitar sound are transparently cheesy but I can get surface-level fun out of them.

I had to split this post in half because of the character limit, so part 2 is coming up in a reply post!

[lovejustforaday]

2022 Year End List - #11

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers - Kendrick Lamar

Main Genres: Conscious Rap

A decent sampling of: Pop Rap, Jazz Rap, Trap, Political Rap, Neo-Soul

WARNING: This album discusses (in a very frank and realistic manner) a multitude of issues related to racism and inter-generational trauma, including sexual violence and domestic abuse.

So K-Dot is back.

Hip hop has changed a lot in the last five years since the arguably reigning king of the genre put out his last (somewhat lackluster) record in 2017.

Since then, a decent number of other high profile artists like Tyler The Creator and Little Simz have put out highly ambitious, genre-spanning, neo-soul-infused, deconstructionist records like IGOR and Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, which I can’t help but think is at least partially indebted to the widespread influence and success of Lamar’s 2015 opus To Pimp A Butterfly. This being a record so successful that it even received high praise from the former American president Barack Obama himself.

So the question was: where to go after having already made To Pimp A Butterfly?

Initially, Kendrick followed it up with a competent b-sides record simply labelled untitled unmastered. in 2016. Following that, in 2017 he gave us DAMN., a poppy victory-lap record that, while certainly enjoyable and well-earned, is a project I that I ultimately found somewhat anticlimactic, and I struggle to recall more than a few of its tracks. From there, Kendrick took somewhat of a hiatus while still sitting atop the critically acclaimed throne of hip hop.

Finally, 2022 came along and Kendrick Lamar released his latest full-length album. But how does one deliver after five years of enormous anticipation as one of hip hop’s most reputable artists?

Well, quite well as it turns out. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is a return to form for Kendrick after his last two LPs; a more ambitious and critical undertaking of many styles of hip hop, that sets out to say as many big and important things as it possibly can. On this record, Kendrick has set out to show us all that he still has plenty to offer as one of hip hop’s most articulate thinkers.

If Good kid, m.A.A.d city was a coming of age story about forming a positive identity in a traumatic world of institutional racism and gang violence, and To Pimp A Butterfly was a reflection on the trappings of success as a rapper distracting from the bigger picture of what’s wrong in America, then Mr. Morales is largely a tale about breaking inter-generational trauma and taking the necessary steps to look after one’s mental health.

“United In Grief” makes for one hell of an opener - Kendrick’s greatest yet in my opinion - with frenetic jazz rapping over unhinged drum and bass production. We are introduced to the subject of therapy, as Kendrick hastily pleads and confesses to his issues with spending money as an unhealthy coping mechanism to fill the hole left by the grief of his childhood. The track is unruly and alarming, like a deluge bursting through the walls of Kendrick’s mind and outpouring all of this pain and guilt, not unlike many peoples’ first breakthrough while going to therapy.

“Father Time” is a hip hop neo-soul reckoning with, as Kendrick himself puts it, “Daddy issues”. Like several other tracks, it features Kendrick’s own wife Whitney Alford telling him to go to therapy in a very precise and purposeful case of art imitating real life (she also appears on the album cover as herself). Also shout out to Sampha for absolutely killing it with the really stylish yet unorthodox R&B vocals.

“We Cry Together” is a brilliant skit-turned-full-song, reminiscent of To Pimp A Butterfly’s “For Free?” which similarly depicts a couple’s argument. Whereas last time the couple served as a metaphor for America’s mentally abusive relationship towards Black Americans, this time the couple in question are a literal couple, airing out all of their grievances in a cartoonishly toxic meltdown. Frankly, it’s a painful listen, but a necessarily profoundly dark look at gender difference and disparity in straight relationships, as we witness a man and woman try to psychoanalyze each other with the least charitable interpretations possible. Also, bonus points for the immaculately implemented Florence sample at the beginning of the track.

The tonal whiplash from “We Cry Together” to those opening stabs on the psyched-out, synth-heavy casino chill hop of “Purple Hearts” is actually my favourite moment on the entire album. Really not much else to say on this track; it’ a beautiful reflection on love, coping with pain, and the ongoing process of healing, and one of Kendrick’s most cultivated moments as an artist. And again, excellent featured guest vocals, this time from R&B singer Summer Walker.

On the penultimate “Mother I Sober”, Kendrick is at his most vulnerable ever as he dives head first into the subject of inter-generational trauma, particularly the sexual violence in his family’s history and many other black families, tracing back to the widespread sexual abuse by white slave-owners throughout history. Very little music accompanies Kendrick in his wise and highly evocative introspections; just a minimalist piano refrain, and the trip hop legend Portishead’s own Beth Gibbons, using her signature wounded croon to interpret a small fraction of the pain that Kendrick describes with poetic mastery. It is an emotionally stirring and stunning piece of music.

Before finishing this review, I would like to take a few minutes to address a potential elephant in the room known as “Auntie Diaries”, which was easily one of the more controversial hip hop tracks this year. I have seen a lot of different takes from a lot of different people about this song, and as a gay man myself I have my own perspective that I would like to offer.

I will start off by saying that in regards to the word “F*ggot”, I am firmly not against its use by any straight man when it is for an artistic purpose that serves to advance empathy towards the gay community (See also: my review of You Forgot It In People). I believe Kendrick exercised a great deal of care with regards to how he used this word, and I deeply appreciate that.

However, I am less quick to defend his use of misgendering pronouns in “Auntie Diaries”, as I feel the way it is incorporated is a bit more unclear and questionable. As a general rule, cisgender heterosexual people are less educated on transgender issues than they are on gay issues, and while I appreciate that Kendrick is trying to use the incorrect pronouns to demonstrate how he didn’t quite understand back then (playing with past and present tense), the messaging becomes murky quickly and at times it seems as though Kendrick still (present tense) struggles to use the right language (“I mean he’s really Mary-Anne, even took things further”).

I appreciate that Kendrick’s audience is probably overwhelmingly cisgender and straight, and a good deal of them are likely to be less progressive on gender and sexuality topics than they are when it comes to topics about racism in America. I also generally believe in meeting people where they’re at, at least when it comes to trying to politically persuade someone. Likewise, I do think the existence of this track is ultimately a net positive for addressing issues of homophobia and transphobia in hip hop and the world at large.

That being said, another part of me is thinking about how much more meaningful and profound a track like this would’ve been 12 years ago, before we had high profile artists like Kevin Abstract, Frank Ocean, and Big Freedia doing (frankly) a much better job at advocating on these issues. For what its worth, a) I really like the production on this track, b) I respect Kendrick’s intentions as an artist and know he’s trying to promote a good message, and c) I’m certainly not one of those self-righteous twitter knobs who’s about to write off his entire discography because of one clumsy attempt at writing a pro-lgbt rap song. Yet still, I ultimately don’t think the song fully accomplished what it was going for, and Kendrick, while pensive and thoughtful as always, is hardly saying anything particularly new.

I will also say briefly that the second half of this record loses some of the momentum that the first half brings, at least until it gets to the finale, where things really end on a high note for those last two tracks. This is yet another record that I believe could have been edited down.

The pop trap cuts in particular add little to the record for me, which is a mild problem when it’s supposed to be a concept album and other tracks like “Father Time” and “Mother I Sober” bring far more compelling items to the table that advance the narrative much better.

Nevertheless, it’s still a real treat to have Kendrick Lamar back in 2022. Mr Morales & The Big Steppers is a very smart hip hop album with a lot of heart in it, that will reach a lot of different people from different backgrounds. Kendrick’s ability to be very authentically and artistically human is both his greatest strength, and what largely sets him apart from the other biggest names in hip hop, like Drake and Kanye (Fight me about that second one, I dare you). And with this latest album, we have been treated to possibly his most vulnerable and human project to date. So thank you, Kendrick.

8/10

Highlights: “United In Grief”, “Purple Hearts”, “Mother I Sober”, “Father Time”, “We Cry Together”, “Mirror”

[awildeternity]

This is basically saying "I HATE YOU. YOUR LOOKS. YOUR VOICE. YOUR FUCKING ACCENT. I HATE YOUR BABY MOMMAS AND YOUR SIDE PIECES AND YOUR FUCKING SNEAKY ASS DISSES. SAY IT WITH YOUR CHEST!" He also calls out Drake with "How many more Black features 'til you finally feel that you're black enough", which, that lives rent free in my head, okay? It literally says "you are PRETENDING to be black, you are black when it SUITS YOU." AND THE DISSES ABOUT DRAKE'S ABS. THIS ONE GOES A BIT UNDERRATED. It starts with K-dot saying that his last album is like his first one, a classic (Drake had called his albums a bunch of mid shit in some other song) and said that his core audience had to 'stomach that' and then he could tell them 'where his abs come from' followed by 'V12 it's a fast one'. Let's break it down. His abs are very much assumed to have been done with plastic surgery, weight loss surgery and medications (Namely Ozempic, remember that name for later) and whereas some people assumed that V12 was a reference to V12 engines, V12 IS ALSO THE NAME OF THE MACHINE FOR THAT WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY. IT'S LITERALLY A DOUBLE ENTENDRE. He also disses Drake by saying that he doesn't like how he says the nword, which, fair. There's digs on his parenting, and the best part is that KENDRICK ALSO SAYS THAT HE LOVES TO SEE DRAKE SUCCEED IN THE SONG. HE LITERALLY SAYS THAT HE'S BLESSED AND THAT HE SHOULD CONTINUE TO JUST MAKE MELODIES AND NOT BE ROUGH AND MEAN. Also calls out his ghost writers (Which, that's the difference between an artist and a writer and a performer, just saying) The song ends with Kendrick telling Drake to no longer say the nword, basically. The whole song is a masterpiece to my ears, from the lyricism to the instrumentals, all of it is legitimately a reminder as to why Kendrick Lamar is the only rapper to have ever won a Pulitzer prize and also 17 grammies. FAST FORWARD TO A FEW DAYS LATER, WHERE KENDRICK DROPS A LITTLE SONG CALLED 6:16 IN LA. The song's basically a warning shot, with the title being taken from Drake's way of naming songs and 6:16 being a reference to Euphoria's drop date, Tupac's birthday, the day OJ Simpson's wife died (Along with the picture of a leather glove as the cover) and more. It's basically a warning shot that says that there are some members of Drake's inner circle that wants to see him fucking dead. That there is a mole feeding K-dot information, a topic that will be very relevant in a bit. DRAKE ALSO GOES AHEAD WITH DROPPING FAMILY MATTERS. It calls out a couple of things, I have honestly not bothered listening to the song, but it's basically "Your kid might not be yours, you're short, you beat your wife, fuck you and your height, you're short" from what I've gathered. No shade (at least not really) to the song, but it immediately got overshadowed by Kendrick 30 FUCKING MINUTES LATER. He drops "Meet the Grahams", the most hauntingly beautiful diss ever. It's a song that addresses 4 people separately. Firstly, it addresses Adonis, Drake's son, basically telling him that his father's not a man, not fit for parenthood, that he deserves better and even GIVING HIM ADVICE ON HOW TO ACT (Also saying that he shouldn't take shortcuts like his dad. A reference to Ozempic, again, from earlier, also with the cover of the song being a picture of Drake's medication for Ozempic and another little drug that happens to be the generic version of Ambien, the date rape drug.) Also, the lyric “Never code-switch, whether right or wrong, you a Black man. Even if it don't benefit your goals, do some push-ups, get some discipline” is a call out on Drake using weight loss meds, along with saying that Adonis is black despite the fact that his father isn’t. That’s because Adonis doesn’t act like a white person when he fucking needs to.

It then addresses Drake's parents, telling his mom that she raised a horrible person, that her son is an abuser and the reason people have to worry about sending their daughters and sisters outside, that she’s a woman and should know hot it feels to be in the climate people like Aubrey create by being what he is, basically calling Drake a fucking abuser and groomer and all that (The Date Rape drug shit, again). Calling his father out for not being there for his son, making it so his son is a fucking white-washed motherfucker trying to act black. Saying that Drake also is a psychopath, master manipulator, all of that. Saying he has a victim complex, too, using his father to ‘justify’ his blackness, blaming him for the gambling addictions and the way that he raised a horrible person. It also calls out Drake for being a pedophile AND having sex offenders on payroll in OVO, which is obviously fucking disturbing. It’s also LITERALLY telling Drake to kill himself so that the world can be a better place and so that women can live with a purpose instead of living in fear of assault. 

Kendrick Lamar vs Drake, my own little rant

FIRST OFF, THIS HAS CREATED SOME OF THE MOST IMMACULATE MUSIC I'VE EVER LISTENED TO. I AM VIBRATING AND NOT MANAGING TO CALM DOWN, SO I'M GOING TO RANT ABOUT IT. There's so much background to this. Drake was the one to originally put Kendrick on the world stage. Kendrick was literally an opener for one of Drake's tours back in 2012. That was before Section.80, which was Kendrick's first real studio album, and even then it was more of a mixtape at the time. So, Drake and K-dot were always basically involved with one another. However, while I don't know all of the background to it, I'm pretty sure Drake has been taking shots at literally like half of the rap game for the past few years. Future, A$AP Rocky, Kanye, and obviously Kendrick a couple of times. Saying that his first big hit was basically because of Drake, and that he kept doing features with big artists like Rihanna (LOYALTY.) and SZA (All the Stars). This all leads to a lot of bullshit recently. I'm not EXACTLY sure on the timeline (Feel free to correct me if there is anything wrong), but there are a couple of notable events, notably Drake using a *AI VOICE OF TUPAC* in a song (which led to him getting a cease and desist and a LOT of heat because, well, obviously.) Kendrick accuses him of being a culture vulture, basically trying to appropriate the Black US culture that he did not grow up with. LET'S REMEMBER DRAKE WAS ORIGINALLY BORN IN A GATED COMMUNITY FOR WHITE PEOPLE IN TORONTO. HE HAS NEVER BEEN "HOOD", NEVER LIVED THROUGH GANG VIOLENCE OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. HE STEALS ACCENTS TO SEEM LIKE HE BELONGS AND BASICALLY APPROPRIATES THE CULTURE LIKE A BITCH. I'm pretty sure J.Cole also dropped a song that called himself, Drake and Kendrick the "Big 3" of the Rap Game, to which Kendrick responded in Like That by saying "Fuck the Big 3, [] it's just big me." which obviously means that he considers himself a step above both of them. That's basically when we get to the most recent stuff, and the MEAT of the topic. Drake drops Push Ups. It is some tame shit, let's be honest with ourselves. That song calls out the fact that Drake "handed" Kendrick his first number one hit, which, yeah, he kind of did, but whatever. There's picks at Kendrick's height, his foot size, the fact that his label TOP DOG takes 50% (Hence the lyrics "drop and give me 50" and the push ups title, dropping a song and giving TPE 50% of the profits) Also calling K-dot "wiped down" by more popular artists like SZA, Travis Scott and 21 Savage. Also weirdly enough taking a shot at Metro, a producer that had worked with Kendrick on Like That, but like, why??? AND THEN. FOR A FEW WEEKS, KENDRICK SAYS NOTHING. ON TUESDAY OF THIS WEEK, THOUGH, HE DROPS THE ABSOLUTE BOMB THAT IS EUPHORIA. Euphoria is the title of Drake's show he co-produced that got a bunch of heat for having some weird sexualisation of teenage girls, which is already a pretty good hit, but the LYRICS THEMSELVES. KENDRICK LITERALLY CALLS OUT DRAKE ON SO MANY THINGS. Talking about how he's not a rap artist but a scam artist that wants to be accepted (culture vulture, again), talking about the Tupac shit with "I'd rather do that than let a Canadian [] make Pac turn in his grave", once again calling out Drake being fucking CANADIAN and trying to appropriate the culture. Also making a reference to YMW Kelly and calling Drake and J.Cole his "friends" (YMW Kelly murdered two of his friends, hence why that is a diss and not a compliment.) I have to comment on the absolute HATE FEST too. "I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress I hate the way that you sneak diss, if I catch flight, it's gon' be direct We hate the bitches you fuck 'cause they confuse themself with real women And notice, I said "we," it's not just me, I'm what the culture feelin'"

[fushic0re]

━ 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐚 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲, 𝐰𝐞❜𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐞

bodyguard!henry cavill x asian!reader

⁀➷ summary ━ the life of one of the world's most renowned singers comes with immense amounts of pressure, scrutiny, and a lack of privacy. however, your protector never fails to bring you back down to earth.

⁀➷ warnings ━ 18+ only — minors dni. public scrutiny. sexism. implied age gap (reader's age isn't specified, but it's implied that they are younger than henry). brief mention of a firearm. brief mention of combat. smut; penetrative sex, oral sex (f receiving)

"The release of your latest album has broken the internet!" The host exclaims, prompting a roaring applause from the audience.

You smile bashfully, still not used to praise despite your status as a seasoned celebrity.

"I'm really relieved that it's being received so well," You laugh. "It's always nervewracking releasing something new and wondering whether or not it's going to be the downfall of your entire career."

"How do you deal with that kind of pressure?"

"I always just...try and keep things genuine. No matter what, at the end of the day it's all about the music and what it makes you feel. No matter how many big artists you have featured or how many producers dip their hands into your work, if it's diluted and disingenuous people are going to be able to tell and it's going to turn them away." You delineate.

The host nodded along with you inquisitively, eyes narrowed in deep thought. Placing his cue cards down, he leaned back into his seat and crossed his arms.

"So, you feel no pressure to outdo everyone else on the charts? Cause a stir to maintain your relevancy?" He asked, his tone quipped.

Your jaw twitched for a split second in annoyance, but like the media trained princess you were, you covered it up quickly with a dazzling smile made for flawless YouTube thumbnails and magazine headlines.

"I only feel pressure to outdo myself, and I don't need to act out to do that." You diplomatically responded.

He raised his brows incredulously, clearly not expecting for you to navigate the rocky terrain of his words so smoothly.

"The sudden change in your music seems to prove otherwise." He snarked. "Your last album was tokened the as the feminine movement of this generation, focusing on topics such as self love, prosperity, emotional fulfillment, and independence. But this album is full of sexual material. Do you think you need to behave in an overtly sexual manner and promote promiscuity to sell records and compete with your other female counterparts who are also selling sex?"

It took everything in you not to roll your eyes. You could feel your publicist's pleading expression from backstage.

You hated this part.

Having to constantly explain yourself. Being held to the double standards of Hollywood and ridiculed for the tiniest of things. Every time you allowed yourself to be vulnerable through your craft, the vultures were right there waiting for you so they could throw you out into the open to be ravaged. Defiled. And yet, you were expected to smile and sit pretty through it all. You weren't allowed to fight back. To say you were tired of it was the understatement of a lifetime.

You chuckled dryly, sitting up straight. Your eyes were set ablaze as you challenged the host. If he thought for a second that things were going to go his way, he was in for a rude awakening.

"By 'full of sexual material' you mean a couple of lines in literally 3 songs?"

"Well, one would say it was a lo—”

"What one would say cannot argue with the factual quantitative number of songs that have sexual material." You challenged.

He opened his mouth to rebut you, but you quickly beat him to it.

"I'm familiar with your show. I did my research before coming here. You have had numerous male entertainers on your show from rappers, country singers, rockstars, producers, directors, actors, you name it, who have all made lude sexual comments that are downright inappropriate for television. You didn't say a single thing to them. In fact, you laughed along with them and added to the conversation. So why is it then when I -- a female -- write about something as natural as sex in a poetic way that is much more pleasant to hear than 'that loose ass bitch was on my dick all night', I am the one who is persecuted?"

"I-I don't know what you're referring to—“

"You don't?" You snort. "Don't worry about that then. I'll make sure you and your team will be well versed in your misogynistic, dim-witted, beta-male catered material."

Planting your Louboutins firmly on the ground, you stood up from your seat. Without a single falter, you strutted off the stage and hastily made your way back to your dressing room. The show's production team scurried behind you with desperate attempts to console you and usher you back on stage to finish the interview.

"Ma'am, we need you back on stage, production isn't over."

Snapping your neck around, you stood nose to nose with a crewmember. The same one you had witnessed laughing as this boss essentially called you a slut on stage.

"We're done for the day. Finish the show yourself." You calmly stated, sidestepping him in an attempt to get into your dressing room. You were fed up and at this point didn’t have any energy to fight. You just wanted to go home.

The crewmember's hand twitched at his side before it closed into a tight fist.

"Listen, bitch—”

Before he could finish his verbal assault, a large hand clapped onto the back of his neck and shoved him against the wall with a loud thud.

"Finish that sentence." Henry – your bodyguard – rumbled deeply, his tone sharp enough to cut glass.

He continued to pin the man against the wall until you safely entered your dressing room, following you shortly and locking the door behind him. Your anger consumed you, closing in on you until you had no room to breathe. With shaky hands and shallow breaths, you yanked off every piece of jewelry on your person. As you struggled with the clasp of your neckless, a warm rough hand covered yours. Gently, it removed the necklace from your delicate neck and placed it neatly on top of the vanity.

He inhaled extensively, his broad chest puffing up, and calmly instructed for you to follow suit.

"Breath."

Closing your eyes, you mimicked his actions. Your pounding heart ploddingly began to slow. Practicing a calming technique he had taught you in the early days of him working for you, you removed your mind from the grounds you currently stood. Instead, you imagined yourself safe in the comforts of your own home. You thought of all the times you and Henry sat in your living room across from each other; you watching television and him with his laptop perched on his expansive lap answering emails. He would look at you with an indecipherable expression, grunting at the nonsense of whatever was playing on TV before poorly attempting to conceal an amused grin. Peace. Simplicity. The only things your life full of luxury, money, success, and notoriety lacked.

You had it all, yet you had absolutely nothing at the same time.

Henry removed the rest of your jewelry before tenderly gathering your hair away from your face.

"Let's get you out of here," He murmured soothingly, slinging your bag over his shoulder before offering you his arm.

Nibbling on your lip nervously, you looped your arm with his before cautiously following him to the door. He looked back at you with sympathetic eyes.

"It's alright. I won't let anything happen to you."

"So you expect me to roll over and let people talk to me like that?!" You shouted frustratedly into your phone.

Your manager sighed from the other end.

"You know these types of people come with the territory."

"That's not an excuse. It never was and it never will be." You argued. "Aren't you supposed to have my best interest at heart? Isn't that why I hired you?"

"You hired me to keep you and your career on track."

Grinding your teeth indignantly, you allowed pregnant pause as you gathered your thoughts.

"Well, maybe it's time to rethink that." You declared. "I'll be sure to send you your paycheck for this month."

From behind you, Henry eyed you with a proud expression.

"Wait! Let's talk about this—"

"You've done enough talking."

Without another word, you ended the call and turned on do not disturb for the night. Sighing, you opted to disregard your phone entirely, tossing it somewhere behind you carelessly before fixing yourself a mug of tea. Quiet footsteps approached you from behind as you sipped the honeyed nectar.

"May I speak freely, ma'am?" He inquired stoically.

You chortled softly.

"You're not in the Royal Marines anymore, Cavill. You can say whatever you want."

He raised a thick brow at you. Prompting to ignore your sardonic remark.

"You're entirely too good for them," Henry confessed, his expression the softest you had even seen it.

His words stirred something deep in you. They left you speechless. And as he continued to speak, something within your soul clicked.

"I've been in combat. I've stared down some of the most immoral people through the barrel of my gun, but none of those people were quite like the ones I've encountered since I began working for you. Seeing those parasites leech off of you, taint you? It makes me...angry."

Finally, you let go. Allowing your tears to escape the confinements of your eyes, you felt every burden alleviate from your shoulders with every tear. With open arms, you ran into the only person who had ever protected you and laid your head on his chest. He caressed you like you were the most precious thing ever to exist.

"I want to run away." You hiccupped. "I want to get away from all of this and never come back ever again."

"I can make that happen, ma'am." Henry whispered, pressing his lips to your forehead soothingly. "Just say the word."

Giggling tearfully into his blazer, you squeezed him closer to you and deeply inhaled his scent. Henry frowned. You held him with closed fists, sorrow weighing heavily on your spirits like he was going to disappear at any moment. A feeling too familiar for the soldier.

“Just like that?”

A thick callused finger fondly stroked your cheek, causing you to remove your head from where it laid and look straight up at him.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that I’d do anything for you, ma’am.” Henry whispered. “I’ll take you far, far away from here if that is what you desire.”

“My family will have an aneurism.” You gulped.

The idea of leaving everything behind and living in a small, quaint town was just that, an idea. The truth of the matter was that you were trapped in this lifestyle. From the second you opened your mouth and carried a tune to now as a grown adult, your parents micromanaged every aspect of your career and manner of living. You firmly believed that was the last day they saw you as their child. From that day forward, you were a money making machine. An investment that they were waiting for to invest back into them. They had their hand in everything; your money, your team, who you worked with.

But they did something right, and that was hiring Henry for you.

The best of the best in more ways than they thought. He became your anchor. The one who kept you grounded through every storm that wrecked and uprooted you from safety. But now, you were ready to sail with him and never look back.

Without a single regret harbored in your soul, you leaned up and pressed your lips against his. He reciprocated your actions, meshing his lips against yours. Softly at first, but increasing in vigor with each kiss. Before you knew it, the two of you were haphazardly stumbling through the corridors of your home and into your bedroom. One by one you began ridding each other of your clothing, ripping them carelessly off each other’s bodies like they were the most repulsive things you have ever seen.

“I’ll call a jet.” Henry murmured against your lips, laying you down on the center of your bed and trailing feverish kisses down your body. “You can stay with me in South Kingston.”

You whimpered as his lips scorched the sensitive skin of your inner thighs.

“Or I can relocate us to Jersey.” He placed a gentle kiss to your bead, cooing as your back arched and whines escaped your lips. “We can spend our days on the beach.”

Henry lifted his gaze.

“Open your eyes, my love.” He whispered gently, tangling his fingers with yours.

With all the power in you, you ripped your lids open and stared right into his heated gaze. The way he looked at you made tears rise in your eyes once again. He looked at you like you were the most previous thing in the entire universe. Like you could do absolutely no wrong. Like you were a goddess.

“I’ll take you anywhere you want. I’ll die making you the happiest woman in the world if I have to.”

And without another breath, he devoured you.

A wanton moan escaped your parted lips as his warm tongue laid flat against your heat before licking a slow and tantalizing stripe up your core before beginning to lap at your clit. The tip of the hot muscle circled it teasingly before trapping it between his lush lips. Your eyes rolled to the back of your skull as Henry began to suckle, noises that you weren’t even aware your body could produce filling up the room. You could hardly recognize yourself as you laid there in pure ecstasy, your bodyguard in between your legs drinking from your fountain like a man who had crawled through a droughted desert. You squeezed his hands tightly as the pleasure overwhelmed you. A thin veil of perspiration coated your body, pants increasing in speed as you drew nearer and nearer to your rapture.

“That’s it,” Henry praised. “That’s my girl. Come on,”

As if your body was wired to follow his every command, your resolve shattered, and you came harder than you ever have before. Henry secured your lower body as you writhed wildly, soothingly kissing the inside of your thighs and up your stomach until his nose was nuzzling yours. His hands released yours to caress your face lovingly. Once you descended from your high, you opened your eyes and pressed your forehead to his, wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders. The shoulders that carried every burden for you. He pressed his body to yours, holding you tightly against him. Close simply wasn’t close enough. Henry wanted nothing more than to fall into you.

“Jersey.” You whispered, your breath hitching as his length slid against your sensitive core torturously. “I want a house near the beach.”

Lifting your hips, you began to slowly grind against him. You could have come again at the look on his face alone; those big blue eyes were wide and blown, his pouty lips were parted as the prettiest noises came out of them like a symphony.

“Yes, ma’am.” He rasped.

“I want—” You breathed sharply as the head of his cock begins to spear you slowly. “I want to go to the farmer’s market every Sunday”

“Anything.”

Henry was nothing like you had ever felt before. Thick, long, and uncut, he stretched you deliciously. Reached immeasurable depths within your cavern that you didn’t even know existed. He began to thrust earnestly, burying his chiseled face into the side of your neck. To your surprise, the Brit was a noisy lover. He moaned and groaned shamelessly, relishing you and your velvety walls with no bounds. Slowly, he was turning you into a fiend. A world without him or the pure, unadulterated pleasure he was able to make you feel seemed was suddenly unimaginable.

“Take me away,” You cried. “Keep me forever.”

Pulling his head away from your neck, Henry rested his sweaty forehead against once more. His eyes were ablaze, a feral nature in them that you had never seen before. He grabbed your face firmly, squishing your cheeks together.

“Don’t tell me that if you don’t mean it.” He growled. “I’ll keep you locked away all to myself.”

“Do it.”

Without skipping a beat, he relentlessly began to pound into you, effectively fucking you into your mattress.

“You’re mine. Mine to protect, mine to hold, mine to fuck.”

“Henry!” You squealed. “I’m coming!”

“Come on, sweet girl. Come all over my cock for me. Drench it.”

A borderline guttural moan left your body, your soul liberating itself from the physical realm. Your lover followed suite, filling you with his seed and vigorously kissing your breath away as you both came back down to earth. The both of you laid in each other’s arms, the sounds of your breathing acting as white noise. Rolling over, Henry rearranged your fluffy covers around your bare bodies and snuggled into you from behind.

“This is a dangerous game we’re playing.” He murmured sleepily into your ear.

Turning around in his arms, you caressed his warm cheek.

“It’s not a game to me.” You spoke in a hushed tone. “You and me. Jersey. We leave all of this bullshit behind for good, and don’t look back.”

He closed his eyes, his features twisted into a look of contemplation before they relaxed into a small smile.

“I know some people.”

“Since the famous R&B singer left her label and management, there hasn’t been a single update on her. Her social media pages are still up, but there are no new posts. Meanwhile, it seems like her team is trying to do as much damage control as they can, promising her return along with some new music. What do you say, do you think this is just another celebrity tantrum, or is our favorite singer done for good?”

“I think she’s done. She crossed all her T’s, dotted all her I’s, and left quietly. Honestly, it seems like her team is the one throwing the tantrum now that their money maker has gone rogue. However, a couple of fans have said that they’ve spotted her in South Kensington a couple of times, but it seems like she’s switched locations once again because that was the last sighting of her.”

“You know what, apparently her bodyguard hasn’t gone M.I.A. too—”

Rolling your eyes in amusement, you turned the television off.

“They’re obsessed with me,” You snorted, plating tonight’s dinner neatly.

“You tend to do that to people.” Henry joked, pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek. “You should see all the conspiracy theories there are. Are you sure you aren’t one of those lizard people?”

You pouted.

“Would you still love me if I was one?”

“You know what, maybe it’s not too late to return you to Hollywood.”

Looking out of the floor to ceiling window adjacent to your dining table, you admired the view of you and Henry’s beautiful private beach. Leaning back into his embrace, you smiled fondly as he hummed into your ear, swaying you to the quiet music playing in the background.

This life was better than anything anyone could have ever wanted for you.

[trulylino]

=> Awards Show - KSJ

Pairing: Jin x gn!reader

Genre: idol!reader, fluff

Summary: You perform at an awards show and Jin interviews you afterwards.

Word count: 1k

Warnings: None

Series: Yoongi, Hoseok, Namjoon, Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook

Masterlist

You got this. You got this. Okay, you definitely got this, you thought as you went on stage, the lights dimmed to black. It was your first time performing at an awards show doing one of your most popular songs to date. To say you were terrified would be an understatement. The choreography wasn't the most difficult you had done, but under the pressure and whilst singing you weren't sure of how you were going to do. And on top of all this your own boyfriend, oldest member of literally the biggest band in the world was going to be talking to you, live in front of everyone afterwards, and you were going to have to keep your cool.

Mortified was probably a more accurate word. What if you messed up the choreo? You couldn't just do another take like if it were a music video. You had literally done a hundred concerts before, WHY WERE YOU SO NERVOUS. Maybe you should blame Jin.

As the intro music started and the lights brightened you realised that you couldn't actually see the audience, and could only faintly see the camera which was following you. Perhaps that was a blessing.

Your performance went relatively smoothly, your vocals might have been a bit shaky at the start but you got into it the further through the song you got. You made no obvious mistakes with your dancing and as you were panting in your final pose you did a little smile to yourself. You did it!

But there was more. Now you had to speak to your boyfriend without revealing to the world that you went home to each other every night. You would rather perform 3J's butter dance than do this right now, and that was saying something. You remembered Jin complaining about how Jimin wouldn't shut up about how difficult it was, and Jimin was a far superior dancer to you in many ways.

You let out a visible gulp as SeokJin walked over to you, mic in hand, smiling his signature worldwide handsome smile. You bowed politely to him, figuring the best way to go about this was to act formally around him. You suddenly felt self conscious in your performance clothes, your pants suddenly feeling too tight and the ruffles around your chest too showy. Without your backup dancer on stage you stood out. A lot.

"Wow, y/n that was amazing!" He commented as he finally came to a stop a foot or so away from you. You kept up your modest idol persona that you fans loved so much, covering your face with your hands shyly and bowing in thanks.

"If I'm correct that was the first time you've ever performed that song, am I right?"

"Ahh, yes! I was so nervous if I'm honest." You replied shyly.

"Well you smashed it out of the park, and judging by everyone's reactions they think you did an amazing job too!"

"You're too kind Seokjin-ah, I'm just thankful to all my fans and for everyone who streamed my latest album!" You searched for the camera in the blur of lights, finding it pretty quickly and giving a cute finger heart to it. Jin copied you, with a laugh painting his features and you couldn't help but stifle a giggle at him. You couldn't wait for the edits of that one.

"I really felt the emotions come through in the way you sang the song. Did you have any particular inspiration, or...?" He questioned. You were going to kill this man later. He knew damn well who inspired this *love* song. And you also knew that your face was now steadily deepening in shade, a heavy blush spreading across your face.

"Well. It's about my first love," you explained, "I don't think there's much more to say other than to listen to the song," you winked at the camera, hopefully avoiding the question well enough to not cause suspicion.

The way that Jin was smiling at you whoever, was enough to send fanfiction writers into a wild frenzy. He looked absolutely gorgeous of course, and you wanted nothing more then to tell him that on live TV and then kiss, showing the world that he was in fact yours and, no, he was not avaliable, and no, you do not have a chance with him jin'ssmelleysocks. But, alas, you couldn't do that. Shame. It would serve them right for choosing such odd names for their users on weverse.

You continued talking for your alloted time until Jin got a note in his ear piece that he had to wrap it up. It was a shame, he enjoyed talking to you and doubted that he would get the chance to do so for the rest of the evening. The woes of being literally the most famous group on planet earth. What you could you do.

"Well it was lovely speaking to you y/n, but now we must welcome Yoon Sang to present the award for best new album, one which you're in the running for! I'll be rooting for you." And with a swift smile you were being ushered back to the side of the stage.

・・・・・・

A couple hours, drinks, and trophies later you piled through the door of your and Jin's shared apartment, practically collapsing onto the floor. You were relieved it had seemed to go reasonably well, except from Jin flirting with you in the middle of a public interview whilst you were meant to be keeping your relationship private.

"Jin-ah what was that about?!" You questioned, crossing your arms, "you know we have to be secretive."

"Ah, I'm sorry y/n, I forgot myself, you were just too good up there."

"I better not get in trouble because of you," you pouted before the distance between you and Jin was closed, the alcohol in your system giving you a pleasant warmth which was only enhanced by Jin's closeness.

"I love you sweetie."

"I love you too Jin."

Taglist: @dreamescapeswriting

Credit: Header by @vdimpl

A/N: I actually love those weird usernames people do on tiktok and twitter like yes guys I would like to see more posts from jiminscrustyelbow thank you very much.

[stormblessed95]

Happy Birthday Hobi!

To celebrate, I wanted to make a post highlighting what some of my favorite solo songs of his are! 🥰🥰 In no particular order:

Outro: Ego is one of my favs and it's one of my favorite performances from the ONE too. It's so fun, got an incredible meaning, and is just one of my general favorites too!

1 verse from Jhope back in 2015 is a KILLER song!! I didn't know which one to hyperlink and which one to embed, but I'll just link his live version here since it's only a teaser snippet, but please watch it!! Plus this amazing twitter edit someone did for Hobi day to 1 verse. And the lyric video below:

MAMA from their wings album! This is just a beautiful song and the choir that sings back up in the live version is AMAZING!! This song always makes me a teary eyed too 🥺

Trivia: Just Dance is one of my absolute favorite performances of his too. The song is an absolute bop that you literally have to dance to also. It's so good! This is iconic at this point!

Boy Meets Evil was INSANE and amazing in every freaking way. The beat, his flows, his DANCE, the lyrics. Powerful.

Please, Hopeworld as a mixtape was a MASTERPIECE. All of it is incredible and amazing. Baseline in particular is one of my favorites though! It's INCREDIBLE

Another mixtape favorite is Daydream and Hopeworld. They are so quintessentially Jhope. The way this whole freaking mixtape is the biggest bop while also spitting real shit. I'm OBSESSED. For real

Piece of Peace is another favorite of mine from the mixtape. "Everyone makes mistakes and suffers. Though I don't know them, I know their pain." Literally enough said 😭😭

And finally, Chicken Noodle Soup will complete my top 10. I was impartial to this song at first and now look at it, in my top 10 Hobi solos 😭 the way this is so catchy and has the most incredible backstory of why he did this song.... yeah, I love it more than I should at this point! And the OT7 Performance of it is perfection!

Special shout outs to the others, I love them too!! Hangsang has one of the sickest beats ever. And it's amazing. It features Supreme Boi, but no offense to him or anything, but Jhope eats him up and kills it. The flow switches!!!

Airplane is such a beautiful song. It's incredible, the flow is impeccable, the message is profound, the hope is always present 😭🥺

Blue side, the full version especially, just feels like a hug. From sunshine when you are feeling blue and down. Our Sunshine. Who understands us. 😭 He creates the most pure music at times that also never loses his unique touch. Always giving us such a bright spot of Hope and Love in life.

This one kills me in the best ways. I LOVE this cover and their voices together is insanely appealing and beautiful. Hug Me Cover special shout out by Jhope and V.

And just because I love listening to him sing. His raw vocals are sooooo good. Proposal Cover in 2014 by Jhope on a radio show cut. Just a quick little snippet. I love him!!

Happy Birthday to Our Sunshine. I hope he has a full day of rest and relaxation and the members, his family and friends continue to smother him in love and affection!! 💜💜💜