#i love me a beat switch that make sense so far every one this album make sense | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

on-the-shelves · 2 years ago

Text

on my shelf: soundtrack to MA year 3 - winter

welcome back to my bi-annual music roundup! my goal is to be done with uni This Year so i'll have to start thinking of what else to do with this concept (like that's the biggest life-problem i have to solve this year lol). anyway. even though i only took 3 classes this semester, one of them took up ALL of my time: typography. much like it's hard for me to watch movies normally now, i'm now looking at all kinds of written text in a completely new way which is equally fascinating and annoying. but you could say that for most of what i've learned at uni. what wasn't annoying, was the music i listened to (ey? ey?), so let's get into it:

RM: Indigo (2022)

RM's music over the years has spanned many different themes and genres, from hardcore (?) rap on his first mixtape to more vibey stuff on mono to all the many different things he's done on BTS' songs. Indigo continues this principle of diversity but by making the entire album so varied yet so cohesive. He touches on subjects like what it means to make art and to be a person, love and loneliness, navigating friendship. He's also developed quite the vocal skills, showing off his warm deep tone on several songs. While the comfort that mono was in its sadness, it's greys, the sound of rain and the melancholy of it, Indigo's comfort comes from a warmer place. It feels more grounded (despite the hectic genre switch-ups, like: "Closer" into "Change Pt. 2"?! Insane! But it works!) and the ever-present hopefulness feels more graspable. In general, the melodies on this album are also just so good that I can't get enough of them and I'm excited for my vinyl to arrive in June!!

fav: No. 2 (but seriously, all the songs are SO good)

Epik High: Strawberry (2023)

First of all: I recently saw Epik High live for the first time and it was like 100/10 amazing. Besides the songs being amazing, they're all just really funny?! It was half standup half hip-hop show and I was LIVING. Anyway, so Strawberry starts off with an instrumental track that would fit perfectly on Spotify's Dalkom Café playlist (which I love) and then goes into two insanely catches songs featuring Jackson Wang and Hwasa, respectively. Perfect choices. Iconically, the first lyrics you hear are "I'm on my way / I'm on my villain arc / I'mma need you to shut up for a minute" but on a really chill lo-fi beat. Beautiful. That's also how their live show started which is truly iconic. What fascinates me the most about Epik High's music is the melodic sensibility they bring to every song, even the ones that sound like freestyle rap. There's always a melodic heart to it, combined with really good lyrics.

fav: Catch

Paramore: This Is Why (2023)

They're finally back!!! If you can't tell by my profile picture, Paramore's After Laughter (2017) is one of my absolute favourite albums of all time. And of course I love all their older albums too. I think This Is Why is a perfect follow-up to all of these: it ties in all the different sounds we've heard before but in a new way. It feels like they're still inspired by the same things, but they've gone deeper into them, if that makes sense. The sounds and themes of the album also just feel like a perfectly natural progression after Hayley's two solo albums, which the other band members also helped out on. You can hear and feel how much all of them have matured and grown musically, skills-wise, and personally. It's such a pleasure just letting all the sounds wash over you or singing along aggressively. There's a lot of aggression on the album, even in the love songs. But it's a good aggression? Maybe that's not the right word, but there's a power and a force, as opposed to a defeatedness throughout all the songs. Especially considering everything we've all been living through since the last album, I think this is a perfect response.

fav: Running Out of Time

NewJeans: "Ditto", "OMG" (2022/2023)

It's all hits, no misses so far with these girls. "Ditto" was released a bit earlier in the winter and perfectly encapsulated the wistful melancholy of the grey and wet days while still being insanely catchy. The melody has this very specific kind of melancholy, nostalgic undertone that the music video emphasises, but paired with a drill drumbeat that gives the whole thing an edge. "OMG" might sound more upbeat in direct comparison at first, but it also has some more somber undertones, especially when you take the music video (which left me confused and intrigued after my first watch) into consideration. I like that NewJeans songs can absolutely appeal to teenagers (their peers) easily but even older listeners can genuinely enjoy them without feeling like they're listening to a Disney Channel soundtrack and it's not really for them. There's a clear groundedness in these songs that is lacking in a lot of music for and by teens these days (especially looking at you, TikTok...). All of their songs are literally the most tenacious earworms, yet I'm not annoyed to have them camp out in my mind.

Le Sserafim: Antifragile (2022)

At first, I didn't like Antifragile as much as Fearless because the track sequencing is just not as good: the mood changes from track to track don't feel as smooth. But all of the songs on their own are absolutely on par with their first EP's and add new textures that I enjoy. Particularly "No Celestial": it's heavily rock-influenced with a great melody and message, and the girls' vocals work very well with this style of music. Considering that their whole thing is being fearlessly themselves in the face of adversity and embracing supposed flaws, rock is the perfect genre to express this with. Even on Fearless, a song like "The Great Mermaid" had somewhat of a rock sensibility but not traditionally executed. For "No Celestial" they brought in the guitars and melody of a 2000s/2010s pop-rock song that just makes so much sense for them. The title track "Antifragile" is also really fun to listen to, going in directions I didn't expect (especially in the chorus). In general, they manage to make empowering songs that don't feel cheap and fake, which is difficult to pull off.

fav: No Celestial

Tomorrow x Together: The Name Chapter: Temptation (2023)

How does TXT manage to do something different on every album and have it still sound so quintessentially TXT? Every new album my first reaction is "Oh? This is different... hmm......." and then I get obsessed and loop the album for weeks. Temptation has been exactly the same. Title track "Sugar Rush Ride" is the most seductive they've ever been, with the way they use their vocals especially, which suits the theme of the album. It deals with the temptation to ignore all your responsibilities and just stay "Happy Fools" (eyy) but in the end, they realise that you can't live like that forever, and have to say "Farewell, Neverland". Something about the guitar and melody on that song specifically feels so familiar to me, but I can't pinpoint it... The biggest surprise to me was hearing an instrumental for "Devil By The Window" and finding out it's just a sparse beat for most of the song, with their vocals being the only thing to make the song sound full. They keep doing new and interesting things and I just need them to finally come to Europe on tour now...

fav: Farewell, Neverland (but seriously, all of them though)

Jin: "The Astronaut" (2022)

As a massive fan of both Coldplay and Jin's music, this song is everything to me. It's the perfect collaboration, especially considering they're fans of each other too and have both explored a more space-y theme in their recent music. Of course, this song is Jin's last release before he had to go do his compulsory military service, so it being full of so much love and melancholy makes it bitter-sweet in all the right ways. Did I go see Coldplay's Argentina concert in cinema just to see Jin perform this song? Yes, and I cried a little.

Red Velvet: The ReVe Festival 2022 - Birthday (2022)

Continuing the theme from their previous album of interpolating classical pieces into poppy tracks, "Birthday" uses a George Gershwin piece but makes it go all kinds of places in a very (recent) Red Velvet style. These days, some of their songs are a little much at first listen, but their vocals always, always, always tie everything together so well that I can't help but enjoy listening. The other songs on the album are a little less quirky and more classic Red Velvet with great vocals and interesting melodies. But I do keep wondering one thing: what does "oops we are on a ride" mean? How are you accidentally on a rollercoaster?? Or is it a metaphor for how life is a rollercoaster............. Anyway, of course I had red velvet cake on my birthday this year while listening to this album and it felt great.

fav: Zoom

Fujii Kaze: Help Ever Hurt Never (2020)

I found this album through such a weird way: Suga of BTS posted black-and-white photos of himself on his Instagram with his long hair in his face and people on Twitter said it reminded them of the album cover of a song that recently blew up on TikTok - Fujii Kaze's "Shinunoga E-Wa", so people started making Suga edits with that song. I liked the song and checked out the album and loved it and it's been on repeat ever since. Something about it reminds me so much of Jamie Cullum but if his songs were a little more interesting or at least his albums were a bit more diverse... Kaze's voice has a very soothing and rich tone and that coupled with the great melodies and instrumentation of his songs just makes me want to endlessly loop the album.

fav: Sayonara Baby

Seulgi: 28 Reasons (2022)

I honestly did not know what to expect from Seulgi's debut album but although it goes in several directions, it stays cohesive and suits her perfectly. It's dark in a different way than her album with fellow Red Velvet member Irene, Monster (2020), with a certain alluring quality. Most of the songs are very brash with Seulgi showcasing her vocal prowess, which makes the two songs right in the middle of the EP, "Bad Boy, Sad Girl" and "Anywhere But Home", stand out more, as they seem more understated, showing a different, less aggressive vocal style. Especially the latter is very reminiscent of a certain style of dance songs from the 2000s like Sophie Ellis-Bextor's "Murder On The Dancefloor" and Estelle's "American Boy" which I very much enjoy.

fav: Anywhere But Home

Adora: Adorable REbirth (2022)

I have been waiting for Adora's debut album since I first heard her voice in 2019 on Suga's "Seesaw" and then found out she's had a hand in making so many of my favourite BTS and TXT songs. Her first singles in 2021 and 2022 showcased her specific brand of quirkiness paired with stunning vocals, perfectly paving the way for this first EP. The single is literally called "Magical Symphony", which really encapsulates her vibe. Although she only produced about half the songs on the EP, they all sound so quintessentially her and showcase her vocal skills exactly like I'd always hoped. I'm excited to hear whatever she's cooking up next.

fav: CBGC

#on my shelf #soundtrack to university #rm #epik high #paramore #le sserafim #newjeans #tomorrow x together #jin #red velvet #fujii kaze #seulgi #adora

14 notes · View notes

lordmayokcorner · 2 years ago

Text

(G)I-DLE I feel - Album Review

-- image: allkpop --

Kpop girl group (G)I-DLE is known for many things, one of which being that member Soyeon, pictured in the center above, writes the majority of their songs independently, something not often seen in the world of kpop. This mini album, the 6th in the series of “I _” ones, was also produced by Soyeon. All of the members are bringing a fun girly concept to this comeback, so I’m excited to see how this change is reflected in the music. In the past, I’ve only enjoyed I Trust, so I’m hoping I can find more I enjoy in this comeback.

I’ll listen to each song 3 times and rate them afterward. Each song will be rated on a scale of 1-10 with 5 being completely neutral, 1 being my least favorite song, and 10 being the best songs ever. Please take my rating with a grain of salt, my goal is to be honest, no hate :)

Queencard - 5.5

I love the beat in this song, the production of these summer specials have been incredible so far. The Minnie intro of verse 1 is absolutely golden, I love her husky tone here. There is a high amount of excitement and energy despite the fairly soft sound of the track. Unfortunately though, this track goes downhill the longer the tape rolls. The chorus is somewhat disappointing, and the lyrics are just…cringe. I think this song has a lot of potential in verse 1, but after that the chord progression and instrumentals become boring as they don’t really change in any meaningful way. That said, the song keeps its fun bounce throughout, and verse 1 is one of my favorite verse 1s in kpop. As usual for (G)I-DLE, the vocals sound great, particularly Minnie and Miyeon.

Allergy - 5

(G)I-DLE has really been going for a sort of 2000s teen pop vibe lately. I don’t like or dislike that, but it is certainly noticeable. This song feels like a classic boy band song from the 2000s. I don’t really love this style, but I think this track pulls it off fairly well, and no part of it feels forced or awkward. That said, it may pull off the style a little too well. You could replace the vocals with any other group, and it would fit right in. I think that the message of this song is very thoughtful and nice, and actually reminds me of a lot of the themes from 2000s music, unsurprisingly.

Lucid - 8

This feels more like old (G)I-DLE, or at least pre-Nxde. It feels almost creepy. The verses are dry and gritty, and when the heavy bass in the pre-chorus kicks in it feels nothing less than magical. Minnie is the queen of (G)I-DLE this comeback, according to me. Her voice is so smooth and addictive. The slowed part before the chorus is really unique and cool, especially as it launches into a simultaneously dark and fun chorus. This song actually reminds me a lot of Tainted Love, a massive throwback! They both share the same blend of styles. I really like this song!

All Night - 6

Wow, the first few seconds of piano here are beautiful and ominous. The beat kicks in in a massive switch-up to another dark and fun verse. The use of guitars and electric bass continues in this song, continually building throughout the track. The two-chord progression in the chorus feels pretty repetitive, though the bass and guitars make it more entertaining. It feels like a b-side if I’m being honest, and not a power b-side like others on this comeback. I don’t particularly dislike anything, I just don’t find it to be that interesting.

Paradise - 8

Holy intro bass! I swear, every intro is so good these days. The verses make this feel like a Basic Ballad™, but the chorus pushes it into power ballad land. The combination of the bass, synth, and percussion create a beautiful bed for the soft vocals to lie on, if that analogy makes any sense. The percussion and harmonic chords in the verses are also unique and tastefully placed. It really feels like CHVRCHES to me! I would recommend CHVRCHES to basically any kpop girl-group fan, particularly LOONA and (G)I-DLE fans. Honestly this is the first Soyeon rap since I Trust that I’ve enjoyed. This is how a cheesy ballad should be done, and I mean that in the best way.

Peter Pan - 4

The crowd noise, claps, and acoustic guitar further cement this mini-album’s summer vibe. This song feels like an end credit scene, or something someone would play over a campfire. Similar to Allergy, I don’t like this style, but I think (G)I-DLE pulls it off decently well. I don’t think it’s quite as solid of a track as Allergy, but nonetheless it fulfills its role as a carefree teen movie end song. It’s just nothing impressive from them, and I don’t love it personally. Certainly a different way of ending a kpop album than I’m used to seeing.

Final Thoughts

(G)I-DLE has cultivated an experience with this mini-album. Despite my opinions on any of the songs individually, everything is cohesive in a soundtrack-like way. Summer nights, parties, and 2000s teen movies. As I said previously, I don’t love much new (G)I-DLE, so I didn’t enjoy the style of some of these songs. This has been very challenging to review because so many of the songs are quality but not to my taste. Lucid and Paradise, however, I found to be very good! I would have to say that overall this album continues the streak of great spring/summer specials this year. I give this album an overall score of 6, with my favorite song being Paradise, just barely over Lucid. Thank you for reading, let me know what your thoughts are on any of this!

- Maya

#gidle #(g)i dle #album review #kpop gg #music review #new music #gidle soyeon #gidle minnie

2 notes · View notes

evergreen-music-grab-bag · 1 month ago

Text

Music Reviews - 11/18/2024

The Love Market - Filmmaker (2019)

The electro scene has often been shoved to the side in the face of newer, shinier genres, but that doesn't mean that the ideas have died. For one, the influences of electro are vast. For two, and for this review, electro is still alive as a genre, thanks to musicians like Filmmaker.

Originating from Colombia, Filmmaker's gothic and occult-inspired works are something which I discovered thanks to the sheer power of YouTube recommendations (this may become a theme). As his theming would imply, he is a cult artist making it through the electronic underground and releasing tens of projects over the years.

The Love Market takes influences from the ominous sound of old school electro, and infuses it with a kick of vintage scares with antiquated synths and percussion that has that "pow" quality you could only find in the actual 1980's. The low-fidelity adds to atmosphere, making each beat subsume your mind with the vicious bass.

Tracks like "Lust Riders" and "Mirror Slave" dive into a more club-oriented sound, fusing electro with more janky breakbeats, creating an inviting energy to rave to in the middle of the night. As the album continues into its second half, however, the album takes a turn to a slower, more sleazy sound. "Liquor Pheromones" and "Monster Models" are examples, combining the bassy sound with a slower tempo. It's almost as if the hypothetical drugs you took at this rave just started to set in (though feel free to correct me, I'm straight edge).

This change is definitely something that can vary in reception based on the person listening. As I outlined, if you see as the point in the rave where everything switches up to be more brooding or trippy, that's completely valid and I can see the vision. However, it does feel very anti-climactic at times, especially with the last track, "Queen ov Material Happiness", resorting to a milquetoast synthpop pastiche.

Overall Verdict: 3.5/5 The first half is very strong, and the second half (apart from the last track) is also very strong. However, as a project, the way it is composed and arranged makes no sense to me. In fact, it could have been saved by being put in reverse track order.

Merzbeat - Merzbow (2002)

I feel that everyone's first exposure to noise music is Merzbow. His work, though inspired by more conventional genres, stands as some of the most provocative and harsh in the mainstream "non-mainstream" music sphere. His techniques influenced and, in part, could be seen as an originator of noise music as a whole.

One of the characteristics of harsh noise would be its amorphous shape. Often the only thing you can hear is a large, insurmountable wall of fuzz bombard and squeeze your ears, the growls of the synths washing out your brain. As someone who listened to Pulse Demon in full to calm down after a mental meltdown, I can attest, this shit works somehow, so I was pretty excited to see what Merzbow would do with an added beat.

Despite my relative optimism, I found myself disappointed in what I got in this album. Of course, as I would hope with noise music, it did become easy to set to the background and lock in to whichever schoolwork-based task I would have to finish, yet, I didn't really enjoy it or reach a flow state.

For some reason, adding a beat to harsh noise, at least in the way Merzbow does during this record, makes the repetition and the monotony of the noise far more apparent than it should be. And especially when one of these tracks is over ten minutes, combined with the fact that by necessity every sound is distorted to hell and back, it becomes disorienting and dizzying, and rather grating too.

It feels that the rhythm is not a component of the noise, but rather an opponent, leading to a nuclear war localized entirely within my headphones. In some cases it would work, but it felt so cataclysmic that it hurt to listen to for too long.

The one thing I will say to others.. please stop saying this record is accessible. I know everyone has to start with Merzbow, and the lack of beats is intimidating.. but I argue this is a harsher experience than the straight noise!

Overall Verdict: 1.5/5 I appreciate the experimentation to move past what could be seen as a boring formula, but the way it came out was really bad. The only reason besides dashed hopes that this is not a 1/5 is because it did actually serve as ambience.

When - Vincent Gallo (2001)

Vincent Gallo is an enigma of a man. He is mainstream enough to be mentioned as a director's favorite director, but obscure enough where it's difficult to gage how he is. From what I can find he is most known for his work in film, as well as various worrying (understatement) allegations regarding sexual misconduct. This has led to a lot of reviews I've seen of this album revolving around "separation of artist and music", which, as a principle is fine.

What doesn't feel right to me as a listener, however, is the praise the record often gets. It's not that Gallo is bad at music either. Beyond his own works, Gallo had a career performing with proto-punk bands and even had links to artists like Basquiat through these ventures. Indeed, his experience and prowess of production is visible in more ambient tracks like "Was" and "I Wrote This Song For The Girl Paris Hilton".

The album begins to fall apart for me once songs like "Honey Bunny' and "Apple Girl" begin to come into the fray. I can understand the appeal of songs like these whether they be parodical (as Pitchfork claimed at the time) or naked, as they seem to me. Gallo's high falsetto alongside the minimalist backing seems to be trying to creating something intimate, yet all it does is make me reflexively uncomfortably. The lyrics don't help, with their cloying, desperate quality. And that's without the context I mentioned in the first paragraph staining this discomfort in this sheen of gross.

There are a lot of musicians who I listen to semi-regularly who are definitely immoral, however, at the very least the projects are not only more refined and also don't make me feel repulsed through acoustics alone. And hell, music that is uncomfortable can be great too, but this felt like the discomfort you get when that one guy in the office with bad vibes comes up to you. It's not a provocative repulsion, as there are no other words to state this, it's almost a natural repulsion.

Vincent Gallo might be a mystery, but I won't be the one to solve him.

Overall Verdict: 1/5 Though there is potential at the beginning, an album which makes me feel "the ick" this severely is demoted instantly.

#music #album #review

0 notes

methodrones · 11 months ago

Text

album review : their satanic majesties' second request

released: june 1996

genre: psychedelic rock

and here we are to one of bjm's most popular albums! i think it's pretty solid, though i can't think of every track off the top of my head or anything like that, so i'll have to see after going through it. of course, this is the album that holds anemone, so it makes sense that it would be so popular. but let's dive in!

all around you - intro

this is the same as the outro, but we have a fun little voiceover to the music... this is for sure anton talking out of his ass but i love it. i think this is definitely somewhat inspired by the intro of sing this all together ( the first track off the rolling stones' album, their satanic majesties request ) which is also cool. i mean obviously, the album is literally named after it. this is giving kind of culty vibes and i'm surprised i've never actually listened to this? i reaaaally like the voiceover it's giving me everything, his voice slowly becoming more and more manic. good shit! i really enjoyed this, especially the lyrics like "the love we share / it's a secret for everyone." very much enjoyed...

rating: 9/10

cold to the touch

it's been a loooong time since i listened to this song. this is giving 60s, it's really good lol. and the tambourine ofc <3 but the chorus is great, the 'wooo!' is fun. i love when they just yell random shit. solo slaps as always, there will never be a bjm solo i don't love i think ... also anton's kind of whispered voice is reminding me of matt hollywood, i wonder if he wrote this song. i wouldn't be surprised, it's got that very sultry vibe matt's songs usually bring. but, who knows! good song, i enjoyed it much more than the last times i've heard it.

rating: 9/10

donovan said

the beat on this one is really good, very eastern inspired for sure. which i guess makes sense that something like in india you would be on this album lmao, i forgot how much this album brings in that sound. "she took just a tiny sip / now she's starting to trip" I LIKE THESE LYRICS. and the way anton sings "i wonder what she sees in you" ughhhhh it's good ... i've always enjoyed this song, the way the lines are sang and how it all flows together, and the soloooooo?!?? i can't tell if it's a synth or like an actual violin or something ... either way i really like it. so i'd give this one a good rating! it's not my fav on this album, but i do listen to it every now and again.

rating: 8/10

in india you

speaking of in india you ... here we have it again! it's soooo much better suited to this album than methodrone idk what was going on with that decision but, yk. whatever. the song itself is pretty good, the name is self explanatory when listening to it lol. the little beat drop is good, i like the vocals ... this is probably the same shit i said on it earlier tho ( unless i just complained about it, which i might've done ). probs my least fav so far but it's not bad or anything like that.

rating: 7/10

no come down

MATT HOLLYWOOD! i listened to this song for the first time like two months ago and i really enjoyed it, but, again. matt. his voice does hit every time and the tambourine coming in ... phewwww. the riff is good and i like some of these lyrics. and the switch up then it going back to being slow?! i love it. his vocals on the "if there's a god in heaven" are good i fuckin love his voice UGH. it's not even like his voice is that amazing it just has this quality to it i really enjoy. also i like the line "i got the holy spirit breathing down my neck" his little religious lyrics are fun, the second switch up is really good. anyway kind of a long song, almost six minutes, it does feel a little long but overall it's a solid track!

rating: 8/10

(around you) everywhere

okay synth ?! very short kind of interlude, sounds very similar to all around you. it's giving their satanic majesties request lol. the horns are good, but yk, it's just ... instrumentals. not much to comment on here. also my spotify fucking crashed right after this song played that's weird. thanks ANTON.

raring: 5/10

jesus

I FUCKIN LOVE THIS SONG. for me this is absolutely a hit, i think every single part of it works so well and all of the different solos make me go crazy. the lyrics and the way they're sung are also??? SO GOOD???? "missed my connection to the second resurrection / on a close up inspection / i lost my direction" WHAT THE FUCKKKK the lyrics have no right being this amazing. i do think this song is a little long, at least for me personally, but truthfully every other part makes up for it so ... it gets an extra point from me. god the soloing is just so fucking good. "i turned to jesus when i lost all my friends / and the good times all ended, with my money i spent it" idk something about the way this shit is sung makes me go insane. then the "have mercy please jesus" being sung in the background of the outro solo.... fuuuuuuck.

rating: 10/10

before you

another kind of short interlude, longer than (around you) everywhere tho. again with the eastern kinda influence! honestly i don't have much to say on this, it's alright. it gets a shrug.

rating: 5/10

miss june '75

ohhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHH. matt. matt matt matt you never cease to amaze me with your songwriting. this is a matt hollywood song through and through and i fucking adore it. it's slow, sensual, has the matt-esque suggestiveness of it all ... yeah. i know these lyrics by heart not even gonna lie and this is a fun, but simple, love song to play on guitar. do you want to hear me talk about solos again? because the solos in this song are great. anyway we get to the kind of main course and i really love the line "the way she dances makes me lose my mind" ughhhhh.... idk. something about it! his voice is so good here. i will say i usually skip the rest after "the two brightest stars up in heaven" just bc it's literally matt singing about having sex but. yk. interesting listen! very long song, but if you just listen to the first five minutes you'll be good and get the gist.

anemone

the greatest hit on this album, the most popular bjm song ... anemone! i actually have no clue who sings this one, i heard it was anton's wife, katy, but idk what was going on in 1996 so i can't really say that with any sort of confidence. anyway this song is just great. do i even have to describe why??? the intro, the riff, the solos, the bass. the tambourine literally makes this song what it is. and the vocals are great, i really like her voice. i also like this song live, it's soooooo good, i think i may actually prefer anton's voice on this track but the studio version really is great. the outro with anton and her singing "now that you're not around," UGHHH so good. this was the first bjm song i ever heard and what i think should be most people's first foray into the band! it pretty much perfectly encapsulates their sound. so, obvs, this gets a perfect score.

rating: 10/10

baby (prepraise)

another random instrumental ... yeah. idk why this reminds me of something that would be in the shining LOL.

rating: 5/10

feelers

mooooore eastern type stuff. idk if that's a sitar or what but i like the sound! i am not actually sure i've ever heard this song, very simple lyrics tho. i honestly don't have much to say, it's my least favorite on this album up until this point. another shrug.

rating: 6/10

bad baby

interesting little intro. interesting song in general ... i do like it tho, it's kind of soft and has a nice beat. the vocals are also good! this is pretty long, like eight minutes long, which i don't love but. whatcha gonna do. also has a percussion ass outro which is pretty cool. but this gets the same amount of love from me as feelers did.

rating: 6/10

cause, i lover

I DIDN'T EVEN RECOGNIZE THIS AT FIRST it's from thank god for mental illness ... or i guess technically it's from this album but it appears again a little differently on the next album. i really like this song!!! it's short and sweet but very country ish. good stuff.

rating: 9/10

(baby) love of my life

short ass instrumental again. literally i have nothing to say here! not too huge a fan of these types of tracks tho.

rating: 5/10

slowdown (fuck tomorrow)

weird track .... it feels very beatles. it's alright, not loooving it or anything like that but it does align pretty well with the 60s feeling a lot of this stuff is going for. not much more to say!

rating: 6/10

here it comes

i really like this song!! it's not too long, and the music is great and so are the vocals. very calm and vibey ... the lyrics are also cool, it's just overall a good song, not my favorite on the album but definitely a nice one to listen to. that solo too ... UGH!

rating: 9/10

all around you - outro

this is the all around you i usually listen to! but i may have to start taking a listen to the intro one too lol. it's pretty much the same exact song minus the voiceovers, with some other changes. i think they probably could've left one of these off the album, it doesn't seem all that needed to put the same song on here twice, but hey ... i like this one, surprisingly i like the intro one better tho!

rating: 8/10

to crazy to care - bonus track

this song is ALSO on thank god for mental illness, it's a good one and i love it!! i don't think it's necessarily fit to be on this album, but it's a bonus track and apparently with bonus tracks bjm doesn't give a shit. clearly. look at spacegirl... ANYWAY good, short song!! i'll go into it more on the next review.

rating: 9/10

there we have the album! this album was a little longer than the previous one, but not by much. i don't think i've ever listened to it all the way through like this, so it definitely put the whole thing into perspective for me. there's a lot of psychedelic rock vibes and eastern influence in here, it's a great album, mostly the misses lie with the interludes though. i don't think they were all that needed, or they could've been a little more interesting. the first half was also better than the second half in my opinion. but either way, this was very good! i actually have a greater love for this album now having heard all the genres and themes tie in together.

hits: anemone, jesus, miss june '75

misses: feelers, bad baby, all of the interludes

overall album score: 8.5/10

there we have it! next up is thank god for mental illness, which i've been looking forward to this whole time. expect it soon!!

#( album review )#their satanic majesties' second request

1 note · View note

thisdogpaystaxes · 2 years ago

Text

Flower Boy by Tyler, the Creator: Album Review

so far, so fucking good, my pen and i are having great conversations about the beats and melodies being so complementary. i quite literally orgasmed when the beat switched in where this flower blooms. i manually checked my panties i am so fucking for REAL rn. shit was GOOOOOD.

currently listening to see you again, decided to write this after the first few songs, it is theee 2017-2018 little anthem. love it. no complaints

who dat boy is interesting. if i recall, this is one of the first songs he released from the album. it was this and 911 / mr. lonely. such drastically different songs. the beat picking up in who dat boy almost makes me wish it was at the beginning of the album. the intense intro would just be like ;O which is always what tyler leaves people doing. but the soft intro with the hard, up beat core of the album??? SO smart. like he eased you in, holy shit youre 5 songs in and nodding! a$ap was the perfect feature for this track, the difference in tone between him and tyler in the sense of raspiness/smoothness is really cool. tyler is aggressive but a$ap is chill. its like a realllly cool contrast that keeps u going like wow!!!

greeeeeeeeat.I NEED TO CHANGE MY PANTS! the switch to pothole from that aggressive song?!!!! oh my god like im literally flabbergasted. the highs and lows are really exciting in this album, like it shows you his range. especially with his features, he matches their specific cool voices with a rad ass beat and his voice. im very specific about features, i think they go bad a lot, but his are meticulously done.

i appreciate that the singles vary insanely from a good amount of songs on the album. its like a little :p oops i lied! bc they sounded typical, upscale tyler. but no. this shit is so gorgeous, like he really cared about the beats he made and you can tell. he took CARE of them. love pothole!!

cute segue into garden shed. personally love this song, it sounds like an over cast sky and you look up and it hurts your eyes a bit, but its cool and you really like how it feels outside. maybe things will be okay. the gradual additions to the beat r like :00000 like it is sincerely some of the most gorgeous shit. estelle was a fantastic choice, truly fucking good and like thought out choice. the lay out of his verses with the features is peculiar in garden shed, in a really freshing, new way. like i really like the exclusivity from their parts never meshing, but their voices complementing the beat in different ways consecutively.

holy fucking shit boredom. now this. this is the song in 2017 i liked. so now i hear it and it makes me upset. like i was 15 years old and heart broken over some loser. like girl... be a kid! but my parents are the reason that was even more emotional. they like freaked on me that year. bad memories. 1:11 beat change always tied me back in then, just like now. its like ohhh yeah. this reminds me of hanging with three people who i loved with every fiber of my soul but we all hate each other now. for separate reasons too? this song makes me nostalgic in a way i don't like, but its really good for what it is. this is a fantastically composed little catchy song. i like that it has a really clear intro and outro.

next we got i aint got time! i fucking love this song, it is so aggressive. aggressive ass song perfectly layered in between soft. its like a buy in. which ever style of his you like, youll hear more of it between the layers of contrast. but its all good, and thats what it is too. its a perfect sequence of aggressive and soft to make you appreciate the fuck out of every song. THE MAIN THING IS CONTRAST IN THE SONG LAYOUT.

911/ mr lonely is an interestingly composed song. i genuinely think this song paved the way for a lot of sounds we hear today in music. like this general style of goofy beats, i swear after i heard a lot more funky shit. franks part makes me want to drink a vat of acid but in the best way. like its so perfectly incorporated, and then BOOM! 5 CAH GARAAAAGE. like YES MORE MORE?!! fucking delicious contrast. then ur like ohhh its gonna end huh, but u r like wait.. its building again?! 2:46 beat switch is like the grand finale

droppin seeds is a track i love a lot. been actually chewing on this a lot lately, it makes me so zen. im like B) when im listening to it.

november i dont love. i got distracted until 1:32 when he played with his flow. but that flow change did tie me back in and im like okkkkk. the chorus is just kind of tired but i feel like thats the point.

glitter...... girl she is everything for what she is... its the same kind of like :$ :Q from boredom. but its also like cutesie. i can stand glitter, cant do boredom. glitter is really cute but since i heard it rn, im ok not hearing it for another like 4 years again. sorry.

enjoy right now, today is great. love love love love love the inclusion of this song. its like a great outro. its a sweet cherry on top of a decadent album. im aware completely of how glitter complements this song, hence the songs placement right before the outro. really good album.

#i luv music #flower boy #needed to review it #tyler the creator #long read

0 notes

pinkliquorstyles · 4 years ago

Text

Depravity.

Warnings: dirty talk, a sprinkle of smut, alcohol use, angst, and a whole lot of teasing.

A/n: oh, how I’ve missed writing.

Harry craved control.

He always had some sort of power over everything in his life, onstage and off, Harry was always in control. He had a plan for every situation and a solution to every problem. He hated to be caught off guard, and it was only when he lacked that authority over his life when you could sense him falter.

So, you could imagine how Harry felt when he heard about a last-minute, extravagant party, made to celebrate his achievements and mass success from his second album.

Don’t get it twisted, although the event seemed formal on paper, it turned out to be anything but. The guest list seemed to be never-ending, as both Y/n and Harry struggled to identify who everyone was, especially, under the dim lighting.

To make matters worse, the liquor flowed through the venue like it was water. Harry could practically count on a person stumbling out of the place every two minutes as they reach their limits.

It seemed like a vision of pure depravity.

Y/n was the complete opposite of Harry, her spontaneous nature, and desire for chaos in order to keep life interesting was one of the reasons why people either loved, or completely despised her. No one could anticipate her taunting movements, and frankly, she preferred it that way.

The sound of loud chatter was drowned out by the rhythmic hums of music that loudly projected from the speakers. Harry could hear the multiple voices that attempted to catch his attention, but it seemed his focus was fixated on something else. His gaze lingered on Y/n, his eyes trailed down her body as her hips swayed in sync with the music that resounded throughout the room.

It was known by the people closest to him that Harry was possessive, especially when it came to Y/n. Whilst some people scolded him for it, he simply couldn’t help it, once Harry gets what he wants, he will do everything in his power to keep it safe.

In a short distance, away from all the chaos, Y/n saw a decorated table filled to the brim with assorted fruits and an almost mouth-watering chocolate fountain placed right in the centre of the display.

Y/n’s sweet tooth ached whilst her eyes watched the treat trickle down the machine. She made her way towards the table, softly pushing past the guests as dizziness made itself apparent on the way, presumably, from the liquor that vibrated all throughout her body.

The area she entered seemed quiet compared to the one she was previously in, with only small groups hovering around the room in their own little worlds as they talked among themselves.

Once she reached the table, she carefully went over her options, each fruit was skewered with a small toothpick. She decided on the strawberries, taking one in her hands before dipping it into a glass filled with dark chocolate. She laughed lightly to herself, as she remembered reading about how both of these foods together, created an aphrodisiac effect.

As she was about to reach for more fruit, she felt a familiar pair of strong hands grip her waist from behind. Her body erupted in goosebumps as a low voice spoke close to her ear. "You’re a dreadful tease.” A familiar deep voice broke Y/n out of her trance as she froze in his hold.

Her body relaxed as she realised who was behind her, turning around with a small smile that teased her lips. She sensed the jealousy that dripped from Harry’s voice. "I don’t know what you’re talking about, m’just dancing.” She said innocently, placing a strawberry against her lips before taking a bite.

Harry scoffed, at her almost pathetic attempt to be oblivious to her actions. “Mhm, you’re putting on quite the show aren’t you.” He hummed with slight annoyance in his tone.

Y/n glanced at the people around her, some dancing to their heart’s content while the others attempted to engage in conversation. “It’s not my problem if guys can’t keep it in their pants.” She said with a small shrug.

"You leave nothing to the imagination do you love?”

"Jealous?” Y/n quipped in a taunting tone, though, her features remained innocent. “Besides, I didn’t know it was such a crime to have fun. If so, then arrest me baby, I’m guilty as charged.”

"Fun?.” He mocked, "So you’re telling me that this performance you’ve put on wasn’t just for me to see?” His tone seemed offended, yet his teasing expression told a different story.

She playfully shook her head and attempted to hide the smile that fought to escape her lips.

"And what about this tight little number you’ve got on, is that not for me either?” He taunted curiously, his hand trailed against the small strap that held up her dress.

Her gaze followed his cold touch as his fingers travelled across her shoulder, towards her neck. A small shiver crawled up her spine as his rings pressed lightly against her skin, before grazing across her jawline.

Her head lifted slightly. Her almost pleading eyes instantly connecting with his as if it was a reflex. "You remember what happens when you play games with me princess, it never ends well for you” his thumb lightly tugging on her strawberry-stained lips.

Her pulse quickened as her mind raced with thoughts of lust. “I guess you’re going to have to remind me.” She chose her words carefully “My mind seems to be a little foggy.”

Y/n felt Harry’s demeanour change instantly at her words, it was like a switch, his playful aura was quickly replaced with one of desire, similar to the aura of this entire event.

Little did Harry know, Y/n had him right where she wanted him. Harry craved the control that he lost over their exchange, whilst Y/n craved the thrill of the unknown. The unknown of how far Harry was willing to go to win back his control over her.

A short and antagonising laugh fell from Harry’s lips. “You want to know what I’m thinking princess?” He questioned. Y/n hummed in response, her mocking tone only pushing Harry further. “I think you’re purposely trying to wind me up.” He states clearly.

“But you know what happens to princesses who misbehave?.” He murmured.

A teasing light danced in Y/n’s eyes, she shrugged lightly and attempted to turn around to get another strawberry. She was shortly cut off as Harry swiftly, and gently tugged on her wrist. He pulled her closer towards him, their faces mere inches away from each other in order to fully grab Y/n’s attention.

“Nothing.”

Harry dropped his hands from Y/n’s body, deciding to use the table beside them to support his body instead. Y/n’s expression turned into confusion at his words. This wasn’t how she planned the rest of their conversation going.

“What’s wrong princess? You’ve gone quiet.” He pointed out, a small pout evident on his lips. “Did you expect me to whisk you away to one of the rooms upstairs... punish you f’being a little brat?”

Every time she teased Harry before, he would simply delve deeper into his own desires, playing with Y/n how he saw fit as punishment.

It was a routine that Y/n loved, so why was tonight any different.

Unless...

He perked up with a boyish smile at her confused reaction, knowing her mind was scrambling for a snarky retort. “Tell y’what, I’ll give you what you want on one condition.”

She looked at him curiously, interested in what he was proposing. “And what’s that?”

“M’going to need you to beg for me.” The thought of those three, simple little words sent Harry’s mind into a tangent of his own, the flame of control flickering in his eyes as he watched her expression.

His words took a second to process in Y/n’s mind, but once they did, she realised what he was doing. Harry was using her own tactics against her, the teasing, the mischievous look in his eye and most importantly, the element of surprise.

Although it worked for a small moment, Y/n was determined, she wasn’t about to let Harry beat her at her own game.

“Beg for you?” Y/n echoed, pondering the thought over a chocolate-covered strawberry before throwing away the rest in the waste bin.

It wasn’t long before someone interrupted their conversation. They were at a party after all. An unrecognisable figure walked up behind Harry, wrapping their arms around him before placing a shot glass full of clear liquid in his hand.

“What’re you hiding out here for Harry, you’re missing out on all the fun!” The man exclaimed with excitement, clinking his own shot glass with Harry’s before downing the drink. Y/n quickly pinched the drink out of Harry’s hand, and in one swift movement, downed the liquor similarly to the man slinging himself around Harry.

A snicker escaped Harry’s lips at the sight of Y/n’s disgusted face as she examined the shot glass “Straight vodka, m’assuming.” He remarks. Y/n nods in acknowledgment, placing the glass on the table next to them before the unknown man pipes up again.

“Sorry to interrupt miss, m’sure whatever you two were talking about was truly exhilarating but Harry here, is a busy man.” He slurs, tapping Harry on the shoulder. “People to meet, drinks to... drink? Anyways, you understand.”

Y/n eyed Harry curiously, he simply shrugged as they both realised that the mystery man next to them had no clue about their relationship and simply assumed that Y/n was just a random girl Harry was swooning over.

She chuckled lightly, “Don’t let me get in your way, go have fun.” She reached out, softly squeezing Harry’s arm as reassurance. The man already started to make his way back to the dance floor, expecting Harry to be following behind him.” What are you waiting for-?”

Before Y/n was able to let go of Harry he gently pulled her closer towards him, closing the small gap between them as her body collided with his. “I was going to say, I wouldn’t waste another moment thinking about it princess...” He trailed off, his rings roughly digging into the thin material of her dress as he held her in place.

“We both know you’re just going to end up begging for me to fuck you.” Harry’s hold hastily dropped from her hips, before walking away. A small smirk was evident on his lips as he sensed the state of shock he left Y/n in.

She watched in pure disbelief as he wandered back into the loud venue, but despite of it all, she couldn’t deny the feeling of adrenaline that coursed through her body at his words.

With an annoyed sigh, Y/n focused her attention back on the many strawberries in front of her, snatching one from the plate. "If that’s how he wants to play it...” She murmured before taking a bite out of the sweet fruit before carelessly discarding the rest.

“Then let the games begin.”

———

The night progressed as Y/n and Harry went their separate ways, mingling and causing mischief with the other guests.

Although they seemed to be in their own little worlds, they were both aware of each others presence. Whether that was through the overwhelming exhilaration that emanated from the both of them, or their teasing gazes as their eyes met at random times throughout the night.

After what felt like hours to Y/n of endless dancing, she decided that it was time to spice things up, feeling bored of waiting for Harry to make a move.

Her eyes scanned the room, eventually falling to the bar that didn’t seem too far away from her. She slowly made her way past the people in front of her, before reaching the busy service, waving down the bartender in the process.

“What a coincidence! We’ve found each other once again miss!” The familiar slurred voice spoke at a high volume from beside her, causing Y/n to flinch at the sudden noise "Seems like fate is trying t’tell us something.”

Y/n turned towards the man, her mind taking a second to process his features. ‘Oh it’s the guy from before... did I ever get his name?’ She pondered to herself

Noticing the evident confusion on her face, he piped up with a chuckle “I guess I didn’t properly introduce m’self did I? M’names Kai.”

She hummed in acknowledgment “So you’re the one that tried to poison Harry with that dreadful drink.”

“I guess that’s one way to be remembered.” He remarked in an attempt to be charming. “You two seem close though.”

You don’t know the half of it. She thought to herself, before speaking up with a smile, “I guess you could say that, my name’s Y/n by the way.”

———

Harry wasn’t much of a dancer. The only exception is for when he performs. Which caused him to spend most of the night in the booth that he reside in from the beginning of the event. The small space seemed to be full of his friends and co-workers as they chat up a storm, a continuous supply of drinks being served to the group.

The elevated booth allowed him to view the guests dance the night away. Which is how he was able to spot Y/n in the crowded dance-floor.

He watched as the man Harry was introduced to as ‘Kai’ stood dangerously close to Y/n as they swayed to the music and continued with their small talk.

Harry didn’t mind at first, not taking much note of the whole interaction. He loved seeing Y/n have fun. It was only once he noticed that she leaned closer towards Kai, whispering in his ear, a sultry “Please.” as she requested for one last drink, that their interaction caught his attention.

She moved back, re-gaining the small space between the two of them. Of course, she was hyper-aware of the fact that Harry knew about the whole exchange, flickering her eyes to his with a taunting smile.

Kai followed her gaze before spotting Harry, a boyish grin fell onto his lips as he sent Harry a cheeky thumbs-up. It was as if he had scored the best take of the night whilst somehow still being oblivious to the fact that Harry was utterly in love with the woman he was swooning over.

Harry shook his head, purely baffled by the whole exchange. “Dickhead.” He muttered under his breath. The rings that were wrapped around his fingers hit the glass with a small ‘clink’ as he took ahold of his drink, downing it all in one go.

———

"Tell you what, sit your pretty self down while I go flag down that bartender over there.” Kai motioned towards one of the seats with a smile before making his way to the other end of the bar.

Y/n nodded, letting out a tired sigh as he walked away. She felt herself getting worn out by the lack of attention she was getting from Harry, but, as annoyed as she was, she was determined to win this little game that Harry’s made up for the both of them.

“If he wasn’t so stubborn then maybe-.” Y/n muttered, getting ready to take a seat at the bar before being cut off by the feeling of a sudden grip around her wrist. With a small tug, she was twirled around to face the person that held her captive in their hold.

A small giggle fell from her lips as her body smoothly fell into the familiar figure’s build.

“Having fun princess?”

His voice caused a shiver to course through her body, small goosebumps forming on her skin at the harshness of his tone.

Y/n lazily wrapped her arms around Harry, unintentionally using him to support her own intoxicated body “Took you long enough. I was starting to think you forgot about me.”

"Never.” He boyishly grinned, feeling smitten knowing that Y/n had him on her mind as much as he did for her all night.

Although the music still resounded around the room, the tune that played was much slower. So much so that Harry and Y/n noticed the tipsy guests begin coupling up as an attempt to dance with one another.

Y/n softly rested her head against Harry’s shoulder as his hands rested on her waist. Her eyes fluttering close as she felt herself get lost in the song “Mind telling what that whole charade was about ?” Harry hummed closely, possessiveness laced in his voice.

Y/n quickly picked up that he was talking about Kai. She playfully scoffed, lifting her head from his shoulder to look at him. “I was getting bored and you weren’t paying me any attention. Besides, I knew your jealousy would get the better of you eventually.”

Harry let out a small laugh at her seemingly meticulous plans. "You know all you had to do was come find me.” He affirmed.

Feelings of guilt were getting the better of Y/n as she pondered whether or not she took all of this too far. "Are you upset with me?” She said with a small pout.

“Of course not princess, m’not upset with you.” He comfortingly squeezed her waist for a small moment, both of them swaying to the soft beat of the song.

I just wanted to you to tell me how needy you were f’me.” He murmured lowly, making sure that the people dancing around them didn’t hear.

All the feelings of concern were immediately washed away from Y/n, quickly being replaced with a mixture of relief and playfulness.

“You know I’m not going to break that easy, you’re going to have t’try harder than that if you want me to say such a thing.” She huffed.

“Is that so?” Harry mocked, making a mental note of her words. "What about if I...” He trailed off. His head dipped down as he peppered wet kisses all the way to her exposed shoulder, making sure to lightly suck on the delicate skin as if he wanted to leave his mark on her.

Y/n gave into the taunting feeling for a small moment, her eyes closing as Harry had his way with her. “You shouldn’t be doing this.” She remarked.

He pulled away, a boyish chuckle escaping his lips. “Are y’scared your little friend over there will see.” He motioned towards Kai, who seemed to have been caught up on his path to the bar. Another girl danced with him as he held two drinks in his hand with seemingly, not a care in the world “I wouldn’t worry about him.”

"That’s not what I meant, silly.” She clarified, referring to the small love bites that she felt forming across her pulsating skin.

His fingers lightly grazed over her neck. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve left a pretty little mark on you princess.” He noted, admiring his work. His voice alone was enough to send Y/n into a spiral of lust. Her mind was in scrambles as she fought the tempting urge to give into Harry’s desires.

Although the slow song finished, another bass-heavy one played in its place. Y/n could tell the night was coming to a close as people slowly made their way to the exit, or, were celebrating their last round of drinks. This meant Y/n only had about an hour or so to decide whether or not she would continue to be stubborn, proving to Harry that she’s not as submissive as he makes her out to be.

"You’re thinking about it aren’t you?” Harry glanced at a distracted Y/n, a teasing curiosity evident in his features. “A few words princess, that’s all it takes.”

Y/n snapped out of her trance, realising she was slowly succumbing to Harry. She took a deep breath, and in an attempt to regain her control, gently wrapped her hands around the back of Harry’s neck, making their way up to his messy curls. Her fingers wrapped around the strands of hair, giving it a small tug as the both of them continued to sway to the music. “Let’s say I was thinking about it, what would you do about that?”

Harry hummed lowly at the pleasurable feeling of her soft touch on his skin. In that moment, he decided not to waste another second of his attention on anyone other than Y/n. "Then, I would bring you upstairs... play with you until you’re nothing but a whimpering mess.

His hands tightening around her waist. His rings slightly dug into her skin, the cold metal seeping through the thin material of her dress causing a wave of goosebumps to wash over her. “You’re already aching for me. Imagine how you’ll feel with your legs wrapped around me.”

Harry left small kisses across her jawline, returning to his sweet yet torturous assault from before. “You would plead for your release as I bring you right to the edge, telling you all about how much of a good girl you’ve been, all submissive and needy, just how I like.” Y/n could feel herself growing hot from his taunting movements as she unintentionally began to bite at her lip, suppressing any moans that threatened to escape.

“But you haven’t really been a good girl have you, princess? I would say you’ve been quite the brat all night.” His kisses edged closer and closer before finally, his lips firmly pressed against hers. A small moment was needed, but it wasn’t long before Y/n moved in sync with his own movements, a new sense of lust overpowering her senses as she deepened the kiss, a mix of alcohol and peppermint lingering on their tongues.

Harry noticed her newfound pushiness, the roughness of the kiss causing a gruff and low groan to escape from the back of his throat. “Do you remember what I said about little brats that don’t listen?” His gaze on Y/n as he begrudgingly pulled away from her, his lips merely hovering above her own.

Y/n let out a frustrated whimper at the sudden loss of contact, her eyes fluttering open with confusion.

"You would plead for your release...” Harry repeated. A taunting fire danced his eyes, a confident smirk creeping onto his lips. “Only for me to pull away right at the last moment.”

Y/n wanted to smack the smug grin right off of his face, but she just seemed defeated, her expression changed to one of frustration as her hands fell from Harry.

"Don’t look at me like that, you brought this on yourself princess.” He teased, giving her one last chaste kiss. “Y’know you could still-”

He was shortly cut off by the sound of Y/n’s annoyed voice. "Fine!” she snapped, just at a low enough volume so people wouldn’t hear, while she attempted to catch her unsteady breath. “...fine.”

Even though Harry knew exactly what she was going to say, he still tilted his head with a pout, curiosity written on his face as he waited for Y/n to continue her thought.

"You win.” She murmured, refusing to look Harry in the eye as she admitted her defeat.

Harry shook his head, admiring her features. He gently pushed the strands of hair that covered her face, placing it back behind her shoulders. "Not good enough, use your words princess. ‘Want to hear you beg for me.” His voice remained low, his warm breath causing a shiver down her spine.

Y/n let out a small and exaggerated sigh, as a smile teased her lips. She knew she was going to succumb to Harry eventually. In fact, she knew the moment he swept her into his arms that the game was over, but, she loved the chaos too much to ever admit that to him.

She gave him one small kiss before pulling him closer towards her. Their eyes met, both clearly filled with desire and lust, only difference was the dominating aura from Harry’s features, and the submissiveness that radiated from Y/n.

"I need you, m’so needy for your touch... Please baby...”

That, was a true vision of pure depravity.

#harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles #harry styles smut #harry styles x reader #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shots #harry styles blurb #harry styles angst #harry styles au #harry styles fic

375 notes · View notes

cryinginthebackseat · 4 years ago

Text

you’ve got more poison than sugar - part ii

part i part iii AO3

Fandom: Call Of Duty

Pairing: Russell Adler x Bell

Words: 2.918

Warnings: some mild sexual content and swearings, like usual

Author’s note: okay, i know this one's a little short but i promise there'll be more coming on the next chapter, i promise.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The first time Bell showed her face at Langley, it was two weeks after the program. She wore beige, a ruffled high-neck blouse that made her hazel eyes, like charred nut shells, hard and just about indestructible, popped.

She stood at the lobby, regarding the place like she’d waltzed into a wrong banquet hall, the band played in the background, chandeliers dripping like arctic icicles, the bar drenched in opulent gold.

She didn’t belong here.

But Adler met her there, anyway, Hudson in tow.

“Have I ever done something to him?” Bell asked after the rather short-lived meeting, squinting at the vacant spot Hudson left them. She’d yielded very few words. When she did, it’d been all business, crisp, so it surprised him now to hear her uttering something with more than 2 syllables.

“What do you mean?”

“Have I deliberately done something to piss him off?” she elaborated, quieter, but the glower remained.

Adler carefully studied her behind his tinted shades. It still troubled him to a degree that he couldn’t read her. Like she locked herself off. They say eyes are the window to the soul, but thus far, he saw nothing. Fuck the poets.

“No. At least, not as far as I can tell,” he grits out, curious to see where she was heading with the conversation. “Why?”

Bell hummed, but seemingly unconvinced. A beat, then: “He doesn’t seem to like me that much.”

You don’t belong here, he thought and his face went cagier, back stiffer, but no doubt intrigued. Very much so by this mysteriously curious creature.

Perceptive and diamond-sharp intelligent, he pondered. They might have secured the bag after all.

“It's not you. That’s just as warm and fuzzy you’ll see Hudson with everyone, trust me,” he uttered, hoping that she bought the fib. She did. At least, he thought so. “Come on, Bell, we’ve got a job to do.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Adler finds her outside the garage the next night, smoking alone, reading in secret. The ground is still wet from the rain, straggling cloud wisps and every artery of this place fucking freezes his bones. Bell ditches her gloves inside, but has her coat on, the collar popped up like antennae.

"You aren't cold?" he asks when she doesn’t notice him. Too engrossed in her own bubble. She does look better, though. Park is right about that one at least.

"I'm good," she answers without looking up. "Am I needed for something inside?"

"No, just thought I could use some fresh air."

He’s studying her, raking her from head to toe. Suddenly, he doesn’t care if she would notice him. Then he steps closer, standing next to her, lifting his cigarette to his mouth.

“What are you reading?”

There’s something about this secret element to her that has him on his toes. Everything about her is curious- frustratingly curious, careful, as Bell rolls her neck to meet him. In the low light, she looks quite new, he learns. And his eyes beg for him to linger.

“Amerika. Kafka,” she says. “Have you read it?”

A subtle shake of his head and, “No.” While Bell nods, silent, like she doesn't know what else to say to him. “Should I? Give it a read?” Adler adds, just to keep the conversation going.

She shrugs, a cloud of smoke escaping her nostrils. “I can’t say that Kafka is ever a favorite of mine, but he really is sui generis. And Amerika is probably the most approachable of all his works? It’s funny too.”

“I never thought I’d hear Kafka and funny in the same sentence.”

“Yeah, well, it’s very subtle. And if only you can understand his nightmarish sense of humor, that is,” she explains, shrugging again, like she’s embarrassed. “I don’t know, maybe you’ll like it.”

Frankly, he hates Kafka. He hates his vatic, dead-eye vision of the world; that acute sense of hopelessness clinging onto his main protagonists like vines, but Adler finds himself nodding, anyway.

“Sure, lend me your copy once you're done with it." If she’s surprised by his answer, she does not tell her. But Adler thinks she’s smiling though- just the barest quirk of her lips, but it’s enough for him to know that she appreciates the gesture.

A brief, unmapped silence ensues.

"I'm sorry, by the way."

Adler arches an eyebrow at her. "For what?"

Bell slots a bookmark into the book, closes it, frowns at it.

"For yesterday. I, uh… I feel like I was being insolent to you.”

He looks sidelong at Bell and tries to read her. Her expression is raw and open, a painting visible through a small tear in the paper. For some reason, that catches him by surprise.

“You already apologized, you know?” Adler teases lamely.

“I know, but still it was uncalled for and very unprofessional of me. You’re my CO, not some random BND agent I’m forced to work with. I shouldn’t have said that," she mumbles softly and sighs, world-weary, heavy, sounding like a woman twice her age. "It will not happen again. I promise you."

"Hey, consider it water under the bridge, kid. You’re in a rather rough place right now, I wouldn’t hold it against you,” he tells her, fond. “What matters is you’re alright. We can’t catch Perseus if you’re green around the gills.”

Her eyes meet his. He meets her back.

“Thank you.” And Bell rotates her body to face him. Mussed brunette hair and sharp cheekbones, mouth kinked up in sympathy as she says, “Is this what you have to put up with all these years?"

He summons a smirk. "With you? More or less."

And then the woman does the unexpected; Bell laughs. She fucking laughs. Delicate sounding, like a tinkling glass, petals wrapped in satin, moonbeams through frosted windows. It dies, too soon to his liking. Adler privately lets the sound of her laughter replays in his head, as if trying to pocket it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It’s only after Ukraine when he discovers that she smells different. That wintry floral smell of hers that he’s accustomed to is commingling with something else.

But now-

Now, there's music in the air.

Sims does this sometimes, bringing his Zenith Trans-Oceanic, or as he would call it the Tranny, to the safehouse and they would tune in to international radio stations. Cream's Sunshine Of Your Love is playing- or more specifically, their song is 5 seconds away from being cut off abruptly by the DJ. The song reminds him of Vietnam, regrettably. The root of all madness.

“Next up, is my favorite ever track-to-track transition on an album. This is Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage and-”

Adler stops whatever it is he’s scribbling. He sits up, ramrod straight.

“Mind switching to another station?” he asks suddenly, glances up at Sims quickly who, as Adler suspected, is giving him a rather odd look.

“Why?”

"I've always hated Pink Floyd." Only because he’s out of reason. Only because he can feel Bell’s confused stare, searing into his temple. Only because it’s the only way of escaping this. "Change it, please."

Sims opens his mouth. The unspoken: how about that time in Denver?

The telling jerk of Adler’s lips warns him not to ask.

The other man clamps his mouth shut, seemingly gets the message and switches to a different station. He never brings his radio again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Frank Woods is exactly how Adler saw him last time- or since Hue City, that is: tigerish and intimidating- a kick in the head voice, a hurricane in the shape of a man and he is making his way to him right now.

“Can I talk to you for a sec?”

"So talk."

Woods shakes his head. "Not here."

Adler looks at him at last now, curiosity creeping over him. He then stubs his cigarette, nods once and leads them both to his office.

Once they’re inside, he locks the door, secures the blinds.

“What is it?” Adler takes a seat behind his desk. Woods remains standing. He paces around the room, a hand on his bearded chin.

“What the fuck is going on with your girl?”

Adler doesn’t know which one is worse, the fact that Woods manages to sniff out something going on with Bell or that he just addresses her as his girl. Either way, it's bad. Either way, Adler should have expected the former issue. Woods is astute as he is dangerous. There's a reason why the CIA gave the green light for Mason and Hudson to save him in Da Nang all those years ago, after all.

"What about her?" Adler asks, even-toned, giving nothing away. Even though he is in the ‘need to know’ column regarding Bell’s brainwashing, this is something Adler initially wishes he could keep under wraps.

“Don’t bullshit me, Adler. She has that look on her face- I see it in her eyes. The exact same look Mason has been wearing since ‘Nam,” Woods tells him, point-blank, never being the one to settle for niceties. After Hudson, Adler thinks he simply can’t tolerate the agency anymore.

“I saw it all, remember? Had a fucking front row seat to his relapse and shit, so don’t tell me she’s alright. Not when it looks like she could snap out of it any moment.” Woods has his hands on the table and looks at him dead-on. “Tell me I’m right. Tell me there is something wrong with her.”

He regards the other man coolly. Woods is no longer asking. Adler is out of move.

“You're right,” he answers simply, eventually, tipping his king over on its side, stopping the clock. "Did you talk to Hudson regarding this?"

"Since when did I report to Agent stick-up-his-ass? Fuck no. That's why I came straight to you.” Woods heaves a heavy sigh, like he’s the one with all these burdens. “Now, what the hell’s wrong with her?”

“She’s suffering from brain damage."

“Shit. All that ‘cause of MK-Ultra?”

“One of the few factors that caused it, yes.”

His mouth goes flat. "How bad is it?”

“Bad. We’re trying to minimize for any collateral as we speak, at least until we finally get our hands on Perseus. But she… she might not make it.” Adler leans back in his chair, like his body feels heavy all of the sudden.

Woods nods. Uncharacteristically silent, looking strangely contemplative, sympathetic even. That should be categorized as an oddity itself, Woods and him, two proud Americans, Vietnam veterans and she’s just another red, another blood they would indubitably sacrifice for their country and they’re sympathizing with her? Yet something deep inside Adler, something resonates like the throat of a storm, sinks its teeth into him, confounds him, every time he thinks of her.

Woods crosses his arms over his chest, glances at the door, as if someone might knock anytime soon, then back to him.

"So, what's the plan?" He quickly adds, "if things go south, what are you gonna do?"

"It won't come to that. She'll come through, I know it," Adler counters, suddenly defensive. Whatever the use of his tone indicates, Woods ignores it.

"You sure about that?”

"Are you doubting me?” Adler spits out a retort. A quiet fury grasps him tight, but he forces himself to keep under a tight lid.

Woods holds his hands up in mock surrender.

"Look, I’m just saying, that woman is a loose cannon- you can’t be too careful."

"We have everything under control, Woods. And this is the least of your worry right now."

"Alright, okay. If you say you and Park have her contained already, then fine. I trust you,” he says and heads for the door.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Woods says again. He’s facing the door, back to him. “Whatever happens, keep Mason in the dark about any of this."

“Of course. He isn’t on a need to know basis from the very start, you know that.”

"Good. ‘cause the less he knows the better." Woods pauses like he's constructing an entire sentence in his head. He peers over his shoulder. "I mean it. He’s been through enough. I don’t know which ground you crawled up from, but up here, some people implement this kind of civility to other people.”

The words sting, yet Adler stares back at him, seemingly unfazed. "What, you’re saying that I’m simply heartless?”

“Nah,” Woods says, satirical and sardonic. “You’re just Adler.” And with that, he’s gone.

1976

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was eight o'clock on a mid-September evening and Adler found himself coming home to an empty house.

His wife had already left a week prior, crossing the country with a self-proclaimed film critic she'd met at the premiere of The Shining last summer, but Adler didn't know that yet.

He went to the kitchen. Dropped his suitcase, pulled off his coat and scarf. He reeked of cigarettes, cheap air freshener and jet fuel- air travel is simply sickening, in terms of its cost and smell- and in a desperate need of a hot bath.

"Honey?" He switched the lights on. She wasn't here. So Adler headed upstairs, to their room where they would rest their bones every night for the past 15 years. The door was slightly ajar. He expected to see her sleeping from under the duvet, hair splaying all over the pillow.

What he found was a folded note on his bedside table. He stared at it, his heart at his throat, fearing the worst, the unimaginable. He picked the letter and unfolded it.

Forgive me.

Russell,

Live or die, but don't poison everything .

His head did pirouette. So, this was it. This was what it felt like, he thought.

Not heartbreak, not sadness. But a collapse of the world- his world and all he could do was watch from the sidelines.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1981

Adler stares at the words now, sleeves rolled up, anatomical heart. The paper is fading, wrinkled and it smells like smoke and decay and tears, capped with something akin to regret.

It has his name on it, begins with it, and ends with an apology, written in cursive. Like microscopic snakes dancing around his peripheral vision, hissing in his ears.

Live or die, but don't poison everything.

No one likes to be told that they are sick, but Russell Adler has learned to acknowledge it, embrace it, weaponize it. Her words mean zero shit to him now. You can't condemn someone to the depths of hell when it's the only place he's known all his life.

So, he takes the letter for the last time, remembering how the ink used to smudge his calloused fingers, crumples it up, that satisfying crunch dins in his palm, and tosses it into the fireplace.

The paper crackles. Good fucking riddance. It really takes all this time for him to grow the guts, apparently, and he just stares and stares as the fire begins to engulf everything, wiping away his past failure.

He promises he would never fail again, at anything. No matter what the cost, failure is never going to be an option.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bell arrives at the garage with frantic eyes, a half-burnt cigarette between her lips and uncharacteristically late. Color peppering her cheeks- red, like an apple bitten into.

“I’m sorry, I overslept,” is her excuse, but she’s looking at the room strangely, he thinks, almost like she’s seeking a particular face.

When she makes her way to her desk, when she whizzes past him by the board and her planet is entering his orbit for the first time in the morning, Adler, as if by accident or by design, inhales deeply.

His breath snags.

She smells like someone else.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

(Someone fucked her last night)

The telephone rings in the distance.

“Sims. Yeah, sure, let me get him. Hold on.” He puts the call on hold. “Doc, you might wanna take this one.”

(Someone was in her bed; beside her, above her, under her. Inside her. He imagines her fingers digging into the mattress as they rolled her onto her stomach, mouth trailing down the ladder of her spine. Their breaths intermingled in the seraphic glow of her hotel room)

Adler mechanically crosses the room and picks the receiver.

“Adler.”

(If he herds her away from prying eyes and pushes down the collar of her shirt, would he see the evidence there, taunting him? If he kisses her, would he taste them instead of her? )

"Perhaps," he says over the phone, his face hard. "But my decision is final. I'm sending Woods and Mason to Yamantau. They'll leave in a few days."

(Did they make her come?)

"Of course. Why do you think I chose them for this mission?"

(If she made them?)

“Most likely, but we're prepared for this- you know we are," Adler says, customer service polite, an old recording on a playback. "Right. Well, that concludes the matter then. Yeah, you have a wonderful day to yourself.”

Adler hangs up the telephone. Breathes out a sigh. He pinches the bridge of his nose for a few good seconds, before remembering that he has an audience.

"Oof. Sounds rough," comments Sims, dark eyes slanting in concern.

(Maybe she likes that, rough. Teeth biting the back of her shoulder, that sweet juxtaposition of pain and pleasure coursing through their veins, his hand curling around her throat from behind as she pants and mewls like-)

(But this isn’t about him. Never about him)

"That's one way to put it."

Someone else fucked her. It shouldn't leave an acrid taste in his mouth, but it does.

#russell adler #russell adler x bell #adler x bell #cod bell #cod #call of duty #call of duty black ops #call of duty cold war #cod cold war #alex mason #frank woods #helen park #lawrence sims #jason hudson #lazar azoulay

114 notes · View notes

moonlight--cafe · 3 years ago

Text

@ourclaryme

Okay I finally made it to your idol life ship, I actually feel emotional 😭 I loved doing every single one, even after the drabble is finished please don’t hesitate to pop in and say hi or request ships or more drabbles. Now let’s get into it!

This took longer because I wanted to make it extra special and flashy with the general aesthetic and the album 💖 Plus I got really sick but anyways I’m back! I’m so sorry about the boyfriend part it pretty much turned into a oneshot but hey that can be a special Christmas present from me to you.

And since I’m posting this on Christmas I wanted to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year🎆

~Your Company~ KQ Entertainment

~Group Name~ Syren

~Members~ 8

~Debut Date~ 22nd of November, 2018

~Pre-Debut Days~

Since you could remember you had always had an interest in music, it was a sense of intrigue for you. You could do so much with performing and music, yet it was something that many could access. Though you had considered music you didn’t think it would be possible for you to drop your old life to pursue a career as an idol. Luckily you didn’t have to do much for KQ to come to you. You were scouted for their new girl group, they had found some videos of you performing your own original music.

Whether you knew it or not you had given the impression that you had a genuine love of music, paired with the aesthetic and the pleasing visuals. You seemed well put together. Even if you were taking a more simplistic approach it was something that KQ could see in their planned group. When they had reached out to you they were surprised that you accepted their offer so quickly, it was a stab in the dark on their part. Going through your Youtube channel you had certainly shown creative initiative through your songwriting. You held the innocence and lust for life that would be a unique yet pleasant contrast to the theme of the group.

During your early days as a trainee you were actually quite uncomfortable, though you could manage it was far different from what you had envisioned it to be. Due to this you were one of the more withdrawn trainees, you had a lot to say and a lot that you wanted to share but could never find the right moment to do so.

Eventually the others warmed up to you, it was almost like a flip of a switch. You went from being a quiet loner to one of the admired trainees. You were agreeable and despite your modesty and lack of experience in idol training, your ambition resulted in you drastically improving in all areas.

You had managed to hang in there enough to debut after four years of being a trainee. Unfortunately the majority of your friends didn’t debut as members of Syren, as a result of this you seriously considered giving up your spot but decided against that after a comforting pep-talk with your friends. You had still managed to support them, and offer advice until they had gotten the opportunity to debut.

~About You~

~Your Position~ Leader, Main producer, Vocalist & Sub-Dancer.

There was a reason your group had debuted immediately after ATEEZ, KQ was trying something that would have been a first in the Kpop industry. Your group was going to have clear ties to ATEEZ and the lore that was created, while they were pirates roaming the seas, escaping their dark sides and seeking freedom. Syren was exactly that, a group of Sirens who roamed the sea luring people in with their voice and beauty. The age-old legend had obviously been modernized to fit in with the exquisite nature of kpop.

The nature of your music doesn’t seem to match the lore initially but when you go into depth you see that it does work, your debut song was quite energetic and out there, the eye-catching nature of it was what drew people in. The harsh beat, rap and the drops in the song itself represents the sheer power you and your group have when you are together.

Often times there is a reference to your group in ATEEZ’s music and videos and vice versa, you have a few songs where you collaborate in a sense your groups were designed to be twin flames. Though this story was created by the company your group has total influence on the music that you put out and how you want that to connect with ATEEZ. That’s where you come in, you take on the responsibility as producer, you mainly write and compose the songs. You have quite a talent for inspiring and creating a strong plot through something that is only 3-4 minutes long. You’re very respected in your group due to this, you’re quite literally the author of your group.

Slightly touching on what I said earlier you are most known for your leadership skills and your overall, open nature. You are simultaneously creative and intelligent, you really have everything that makes a perfect leader. You’re motivated by a need to be there for other people, you are one of the more present members. You’re supportive and always try your hardest to support and push your members to succeed, your presence is never overbearing either.

A lot of fans view you as the angel of the group, you always stop what you’re doing to update your fans on your life. You create a beautiful space for your fans and they just see you as a comfort.

Adding on to you being so open to experience, you and your group often frequent talk shows and game shows. In these instances you are one of the fan favourites, it’s always fun to see how you react to things. It’s also more of a comfort to your fans to see you so genuinely happy and coming across as a regular person.

~Debut~

~Debut Song~ Bite Me in the style of Zombie- PURPLE KISS

Other Songs include:

Compass in the style of Higher- A.C.E

On Wings of Gold in the style of Filter - Jimin (BTS)

Ocean Breeze in the style of Medication- KARD

(Okay for some reason this masterpiece isn’t on Spotify so I can’t link it 🥲)

~Debut Album~ CORAL

~Stage Outfits~

~Relationships~

~Best Friend~ Ten (WayV)

One thing that constantly follows Ten around, his apparent trademark, is his love of beauty and expression. This also goes for people, Ten absolutely adores friends who share a similar perspective, people who make a conversation effortless. Though he often jokes about it, he definitely isn’t lying when he says he lowkey manifested your friendship.

The day Ten had stumbled across your group was an unassuming day, he had thought he saw everything but alas he scrolled through Youtube for the fourth time within the last hour, he was about to just give up and shift his attention to following around one of his members like a lost puppy when the intricate thumbnail of your Bite Me mv caught his attention.

Before he knew it he had wasted a considerable amount of time in awe, in some ways Ten is hard to impress so imagine his surprise when he couldn’t pick out one thing he didn’t like. He was captivated by the theme and the flawless nature of every single member, not to mention the catchiness of the song.

Even though your group had literally just debuted Ten would proudly advertise for your group, in a casual way of course. After a while it became obvious that Ten was the ninth member of Syren even if it was just in his heart. At no time did he ever think that he could ever meet you all in person.

So imagine his surprise when a year later he was sitting in the Inkigayo cafeteria with the members of WayV and your group approached him. Well technically you had come to introduce yourself to the group as a whole, nevertheless Ten had his fanboy moment.

Ten had immediately clicked with all of the members but you were one of the few members who gave him a smile so big it hurt, since then you and Ten have been the iconic duo. He sees you as a little sister, with that being said he most likely treats you like one. Nothing brings him as much joy as being able to playfully insult you or tease you, your reactions are priceless. Your relationship with him is just so wholesome, it’s such a sweet thing to witness when the two of you meet at award shows. Though Ten manifested this friendship with his entire being he didn’t manifest the brotherly love that welled in his heart when he sees you.

~Friends~ Mino (WINNER), Rosé (BLACKPINK), Yeri (Red Velvet), Kihyun (MONSTA X), Mimi (Oh My Girl) & Yeji (ITZY)

~Boyfriend~ Hongjoong (ATEEZ)

Okay it may sound a little harsh or disheartening but it honestly took a while for Hongjoong to notice that he had any romantic feelings for you. Hongjoong is a very hard worker, that being said he was always very prepared to be married to his job in a sense. Hongjoong was always aware of your existence as a trainee so when he heard that you were a member of ATEEZ’s sister group he was more than happy. Though he hadn’t spoken to you that much he had a good sense of intuition, and it told him that the two of you would get on like a house on fire.

He was glad that he was correct with his theory, considering that the two of you frequently worked together to create new music. The two of you had a hectic schedule that required the two of you to work together. With the creation of your group KQ had gone the extra mile to ensure that your groups would be parallel to each other by giving the two of you more creative liberty when it came to the concepts and ideas your groups had. This meant that you were in constant communication with each other, discussing what the connecting theme would be in your comebacks, what choreography would compliment your groups and the likes. So it wasn’t a surprise that the relationship between the two of you remained strictly professional for the most part.

Hongjoong’s crush on you formed in an almost instantaneous manner, it was another one of those days where the two of you were throwing around ideas for your latest mv release. Nothing was out of the ordinary as your cycle continued: Work, a fifteen minute break and jokes to break the uneventful moments of your time together. You normally laughed at his jokes, he had a witty humour that aligned itself with cringy dad jokes and you loved it! But for some reason the sight of you in stitches at one of these jokes made his heart skip a beat. Moments like this became a frequent occurrence, Hongjoong felt a wave of shame wash over him even though part of him knew he shouldn’t.

So the deep thinking leader took a few steps back asking himself if he had always felt this way, he couldn’t figure out when it had started but he was sure he had felt this way for a while. Every moment he had to himself he began to search through his memories, was it when he first met you as a trainee? Was it when you helped him create Desire? Or was it when you bought him some dinner/breakfast when he stayed up into the early hours of the morning?

He wasn’t proud of himself, he definitely let this drag out for way too long. It had been a month and he still didn’t have any of the answers he was searching for. What made the situation ten times worse in his opinion was the fact that he still had to work so closely with you, he considered coming up with an excuse but he didn’t want to act out like a stubborn child. One day he approached Seonghwa and begged him to switch places ‘You always wanted to produce a song right?! You can write the rest of the song with y/n’ . For obvious reasons Seonghwa just gave a polite smile and walked away. So in short he was kind of pushed towards having some words with you, and that’s exactly how he he worded it.

You were kind of worried, had you upset him? Were you lacking as a producer? Did you distract him? It turns out you were a big distraction but not in the way you thought. Hongjoong could tell you were already rigid and uncomfortable, by that reaction alone he was already ready to chicken out, the devil on his shoulder told him to run out of the room and never look back but the angel beckoned him to stay so he did. He launched into the conversation in a casual way, mainly to save his own sanity. He thought he was going well until he accidentally slipped in a confession ‘Yeah, that’s a brilliant idea! You have so many great ideas, that’s why I love you.’

To say the room was awkward was an understatement, you would break a knife if you tried to cut the tension. Hongjoong didn’t know how you’d react but he figured it couldn’t get any worth than this, so he leaned in and placed a soft kiss on your lips. It was over in a flash and you seriously didn’t know whether this was real or if you were in an insane lucid dream. Hongjoong was functioning on 2x speed since he had already thanked you for the conversation and was making his way out the door, there was no way you were letting this slide. Gripping his wrist you gently tugged on it to beckon him to stay, ‘I love you too, my little desire’.

~Crushing on You~ San (ATEEZ)

San doesn’t necessarily believe in fate or anything that comes off cheesy as hell (in his opinion), despite this he still feels that there was a deeper meaning behind him meeting you.

A year into your time as a trainee there was an influx of new trainees though some were girls a year or so your junior the majority were fresh-faced cocky guys who held an idol aura since day one. You had to admit you fell into the group of people who thought that the new trainees were just for show, you came to the conclusion that if they were this attractive there personality would be quite ugly and distasteful. In this instance you were so glad that your theory was proved incorrect by no other than Choi San.

During the time where you felt socially isolated it was San who first introduced himself to you, at the time he hadn’t held any attraction to you. San’s reasoning for wanting to be around you was born out of the innocence of his admiration for your talents. At the time San wasn’t as talkative as he is now, even so he still fit in well with the other trainees.

It was quite a shock to the others when San refused to join them for lunch in hopes that he could stay back and practice. It just so happened you had also decided to stay behind in hopes of refining your dance moves.

San refused to make it too obvious so he introduced himself and bombarded you with compliments, San’s chaotic positivity was a much needed breath of fresh air. That would be the start of a close mutual friendship that extended well into your days as official idols. San was a happiness pill that you often indulged in, whether it be through watching a movie in their dorm room, texting each other into the early hours of the morning or simply hugging each other.

San stuck by the idea that his heart skipped many a beat purely because you were his best friend, San wouldn’t realise the extent of his love until you confessed to him that you and Hongjoong had been a happy couple for four months. San was crushed, the way your eyes lit up when speaking about Hongjoong he couldn’t help but think ‘It should be me’ when you show off the rose Hongjoong had bought you on a whim he thinks ‘She would have liked my gift better’. As he lays awake in the middle of the night he goes back and forth in his head, writing, deleting and rewriting the same string of words ‘Why can’t it be us?’

~Other Idols Crushing on You~ Jinyoung(GOT7), Hwanwoong (ONEUS), Hyunsuk (TREASURE), Arthur (KINGDOM) and Jaehyun (NCT).

~Extra Info~

You were listed as one of the top 10 most influential idols in 2020.

You were endorsed by Elizabeth Arden to be their model for their latest line of makeup.

You finally got to collaborate with Ten on one of his solo songs, which you had the pleasure of performing live with him.

Eventually you started a side gig of some sort as a songwriter and producer for other idols, the word of your talents spread and you managed to collaborate with Olivia Rodrigo and Justin Bieber.

After some time you and Hongjoong decided to make your relationship public, overall it was met with much support and happiness. The two of you became an infamous couple in the industry due to your talents and the absolutely pure nature of your relationship.

#era 1 #kpop ships #kpop matchups #idol life ships #3d dream aesthetic #film aesthetic #retro vibes #ateez ships #hongjoong #Spotify

7 notes · View notes

your-lips-are-very-red · 4 years ago

Text

St. Vincent x Emma Madden Interview

This is the text from the St. Vincent interview that Emma Madden was asked to not use. Since Miss Madden has decided to take it down, I wanted it to be available somewhere online - in case she manages to get all the cached versions taken down, too.

SOURCE: https://archive.is/wFkLN

About a fortnight ago I was commissioned to interview St. Vincent, an artist I have been inspired by, impressed by, turned on by, compelled by, curious of, in awe of, occasionally suspicious of—for the better half of a decade. I try not to think about other journalists too much, but St. Vincent has developed a reputation for intimidating us. For her last press cycle, she made her interviewers crawl into a pink box; she would play a pre-recorded message on a tape recorder if a question bored or irked her. I found that quite funny—irresistibly imperious—but I considered it an act of degradation rather than an interesting switch of power. I love famous people but I also find them quite silly, like a Schnauzer wearing a bowtie.

I didn’t know why, but for around two hours after our call ended, I was reeling with nervous energy. I was vocalising it and trying to get to the other side of it, the way I sing songs when I’m walking through a haunted house. I woke up the next morning with a voice message from the editor who assigned this piece. I am fond of this person and I will not name them. MBC, the team in charge of St. Vincent’s publicity (which is helmed by Barbara Charone, who also works for Madonna, and is considered one of the more powerful and intimidating publicists in the industry) had been on the phone to this editor, demanding the piece be pulled. My editor’s words: “They said she’s terrified of this interview coming out.” The publication didn’t have a leg to stand on.

"Terrified"? That word didn't seem to square. I thought I had done a not-so-good job the night before. I ended the call thinking I hadn’t asked the right questions. St. Vincent and I didn’t feel like a good match in conversation (or at least not in this conversational setup set-up, for which I was given thirty minutes, and continual reminders from the person on St. Vincent’s team, who remained on the call with us, that we’d need to wrap up well in time for St. Vincent’s Instagram Live session with Paul McCartney, which directly followed our interview.) St. Vincent tended to interpret my questions in bad faith. I assumed she believed me to be a Bad Reader; presumptuous, judgemental, simple, anti-curious—all qualities that her latest album ‘Daddy’s Home’, which I’ve interpreted as a counter to the folly, inadequacy and meretriciousness of moral purity—counters. Anyway, she read me wrong. I love Lana Del Rey.

I got a call from MBC later that morning by a man who sounded quite nervous. I told him I was confused, I asked him what the matter seemed to be. He wasn't totally sure, he said, "she found the interview aggressive." Aggressive? I complimented her and cowed to her and laughed at her jokes. "Well, the message has been passed down a line of many messengers, she might not have actually said that." The man on the phone said that this—one of his artists demanding an interview to be pulled—had never happened to him before. It hadn't happened to me either. I felt annoyed by how easy it was for St. Vincent to kill something I had researched and expected money for. But the interview started to seem valuable to me after I was told that she didn't want it out in the world. "Can we draw a line under this and just kill the piece here?" said the man on the phone.

Below is the full transcript of my interview with St. Vincent (save for a short and-forth about Tool which didn’t make sense when turned into text). My questions are in bold, her responses are in italics.

**for the sake of this post, Madden’s questions are bold and Annie’s answers are not** Hi, how are you? Good how’s it going?

Not too bad. What’s your mood for today? My mood for today, well it’s good, I’m getting on an Instagram Live chat with Paul McCartney in a couple minutes so my mood is a little bit nervous but good.

I’m excited to talk about this album, I think it has a sick sense of humor that I appreciate a lot. I’ve had a really fun time listening to it.

Oh I’m glad, thank you.

I’m sensing there’s kind of a 70s trend at the moment in terms of fashion and the ways some other bands are presenting themselves. Is that something you were anticipating, is that something you feel you belong to, or was it just kind of accidental?

Accidental.

Do you feel bummed about that? No I don’t, I always just kind of do my own thing.

Do you think there’s a reason why people might be inspired by the 70s today? Do you see an analog with our world today and with the 70s? I guess this album is based in 1973, right?

Between ‘71 and ‘76, so post flower children idealism, post the Summer of Love hangover, but pre escapism of gay disco and pre nihilism of punk. Life was bad but music was good, kind of vibe.

Kind of when the trash aesthetic was taking hold, especially by Andy Warhol. Does trash inspire you? Um like literal rubbish?

No like the trash aesthetic, I guess in the PR you call it sleazy, grimy. Yeah but the difference with sleazy is that sleazy tries to present as glamorous but there’s something off, trash is just trash. I don’t know if trash pretends to be anything other.

Can you have glamour without sleaze? Sure, absolutely. I mean, like the 20s Greta Garbo way, I would say Golden Era Hollywood, I mean behind the scenes it was probably a nightmare but you look at it and it is very genuinely shiny and beautiful.

I love the sitar on this album especially on ‘Down’, the riff is so sick. How did you get to the sitar? Well it’s not a sitar per se, it’s a choral electric sitar guitar and so it was I think George Harrison made them kind of popular in the ‘60s, I think the one I have is from ’67 and it plays like a guitar but it has a resonating body on it so it sounds sitar-esque. It was made very famous in the Steely Dan Do it Again solo.

I guess the main PR bulletin point of this album is about your dad coming out of jail. Why did you want that to be the main way that people might read this album? More like an entry point, the title Daddy’s Home to me I mean one, it is literal but also it’s funny and cringy and pervy and also I think more than anything kind of refers to my own transformation into Daddy as it were. Yeah it’s probably not anything I would’ve really thrown out there except that it was made public without my consent but I didn’t really get to tell that side of the story and I don’t bring it up for sympathy. It simply is my story, it’s not intended to be indicative of necessarily anything, it’s just my story and I was gonna tell it with humor and compassion, all of that.

Did you anticipate a lack of sympathy for your dad’s crimes and the subject matter of this album and did that factor into how you shaped this record? That’s the tail wagging the dog my dear. No, no. A lack of sympathy, well, which crime would be the most sympathetic? I didn’t do anything, I’m simply writing about something that I think on some level everyone who’s ever had a parent can understand in the sense of you’re often going “How much of you am I?” and we kind of do identity projection through all these things so no, it’s again, it’s not really there for anything other than my own anecdotal story.

At what point did you transform into this daddy character? For how much of your adult life have you been the daddy? Oh I would just say over the past few years, I’ve just been quite a bit more leaned back and shoulder shrug and say let’s just sit down in the old beat up leather armchair and have a tequila and chat it out you know. Life is complicated, human beings are complicated and I wanted to just write stories about flawed people. There’s a whole lot of judgement going around and not a whole lot of understanding. And judgement is anti-curious. There are some people, perhaps the more sanctimonious and morally pure, who might not be interested in an artist’s reflection on their father’s white collar crimes. Do you have much sympathy for those kinds of people? I mean I think I can get sympathy for all people. If that is the reason why they decide not to spend 46 minutes with my work then I’m sure there’s plenty of other work out there for them that they can enjoy that is morally pure. They should find pure work from pure people and enjoy it.

I guess last year’s riots brought abolition towards the mainstream, during the time you were making this record, which is partially about your father’s time in prison. How did that square with your thoughts on prison and the US carceral system? Well I have plenty of thoughts on it, I’m not totally sure how it’s relevant to this.

Well I was wondering if you have a standpoint on it or if you’d rather just be ambiguous? I have so many thoughts and opinions, I don’t presume that my thoughts and opinions are relevant on every subject though. I don’t have that much hubris.

I understand. I was wondering about the Candy Darling inspiration, how does she come into the fold? Oh I just, Candy Darling to me is such a beautiful heroine in that she came from Queens and went not geographically far but worlds away to Manhattan and became her true self and in that particular kind of combination of glamour and toughness, where you feel like her name should be on the marquee and yet she could stick you with a shiv if you said the wrong thing. And I just find her inspiring and really beautiful, and I didn’t know but I found out a friend of mine was close with her and was at her bedside when she died so I was just picturing Candy Darling’s ascent to heaven as taking the final uptown train.

Wow. Did you feel like you were embodying her on this album or presenting as her? No not as such, but definitely taking inspiration from some of her energy for sure. I do hear a bit of her voice on the title track, I was wondering if you were kind of modeling your voice after her? On Daddy’s Home? Oh, no.

I love the sultriness of that song, even though it’s just about signing autographs in prison. I found it really funny. Yeah it’s definitely again, I’m writing about my own story with humor and compassion and self-effacement, all that.

Do you see this album as a movement, does it have a narrative? Yeah. It’s a full story, it’s a full collection of short stories. It has a shape and everything.

That’s just how I listened to this album, as a series of short stories. I was wondering how they interlink in your mind? I guess you have the person on Broadway, you have your dad, you have the person who’s maybe thinking of having a baby or not having a baby. I just could write stories of flawed people doing their best to get by because I’ve been most of the people on this album at one point of my life or another. And again I could write about them without condemnation and judgement just, here we are.

Are you a nostalgic person? No not generally.

Not even during the creation of this album? I’m thinking of the humming tracks, your mum cooking in the kitchen. Not exactly, I think that this particular kind of music with its sophistication and some of the jazz language in the harmony and its sense of time, it was a kind of music that I’d loved for so long but never really dipped into myself, and I think we kind of learn things a lot of times when we’re ready to, and I think I was kind of ready to learn some of the lessons that this kind of music had to teach me.

Do you think about shame a lot? Um, I think that shame is the reason why most people do the violence that they do. I think violence is an expression of impotence.

What was it about the post-idealist era in particular that you were drawn to, why not go through the flower power utopia sort of 60s route? I think that there’s an intellectual orthodoxy that is involved in utopian thinking and a lot of times it doesn’t allow for either a complex set of incentives or it doesn’t allow for the totality of human nature in its equation, and then it fails and because the structure of any kind of power is really complicated so I think in general the desire… and I understand that we’re living in, in some ways, I think just with the internet part of it, in some ways unprecedented times. And I understand people’s desire for certainty in times economic strife, cultural upheaval, all this stuff. I completely understand the desire for certainty. But I don’t think it’s as simple as demanding moral purity and punishing anyone who doesn’t fix the orthodox criteria. I understand the desire but I’m not sure it’s gonna get to where I think we want to be, which is just general more equality, whether it’s wealth equality, wealth disparity, all that kind of stuff I just think the matrices of power are really complicated.

You were saying earlier about Daddy and how you were thinking about your dad and the overlap between you two and how we all possibly become our parents. I was wondering how you consolidate the influences of your parents? I don’t know anything about them obviously but I know that your mum was a social worker, your dad was an entrepreneur, and those seem like two totally opposing worlds. Yes, my mother is a social worker and she instilled in all of us I think the idea that the work we do should be meaningful and she’s definitely really humanistic and that kind of thinking I think, that had an impression on me. My dad wasn’t an entrepreneur, my dad was a stock broker I think? But I grew up with my mom and my stepdad and my stepdad was a very different kind of guy, just was an army brat and grew up really poor, and was just coming from a different mindset and they’re just very different kinds of people. Not a judgement thing, just very different. Yeah my mom definitely errs on the very humble side. And yeah, my dad is a complicated, charismatic person who’s also very intelligent, and who went down a path that was full of consequence. Yeah they’re really, really different people so it’s funny to kind of square who was who.

What does your dad think of this album? Oh he loves it!

Yay, that’s good to know. Did you ever rebel against your dad’s lifestyle growing up as a teenager? I didn’t grow up with him, and he was in Tulsa Oklahoma. I don’t know what lifestyle you’re necessarily presuming but..

No I’m not presuming, just wanted a little background on your relationship with him I guess. So he wasn’t in your life that much where you were younger? I would go and we would spend summers there and Christmas, but I grew up in Dallas for the most part with my mom and my stepdad.

Was this album in any way an opportunity to get closer to your dad? Not in any way consciously, no.

But are you finding with age and with time you’re getting closer to him? Well him being out of prison helps in terms of just proximity. Yeah, here’s what I’m finding. I’m finding that we live by the stories that we tell ourselves and that sometimes we realize that the story we’ve been telling ourselves for a long time was either wrong or lacked a certain amount of information, and then we have the choice of whether to reject the new information because it’s too painful to rethink the story that we’ve been telling ourselves, or assimilate the new information and go, wow life is complicated, this is an interesting wrinkle. I choose to do the latter.

Yeah, it’s very easy to bullshit yourself, right? Yeah, it's true in all kind of ways you know?

This story, the story of your dad, it almost seems redemptive. I mean I would say so, and that’s not in any way what I intended and you know, a lot of times when you’re making something, I mean you’re a writer you know, you have the compulsion to make it but you’re not necessarily sure where it’s coming from or why or any of those kind of questions, but I think there is the possibility of redemption, I do, I think there is the possibility of people to change and I think there is a possibility of things like forgiveness and growth. And if I didn’t think that there was a possibility for human beings to change, to grow, to take in new information and then continue to write their story, then I don’t know what we’d really be doing, you know? And that’s not really the world I want to live in, we’re a moving picture we’re not a still photograph.

Do you want to try and change the world, do you feel like you have that power, do you feel hopeful that there can be a better future? Sorry for the cheesy language. No, I mean I don’t think that many people would accuse me of being an optimist in a lot of ways, and I don’t think in terms of my “power to change the world” I mean I think all I can do is try to study the human condition and write about the human condition in some way that resonates and then maybe people will hear that and that will resonate with them and I think that ultimately the best case scenario for music is empathy because it’s like psychologically this is why we like to listen to stories or this is why we like to watch movies is so we can go down the empathy exercise and you can see yourself as that person in the film, see someone who isn’t like you in any way, shape or form from a just box ticking kind of way, but then realize oh, we’re very similar in some ways or what would I do if I was in that situation, we do all these things and we live by these stories and I think those stories well-told can encourage empathy and empathy can go out into the world and have a kind of transformative experience. I don’t really think about, I mean I think once I make a thing and then it’s out in the world and it’s for other people to assimilate or enjoy or not, whatever, however they take it, is absolutely fine by me. But it’s for them, it’s not my place in any way to say how people should or should not enjoy it or assimilate it.

Yeah the reason I brought up prison abolition earlier is because that might be how some people contextualize this album. I would say that that’s one lens. That to me would not be the main lens.

[I’m told to wrap it up]

Yeah let’s wrap up. So Tool cover album next? No, I wish.

Someday I’m hoping. I love Tool.

I feel your Paul McCartney nerves Yeah, I’m gonna go shower.

That’s always a good idea. Okay take care, thank you again for you time Thanks, bye.

#st vincent #emma madden #interview #daddys home

17 notes · View notes

nobody-knose--archive · 4 years ago

Text

i’ve been aching to commentate spirit phone’s commentary for ages. glad i finally got around to it, this was an ejoyable experience. liveblog below the cut

-i'm like half certain i've heard this commentary before. maybe not the whole way through & it was probably actual years ago

-nice hearing stuff like this. in-depth personal view of the album-making process. makes it seem like more of a real thing i could do myself someday

-neil cicierega real person momence

-i could probably go real in depth about neil cicierega/tally hall parallels specifically concerning like. the arc of their musical careers. but i won't, here

-wild how i legitimately don't care much about micheal jackson

-didnt we get a bunch of spirit phone stems from the needlejuice release/his patreon? we could probably hear the funny track he speaks of here in that

-i love hearing musical artists, especially neil cicierega, talking about the meanings of their songs. like, not only has this song been claimed to hell & back by the tumblr gays, but with later ones i just can't see where he gets these ideas from. also, claiming there's any one meaning or plot to a song just seems silly to me

-shoutout to neil reusing a midi from like, 1998, that he made at 12 years old, whose entire melody was reused for the main verses of everybody loves raymond. loved finding that out on my own 2 years ago. now it's common trivia in this fandom. not bad times

-it'd be neat if neil did individual trans tracks here like he did with view monstel, those things are half of why i consider it my favorite album

-it's a lot easier to ignore the creator's intended meaning behind a song when he can't even remember it. thanks neil

-seesaw effect

-and there's my joke all but 1 of my followers wont get. moving on

-what kinds of movie theater lobbies has neil been to where there are arcade machines. i mean im not one to talk but that does sound rather strange

-why do songs' titles even need to be taken from the lyrics. ive never seen that as any sort of requisite. it's like titling any form of prose you can just give it whatever name ya like

-"this part sounds pretty cool right"

-is neil's vocal range only mildly better than mine? with training i could change that

-oh i haven't processed any of the last 25 seconds hold on

-god. a shit ton of vocal modification in this song. it's like neil returned to his roots but with quality this time

-i, as an ace/aro, have never related more to an allohet guy in my life. what is the point of eyes!

-professional humming/whistling takes skill. it's different from the recreational or casual stuff. i'd know

-there's a name for the way sound (especially music) gets distorted when moving past you and i can't remember it but it's probably what neil's referring to here in the way he recorded the intro

(- update: it's the doppler effect no need to tell me cas already did)

-as someone who hasnt seen the rugrats or take me there by blackstreet i'll just say it sounded like a bouncy music box melody. nice to hear a song that messes with the typical scales though. lydian & diatonic.

-that's a rather specific thing to be glad about, but given what he talked about in his last full audio commentary about the jew harp i suppose i'm not surprised

-i know that tmbg song now. listened to it & saw the music video too. yep they're different alright

-where the hell does neil get all these instrumence from anyway

-huh. hadnt heard this part of the commentary before making my oc concerning this song but i like to hear neil's approval concerning part of my interpretation

-i love how ive heard a billion different tellings of this mellified man story from lem dem fans talking about this song and neil's is by far the wildest

-good god that does only make it worse neil

-i love making liveblogs of lemon demon albums. with the fullerenes or tally hall i cant name a specific dude to take out my woes on generally but with lemon demon i can just say neil all the time. i like being on a casual first name basis with this dude ive never interacted with once ever

-is sweet bod the one other than cabinet man with a demo in the bonus tracks? i forget

-holy shit the boston molasses disaster someone call up soapy if it doesnt already know, it'd love this

-two thousand nine. god i miss the fiddle solo. the ver with it is truly the best one

-he pronounces it jeff? i've always read it as gef with a hard g. that's what i get for knowing words that are never spoken aloud

-that's a fun meta interpretation of this ghost story that's over a century old. i like that

-i've noticed neil generally does the same synths across a whole album. it's especially more clear in the earlier ones, and does mean i occasionally mix up songs between clown circus & live from the haunted candle shop

-ah! ancient aliens! my least favorite track on this album. i cant even claim to have the least interest in a popular one i've just generally not liked this one much from the beginning. so im curious to see what neil's got to say, i think ive been in ~new commentary zone for a while now

-anyway. newest update on the loolin not realizing a song's funky time signature front: i think this one's in 6/4. or at least switches a lot between time signatures. granted i dont listen to it very often for the reasons stated above

-see the way neil describes it. eldritch horror upon being visited by the unknown at a time when humanity'd hadn't even yet had a chance to imagine such a thing occurring. should be right up my alley. but the sound itself & many of the lyrics simply turn me away.

-must i specify i don't dislike it? spirit phone is neil's best album it not being my favorite doesn't mean i think it's bad yadda yadda nobody should be surprised by this it's not like anyone in these fandoms reads my liveblogs <3

-granted i think this is. the first bit of spirit phone content i've made on my blog ever. so who knows things can change <3

-the transitions in spirit phone are much less view-monster transition tracks & more extended outros. view-monster's were a bit more intro than outro sure but they also seemed directed upon making a 2-way rather than 1-way bridge between tracks. or something like that

-.............soft fuzzy man is an incredible nickname for a cat. i'd steal that if i werent afraid of introducing my relatives to lemon demon

-jirls

-an underlying metaphor is good enough. the literal side of the lyrics are fun. nothing but agreement here neil my good man

-the transition into as your father i expressly forbid it from soft fuzzy man is the best one in this album

-buddy you ask if a musical idea has been used before odds are the answer is yes in this day & age the question is has it been used in the way you're using it. like sure this soul jazz record from the 60s that was sold out in kansas stores for a week used this bassline that youve found yourself copying. but seeing as youre using it in some angsty garage rock ballad type tune does anybody actually care

-doesn't everybody like to say things in an unhinged manner from time to time

-imagine having a guitar dad, i say, with my dad being a folk accordion/fiddle dad, which is infinitely worse in every way

-i think he was in an actual folk band at some point. idk the 90s were weird

-iron my life?

-m-more intimate? there are a lot of ways i'd describe this song but intimate isn't one of them. granted as your father is negatively intimate so from there i guess you've got nowhere to go but up

-...still glad to see his interpretation kinda supports my oc at least

-the way he says characters in songs shouldn't worry about death really strongly makes me think this is some sort of. thematic continuation of stuck from dinosaurchestra, even if there's no real death in there. interesting. would also mean that the dad from these past 2 songs is named carlos betty (no last name)

-i literally never assumed this was a flute solo. piccolo at best. it's pretty clearly a recorder

-my mom plays the recorder. i wonder if she can play recorder better than neil cicierega

-we can throw a party in honor of the crushing weight of responsibility! i simply won't be the one throwing it because i have enough on my plate already <3

-what the hell does "a sense of intent" mean

-i've never heard rush before however i disagree with neil's understanding of 6/4. 6/4 is meant to have emphasis (onbeat or another term i can't remember) on the 1st & 4th beat of every measure, which is greatly different from a measure of 4/4 then a measure of 2/4. it's why his 5/4 always sounds weird, because while it's recognizable in sequences of 10/4, it's more 2 measures of 4/4 with one of 2/4 tacked on the end. that's also how it's different from 3/4. i don't know much music theory but what i do understand i will fight to the death about

-"canonized" that's. a very interesting term to use when referring to a former president

-from now on i will interpret every love song directed at some unseen "you" to be inviting me to marry them for tax purposes. thanks neil for being an aromantic icon

-ah hell yes hell yes man-made object is my favorite goddam song on this album

-short & sweet & good damn vibes. neil's thoughts on it all are only making it better

-wild how he uses very few vocal effects for a song that he clearly is straining his vocal range for. go off neil

-the qualifier of man-made is a wonderful thing. oldest or biggest thing? oldest or biggest man-made thing? what a incredibly important specification. a world of possibilities lie between the two. oh i love it

-just gets me thinking yknow! what we consider weird/impressive in another species, in our own species- what kind of equivalent to that would there be from an outsider looking in? are there alien versions of the significances we place upon things, that we could never imagine? the limits of the human imagination mean we could never conceive of something else in the world that isn't, in some way great or small, just like us- and are we wrong for thinking that? such a juicy topic i wish there were a name for it because it's kinda hard to explain concisely

-spiral of ants. my second favorite song from this album, in fact. a good one to experience

-the vocals are just another instrument. they really truly are. i wasn't going into this commentary expecting to feel solidarity for neil cicierega in this chili's tonight on more than one occasion but here i am.

-like, his whole stance on interpreting songs is something i agree with almost entirely. you can take it at face value, you can dig to their very depths, you can listen to songs without caring what the lyrics mean whatsoever, and those are all fun. & yeah while any of these people can be annoying as one of the types who enjoys gliding on the surface more than anything i find those who dedicate themselves to figuring out the whole meaning of a song over anything else to be both slightly scary & slightly annoying <3 keep up the good work

-i want to make songs for my siblings the way neil makes songs for his sibling(s)

-spinch

-neil really shouldn't be allowed to be this funny like this whole album youre thinking golly! he's just a normal man this neil cicierega! and then he starts listing the cat hacks jokes & you remember he's had ridiculously consistent viral success with all his humorous endeavors and holy shit it's neil cicierega in action talking about his music. god bless you neil

-you're welcome, no problem, my pleasure. good eveternoon, radio audience!

#lemon demon #spirit phone #pretty sure this is my first bit of spirit phone content on my blog. hi greater lem dem fandom nice to see y'all. go listen to deporitaz #loolin liveblogs #i enjoyed this less for the content the commentary contained & more for the way i handled it. more pleasant than some times ive had #tis i #i havent listened to spirit phone in general in ages. i know why. so this was nice #to the world and back again

40 notes · View notes

nuestroad · 4 years ago

Text

210410 NU'EST The 2nd Album ‘Romanticize’ Concept Homepage

Romanticize #2 : Romantic DM

REN’s Complete DM message

♥

Are you ready~~~?!

All of us shine.

Being comfortable in my own skin.

Being able to stay together healthy and happy is romantic.

Being able to afford the time to reflect back on things is romantic.

Born this REN.

Can you hear my heartbeat?

Don’t hide what’s inside and move forward confidently.

Do you see the reflection in my eyes?

Discovering who I am and what it means to be me is romantic.

Even the stars in the sky won’t shine brighter than this!

Focus on yourself.

Having the passion to love what you love to the best of your ability is romantic.

Just go with the flow.

Just a feeling!!

Look for things that make you happy.

Look into my eyes.

Let go of hate and embrace love.

Now, shall we fly now?

Nobody can stop us.

No matter what people say, be confident. This is my life.

Isn’t it romantic to have your heart beat so fast?

It’s nice to feel the cool breeze when I roll down the window.

It’s important to show who you are without caring about what other people might think.

If you have pain, let it all go.

If there’s something that creates tension in you, that is romantic!

I know I can reach even higher.

I want to shoot my heart up to the sky.

I like it when I can feel the word ‘happiness’ become live and real.

I like that I have my own space.

I like that I can be grateful every day.

I get excited when Lady Gaga drops a new track.

I think ‘refreshing’ is synonymous with romantic.

I think it’s romantic to show everything that’s inside.

I think it’s romantic to show who I am confidently to the world.

I’ll help you find the romance that’ll make your heart beat again. Just hang in there.

I’m ready.

I’m the one that will walk on my path.

I’m happy when I notice my drawing skills improving.

I’m happy when I’m in the zone doing what I love.

What are you passionate about? I’m curious.

When I feel that there’s a new world is waiting for me.

When I feel the uncontainable sense of existence, that’s romantic.

When I say, “This is who I am”.

When you make a spiritual connection. You know those moments, right?

When a moment suddenly becomes special. I’m grateful for it, and I think that’s romantic.

Will you feel me?

You have to be able to step away from the things you hate.

Thank you for everything. Let’s stay together.

There’s romance in me when people support new things that I try.

There’s romance in people’s laughter.

There’s romance in finding what I love.

The color red is romantic.

The moment when the switch turns on is romantic.

The fact that we came this far is romantic.

Today and tomorrow will be new. Look forward to it.

To me, it’s romantic to have someone that notice the small changes in me.

Step by step, take a step with confidence.

Striving towards the same goal is romantic.

#뉴이스트 #NU'EST #NUEST #REN #Romanticize #Concept Homepage #210410

13 notes · View notes

manjuhitorie · 4 years ago

Text

Interview with Shinoda - Guitar Magazine March 2021 - English Translation

I began to wonder "What have I been deeming as ‘good’ all along?"

-Thank you for coming all the way out here. To kick it off I’d like to ask what the story behind the title ‘REAMP’ is.

AMP is like the recording mechanism, correct. I recorded by re-amping a lot this album, after it was recommended to me by our engineer. I recreated most of the sound in an amp simulator, sampled it at home on a line-in, then brought that in to the studio. There I sent the line-in signal to the guitar amps, recorded the sound coming from the amp, and voila. This way the guitar playing and the sound engineering become two separate things. At home I focus on the recording, at the studio I focus on the mixing.

-That’s a great way to localize your focus.

Though my workload multiplies (laughs).

-Ultimately you’re spending even more time focusing (laughs).

Yep (laughs). To put a long story short, we dipped our feet into new techniques for this album. So when it came down to deciding the title, 'Restart' or 'Reload' or any words with the prefix 'RE' were among consideration, but we couldn't find a good one. When at last I remembered that I had re-amped (laugh). I proposed the idea, it clicked with everyone, and now here we are.

-A bit of a double meaning to it then. What felt the most different this time in regards to the new techniques?

Back when wowaka was with us, he was the ultimate judge over whether a take or sound was good or bad. But now I have to be the judge and the one who takes the rudder myself... The main difference is that I need to become the axis now. When I was alone at home it hit me just how little I had a sense of good and bad (laughs). I began to wonder "What have I been deeming as ‘good’ all along?”.

-I see. What do you find difficult about singing and playing Hitorie’s music?

I found that I don’t have much leadership (laughs). I’m more fit for the sidelines and such... I’ve had a long career of being the lead guitarist, wherein there’s always been another leader figure above me who’s actions I’ve responded to and taken my own approach to.... A correspondent presence in a way....

—Then the necessity for a number one in command popped up.

Yep. It was like, I was really in a pinch back there. If I was to get anywhere, before anything I needed to establish my own standards of good and bad. I looked back at the music I’ve loved throughout my life, and started from there.

-Were you able to establish your own judgment through this album then?

I did what I could do. But, I’m still missing something... I don’t think it’s something you can find through just one album. I still haven’t, and there’s parts of the album that I still feel my optimization was lacking. I feel that I want to make a more polished, less rugged around the edges, piece. I’ve only established the groundwork for now. Such as what makes good music, the rhythm, pitch and so on. The basics.

-What makes good music ‘good’ to you, Shinoda?

Hmm... Phrase before sound... I think there needs to be a phrase before anything. To put it simply, the music needs to be what’s encouraging the phrases. Whatever achieves that the most effectively tends to be what I deem as good music. There’s a bunch of options when it comes to even strumming one chord. To use a single coil, a humbucker, a P-10.... Not to mention that strumming different will change how a chord resonates. Each note has its own goodness scale as well. Contemplating all that is what makes music.

-When I look at your music itself, I can see how this came into play as well. The phrases themselves have become less complex, while the riffs have become even more powerful. Especially ‘curved edge’, a killer tune even among the rest.

My bandmates and I each pitched in to write the music for REAMP, I wrote 10 while they wrote 1 each initially, basically I had to write a lot (laughs). And the last and final piece I wrote was ‘curved edge’.

-I see.

We intentionally lessened the riff-tastic music, we were eschewing following the old ‘Hitorie formula’. I made more chilled out downers. But the more I did it, the less interested I noticed my bandmates become (laughs). It didn’t click with me myself either, and it didn’t bring us together much. I thought I was doomed to never write a song that would properly fit Hitorie.. When I got the idea to write a song that mixed intense riffs and modern beats, ‘That I might be able to do’.

-In a way you wrote that song at wit’s end.

From there I drew inspiration from K-Pop. Stuff like Blackpink. Wherein you can’t discern if the climax of the song lies in the hook or the riff. I found that interesting, thus can the climax of ‘curved edge’ be found in the riff. Enough that the hook is the riff itself. When I told the members, their reaction was positive as well.

-It fits the modern Hitorie. In a previous interview Yumao (drummer), when looking back on Hitorie’s history, had mentioned that Hitorie could write music without a peep, after so many years together. Following this change to your writing formula, is that feat still possible, have your exchanges with your bandmates changed as well?

-When it comes to my written pieces, well... It depends on the song. For ‘curved edge’, ygarshy and I didn’t share a word. While we were making the demo song, I asked him to ‘Just play bass that works with this’, and with that little information he actually pulled off something incredible. I was like ‘Holy shit’ (laughs).

-The first verse alone is a stroke of talent (laughs). How about the drums?

The beat is unlike anything Yumao had played for Hitorie before. 4/4 beats were always our go-to, but we tried to venture a little into unknown territory. So I handled the director job quite a bit, the drums may be the aspect I directed the most actually. It turns out that my concept of beat is completely different from wowaka’s.

-What do you mean exactly?

-I’m probably not... as much as wowaka.. No wait. I can’t say this for sure but, he was someone who was creative with his beats, so he tended to conjure up ones that would be virtually unplayable in context. I make up beats that are out of control sometimes too but. I stick to the rules, or, how to put it... Even when I make up a brand new beat, the voice in the back of my head will tell me ‘Wait, there’s rules’.

-I see. So wowaka wouldn’t bother with the rules much.

I haven’t put much deep thought into wowaka’s perception of beats until now though, this is only a quick assessment from my experiences. Though near the end, it seemed like his mindset changed to ‘It’s better if I let Yumao play however he desires’. Imyself haven’t reached that level yet.

“I need my love for guitar to grow even more, I say.“

-Allow me to ask you about the guitar solos. In the songs ‘Marshall A’ and ‘dirty’ are the solos in abundance and in the spotlight. What do you deem as good and bad in terms of guitar solos?

For me there’s only two types of guitar solos. You either play well, or you don’t (laughs).

-That’s a strict guideline (laughs). How do discern between the two?

It ultimately depends on the song. I like solos that are played “poorly”, such as by Momo Kazuhiro of MO’SOME TONEBENDER. I think their’s are awesome. When each and every note of a solo is poignant, it actually brings out the charm of electric guitar. So I think that solos can be wonky as hell, or precise as hell. Or in the middle is okay too. I like solos that are catchy with proper phrases to them even. Like HI-STANDARD’s ‘Fighting Fists, Angry Soul’, the solo could be a song on its own. It depends on what fits with the song. In regards to the solos of Marshall A, they fall into......

-The ‘Played well and proper’ solos.

That’s it. The song kicks off with unsteady distorted notes, but the solos are clean, it’s gap moe.

-The tone is clean as well. Did you intend for it to be gap moe?

To a degree. Like, 'is this really that kinda song' (laughs). On the other hand, when it came to 'dirty' the song has always been nothing but alternative rock style since the get-go.

-The solos are full of grunge and fuzz after all. ygarshy wrote that song, correct.

'Cause ygarshy and I are the same age from the same generation, our ideas match up as well.... For this song, it was like the Nishikawa Susumu idea- (laughs).

-I see (laughs). Back to what you said earlier, that your "optimization was lacking". How would you like to evolve as a guitarist?

I don't think I'm Hitorie's guitarist anymore. In the current world I'm in I'm not just a guitarist, I'm a singer-song writer, and that's become my primary focus. Yet despite that guitar is still absolutely a must for me. It brings the physical world and the world of music together better than anything. Thinking about it, my approach towards guitar is probably going to evolve after this as well. Up until I've played as Hitorie's guitarist, adding and adding to the sum of Hitorie's parts (laughs). My attention was always on how to optimize to hell. Going forward my attention is probably going to shift when I play guitar. But that doesn't change the fact that guitar is essential for bands in general, and essential for Hitorie as well..... Aghh, I never thought about what it means to be a guitarist to me up until now (laughs).

-(Laughs).

I think my ideal guitarist self is still far away though. But I've grown a lot by being with my bandmates, and I can't be losing my eagerness to learn. I need my love for guitar to grow even more, I say (laughs). That's where I think I'm lacking. There's still so much about guitar I'm yet to understand, and that's my weak spot. There's a lot for me to reflect on.

Gear: Fender 1963 Jazzmaster The main guitar used in REAMP, a jazzmaster on borrow from wowaka. The serial number points to it being a 1963 issue. The saddle on the bridge has been swapped out to an Astro Notes. Shinoda selects the front for concerts/recordings, and doesn’t use preset switches. The guitar you can hear from the left channel in “High Gain” is this one. While the guitar you can from the right channel is a Tokai LP.

Fender 1965 Jaguar Also on borrow from wowaka, it was heavily used in Hitorie’s previous album ‘HOWLS’. For ‘REAMP’ it was used for the backing of ‘dirty’ and the main riff of ‘Utsutsu’. In regards to the Buzz Stop Bar, Shinoda himself prefers the musical range he can reach without it, but others oft react better when it’s on.

Pedal board: 1 WEED/GCB-95 mod wah 2 BOSS/TU-3W tuner 3 S-Distortion SASAKI 4 Prescription Electronics/Experience 5 Octave Fuzz & Swell 6 Keeley Electronics/Son of Fuzz Head 7 E.W.S./ Arion SCH-Z mod chorus 8 BOSS/PS-6 harmonizer 9 BOSS/DD-20 digital delay 10 Providence/Provolt 9 power supply

His guitar signal inputs at 1, then connects all the way to 8. He adores his 1 because there’s a gain knob on it, and as soon as he turns it on can he drive*. His main distortion pedal is number 3. His standard is to set the volume knob at 12 o’ clock, the tone at 11, and the gain at 8. To give himself a boost in guitar solos he turns on pedal number 5, with the volume set to max. Pedal number 6 found its use in the song ‘(W)HERE’ on Hitorie’s album ‘Imaginary Monofiction’, but recently its fallen out of relevance for him. 7 was used in the song ‘Montage Girl’ on Hitorie’s ’Roomsick Girl’s Escape’, and harmonized phrases in general. He primarily uses 8 for the short delay, and it found usage in ‘curved edge’.

Amplifier: Hiwatt DR103 Custom 100 Marshall 1960 AV The number one weapon is volume. Shinoda’s main amp is this Hiwatt. The reason he started using it was because ’The only thing that could oppose the volume of wowaka’s Matchless amp was a Hiwatt’. The clean sound of it is what brings bass to Shinoda’s playing. For concerts that will be recorded, he sets the EQ bass, mid, and treble knobs all to 11 o’ clock. He sets the presence knob to about 13 o’ clock, but this gets adjusted every performance. This one stays the highest to ensure his music comes up front. He alters the high frequency and the level it pierces the ear with his pedals.

#hitorie #ヒトリエ #interview #Shinoda #REAMP

14 notes · View notes

methodrones · 1 year ago

Text

album review : spacegirl and other favorites

released: 1993 or 1995

genre: shoegaze, psychedelic rock

continuing strong with bjm's second album, spacegirl! similar to pol pot, there's definitely some confusion around when this album was released. it's essentially a collection of older demos, mainly recorded in '93 as far as i understand it, but the details get muddled around an actual release date. nonetheless, this is an album i've always really loved but i've never taken a deep dive listen into it before! let's just say this is shoegaze central and i'm excited to jump back into it. i'm also glad that i can finally analyze lyrics lol.

also, anton genuinely writing a special thanks to "our fans everywhere and women" for this album has me dying. i love it.

on to the songs!

crushed

this is definitely an interesting one to start the album off with, but bjm has never really been known for strategic song placements. anyway, the beginning is this weird guitar sound that grows into an actual riff that just blasts right through you, especially when the drums come in. i like the line "i can fly but i'm not free," there's some fun lyrics in this song that really speak to anton's songwriting. more poetic kind of stuff! which, he's obviously capable of writing pretty much anything and everything, but i always enjoy the more flowery lyrics we get in some of these songs. overall, a great track!

rating: 8/10

that girl suicide

to be so completely fucking honest, i don't think there's a moment in life where i could ever not love this song. it's a banger through and through, the riff just makes you want to move!!! a fast paced chord progression with the drums, and the lyrics def seem to refer to some kind of drug use ... which then all goes into this amazing fucking raw guitar sound that i can't even describe, you just have to listen to it. i do really enjoy the live version's switch up of lyrics ( as well as how they're sung ) and inclusion of maracas, i might even like the live version's lyric style a little better than the studio version's. and i will say, having heard this song live before ( twice! ), it's a mesmerizing experience and just. SO GOOD!!! the little "oooOooOoo"s also fucking kill me they're just great and so fun to sing along to. i didn't even think i was going to have much to say about this track tbh but apparently i was uh. wrong! i think it's just because i adore this song and always have, it's definitely one of my fav bjm songs and probably forever will be.

rating: 11/10

deep in the devil's eye & you

now THIS is a shoegaze ass fucking song. starts off similar to crushed, with this kind of droning guitar sound, then we get the drums coming in with this great beat and then the PICK SLIDE?!???? it destroys me every single fucking time the beat drops. i've got no idea what the lyrics to this song are, but i do enjoy the vocals a fair amount and i think all of the music works so well together. it gets a little repetitive for me, but it's not an insanely long song so i give it a pass. but i really like this one!! i still remember the day i first heard it lol i was like damn okay!! bjm beat drop!!! anyway.

rating: 8/10

kid's garden

a song that couldn't be more different from the last one, kid's garden is soft and melancholic and just speaks to me so hard!!! the maracas are great here and i just really love how the guitar notes align with exactly how anton sings. "angel, there's no sense calling out your name" has been one of my favorite bjm lyrics for a long time and remains my fav one in this song. i also really like "and lay the branches there at your feet." just these poetic little lyrics i can't get enough of!!! but fuck when we get to the 'angel's child' part and anton's voice rises up with the guitar following his pitch?!??? UGH. ugh. so fucking good. this song is long but i actually really like the length, mainly bc the song is so calming so it doesn't even feel repetitive ... it all just flows through you. it's definitely an experience, esp when we get a little switch into the keyboard and drums coming in, before it returns back to the soft melody from before. there's just something about this song that simultaneously heals me and hurts me. the feeling of an old friend. nostalgia. childish hope for the future. i don't know! so many emotions going on here and it pulls so much out of me. i really love it.

rating: 10/10

when i was yesterday

i really, really enjoy this song, rarely do i end up skipping it actually! it's hard to explain what's even going on but i looove how anton sounds in this and the lil guitar riffs between the lyrics ... very good stuff. the grain really brings this all together i think. this is a pretty average length song, it doesn't usually feel too long so i appreciate that. i also like the lead up into the ending a lot. not much more to say here!!

rating: 9/10

spacegirl

ahhhhh spacegirl ... almost twelve minutes of pure bliss to my fucking ears. i've fallen asleep to this song i can't even count how many times, it's very pretty and soft and is great for passing the time. i love the very beginning, anton's random ass line... then we get into it. truthfully it never gets old to me despite kind of repeating the same shit, "just let me love you," the chords are really soothing and i wish i knew what they were!! unfortunately i do not, my go to man for tutorials has not yet figured out the chords so we'll see if someone ever figures it out lol. anton sure as hell doesn't know. anyway, another song about love! from bjm?!?? insane ( sarcasm ). no but i love the lyrics of this song, they're def giving similar vibes to crushed and kid's garden. besides hide and seek, this is pretty much my go to song from this album, i really really love it. then the fade out into the next one ... good stuff.

rating: 10/10

spacegirl - revisited

leading out of what the last one left off with, we get walmart version spacegirl! kidding, kind of. anyway this is purely instrumental and continues a lot of the same themes, it def grows on me as it continues on but really it's just an extended version of spacegirl and there's not much more i can say on it! i kind of don't love it but i don't hate it either, it's just there for me ( but bonus points for it being a continuation of a great song ).

rating: 6/10

after the fall

i will say, i very much enjoy the drums on this song. and the chorus is good with the very echoed vocals ... honestly tho for me there's just not much going on here! i truly don't have much more to say, i think it's the most average track so far and gets a little repetitive for me, simply because there's noooot a whole lot happening.

rating: 5/10

thoughts of you

not to be mistaken with thoughts of you too from pol pot lol. i loooove the guitar on this song and it's actually really fun to play, the intro is emotional and the music really just works so well. again with the making me a little bit sad! but there's something about the chord progression that gives that feeling and it feels like emotion genuinely went into this. another really good lyric - "life has lost its mystique under trembling time." banger fucking lyrics in this one, very very poetic. i think anton's voice is good here and it all just WORKS. this just feels like ... longing. and i love it.

rating: 9/10

hide and seek

OOOOOOOOOHHHH BOYYYY. this one doesn't even need to be thought about, instant 1,000,000/10. i think this is bjm's best fucking song and there is genuinely nothing that can ever beat it for me. so uh. yes! hide and seek is my favorite bjm song, in fact maybe my favorite song of all time. i fucking LOVE the chords and the shoegaziness of it all?!??? you can barely understand what this guy is saying, can barely hear him actually, and it's just fucking great. amazing lyrics. chorus slaps like nothing else and i can't even properly describe the way it makes me feel. the "ahhh ah ahh" WITH THE 'WE PLAY HIDE AND SEEK'???!? fucking amazing. this is another song about longing and it shows so well in the lyrics and the music and ALL OF IT. all of it. fucking perfect song. it doesn't overstay it's welcome and even if it was as long as spacegirl i wouldn't care, it's that good. if you like shoegaze this should be your new favorite because nothing beats it, not even e to g. best track on this album for SURE.

rating: 1,000,000/10

never, ever!

winding down from good old hide and seek ... we have never, ever! i don't love the way anton sings these lyrics to be so real and the music doesn't do a whole lot for me, it stays pretty steady throughout the whole song. i like some of the soloing going on though! i don't even know the last time i listened to this whole song, it's definitely been like ... a year at this point probably. but it is six minutes so i don't really blame myself considering i already don't really like it. alright song, not my fav and def the weakest on this album. but it definitely keeps that same theme and feel we get with all of these songs! this would've been a 4/10 but the soloing really makes up for everything else so it gets a point added.

rating: 5/10

ashtray

wow, it's been a bit since i heard this one either. LOTS of feedback in the start of this song which i can't tell if it's purposeful or not... either way, nooooot my favorite, i mean it's alright! but it isn't doing much for me. i do like the solos as i pretty much always do in every bjm song ever, but that's about it. this feels a little misplaced on this album, considering all of the other songs follow a pretty set theme / vibe / style, but i know this is a collection of old demos so, hey! more bjm! but this definitely could've gone on another album i think. or gone to one of the compilation albums lol.

rating: 5/10

fire song

the notes and solos on this song are really catchy... would probs be very fun to play on guitar. this definitely fits in with the rest of the album especially with some of the lyrics like "there was a fire so i jumped inside / i got lost inside you." good stuff! a pretty simple song, not much going on here so i can't say too much on it. it's a good old average joe.

rating: 5/10

maleka - bonus track

this song being on here is so fucking funny i almost can't stand it. this is very much better suited to the next album it appears on, which is give it back!, but here it just sounds soooooo out of place. like ??? what's this country shit doin' on spacegirl! anyway as a song i do enjoy it but it's so terribly placed i hate it here. i mean i know it's a bonus track but guuuuuys ..... please. just listen to this compared to something like kid's garden it couldn't be any more different. but uh yeah a fine song! country ish for sure which i love so it gets a good little rating from me.

rating: 7/10

aaaaand that's spacegirl! definitely shorter than pol-pot's pleasure penthouse, but i think there are some great songs on this album and the entire overarching style really speaks to me. i like the vocals we get and especially the deep feeling of emotion that comes with so many of these songs. it's really just superb, especially in the songs that shine the most. and this album DOES hold my favorite song so it's even more special to me <3 overall i'd give this a pretty good score!

hits: hide and seek, kid's garden, spacegirl

misses: never ever!, ashtray, maleka

overall album score: 7.5/10

next up we've got methodrone! i've listened to the full album but it's been a while sooo we'll see what my rating ends up being lol. loved spacegirl tho!! so i have high hopes for their next ( and kind of last ) shoegaze album before we start getting into the alt rock and country stuff. which i also cannot wait for. but yes expect methodrone sometime soon probably!

#( album review )#spacegirl #me when i can finally rate this on aoty <3

0 notes

industrious-sloth · 4 years ago

Photo

9. FOLKORE by Taylor Swift

Oh boy. Let me preface this by saying I am a late convert to Taylor Swift. I didn’t like he country albums, I really did not appreciate being bombarded by news of what she was up to despite not having asked; and didn’t think she could sing. Once I blacklisted the #taylor swift tag, though, I found that I could enjoy some of her pop stuff isolated from all the discourse around it. Blank Space still is my favourite song of hers, something a righteous and true swiftie might sneer at (there’s a great episode of the Switched on Pop podcast explaining why Blank Space works so well, back from when it first came out).

There’s this strange thing about Taylor Swift’s albums, though. I never like them the first time I listen to them. It’s not that I blatantly dislike them, but they take some getting used to. Take hoax, for instance, which at first ranked between blah and meh, yet now is one of my favourites. In no way is this odd effect exclusive to Folklore, either – last year’s Lover, which remains her best in my opinion, also needed to grow on the listener, as did Reputation. Evermore is yet to grow on me, but at this point I doubt it will – she would have done better by launching it as a B-side to Folklore as opposed to as its own album, because it really just sounds like the Folklore Rejects Compilation (apart from Long Story Short and Champagne Problems).

All of this got me thinking about the number of chances we give albums before we make up our minds about them. Would I have enjoyed Folklore as much as I did, in the end, had it not been in everyone’s mind? Had it not been trending for the entire week it came out, would I have given it another shot? Some albums do take longer to reveal themselves, so how do you know when they simply won’t? Am I going to stand corrected in two months saying that actually, Evermore is a fine album? And if I do, wouldn’t it be a little messed up that it is only due to how unescapable Taylor Swift is? Furthermore, how can I even tell whether Folklore is a good record or if I have simply been overexposed to it, having come to find comfort in songs to which I know the lyrics and notes? How can one even attempt to find common ground in criticism when one is forced into “Distant Listening”?

Perhaps we would do best to start at the more basic level, no discourse: just the good, the bad, and the weird. Actually, let’s start with the bad, as that is always more fun for evil-spirited people such as myself: I hate the grammar in this album – and by that, I don’t mean the pretentious interactions some critics refer to as grammar, but the actual grammar. I am an English teacher, and pop singers really complicate my life when they take a perfectly usable song to teach students English, and ruin it with bad grammar. It happened last year with The Man – why couldn’t she have said If I were a man? Why, god, why? I could have been able to teach them second conditionals and feminism– and again in songs here.

Take The 1, for instance, where she says “if you wanted me, you really should have showed”, instead of the correct participle form shown. It wouldn’t have made any difference whatsoever, rhyme or song wise, the one thing it would have done is save the life of ESL teachers everywhere. In this same song, she constantly uses “would’ve been” when she should be using “had”. Listen, I would not be pointing this out were it not extremely bothersome to me as a Brazilian English major. I start getting like Henry Higgins, about to burst into Why Can’t the English Teach Their Children How to Speak? If I ever made such mistakes, people would think I didn’t speak proper English.

Honestly, the 1 isn’t even the worst song grammar-wise – I can still listen to it and enjoy it, unlike mad woman, which is every ESL teacher’s nightmare. I can just imagine a snarky pre-teen going “But Taylor Swift says more crazy instead of crazier and more angry instead of angrier, and she’s American, so she’s right!” and closing the book on comparatives. Why must Taylor make my life so hard? Also, what’s up with the lower-case titles? That’s just pretentious. And yes, it’s annoying when Ariana does it as well.

Anyhow, this is a great album despite my pet-peeves. The storytelling is fun, the lyrics brilliant as usual, and Taylor’s realisation that she doesn’t always have to write about herself even better. I also love the unrequited rhymes in this, You heard the rumours from Inez/ You can’t believe a word she says is such a kooky combination, it’s practically insane. Those, nevertheless, make startling appearances all over the record, here’s another one, from last great american dynasty, which could have been written for Lana Del Rey: The wedding was charming, but a little gauche/ There’s only so far new money goes.

Taylor really rhymed Inez with says, and gauche with goes. And it worked. Also, when she sings “I’ve been meaning to tell you your house was haunted”… What do you mean, you’ve been meaning to tell them? Is it not pressing enough?

“Oh, by the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I saw a poltergeist at your house.”

“What, like, now?”

“No, I saw it a couple of months ago. Forgot to mention it.”

Incredible. I love lyrics that make you think – not in a philosophical or existential way, just, you know, about the situation their acceptance of their premise actually requires. Even the metaphors: my only one, my smoking gun. What does that mean? I don’t know, but I want to think about it until it makes sense!

Obviously, betty is everyone’s darling, but this is me trying is the real lyrical masterpiece of this album, at least for all clinical depressives out there, including yours truly. Is it extremely bold of Taylor Swift to write a Former Gifted Kid anthem, considering she has not ceased to put out hit after hit since she was in her teens? As an ex-gifted kid myself, I am okay with it as long as it’s good and accurate.

Folklore has so many secrets, so many auburn leaves paving its way, we could not possibly talk about every one of them. It has certainly felt like a quarantine album in that it’s been a fine quarantine companion, always whispering something new.

Best song: Spotify Wrapped doesn’t lie, and it’s my tears ricochet even though some of the lyrics in it are sort of over-the-top (I’m seriously talking about every time the word ricochet shows up, and nothing else).

Skip: mad woman. I cannot listen to it. Infuriating.

Best lyrics: You told me all of my cages were mental/ So I got wasted like all my potential (this is me trying)

I mean, how can you beat that? I’m seriously asking. For a friend

#top ten #nonfiction #criticism #folklore #taylor swift

7 notes · View notes