#i was way way ambitious and probably should have just edited with the chorus to get it done in time... but the beginning felt fitting!

[marshmallowgoop]

ShinRan Week 2023: Day 5 | "I wish I could tell you that I love you"

I wish that I could tell you I wish that I could run into your arms

[Song link] [YouTube link]

[papermoonloveslucy]

TIME: A CLOWN WITH GLAMOUR

May 26, 1952

TIME: The Weekly News Magazine ~ Lucille Ball: Prescription for TV; a clown with glamour.  May 26, 1952.  

On Monday evenings, more than 30 million Americans do the same thing at the same time: they tune in ‘I Love Lucy’ (9 p.m. E.D.T., CBS-TV), to get a look at a round-eyed, pink-haired comedienne named Lucille Ball.

An ex-model and longtime movie star (54 films in the past 20 years), Lucille Ball is currently the biggest success in television. In six months her low-comedy antics, ranging from mild mugging to baggy-pants clowning, have dethroned such veteran TV headliners as Milton Berle and Arthur Godfrey. One of the first to see the handwriting on the TV screen was funnyman Red Skelton, himself risen to TV's top ten. Last February, when he got the award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as the top comic of the year, Skelton walked to the microphone and said flatly: "I don't deserve this. It should go to Lucille Ball."

By this week, the four national TV rating services (Nielsen, Trendex, American Research Bureau and Videodex) were in unaccustomed agreement: each of them rated ‘I Love Lucy’ as the nation's No. 1 TV show.

Lumps & Pratfalls. The television industry is not quite sure how it happened. When Lucy went on the air last October, it seemed to be just another series devoted to family comedy, not much better or much worse than ‘Burns and Allen’, ‘The Goldbergs’, ‘The Aldrich Family’ or ‘Mama’. Like its competitors, Lucy holds a somewhat grotesque mirror up to middle-class life, and finds its humor in exaggerating the commonplace incidents of marriage, business and the home. Lucille's Cuba-born husband, Desi Arnaz, is cast as the vain, easily flattered leader of an obscure rumba band. Lucille plays his ambitious wife, bubbling with elaborate and mostly ineffectual schemes to advance his career.

But what televiewers see on their screens is the sort of cheerful rowdiness that has been rare in the U.S. since the days of the silent movies' Keystone Comedies. Lucille submits enthusiastically to being hit with pies; she falls over furniture, gets locked in home freezers, is chased by knife-wielding fanatics. Tricked out as a ballerina or a Hindu maharanee or a toothless hillbilly, she takes her assorted lumps and pratfalls with unflagging zest and good humor. Her mobile, rubbery face reflects a limitless variety of emotions, from maniacal pleasure to sepulchral gloom. Even on a flickering, pallid TV screen, her wide-set saucer eyes beam with the massed candlepower of a lighthouse on a dark night.

What is her special talent? TV men credit Lucille with an unfailing instinct for timing. Producer-Writer Jess Oppenheimer says: "For every word you write in this business, you figure you're lucky to get back 70-80% from a performer. With Lucille, you get back 140%." Broadway's Oscar (’South Pacific’) Hammerstein II, hailing Lucille's control, calls her a "broad comedienne, but one who never goes over the line." To her manager, Don Sharpe, Lucille is "close to the Chaplin school of comedy—she's got warmth and sympathy, and people believe in her, even while they're laughing at her."

Western Mirage. Lucille explains that the TV show is important because "I'm a real ham and so is Desi. We like to have an audience. We like being up on our toes." But the show also allows her some time with her ten-month-old daughter, Lucie Desirée, and for the first time in eleven years of trouping, gives her a home life with husband Desi. Says she: "I look like everybody's idea of an actress, but I feel like a housewife. I think that's what my trouble was in movies."

Actress Ball was a long time arriving at the calm waters of motherhood and housewifery. The daughter of Henry and Desirée Hunt Ball, she was born in Jamestown, N.Y. (near Buffalo) at what she calls "an early age." Pressed, she will concede that it was quite a while ago: she admits to being 40. Her father was an electrician whose job of stringing telephone wires carried him around the country. When Lucille was four, he died of typhoid in Wyandotte, Mich.

Lucille spent her childhood in Jamestown (1920 pop. 38,917), but managed to see very little of it. Mostly, she inhabited a dream world peopled by glamorous alter egos. Sometimes she imagined herself to be a young lady of great poise named Sassafrassa, who combined the best features of Pearl White, Mabel Normand and Pola Negri. Another make-believe identity was Madeline, a beauteous cowgirl who emerged from the pages of Zane Grey's melodramatic novel, ‘The Light of Western Stars’. To get authentic background for Madeline, young Lucille corresponded with the chambers of commerce of Butte and Anaconda, Mont. She read and reread their publicity handouts until she felt she knew more about Montana than the people who lived there. It was the powerful spirit of Madeline that caused her for many years to claim Butte, Mont., as her birthplace. Only in the most recent edition of Who's Who did she finally, grudgingly admit to being born in Jamestown, N.Y.

Horrses to Warter. While she lived there, Lucille did her best to rid Jamestown of dullness. Sometimes she gilded reality by imagining that the family chicken coop was her palace ("The chickens would become my armies"). She remembers that she was always unmanageable in the spring. "I'd leave the classroom for a drink of water and never come back. I'd start walking toward what I thought was New York City and keep going until someone brought me home."

By the time she left high school at 14, she had staged virtually a one-man performance of ‘Charley's Aunt’ ("I played the lead, directed it, cast it, sold the tickets, printed the posters, and hauled furniture to the school for scenery and props"). In a Masonic musical revue, she put so much passion into an Apache dance that she threw one arm out of its socket. Jamestown citizens still remember her explosive personality with wonder: it took quite a while for the dust to settle in Jamestown when Lucille finally left for Manhattan at the age of 15.

Probably because of the dreamy mental state induced by Sassafrassa and Madeline, Lucille is not too clear about dates, events and people. In New York,

she headed straight for John Murray Anderson's dramatic school. At the sound of her voice ("I used to say 'horrses' and 'warter' "), her teacher clapped hands to his forehead. Anderson tactfully told Lucille's mother that her daughter should try another line of work. Lucille made a stab at being a secretary and a drugstore soda jerk, but found both occupations dull. She answered chorus calls for Broadway musicals with a marked lack of success. When she even lost a job in the chorus of the third road company of ‘Rio Rita’, a Ziegfeld aide told her: "It's no use, Montana. You're not meant for show business. Go home."

Periodically, Lucille did go home to Jamestown. But she returned again and again to the assault on New York. She managed to get into the chorus of ‘Stepping Stones’, and held on until the choreographer announced that she wanted only girls who could do toe work ("I couldn't even do heel work"). Lucille turned to modeling, progressed from the wholesale garment houses through department stores to the comparative eminence of Hattie Carnegie. She still has a warm feeling for people in the garment trade, because "they're the nearest thing to show business in the outside world. They're temperamental and jealous. I like them." She had a great many admirers. One of them, Britain's actor Hugh Sinclair, says: "She disarmed you. You saw this wonderful, glamorous creature, and in five minutes she had you roaring with laughter. She was gay, warmhearted and absolutely genuine."

As a model, Lucille called herself Diane Belmont, choosing her name in honor of Belmont Park Race Track, where fashion shows are sometimes staged. But it was another few years before Lucille finally got her break. She was walking up Broadway past the Palace Theater when she met agent Sylvia Hahlo coming down from the Goldwyn office. Sylvia grabbed her and cried breathlessly: "How would you like to go to California? They're sending a bunch of poster girls there for six weeks for a picture. One of the girls' mothers has refused to let her go."

$50 to $ 1,500. The movie was ‘Roman Scandals’, starring Eddie Cantor, and it was six months instead of six weeks in the making. Lucille was grimly determined to keep her foot in the Hollywood door. She got a succession of bit parts in such movies as ‘Moulin Rouge’ and ‘The Affairs of Cellini’, worked for three months with the roughhouse comics known as The Three Stooges ("It was one continuous bath of Vichy water and lemon meringue pie").

When RKO picked up her contract, she gradually emerged as a queen of B pictures, then began making program movies with comics Jack Oakie, Joe Penner and the Marx Brothers (’Room Service’). Her salary rose from $50 a week to $1,500 and her hair, already turned blonde from its original brown, now became a brilliant but indescribable shade that has been variously called ‘shocking pink' and 'strawberry orange.' While she was in ‘Dance, Girl, Dance’, and being hailed by Director Erich Pommer as a new 'find' (by then,

she had been playing in movies for six years), she met a brash, boyish young Cuban named Desi Arnaz.

Gold Initials. Desi had come to Hollywood to make the movie version of the Broadway hit, Too Many Girls. Taking one look at luscious (5 ft. 7 in., 130 Ibs.) Lucille, who was wearing a sweater and skirt, he cried: "Thass a honk o' woman!" and asked: "How would you like to learn the rumba, baby?" He took her for a ride in his blue convertible, with the gold initials on the door, and she shudderingly recalls that the only time the speedometer dipped below 100 m.p.h. was when he rounded a curve. On the way home, Desi hit a bump and, as Lucille tells it, a fender flew off. He simply flicked the ash from his Cuban cigarillo and sped on.

Lucille was as dazzled by his full name (Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y De Acha III) as by his history. The only child of a prosperous Cuban politician who had been mayor of Santiago and a member of the Cuban Senate, Desi had fled to Miami with his mother during the revolution of 1933. His father, a supporter of President Machado, was put in jail, and the Arnaz possessions disappeared in the revolution.

After six months, Desi's father was released from jail and rejoined his family in Miami, where he went into the export-import business. Desi, who was 16, enrolled in St. Patrick's High School (his closest friend was Al Capone's son Albert), and got a part-time job cleaning canary cages for a firm which sold birds to local drugstores. He soon found steadier work as a guitarist in a four-piece band incongruously called the Siboney Sextette. The critics agreed on Desi's meager musical gifts. "He was always off-beat," says theater owner Carlos Montalban. "But he's an awfully nice guy—a clean-cut Latin."

Conga Line. Whatever Desi had, it was something the public liked. He began beating a conga drum in Miami and soon nightclub audiences, from Florida to New York, were forming conga lines behind him. His good looks and unquenchable good humor interested producer George Abbott, who was searching for a Latin type to play a leading role in ‘Too Many Girls’. "Can you act?" asked Abbott. "Act?" answered Desi, expansively. "All my life, I act."

The courtship of Desi and Lucille was predictably stormy. Says a friend: "He's very jealous. She's very jealous—they're both very jealous." They were married in 1940, while Desi was leading his orchestra at the Roxy in New York and Lucille was between pictures in Hollywood. She flew in from the coast; they got up at 5 a.m. and drove to Connecticut, where they were married by a justice of the peace. Since they had no apartment, Desi compromised by carrying his bride across the threshold of his dressing room at the Roxy. Hollywood offered odds that the marriage would not last six weeks.

The marriage lasted better than six weeks, but after four years trouble blew. Desi kept moving about the country with his band, and Lucille, when not making pictures, mostly sat home alone. Their marriage was drifting on the rocks, and only World War II averted immediate shipwreck. Desi refused a commission in the Cuban army and was drafted into the U.S. infantry. He was moved on to Special Services, and spent much of the war shepherding USO troupes from one base to another.

In 1944, Lucille filed suit for divorce. She won an interlocutory decree but never got around to filing for her final papers. The reason: she and Desi were in the midst of a new reconciliation. But all the old difficulties remained. Lucille would sit night after night at the clubs where Desi's band was playing, but that resulted in rings under her eyes rather than a new intimacy. She tried cutting down on her movie work by starring in a CBS radio show called ‘My Favorite Husband’, and Desi also took a flyer at radio. They worked out a vaudeville act and toured U.S. theaters with their new routines.

Lucille credits Desi with being the one who was willing to take a chance on TV. "He's a Cuban," she says, "and all Cubans gamble. They'll bet you which way the tide is going and give you first pick." But it was a real gamble. Movie exhibitors do not look kindly upon movie stars who desert to the enemy. If the show flopped, Lucille would have no place to crawl back to. They told CBS that they would give television a try only if both of them could be on the same show. At first, they wanted to play themselves. They compromised by turning Desi into Ricky Ricardo, a struggling young bandleader, and letting Lucille fulfill her lifelong ambition of playing a housewife.

The decision to film the show also made CBS bigwigs uneasy. It would cost four times as much as a live show, and the only interested sponsor, Philip Morris, wasn't prepared to go that high. Again there was a compromise. Desi and Lucille agreed to take a smaller salary in return for producing the show and keeping title to the films.

Real Plumbing. Long years in the practical business of orchestra leading had given Desi considerable organizing ability and business sense. He set up Desilu Productions (Desi president, Lucille vice president), and leased a sound stage from an independent Los Angeles studio. Because Lucille was ‘dead' without an audience, a side wall of the studio was knocked out to make a street entrance, and seats installed for an audience of 300. When a show is ready for the cameras, the audience laughter is picked up on overhead microphones and used in the final print.

Though ‘I Love Lucy’ is filmed, it is more like a play than a movie. All of the lines and action are memorized and, whenever possible, the show is played straight through from beginning to end, and not shot in a number of unrelated scenes. The action takes place on four sets; two of them represent the Ricardos' Manhattan apartment, a third shows the nightclub where Ricky's band plays and the fourth is used for any other scenes called for by the script. Says Desi proudly: "We have real furniture, real plumbing, and a real kitchen where we serve real food. Even the plants are really growing; they're not phony."

Desilu Productions hired a pair of veteran troupers, William Frawley and Vivian Vance, to play the family next door and serve as foils and friends for Desi and Lucille. Academy Award-winning Karl (’The Good Earth’) Freund supervises the three cameras, and Director Marc Daniels (soon to be replaced by Bill Asher) gives Lucy its rattling pace. The writers—Jess Oppenheimer, Bill Carroll and Madalyn Pugh��turn out scripts that do not impose too much on the audience's credulity and are reasonably free of clichés. The writers are held in an esteem not common in TV. Lucille bombards Jess Oppenheimer with photographs flatteringly inscribed to "the Boss Man," and Desi has presented him with a statuette of a baseball player and a punning tribute, "To the man behind the ball."

"Wanta Play Cards?" Desi and Lucille live an unpretentious life on a five-acre ranch in the San Fernando Valley. The only Hollywood note is a kidney-shaped swimming pool, and the most recent addition to the house (a wing devoted to daughter Lucie and her nurse) cost $22,000—more than the house and land cost originally. Neither Desi nor Lucille has ever been socially ambitious, and their friends are the same ones they have known for years. Both Desi's mother (now divorced from Arnaz Sr., who still lives in Miami) and Lucille's Mom live nearby.

At home, Lucille, who collects stray cats and dogs, is an amateur painter ("I use oils because it's easier to correct mistakes than with water colors"), and generally considers herself a lazy, lounging homebody. She is fascinated by Desi's boundless energy.' He spends weekends fishing on his 34-foot cabin cruiser, Desilu; plays violent tennis; likes to cook elaborate dishes. Says Lucille: "Everything is fine with him all the time. Wanta play cards? Fine. Play games? Fine. go for a swim? Great." There's only one problem: "Desi is a great thermostat sneaker-upper and I'm a thermostat sneaker-downer. Cold is the one thing that isn't great with him."

Sex & Chic. Though life has grown noticeably more placid for Desi and Lucille, it promises more money than they ever made before. Desilu Productions has already branched out beyond ‘I Love Lucy’. It is filming TV commercials for Red Skelton, and is at work on a new TV series, ‘Our Miss Brooks’, starring Eve Arden. Three of the best 30-minute Lucy shows are being put together in a package and will be experimentally released to movie theaters in the U.S. and Latin America. This year, ‘I Love Lucy’ has grossed about $1,000,000, and sponsor Philip Morris has signed a contract for 39 more shows beginning this fall. All of the old Lucy films can be sold again as new TV stations go on the air (eventually there will be 2,053 TV transmitters in the U.S., compared to today's 108).

In reaching the TV top, Lucille's telegenic good looks may be almost as important as her talent for comedy. She is sultry-voiced, sexy, and wears chic clothes with all the aplomb of a trained model and showgirl. Letters from her feminine fans show as much interest in Lucille's fashions as in her slapstick. Most successful comediennes (e.g., Imogene Coca, Fanny Brice, Beatrice Lillie) have made comic capital out of their physical appearance. Lucille belongs to a rare comic aristocracy: the clown with glamour.

[stan-and-the-newbie]

A kpop newbie’s reaction to BLACKPINK

Alexa: bold Alex: italic

today you are reacting to... BlackPink!

o damn, are you sure this band isn’t your favourite?

pFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT-  ok, good one, anyway this is them :3

((she tried sending me a picture but it didn’t work))

awh come oN

~ technical difficulties, please stand by ~

dfgfd shhhHhhHhH i know wot im doin smdh. this is alreaDY GOING BADLY

...should i just google them?

its okay, i got it. this is them

o damn. they're very pretty, but that was to be expected

yep.. so what concept do you think they have? lol as if it isnt obvious

idk man three of them are giving me death glares. uhh black? and pink?

tbh,,,,,they have the girl crush concept, like, theyre all badass and stuff

oh, well that’s..  interesting

i cant believe im letting you edit this post..  anyway, opinion on them? they dont look that similar, thank god

well the red-haired one i like the most so far since she doesn't look like she wants to choke me (and not in the kinky way)

fgjgfghj yes i see

the one wearing the 2b outfit is probably your goth waifu

omf

and the pink(TM) one looks like she's the sugar mommy of the group

m o o d

i'm guessing she's the leader? it could just be the thanos throne

they dont really have a leader..  this is also them

ah, lovely, a picture where they don't look like they want to murder me

yes, finally

a bunch of talented asian cuties, wot is new

to be honesT. i'll start with the first one from the second picture

alrighty

her stage name is rose

the first two from left to right are the prettiest imo

o rlly

i'm gonna get lynched alive for saying that, aren’t i

so, opinion?

she's uhhh 23? and a singer, and she's the goofy one

well youre right about her being a singer..  shes 21, and yes, she is pretty goofy. she is fluent in english because she is australian

n i c e

this is her kickin everyone's ass 

((Then she showed me this video))

i-

skinny legend

and they said infinity war was the most ambitious crossover... asian idols wearing brazilian carnival outfits as some dude sings that song from shrek 2? sign me tf up

LMAOO gee her voice still gives me chills rose step on me

alexa that's lewd, let us move on swiftly

sorry i just like her shes also a good dancer

i'm guessing she's gonna be my favourite

o

english speaking idols get bonus points, and she seems to excel at everything else, so...

yes, she is amazing. oh, she also cried over her fish's death

;-; oof

:( bless her anyway, you have any questions?

nop, she's gucci, let us proceed

right, the next one is jisoo

she's a qt ;; she looks like a dork i want to shake her hand and give her a hug

this is her smiling

i-

see thats the heart smile

is she the radiance? because my retinas are burned

SDFGFDSADFG MOOD

literally no one is gonna get that joke

wat if they do?

then they are people of culture

opinion?

uhh, she is the soft one, and.. she's short because why not, and she's 22 and she sings ;; 

o- i mean, she isnt really tall, but she isnt that short. yes, she is a singer, the oldest, 23 y/o and she is a goofball, a derp. very entertaining tbh

she looks adorable and has a cute name and is a goofy dork god bless

all of them are good at english but her. but she Tries- and is confused.  

o o f

tis a baby

she deserves all the hugs

she isnt the best dancer, but shes a Great singer, and very stable on stage

their hair alexa their hair is so fucking aesthetic

i KnoW

i am in pain, pack your dictionary we're moving to korea

fuck yeaH the next one is lisa

abs of JUSTICE

hot diggidy she's the sass queen, and she's uh..  23, and a rapper

oh, this is also her

she is also 21, and yes, a rapper!! a very swaggy one

jackpot

but shes a whole cutie, and the youngest

awh ;;

and she gets embarrassed easily

i see, so she's the tsundere of the group

she is from thailand, and i think shes fluent in four languages, including english

nice, man

she is also an Amazing dancer

n i c e ,  m a n

shes kinda my wife but theyre all my bias so i cannot decide it is Too Hard

i only have one bias  u-u

ofc u do

remember to only have one waifu alexa, too many waifu will ruin your laifu

a baby

they’re all cuties this is fucking illegal

it  i s do you have any question about baby lalisa over there :(

so far this is a very solid kpop band

o

lots of english speakers, cute dorks and pure babies everywhere

;-; yes

it has my seal of approval

n i c e the last member is jennie

o damn. jennie? j-just jennie?

just jennie. she doesn’t need anything else

is that an ACDC shirt

apparently

why do they all look so good and fashionable, and both glamorous and cute and pure at the same time, alexa the space-time continuum shouldn't allow this

pffft opinion?

hmm.. she's both a rapper and a singer, and uhh..  she's the second sassiest, but also a goof, and she's 23. I'LL STICK WITH MY 23 also damn nice thighs

she does have amazing thighs tbh.. WAIT HOW DO YOU KNOW SHES ALSO A RAPPER AND A SINGER

well usually in smaller kpop bands one of them does the support for both singing and rap..r-right?

,,,,,,,,,now that you say it

it finally happened folks, i taught alexa something about kpop

badass

THEY'RE ALL SO PURE, FUCC

THEY ARE, they have the badass girl crush concept, BUT THEYRE ALL FUCKIN CUTIES IRL also, take this

my poor heart

jennie is so smol ;; jennie is the smolest

i'm sorry, i was distracted by the thicc

mood tbh she is also fluent in english lmao

pack your shiT ALEXA WE'RE GOING TO KOREA

y ES theyre all really cute and entertaining, they dont go over the top, but theyre still pretty funny - as funny as a girl group can be anyway

pfft i find all of them entertaining tbh. show me some songs fam 

o, alrighty. this is a dance practice, it was the first thing that was released and everyone went nuts

((Then she showed me the dance practice video))

lisa is the one with shorts, jennie has the cap, rose is the one with braids and the last one is jenniejisoo

oof, a bit too edgy for my taste, sorry. but the routine is great!

well, they were kinda made to be badass

yeah, i figured

also, a little side note

o?

their company is one of the biggest companies out there, but theyre known for their shitty management, as in, they dont really give idols many comebacks or promotions, so they dont have many songs;; even tho they debuted two years ago

well, that kinda sucks

yep..

i imagine this business is pretty finicky behind the scenes. i guess it can’t be all sugar and glitter all the time

true..  anyway, this is is one of the two songs in their debut ep lol 

((Then she showed me “Whistle”))

also, may i add, their mvs are hella aesthetic

they seem to be..  not a fan of the super edgy american-ish songs though

yeh, their second ep was better. this is from the second ep

((Then she showed me “Playing With Fire”))

pyromaniac title, piano in the first second. this one's gon' be gud

yeah, this one was definitely better - well, not objectively, just imo 

yeah then theres this beautiful beautiful song 

((Then she showed me “Stay”))

that title gives me the hibby jibbies

y e p p

nvm i saw a mcdonalds in the background and now i'm chuckling

sdfdsdfg honestly the mv is So Pretty

ALEXA I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR SAD TIMES

shhh its a nice lil song just dont read the lyrics lmao

...i'm reading the lyrics now I THOUGHT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE A BADASS GROUP WHAT IS THIS

the chorus is so nice tho, with the claps

it is..  well, that was mildly depressing

at the end they hold hands and laugh and jump around in a circle in the mv and its just..  i rlly like the mv and the filter is very pretty

a e s t h e t i c

anyway, back to badass

((Then she showed me “Ddu-du Ddu-du”...?))

this is their most recent release, this time with a mini album

and i see thanos’s throne is back

y eS

these sets look expensive as fucc.. is that a fennec fox?

maybe..

and the evil parrot from rio? what is this, a crossover episode?

THE MOST AMBITIOUS CROSSOVER

first we had the shrek 2 song, now this they gon' hit me with dat turu turu du alexa halp meh  

i k r wat u gon do

is that.. a sparkly tank?

y ES jennie is an icon

i feel like i've ascended

tbh all these things were so unnecessary yet they did it anyway

well i certainly don’t regret it

that breakdown at the end is kinda cheap, but i think the diamond tank made up for it

definitely

sdfvbvGJHGthere are two mvs left

oh, just.. just two?

y es

i feel bad for them ;; did u say it's been two years

yeah..

this is so r00d

yes, always feel bad for yg artists

what’s yg?

its a company - their company

ah, i see

their shitty company

oof

here's their debut song (which i dont really like but Oh Well.)

((Then she showed me “Boombaya”..? who the hell comes up with these names?))

well, in all fairness if they're one of the biggest they probably have a lot of bands to manage

not really..  they had very successful bands though, so that kinda paved the way for the ones nowadays

ALEXA THESE FUCKING LYRICS ARE KILLING ME

ASDFGBFVDS MOOD CLICK CLACK BADDABING BADDABOOM QUEEN

"i'm so hot i need a fan i don't want a boy i need a man" BISH YOU'RE A 5 FOOT 20-SOMETHING ASIAN IDOL CHILL

hjkjhghj shhHHH

this is a whole drugtrip

it iS

are those..  black leather biker pants...  mixed with blue jeans? this is some next level shit alexa i can't handle this

y ES fashion icon

why do coke when you can watch this for free and legally?

ikr theres one last mv, and its better, trust me

..alright...

theyre cute in this one

((Then she showed me “As If It’s Your Last”))

jisoo is the one with the heart magnet and i love her

awh ;; man these titles are edgier than 13 year old me

oh come on, its a love song

that dancing, it's s-so lewd  <-<;;

it iS oh, i forgot lisa's rap is in english

n o i c e i didn't know jennie had her own ice cream business

girl is going places okay but 1:36

what about it?

th-the cotton candy part

pfff

sorry i remember the first time and saw it and was like fukc thas cute

well, it was. it was pure ;;

alright, final thoughts?

well, they're a bunch of cute and talented dorks, but that ain't nothing new. either way, 10/10 for the lewd dancing and the fact that they speak english. give dem more comebacks, fam

they have lewder choreos, but thats for another day. justice4blackpinkcomeback edition

yeS, let’s make a petition

Heya peeps, it’s a boii mod Alex here. This was the first time I put together a Reaction Wednesday post, so uh.. yeah...  I think it turned out pretty good! But seriously, a lot of work goes into these, even though it may not seem like it. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it! See you next week!

[lanadelreyfiles-blog]

Lana Del Rey is Complex’s Summer 2017 Cover Story. Lana Del Rey Talks "Lust for Life," Avoiding Cultural Appropriation, and Getting Political For six years now Lana Del Rey has attracted and foiled critics with pop music that does not sound like any of her peers. The mild, smoky voice, the judicious use of rap production, the juxtaposition of classic American images and sounds with hyper-contemporary, crass language, from these elements Lana makes music that feels at once familiar and strange. ‘Lust For Life’ is her most ambitious album yet, and as Lana explains in her third Complex cover appearance, it emerged from a period of self-examination that, when it ended, left her "looking at everything else" the world has to offer. Hopeful and questioning, the album engages with the tumultuous and oftentimes terrifying politics of 2017 on songs like ‘God Bless America—And All the Beautiful Women in It’ and ‘When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing.’ Elsewhere, this more expansive worldview means features from artists like Stevie Nicks, Playboi Carti, Sean Ono Lennon, and ASAP Rocky. "I was ready to have some of my friends jump on the record," she says,"[and] they were all naturally a little bit lighter than me." Lightness is, in some ways, the operating principle for Lana Del Rey right now. At 32, her career is no longer "guesswork," the way it was when she first began. The questions of authenticity and agency that greeted her upon arrival are irrelevant. There's only Lana Del Rey. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

— You were living in New York when you put out ‘Born To Die’ and I know that you went from being like normal New Yorker who rides the subway to Lana del Rey who's on Page Six and is the subject of long thinkpieces in the Times. Lana Del Rey: That was fucked up. It just changed it. I remember I was working somewhere else and I was on my way back from there and I was getting on the 6 train, and TMZ was behind me the whole time. — On the train? LDR: Yeah, I had run into this camera-man. It was the first time I had seen a paparazzi, but he wasn’t taking pictures, he was just filming. I don’t even know if I had ever seen that before ‘cause it’s someone with a VHS following you around. — Was he trying to talk to you? LDR: Yeah, and I was answering and I sounded crazy. I went down and got my ticket, swiped it, waited for the train. I looked behind me, the guy had got a ticket too, and he was waiting too. I was like, Wait, is this real life? Honestly from then on one of those guys I had seen that day was just always there. I thought to myself, I think I gotta move somewhere. — Your first three covers are all fairly serious, sort of oscillating between kind of almost sad and maybe a little bit aloof on the ‘Honeymoon’ one. This is the first one where you’re smiling. LDR: Well, the ‘Honeymoon’ cover I thought was more just casual. I felt like I was in a more casual space. But this was definitely in an even more lighter space altogether. My sister, Chuck, shot it, but we shot it in the parking lot behind the scenes of my ‘Love’ video. We didn’t know if we were going to get the cover but we definitely knew I was gonna smile. We took a couple frames, and we developed it that week, and I felt like that was the one. — For being a fairly dark time to live in the world, it’s kind of interesting that this is actually your most optimistic work, at least in its titling and its imagery. What’s the genesis of that? LDR: Well there was a little bit of a shift in me naturally. I felt like I had kind of said a lot and done a lot through the records. I was ready to have some of my friends jump on the record [and] they were all naturally a little bit lighter than me, so that was kind of happening in my world. I felt like two years of recording really dark tunes would not be fun. — You do touch on problems of the world and politics in this work in a way that your previous albums did not. Was that a conscious decision? LDR: On the last records I needed to look inward to figure out why things had gone so far down one path, and then I kind of came to the end of my self-examination and I naturally was looking at everything else. But, of course, all my experiences and romantic relationships and stuff are still peppered in to some of the songs on this record. Also, with Obama as the president, me and everybody I know, I think we felt very safe and protected, felt like we were being viewed the way we wanted to be viewed, in terms of the world. So there wasn’t as much to say except, like, look how far we’ve come and it’s getting better, getting even better. I feel like there was quite a shift. — With this record you have infused more politics than ever before. I think it’s not necessarily a political record, but it is a record of the day. I don’t know this for a fact, but I would imagine that you have a decent number of sort of middle American fans for whom Trump’s inauguration and administration is not problematic. How do you negotiate expressing your own honest feelings about these things, and do you think about whether or not it’s going to piss them off, or is this something that has inspired ire from people who at one point were in you core? LDR: You don’t negotiate when it comes to your work or your art. You stand totally firm and take the consequences. In terms of losing fans I don’t care. Period. [Laughs.] — The last two albums, ‘Honeymoon’ and ‘Ultraviolence,’ it seemed like you concentrated on making stuff for yourself, and perhaps for your core audience. With this record, it at  appears that there is a more expansive ambition. LDR: I would consider it as a not turning away from the possible bigger-ness of it, compared to the other two. Before, I felt maybe I wanted to be more protective of my own space and stuff with the last two records. — Was that a reaction to the success of records like the remix to ‘Summertime Sadness’? LDR: I think it was a reaction to more people knowing who I was right away. So I was like, Let me just check myself and get myself into a place where I’m sure I like what I’m doing, and I know I like the production. With the ‘Summertime Sadness’ remix, I had told you before, I didn’t hear that song until it was on the radio and I came back from a show in Russia, and I heard it on the radio. I mean, obviously in general I like to have my hands all over the production. — Was that a weird feeling to like - LDR: It was a weird… — Is it weird also that it’s probably - LDR: That it’s a huge song? — ...your biggest hit? LDR: Really? You’re gonna say that? — I mean, radio numbers at least. LDR: No, you’re probably right. — Probably not your most important song, but… LDR: I think ‘Video Games’ is right up there. I was more sensitive about it then because when you’re new you’ve got so much to prove. You don’t have that many chances. That’s real. I’d consider it at the time just being careful. You know, in terms of collabs or sponsorships or whatever. — Is it freeing now to feel that you can do whatever feels good in the moment? LDR: Yeah. It is actually. — Do you feel like that played into the larger ambition of ‘Lust For Life’? LDR: Rocky’s on the record, and when he’s in town and I’m here, I’m just down at the studio anyway. Or the same with Abel, you know? I’ll just go down and listen to what he’s working on. I realized, Why do I not have my friends on my record? It was pretty natural but I guess with Abel, everything he does now is so big, so at another time maybe that would’ve felt like a little bit scarier or something, but now it just feels right. — What do you mean? LDR: Well, he’s super out there and he’s got a lot of radio stuff so I don’t know if I would’ve known what to do with a big radio song. I’m not saying I have one on this record… — But if you are to have one, you feel confident that it would be exciting? LDR: That I would be happy, yeah. — David Byrne from the Talking Heads wrote an amazing book about the history of music, and he goes into the significance of radio in how songs are formatted, and the idea that it’s like three minutes with three hooks and a bridge—there’s nothing in nature that says that that’s how music should be composed. It’s strictly about how radio programmers want to get three songs per commercial break, so that has sort of trained the artists to work within those confines. LDR: For sure. And they’re not terrible confines to work within. It’s kind of fun to make a short song with a cute chorus. But I think if you’re writing it yourself it’s important to have half the record at least where you’ve got a little bit of your life in there, or a little bit of an opinion. I think if you’re really good you can do both. I was thinking of Bob Dylan. — What is the measure of success for you? LDR: The one thing that stayed the same is, for me the measure of success with the record is just that it gets finished. [Laughs.] For real. — Did Sean Lennon make the record? LDR: He made it. — I saw that you took these pictures with a horse, but it was not a horse that was coming out of a pond on his estate, so I didn’t know if that was like a subliminal shot. LDR: It’s not, no. Horses have just been a random theme somehow. He ended up producing the track we made, ‘Tomorrow Never Came,’ and that’s the only track on the record that I wrote over the last two years that I didn’t feel like it was mine. I  felt like I had written it for someone else, which I… I’ve never really felt like that. Then I was looking at the lyrics and I had a lyric about John Lennon and Yoko, so I called Sean and asked him if he would do a duet with me. He said that he was his dad’s biggest fan, so it would be really natural. — The other thing I’ve noticed is that almost all the people that you work with are men. Is that something you ever think about, or that bothers you? LDR: Well, it’s weird because the people in my close production life are men. I guess I’m thinking of like Rick [Nowels] and my two engineers, Dean Reed and Kieran Menzies, who have changed my whole musical life and my sound and my records. But in my personal life, there’s just so many women. Well there’s not many female producers, for sure. There’s some great female songwriters though. That’ll probably change. — When you think about yourself as a songwriter, how do you think you’ve changed from ‘Born To Die’ days to what you’re writing now? LDR: Maybe just the ability to integrate my own experiences with what I’m observing. To be able to reflect back, like a good mix of inner world, outer world. — Toxic relationships were very much the fuel of a lot of the writing on those first albums, as you have moved to a sort of happier, more solid place, perhaps making better life decisions - LDR: Trying. — How do you think about your romantic life, and how do you think about it within the context of your songwriting? LDR: I feel like in this record there’s—with the songs that are “love songs,” or about relationships, I feel like I come off almost more annoyed about the way things are going rather than like, “Oh, poor me.” There’s like a moving that I get from my own stuff, because sometimes my own stuff is a little bit revealing to me, you know, about myself. — With a lot of artists who write very personal stuff, when they get to this point in their career it sometimes gets more difficult to unearth and reveal those things because of success and fame and the work. LDR: That’s so true. — Do you feel like it’s a greater challenge now? LDR: Yeah, but I’ve never been somebody who turned away from really hard work. I’m always looking to put the footwork in. Like with the mixing, if it takes eight months I will mix for eight months. If the master doesn’t come back right I’ll find someone else to do it. With the personal stuff I mean, if I feel like I’m just not getting it right I’ll just keep on trying different things until I feel like I’m hitting my stride in that department. I don’t know, finding your own path is not for the faint of heart. It’s the harder path. It’s easier to just keep doing the same shit over and over again and then be surprised when it’s still the same results. Somehow that’s easier than just doing something different. — A lot of what got written about you in the beginning, and in a somewhat real way, you had developed a character. I imagine a large part you, and then perhaps something that’s imagined. As you’ve gotten further and further into your career do you feel like the lines between those things have changed or blurred? LDR: I mean, that’s what most of the thinkpieces are about. You know, there’s a lot of stuff I could’ve not said in the songs and I said it anyway. It didn’t always serve me to talk about some of the men I was with and what that was like, and then not comment on it further. So that’s some of my experiences and where I lived and what it was like. It would’ve been easier to just not say that and then deflect all of the questions about it afterwards. — So do you think that was sort of overstated? LDR: I didn’t edit myself when I could have, because a lot of it’s just the way it was. I mean, because I’ve changed a lot and a lot of those songs, it’s not that I don’t relate but… A lot of it too is I was just kinda nervous. I came off sort of nervously, and there was just a lot of dualities, a lot of juxtapositions going on that maybe just felt like something was a little off. Maybe the thing that was off was that I needed a little more time or something, and also my path was just so windy just to get to having a first record. I feel like I had to figure it out all by myself. Every move was just guesswork. — It’s kind of funny because you were in your mid-twenties when you sort of came out and I do think if you look at artists that dropped their first albums between like 25 and 27, whether it’s an Eminem or Jay Z, it’s like, if you looked at their work at 22 - LDR: Yeah, exactly. It’s different. — It would’ve been very raw and unfocused. There was no Slim Shady for Eminem at 22, but at 26 he had the full 360 package. LDR: Jay Z talks about that too, like how he really, really lived by the time he was 26. There was a real perspective he was coming from. So, yeah, it’s a real age where... — You can put together a project that's more fully formed. LDR: Right. And my perspective was fully formed, it just wasn’t a great outlook. It’s not so much a persona question with me, it’s just more like what was going on with that girl, you know? Like, where was she coming from? — There’s been an inordinate amount of conversation around the idea of cultural appropriation, and Katy Perry kind of stepped right in it with her performance on SNL. You have moved fairly organically from the singer/songwriter world into hip-hop, and back out and back in without much commotion. Why do you think that is? LDR: I never feel like I’m not where I’m supposed to be, you know? No matter who I’m with, I’m always still doing my own thing. I can’t remember the last time I was in a club or somewhere and felt like, Man, I’m not supposed to be here. I’ve been kind of doing it for so long I feel like everybody I’m friends with, everyone I know just knows I’m all about the music. — Do you have any consideration for the critics and all of the sort of dissection for your art at this point? LDR: Yeah, sometimes. I have a song called ‘Get Free’ which closes my record, and it started by, it told my whole story, I guess, and my thoughts on where I want to go next; and then I realized, I actually don’t want to tell my whole story, I don’t want to talk about it.  — How do you negotiate what you keep for yourself and what you are ready to share? LDR: Sometimes I just can’t resist to just tell it like it really is for myself and the way that I feel.

[cjostrander]

Cheap Trick: We’re All Alright

Hello everyone! I’m glad to see my last two reviews for The Offspring’s Ignition and Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. albums get a nice bit of attention. Since i havent been doing many reviews on Saturdays and promo reviews have been absent for awhile; i’m going to do a new album today for you guys. There has actually quite a bit of good material out lately from Cheap Trick, Foo Fighters, Marilyn Manson, The Killers, and Sukekiyo. Sukekiyo is a side project of the singer from Dir en Grey and they have really stepped their cohesiveness on their second album. I guess it took their first one and a ep for them to work out their kinks. This is the last album by Cheap Trick after having just released another album a year ago called Bang Zoom Crazy Hello. After doing “The Latest” in in 2009 they went on a bit of recording hiatus and i think their addition to the Rock in Roll Hall of Fame renergized them to get back into the studio with a fury.  This album and their last one have a high deal of rock n roll drive that was missing over the last couple albums in favor of a more psychedelic infused sound. They have a christmas album coming out later on in the year; so they really are on an active roll now for a couple guys in their mid to late sixties. This is going to be a nice treat for you guys; so hope you all enjoy!

You Got It Going On: This song starts off immediately with a charging guitar roar and powerful drum beat. Robin enters with a classic rock n roll tone in his voice that adds additional charm and power into the mix. The vocals are very solid at keeping the spacing nice and smooth while the instrumentals build up. The chorus is full of energy and will have little issue at getting this album started off on a thriving note. It will do very well at getting you up and dancing during a live performance and the inclusion of more ambitious guitar solos will help to give this album a chance of being one of the band’s finest albums. The lyrics are simple but effective and should easily prove to be a solid concert opener for them. 9/10

Long Time Coming (single): This sole single on the album picks up where the last song started and infuses the song with a nice dose of rhythm to warm up to. Robin uses a nice sense of grit in his voice to deliver a seductive sense of confidence to the listener. The lyrics prove to be a solid focal point and the instrumentals do very well at building them up when combined with the unexpected and well hidden strings in the background. Their signature use of backing vocals work well here and will provide the song with an extra dose of energy that will work well in a dance/party setting. As a single it is pretty effective and showcases the core sound of the album and would of been nice to see on the album. I definitely wish that this and the  last album would of gotten better promotion since it could of potentially sparked a big commercial comeback for them that they havent seen since the late 70′s. Either way; this album’s single definitely passes in my books as a promotional track. 9/10

Nowhere: Now this is my favorite song on the album due to its immediately fast injection of party jam riffs and slightly echoed vocals from Robin. His voice does well to develop an old fashioned atmosphere for classic rock fans to become addicted to. This would be another fantastic live piece that will kill it during a show. The vocals flows by very fast and smoothly; so there is no lack of coherency on the listener’s part. This song as well as the last few would be pretty good for a workout session by far. The guitar solo on this one is probably one of the best on the album and really goes on for a while. It joins with ambitious string elements to further wow the listener at what they are experiencing. This is one song that will make older fans wonder why they didn’t tap into this level of rock n roll excitement earlier. 10/10

Radio Lover: The guitars begin again on a highly energetic note and Robin uses his seductive swagger to continue the listener’s adrenaline rush rather far into this album by this point. The instrumentals support him with ease and the inclusion of solos come by as eagerly expected by now and Robin’s lyrics will provide the listener with ample substance to dance to. The drums provide a decent performance on this song and album but its the high octane guitars and Robin’s vocal mastery that really stand out on this album. In hindsight as good as the last album was; this one already shines over that one easily. That is still worth checking out and is a great comeback record for them. 10/10

Lolita: This track concludes the first half of the album and begins with a nice change up on the electronical side. The bass provides a very nice rhythm while still keeping a high degree of energy in the song. The drums keep a nice beat with the guitars but Robin is easily the highlight on this song due to his commanding voice. It contains a direct sense of confidence that only a 40 year veteran that is truly having a good time can muster up. The lyrics are pretty solid and the subtle lightening up in energy will help keep the listener from getting overwhelmed at this point in the game. It still commands a good push but is smart at adjusting the album so that it’s flow stays strong. 8.5/10

Brand New Name on an Old Tattoo: The guitars and bass enter with a nice show of force and the drums keep their beats going steady. Robin does well to prop the song up with simple but effective lyrics and his trademark power voice. The chorus is a bit cliche but the guitar solo will help to distract you from that fact as the song ventures on. Other than that; this one is a more standard track in comparison to the first half of the album. You will still enjoy the level of energy but this one will push things along and stretch out your experience a bit more than anything. 8/10

Floating Down: Now this song brings back the band’s experimental psychedelic roots. The guitars begin with a poppy atmosphere and Robin delivers a rather soothing voice that further enchants the listener with an interesting flair that seems rather complex at this point in the album. If you are a fan of this tone then check out any of their 2000′s era albums since this style was their focus. I personally recommend Rockford (i reviewed) since it is an inbetweener that has that psychedelic touch but with rock edge slightly comparable to this album. The lyrics prove to be rather solid and will keep you engaged until the instrumentals take charge to add in a few crunches here and there. The drums as usual keep their steady beat flowing strong and help to establish this as a song that you are certainly willing to unwind to but stay alert and ready to move; so definitely free from killing your adrenaline rush outright. 8.5/10

She’s Alright: The bass takes a pleasant lead on this one and begins to infuse the song with a nice rumble while the drums provide a decent support. The guitars the enter and give the song a nice sense of relaxing smoothness. Robin proves to have an easy time at keeping this song flowing with easygoing verses and blissful guitar layers for the listener to slowly unwind to as the album gradually winds down. 8.5/10

Listen to Me: This song returns the album to its high octane rock edge and Robin screams a bit while the guitars develop a fast pacing. The rhythm is a key component of this song and will do very well at getting the listener up and dancing with his girl during a live performance. The chorus is staple Cheap Trick in the means that it is full of power and energy and even catchiness ha ha. The backing vocals are subtle but do very well at giving the vocals slightly lifts when its needed. The solo is another highly pleasing gem that will well to get the listener back into a state of euphoria if the more slow moving tracks were having a negative effect on them. Either way i would view this album as a pretty well rounded one that seems ideal for a full concert performance. 8.5/10

The Rest of My Life: The guitars and drums begin this finale track with a climatic feeling and Robin builds on it smoothly when he enters; by using soft yet attention grabbing vocals. His lyrics prove to be rather effective at keeping things flowing nicely and the instrumentals keep their slow and steady rhythm going throughout the majority of this song. It’s definitely a decent track to unwind to at this point in the album and should leave the listener feeling mostly satisfied and hopefully interested to either get the album (recommend the deluxe edition since it has three bonus tracks); or go to one of their shows. 8/10

Overall album rating: 8.8/10

NIce! This beat their debut album bu a margin of .2 to take the top spot for my Cheap Trick reviews and earns them their first B+ rating, This was another nice gem from the band that i highly recommend checking out since they have really shown a sense of life in the last two years. Tomorrow i’m expecting to do an anniversary review but if you have a new album suggestion from the ones i listed earlier shoot me a message and if i’m free next Saturday i will crank it out. Hope you all enjoy this review and all of my older ones till next time!

*Reviewer’s Pick*