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seenashwrite · 8 years ago

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Nash’s 200th Follower Celebration Challenge!

Get your spy gear ready.

We’re gonna take inspiration from Archer, y’all.

I haven’t personally seen this used in a challenge [at least in my circle]. It is so full of potential, from snark to sexy times to knock-your-socks-off shock. Even if you aren’t familiar with the source, the prompts are so very tasty, I can’t imagine each & every writer won’t find at least ONE to gobble up.

*** 120 Prompts! So just one writer apiece *** ---> YOU KNOW WHAT?? SCREW IT! Send me THREE!!!!

But! There’s a challenging bonus at the bottom [#121] with NO LIMIT TO THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TRY IT!

I’d recommend just a “scene” versus an entire fic, or tack it on to your actual entry in a weird prologue or epilogue, something of that ilk. It’s nuts. I’m not overselling the nuttiness, here. Weave some magic. EXAMPLE

Full guidelines at the bottom.

THE ONES THAT TOTALLY COULDA BEEN IN AN SPN EPISODE:

1. "Team Live Badass"? That's the best you could come up with?

2. Oh, I thought we were laughing at the dead people we set on fire. @wrenwritesometimes

3. AHHHH! The dust! It's like being shot in the eyes by a glitter gun!

4. Oh, you don't look like a whore... an idiot, maybe? Or both! Yes! A whore-diot! @jalove-wecallhimdean

5. --- What is this herpes business? --- Bad joke... and a false alarm. @itswitchcraft-not-googlemaps

6. Wanna try yanking on the pipe?

7. You ass, for the love of all that's green, take me and the rabbit to the lettuce store! @wrenwritesometimes

8. Eat a buffet of dicks. @hannahindie

9. --- And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go kill some evil clowns. --- [long awkward pause] --- Do you have an erection?

10. You're just gonna leave him with a grenade stuck up his ass?

11. It would be rude not to eat her pie, which I assume is not only hot, but also moist... although hopefully not flaky.

12. Nothing can make up for almost killing me over a briefcase of what I can only assume is either plutonium or a human soul.

13. Oh don't worry. He may be a vain, selfish, lying, and quite possibly alcoholic man-whore, but gambling is one vice he doesn't have. @fanforfanatic

14. I want it on record that I think this is a terrible plan.

15. They say the devil's in the details... and silk pajamas.

SNARK-A-PALOOZA:

16. All I've had today is, like, six gummy bears and some scotch. @wrenwritesometimes

17. For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now and at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon. Amen. @butiaintgonnaloveem

18. --- Every single time we come here, we have to help you get rid of a dead body. --- Well, you've only been here twice. @senselesssamii

19. Swear to god, you people make me want to pump nerve gas through the vents. @impalaimagining

20. Why is your instinctive response to run toward explosions? @impandagrl

21. On second thought, I very much prefer to be taken alive. Just let me clear the ol' browser history aaaand...

22. Is it murder if they were my own clones? I'm seriously asking. @littlegreenplasticsoldier

23. I've always wanted to fight on top of a moving train. @amanda-teaches

24. I've never seen an ocelot! You guys, look at its little spots! Look at its tufted ears!

25. If this doesn't work, we just paid a hundred bucks for liquid fart.

26. Oh my god - I'm gonna die in a toilet stall, just like the gypsy woman said!

27. I swear, if you throw that computer on the floor one more time, you’ll wake up in a mental ward with total amnesia under someone else’s name! @idreamofhazel

28. You just killed, like, ten pirates.

29. -- Grilled cheese. -- What? -- Grill me a cheese. -- I'm not grilling you a cheese. ME!

30. The Russians turned me into the unholy abomination of metal fused with flesh that now stands before you.

31. --- I swear, if anyone saw me in this awful van... --- How could they, with this illegal-ass window tint? Dude, this van is like, rolling probable cause.

32. Not really the explosive climax I thought it was gonna be.

33. There's a zoo here?

34. What in the name of pre-paid venereal disease do you think you're doing?!

35. Are you not rampaging? I thought you were rampaging. ---> AVAILABLE AGAIN!!!!

36. Hundred people surveyed, number one answer's still on the board: Name the douchebag who's in charge! @roxy-davenport

37. Why would you think it's okay to share that?

38. You do realize there's a finite supply of Vaseline in the universe.

39. --- So then it's settled. We're a-go on Operation... what should we call it? --- Dick Sledge.

40. I saved her life! Go ask that dick I set on fire!

41. You want me to take a baby to a murder? @impalaimagining

42. You do realize you're in huge trouble - and now I have to spend my first Friday off in forever devising some bizarre punishment for you? ---> AVAILABLE AGAIN!

43. Have you no sense of decency? That bathroom’s like a… a war crime.

44. Hey, you awake? ‘Cause this is about to get weird. @klaineaholic

45. That's disgusting - if I wanted to look at your bare feet, I'd sneak in and do it while you were asleep.

46. Better pill up - you're assisting with the surgery.

47. --- Frickin' head's poundin', I'm sweatin' booze and my mouth's killin' me! --- You're the one who stuffed four pool balls in it.

48. Holy shit, you geeks are badass. @uselessace

49. You're ruining your life, you idiot! And making it hard to drop a deuce.

50. Right, because you walked into Strippers’ Discount Warehouse and said, “Help me showcase my intellect". @butiaintgonnaloveem

51. I've had good results with Ether.

52. Hey, will you choke me a little bit? @littlegreenplasticsoldier

53. That stolen lemur bit one of your prostitutes right in the face and she says she can't go to the hospital because she's, quote, "tripping balls”.

54. --- Jeez, you're still taping bum fights?! --- No, now I'm into something... darker.

55. That is my foot in your face - smell the embarrassment.

56. Oh! And, uh, by the way, try not to be unconscious for too long - it's super bad for you. @withstarryeyes

57. Both of you imagine shutting up! @uselessace

58. Idiots doing idiot things, because they’re idiots.

59. --- Please tell me that's a smoke grenade. --- Okay... it's not, though. ----> AVAILABLE AGAIN!!!!! :)

60. Sorry - I was picturing Whore Island. @kayteonline

61. Somebody smells like they ate the ass-end out of a northbound cow.

62. I don't know... sometimes I think I'd like to adopt a little baby... so I could abandon it at a mall.

63. Well, he died doing what he loved - getting shot. @withstarryeyes

64. Baby, I was emotionally shattered - which turns out to be kind of a panty-dropper. @hannahindie

65. Now what am I going to spread on my toast? Your tears?

66. Sorry, that’s just a, uh, sympathy boner. @pinknerdpanda

67. Holy shit! Yogurt is amazing! Why have I never tried yogurt?! @littlegreenplasticsoldier

68. Seriously, call Kenny Loggins - 'cause you're in the DANGER ZONE. @kayteonline

69. I’m afraid the lemur got into the pudding cups.

70. I'm sorry, are you addressing me? Because your authority is not recognized in Fort Kickass. @kittenofdoomage

71. Does internet porn know you're cheating on it? @klaineaholic

72. No, it's too dirty - it's full of whatever alligators shit out, which I can only assume is people.

73. Oh my god! What shade is that? Crack whore red?!

74. Man, if I don't get some spaghetti and meatballs, I may literally die.

75. You used-panty vending sons of bitches!

76. Thank you both for all that you did do which, again, was nothing. @pinknerdpanda

77. Damn, dog! That’s inappropes!

78. If a single one of these has left the building, I will personally sew you into a canvas bag full of rats and throw that bag into the river. @littlegreenplasticsoldier

79. Who do I have to murder around here to get this damn thing to make some ice? ----> AVAILABLE AGAIN!!!! :)

80. I'm sorry, what's that? I can't hear you over the sound of my deafening awesomeness. @amanda-teaches

81. Don’t try to body-shame me, dog tits.

82. Is it just me, or does it smell like finger?

83. Ahahaha, man, you never rent a mule - ya lease that surly bastard.

84. When we first started going out, I may have... injected a tracking device into your body. @fanforfanatic

85. And I don't want another one of your sullen whores using my medicine cabinet like a Pez dispenser.

86. Because I've been lying in scorpion piss for two hours in the sun-blasted shit-hole which is Texas, waiting for a stupid truck.

87. If I cared about what you do on the weekend, I'd stick a shotgun in my mouth and pull the trigger with my toes. ME!

88. Punk-ass bitches! ----> AVAILABLE AGAIN!!!! :)

89. And instead of doing my job, I was here - half-drunk and having amazing sex.

90. Well, no wonder this all went tits-up.

91. Right? And I know it sounds crazy, but I like them as much as cocaine!

92. Next time, remind me to get shot in the head. ME!

93. You were the one yapping your head off about my damn teacup pig!

94. Who wants their ass beat first? And before you decide, keep in mind that I'm gradually going to get more tired, but also gradually more Berserker.

95. So you're not planning to blindfold me and hide me in a bomb shelter with limited oxygen and send my family cryptic notes about how to find me in a race against time for my life?

DEFINITELY CLASSY:

96. Who are you supposed to be, Topper Bottoms? Stern yet sensual skipper of the U.S.S. Rough Service?

97. You better pray to god it wasn't you who hit me. Because whoever it was hits like a little bitch of a girl, who was born with some kind of bitch of a birth defect, so that instead of a fist, she just has this tiny bitch of a nubbin.

98. I don't care! Having said that, would you please come into this dirty toilet stall and have sex with me?

99. Because you - prolapsed rectum that you are - are infatuated with her, whose cobwebby old snooch, by the way, I can smell from here! @butiaintgonnaloveem

100. --- The thought of me dying gives you an erection? --- Just half of one - the other half would have missed you. @kayteonline

101. I swear to god, you could drown a toddler in my panties right now. ME!

102. Stop - my penis can only get so erect. ME!

103. Can you not rub your dick in my mother's pantyhose, please?

104. --- Oh my god! You killed a hooker! --- Call girl! She was a---- --- No, when they're dead, they're just hookers!

105. Vincent Van Go-fuck-yourself.

106. Okay, we're off to get our scrotums waxed!

107. --- Well, maybe you're lame! --- Maybe you should shut your dick holster.

108. You’re a large-diameter dickhole.

109. First, see if he wants a beej...

110. Water? Oh, never touched the stuff. Fish fuck in it. @kayteonline

111. --- Oh god, it tastes worse than it smells! --- Man, if I had a nickel for every time I heard a guy say that.

112. Who, me?! No! No, I've been up here the whole time, having some phone sex! Just jackin' it, on the telephone. @fandommaniacx

113. I am literally wet with jealousy. @klaineaholic

114. Why does this chair have no seat... and WHAT IS IN HIS ASS?! And unless it was the creepy-old-people-bondage-sex police, why would anyone break in here and shoot him?!

115. Because I have sex with actual women! My girlfriend's not equal parts the internet, a tube of Kentucky jelly, self-loathing, and a sock. @hannahindie

116. And what part of your job, exactly, is groping my ass? @wideawakeandwriting

117. --- Maybe you should've thought about that before you blew it! --- I blew jack shit! --- Name-dropper.

118. After this, I am going to go home, watch NCIS, and masturbate until my fingers bleed. @itswitchcraft-not-googlemaps

119. --- Was that before or after you got caught fondling a teenager? --- Well, obviously before - after, it was all French Armed Forces and dick stitches.

120. You can't put a price on good pussy. @wideawakeandwriting

AND IF YOU ARE UP TO THE CHALLENGE:

121. No no no no - Like, a big, sweaty fireman carries you out of a burning building, lays you on the sidewalk and you think – Yeah, okay, he's gonna give me mouth-to-mouth – but instead he just starts choking the shit out of you, and the last sensation that you feel before you die is he’s squeezing your throat so hard that a big wet blob of drool drips off his teeth, and just – flurp – falls right onto your popped-out eyeball.

Bravery incarnate(s): @kittenofdoomage @fanforfanatic @uselessace @butiaintgonnaloveem

1. Supernatural only, please-and-thank-you [adjacent is fine, too - such as having O.C.s carry the bulk of the dialogue weight because we’re seeing the story through their eyes while, say, being hunters working with S & D or Jody & Donna or whatever your heart desires]

2. Pick your faves & any back-ups [and if you’re gonna take a run at #121] ---> shoot ‘em to me at DEAR NASH & I’ll hit you back with a confirmation

3. Write & post your thing ---> don’t forget to tag me somewhere & use this in your first handful of tags: #Nash200

4. Have it in between June 11th - June 17th [about 6 weeks from original posting] ---> TAKE TIL JULY! SOUND GOOD???? ;)

5. Definitely Do: the “theme” you are most comfortable with / feel you write the best / have the most fun on - these prompts lend themselves to snark and/or sexy times, but lord knows y’all angst-devotees will find a way [that’s fine, too!]

6. Hard Pass: dom/sub; ��kinks”; alpha/beta/omega; Wincest/any incest; real person fic [no Jensen/Jared/Misha/etc.]

7. Length can be anywhere from haiku to vignette to... well, keep it around the max length that you’d want to read if it were your challenge, ‘k? And don’t you dare spend more than a weekend on it - if it becomes laborious for you, holler at me, we’ll find you another prompt or you can drop out, no worries.

PS: If you wanna stick Archer characters into the mix? Bring. It. On.

PPS: Walls of text & bulk of text not behind “read more” = An Unhappy Nash + An Unhappy Dash

P3S: And because it’s my party, if Dean is in your story and he calls someone “Sweetheart” ? If it isn’t in a jerk-face, patronizing manner, I’m gonna foam at the mouth

THANK YOU for coming along with me on this ever-evolving funtastic SPN fandom ride! -Nash.

#supernatural fanfiction #spn fanfic #SPN Meets Archer #Archer Meets SPN #Nash200 #SeeNashWrite's 200th Follower Celebration

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edibleflowerseu · 8 years ago

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SOUNDS

DIIV / Oshin (2012) [Captured Tracks]

“And at its best, Oshin can feel like an ingenious distillation of the sonorous instrumental passages that took Disintegration’s “Fascination Street” and “Pictures of You” toward arena-rock grandeur. The album is mostly parceled out in lines of three-to-five descending notes that become self-descriptive adjectives: “(Druun)” wordlessly projects resolution, confidence; “Past Lives”, wistful acceptance; “Oshin (Subsume)”, a kind of dead-eyed stoicism; “Doused”, white-knuckle tension. Oshin gives you hints and direction, but never tells you exactly how to feel” (—)

…

Diiv is a band that is so ~in~ it literally hurts. Or maybe, that’s how things felt from 2012 to 2016. I’ve attended a handful of parties and house shows sponsored by one particular pocket of artists here in Providence that is high-key obsessed with Diiv. I have a distinct memory of one of the dudes insisting I look exactly like the frontman (Zachary Cole Smith), and then we proceeded to drunkenly dance, arms locked and substituting gibberish fake guitar noises for the actual music of the band. Damn those dudes love Diiv.

And I think unless you are a self-styled hater, what’s not to love? What’s not fun about jumping around a room, pretending to be a guitar? Waving ur arms around? Is this album fun or is it transcendental? I hear the lead singer is a piece of shit. He’s as if not more famous than his music. Google image him and try not to smirk at his fashion sense. But all that really doesn’t deter me from music lately. Lead singers and their band being overhyped and shitty people is kinda what music is about. It comes with the territory, at least.

I have a good time listening to this and sometimes u can feel urself floating pleasantly downstream, or on top of air, or within the ocean. But only if u let urself feel that way.

Not sure what the consensus is on the new album, Is The Is Are. Pitchfork dude Ian Cohen digs it but thinks its a hair too self-indulgent and into its own sound and vibe, while Sam Goldner writes for Tiny Mix Tapes that the album:

“…is hopelessness disguised as chilling out, self-defeat disguised as complex darkness. I tried to find poetry in its sounds and found myself just wanting a way out. Even now as I write this, I feel stalled in my tracks, attempting to make sense of my malaise. Though it may promise comfort, Is the Is Are is a false sanctuary. For my own sake, I need to move on.” (—)

The same can be said about the band, if u choose to feel that way. Is being a slacker cool af or the dumbest shit ever? Diiv is def fake-deep but does everything u consume and feel some type of way about gotta be real-deep? deep diiv, vibes vibes.

Preoccupations / Viet Cong (2015) [Jagjaguwar]

“Viet Cong are just a band that’s unusually obsessed with the mechanics and process of their given trade. While their ashen sonics and rigid demeanor is liable to have them labeled as post-punk, they’re also industrial in a literal sense. Flegel’s vocals are those of a foreman, authoritative, commanding and prodding. Guitars often sound dissolved in caustic chemicals; instruments contort themselves and interlock to achieve forward momentum. It’s music that works very, very hard to express a perverse hometown pride you often see used to sell spring water or thermal outerwear —you might not want to brave Calgary’s bleak winters, but the way Viet Cong captures its forbidding chill and placid, sprawling beauty sure make it seem like a good place to be a post-punk band.” (—)

___

“This is also a record of conflict and contrast, in particular, a winter war. The sensations of Viet Cong are specific to being bundled up in the arctic, where one’s body feels suffocating warmth and blistering cold all at once.” (—)

…

Another blog-hype band, but I think I like em more than Diiv. Blog hype ain’t the art-killer everyone hypes it up to be. I think shit I’m being told is good is good, and who gives a flying ole flip.

The difference between the band-formerly-known-as-Viet-Cong is they had bad hype that in many ways eclipsed the previous good hype with which they were showered.

Let’s talk music first tho. Sonically, I’m very into what this band is doing. Its intentional, textured, carefully positioned. It just sounds good. Anything remotely post-punk gets me going, and the quotes above that frame the band and their music in terms of the environment they come from gets me even more going. I love when art is described as a reflection of the land its made on. Calgary winters.

Politically might be where the band, as most post-punk bands, kinda weakens. The mood on the album is cold, paranoia, vaguely political. I’m into that. But, think its a bad place to mine for meaning as a listener. All bands and artists engage in some form of world-building: sonically, lyrically, emotionally, other-shit-ly. I think if u probe a band too forcefully on that level, ur bound to be disappointed. Like, this is a fun album to listen to but I’m not sure how much you can consistently get out of it in terms of your own life, if u get me.

But to the shit everyone talks about: the name. Naming ur band Viet Cong in what was then 2015 is a red flag of a bad idea for anyone with internet connection. After a shit ton of pressure from the alt music community, the band apologized changed their name from Viet Cong to Preoccupations. Whether or not the Vietnamese community as a whole felt personally disgusted or it was mostly white college kids, the point remains that it was the morally right move. But in a review of the first album released under the new Preoccupations name that I just found out existed like ten minutes ago, and in one of the most succinct call-outs I’ve read in a long ass while, Simon Chandler here points out, it was also in many ways an existentially dumb move:

“It’s bad because, with this apparent confirmation, the new album can’t help but appear within a frame of interpretation that casts it as shallow. It’s bad because, having let go of a name that self-avowedly meant very little to them, the Lovely Boys can’t help but come across as a band that means very little. It’s bad because, in bowing to umbrage and displeasure, they have effectively repositioned themselves less as an artistic enterprise and more as a commercial one. They strive to keep potential and actual customers happy, rather than striving to provoke them.

“This isn’t to say that the band were wrong to apologize for the hurt they caused and to change their name as part of their apology. Rather, it’s simply to say that the switch confirmed the original name’s emptiness and thereby highlighted the possibility that, contrary to appearances, their whole shtick was nothing more than an “edgy” posture. Given that this shtick involved evoking the kind of political paranoia and cynicism mined by no less a band than This Heat, it was therefore a bit of a letdown to learn that, in actual fact, the band weren’t trying to say anything important about today’s unstable world with their name (and perhaps also their music).

“It’s because they didn’t mean anything by their much-maligned former name that its replacement wasn’t actually a defeat for artistic expression, since there was no expression whatsoever that ended up being effaced in honor of offended parties (or the thought police, depending on your perspective). However, it nonetheless leaves us at a dead-end when it comes to unpacking the Lovely Boys’ sophomore record, in that it suggests that there isn’t all that much to unpack. Yes, there’s that familiarly vague sense of unease and disquiet, those serrated guitars, and those industrial-tinged synths and beats, yet everything seems less urgent and consequential, much to the album’s detriment.” (—)

Still like the band, tho.

Joni Mitchell / Blue (1971) [Reprise]

“Joni Mitchell once called fame “a glamorous misunderstanding.” As America’s finest living Canadian songwriter (tied with Neil Young), few musicians have understood its nature so well. In the 1960s and 70s, Mitchell was Mary Magdalene to Dylan’s folk-rock messiah, making music that was bittersweet and relatable, carrying what Dylan begat even further. Her work helped birth a new idiom that was personal and poetic, creating a new space for songs that made artistic statements, unbound by cliché and tradition. Such was the strength of her music that Mitchell’s lyrics didn’t have to make sense. But they did, particularly to women.” (—)

___

“1971’s Blue is possibly the most gutting break-up album ever made. After Mitchell’s relationship with Nash dissolved, she headed to Europe to lose the tether of her fame, eventually taking exile in a cave on the Greek island Crete. The trip would inspire the how-Joni-got-her-groove-back ditties “Carey” and “California”. The album is suffused with melancholy for all that is missing: her daughter (“Little Green”), innocence (“The Last Time I Saw Richard”), and connection (“All I Want”). Mitchell bleeds diffidence and highlights it with spare notes plucked out on her Appalachian dulcimer. While her pals Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and Laura Nyro were also pushing the singer-songwriter genre forward, none of them managed to stride the distance that Mitchell did here in a single album.” (—)

…

Anyway, exiting the blogosphere, let’s talk about how Joni Mitchell is the single best singer-songwriter of the 1960s and 1970s. Period.

Yes, I love Neil Young. I love Leonard Cohen. I love Bob Dylan. But, likely because she’s a woman and woman are never allowed to stop thinking about how they will age, she has kept consistently growing and pushing herself personally and stylistically in ways none of her male contemporaries can match. Neil Young made a bunch of shitty genre albums, Bob Dylan got fucking ridiculous sounding, and Leonard Cohen actually aged hella well but he sorta has his own thing he rarely detours from so he DOESN’T COUNT.

And while she’s by no means perfect (we’ll do our best to ignore her brief infatuation with blackface), I don’t think anyone conveys the entire emotional landscape of relationships, from love to heartbreak to emptiness to smirking worthlessness as well as Mitchell. And what’s more, she doesn’t let herself dwell only in the genre of love and heartbreak, and some of her best songwriting comes later as she explores jazz and womanly life-after-30. An artists stubbornly following their muse can be frustrating for fans, and I’m sure those who fell in love with the Big Yellow Taxi hippie soft folk of early Mitchell have less-than-kind words to say about her sonic experiments with Brazilian music and songs about French people. But fuck it, if u want the same old shit over and over again then u a dang dumb chump.

As for Blue itself, the album fucking rules, is the exact right length, and brings you through all the steps, missteps, ups, downs, and emotional turns to make a satisfying journey. And the guitars sounds sick af.

I feel there are hella dudes who can’t relate to Joni Mitchell’s songs since they are so distinctly about the experiences of women. But fuck those dudes. Like, how can u not be touched by this? This is the realest shit and all u Mitchell-hating dudes are fake deep babies.

James Cleveland w/ the Angelic Choir / I Stood on the Banks of the Jordan (1964) [Savoy]

And when I saw it, I said, Lord I got my ticket, please don’t leave me down here

You took my Father You came back and got my Mother, You took everything to me that was so dear

And all I can do, is stand there on the banks of Jordan. Mother was going home ‘to see the ship go sailing over.’”

…

Fell into a Youtube rabbit hole and ended up watching hella What’s In Your Bag clips. Found the one with James Blake (who I have barely listened to full disclosure) and he name-dropped James Cleveland as some good shit so I checked it out.

It is good shit. Like really good shit. I wanna listen to more gospel cause its one of those genres I never took seriously growing up, far removed was I a white child in New Hampshire. But dang can u feel the emotion running through this. And the dude has more albums! This is what I want, what I need.

Nguzunguzu / Perfect Lullaby Mix (2011) [no label]

“To say that they are “party-starters” is both clichéd and not quite right—because the best time to hear Nguzu DJ is in the middle of the party, when their thick and luscious mixes add a level of sinuous intensity to the club.” (—)

…

I know Nguzunguzu primarily as producers, or remixers. They mix pop songs from the now and 90s with vaguely tropical sounds. Hang drums, African and Latin beats, “juicy synths”. It’s a lot of fun. I think this might be the first in a series of like 3 mixes? They also release other shit. Their sound when they first came out was super influential on outsider club and R&B, and like it might still be? I don’t really follow this shit tbh.

I thought it was one dude but its actually a dude and a woman.

Skepta / Konnichiwa (2016) [Boy Better Know]

“Skepta’s flow and vocal delivery are a lot easier on the ears than most of his peers, rapping with a brash Brit urgency and chanting in a singsongy, catchy Jamaican patois reminiscent of dancehall greats. … Skepta’s groovy 10-ton bass lines, eerie open-ended synth lines, and hard-hitting snares crush anything Metro Boomin could come up with on FL Studio. This is grime suitable for both late night hooliganism with the gang and drunkenly stomping it out in the club.” (—)

___

“Skepta’s album arrives as a breath of fresh air in the scene, finding the perfect balance in retaining the trademark grime sound and seemingly higher marketability across the Atlantic and elsewhere. Like the best, most colorful rappers in the States, Konnichiwa confidently struts and showcases the emcee’s vibrant, exciting personality traits perhaps more than pretty much anyone else in Britain, grime or otherwise.” (—)

…

I don’t know shit about grime. Its the UK answer to rap that’s been poised to blow up for like 13 years now? It’s a history and culture I’m trying to familiarize myself with more, and the journey is a quite a treat.

Ok so as far as I understand it, grime was a big underground thing that had the potential the blow up following Dizzee Rascal’s Boy in da Corner in 2003. It fuses the electronic music of UK garage and drum n’ bass with rowdy Brit-dialect rap. Dizzee made some noise across the pond but with the exception of maybe like Lady Sovereign and The Streets and Jamie T (who are all white and all are more coy British hip hop than grime proper), shit just didn’t stick. Meanwhile, names like Skepta and Wiley and a host of others kept on keeping on. And while it didn’t pick up as globally as it should have, that didn’t stop corporations in the UK from pushing it into the mainstream.

I dunno how effective the push was, but it seems to have become a watered down and sold out version of itself. Huge but not that huge? Skepta and others were groomed for mainstream success and sold the soul of grime. Now every grime MC is in their like early 30s and fed up with what they had to endure. As such, Skepta’s Konnichiwa is anti-corporate and anti-fake grime. He’s angry but he’s charming bout it.

There’s also stylistic differences between South London grime and East London grime. Tho Skepta is from North London and fuses both styles together. Also, it’s not an album-based genre, but one defined by “singles, loosies, hotly pressed riddims, and pirate radio broadcasts.”

Also Drake loves grime and Kanye’s into it to. Why it hasn’t blown up despite 10+ years of glorious existence is due in part to racism, I’m sure. Ya, the beats are abrasive and bassy, and the club culture in the US is nowhere near as intricate as that of the UK, but bros still loved dubstep for a long minute. Also, people love Doctor fucking Who and Sherlock. People love pip pip cheerio and hot British dudes and tea and the queen in the US. Anglophilia runs amok on Tumblr. So why can’t white people in the US fucking listen to grime? What’s wrong with u uncultured fucks?

Other shit:

Everly Brothers / Walk Right Back

Brood Ma / Daze

Kelela / CUT 4 ME

Max Richter / 24 Postcards in Full Colour

Beastie Boys / Paul’s Boutique (this might become one of my fav album)

Yasutaka Nakata / “Crazy Crazy” (ft. Charli XCX & Kyary Pamyu Pamyu)

#SOUNDS

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