#just not all of the full albums

[match-your-steps]

Ok I always thought the "I am ---" trilogy and the Clé trilogy were two separate things but I've also always been confused by "I am YOU," the featured track from the final "I am ---" album. Like, it's sweet and all, and it makes a little sense (the line "I see myself in you" really clears things up for that one tbh), but it's never really felt like a resolution.

If I think about it, though, the Clé trilogy seems to be another identity-finding journey that centers on separating your identity from others. I don't mean, like, uniqueness, but rather not relying on others for your sense of identity. If I'm right, then Clé is actually a continuation of the "I am ---" albums.

However, the I am WHO album kind of doesn't fit very well here, because the main featured track is "My Pace," which is about not paying attention to like. peer pressure and stuff and doing the things you want to how you want to do them instead without comparing yourself to others. That kind of feels like it fits better with the whole separating self from others thing Clé has going on.

I vaguely remember hearing that the other song they were considering making the main track for I am WHO was "Awkward Silence," which, don't get me wrong, I LOVE that song, but it does not fit the vibe of the album so I'm kind of glad they did not do that, but it's also about not feeling pressured in social situations.

I guess you could say "My Pace" and "Awkward Silence" fit the progression of the "I am ---" albums, in a way, because they're starting to realize who they are, but I feel like they're too far ahead for having a whole 'nother album left. To be honest, I've always thought "Question" fits the vibes the best.

Anyways, I have a sort of theory for how the progression goes and ties together between these 6 albums:

I am NOT - hold on a minute who do I really want to be? what do I want in life? are the things I want really the things people tell me I should/do?

Representative songs: "NOT!" "Awaken"

I am WHO - if I'm not who everyone says I am, then who am I? (starts discovering self a bit)

Representative songs: "WHO?" "Question"

I am YOU - forming a good relationship (of any kind; could be significant other, friend, parent, whatever), or perhaps returning to one. it could be like a new relationship they're very happy with or it could be reaching an understanding with the people they rejected in I am NOT. part of their identity comes from this relationship. a large part of their identity, actually, probably, because like. it's. I am you. uh yeah

Representative songs: "YOU." "I am YOU" "Hero's Soup"

Clé 1: MIROH - whoah guys I'm pretty rad amirite

Representative songs: "MIROH" "Victory Song" "Boxer"

Clé 2: Yellow Wood - wait actually something is wrong? life is not as easy as I thought (kind of like that)

Representative songs: "Side Effects" "TMT" (not gonna count any of the mixtapes bc they're really more like singles that just happened to be released in this album)

Clé: LEVANTER - I defined myself too much by my relationship with this person (maybe the person from I am YOU) and lost sight of what I wanted for myself, so when they left me (possibly in Clé 2) I no longer knew what I to do. However, I now realize this and can take hold of my desires for myself.

Representative songs: "STOP" "Levanter" (most of the other songs carry similar 'I'm gonna do what I want now' sentiments, however, they do not include the same ideas about breaking free as "Levanter" and "STOP," while it also does not in words, the fact that it is pretty close to being the same song as "Road Not Taken" from Clé 2 but with mostly different lyrics indicates a connection to the unsureness of that album with a sense of moving on from it)

From the resolution of the Clé albums, most of their albums follow a trend of confidence, like that in Clé: MIROH except they haven't gone back to an uncertain theme afterward. Not every song is so confident, but there were confident songs in the beginning, so why shouldn't it be the other way around?. Case in point: "Grow Up," from I am NOT didn't start with confidence, but it ended with it, and there's also "YAYAYA" from the album from even before their debut. In TOP, which, yes, is now like 3 years old or something (I'm really behind on their newer albums so idk what most of the songs are but I am literally actively working on it right at this moment) and was for an anime, there's "SLUMP," which was written/composed/arranged by Han and Chan so it definitely fully counts, and it's fully super not confident. Nevertheless, the fact that I knew all the songs up through, like, THUNDEROUS, and still had a really hard time thinking of less confident stuff means there's definitely a trend of confidence since the resolution of the clé albums.

[charminglyantiquated]

✨birthday playlist!✨

it's that time of year, baby! honestly it's been a rough few months, and I'm going to be spending the next seven months or so nose to the grindstone in the shipyard, so I'm looking forward to this year's playlist even more than I usually do. please, if you feel so inclined, share a song you love with me!

as ever, I'll make the whole playlist available on spotify and youtube in a week or two!

[coochellati]

Okay but I would DIE to see Bruno drawn like this:

I think he would beautiful all splayed across a soft cloud.

[beadelmare]

I randomly thought of having a photo album full of polaroids of the marauders in my dr and omfg. I need to take horrible mugs of sirius and annoy him about them so badly

[quirinah]

I hope they explode

[hers-underwraps]

calico definitely show the baby photos to everyone at one point kwazii was so embarrassed

Haha I can definitely imagine that happening

Especially since Kwazii tries so hard to appear “cool” around the crew. I can imagine him thinking

“aw man now I don’t look super mysterious with an unknown past. 😢 My Grandad actually loves me 😖”

But in all seriousness, deep down he’d be so happy to something to show for his childhood, especially since he was abandoned for so much of it. He’d also be enjoying how his photos show how he was a true pirate from day one.

Thanks for the ask!

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

You don't really read into my melancholia / When my depression works the graveyard shift all of the people I've ghosted stand there in the room / Sapphire tears on my face, sadness became my whole sky / It only hurts this much right now was what I was thinking the whole time / Ask me what I earned from all those tears / My sadness is contagious / I vowed not to cry anymore if wе survived the Great War / Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness / You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love, the slowest way is never loving them enough / The wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign / All I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier / Never take advice from someone who's falling apart

[arilphys]

i haven't drawn caim in 3 years

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

the tlsp cover of moonage daydream is quite simply one of the best things to exist. that is all.

[rad-roche]

have you played 1999 yet? what are your thoughts on women

i have!! i got the true ending yesterday. i've been saving it for a bigger post because there's a lot to chew on but in short and spoiler free: thrilled with it. could not possibly be happier with the update. i went into it thinking eh, the hex are okay, and came away adoring how all of them are written. music fantastic. writing fantastic. god willing they keep this chat system going forward. in short:

also i treated myself to the eleanor gemini skin despite not having a good build for my nyx yet. shhh... keep this a secret

[masterfuldoodler]

Happy half•alive!!!

[good-beans]

Kudos to anyone making ocgrams, that's really an impressive amount of content 👁👁

[sainteclectic]

What is Whole, Exactly?

Part 1 - Calamity

Disclaimer: This series of posts are meant to be my own personal interpretation of the album! I'm just one person, and the beauty of this album is that there's so many interpretations. I don't want to come off like I'm stating facts about the story here- it's all my personal thoughts, you're free to have your own!

that said, let's get into it!

Time Machine Reprise

(Soul)

Oh, live the dream in a time machine I've been waiting forever But I can't seem to find my footing back on one What's the time? Where's it gone? When's beat one?

This is the very first mention of Whole, or at least the concept of Whole. Here, “one” refers both to Whole and the first beat of the song. This sets up the idea that Whole is the end goal of this loop (whether it be a literal or metaphorical loop), and that the splitting of Whole is what causes this loop to continue. Soul has been waiting forever for the harmony to last, but he can't find his footing (i.e. ending the cycle). This segues into the next song nicely.

Dream

(Soul)

There’s still another sunset to be found inside this tangent, so I will try again. And perhaps when we become whole, it’ll hold.

Soul’s determination here defines this song. The first half of this song is chaotic and frantic, the middle half bitter and mournful. Here though, he finds his resolve. He knows that being Whole isn’t permanent, implying Soul knows something about the loop. This is further supported by the fact he says he “can’t go another round of cacophony.” It puts a lot more weight into his words: He knows that this is pointless. He knows that it won’t hold. Whole is an unattainable goal that Soul knows won’t last. But he still tries. This devotion in the face of futility is what defines his character.

Perhaps we’ll meet at Tycho, or somewhere more solar, yet colder. This world’s hard to shoulder. But when Harmonia shines, Atlas beholds her, so bathed in serenity; beauty, in synchronicity; blissfully entwined. Divine. So I will try one more time...

This is the reference most people think of when they think of Whole. Obviously, Atlas refers to Soul in this metaphor. People think of Atlas as holding up the earth, but he actually holds up the sky. He keeps the sky from crushing the world below. Now, what characters are represented as the sun and moon, the two main things you see when you look at the sky? This metaphor is even evoked in this very segment: Tycho is a crater on the moon, and the “solar, yet colder” is a clear reference to Mind, who’s directly referred to as cold despite being the sun. Soul holds up Heart and Mind, keeping them from crushing Whole—his world, the thing that he’s shouldering this burden for despite knowing it’s fruitless.

Now, Harmonia. Harmonia is the goddess of concord and harmony. In fact, she's also called Concordia—which could be the inspiration for Concord as a name. It's unclear here whether Harmonia represents Whole in this line, or she's the abstract concept of being Whole. Either way, Atlas seeing Harmonia is Soul clinging to the image of Whole as a beautiful, serene, divine thing. The perfection of Harmonia is what keeps him going. Becoming Whole is also referred to as “harmonizing” several times in the album, furthering the connection that being Whole is seen as a harmonious and beautiful thing.

{I had an entire paragraph interpreting the mythos around Harmonia before realizing it's probably not that deep, but I digress.}

My point is, our first descriptions of Whole come entirely through Soul and his determination to make it through Cacophony again. It's not until Cacophony that we hear Heart and Mind's thoughts on what Whole means. Next time... we hear those! I was originally going to make this all one big post, but I'm already at 2k words and I haven't even finished my analysis of Cacophony yet. So... no, we aren't doing that.

...I have no idea how to end this post. Ok bye

[stackslip]

ive never been a metalhead but maybe i should become one

[cantquitu]

.

[seaofreverie]

Today I want to share the joy that Reading A Newspaper has brought me recently (yesterday).

Because you see, it's not very often that I can read a several pages long good quality feature on a band that I'm something of a fan of, considering that until last year at best, all and any musical favourites I had were next to unheard of in the, let's call it, professional music business. And said feature also gave a few mentions to the one and only fav band of all time which I'm also still not used to being able to read about in my language (because it only happened like 5 times in total so far anyway, but still). And I can buy the newspaper in my local store in this minuscule town and find Sparks inside, like wow, it really is My Sparks, in this real life physical newspaper that I just got. This was like a belated but very epic christmas gift for me and I'm not kidding.

But well yeah getting to the point now, Franz Ferdinand are starting their tour soon promoting their upcoming new album and they're stopping in Poland too, so there was this whole 14-pages long overview of their whole career, and while I was obviously interested in the whole thing I was most hyped about the fact that there would have to be something about FFS and Sparks there and this brings me to my delighful observation that wow, all of this is so, connected in a way. Like how there are these connections in inspiration and collaborations between many of my favourites that I didn't even think about probably being a thing before, but when I think about it it just makes so much sense. Like how in this interview with Alex Kapranos, the interviewer brings up Talking Heads and specifically Fear of Music, because the new Franz Ferdinand album also has this sort of overarching theme of fear. And it's funny because that's the first Talking Heads album I've ever listened to and still my favourite from them to this day and overall one of my all-time favourite albums. And I guess it shouldn't be that shocking that it'd come up here because Talking Heads were super influential and inspired thousands, but also until now I didn't think about how both these bands share the general direction of creating dance-able type of rock with lyrics that are often on the more reflective and "intellectual" side. And also that album has been recommended to me as the most TMBG-like of theirs so. Wow I wonder why I like it.

Ok there were also all these other things that I want to mention too, so, other miscellaneous points of interest:

In the debut album review, the reviewer said that during Tell Her Tonight Alex sings a lot like Russell Mael, who likes to sing in falsetto. And well I know there's also the Sparks connection in the form of FFS to come later but still, this was such a great SPARKS MENTION!!!! moment for me anyway. But also they got one thing wrong, because it's not that Russell likes singing in falsetto, Ron forced him to sing in falsetto by writing all of his songs in this crazy uper range of notes, and that's a very important detail !!!!!!

And ok I had no idea that Piss Off already existed in some form as far back as 2004!! Or I knew about this and then I forgor. Either way, fascinating piece of information

I need to know more about how these star-based ranking systems work because why would you call FFS an "excellent album" and then rate it 4 stars. Instead of, I don't know, 4 and a half or 5 maybe?? Especially since it apparently has only 2 "weak songs". And I have some major objections when it comes to this too, because we're calling Things I Won't Get a weak track now?? It's just underrated as heck, and that's a hill that I will die on

Also I could never be a music reviewer because these people can fit their whole commentary on one song within one sentence and I feel like I would have to write at least 3 paragraphs on even the least exceptional of songs on a given album before I can feel like I did it justice. I mean, this whole post itself shows how much of a problem this is for me, lol

Also guys were we all aware that FFS turns 10 next yeah. Oh god. Well I need to remember to keep my tradition and preapre a cool piece of fanart for that occasion then. Maybe they should give us FFS 2 to celebrate, I'm pretty sure there'd be lots of interest among the fandom in something like that. Anyway

Well also this wasn't the only article in this whole thing of course and CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, there was a little bit on the Harrison & Belew Remain In Light Tour, which I will also be attending!!! Lots of great stuff is cooking for the first half of 2025 for me musically I can't lie

And also CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, that a year and a half since it was supposed to be released "worldwide" and long after I already lost hope that I'd ever see it in a cinema, they're releasing Stop Making Sense in cinemas over here too. Fucking finally!!! By gods and heavens, that rare moment when you learn about something crucial through a goddamn instagram ad of all places. And then they also reminded me about this in an actual article so well wow. Can you believe this. I can't. So stocked for next saturday when i'm seeing this movie the way it was always supposed to be seen hehehe

Ok I think that's it. Thank you for reading and maybe I should really make that personal website for my rambles in the new year. I'd definitely put that thing to use.