#late 60s folk pop

[nonenglishsongs]

Lenny Kuhr - De Troubadour (Dutch)

Lenny Kuhr − De Troubadour

[eregyrn-falls]

BYEEE! MULTI-VERSE COLLECTION by Studio Bad Egg

Strap in, folks! This is going to be a long one!

Studio Bad Egg is currently running another campaign for merch related to Gravity Falls, The Owl House, and Amphibia. Some of the items are cross-overs between the three shows (well... primarily the Ford figure; more on that in a bit).

You can find ALL of the info at the live campaign page on Indiegogo.

You'll find turn-around videos of some of the merch at the bottom of this post.

Here's the copy from the Indiegogo page: Welcome to the BYEEE collection, Studio Bad Egg’s big send-off, developed as a fan-made tribute to the pop-culture-defining trio of Dana Terrace, Matt Braly, and Alex Hirsch. In this explosive merging of worlds, we say goodbye to the family of shows that have inspired us from day one with a huge, unofficial merchandise campaign the likes of which you’ve never seen before! That’s right, this fan merch campaign is dedicated to The Owl House, Amphibia and Gravity Falls - finally meeting and rubbing shoulders after years of staring at each other from across TV schedules.  This enormous cult fan merch campaign embodies the spirit of love, acceptance and wonder that each series represents - and passes that message onto you from us, as we bid farewell and move onto pastures new. Conceived and concepted by Studio Bad Egg’s Richmond Parakhen, with designs and illustrations by Kyri45, with unique stories by Jordan 'Grunkle Jam' Mooney, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see three much-loved realms merge in the crossover event of the century! This is a completely fan-made tribute collection, with absolutely no involvement from the actual creators or major animation studios.  As a result, we hope we don’t have to say this, but - THIS IS NOT CANON! Promise!! WE ARE SERIOUS!!!

As you can see in the top image, they are fully-funded already, and then some. So all stretch goals seem to have been met.

Here's a list of what's available, and the costs:

Portal Ford fig 8" (with Portal, Sprig Plantar, and Palismen) - $300 Brass Tacks Stan fig 8" - $180 Cipher Shack pin 2.25" - $25 Triangular enamel pins - $60 ea. Triangular enamel pins - 4 pin set - $240 BYEEE! Portal Print - $40 Anne Boonchuy fig 6" - $85 Sasha Waybright fig 6" - $85 Darcy fig 6" - $85 Bill in Another Life (Bipper) fig 5" - $80 Mabel Glitter Knight fig 5" - $85 Harpy Eda & Harpy Lilith pin 2.75" - $? Hooty Backpack fig 6" w/ extra faces - $? Kind Robot fig 8" - $?

(The Harpies pin, and the Hooty figure, haven't been posted with a price yet that I can see. I would expect the Hooty fig to cost similar to the Stan and Ford figs, or between them - so probably between $180 and $300. It's not AS complex a figure as Ford, but the swappable faces makes me suspect it will cost more than Stan.)

(The Kind Robot figure $500k stretch goal, with the swappable drivers of Soos and Kikimoura, is BREAKING NEWS as of like, a couple of hours ago; posted on the subreddit but not yet on the Indiegogo page? Who knows what it's going to cost.) That's everything I know for now! Consult the Indiegogo campaign page for more info, and further updates!

Again: BYEEE! Indiegogo Campaign Page

AAAHHH! Late breaking news from the GF subreddit: a $500K stretch goal that does not appear to be up on the Indiegogo page yet:

[vyl3tpwny]

Music Genres

When I was kid, you would have probably heard me say something like “I don’t believe in genre labels”. To a degree, there is still something about that sentiment that I agree with; I don’t think you can really put music and styles of music in neat little boxes. But otherwise, I was pretty much wrong about everything else.

Let’s go over that.

pictured: Mala, one of the godfathers of roots Dubstep

—

To be blunt, “genre” isn’t just about approximating what a song sounds like. If you say “I love pop music”, that honestly doesn’t mean much. The more specific you get, the more you will approach something someone can imagine like “I like experimental progressive noise pop music”. Ok, I can start to imagine things that likely approach what you're talking about, but even then it will usually not help someone fully understand what something truly is. In categorizing and approximating music styles, genres only go so far. So what makes them important then?

Well, not to say that approximating a style when describing an artist to someone is a bad thing or that doing so isn’t meant to be valued, but it’s hardly the only reason these labels exist. Importantly, “genre” helps establish culture, history, and a musical identity. So when you're trying to tell someone you're listening to a "progressive rock” project, you’re not just imagining odd time-signatures and complex riffs, you’re also meant to understand and consider that whatever is being described as to you has some sort of relevance or importance with regards to the history behind progressive rock; the culture of college bands in the UK, the sound that the punk movement revolted against, the progression of musical storytelling in rock music since the late 60’s and early 70’s, stuff like that. There’s a distinct culture and history you can pinpoint and understand when you describe something as being progressive rock and you can’t just go around calling any complex electric guitar oriented music "progressive rock" unless it has those specific ties as well as understanding and iteration of the roots.

pictured: Genesis, because progressive rock mention

—

Genre labels help to clarify what kind of culture and histories a music project is being associated itself with and where a lot of its inspiration comes from. This is much more compelling reason for underlining the importance of genre labels and why they should be used correctly.

So, there is something I need to get off my chest then. There are a lot of misuses of genre labels all over the place, especially online. And I’m not talking about saying something is “Alternative Rock” when it’s clearly some kind of “Folk Rock” record instead. What I’m talking about is something like “Dubstep”.

Even as recent as a few years ago, I started personally reclaiming the term “Dubstep” as a genre label to describe any bass-adjacent music. At the time I did this, I thought it was cool, because the term Dubstep had been dubbed (pun intended) to be cringeworthy lexicon to some people. And while I feel that’s a noble reason to reclaim something like that, because some weirdos think it's cringe, in this case I actually think it’s wrong.

The term “Brostep” has been used to describe any non-roots bass-oriented music that originates from the proper roots Dubstep. It’s a term I didn’t like FOREVER, especially because the phrase was derived as a generalization of the kind of people who tend to listen to it. However, I actually think that Brostep is a title that people should be more comfortable and confident with labeling things as.

The original Dubstep came as a result of Jamaican immigrants bringing Dub music to the UK, which then fused with the remnants of 2-Step Garage which was prominent in the 90’s just years prior. Timbah.On.Toast made a great video called All My Homies Hate Skrillex and it is a really good breakdown of what separates roots Dubstep from the Americanized Brostep, which came after it. I think everyone knows by now that I have a deep, deep love for EDM based Broste and I am the biggest Skrillex fangirl alive. So being both a Brostep and Skrillex superfan, please understand that I think the video is one of the most important things you can watch as an EDM enjoyer.

Conflating the term Dubstep with things that aren’t actually Dubstep is honestly a slap in the face to all of the pioneers of Dub and Dubstep, which famously were both pretty much ENTIRELY invented by black people. I think it’s fair to say that incorrectly labeling music in this way has racist implications. It dishonours and twists the legacy of the music. You can find og Dubstep to listen to on the RYM Ultimate Box Set > Dubstep page. Check some of that out, then listen to some 2010, 2011 Skrillex and see how different things really went.

It confused me at first when I was a teenager, I didn't understand why so many people hated Skrillex back in the day. I came to realize so much of the hate wasn’t even really with regards music itself, but the total lack of understanding or care for the roots of the genre, which all of his work was founded upon and he then subsequently bastardized without caring at all. It was pure disrespect, it was practically cultural erasure and so many people will now only know of Dubstep as “that Skrillex transformer screech music”. Yeah. It actually fucking sucks.

But there is a LONG history of black music being erased from history and being undermined, whether entirely intentional or due to systemic unawareness.

I saw a post the other day talking about how it sucks that so much music is just lumped into being “video game music” when so much of this stuff has deep roots and cultural significance. The first example pointed how a lot of acid jazz music is just described as “Persona music” by the layperson now. Meanwhile, Acid Jazz as a genre is a huge development on things like roots jazz, disco, funk, and hip hop music. You know. All genres that were invented by black people. Fascinating, right?

Jungle music was also mentioned. And this one is very particular for me. Jungle music, when not being generalized as "PS1 Music", is often just called drum & bass or breakcore (also please Google the difference between breakbeat and breakcore, thanks) which are all fundamentally misunderstanding what Jungle music even is. Much of Jungle music, AS MANY THINGS DO, finds VERY prominent roots in Reggae, Dub, and sound system culture in Jamaica as well as countless other prominently black communities in the UK.

But it doesn’t stop there.

If you’re unfamiliar, there is a genre called “IDM”, otherwise known as Intelligent Dance Music. When I was a kid, and I first heard that word, I immediately was like “that is the most pretentious, stupid thing I’ve ever heard”. Eventually as I grew up, I just stopped thinking about that and started referring to more music as IDM. This style of music is generally characterized with “complexity” and being “not much danceable”. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the music that is called IDM, I do think there’s everything wrong with the term IDM, intelligent dance music.

When asked how he feels about being labeled as an IDM artist, Aphex Twin responded:

"I just think it's really funny to have terms like that. It's [basically] saying 'this is intelligent and everything else is STUPID.' It's really nasty to everyone else's music."

pictured: Aphex Twin, the funnyman himself

—

I think most people would agree with this sentiment. It’s so strange to call one kind of music “intelligent”, out of the hundreds of thousands of genres out there. But let’s bring this back to Jungle music. The reality is that IDM started to become a term around the same time that Jungle music became prominent, in the 90's. Both styles of music are complex, introspective, skittery, and chaotic (but refined and often disciplined) genres. Except, of these two, Jungle music was the one pioneered primarily by black artists. IDM was a sort in competition with Jungle. To therefore call IDM “intelligent” in comparison to Jungle music ... well. I don’t feel like I really have to explain why that’s fucked up.

A lot of people have proposed different names for IDM. A quick look on reddit yields things like “Experimental Electronic” and “Brain Dance” (which was coined by Aphex Twin's label). Me personally, the term “Electro-Prog” comes to mind. Sounds cool.

Similar conversations are presently being had about the term “Riddim”. This brings us back to the dubstep side of this discussion again. Riddim, as an EDM genre, is an offshoot of Brostep music that focuses a lot on repetition over the downbeat, maintaining an insanely distorted sound design, a lot more than the average Brostep song. However, the term “riddim” originates — yet again — from the Jamaican Patois for “rhythm”. And Riddim as a musical style in Jamaica is actually more associated with things like dancehall and reggae, rather than the commercialized "Riddim" that is several hundred times removed from its own roots.

Last year, musician INFEKT proposed that what most EDM listeners call “riddim” should be referred to instead as “Trench” in an article on their website. This proposed name is derived from Getter’s use of the term on his 2014 record “Trenchlords Vol. 1”. I don’t personally know how much I resonate with the term, but whatever the consensus is, I don’t think we should be conflating a westernized, commercialized, and EDM-centric genre like this to Jamaican roots music. Over and over again, it seems that black music is constantly overwritten by developments like this, so I think more care needs to be taken in not allowing that to happen.

As a side note, a lot of people online seem very keen on appropriating Jamaican Patois quite often? There are so many examples of this. When the term “Bomboclaat” started making the rounds on Twitter a few years ago, so many white people were quick to either talk wildly about the term and trend or otherwise start saying it as well. There was a fucking article that sought to answer “The Bomboclaat >> Meme << Meaning Explained”, like they’re not dissecting an element of Jamaican slang lol. Then there was a period of time where people were constantly saying things like “On Jah?” as a stand-in for “On God?” even though this, again, is Jamaican Patois. And even now, you have tons and tons of non-black people going everywhere being like “what is blud waffling about?”, the phrase “blud” ONCE AGAIN also being Jamaican in origin.

I shouldn’t even have to explain what makes these kinds of appropriations weird and messed up. But black people lose jobs and are denied basic things in life over their hair styles, their expressions and slang, and so many other things that a white person can just appropriate and face zero consequences whatsoever for.

That aside, aside. Understanding and labeling genres correctly is such a big part of music history and highlighting and preserving cultures worldwide. When efforts are made to undermine the meaning of a genre label or otherwise use it incorrectly, so much damage is done to the communities and people groups that innovate and pioneer this art to begin with.

For these reasons, I will gladly use the term Brostep. I will happily call things Electro-Prog. And when you talk about genres like Jungle and Dubstep, say it with your whole chest. Be proud of the human race, show respect and love for the people who have forged the greatest parts of music with their bare hands. We will always stand on the shoulders of giants as musicians, so instead of pretending you yourself are the giant, build monuments and maintain the history of these people. You as an artist are nothing without them.

pictured: Augustus Pablo, one of the most important innovators of Dub. Without him, and without many of his contemporaries, I would reckon that half or more of all modern music would simply not exist.

CONTENT WARNING FOR THIS FINAL SECTION, THERE ARE LIKE LOTS OF STRANGE SLURS AND RACIST VIBES.

—

One last thing I wanna mention, this is slightly tangential but I think it's relevant to this conversation. It's always weird how lots of websites categorize things like this:

From Big Fish Audio... "G**sy*? "World/Ethnic Loops & Samples"? What the fuck are you talking about. Seems like racism to me.

On Loopmasters they have a "World" section. Any Americanized genre gets its own category, but the entire continents of Africa and Asia as well as the country of India and region of the Middle East (which are part of Asia, hope this helps btw) and lastly South America are stuffed into the nebulous "World Label". Seems like racism to me. Are you telling me you weirdos can't figure out a better way to represent these things?

But then Psy Trance gets its whole entire own category? Aren't there only like five people who listen to Psy Trance? /hj . But like come on.

Shoutout to WA Productions for categorizing a universe of suspiciously mostly black music as """Urban"""". And this company is a dime a dozen, hundreds of corpos do this shit.

East fucking West, what is this dude. There is a racism happening, I just know it. Please give me a count of how many poc are on payroll at your company, I am so curious.

And while we're at it, East West, what is this. Tell me. Fucking tell me.

Thanks for reading.

[heroshifter]

★ Music you can listen in your DR ★

(from 60's to 90's)

𓈒 ﹒ ☆ 𓂂 ˚ ☆ ꙳ * ࣭ ࣭

→ 60's ←

The Rolling stones (rock)

Pink floyd (rock)

The Mamas and the Papas (folk rock)

Marvin Gaye (R&B/soul)

Tammi Terrell (R&B/soul)

Louis Armstrong (jazz)

Beatles (rock/pop)

The Animals (rock/R&B/British blues)

Ben E. King (R&B)

Frank Sinatra (jazz)

→ 70's ←

The cure (rock)

T.rex (rock/ late 60's but their album were published in 70's so I put them here.)

Mott the Hoople (rock)

Slade (rock)

David Bowie (rock)

Queen (rock)

ABBA (pop)

Boney M. (Pop)

Eagles (rock)

Kiss (hard rock)

→ 80's ←

the Smiths (indie rock)

Radiohead (rock)

Black Tambourine (indie pop)

Sonic youth (alt rock)

Fugazi (punk)

Dead Kennedys (hardcore punk)

Bad brains (punk)

Eurythmics (pop punk)

Madonna (pop)

Guns and roses (rock)

→ 90's ←

Rage against the machine (rock, in fact it's more complex than that but it's rock)

Green day (punk)

Red Aunts (punk)

Nirvana (rock)

Audioslave (rock)

Limp Bizkit (metal)

Linkin park (alt rock/metal)

Slipknot (metal)

Fugees (Hip-hop)

Coolio (rap)

𓈒 ﹒ ☆ 𓂂 ˚ ☆ ꙳ * ࣭ ࣭

[thislovintime]

On the set of 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee, November 1968.

“As a matter of fact, I think I might fairly say that 33 & 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee, I sat down and started to play the piano, I started to try to find again some of those old licks. I had played them almost more as joke than anything when they… when I was first playing piano in the late 50s. But later on I got to do them seriously, listening to the Fats Domino style of playing, Jerry Lee Lewis style of playing piano, Little Richard, I mean, those guys.” - Peter Tork, Headquarters Radio, 1989 “When rock and roll came in in the 50's, it was the bluesiest of the songs that got me the most. Early Elvis, Little Richard, these were the performers I was drawn to. As I got into folk music for myself toward the end of the 50's and into the early 60's, I didn't have the confidence it took to even try the blues. It's taken me all these years to believe that a) I understand the blues enough socially and emotionally, and b) that I have the technique to play them. A well played blues NOTE, to this day, makes my heart sing.” - Peter Tork, Ask Peter Tork, 2008 “We [Shoe Suede Blues] play blues, we play some Chicago blues, we play some rockabilly blues, that’s where the name comes from, ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’ ‘Rip It Up,’ Little Richard’s ‘Rip It Up.’” - Peter Tork, GOLD 104.5, 1999 “I love Little Richard; I think he is the greatest rock ’n’ roll singer of all time. He was just a powerhouse and taught us all how to do it. Then along came The Beatles who deeply influenced me. But the blues-pop thing just sends me.” - Peter Tork, Shindig Magazine, 2010

[tiredfinch]

also here's marauders music taste hcs (period accurate), but some characters aren't included bc I'm not super deep in fandom so I don't . know/think anything abt them.

-

james- I think he'd be a big fan of all the music of the now and maybe 10 ish years earlier. lots of sixties duwopy pop-rock like the beatles, the zombies and the turtles but also more contemporary stuff; Fleetwood Mac, Wings, the Pretty Things, Frank Zappa, the Eagles, Queen and Bowie (not glam, disco. so like thin white Duke era- not that he'd mind glam bowie I just think he'd prefer disco bowie)! also I think like Ambrosia and other 70s pop he'd dig.. but I think he would be totally in love with Fleetwood Mac, especially their album Mystery to Me- because it would remind him of lily. I think he, along with alice, would get lily more into fleetwood mac.

lily - I think she'd really prefer 50s rock and jazz .. blues and soul too, though I don't think she'd mind later rock. she just seems very buddy holly/chet baker/frank sinatra/ray charles/ella fitzgerald/nina simone, I also think she'd really like otis redding but he's 60s lol, oh and I think she would've LOVED the monkees when she wad younger and would think theyre brilliant.

sirius - glam glam glam and then also punk from the late 70s-81.. also goth+post punk music (ie. the cure, echo and the bunnymen, the smiths, siouxsie and the banshees, depeche mode, joy division ect ect) but I always think of goth as sort of a mid-late 80s thing so I don't think he'd have really been exposed to alot of goth bands because he was. in jail... but I think David Bowie, T. Rex, Lou Reed, the Velvet Underground, and then like Television, Patti Smith, the Clash, Iggy Pop, the Stooges. yk.. but also a lot of what James listens to as well!:3 bc they r bff! also I think remus and sirius share great love for queen :)

remus! - folk! and art rock! I think he'd like a lot of the glam sirius listens to and I think he'd be a very big velvet underground fan. as for folk, I think Bob Dylan, Vashti Bunyan, Donovan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Janis Ian, Simon and Garfunkle, GEORGE HARRISON!! - that sort of vibe.. also also think he'd share folky stuff with lily and she would rather enjoy it !

peter - I don't think he really listens to music tbh, not in the way where he'd have favourites. just whatever is on the radio/the records his friends play!

alice - I think she lovessssss female artists and makes a point to listen to them. Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian, Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Kate Bush, Aretha Franklin, very varied but very girl, because I think Alice is a big fan of women doing things idk. bisexual moment 4 her. I think her and lily would also both share a really great love of Stevie Nicks and be like fanatics of hers.

frank - I think bro LOVES reggae idk. Bob Marley fan. culture/jimmy cliff/the gladiators. I also think he'd like a lot of "dad rock" bands, led zeppelin/steely dan/the eagles/the who/the kinks.. yar naur. he's a man❤️🙂‍↕️

severus - classical music snob, probably inherited from his mom. loathes rock n roll idk. seems like THAT SORT OF GUY..

regulus - lots of classical and jazz, but not in the way severus is like pretentious, I mean coming from a muscianship standpoint. I think he'd especially love miles davis jazz wise and beethoven+liszt classical music wise (ie. I think he'd have a great love for romantic music, even though beethoven isn't usually considered romantic- just LISTEN to moonlight sonata, it is DRIPPING with the emotion of romantic music).

-

I also have a list of music artists I think would be witches/wizards in the wizardings world, so I might post that soon:)

[oldguardleatherdog]

The September 11th roleplay consulting post: a gift that keeps on giving.

Hey faithful folks and followers, friends old and new, it's late in the kennel and I've got an early class and should be in bed but wanted to drop a note about the 9/11 roleplay post where I offered to be a consultant for a Discord server reenactment that's picked up more than 100,000 notes since my addition last August.

Seven months down the road, it continues to draw comments and reactions that pop up from time to time in my mentions. A few are designed to work my nerve, of course, but the vast majority are a balm to my spirit. Most are variations of "he had me in the first half ngl", keyboard smashes abound, many make me laugh out loud, and I truly wish Tumblr allowed reactions or direct replies to tags because so many ask me how I'm doing, want to know more (and I still get direct messages about it, which I encourage), and express respect and warmth that makes my heart just want to burst.

I get a lot of grief across social media as a queer activist, especially these days, and my initial foray into Tumblr was marred by a 10,000-person brigading of a stoner post I made that was picked up by some 20-year-old in Scotland of all places who thought it sport to make fun of a 60-year-old pup player with AIDS ("I wish he died in 9/11" is a memorable comment, and I'm afraid I'll never forgive a certain were--something who joined in) followed by a mass reporting that wiped out my queer resource blog (and you can be sure I haven't stopped trying to get it restored)... but the reactions to my toss-off dark humor post as a September 11th Survivor have wiped that slate clean, and my time here is a joy and a blessing and always, always well-spent and worthwhile.

For the record: I'm doing fine. My PTSD is well-treated and rarely troubles me, my performance art and music career has never been more active and vital, and I'm working as a director for a trans rescue organization (www.rainbowpassage.org, please give us a look and spread the word), on the front lines of queer activism where I have always belonged.

I have a beautiful family whom I cherish, my Master and I will celebrate our first wedding anniversary in a week and my 62nd birthday the next day (15 years together on 4/20!), and I treasure each and every one of you. Thank you for reading my various barks and howls, for being a part of my Tumblr journey, and for your presence in my life.

Best woofs always, Animal aka pup bruzr

[earphone-jacks]

My Hero Academia Class 1-A Music Headcanons

I've been catching up on the manga and thinking a lot about Jiro making a collaborative playlist to help her really connect with her classmates lately. Anyway,

Deku listens to soundtracks, like bombastic instrumentals from old superhero movies, and I like to think he enjoys some fantasy adventures too. He also likes J-rock, including some openings and endings from the anime. He's pretty open to recommendations no matter the genre, but generally prefers more mellow stuff to help him relax and study or just unwind after a long day, and tends to listen to the same small handful of his favourite songs anyway.

Bakugo listens to heavy metal, particularly extreme metal. He loves the blast beat drumming and harsh vocals. A lot of the lyrics are incomprehensible upon listening, but if you took the time to look some of them up, they'd give more insight to his more vulnerable side that he's too prideful to show. I also like the idea of him having a softer private playlist that nobody lives to speak of.

Ochako didn't really seek out new music on her own before high school and formed her taste mostly from the radio or recommendations from friends. She has a lot of fun going through the playlist and she's happy to listen to anything from bubbly J-pop to heavy metal. I think she'd be a big fan of Babymetal.

Iida also likes instrumentals for studying, but more classical, and with faster tempos that he can take his morning runs to as well, like allegro. Something like hardcore techno would be funny, maybe some sport anthems, and a few more mellow rock songs that he picked up from his brother for when he needs to cool down.

Todoroki was very isolated and had a really limited musical library before high school. He'd also just listen to some classical, traditional Japanese music, or whatever was on the radio, if anything at all. He later gravitates to edgy alternative rock, or anything with relatable lyrics that help him vent his emotions. I think he could use that.

Tokoyami likes goth, modern classical, anything mellow, dark and ethereal-sounding with poetic lyrics. His music is oddly calming and haunting at the same time. He doesn't like anything too loud or harsh-sounding, partially because it can excite Dark Shadow too much.

Tsuyu and Koda both listen to cozy movie soundtracks, like from Disney or Ghibli, folk, lo-fi, ambient nature sounds, anything grounding and soothing, or "cottagecore".

Momo listens to classical, traditional pop, or modern music with elements of either, like baroque/chamber pop.

Jiro is already confirmed to have a preference for rock, probably alternative rock, and punk. I'd like to think some metal as well, but she'll listen to almost any genre and has impeccable taste in everything. She was largely influenced by her parents, and maybe grandparents, so her library spans a few decades as well.

Mina and Toru both listen to upbeat J-pop, and I like to think one of them introduced the others to Little Glee Monster. Maybe some sappy or wistful love songs more in private. Mina also likes 70s pop, disco and hip-hop, the kind of music that just compells you to dance and sing at the top of your lungs, maybe some psychedelic space rock and sci-fi horror soundtracks.

Kirishima is also confirmed to like 80s rock, like Eikichi Yazawa and Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi. I'd also think he likes stuff from as far back as the 50/60s as well, since Yazawa is the closest thing to Elvis from Japan that I know of, and that he picks up some more modern hard rock and metal mostly from Bakugo and Tetsutetsu as well.

Kaminari and Mineta both listen to J-pop, mostly from female idols that they think are cute. Besides that, Kaminari likes pop rock/punk and a lot of English music, and seems to have formed a lot of his taste from whatever was popular on the radio or social media with the occasional unexpected banger. He also had a dubstep, Vocaloid and hyperpop phase.

Sero is almost as adventurous as Jiro with music. He has a talent for finding underrated indie bands, and songs in a few different languages as well.

Aoyama also listens to some classical, but more opera, as well as French pop, some disco and house that he can vogue to. It's mostly upbeat but there's some sad-sounding songs in there as well that the others can't translate.

Shoji doesn't have much to contribute, being a minimalist, but he generally likes the more mellow indie stuff. He can get overstimulated easily.

Sato and Ojiro both like upbeat stuff, and enjoy music more as background noise for training, or baking in Sato's case. I also think Sato would enjoy the girls' bubbly pop music, and Ojiro would like some traditional stuff. Idk man they're nothing characters

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Wednesday, 11-13-24, 2pm Pacific

'Afternoon, folks, It's 2pm and Mr. Baggins is back with your Afternoon Stack of Classic Wax for this Wednesday afternoon. Today we are gonna have some fun with one of the biggest musical legends of the mid-to-late '60s and beyond, Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass. There is no way to overstate just how impeccably constructed their arrangments were, nor is there any way to overstate their importance in my own personal musical pantheon; I learned more about arranging and producing by listening to these guys than anything else. To start, we travel back to 1965, when Herb and the TJB took the world by storm. This was the lead cut on their monumental hit album "Whipped Cream and Other Delights". It blew open the doors to a string of hits that still has relevance and listenability to this day, sixty plus years later.

These guys first entered our collective consciousness via the TV. Many of these songs were eventually used as game show intros, but it all started out via this commercial right here, for Teaberry Gum...we knew it as "The Teaberry Shuffle", but when TJB recorded it it was The Mexican Shuffle. From 1964.

Now, after that, we started hearing them all over the AM radio, even on the straight-laced MOR "easy listening" station my mother made us listen to. But we also began to notice they were appearing on TV game shows, as well, most noteably The Dating Game, and The Newlywed Game. This next tune was played as the host read the introduction to the "bachelorette" and she walked out. The title cut from Whipped Cream. 1965.

And this was what The Newlywed Game played when they gave out the prizes, "Lollipops and Roses".

A few they would use on TV quite regularly, and they all ended up being big MOR easy-listening pop radio hits.

One of their best albums was called "SRO", for "standing room only". It yielded several great hits. One of my favorites was their version of "The Work Song".

My other favorite from this album was their remake of an old, old song from the '40s, "Flamingo".

And this nest tune hit me like a freight train the first time I heard it...the way they build the arrangement...the layering...the raising of the intensity...just absolute classic. Here is their take of "Wade In The Water"

By 1967, these guys were riding high...they were one of the biggest acts in America. We go from game shows to movies next, with their absolutely SLAMMIN' movie theme for "Casino Royale"

Welp, that's all the space I have for now, and that doesn't even scratch the surface with these guys. Consider this "Installment No. 1" of however many it takes...we'll pick up where we left off another time! I'll be back at 7pm Pacific with a little music to ease us into the night. Until then, be kind, babies, be kind. Baggins out.

[choicesmc]

Rams' 4 Bands

This is a long one folks. I had so much fun with it, I hope y'all will too! I'm putting it under a read more because (and this is a warning) it is long. And all the art you'll see is mine (admittedly it's only four pieces but 🤷‍♂️)

Tagging: @choicesbookclub

Summary: A rather established band with pop rock aesthetic. Rams found them in ~8th grade and has been an avid fan since! Right now, she's listening to their latest album: Solitude.

Band Name: +Eyes+ Members:

Adaeze Okeke "Iris" Leontes Valjean "Lens" Dieuwe Antema "Optic"

Latest Album: Solitude Songs In The Album: Keep Quiet, At Night, Things Stir, With Mal Intent, Interlude, Twilight Hour, Moonset, You Know Too Headcannons:

This band exists in the magickal world and are better known there! Their Tuneless music doesn't include Phono magick which often makes the sound feel 'lacking.' When Rams discovered this, xe reexperienced all their music 'properly' and will admit that it's much better on Phono than not. It feels complete.

Summary: Still underground, Buried Alive is a new band trying to gain a little following. Rams only heard of them through a friend of his who was friends with the band members. They only have four albums so Rams is starting with their first: BROKEN BONES.

Band Name: Buried ALIVE Members:

Ji-Woo Min Gang Deadweed Nkiruka Thorn

First Album: BROKEN BONES Songs In The Album: Mary's Strange Daughter, The Pastor's Sermon, My Witch Hunt, Sticks and Stones Headcannons:

They have a very ballad/tragic style. Each of the listed is songs is 9+ minutes long. Rams isn't sure how they feel about it yet but it's... not bad. It grows on them with each re-listen. The cover is homemade. They're trying their best, okay?

Summary: This band has the oldest members of all the bands Rams has listened to. The duo is 76 and 81 years old and their still going strong. Rams started listening sometime around sophomore year of high school.

Band Name: Sickening Sugar Members:

Immy (76) Mal (72) Nia (Deceased) Tyril (Deceased) Aerin (Deceased) Valax (Deceased)

Latest Album: Coffee + Tea Songs In The Album: Filter Me Out, Divide My Mix, Stir It In, No More Cream, Pieces of Crystal, Hot Bitter Drink, Choke and Choke Headcannons:

They're an old queer band though they were only moderately known in the 50s and 60s. That changed with the AIDs epidemic which claimed four of the six members lives leaving only Immy and Mal. Post-death, Sickening Sugar released a single (the last one to feature all members voices) titled 'What Do Mean? There's Still Six of Us'. It quickly gained traction and catapoulted the now duo into the centre of the LGBT movement throughout the late 80s and 90s. Their still heavily involved in activist work even if their heyday is a shiny memory. Yes, they are named after BOLAS characters because I think BOLAS the show is sort of like what Honor Amoung Thieves is to D&D. I headcannon that in-universe the BOLAS show pulled from a nerd culture of RPG games and Sickening Sugar named themselves after their favorite characters in those collaborative RPG games. It actually caused licensing issues while BOLAS was first coming out because two major characters couldn't be licensed since this band already held those licenses. The BOLAS legal team, Immy, and Mal worked out an agreement so Immy and Mal get royalties from each item. It's pretty good money considering the show's popularity.

Summary: it's a very folk-rock song. Mainly blending religion with critical anti-capitalism themes. The members in mid-40s and are currently on a break-up tour. Rams is devasted about it, the band has been a major part of hir highschool career and none had seen the break-up coming!

Band Name: PrOvide Members:

Wally Crawford Josslyn Platt Lilac Winton Astra Jackman

Last Album: Old School Choir Songs In The Album: Hymn, Hum, Worship, Watch, Praise, Pray, Worship, Watch Headcannons:

Yes, there are two different songs named Worship in the same album. Fans call the second one 'Worship Again' to differentiate them. Rumors have it that they're breaking up over creative differences but Rams doesn't fully believe those rumors. Unlike other bands, they've have a rather flexible sound that should be able to accommodate the odd/diverging album here and there.

[randomvarious]

1970s Punk Rock Playlist

So, like, isn't it kind of ridiculous that I've had this 70s punk rock playlist for a few years now, but I've never once put any UK stuff on it before? Isn't that a very crucial place where punk rock really blew up between its late 60s Detroit/Ann Arbor founding and The Ramones? Like, there's such a rich history from over across the pond that I haven't tapped into at all yet!

But, fortunately, that changes now. At long last, the Brits have arrived to fuck shit up, folks. And no, I didn't bring in any super obvious choices like The Sex Pistols or Buzzcocks or The Clash, because that's not really how I operate 😁. Instead, you're getting awesome tracks from a quartet of bands that you've probably never heard of before, unless you're either a) British or b) happened to read my 1970s power pop playlist post from last week, because there's a tiny bit of crossover there with the pop-punky and super catchy anthem that is Fast Cars' "The Kids Just Wanna Dance," which is by far this update's most popular track, as it's currently sitting at over 100K plays on Spotify.

But the rest of these adds, in spite of how good they are, have not proven nearly as popular as we keep getting nearer to their five-decade anniversary. Songs like the unfortunately oh-so-relevant-again-and-also-quite-salient anti-fascist bop, "They're Back Again" by a band called The Cigarettes, is only nearing 29K plays at this moment. And in true Brit punk fashion, this tune that was calling out a noticeable late 70s far-right rise, and was also released in the same year that Margaret Thatcher became UK prime minister too, really sounds like it pairs well with cracking some skinhead skulls! 🤘

I'm not a violent person, I'll make exception for you

And then "East Coast Kids" by The What?, which only has a little over 2.8K plays, has a bassline on it that's so prominent that, although it's most likely being played by a fretless, it could easily be mistaken for being that of a double. Really cool!

The Cigarettes - "They're Back Again, Here They Come" Fast Cars - "The Kids Just Wanna Dance" Squire - "Livin' in the City" The What? - "East Coast Kids"

And there's, of course, a YouTube version of this playlist too. Normally, I'd have at least one song to add to that one that can't be found on Spotify, but remarkably, this update doesn't actually have any.

And this playlist is also on YouTube Music.

So with this update, our Spotify version of this playlist now stands at 22 songs that run for 54 minutes, but over on YouTube, we now have 27 songs that run for 77 minutes. So if you want a little extra 70s punk rock, like a track from the legendary Stooges that somehow wasn't actually on YouTube until I showed up and somehow only has 28 plays(?) as of this writing, give that one a look.

And if you want something more specific and concise, I've got a punk playlist that's solely focused on 1979 too.

1979 Punk Rock: YouTube / YouTube Music

And here's the list of compilations that were used to build this playlist:

Motor City's Burnin' (1998, Total Energy) Destination Bomp! (1995, Bomp! Records) What? Stuff (1990, Iloki Records) Dangerhouse, Volume 2: Give Me a Little Pain! (1992, Frontier Records) Dangerhouse, Volume One (1991, Frontier Records) The Roots of Powerpop! (1996, Bomp! Records) 100% British Mod (1998, Captain Mod)

Back to some power pop next week 😎.

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

[singlesablog]

Sunshine Pop

“Happy Together” (1967) The Turtles White Whale Records (Written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon) Highest U.S. Billboard Chart Position – No. 1

Imagine me and you, I do I think about you day and night, it's only right To think about the girl you love, and hold her tight So happy together…

One of the great, enduring singles of the 20th century, “Happy Together”, by the Turtles, was released when I was only 2 years old, and still the song has had a lasting impact on my musical tastes.  It is today grouped under the moniker “Sunshine Pop”, which would include many contemporary purveyors of light psychedelia, including The Association (perhaps the most successful example) and the family band the Cowsills (with their seminal hit “I Love The Flower Girl” and its ringing lyric “happy…haPPY…HAPPY”), and many, many others.  The category, like the term Yacht Rock for the 70s, was only applied later to pull together the swirls of styles and culture springing up from a combination of folk, pop, and the Beatles, and not un-notably was possibly a reaction to the civil unrest bubbling up in the late 60s.  I can only guess the genre was the mainstreaming of a kind of specific tension rising up in America, a hip solution to changing times.  The genesis of these songs is elusive to understand, being a combination of hippie culture, long hair, and corporate rock—pulling apart the strands of influence is nearly impossible. But I will try.

I have read the Wiki on the Turtles many times and no cohesive idea of the band will gel.  Like the Association, some of the 5 or 6 male members were shuffled around during their hit-making period.  The band was clearly an easy listening vocal band for youth culture; they rarely wrote their own songs, instead they sifted around the industry for potential hits to record (which is in line with a lot of 60s hit-making).  During the period of “Happy Together” a new bassist, Chip Douglas, was added; this would be important because he would arrange the astounding vocal wall that crescendos at the end of the record.  Another important element, perhaps lending this single such authenticity, was that the band’s label, White Whale, was small and scrappy.  Because they could not afford the premium session players that all good California bands used for making hits, the band members, outside of orchestral sounds, played all of their own instruments.  The last bonafide is the lead singer, Howard Kaylan, whose dreamy vocal is undeniable.  But how did a journeyman band like The Turtles do it?  

One of the antecedents that explains their sound is California.  As surf music (the Beach Boys) was replaced by folk music (Dylan, and the West Village of New York), so emerged The Turtles with their first hit, the Californication of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe”, going groovy with it.  Before recording “Happy” they scratched around with hits comprised of older styles, the Brill Building of “You Baby” (P.F. Sloan and Steve Barry) and “Let Me Be” (P.F. Sloan).  These were solid songs, but the band clearly had ambition and wanted more, so they went on the prowl for a hit hit.  “Happy Together” was a demo that had made the rounds among many bands and rejected by all: the Happenings, the Vogues, and the Tokens. The two songwriters, Bonner and Gordon, had a connection to the Lovin’ Spoonful, and were shopping it around.  Howard Kaylan, the Turtles’ lead singer, has told the story of hearing the acetate for “Happy” and not only was it barely audible from use (acetate records, cut live rather than pressed, were inexpensive and were purposely used for demos and had short life spans) but terrible as well, with rickety guitar and a falsetto vocal.  But it appealed to the band, it had “something”.  Instead of recording it, they decided to workshop it live, and took it on the road for eight months before going into their studio, Sunset Sound.  According to Kaylan, they were more than ready, and recorded the whole track in 6 hours on an 8 track recorder.  They obviously did have the money for woodwinds and brass, but Kaylan has reported that listening to the separate tracks and arrangements he detected nothing special.  It was only when they heard them all at once, and mixed, that it was clear something magical was there.  He described it as elusive, with the mystical feeling that something had happened, and for the only time in his life he knew instantly they had created a No. 1. record.

The result was ebullience. Describing a perfect, hooky pop record is nearly impossible; suffice it to say that I hear it nearly daily as a tagline for an obnoxious tv ad and yet I always get that explosive tingle (ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba). Perhaps the Turtles are harder to understand today because we, of a certain age, have all been so profoundly changed by the singer songwriters of the 70s; before that movement it was commonplace for record labels to shift and shuffle band members and songwriters endlessly to generate a hit (one only has to read about the formation of the Drifters or the Temptations to become fully dizzy).  Making a hit record was always the preeminent idea, and it is our modern minds that has lead us to believe that artistry has to be the end result of a personal genius: no, no, not at all.  Sometimes it is in the air, and sometimes it is luck.  Perhaps it is always luck.  One thing is for sure, like the late, great, recently passed Quincy Jones has stated: it was always all about the song, man.

---

The Turtles, of course, wanted to repeat the success of “Happy Together”, and they nearly matched it with a song intentionally parodying themselves, “Elenore”, purposefully writing nonsensical lyrics like “Elenore, gee, I think you're swell” and “You're my pride and joy, et cetera” to send themselves up.  The joke wasn’t on them: it was a huge hit (Billboard No. 6), and uncharacteristically it was one the band wrote themselves.

One of the obvious precursors of the sound for a band like the Turtles is the Mamas and the Papas, who took Motown and the British Invasion and added a vocalese that was strictly California.  If you compare their sounds, so dependent on the vocals, they are remarkably similar.   I also hear this sound everywhere during that period, from the Cyrkle’s “Turn Down Day” (talk about an earworm) to the the arguably more successful and prodigious tunes from The Association, who’s monster No.1 hit “Windy” charted that very same year. Albeit whiter and squarer than the hippyish Turtles, their work would lead directly to the greatest white bread duo ever created, the Carpenters.

Now, I must insist: go listen to the song, and get happy!

[goldenbloodytears]

What music do you think Danny likes? I see him as the kinda guy who just puts on the local rock station, but I require your thoughts.

Agreed.

I think it goes without saying to some extent that growing up as a kid in the 1960s-1970s, he’s going to be drawn to rock. Especially as a dude? Lots of guys I know who grew up during this time period are obsessed with rock music, and I would guess part of that is somehow related to rock being seen as masculine music (specifically hard rock) when compared to music like disco, and isn’t seen as being “old person” music like big band and swing. Of course once you get into it the idea of gender binary music is pretty stupid but I digress.

I think he likes other music too, I can see him begrudgingly liking disco despite the major betrayal of KISS writing a disco hit lol

But I feel like he wouldn’t outright admit it…

When creating my furtive chase playlist it’s kind of a weird mix of music from the late 60s-mid 90s that reminds me of him while ALSO being bands and genres I think he would listen to. It’s primarily composed of classic hard rock, metal, a couple disco/pop hits, Oingo Boingo and I think one or two classical songs by Bela Bartok because that man knew how to compose creepy music (same with Shostakovich).

I feel like he probably does just put the radio on, but I’m lowkey attached to the idea that he’s tried making mixtapes at least once before he gave up and decided to just buy cassettes when he has the money and opportunity. The question at that point is probably whether his car even has a cassette player.

TLDR, as a child of a Vietnam veteran I feel like it’s a crime to make him not like rock music /s

There’s SO much great rock music (including folk hits) that was made in protest of Vietnam, it seems criminal to not build on that. Like seriously Danny has to have listed to War Pigs /Luke’s Wall at least ONCE

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 04/05/2024 (Taylor Swift, Tommy Richman, Kendrick Lamar's "euphoria")

Just a week after her album’s impact, Taylor’s been dethroned by… Sabrina Carpenter! She grabs her first #1 on the UK Singles Chart with the smash hit “Espresso” and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, Yeat praise

Rundown

As always, let’s start with the notable dropouts, which are songs exiting the UK Top 75 - that’s what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. Now this week, we bid adieu to: “The Tortured Poets Department” by Taylor Swift (it got three-song-ruled and dropped out from #3, more on that later), “act II: date @ 8” by 4batz featuring a remix by Drake (not his best week, more on that later), “Von dutch” by Charli XCX, “Kitchen Stove” by Pozer, “Whatever” by Kygo and Ava Max, “Murder on the Dancefloor” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor and FINALLY, “Lovin’ on Me” by Jack Harlow.

As for our gains, we see healthy boosts for “Pedro” by Jaxomy, Agatino Romero and the late Raffaella Carrá at #60, “Outside of Love” by Becky Hill at #54, “Evergreen” by Richy Mitch & the Coal Miners at #46, “The Sound of Silence” by Disturbed at #42 (yeesh), “These Words” by Badger and Natasha Bedingfield at #22, “I Don’t Wanna Wait” by David Guetta and OneRepublic at #20 - I guess obvious covers and remixes have a good week - then finally, a song hitting the top 10 I’m personally very happy with: “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey at #6. #1 incoming? Please?

We also continue to see the rise or, rather, resurgence of Amy Winehouse’s catalogue due to the biopic, with “Valerie” with Mark Ronson at #38, “Back to Black” at #39, and a re-entry for “Tears Dry on Their Own” at #49, which peaked at #16 when Ye’s “Stronger” was #1 in 2007. On that same album, he says he hates Nazis, look how far we’ve come. Anyways, “Tears Dry” contains a sample of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, made famous by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, which didn’t chart in its original form for the longest time here. It peaked at #6 in 1970 but only in the form of a cover by Diana Ross, whose version charted whilst Freda Payne’s “Band of Gold” was #1 - just shows that we don’t really remember the bigger hits of the time. The Boys Town Gang reached #46 with their cover in 1981, Whitehouse and Jocelyn Brown both charted with covers coincidentally in August of 1998 - they peaked at #60 and #35 respectively - and finally, the original first charted at #80 in 2013, amazingly still its peak, and briefly re-entered earlier this year. “Tears Dry” itself was sampled the last time Amy made the top 40 in 2023, with Skepta’s #28-peaking tribute “Can’t Play Myself”.

As for our top five this week, we start in the dregs with “i like the way you kiss me” by Artemas at #5, “Beautiful Things” by Benedict Cumberbatch at #4, “Too Sweet” by Hozier at #3, then of course Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone at #2 and “Espresso” at #1. It’s an interesting one today, folks, with a lot of unique and frankly, fantastic stuff to cover, so let’s start with… Kygo?

New Entries

#75 - “For Life” - Kygo and Zak Abel featuring Nile Rodgers

Produced by Kygo, Nile Rodgers, Ollie Green and Franklin

I’m honestly a bit surprised Kygo is still notching chart hits, especially without a big name attached this time. Sure, Nile Rodgers is a legend, but he’s doing so much dance-pop garbage in his later years that I don’t think many people check specifically for his collaborations, so there’s got to be something in this that’s unique, right? Aaaaaaand it’s a sample. It’s a nostalgia bait sample of a 2000s EDM track because of course it is. French house act Modjo debuted with “Lady - Hear Me Tonight”, which spent two weeks at #1 in 2000 and is an absolute classic I still return to today, even if Modjo were basically a one-hit wonder. “Lady” of course is built on a sample of “Soup for One” by Rodgers’ own band CHIC, which comes from a 1982 soundtrack album, never charted and kind of been eclipsed by “Lady”, largely because the original is honestly pretty bad, uninteresting and surprisingly stiff for an 80s funk track, with some of the weakest and most slap-dash implementation of synths. “Lady” really took the best parts of that song - its undeniable guitar melody, that isn’t even put to great use in the original - and constructed an entirely new, incredible song out of it. So I can’t tell if it’s pathetic and desperate for Rodgers to try and reclaim it, or something that speaks to the power of musical transformation. Oh, what am I kidding? It’s Kygo, it’s just kind of boring. It’s a rote piano house track that goes for the same tropical atmosphere Kygo has been doing for years - a lot of the same festival synths are there, it’s all full of bubbly swooshing that actively sound like pastel colours. The only real hook of the song is taken from Modjo and re-sang by Zak Abel, with slight lyric modifications taken from the “I’m Good (Blue)” department of refusing to allow for fun in your dance songs, and even that just feels desperate. What did Nile Rodgers even do here, man? Sign a legal document saying you can use the hook? It’s not even his Goddamn hook.

#69 - “Solo” - Myles Smith

Produced by Peter Fenn

Myles Smith is a singer-songwriter I hadn’t heard of until today but has been active since at least last year and is making at least some consistent buzz so I was interested to see what his first slow-burning chart hit here has to offer and… are we just, IN, 2012, 2013 now? We had festival house with the last song, the next song is heavily Yeezus-inspired, and this is a full-on Aloe Blacc stomp-rock song. It isn’t bad either - I actually had to get used to hearing his richer voice on this kind of scattered clap-stomp-holler folk track, and whilst this is nothing unique given the solemn pianos, spattering of strings and of course, that jingling indie folk rolick, that doesn’t feel particularly organic on this one, it still is far from bad. The lyrics are somewhat generic but not in an awful way, and the “so low”/”solo” double meaning is somewhat clever or at least, would be if in the context of the song, they actually meant separate things. It’s a bit annoying that it’s the main conceit because both have negative connotations for Mr. Smith here, so it just feels like he’s repeating himself rather than elaborating on his feelings or presenting a dichotomy. I imagine it’ll be a lost on a few people due to botched execution, which bothers me because it was an active attempt at clever songwriting that gets kind of lost in sonic translation. This sounds like I’m picking apart the song’s flaws but it is really just a fine little woodlands jams with a great singer, infectious hook and by the end, a damn fine melodramatic string section. I can see it growing on me, especially due to its gorgeous outro, but for right now, I’m somewhat lukewarm, not going to raise a fuss if it ends up smashing though and in a Noah Kahan world, I suppose it’s quite likely.

#64 - “If We Being Real” - Yeat

Produced by Synthetic, Radiate, Fendii, LRBG, Perdu and Dreamr

So terrible news: I like Yeat now. I’m still not granting him his silly little umaluts, and I won’t go too in-depth here, mostly because there’s another song worthy of in-depth analysis, and every piece Yeat’s put out fits into the jigsaw of the album’s narrative as a whole… it would require a lot more time and space, and frankly words, that I’m willing to give #64. No track feels unnecessary on 2093, the atmosphere is consistent across all 24 tracks, and lyrically, it’s a concept album, which I would have never expected from Yeat and he pulls it off brilliantly both sonically and thematically without straining himself to areas he probably couldn’t reach like trying to be super lyrical or stepping away from rage pads. Given the album’s experimentation and length, I wasn’t surprised by the lukewarm commercial reception, but I did at least expect maybe the songs with Future, Wayne or Drake on the deluxe, to have charted by now, when this hasn’t even happened in the US. So when the penultimate track on an album that’s over an hour in its standard issue becomes his first solo hit in the top 75, I have to assume TikTok virality is involved.

Regardless, I’m glad it’s here because it’s brilliant. Sonically as a separate track, it’s one extended verse over a corrupted industrial beat that cracks in right after a mystical intro full of textured but meandering strings, that get swooshed out of existence by a cinematic, malfunctioning clunker incorporating Yeat’s inhuman ad-libs, manipulated behind vocal recognition, into infectious loops within the beat. This is one of few songs - another’s coming later - where I can understand the sheer amount of producers. Lyrically, the title refers to Yeat or more accurately, his psychopathic billionaire character, attempting to shed some of his CEO veneer and ultimately failing, adopting a lot of the violent, power-hungry rhetoric the rest of the album relies on, making it a pretty ironic and depressing title, especially when considering its place in the rest of the album, coming right before the… actually honest and heartbreaking closer, “1093”. In the backhalf of this album, Yeat’s bragging sounds increasingly monotone and routine, and him rapping in and out of distorted filters or going up and down from his traditional murmur to a choking yell, exemplifies how sick and tired he is of the lyfestyle he curated for himself. This song in particular ends with him barely on beat for a beat that doesn’t even really have a beat, becoming a factorial ambiance more so than anything coherently rhythmic. I have no idea why this song in particular is going viral - it doesn’t have a chorus or even really some of the catchier, more potent lyrics on the album, and its beat barely functions as such for the vast majority of the song - Hell, it’s not even one of the album’s integral moments like the opener, “Bought the Earth”, “ILUV”, “Shade”, “Riot & Set it off”, or really countless others, but I’m not complaining because the sound design, the care placed into thematic and narrative consistency, it’s all still here. This is a 10/10 album, and if this song gets more people to check it out, I really can’t be upset with that.

#58 - “Love Me JeJe” - Tems

Produced by Guilty Beatz and Spax

So what’s “Love Me JeJe” actually mean? Well, in Nigerian Pidgin, it means “gentle” or “tender”, and the use of a more regional term rather than the English actually contributes greatly to why I think this song works: Tems’ buttery voice has always been able to display both coldness and a sensual warmth, often at the same time, but on some of the bubbliest guitars I’ve heard over an Afrobeats rhythm since the genre started charting consistently, she’s fully in that second category. Hell, most of the lyrics are pretty basic here, especially the practically meaningless chorus, but that’s to its benefit because thinking too much about this song defeats its purpose: to be gentle. It’s a frankly adorable expression of love and care at its most optimistic extent possible. Despite the clean, tropical percussion, it still feels cute and homegrown. Hell, the second verse, after a nice back-and-forth choir vocal, even references the Nigerian electricity provider that’s apparently nationally infamous for its power outages, with the lyric comparing the love she feels with her partner to the feeling when electricity comes back on in the village and all her neighbours inform the locals. Combine that with how breezy this is, the easy-flowing bridge into an outro full of murmuring, chatter and reverb-drenched laughing, it just makes for a really cute, likeable song. Not necessarily what I expected out of a lead single from Tems, but a delightful surprise. Now to balance that with pure hatred.

#50 - “euphoria” - Kendrick Lamar

Produced by Cardo, Kyuro, Sounwave, Johnny Juliano, Yung Exclusive and Matthew “MTech” Bernard

There’s part of me that finds it quite funny that Drake gets into serious beef with an incredibly analytical and perfectionist rapper like Kendrick right after putting out his own exposé of himself. For All the Dogs is as much of a dissection of Aubrey Drake Graham, albeit perhaps unintentionally, as Kendrick or really anyone could perform, as long as you’re paying attention. It’s been like that (no pun intended) for a while, but his latest is the most obvious and desperate attempt at clinging to status and image that it places his insecurities fully on display. You could recite lyrics from that album on a jazz beat and call it a diss track, so the fact that Kendrick went back to back with damn near dissections of Drake��s paranoia - especially on the Instagram follow-up track he made that is chilling - as well as a myriad of different issues he has with Drake, simply because… well, he doesn’t fuck with Drake. One could argue that this feud is complex and storied, with so many different  beligerents… but the motives behind it are genuinely a lot simpler than most rap feuds, and the diss tracks that are made from it are way more straightforward. They just outline the reasons they dislike each other, almost systematically, it’s genuinely refreshing, or at least a lot more than what’s going on with Quavo and Chris Brown, yeesh.

This track in particular is as calculated as can be, acting as a dissertation on why K-Dot doesn’t really like Drake too much. It’s condescending, damn near academic, with its smooth jazz intro and categorical shoot down of each possible avenue you could hit Drake from. We have sextuple entendres on this thing, a total of three beats, two of which are cheap-sounding but absolutely murderous drill bangers, and Genius annotations that rival War and Peace when combined. I’m not a lyrical expert, and there’s so much in here that I didn’t get until I was pointed towards that direction by Genius annotations, Reddit, X, or, embarrassingly, YouTube Shorts. You don’t need to research or analyse for this to hit hard though, there are plenty of lines that aren’t going over anyone’s heads… until you look into the exact way the bars are constructed and suddenly they have 20 double meanings and hidden easter eggs. This is really sheer venom, filled with so many layers that I wouldn’t be surprised if he genuinely wins a GRAMMY for it - and it would be in character considering Drake doesn’t even nominate his songs anymore. It’s already having an effect too, that 4batz album came out today, and he’s not signed to OVO as rumoured. Ye’s on the record… but not the already existing and heavily-streamed Drake remix. Already, he may be losing some of that prestige.

As far as it is sonically, it’s six minutes of murder, and Kendrick’s delivery is energised, violent, damn near deranged at times, to perfectly balance how, somewhat subtly through his meta commentary about his own bars and albums, the lyrics are basically an essay. It has an introduction, a conclusion, a hypothesis, written examples, he even presents counter-arguments and weaves them into his own analysis. By the time he was going extremely in-depth about his experiences as a father, and just repeating that Drake knows nothing about that, it almost felt like overkill. My personal favourite lines and ideas presented here are the concise slow dagger of the intro verse, the “Demun”/”throwaway” scheme, the voice and character he puts on between “Cutthroat business” and “I’ll explain that phrase” - he’s like a disappointed teaching assistant, obviously the YNW Melly line and its set-up, the incredible Daft Punk line that got a cackle out of me on first listen, then followed up by a mocking interpolation of one of Drake’s most revered songs, the straightforward rant about everything he hates that references an iconic moment of DMX’s trademark honesty (rest in peace), the “record” scheme in verse three, and when he started the fake Canadian accent, I just lost it. Drake’s biggest weakness here is that when he’s funny, I’m laughing at him, but when Kendrick’s funny, I’m laughing with him, and much louder. If he does respond, unless the man tells us that Kendrick’s whole life and career has been a farce, or he brings, like, the actual former President Obama on the track or something, I can’t see how it tops this. This is one of the best diss tracks ever in terms of sheer detail, and might honestly be one of the greatest throwaway rap singles period. It’ll be tough to beat.

#31 - “MILLION DOLLAR BABY” - Tommy Richman

Produced by Max Vossberg, Jonah Roy, Mannyvelli, Sparkheem and Kavi

This is the sudden breakout hit for Virginia rapper-turned-singer Tommy Richman, which actually comes in two versions on Spotify, the original and a more distorted “VHS” version. Also, this is brilliant. Sure, Richman just sounds like Brent Faiyaz, but a trend I haven’t been able to talk about on here necessarily but has been very exciting for me is the return of grittier, groovier synth funk and hyphy beats into underground hip hop and R&B, with this representing the more melodic end of that sound, which is typically restricted to Midwest and Dirty South rappers. The sound design on this one is actually even unique to that sound, starting with a bizarrely British-sounding Memphis rap vocal loop which I think isn’t a sample and is just him doing a bad impression, filtered below an infectious beat that actually took me by surprise. It even has cowbells and the type of punchy jabbing drums that I love from classic southern rap, but instead of the smooth-talking rappers you usually expect over this, we get a Brent Faiyaz impression that didn’t click with me until hearing this song. I never really got his appeal until I hear it over this and I start to realise the very distinct new jack swing element to his vocals, as he pretty seamlessly transitions from soulful double-tracked harmonies to much more rhythmic, half-rap flows. Now this ISN’T Brent Faiyaz… and I still don’t really like Brent Faiyaz, but hearing his wannabes I think helped me gather what was distinct about him, and the literal Richman North of Richmond here pitting his filtered splatter of vocal ideas and riffs over the beat in a very Devil-may-care fashion exemplifies the elements I do like about him, just with an instrumental that I personally like a lot more. Also, the VHS version is labelled as such but is really just like a bass-boosted version of the song that sounds like it was done in 10 seconds in Audacity, though the vocal mixing sounds a bit different too. I would love for someone to explain why that was the version I ended up adding to my playlist, because I couldn’t tell you.

#8 - “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” - Taylor Swift

Produced by Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift

I know I wrote my whole Taylor spiel last week, but I’m not bothered about this one at all, and I really did expect it to be a fan favourite, mostly because, as the one track I actually enjoy on the standard version, she’s having fun! The lyrics are actively vapid, which doesn’t feel like the intention when she’s singing over soppy adult contemporary but very much feeds into the almost childish character she plays here over synthpop with an actual pulse. The synths here sound like a theme park she’s taking the boy to, especially with the backing vocals and chatter samples implemented into the ambiance and classic Antonoff wonky synths - though some of this doesn’t even sound like it’s in his ballpark. Like were Marian Hill or Sofi Tukker ghost-producing this? Some of these loop choices and flashy sound effects are frankly ridiculous, in the best way of course because the song is camp and fun. Sure, some of Taylor’s lyrics still come off a bit awkward, mostly because of her choice of slower melodies sometimes clashing with the fast-paced patter of the synthscape, but that’s a nitpick. I do love this song, I think it’s fun, Hell, I think it’s funny which is something Taylor has always kind of failed to translate to me in the past, so that is something. I just don’t think we have the same sense of humour. Does she like Norm Macdonald? I don’t feel like she does. Correct me if I’m wrong, Swifties.

Conclusion

It should be incredibly obvious who gets Best of the Week, it’s Kenny, easily, with “euphoria”, and I’m sorry, Swifties, but Yeat better. “If We Being Real” takes away with the Honourable Mention pretty easily as well, though really, strong competition and strong week all around - Tems was close too. There can’t be a Dishonourable Mention in this climate so, Worst of the Week goes to Kygo and Zak Abel for “For Life” that “features” Nile Rodgers, it genuinely just is a lazy template of a song. As for what’s on the horizon, I’m not sure. Dua’ll have some impact, but outside of that, time may have to tell. For now, thank you for reading, long live Cola Boyy, and I’ll see you next week!

[gaykarstaagforever]

Every Sad Gay and frustrated failed artist on Tumblr should at least know about Connie Converse, the queen of tortured poets who are too REAL and PURE for this world. Except in her case, she kind of was.

Hearing her sparse, single-take recordings of simple stories about funny and fantastical things, you'd guess they're from the late 60s or early 70s.

But no, she was doing this in 1956. She started in the late 1940s. And the world was absolutely not ready for it.

She gave up on her music career and left NYC for Michigan at virtually the same time Bob Dylan arrived in New York. Her one actual album was only a reluctant gift to her family, and it and her various other recordings were unknown until 2004.

She spent the rest of her career writing for and editing a political science journal; in 1973 the university publishing it decided to pull the funding and sell it to Yale, without telling Converse. Dejected and miserable, she wrote notes to her family explaining how she was leaving to start a new life, and didn't want them looking for her. She then loaded up her Volkswagen and left Michigan in 1974...and was never seen or heard from again, at least by anyone who knew her. She was 50.

One of her brothers and a close friend claim she was probably a lesbian; her nephew says he thinks she was merely asexual / aromantic. She was certainly never seen dating anyone and refused to discuss it.

Why she didn't try to take advantage of the popularity of the folk pop/rock trend, we don't know; maybe that was her plan when she left, but fate intervened.

All we have is what little she left behind, songs about frustrated longing, failed ambition, and the goofy little things we get up to along the way, seemingly just to occupy our time.

[thislovintime]

Peter Tork and The Peter Tork Project, early 1980s; photos by Michael Ventura/Alamy.

“Eventually, Tork moved to New York City, working odd jobs and performing ‘sporadically.’ In the early ‘80s, after he quit drinking, he started a couple of bands, Peter Tork and the New Monks, and the heavy-metal-leaning Peter Tork Project. But Tork says that heavy drinking had ‘left me with mediocre skills. Until I started working on my skills again, it didn’t matter.’” - Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1992

“In June of 1982, Peter Tork was in my face again. It was at a gritty, downscale, but packed-to-the-gills club in Boston called Bunratty’s. (Long gone.) Tork, then 40, was on a tour he described as the ‘I Have to Laugh to Keep from Crying Tour.’ It was billed as Peter Tork and the New Monks – Tork plus four crack musicians providing a hard-rock ride down memory lane. We talked a bit between sets. Me: ‘What it’s like going through life and to always be viewed as a former Monkee?’ Tork: ‘Compared to what?’ I paused for a moment and thought to myself, ‘Exactly! When this is the life you’ve known, what can you compare it to?’ (This was one of the best answers I’d ever had to one of my queries.) I re-used this anecdote when I talked to Ringo years later – switching up Monkees for Beatles in his case – and he chuckled. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘What can you compare it to? This is where I am and this is what I am.’ So, why were we Bostonians packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the post-punk heyday to hear ‘60s pop done live and loud? ‘A lot of people come out and they want to remember the old songs,’ Tork said. ‘They want to drift back to when they were fetuses or however old they were then.’ [...] ‘When I arrive at the gates of St. Peter,’ Tork quipped, ‘he’s going to say First one to go . . . okay, we’ll let you in.’ One Peter to another. ‘When I quit the Monkees,’ Tork continued, ‘the first thing I wanted to do was divorce myself from the whole thing entirely.’ Tork formed a ‘straight- ahead pop rock’ band, Peter Tork and/or Release, but it failed to go anywhere. In late 1971 and early 1972 Tork spent three months in jail for possession of hashish. Tork, who was a folk musician prior to Monkee-dom, resurfaced in 1977 to play an acoustic gig at CBGB’s, at the time New York’s prime punk club. In a sense, punk was responsible for bringing Tork back to work. The Sex Pistols did a vicious sloppy cover of ‘Steppin’ Stone,’ and other punk new wave bands have embraced the Monkees on two levels: 1) damn good pop tunes and, 2) potential kitsch value. Tork, who was married and living in Venice, Calif., was on a tour playing small U.S. clubs. (Dolenz and Jones, incidentally, had also formed Monkees facsimiles at that time and were rumored still to be big stars in Japan.) Tork has been around the area all week – he was playing an even dive-ier club in nearby Somerville the next night – unveiling a repertoire that consisted of some Monkees tunes, some non-Monkees originals, and some early rock ‘n’ roll covers. He wasn’t exactly playing the Monkees’ songs by the (Boyce & Hart) book. I’d venture to say this was almost hard rock/heavy metal Monkees music. ‘The [Monkees] records are a little thin by contemporary standards,’ Tork said. ‘People who are just into rock ‘n’ roll and had a lot of contempt for the Monkees phenomenon as a whole aren’t going to come in the first place. People who are on the borderline – they liked the Monkees and they like rock ‘n’ roll today – are going to come. If I play it like it was off the records, they’re going to say ‘Well, it was nice to see him but so what?’ If I play ’em right and they want to dance, I’ve got good musicians whacking away and they’re going to come back.” Tork’s musicians – Phil Simon and Nelson Bogart, guitars; Vince Barranco, drums; and Paul Ill, bass – have played variously with Little Feat, Dave Brubeck, Joe Beck and Carolyne Mas. [...] Although not signed to a label, Tork said producer Jimmy Miller (Rolling Stones, Traffic) was ready to record an album with them. (Jimmy Miller, who lived in our region, was had made maybe the greatest Stones album ever in Exile on Main St., but was drug-damaged goods by that point, sad to say.) ‘My goals right now are to make a living entertaining,’ Tork said. ‘Put away something for my old age, cookouts on the weekend, no big thing. You never know what’s going to happen. One of these days I might make a mark on my own.’”- Rock and Roll Globe, February 2022