#mid 80s folk punk

[karmaphone]

anyways I think we can tie the lack of new subcultures* to the fact that nobody has any free time anymore, and what free time they have is spent digitally instead of Creating

[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:)

[the-hottest-band-tournament]

Round Two

Violent Femmes

Defeated opponents: NOFX

Formed in: 1981

Genres: Folk punk, post-punk, alternative rock

Lineup: Victor DeLorenzo – snare drum, tranceaphone, drum set, scotch marching bass drum, backing vocals

Gordon Gano – acoustic and electric guitars, violin, lead vocals

Brian Ritchie – acoustic and electric bass guitars, xylophone, backing vocals

Albums from the 80s:

Violent Femmes (1983)

Hallowed Ground (1984)

The Blind Leading the Naked (1986)

3 (1989)

Propaganda: 

Bon Jovi 

Defeated opponents: Salt-N-Pepa

Formed in: 1983

Genres: Hard rock, area rock, pop rock

Lineup: Jon Bon Jovi- vocals

 David Bryan- keyboard 

Tico Torres- drums

Alec John Such- bass

Richie Sambora- guitar

Albums from the 80s: 

Bon Jovi (1984)

7800 Fahrenheit (1985)

Slippery When Wet (1986)

New Jersey (1988)

Propaganda: Genre-defying powerhouse of a band. So many classic songs. Every member was some flavor of hot but Richie was married Heather Locklear hot and Jon was hot enough to make you want to take a risk on a Jersey boy. Their stage show was iconic with Jon, Richie and Alec fitted with wires so they could be lifted up and fly out over the crowd mid-performance. (See the video for Livin' on a Prayer to see this in action) They're still performing to this day and Jon is still married to his high school sweetheart which I think is kind of adorable.

[randomvarious]

1980s Power Pop Playlist

Folks, we've got a brand new tune that kicks off this playlist now, and its own title might as well be the four-word credo that really essentializes the power pop genre as a whole: "Fuck Art Let's Dance," by a British band called The Name.

Sometimes you really just gotta stop taking all of this music stuff so damn seriously all the time and come to appreciate the mass-appealing pleasures of tried and true simplicity. British Invasion bands like The Beatles and The Who may have made significant artistic progress since their earlier works, but that was no reason to leave the vibe of that early stuff behind. What's already been done is no longer fresh, but some of the formulas that were used back in those early-to-mid-60s days were proven to have been pretty golden, and a late 70s-to-mid-80s crop of rockers who had grown up with those early British Invasion records on their radios had their hearts set on bringing it all back to the fore. So, fuck art, let's dance!

While this little playlist once had a combination of songs that were mostly from the indie stalwart Bomp! Records branch of American power pop and mid-to-late 80s stuff from the C86-UK indie/twee pop label Subway Organisation, it now adds a bunch of tunes that preceded that British indie pop wave too, from a pretty big subculture called mod revival. Helmed by The Jam, who used the same iconic blue, white, and red 'target' as The Who for their own band logo, mod revival was an insular scene that really took off after The Who's Quadrophenia movie came out in 1979, instilling in UK teenagers and twenty-somethings a deep desire to emulate the Vespa-riding lifestyle that the film itself had depicted. Essentially, mod revival mixed a new wave and punk rock sound with the 60s mod sound of yesteryear, but if we're going to generalize it, it was really, for the most part, a regionally specific variant of power pop.

So in addition to "Fuck Art Let's Dance," a catchy-as-shit song with only a little over 10,000 plays, we've got another couple mod revival bops too, like the soft, dreamy, and keyboard-infused "One Step Ahead" by a band called The Stripes, which only has a little over 6.2K plays. And I added a couple other tunes from Bomp! and Subway Organisation too, with "I'll Get Lucky" by SoCal power pop heroes The Plimsouls, which has 39.3K plays, and the much more obscure "Do It Again" by Clockwork Orange-referencing UK band Korova Milk Bar, which only has a little over 6.2K plays.

The Name - "Fuck Art Let's Dance" Deadbeats - "Choose You" The Plimsouls - "I'll Get Lucky" The Stripes - "One Step Ahead" Small World - "First Impressions" Korova Milk Bar - "Do It Again"

And then for the YouTube version of this playlist, I was able to add all the songs that were added to the Spotify one too, plus a handful of some more mod revival tunes that aren't on Spotify at all. And I don't think that I have a total favorite among this YouTube-only set, but The Scene's super bouncy "Hey Girl" is so irresistibly catchy and deliberately simple, from both musical and lyrical standpoints, that it almost sounds like it could be from the 60s itself, which I don't think can be said about any other song in this playlist. Really seems like these guys took the term 'mod revival' quite literally with this record of theirs, and for those who might be keeping track, this is The Scene who hailed from Bradford in West Yorkshire, and not the other UK mod revival band called The Scene who were from East London 😅. "Hey Girl" is nearing 27.7K plays.

Also added a tune from The Groove Farm, a band that was on Subway Organisation, and whose "Crazy Day Sunshine Girl" is criminally short, but makes its 45 seconds really count. And that one's only got 53 plays as of right now!

The Reputations - "I Believe You" The Scene - "Hey Girl" The Clues - "No Vacancies" The Groove Farm - "Crazy Day Sunshine Girl"

And this playlist is also on YouTube Music.

So with this update, our Spotify playlist is now at 19 songs that clock in at over 55 minutes, but over on YouTube we've got 30 songs that clock in at 85 minutes. So if you want an extra half-hour of power pop-type tunes from the American-centric Bomp!, the UK's mod revival scene, and UK label Subway Organisation, you better check out that YouTube one!

And here's the list of compilations that were used to put this whole thing together:

100% British Mod (1998, Captain Mod) Destination Bomp! (1995, Bomp! Records) The Roots of Powerpop (1996, Bomp! Records) Battle of the Garages: Part 1 (1994, Voxx Records) Whole Wide World, Volume 2 (1994, Subway Organisation) Take the Subway to Your Suburb (1994, Subway Organisation) Burns From the Valley of the Sun (1991, Frontier Records)

Next week we'll be getting a little bit deeper into mod revival ✌.

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

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

[many-but-one]

hey just to let you guys know the term 'femboy' is an extremely derog term (i think some consider it a slur as well) for transfeminine folk. not upset, just informing you guys!

I mean. I have sometimes heard femboy used in the context of transfemme who don’t pass well, but mainly said by cis/cishet folk who ain’t part of the LGBTQ community. Femboy has been used by gay men or men who dress feminine who are not transgender for a very long time. Considering Dori was not referring to another trans woman or another person who did not consent to the term (she was using it towards herself because she used to consider herself a man who dressed feminine—a femboy—before she fused with a bunch of girls) I fail to see how that would be considered a terrible thing to say.

It’s like me calling myself a bulldyke/dyke, a faggot, or a tranny. I am all those things and I am well within my rights to call myself terms that used to be slurs used against us as much as I want. Reclaiming shitty things said against us has kinda been a big part of queer culture and lesbian/transgender history. No offense anon, as I know you were trying to give a heads up in good faith, this is hella chronically online behavior. Go hang out with some queer people at a bar and you’ll hear all kinds of words like that. Queer culture is by nature not “politically correct” and especially since this was aimed at ourselves and not calling anyone else the term without their consent, I’m gonna let Dori use whatever terms make her feel most comfortable in her skin.

For the record, femboy started as a slur around the 80s-90s and seemed to be used in conjunction with the term sissyboy, though the term femboy itself has existed for much longer. Femboys or men who use feminine expression have been around for a very long time—centuries, even, and in the mid-19th century the term femboy was coined to describe men who dressed femininely. Obviously derived from the word “feminine” and “boy.” The term gained traction as a reclaimed term (as the term was used to describe men as “incomplete men” who were not masculine enough to be “real men”) in the 70s and 80s with the rise of punk culture, and queer activists started reclaiming it to empower GNC individuals. I’ve personally rarely ever seen it as a derogatory term toward transfemme folks and our transfemme partner agrees that she’s hardly ever seen anything like that. And if it is a derogatory term toward transfemme folks, it was clearly not used in that way when Dori referred to herself as a femboy.

Don’t police the way we talk unless it truly brings actual harm to another person. We ain’t calling anyone else a femboy, Dori was calling herself that.

-Elektra🦂 (she/her) + K (she/he) + K (he/him)

[pop-punklouis]

HS4 - more jazz funk elements mixed with 80s synth heavy tracks

LT3: Mid tempo indie songs although I wish he'd go faster and more thrashy

okay both would be great but i really need harry to go folk or full glam/funk

and louis can push for the punkier side of pop-punk. he really could if he wanted to lmao or disco punk would be fun too.

[archivist-crow]

The Pogues - Red Roses for Me (1984)

Forty years ago today, on October 15, 1984, Red Roses for Me, the debut album by the Pogues, was released. While the Pogues were still a year away from releasing perhaps their most enduring statement, the band’s debut hit the post punk mid-80s like a breath of fresh air. Playing mostly traditional Irish folk tunes on generally traditional Irish folk instruments, the Pogues—in attitude and affect—were still unquestionably a post punk band and sounded like nothing and no one else. Messy, unkempt, and iconoclastic, Red Roses for Me is a debut that, while satisfying in its time, barely scratched the surface of the band’s depths.

[big-bad-shorty-king]

i'm sorry you need to explain your post about folk punk being older than emo

Sorry I've been out all day so I'm just now seeing this; Safety-Pin Stuck in My Heart by Patrik Fitzgerald basically invited the sound in the 70s, Violent Femmes also formed in '79, + a lot of proto-punk bands were influenced by many folk artists. Emo wasnt really a thing till the mid 80s when Rites of Spring kicked everything off, by then celtic bands like The Pogues had also already formed

[slashdementia7734]

A Eulogy to Gary Floyd by Jeff Smith (Hickoids).

Pour one out for the man I hold up as the greatest American punk vocalist of all time, Gary Floyd of The Dicks.

I first saw The Dicks when I was 16 or 17. They were a ramshackle freight train oozing danger and a dark romance that telegraphed the message  “our love is doomed — but the cops will probably kill us before we can fall apart.” Fatalistic but defiant with some unquantifiable level of simmering violence lurking beneath.

If all the clownish portrayals of punk rock to be seen on television and in movies during the late 70s through the mid-80s had conveyed one fourth of the power of The Dicks on a good night, punk rock might have actually been banned.

To be sure, the original outfit was more than the sum of its parts - a true band. Glen Taylor’s twitchy, dissonant and inimitable guitar playing cast a hollow spread over the relentlessly bouncing frame of Buxf Parrot’s ever-moving groove while Pat Deason’s steadfastly off-kilter drumming reminded one of a twenty-five-cents-for-fifteen-minutes motel bed shaker that occasionally coughs and still chugs when the quarter has run out. All of this propelled Gary to sing at the top of his lungs while laying atop this queasy chemistry, secretly hoping his voice will rattle the plaster off the ceiling and maybe the whole fucking roof will cave in so he can forget about that man, the pigs and every other cruel thing the world has thrown at him. And then maybe the whole seedy motel will collapse and it will all seem random rather than intentional, so he can go to sleep for a long, long time in the comfort that it’s not just him.

It’s the soundtrack of decay and desperation.

Decadence fed by heartache.

I saw some fucking great punk and hardcore bands in the day…but I have rarely if ever seen a punk band (or rock-adjacent band of any genre) who could deliver with the emotional power of The Dicks.

The reason was simple: Gary’s struggle was real. By late ‘70s Texas standards, the notion of an openly gay, morbidly obese, Maoist poor boy from East Texas fronting a band of novice outcasts was the stuff of a pornographic sci-fi novella a la Martin Amis. And, not to short change another group of local heroes fronted by an outsized gay man, the Big Boys, but they had more to do with the good times than the bad. It’s not necessarily a great analogy but they were the light of The Beatles compared to the darkness of our Austin punk rock Stones.

On a musical level Gary and The Dicks found their greatest power (like the Stones on their epiphanic masterpiece Exile On Main Street) with the blues, and were the first punk band, American or otherwise — with the possible exception of The Gun Club — to fold the style into punk in a successful way. In spite of the greatness of the art, one could make the  argument that Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s narrative and musical choices had a studied contrivance not found in The Dicks. “Successful” is used here to mean artistically high-performing rather than financially rewarding, of course.

The world is chock-full of guitar players who can hit the notes and bend the strings while making the ugly sex face. Our planet is also fully stocked  with those who can carry a tune and string together a rhyme of heartbreak and appear emotionally vulnerable while doing so. That doesn’t make it either good to my ears or moving to my heart.

Gary was free of artifice when it came to his singing. Not to say that he couldn’t be a sometimes silly yet riveting frontman, but his poetry was always forceful and direct. Folk music stripped of everything that distracted from the point. As a young man, I failed to fully grasp where he was coming from - it was too far from my realm of experience. But he sang with his whole body and absolute conviction, whether the subject was heartbreak or injustice. I might not have understood where all of his pain came from, but his voice told me it was real. And while a lot of other punk singers of the era spewed opportunistic political diatribes that amounted mostly to complaining, Gary simply belted out his truth. Even though the conflict might not have been mine, his voice made me understand the righteousness of the fight. Gary’s words helped provide me with the empathy starter kit I lacked.

Gary had a couple of other very good and more commercially palatable bands after The Dicks - Sister Double Happiness and Black Kali Ma. He didn’t get the commercial success he deserved, but he’s not alone there. Still, I believe he died a happier man than he was in the era I remember him most vividly from. We exchanged messages on FB and spoke on the phone occasionally during the past decade.

Rest in power my friend. It’s not just you - it is the world.

You might not have changed the world in the way you once hoped, but you changed mine.

Gary Floyd // 1979 // 📸: Tom McMahon

[singeratlarge]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Honoré de Balzac, Warren Cann (Ultravox), Cher, Kit Clarke (Danny Wilson), Joe Cocker, Susan Cowsill, Steve George (Mr. Mister), David Hedison, Nick Heyward, Guy Hoffman (BoDeans), Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Astrid Kirchherr, Shorty Long, Dolly Madison, Cindy McCain, John Stuart Mill, Timothy Olyphant, The Police’s 1983 single “Every Breath You Take,” Zbigniew Preisner, Busta Rhymes, James Stewart, Jane Weidlin, Anthony Zerbe, and my friend, the uber-talented singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jonny Vee (no relation to Bobby Vee). He’s best known as a longsuffering champion of the West Coast punk scene and as front man for the legendary San Diego band Social Spit. Off that grid, we worked together in the mid-80s and I was astonished by his diverse and well-produced demo-ing of material ranging in style from rock gospel to agit-pop to folk to prog-rock. Here’s a song of mine we whipped together at a former spaghetti factory in San Francisco—a track inspired by The Alarm and T-Bone Burnett…and HB JV—thank you for your years of creative energy and your example of cutting through adversity.

#jonnyvee #jonnyvitas #socialspit #negativetendencies #punkrock #NewWave #sanfrancisco #sandiego #california #johnnyjblair #singeratlarge #pretenders #thealarm #tboneburnett

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 820: Nomeansno 0 + 2 = 1

Nomeansno began in 1979 as the rhythm section two-piece of Rob and John Wright. They added Andy Kerr on guitar in 1983, a year after releasing their debut album Mama. While Nomeansno always retained a heavy focus on the interplay between bass and drums, Kerr found a spot to insert his wiry, jagged guitar lines without undermining the low-end force of the Wright brothers. Kerr wound up with another crucial role: nodules on Rob's vocal cords meant that he had to step back from lead vocals, allowing Kerr's snotty timbre to outweigh Wright's booming baritone on the remainder of their '80s output.

Nomeansno closed out the '80s with the most popular album of their career, 1989's Wrong. The band's rising profile across North America and Europe allowed (or perhaps forced) them to quit their day jobs, and by the beginning of the '90s the band was touring full-time. When it came time to record the follow-up to Wrong, the band was in a very different position. They were no longer practicing several times a week and slowly stockpiling new material---they'd been on tour non-stop and were now having to quickly cobble together another studio album so they would have something new to tour on. The band had become a job.

Such realities weren't generally considered cool back in the '90s. Being a career musician in a punk band wasn't heroic to anyone. Professional musicians didn't take you seriously and the punks considered you a sell out. The irony was that Nomeansno were phenomenal musicians and staunchly committed to the underground.

If anything, Nomeansno could've benefitted from playing the industry game a little more. Their press photos were always confusing and never clearly featured all three members. They championed younger bands and even started their own label, but they also avoided opening for bigger bands, even as they watched the younger bands they'd supported eclipse them in popularity. Nevermind had come out just two months prior to 0 + 2 = 1 and Nomeansno could've easily capitalized on the global interest in the Pacific Northwest underground rock scene, but instead they were content to continue touring squats in Europe. At a time when it seemed like Nomeansno should've gotten even bigger, they instead saw the first dip in album sales.

Maybe folks just weren't as excited by 0 + 2 = 1. Maybe it was written in too much of a hurry. But I don't buy that. I'll admit that i don't love "Everyday I Start to Ooze" (some of the vocals tread a little too far into theatrics) and that I mainly get my fix on Side 1. But jeezus... can we talk about those first five songs?? "Now" is an electrifying album opener. "The Fall" is classic Nomeansno power. "0 + 2 = 1" is like a nightmarish mashup of Ginsberg and Burroughs prose sent against a lurching Man Is The Bastard riff. "Valley of the Blind" reasserts their classic punk vigor before "Mary" comes crashing down with its monolithic bass-driven weight. And Side 2 is packed with punches too. Whether it's the vitriolic attack of "The Night Nothing Became Everything" and "I Think You Know" or the blueprint for Unwound's future blend of guitar dissonance and mid tempo bass throb on "Ghosts," the songs are solid enough for the album to be held on the same pedestal as its predecessors.

But Andy Kerr would leave the band at the end of the album cycle, officially capping off the classic era of the band. Grunge was having its moment in the spotlight. Pop-punk would follow on its heel steps. And the two weird old guys from Victoria, BC that looked like Phil Donahue's long lost siblings and sounded like Dead Kennedys and Rush had a baby would continue to avoid the limelight while cranking out records and living in tour vans.

[scotianostra]

Happy 61st birthday to The Proclaimers Charlie And Craig Reid born on 5th March 1962.

Growing up in Edinburgh, Cornwall, and the Fife town Auchtermuchty, they listened to early rock & roll and country, gravitating toward artists like Jerry Lee Lewis and Hank Williams. After playing in various punk bands during their school years, they formed The Proclaimers in 1983 and… 

Growing up in Edinburgh, Cornwall, and the Fife town Auchtermuchty, they listened to early rock & roll and country, gravitating toward artists like Jerry Lee Lewis and Hank Williams. After playing in various punk bands during their school years, they formed The Proclaimers in 1983 and quickly developed a regional fan base with a particularly devoted following in Inverness. As an acoustic duo singing -style harmonies in the mid-‘80s.

After touring with the Housemartins the Scottish duo were signed by Chrysalis records, they were immediately compared to the Everly Brothers. Considering their energetic, melodic folk-rock, the comparison made some sense, even though the Proclaimers didn’t really sound like the Everlys. Instead, the band was a post-punk pop band, aggressively displaying their thick accents on sweet, infectiously melodic songs about love, politics, and life in Scotland. After two albums in the late '80s,This Is the Story and Sunshine on Leith, the second featured one of my fave songs by the twins, My Old Friend The Blues, a Steve Earle song about depression.

The band disappeared for several years, suffering from personal problems and severe writer’s block. When their 1988 song “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” was used in the 1993 film Benny & Joon, the duo began to receive massive radio airplay in America, sending them into the Top Ten in the U.S., as well as the rest of the world; it was their first taste of worldwide success.

Luckily, the band was close to completing their third album at the time, Hit the Highway, leaving them in a position to capitalise on their success. The single Let’s Get Married received little attention, and the band pretty much disappeared in the eyes of the general public, but diehard fans like myself knew they were special and still had loads to offer.

They made various contributions to several movie soundtracks – Dumb & Dumber and Bottle Rocket – during the latter part of the decade, but family priorities took full scale.

The new millennium gave us a much more fresh sounding Proclaimers. They inked a new U.S. deal with Nettwerk, and Persevere marked Craig and Charlie Reid’s fourth album, and my favourite. It was a return to form; singing about the grim and glory of their native Scotland, but also a sign of the prime of life, my pick of the album being Scotland’s Story which drew parallels between historical migrations to Scotland and arrivals of more recent immigrants. The song list included the beautifully crafted My Act of Remembrance, which paid tribute to their late father, if you haven’t listened to it please do on the YouTube video I have posted.

Arms of steel, hair of gold Royal blue eyes, with a rebel soul You scared me, you still do But I loved you More than you ever knew….

The band’s fifth effort, Born Innocent, appeared on their own imprint Persevere in February 2004, produced by fellow Scot Edwyn Collins, Restless Soul followed a year later, the song When Love Struck You Down is another strong song by the brothers. Life with You in 2007 gave us the song of the same name which is a karaoke favourite in Scotland. I sing the older songs from the 80’s myself.

The Proclaimers have given us 12 studio albums and they tour worldwide, my favourite wee anecdote from the Reid's is regards their song Throw the R away. The record companies who were keen to sign them told them unless they ditched the Scottish accents they would not be successful, the song tells us

You say that if I want to get ahead The language I use should he left for dead It doesn’t please your ears.

In an interview a couple of years ago Charlei commented “it was a conscious thing, because we were singing about where we live, our experiences and it just felt stupid to sing in an English or American accent.” Quite right too.

In 2020 Craig and Charlie are amongst fellow Scots Bill Paterson, Rebus writer Ian Rankin, and bizarrely Irish-American actress Saoirse Ronan, who have lent their voices to a new audio guide for Edinburgh Castle. I have never used the guides myself, but may do so on my next visit to see how they sound.

The boys have now released their 12th studio album, Dentures Out featuring 13 songs clocking in at a lean, tight, focused 34 minutes.

Charlie and Craig are in the middle of a world tour just now, having played North America they are now in Australia, then onto New Zealand before heading home for dates in Wales and England, then gigs in Kelso, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The song I have chosen, I hope reflects the Scottish attitude that we welcome all immigrants into our country with open arms.

[ransomnote]

RANSOMNOTE'S TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023

this year was, despite everything, an incredible year for music. i haven't had a top 10 AOTY list this stacked since i started making lists. this is my comprehensive list of albums from this year i think everyone should listen to. there are some well known picks on here as well as some more obscure choices that nevertheless blew my face clean off.

10. Voir Dire - Earl Sweatshirt, The Alchemist

earl sweatshirt has never once disappointed me honestly. the production combined with the lyrics and the way this album flows is comforting yet confrontational and everything i've come to expect from ES. my only critique is that i wish there was more variety with regards to the speed of the songs themselves. that being said, the hypnotic nature of the sound can hold its own.

rate: 8/10

fave track: mancala (feat. vince staples)

9. PUNK TACTICS - Joey Valence & Brae

this album is hard to describe as anything other than really fucking fun. like have you ever seen, watched, or listened to a piece of art and felt in your soul that the people who made is had the time of their lives making it? that's punk tactics. these two bring the sound of 80s-90s east coast alt hip hop into 2023 in a way that doesn't feel like they're just rehashing the sound of beastie boys. i can't wait to see what else comes out of these two. that being said, i worry that a few of the samples utilizing memes popular between january-august 2023 are going to date this album.

rate: 8.3/10

fave track: STARTAFIGHT

8. everything is alive - Slowdive

so. with a track record like theirs, there was no way slowdive was going to put out something bad. and i was right! they didn't! though i still prefer their 90s albums a bit more probably solely based on nostalgia, this album is a fascinating and beautiful translation of their signature slowcore style into 2023. these musicians and their sound have evolved so much, and this album is a reflection of that growth. for critiques, i would say i don't find myself revisiting this album as much as i do slowdive's other work, and i'm not sure why. maybe its just me.

rate: 8.4/10

fave track: the slab

7. HELLMODE - Jeff Rosenstock

jeff rosenstock is known for exploring different genres, from punk to folk to metal to indie rock to ska. this album does that in a way i've never heard from him before. this album switches genres not just between songs, but mid-song sometimes. it keeps you on your toes for sure, but manages to sound cohesive and like it belongs together. to put it lightly, it's great. i was really worried with how he was going to follow up no dream/ska dream, and those fears have been effectively proven wrong. the only thing i would really change about this album is the track order, but that's so nitpicky i don't feel like getting into it.

rate: 8.6/10

fave track: LIKED U BETTER

6. SCARING THE HOES - JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown

before i say anything else: peggy and danny brown hip hop duo of the year. i am not debating that with anyone. ok now we can start. oh my god this album. it's not exactly controversial to say that 2023 was one of the best years for experimental and alternative rap and hip hop on record, and i think this album shows all of that. the best part of this album in my opinion (though almost every aspect of it is a standout) is the sampling. i have never in my life heard sampling innovated like this. these two have turned what was already an art form into something almost like a sport. i don't have a critique as much as i have advice: develop this. don't let it stagnate here. these two are on the cusp of genre revolutionizing shit.

rate: 8.8/10

fave track: garbage pale kids

5. Appearance - peopling

i feel like i have to explain this album. have you ever played electric guitar or any instrument that gets run through an amp and heard it pick up radio waves traveling through the air while plugged in? this album does that intentionally. which. ok let me pick the pieces of my skull off the floor. this album makes me feel like i'm listening to ghosts talking, and in a way, i am. i don't know what to critique about it because i've never heard anything like it in my life. please go listen to this.

rate: 9/10

fave track: cRIPpLinG dEBt PArTy

4. Javelin - Sufjan Stevens

this is such an instant classic sufjan stevens album. i love it. i don't have a lot to say beyond that because i feel like you could take any sufjan stevens album, pick out what's so great about it, and copy and paste that for every album of his. that being said, it's not stale. there's a distinct fairytale sound that's distinct from the ethereal sound of earlier projects that gets combined with a healthy dose of warranted cynicism given how rough this year has been for stevens. go cry to this.

rate: 9.3/10

fave track: tie between shit talk and javelin (to have and to hold)

3. This Is Why - Paramore

after after laughter in 2017, my only question for paramore was "how are they going to top this?" the band certainly took their sweet time answering that question, but with what we got, i can't complain. hayley williams is, as always, a complete powerhouse, but that didn't need to be said. you can tell how much new wave, specifically the likes of talking heads, influenced the artistic direction of this album. it's a new sound for paramore, a band that refuses to stagnate it seems, and i can't get enough of it. i don't yearn for old paramore the same way i yearn for, say, old fall out boy or old green day because their new stuff is just. better. i don't want to hear a scene veteran yap about how nostalgia is what keeps the bills paid ever again.

rate: 9.4/10

fave track: you first

2. Fat Chance - Mr. Phylzzz

i had never heard of this band before my friend trixie and i made the last minute decision to see them live opening for the melvins and boris. their set consisted mainly of songs off this album, and what a fucking set it was. i enjoyed them more than both the acts that followed. this duo has an intense stage presence on par with groups like mcr and death grips, and that translates into their music even when it's not live. this is 2023 post-hardcore punk perfection that makes you feel like you're being chased by dogs. with guns. gundogs. seriously, if i put you on to one band with this post, i hope its them.

rate: 9.7/10

fave track: tie between dirty hands and insisting

1. Census Designated - Jane Remover

coming out of nowhere with the steel chair at the end of october, this album makes me feel things that i can't classify as normal. i will never be normal about this album. ever. it's cemented itself as not just my album of the year, but as one of my favorite albums of all time. the pushing of her already so solid hyperpop sound into grunge territory is. i can't describe it as anything other than insane. this album demands your attention while simultaneously making a point to demand nothing. it's as contemporary and 2023 as it gets, and yet i think it's going to age beautifully. this is, without a doubt in my mind, the best album of 2023. listen to it before i lose my mind.

rate: 10/10

fave track: fling

well! that wraps it up! i'm going into 2024 with my standards set high. let me know if you think i snubbed or overlooked anyone! when the world is the most turbulent, the greatest art gets made. heres to a more peaceful 2024 and free that motherfucking palestine <3

[mackmp3]

Very long post with an intro into music I like! i have posted about most of these bands before at some point, but here's a masterpost of sorts.

@literatureisdying here it is! it is intimidatingly long sorry but I really hope you enjoy it! i tried to group the songs, they are in a more or less logical order but feel free to just pick some or shuffle.

Patti Smith - my favourite! I could talk forever about Patti I love her with all of my being. she was initially a poet and artist before turning her poems into rock and roll in the early seventies in the New York punk scene - she is very influential to just about every female rock musician since. her four earliest albums are the best, her debut Horses is generally regarded as one of the best albums ever. in more recent years she has written a series of memoirs which are also amazing and definitely worth reading even if you don’t know anything about her or her music. her androgynous style and generally i-don’t-give-a-shit punk attitude have become iconic. (***disclaimer for this part - she has one song using the n-slur, she isn’t racist, she was trying to reclaim the word but she’s white and it came off wrong. it was the wrong choice of word. she’s not racist, i don't support use of that word, the fanbase as a whole understands what she was *trying* to do and then ignores that song and moves on. this is a PSA, please no one try to argue with me about this thanks. sorry to put this right at the top.***)

Einstürzende Neubauten - German industrial band led by Blixa Bargeld, they formed in west Berlin in the early 80s and had a bit of a reputation for wrecking stuff - a lot of their early stuff is shouting in German with distorted guitar and hitting metal stuff but as they evolved they wrote some really beautiful things.

PJ Harvey - my other love! PJ is a constantly evolving artist and every single one of her albums is something different and also very good. She has an amazing voice and plays guitar and piano and has incredible stage presence, especially from 1995 with all the costumes and makeup - a lot of her songs kind of fit the ‘female rage’ vibe (especially Rid Of Me) but she does it very very well - since the mid 2000s she has done some stuff concerned with england and the folk history of it, her new album I Inside the Old Year Dying is amazing and slightly bizarre. some vaguely sapphic undertones to some of her stuff :)

Radiohead - a band to obsess over if there ever was one. They are stereotyped as being music for depressed loner virgins which is a little funny but also kind of true haha. A lot of their music is very ominous and emotional and a bit dark and pessimistic, but that’s the appeal. they are all top-tier musicians - Jonny Greenwood plays a lot of instruments including some you’ve never heard of and Thom Yorke has one of the most iconic voices, and his lyrics are just brilliant. they started off as like a britpop adjacent - prog rock sort of band but then in 2000 they released Kid A, which has not a lot of guitar and lots of ominous electronics instead - all their albums have their own distinct vibe. Thom and Jonny also have a new project called the Smile which are currently releasing and touring. 

*interlude* - This Mess We’re In by PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke - my two favourite 90s musicians make a song together!! this is from PJ pop-rock album, she wrote it but Thom sings the second part. I don’t know if they recorded this in the same studio or if she sent him a tape to sing over, but if they did do it together there are no photos of them together which was a missed opportunity if you ask me.

Hole - Courtney Love’s band. sort of riot-grrrl adjacent grunge, very angsty (a lot of this is very angsty though haha). lots of very female - specific songs which is cool. pretty intense, lots of screaming but she’s very good at screaming

the Slits - 70s feminist punk reggae band! they only made one album when they first started but it’s very cool. also quite female-centric, songs about being yourself and fighting conformity and capitalism yay

Bob Dylan - arguably the most influential figure in western music, he has like 40 studio albums but Desolation Row is my favourite song of his. he started off doing folk music, then did stoner psychedelic folk-rock and then almost died and did some country, then folk rock but with a massive band, then gospel rock, etc etc he keeps changing. very enigmatic, hard to place. still tours at age 82. famously has a kind of grating singing voice but lyrics make up for it.

Joan Baez - folk singer and activist - Silver Dagger is a traditional song from her first album - she was only 19! she has an incredible voice, really string vibrato. she was big into anti-war activism and civil rights, did a mix of covers of traditional and contemporary stuff and wrote her own songs too. played at Woodstock festival of music and arts!

Pentangle - late 60s english folk-rock band. they are all insanely talented musicians and Basket Of Light is one of my favourite ever albums - it’s all acoustic instruments but played in really interesting ways.

Led Zeppelin - they may be a band mainly enjoyed by middle aged white men but damn are they good. another band where every member is insanely talented - jimmy page and john paul jones between them can play everything with strings. blues rock - III is their best album and super underrated. songs about lord of the rings, folklore and wizard battles, because y’know, they’re also hippie nerds. some of their stuff is a bit problematic :/ Jimmy was weird and also into occultism.

Joni Mitchell - a folkpopjazz musician - very inventive guitar style, only two of her songs are in standard tuning, and she is also an amazing piano player, and has one of the best voices - she is the originator of the confessional-singer-songwriter-very-specific-lyrics-acoustic-guitar-women, she did it first and best. alas most of her stuff is no longer on spotify, she left the platform to protest antivax podcasts on the site, but everything is on youtube and there are always cds. Raised on Robbery That Song about the Midway Ray's Dad's Cadillac

Aldous Harding - she is from very close to where I live! she does completely bonkers art-folk-something with John Parish who also produced PJ. she’s wonderful. she describes her performance as ‘song acting’ more than singing. i love her. she’s so awkward.  Warm Chris was definitely my album of the year for last year.

Marlon Williams - from the same place! last year he invented a new genre, as you do, Māori disco pop, on his album My Boy. very soulful voice, he was a choir boy, used to do very folk stuff but not so much anymore.

*interlude* Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore by Marlon Williams and Aldous Harding.

SO - Aldous and Marlon were romantically involved for a while a few years ago, he produced her debut - when they broke up he wrote the album Make Way For Love about her, AND THEN invited her to sing with him on this song, he sang his part then sent it to her. so very tragic emotional and cool. BUT THEN - i saw Marlon live last year, and he BROUGHT ALDOUS ON STAGE TO SING THIS WITH HIM. FOR THE FIRST TIME. anyways i was so excited and also very normal about that. there’s a bad phone video of it on youtube but i was thrilled and also astounded to say the least. i have also been lucky enough to meet both of them :D benefits of living in a small country i guess. 

The Beths - NZ’s best indie band! lyrics are much darker than the cheerful music and backing vocals would suggest. very good vibes, their music videos are delightful as well.

Courtney Barnett - queer Australian singer-songwriter! she’s very cool, a nice mix of folkier and grungier stuff, has that sort of talking singing style - plays her own guitar, likes fitting as many syllables as possible into the line.

Björk / The Sugarcubes - the Sugarcubes were an 80s Icelandic band doing sort of new-wavey pop stuff but with bonkers lyrics - when they split Björk started doing bonkers electronic pop music. she’s delightful. she’s very good at screaming and singing wordlessly.

Spiritualized - shoegaze-inspired space rock, atmospheric alt-rock - this song borrows from Elvis

the Flaming Lips - delightful 2000s indie rock this album makes me so happy

Voom - another NZ band! indie band very good

Built to Spill - indie rock, fantastic guitar in this one

Pulp - britpop, songs about sex and despair in a way that makes it sound like an intellectual pop-culture review, if Jarvis Cocker says something weird it’s almost definitely tongue-in-cheek

Neutral Milk Hotel - bonkers indie album about loss of innocence inspired by Anne Frank. it’s a bit of a joke that people are like ‘i’m so alternative i like Neutral Milk Hotel’, it’s not as obscure as it sounds like it is.

Dean and Britta - these songs accompany Andy Warhol’s Screen tests, where people would be sat in front of a camera for a couple minutes. designed to match the vibe of the person.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Australian gothic rock - a lot of their stuff is kinda intense, Nick had some issues, but a cool mix of *sex and death* and yearning love songs. Blixa Bargeld (mentioned above) was in the band for a while - their songs range from full sleaze to full orchestra.

*interlude* Henry Lee by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds with PJ Harvey. hehe now this song - it’s a traditional murder ballad re-written by Nick for his album Murder Ballads. he wanted a woman to sing this with him and so asked PJ - now go watch the VIDEO. like stop reading this right now and go watch the video. it is the single most romantic tension-filled video clip i have ever seen and i love it so much. they hardly knew each other at that point!! and they’re dressed the same and the touching ashajkshakjhs anyways. in one live version Nick has pink nails too hehe. they started dating shortly after this, intensely but not for very long - when she dumped him Nick wrote The Boatman’s Call and the stuff PJ wrote for him is on Is This Desire?. 

Sigur Ròs - Icelandic post-rock ambient band - very cool rolling wave of sound music, atmospheric doesn’t even begin to describe it. Svefn-g-englar translates to ‘Angels of Sleep’,  sleepwalkers. the sometimes sing in Icelandic and sometimes in Hopelanic, a made-up language

my bloody valentine - one of the first and best-known shoegaze bands - loveless took them a really long time to record but is amazing, the layes of reverb and delay - you can't ever really hear the lyrics but it’s more about the general feeling.

Slowdive - another shoegaze band, a bit lighter instrument-wise, but lyrics way more tragic. Souvlaki Space Station is a really good album.

The Smiths - original emo band for sad introverts. lots of songs about being alone and unloved, rife with literary references. tragic but in a good way. great guitar, great bass, Morrissey has good voice & good lyrics but some *problematic opinions :/*. lots of plagiarising both lines in songs from books & poetry and also using other people’s photos for album art but it’s cool. 

Sonic Youth - new york no-wave band - lots of distortion, ten-minute-plus songs etc. Kim Gordon is the bass player and lyricist/singer of some of the songs and she’s very very cool. another one of those bands with a lot of music

Rowland S Howard - he was in Nick Cave’s goth band in the 80s, this is his solo work from later, it’s pretty heavy musically and lyrically, but it’s cool. there’s just something i really like about how this sounds and how al the instruments work together.

The Cure - they’d make a goth album, then a pop album, then another goth album etc etc - the pop stuff is fun but the goth stuff is way angstier.

anyways, there’s a very long introduction to my taste in music! i hope you like at least some of it :D <3

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) 1990 Folk-Rock / Folk / Acoustic Rock / Lo-Fi / Outsider / Avant-Folk / Americana / Folk-Punk / Art Rock

Here's something fun from a sizeable movement and era that I've never really taken the time to dive all that much into before: that mid-80s-to-mid-90s Bohemian-open-mic-at-a-coffeehouse-or-independent-bookstore folk revivalist type of stuff. Lighthearted, tender, childlike, vulnerable, silly, intimate, acoustic, imperfect, eccentric, DiY, goofy, charming, absurd, and sometimes sloppy music. There was a pretty big underground subculture of this stuff that I feel like lived on self-produced and self-released cassette tapes that soft-spoken and idiosyncratic starving artist weirdos would take to their local shops or try to panhandle on arts district street corners and at shows. Of course, I'm basically describing the outsider king himself, Daniel Johnston, to a T here, but he wasn't the only one who was responsible for creating this beautifully strange type of fare, although his iconic talking frog drawing could certainly serve as its emblem, whose simplicity is akin to this album's own artwork.

And while Daniel Johnston, a native of Austin, makes an appearance on this comp, this release appears to actually be pretty New York-centric. And maybe this is just me, but I feel like when we generally reflect on this mid-80s to mid-90s era of New York, what we're usually thinking about is the hustle and bustle of that big city: loud, blaring, electronically-made dance beats, or the raucous rock of haunts like CBGBs, or some cerebral and gritty rap tunes; not so much this stripped-down folkiness that happens to make up most of this album here.

But it seems like this vein of artistry has been a part of New York in some form or another for a very long time anyway; it's just that pieces of it have been way more prominent and historicized, like the Beatniks of the 50s, or the folkies of the 60s. Really, this album could just be considered a darling, little early 90s snapshot of some of that ever-shifting Downtown continuum, I guess.

So, in addition to Daniel Johnston, within this odd collection you'll find some of his own contemporaries too, like Beck's former roommate, Paleface, who kicks us off with a tongue-in-cheek piece of nihilistically violent folk-punk in "Burn and Rob." Then there's the iconic counterculturalist and co-founder of legendary satirical rock band The Fugs, Tuli Kupferberg, who delivers the song with probably the richest and fullest sound of this entire set with "I Was Much Mistaken."

But where this comp really seems to truly shine is with its absolute nobodies who somehow managed to make it on here in the first place; it's like they've sauntered into an open mic and have stolen the whole dang show, which is what the spirit of this movement has always seemed to reflect: open-armed and open-minded egalitarianism. Some random cat could just come in off the street, play something great, and then never show up again, which, in a way, reads sort of like a folktale in and of itself, doesn't it?

And this album seems to capture a bunch of those types, like David Keener and the Hat Brothers, both of whose only ever released song is accorded to this album. They both deliver some pretty excellent pieces of acoustic folk in "Tip of the Iceberg" and "Dark as a Dungeon," respectively.

So, this is a very good and slightly weird early 90s folky comp from a scene and era that I haven't really ever given that much thought to. From New York's Shimmy Disc label, which was run by mononymous and iconic New York oddball Kramer, who was in The Fugs with the aforementioned Tuli Kupferberg, and was a member of, and also produced, a bunch of other off-beat acts as well to keep a lot of this avant-and-indie stuff thriving. Cool, creative, and non-commercial art that serves as something of a light, under-the-radar counterweight to some of the Big Apple's more striving, maximalist, and brash tendencies.

Highlights:

Paleface - "Burn and Rob" Dogbowl - "Rosemary in Red" Daniel Johnston - "1989 Blues" David Keener - "Tip of the Iceberg" Tuli Kupferberg - "I Was Much Mistaken" Azalia Snail - "Dual Control" King Missile - "Life" Hat Brothers - "Dark as a Dungeon"