#no matter what i do they will never be out of my top spotify artists

[sinfulsalutations]

the bad batch irl headcanons: brainrot edition.

hunter

watches the boys, breaking bad, and basically anything with jk simmons in it

his top artist on his spotify wrapped was lana del rey and has been lana for 3 years straight

listens to self help audiobooks and true crime podcasts

stopped posting on tiktok because 30 year old moms kept commenting weird freaky shit

makes capcut template edits of himself

snap score is in the millions; his parents were confused on the questionnaire and instead ordered a thot son

tech

listens to playboi carti, earl sweatshirt, and ken carson. below them is classical music

never beats the “erm, actually” allegations. his friends turned him into a nerd sticker to use in conversations

reddit WARRIOR. his karma score is in the millions. he posts, no matter what, every two hours (schedules the posts if needed to). most active in the subreddits r/techtips and r/javascript

obeys the traffic laws in gta but if a pedestrian says some shit like “hey watch where you’re going asshole” he is CLOCKING that mfer

plays swipe games on tiktok religiously and will change his answers to fit better with the “lore”

watches jujutsu kaisen, has a tiktok collection dedicated entirely to gojo edits. despite that, maki is his favorite character

wrecker

his entire tiktok for you page consists of workout videos and cute animals

did the trend of tying a bow on the bicep and breaking it while he flexes

doesn’t know how to take photos of himself; watches tutorials on every social media he can find but still can’t figure it out

listens to bad bitch music. beyoncé, megan thee stallion, tinashe, doja cat, glorilla, nicki minaj, all that stuff.

comments “looked at my girl and smiled because she’s perfect” on a hot girls post

says “what the dog doin” all the time. all. the. time.

crosshair

serves cunt; serves all of the cunt

a back arching straight man; ur gay tote-bag carrying boyfriend

almost all his friends are lesbians. they take him to the queer/sapphic clubs and the chappel roan concerts

comments “why no one hating” on the most INNOCENT and PURE videos just to start arguments

is a biker boy but hates the whole “biker tok” stereotype and so he doesn’t go out on the bike anymore out of fear of being recorded without his consent

instagram notes is his main form of communication; he is an olympic ghoster

echo

his vocabulary contains “skibidi” “what the sigma” and “gyatt”

his most used “social medias,” in order, are pinterest, whatsapp, and tiktok

worked at a waffle house before he got fired for starting a fight

kpop fan. stans newjeans, tomorrow x together, and le sserrafim

the definition of “female rage”; also, indeed, serves cunt. not as much as crosshair, but serves cunt nonetheless.

has 13 daily hours of screen time. what is he doing for those hours? fuck if i know. fuck if he knows. fuck if his PHONE knows. (in reality, he leaves youtube videos playing all night and doesn’t even realize it)

[dontcareplusthisholeistoosmall]

Soul Eater Characters + Spotify Wrapped

maka:

has been waiting for this day to come since january first

spends the whole year carefully curating the perfect vibes

pretends to be chill but is internally begging someone to ask her about it

taylor swift has been her top artist for five years in a row

very into hozier, noah kahan, and phoebe bridgers (father, son, and holy spirit)

soul:

isn’t worried about how his spotify wrapped looks

“i know my music taste is cooler than anyone else’s so why does it matter?”

will only post his top three artists

gets red in the face when you ask about the forth

“taylor swift is only up so high because maka and i have a blended playlist and she uses my spotify sometimes leave me alone!”

black star:

minecraft parodies are a concerningly high genre

there is no sensical way to read his tastes

“i just listen to whatever i like”

makes literally everyone he comes into contact with look at his entire wrapped profile

tsubaki:

definitely a taylor swift, hozier, and phoebe bridgers girlie

you take one look at this data and you can see she’s 💅

she will never post it

the only ones who see her data are maka and liz because they demanded to see it in their secret group chat

liz:

surprisingly alt?

like who introduced you to midwest emo?

also a major taylor swift girlie (but mostly reputation)

was introduced to noah kahan by maka and recently became obsessed with stick season (specifically northern attitude)

she posts her top five and brags about being a top listener of anything

has the most minutes out of The Gang

patty:

shares her account with liz (they couldn’t afford two premium subscriptions on the streets)

is the reason that the soundtracks to the barbie movies were so high on liz’s stats

gets yelled at for “ruining the vibes” of the data

kid:

is the one who introduced liz to midwest emo music

is a recovering member of the emo trinity

definitely posts his entire wrapped to his instagram feed beginning to end

with personally dm anyone he catches stopping halfway through his post

“i see you stopped watching on slide seven, care to explain why you hate me?”

goes into photoshop to alter any asymmetric aspects of the presentation and grumbles that he could do their graphic design so much better

crona:

still does not have a spotify account

asks everyone for their wrapped data

writes down everyone’s top five artists so they know what everyone likes

is in charge of making hangout playlists on maka’s account because of this

kilik:

posts his top five to his instagram story

pretends he doesn’t know that half the school treats his post like the grammys

literally could not give less of a damn what people thing

arguably has the best taste

justin law:

apple music listener

[dangerously-human]

It's that time of the year for Spotify wrapped predictions, yes?

Pretty sure top artist this year will be Sleep Token. Second and third will probably be Twenty One Pilots and The Midnight, although I'm not sure in which order. Listened to the Dune soundtracks a lot, too, so Hans Zimmer might creep into the top 5 on that merit, although I'm not sure.

My playlists I had on most often were almost certainly Lockwood & Co (mainly Ghostbustin' with the Buds, plus some project-specific ones) and my more recent Paul/Irulan mix, which will result in a boost for Sleep Token, a bit more of The Midnight, and a lot of the same repeats from last year; plus some Grishaverse (especially the Nikolina mix), seasonal playlists (especially summer), and Jesus Tunes - always.

Aside from songs on those playlists, I'm not sure what specific tracks are likely to show up... Maybe still I Told You So by The Band CAMINO, and I'd say Chariot by The Midnight except that it only just came out this fall and no matter how many times I've had it on repeat, I doubt it'll overwhelm stuff from the rest of the year. Oh, and almost certainly River of Darkness by The Midnight for writing reasons, and definitely Best Is Yet to Come by Judah & the Lion, which was on repeat for writing and general encouragement reasons for like, entire days straight.

Genres are always the hardest to predict, mostly because I do not define them the same way Spotify does. Christian/CCM probably will rank highly because it's such a broad category, rock but who knows how subdivided that gets, maybe metal this year because of Sleep Token... Definitely synthwave if that's a category but I can never guess if it will be.

Idk, I just like trying to guess these things!

[goldtowhite]

solana "solar" flores // character study

basic information:

FULL NAME: solana maria flores

NICKNAME(S): solar, sol

AGE: 27

DATE OF BIRTH: january 1st, 1997

PLACE OF BIRTH: salinas, california

GENDER: cisfemale

PRONOUNS: she/her

ORIENTATION: bisexual

LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: english, spanish

NEIGHBOURHOOD: sierra vista estates

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: she lives by herself!

family ties:

MOTHER: violetta marie reyes flores

FATHER: miguel diego flores

SIBLINGS: a little sister, a full ten years younger than her

SPOUSE / PARTNER: none

CHILDREN: none

PETS: one dog, a great dane named nelvin

occupational information:

OCCUPATION: solo artist

SKILLSET OR SPECIALISATION (IF APPLICABLE): singer, dancer

answer only if your character is a musician:

NAME OF THEIR ACT: she goes by the name solar as a performer

SO THEY PLAY INSTRUMENTS? IF SO WHAT?: she can play piano and is attempting to learn guitar

ARTIST INFLUENCES: ariana grande, hwasa, kehlani

CURRENT MONTHLY SPOTIFY/APPLE MUSIC LISTENS ON AVERAGE: 75M

physical appearance:

FACE CLAIM: becky g

HAIR COLOR: dark brown

EYE COLOR: brown

HEIGHT: 5'1"

BUILD: curvy, toned

TATTOOS: she has two of becky's tattoos, the dragonfly on her side, and the familia on her wrist

PIERCINGS: just a bunch of ear piercings

CLOTHING STYLE: what always matters most to her is that her hair and makeup is done no matter what. very glamorous style, loves a good crop top, loves form fitting clothes.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: she's teeny tiny short.

personality:

MBTI: ESTJ

ELEMENT: earth

WESTERN ZODIAC: capricorn

CHINESE ZODIAC: ox

POSITIVE TRAITS: ambitious, vibrant, expressive

NEGATIVE TRAITS: bossy, materialistic, vain

HOBBIES: travel, cooking, foodie type behaviors in general, swimming

wanted connections:

CONNECTION TYPE: give me a toxic on and off relationship please. i'd love this to be another uber famous person, like they keep writing albums about each other, they've broken up messily in the public eye multiple times, when they come back together half the fanbase cheers and half groans but knows they're gonna get good sad music out of it. down to cook for this.

CONNECTION TYPE: someone who works for solana who kind of picks away at her outer layers and understands her on a personal level.

PART TWO: QUESTIONNAIRE. 

IF YOUR MUSE IS A MUSICIAN:

start at the beginning, who are you and why are you important? i'm solana flores, known as solar to most, and why i'm important isn't really something i can answer. you'd have to ask the people who decided i was.

how long have you been making music? since i was a little girl. my dad plays guitar and he would play around the house, would do it to entertain us when the lights went out because he and mama couldn't make the bills that much, and i just started singing along with it.

how would you describe the kind of music you make? it's a really healthy mix of songs you'd want to have sex to, and songs you'd blast with the windows down going 90 mph on an empty highway.

who are some of your biggest musical influences? oh the list is endless. selena, of course, a legend and an icon. beyonce! lots of lesser known mexican artists i grew up listening to with my parents.

what is the first record you ever bought? it was an n*sync cd, if i'm being honest.

what has working in the music industry meant to you thus far in your career? the life i've built for myself is something i would've never dreamed. my parents never have to lift a finger again, though they do anyway because they worry about my little sister getting too spoiled, and for good reason. they already have one spoiled child, they don't need another.

what are some stand out moments from your career so far? my first sold out show, even though the venues were pretty small. my first stadium tour. my first meet and greet.

how would you describe your style of performance? what makes your shows worth seeing? my style of performance is to make sure that you'd never dare look anywhere but the stage, in case you missed anything. i'm worth seeing because i'm real, and good at what i do, and make it known.

what are you still hoping to achieve in your career? you'd think reaching the top would be where it ends, but there are some awards i haven't won yet that i'd like to. really all that's missing from my shelf at home is a grammy.

what’s next for you? well that's a secret.

[vcrnons]

hello j!

relate your mutuals to svt songs go!

Mutuals as SVT songs, let’s GOOO<3

- @ikigaisvt : circles. i’ve said once and i’ll say a hundred times that sammy is, to me, like if a comfort blanket was a person. i play circles so often that it’s possibly gonna be in my top 5 on spotify this year, and every time i need to be reminded that everything’s going to be okay, it’s my go-to track (of any artist i listen to, not just svt). something about it just brings me such a warm, calming feeling from the deepest parts of my soul, and that’s what sammy means to me too. i genuinely cannot scream about her incredible nature enough, and even if i could find the words, i’d be a blubbering mess before i could finish saying them. i didn’t even have to think about this one. sammy, circles is for you.

- @irlvernon : wave! i adooooore this song so much you don’t even understand. it’s just one of those tracks that like… it doesn’t matter what mood i’m in when it comes on shuffle, i WILL, immediately, crack a smile. it’s a never-skip song okay. something about it feels so floaty and free and i just get that energy from max too. i cannot be a grouch when you’re in my dm’s. it’s scientifically impossible. i don’t know what that’s about but i’m VERY happy that it’s true. you’re wonderful. mwah.

- @aceofvernons : xan is home;run to me every single day of the week. you’re very very very very very (x10^15) cool and you bring me so much joy. i see your tags on any of my gifsets and need to take a seat before my knees give out from beneath me. your responses to my unhinged vernon asks could give me the energy to get through anything. so this works because any time i listen to home;run, i just get filled with so much pure happiness? one of those songs you wanna scream at full volume in the car on your way to wherever the fuck and i need you to know that in my head, xan is in the passenger seat screaming it with me.

- @ncteez : light a flame. do i need to explain this? i feel like it explains itself lol but OKAY fine let’s go. light a flame is such a soothing song and it’s SO easy to listen to but it’s also so MF HOT? look. if i deep this track for too long i start getting butterflies. and that’s how it feels reading anything hon writes, first of all, but just her ✨ energy ✨ is very light a flame. those pretty woozi high notes are her sweet, softer sides and the deep wonwoo parts = her ability to completely derail my week (complimentary). tldr hon, ur hot and nice and i like u.

- @hwanghyunjinenthusiast : anyone! okay this is an undeniably fantastic song and the video for it makes my brain short-circuit which are also two things about rj that are literally just facts. in the same way i always go to rewatch any of the anyone performances and tell myself i’m able to handle it, i go crawling into rj’s inbox with usually something feral and i always come out feeling like i’ve been hit by a train (affectionate, complimentary). HER BRAIN. IS HUGE. and it causes me real strife but i keep going back for more because it’s delicious and that’s just. how anyone makes me feel. one of my absolute favourite svt bangers for one of my dearest, most precious mutuals.<3

- @eoieopda : domino!! this was one of the first svt songs i ever listened to and i maintain that it is one of the best in their discography. domino is so lovely and bouncy and ANY time i see jade on the dash, i’m about to do a cartwheel i swear to god. also here’s some lore nobody asked for: if i need to do something, esp at work, and i feel like i’ve got a mental block trying to start it, domino is one of my ultimate hype songs. whichhhh is relevant if you’ve ever seen jade’s fic feedback. the BEST hypeman (/gn) ever. i want to put every single comment they’ve ever left me in a locket and wear it over my heart forever.

- @xukmins : snap shoot : max’s energy is V E R Y snap shoot to me. i can’t really explain that properly but it is, it makes sense in my head. she’s very bouncy and exciting and energetic, and truly any time i think about max or she’s in my inbox, i really just see so much brightness and fun and the happiness that you could always see in the snap shoot stages.<3

- @haechannabelle : _world!!! i don’t know if it’s the mv for it that springs to mind when i think of world but i immediately start thinking of bright colours and summer and that’s what i think about with annabelle too? your art is always so vibrant and even if it’s not of an artist I listen to, im always sat there looking at my screen like 🥹🥹🥹 because your pieces are always SO gorgeous. but you come across as so vibrant and bouncy too and this song just fits you SO well in my head.

- @cheolhub : is it. cringe. to say all my love. OKAY LOOK we don’t rly actually talk a bunch but i see sar in my notifications and it’s like someone put a fuzzy cardigan around my shoulders and has come to hold my hand. there is not a single part of all my love that i don’t adore; i could have it on repeat for a whole day and not get bored just listening intently to every member’s voice and remembering all the reasons i adore seventeen. to that end, i could equally scroll sar’s blog for a whole 24 hours and be sat with hearts in my eyeballs the entire time.

( i’ve definitely forgotten some lovely people and i’m SO sorry for that aaaaaa. i went back through my recent interactions & stuff but i do also have the working memory of a walnut && will no doubt be kicking myself in like two hours time for not including one of my loves in this ;_; pls forgive me. you’re all so very dear to me & don’t you dare forget it.<3 )

[theproloser34]

So at the end of every year, I always find it interesting to see how my music taste has changed throughout the year. Which is why I LOVE Spotify Wrapped day and seeing what my top 5 songs of the year were. And this year, I was actually kinda surprised.

Now, it’s not wrong, I absolutely played these songs a bunch, but I wouldn’t say they were my FAVORITE songs this year. They just came out very early in the year and were able to add up plays before anything else. So that got me thinking, what were my FAVORITE songs this year? Not the ones that I played the most, but what had the most impact, whether it just be an earworm or the meaning of the song. So why not write and list them out! I like analyzing my thoughts too much.

I’ll keep my choices to just one song per artist. It'll be however many songs I wanna add. Details don’t really matter, it’s my list, I add whatever I want. Expect a VERY long posts and a lot of links to songs if you want to check them out. (DO IT. I swear I have good music taste.)

1) First off, I gotta start with DO BETTER by Ab-Soul off of his latest album HERBERT. Ab-Soul has been in my top 5 rappers probably for the past decade and my second favorite of TDE other than Kendrick. HERBERT was his most personal album to date, and nothing shows that better than DO BETTER. A lot of his album is inspired by the events that happened in his life during the pandemic including one of his best friends dying and his own failed suicide attempt and his subsequent trip to rehab. You can easily hear all the pain and survivor's guilt he has, but also the determination to turn around and come out stronger. The instrumentation is both extremely haunting and calming. I always come out of this feeling inspired to deal with my own issues. The line "I gotta do better, I gotta do better, I guided you better. There's nothing they can do that I can't do better. Better yet, there's nothing I can do that I can't do better. Yeah, I'm better," never stops giving me chills.

2) I've been slowly getting into EDM these past couple years. And one big part of my learning of the genre is Skrillex, who came back and surprise dropped TWO albums in TWO days. And both were really good albums that showed multiple different styles of EDM. Whether you prefer more dark and grungy beats like the songs in Quest For Fire, or if you rather have more bright, poppy sounds in Don't Get Too Close, there will be something for you in these two albums. The song that most stood out to me though was a good mix of the two with the opener for Quest For Fire, Leave Me Like This. The standout part of this song is the earworm of a vocal hook, which gives a wonderful strong melodic element to the song. Combined with the synths creates a strong hypnotic pre-drop section for the song. Of course the drop contains the more grungy parts of the song, especially the growly bass the introduces the drop of the song. But my favorite part of this section tis the repeated, pitched up "left, right, left" chant helps keep the rhythmic center in the song as the drums get more complex in the drop. Even if you don't enjoy EDM music, I'd listen to Skrillex's new releases because you get such a different arrangement of sounds and really see his versatility.

3) Anyone who knows me knows that I have been horribly addicted to hyperpop these past three years and it is definitely unhealthy to my ear drums. And 100 gecs has absolutely been in my top 3 hyperpop artists since they came out. So when they announced they were releasing an album this year, it was instantly one of my most anticipated albums of this year. And they absolutely delivered with 10000 Gecs. They continue to create inventive music with the same brashness, humor, and insanity that drew me to them in the first place. And I'd say this album is just slightly less abrasive to new fans than their past album. Nothing anywhere near as crazy as Money Machine, but all of the tracks contain the unique brand of energy and mix of hip-hop, rock, and pop, with and added element of ska on some songs like I Got My Tooth Removed and Frog On The Floor. But my favorite has to go to the opener of this album, Dumbest Girl Alive. Right away with the first 15 seconds, you can tell they're back on their bullshit with the opening guitar riff and gunshot impacts. And as soon as the drums come in, you get their wonderful blown out sound where I can't help but turn up my speakers to the max. But the obvious standout of this track is Laura Les's performance of this track. A super catchy melody, an earworm of a recurring phrase, "I'm the dumbest girl alive," and multiple quotable lines create a great verse. Plus the bouncy bass continuing with it creates such a wonderful short track that makes me just want to keep repeating it over and over again.

4) The more music I listen to, the more I am drawn to the weird, more eclectic styles of music. Especially with hip-hop, with so much getting made, only the really unique stuff sticks out to me now. Luckily that's the exact type of music Danny Brown and JPEGMAFIA make and together they made one of the best hip-hop albums of this year with Scaring The Hoes. And this music will, in fact, scare the hoes.

JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown are already well known in the Abstract Hip-hop genre, each being strongly characterized by their unique self-production and unique delivery respectively. Both of them have their own unique strength and coming together, they create a landscape of sounds and tracks that you will not hear on any other hip-hop album this year. As has become pretty evident, I'm a sucker for intros. And this album is no different because the intro, Lean Beef Patty, is easily my favorite from this album and was also in my top 5 songs played this year. Even though this song is just 2 minutes, it contains my favorite things about both artists. A sped up sample almost drowned out by the rest of the production, a signature of JPEGMAFIA production. Brash, bold lyrics from JPEGMAFIA such as "Fuck y'all niggas, I feel like Papa John," and "Fuck Elon Musk, eight dollars too much," which honestly just became the slogan for the year. Finally Danny Brown's energy and delivery give an exciting final verse to this song. And wonderful way to start one of the best albums of the year.

5) A group that came out of nowhere for me was grouptherapy. grouptherapy. is a music group consisting of Jadagrace, TJOnline, and SWIM. Their new album "i was mature for my age, but i was still a child" popped up randomly in my Spotify and I was surprised by the quality of there sounds, their charisma, and their chemistry. Each artist clearly has their own style that fits well with the other two and they all trade off so well in each of their tracks, which is essential to a good group dynamic.

Their new album has multiple standouts that show all of the groups' talents such as American Psycho and FUNKFEST. But my personal favorite off of this album is "club song :(" where Jadagrace takes the front stage in a mainly acoustic guitar song. Her voice is allowed to take a front seat and it creates a striking and kinda haunting melody. TJOnline joins in the latter half of the song to add some well added harmony to the song. This was the song that I kept coming back to from this project. Check this group out, cause they should have much more buzz than they have now.

6) Every once in a while, you'll be at a concert and you'll see an opening act that completely surprises you. And then afterwards, you slowly see them gaining more and more clout as they slowly grow to superstardom. That happened to me with Jordan Ward. I had the opportunity to see him perform and a JID x Smino concert as the opener and he absolutely impressed with his energy and singing.

I forgot about him until he released the deluxe version of him latest album FORWARD. I remembered his name and decided to listen finally and he has everything to be one of the next RnB stars. Since then, his album is one a bunch of top albums of the year lists and has even had a NPR tiny desk concert.

My favorite of his so far is MUSTARD. The guitar arpeggiating the chords, the slightly pitched up vocals, and live played drums on this track just work in the best way. 6lack also joins and adds a great second verse. Listen to him, he's gonna be up next soon and you'll want to see his rise.

7) Finally, there's the artist of the year for me, Underscores. I've known of them for a while, but only REALLY got into their music this year. I devoured their last two albums and have been playing them on repeat all year until she announced her new album Wallsocket. It was easily my most anticipated album this year and luckily it exceeded all expectations.

Underscores is a very hard artist to describe because she was one of the hyperpop classic artists but has evolved her sound beyond that. There is still some of that overblown hip-hop, dance pop sound around her music, but there is also more of what I'd say is folk rock in there now with this album. Either way, she still manages to produces some of the most unique soundscapes that I've heard this year.

All three of her singles that she released were in completely different areas. The rock focused "Cops and Robbers", the creepy, slow, and uncomfortable "You don't even know who I am", or the dance EDM focused "Locals (Girls like us)" had be so confused about what the sound of the album would be like. All it did was build up the hype and so I HAD to watch the livestream of the album on release day. And that is easily on of my favorite memories of the year, freaking out with the chat as we uncovered how good of an album this is.

While every song on this project is wonderful, the song the immediately attached itself to my brain was "Uncanny long arms". The song structure here is just hypnotizing to me. The quiet opening of the song going into the first chorus and the first "I can touch my toes" belt is forever into my mind. And the vocal stuttering and breakdown afterwards let me know this song was special immediately but it only gets better.

Jane Remover has a standout second verse on this song and her voice sounds angelic and just floats over the guitar. She had an amazing year in her own career and this song is a standout moment. Her turn on the chorus is even better with added instrumentation and the pure emotion you hear in her voice.

But easily the favorite part of this track to me is the outro, which to long underscores fans will be no surprise. The song being stripped down before jumping right into a bombastic, more rock version of "Kinko's field trip" brought me right back to 2021 and I damn near screamed hearing this on the live stream. Easily my favorite music moment and favorite song of this year. Listen to underscores everyone, you won't regret it.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

I don't have anywhere near as much to say about these songs, but I still want to bring them up because they're fun and were big parts of this year for me.

Stasis - leastfavorite!: Discovered her this year and she is another hyperpop artist that I think deserves more recognition. She released her first EP late last year so listen to it!

nothing2say - Jay Kim: Another artist I discovered this year but released an EP last year. Not really hyperpop, more midwest emo vibes with a little bit of brakence vibes with him. But another album that I'm excited to see grow after listening to them this year.

Damage Gets Done - Hozier: I shouldn't have to say this on this website, but Hozier is a pretty good artist. I listened to the new album he dropped this year and this duet was a standout to me and just couldn't get out of my head.

Maybe Man - AJR: As we now know, I'm a sucker for openers, and damn, is AJR good at them. They always make them fit the themes and sounds of the albums so well. "Maybe Man" is no exception. Probably would've made it onto the favorites list is it came out sooner.

Alright that's it. This post is long enough. Please listen to them! I swear they're good! And I promised not to always talk about music this long! (It's still gonna happen sometimes though. I'm sorry, I can't stop myself.) Also please share your favorite songs! I love seeing people's music tastes and what really connects with them!

[mania-sama]

So, I have ask these questions (ask game) to quite a few people, but most of their unpopular media, at least I know one of them. Except yours (sorry). Can I ask what made you love these 3 media : Child of Light (Video Game), School - Live! (Anime), The Unlisted (TV Show)?

Also, it's okay to be an Oikawa fan (he is also in my top 3 fav Haikyuu characters). And yes, I agree with all you say about him as a character. Though, I pity him a little because in twitter he must be on the same list as any other anime antagonist/villains that are murderer or terrorist or worst 😑😶

Have you finished Haikyuu, Mania-sama? A bit spoiler : he became Argentinian citizen and at the end of manga, his team vs Japanese team (with Kageyama and Hinata). Oh and Iwaizumi became athletic trainer in Japanese team (ironic, right)....

Oh, can I ask what do you think of Oikawa/Ushijima and Oikawa/Kageyama ships?

Some say, Ushijima or Kenma or Miya twins are the best antagonist of Haikyuu. But come on, we know better, right 😆😄? (Along with the majority of Haikyuu fans)....

P.s Do you know why Furudate sensei don't draw Oikawa that many? Because "He is an ikemen (so handsome), that I have to make him look good in every panel (and that is hard)"...😉

hello again!!!

No worries! That's why I listed them - I NEVER set people talk about those three online. EVER. I was not expecting for you to recognize them, or anyone to for that matter!

Child of Light -> Honestly, just an incredibly spectacular game. It takes about ten-twelve hours for a full playthrough without breaks, including side quests and messing with certain crystal combinations for upgrades. It's short, it's simple, it's sweet, but it is just. Beautiful. Very unique, and I haven't quite found a game like this since. One of the stand-out parts of this video game is that it is written entirely in verse. All of the character's sentences and words rhyme, aside from one character, Rubella, a jester, who consistently doesn't say the right word to make the rhyme complete or flow. The introduction of the game is also told in a soothing voice. The vibes are impeccable. Then, not to mention the visuals of this game are in a watercolor art style. It's just... unique and absolutely stunning to look at. The soundtrack is just banger after banger. I strongly encourage everyone to listen to it. Not that you have to intensely focus on the music, but just enjoy the atmosphere it brings. I was actually among the artists' top listeners on Spotify last year, and it was only from listening to the Child of Light soundtrack. The story itself is simple, but that doesn't mean it's not fun or impactful. You play as a little girl who has, well, died from illness, and wakes up on an altar in a "strange, new land" that has fallen to darkness. It is up to you to save the land of Lemuria from monsters and the evil, dark queen. The monsters are really fun to fight and look at (as in, their designs and the way they are drawn are phenomenal). The upgrade system isn't hard to grasp at all, either. You collect characters and help them in their stories. It's a fun, turn-based combat RPG. Everyone should play it, honestly. It's my favorite game. (Oh, yeah, you have a cute sidekick with a quick-wit, too).

School - Live! -> Okay, this anime isn't as phenomenal as Child of Light, but it sticks out in my mind anyway for the way it masterfully portrayed the world it's set in. It's about a group of girls who have a club at their school where they essentially live together at the school. Seems kind of odd, but they are happy with it and enjoy being each other's friends. Well. Turns out the main character is very, very delusional while trying to cope with the world around her. And the world around here is trapped in a zombie apocalypse. It's intriguing to me how her friends try to preserve her delusions (obviously a coping mechanism that I love seeing portrayed in media) while also keeping themselves alive. The narrative bounces back and forth between the main character's delusional reality where everything is normal to the bloody classrooms, reeking dead bodies, and boarded windows. The characters are all flawed individuals who, while being able to deal with the apocalypse, still struggle and flounder and yell and scream. It's just absolute whiplash tilting between these two realities, and it's done very well. Also, the intro song is a banger.

The Unlisted -> This TV show has more similarities to School - Live!, than it does to Child of Light, but is still pretty unique. It's about this organization that brings dental health to students in Australia, but in reality, they are chipping students in the mouth with trackers that can, essentially, brainwash and mind control the kids into mindless machines. The trackers also increase their strength and dexterity (I don't know how it works; some suspension of disbelief is required to enjoy this). The main characters, two twin brothers, find out what's going on in their school after one of the twins purposefully goes into the "dental checkup" twice in place of his brother. The main characters then find out about the existence of a group of runaway kids who are being tracked by the organization because they are all "Unlisted" - kids who were meant to be chipped, but somehow escaped - and conspire to both help the kids and inform the world about the truth of the organization. It's VERY entertaining. I fell in love with the characters and their relationships. The acting is... rough, especially in the beginning, but you get through it for the plot I swear. All of it pretty much hits my fancy; runaway kids, trauma and injury, mind control, funny banter, and family. I just. Really like it. And everyday I think: wow, what a shame this never got a second season. Because it is good and I love it :(. I've attempted to write this as an AU multiple times for different fandoms, but I never succeeded. Who knows, maybe one day I will.

Anyway, Oikawa being "the most evil anime villain" jokes will never not be funny to me. He is just so easy to pick on. I did see recently on Tiktok a video where they said off-handedly and in seriousness that Oikawa and Dazai Osamu from Bungou Stray Dogs were very similar, and I had to do a double-take. No. They are not similar. Not in the slightest. One has conspired to murder/has murdered HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE and is a LUNATIC. The other is a high schooler who plays fucking volleyball. Can we NOT. (It is really, really funny though. I hope the Internet never changes.)

I've considered rewatching the anime because of my recent sudden and violent re-hyperfixation, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to it. I have never actually read the manga for Haikyuu, but I do know about the time skip and how it ends. In fact, I've been writing a fanfiction about the IwaOi during the Japanese vs Argentina 2021 Olympic gold match (not rooted in reality, where Argentina received bronze and Japan came seventh in the actual 2020 Olympics). I hope to release it sometime soon. It's... interesting, I suppose. I'm up to my usual bullshit, and "usual bullshit" means that one character gets unreasonably hurt in some way. It brings me unparalleled happiness.

As far as OiUshi and OiKage, they aren't my favorite but I can certainly see the appeal. OiUshi less so - I think they have negative chemistry, but the idea of them being together is funny enough to be enjoyable for me. I have read one or two drabbles of them before. OiKage is a rather controversial ship, which I understand. I don't think it works well when they are high schoolers at all, but the idea of something shifting in their adulthood is a fascinating concept. I don't mind it, honestly. It would show a lot of character growth between the two characters both individually and together.

[zanzibarhamster]

FORGOT THE NUMBERS UBh every oddly number

ALL RIGHT LET'S GO (character is big boss mentioned in another ask)

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

big boss has a really compelling negative character arc and has a lot of grayness to him. he's a hero to some and a villain to others, and we get to watch the slider slowly go from one end of the other, which is not a kind of main character that you see a lot, especially in games. i think a lot of the discourse about him, including the insanely polar-opposite takes of dudebros who think he's a super cool anti-hero vs the queer fans who think he's an irredeemable psychopath from day 1, is because neither one is entirely wrong. also, the che guevara parallel really really works for that reason.

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

hayter's voice acting does not always land. sorry but it's true.

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

definitely kings by tribe society (spotify, lyrics)

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

i like how many artists reject the way his canon models are mostly hairless with a chiseled six-pack (bc lbr neither one of those makes sense for the character) and go some degree of bear with him. 10/10.

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

...my gut instinct was "no" but honestly he's lived in very tight quarters with other people for many years so he's probably a pretty mindful roommate. the downside is he also probably doesn't know how to function without a KP chart and will be more than a little bitchy if I don't stick to whatever day of the week i'm supposed to wash the floors. i could do worse.

11. Would you date this character?

absolutely the fuck not.

13. What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

he wouldn't use emojis even if he knew what they were and how to use them. but 📦 suits him for obvious reasons.

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

shocking absolutely everyone, bbkaz.

17. What's a ship for this character you don't hate but it's not your favorite that you're fine with?

not sure how to parse this question so i'm going to hype my other bb ships which are bbeva and bbroy. he's weak to a very specific type of person okay.

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don't like?

i don't really have this? i do wish we had more closure on his relationship with eva, the way i make sense of eva pining for him for the rest of her life while he barely even mentions her is that i hc that their last conversation was 1) about the twins, 2) went extremely badly, and 3) she feels guilty about how badly he took it while he just cut her out of his life and never looked back. but i wish we actually knew what happened.

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

not sure i have a favorite but my least favorite thing by far is to have him watch someone else fight. choreographing fight scenes is a pain in the ass already bc i tend to try to work within specific arts a character might know like judo or aikido instead of just doing it by vibes, and the last thing i need is to deal with a character that uses every single technical term for all of those techniques and provides running commentary on top of it.

23. Favorite picture of this character?

i'm on mobile but insert screenshot of when he is naked against the wall of a cell in portable ops here.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

mgs3 was the first game i played bc i was told to play in timeline order and my first impression was that he was kind of a dumbass but in an endearing way and his relationship with the boss was cute. which more or less still holds up as part of my opinion on him at that point on the timeline. it got more complicated.

[gatheredfates]

78!

spotify wrapped is HERE! send me a number 1-100 and I’ll tell you the song it corresponds with on my top 100 playlist!

I've been splintering apart, breaking open from the start. Gates of heaven are closing. What did you do in my head? Weren't you laying in my bed telling me I was chosen?

TW: Suicidal ideation.

OHHH ULTRAVIOLENT, MY HEART. I got into Crywolf before Sleep Token, and he was my favourite artist for a very long time. OBLIVION PT. I was such a comfort for me, and when I found out PT. II was coming out late last year, I chomped at the BIT to not only listen to the album the moment it came out but also ensure I got my vinyl. QUIXØTE remains, to this day, one of my main Kor songs.

Which, who-da guessed it, this song also pertains to. I kind of split it into two separate sections. One half revolves around it being a ship song, reflecting her fears and anxieties around the idea she could be wanted by someone. The lines 'you're the fear inside my gut' and 'you've been my reason to breathe' are the dichotomies that she chooses to live for someone, but accepting such a reason means she has to combat the terror of being loved and loving someone - no matter the outcome; no matter the consequence.

That terror relating to section two, her sister. No matter what verse or AU I write Kor in, she was bestowed the Echo by watching her sister die. In her WoL verse, I reconciled it through Endwalker that she asked for it — that she would never have started her hero's journey were her sister alive, and having such a deep-seated hatred for Hydaelyn's machinations would be one of the few things that would stop her from killing herself. That whole expansion represented a level of... forgiveness in her character? To others, but mostly to herself. Her sister's death was an inevitability; the same as Elpis' fall, of Amaurot's destruction and of Azem's demise.

The same can be said for her regular verse, though she has a greater support system in Firelight and those around her.

But that's where the lines, 'I've been splintering apart, breaking open from the start, gates of heaven are closing' lines are most applicable. She has never believed she was a 'hero' — especially not of the light. Heaven is where her sister lay, closed-off and inaccessible to her. She's always had outside forces (ie. her father) tell her she would never be worthy of it, so why should she? At many a juncture she's believed Lily would be a better candidate; she was warmer, kinder and lacked her teeth. But then the Echo would hit, or she would dream of her, and it would reinforce the fact she was the one that was chosen.

She couldn't see her own worth, tangled up in her own self-doubts. It harkens back to that line at the start, 'What did you do in my head? Weren't you laying in my bed telling me I was chosen?' She dreamt of her sister decaying in her bed, the sacrificial lamb, telling her she was destined to be chosen. It was never supposed to be a gift. It was an inevitability.

I think about it a lot.

[aijamisespava]

1 Eurovision Hot Take Per Year!

Well, well, well. The results are in, and by a rather nice margin, the choice of "1 Eurovision Hot Take Per Year" won. And I just gotta say, this is certainly one way to kick off the new Eurovision Season!

So, with this one, I've picked one unpopular (or maybe even popular) opinion for each Eurovision Year from 2009 to the most recent one in 2023, as those are the ones that I know all of the songs and have seen some other things (like the stage and what not).

Disclaimer for the road: So these opinions could be good or bad! They are 100% my own and may cause some conversation if that does come up. Are we ready? Let's go!

2009: I...really don't like the stage for this year. I'm sure it looked great at the time, but looking at it now, there's just so much empty space. Some of the smaller, more intimate (think one person at the mic like France's entry that year) risk being hidden away from the bigger entries that try to take up more of the space. In hindsight, the songs themselves really helped propel entries to certain positions, but I found the stage just too big.

2010: Moving away from the 13-year-old debate on whether the winner or the 2nd place entry should have won, I would like to bring up another underrated entry that didn't even make the Grand Final. North Macedonia brought a great song with Gjoko Taneski's "Jas Ja Imam Silata." I like the song enough to call it a favorite, but I don't know if I should consider it a guilty pleasure. And since it was an honorable mention, it never would gave gotten a mention had North Macedonia participated in 2023 in my "Favorite From Each Country" series. So that will be my hot take for 2010. North Macedonia underrated.

2011: I actually liked the Top 3. "Running Scared" is rather pretty, I can never say no to the soft jazz grove of "Madness Of Love," and "Popular" is a kick. The top 3 could literally be in any sort of combination and it would be deserved no matter what.

2012: I ranked Euphoria 8th. I'm sorry. I tried thinking of other hot takes that I may have for 2012 that wouldn't seem like "shock value" but this is all I got. It's a good song, don't get me wrong. I like that it won over others, I have it on Spotify, but it's good. *for the record North Macedonia was my winner that year so yeah...*

2013: This year really kind of grew on me. When I was doing a mental ranking of which years were my favorites, I found 2013 really low at first. I found it strange because there were songs I liked, but I caught myself kind of forgetting it existed sometimes. But as time progressed and I was picking out my favorite entries for each country, I found myself looking at 2013 more often than a year I would consider "weak."

2014: I don't know why, but the stage for this year is my favorite. It's so aesthetically pleasing. It's big without being too big, but not too small where nothing could fit on it. The lighting also helped enhance performances I saw on Youtube.

2015: This was literally anyone's year. For those who have been here for a while, you know that 2015 is my favorite Eurovision year. My winner (Belgium's Loïc Nottet) ended up being one of my favorite artists of all time, and the competition was STACKED. This is one of the few years where the song I ranked last is still one I'd listen to. So, while Sweden did deserve the win that year, so did literally everyone else.

2016: This year was probably the hardest year for me to come up with a hot take. As I had to go to YouTube to see if there was anything I could grab. I decided to go with the reveal of the televoting score. While that would be so cool to have again, I can definitely see the problems with it. The suspense is insane and it may play out as predictable if the jury points gap was too big (think if they did that in 2023).

2017: This is a stronger year than I thought. 2017 has the reputation of being one of the weakest, if not the weakest Eurovision year of the 2010s. And...okay, maybe it is a little bit. BUT there are quite a few good songs that really shine. Some of my favorites come from 2017. Maybe it just needs time to grow, but only time will tell.

2018: The year for underrated gems. A lot of people are really hot and cold when it comes to the winner in 2018. You either love it or hate it. For me, I really wasn't fond of it (and the same goes for 2nd place...roast me all you want). HOWEVER, a lot of my favorites ranked rather low. My winner and 3rd place (Belarus and Switzerland, respectively) didn't even qualify while my 2nd place (Ukraine) finished on the right side of the column. This year is certainly a year worth doing a deep dive on as there are even more entries that finished low that are actually pretty awesome!

2019: This was kind of a weak year. Don't get me wrong, I liked a few of the songs, "Arcade" deserved the win, but there's nothing else for me to talk about this year. To me, it just exists (this may be because it was towards the end of my speedruns back in 2021), and I sometimes forget about it when thinking of other songs.

2020: Iceland could've (and had it happened, would have) won this year. Even though COVID rudely canceled the 2020 contest, fans have thought about what would have happened had the contest actually happened. That includes who might have had the chance to win. And my pick in this game of speculation? Iceland. The televote would have easily given Iceland the head on the field. Why I think so? I was getting ads for that EXACT song on social media...in the US. And as we've seen, going viral could be what makes a Eurovision song a winner. But I guess we'll never know.

2021: Both Måneskin and Gjon's Tears deserved to win. Everyone, I present to you my top 2 of 2021. Aside from the fact that this year was STACKED, these two were the winners of the jury and televote, with Måneskin taking the overall victory. And they deserved it. The hardest thing about ranking Eurovision songs is that all the songs could be of different genres, with no guarantee that there would be overlap. So, genre-wise, both Måneskin and Gjon's Tears brought the best, and it wouldn't have mattered if either won in my eyes.

2022: I actually liked Bulgaria's song. I don't know what it is about it (maybe it's rock, maybe this was my first new Eurovision song as a fan, etc.), but I actually liked "Intention" by Intelligent Music Project. I kept seeing it essentially plummet to the bottom on some other fan rankings, which I guess made it my first "underrated gem." But the novelty of it hasn't worn off as I still play it on Spotify and don't want to skip it.

2023: So many robbed entries. Some of it I understand, especially for the Grand Final televote as a LOT of people were voting for "Cha Cha Cha" to hopefully close the gap the jury would give "Tattoo." But OH MY GOD. I'll spare you my rant on Latvia's NQ because you know how much I love that song. But Slovenia 21st? Serbia 24th? Iceland and Georgia NQ? Spain LAST in televote? Also, Australia winning their televote only Semi to only get...not a lot of points? There are plenty others, but I'll stop there.

[jackalsinthekitchen]

pop report #5: endless summer edition (9/16/23)

a sundazed glance at Billboard’s top 20 from two weeks ago – bitch, I said what I said

Summer’s over, the heat from the proverbial kitchen and literal sun still burning the other cheek I feebly turned to both. Per tradition, we’re bidding the season goodbye with a smattering of typical plaints that it wasn’t long enough, or felt like it didn’t happen. But here in Texas, it’s in full swing by early May, with not much mystery over what we’re in for beyond what degree (Fahrenheit) of punishing. So yeah – we’re pretty sure it happened. Yet again, we thought we were ready for it, and yet again, it went a little harder on us than it needed to. Whatever else went down, that lucky old sun made it cruel enough to justify a now-ancient Taylor chorus shooting up the pop charts. Like anything else that shoots up the pop charts these days, reasons why were imperfectly clear. One more testament to the inimitable inhabitability of the One True Pop Star’s catchy canon, perhaps? My summer wasn’t my fave; I can still feel it from here.

I’ve barely touched this new blog o’ mine, which I dreamt of putting up for years – the present you ogle at through the shop window for ages only to take it home and unwrap it, and see all that built-up desire instantly brown with oxidization. While Jackals! still doesn’t have a hook, for the first four weeks of 2023, at a rate of productivity that was ultimately to no one’s benefit, I looked at the pop charts and decided to think out loud about what they meant. But the thing is, in a year when people are thinking about it more out loud than usual, nobody seems to know exactly what they mean. There are analyses trenchant and muddled, and scattered rebuttals to both, strewn throughout comments sections we’ll never read. I’m too bored to even try to recap what I think I know about how these numbers are measured. Even my late best friend’s agitated analyses resisted my comprehension. Why dull the aesthetic with the statistical?

Suffice it to say, there are so many theories about “gaming the system” floating around, it feels a bit like last election year. Most of the people on my radar are in some way convinced that one Oliver Anthony Music’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” won its surprise Billboard victory through nefarious right-wing interference – comparable, you hear, to that Jim Caviezel movie about (fighting) child trafficking, where people bought out whole theatres just to stick it to Brandon. It’s not about the music, they say, it’s about waving a righteous-anger rag, and the rallying cry might as well be coming from any red-faced red-haired Bible-belt boy with a banjo who caught the Qanon virus at très-unmasked family get-togethers. A more neutral friend points out that “Rich Men North of Richmond” hung in at a basically ungameable top 3 place on Spotify for a bit. It was all great industry all around: for MAGAfolk, thinkpiecers, Billy Bragg.

Times change fast, though, so even if a few people are still reeling from them, the Billboard chart – much less Spotify’s Today’s Top Hits, where Anthony has vanished – has moved on to its latest single-star infiltration. That star is Queen Zillennial Olivia Rodrigo, whose guts are is filled with readymade hits, and who may portend a long-awaited pendulum swing back to a more rockist zeitgeist. But because it still literally does not matter what I do here, I wanna warm up these lazy fingers some by casting an eye back to two weeks ago, a whole world away, when the charts looked a bit more like they did in the middle of swelter season. At the ground floor of that top 20 was the indefatigable fatigue-pop of “Anti-Hero”, my most favorite song, which does not seem to have engendered a self-reflection revolution here on earth. But hey, maybe people are just keeping quiet about it. Even Taylor is going through some shit.

#19 is “Thinkin’ Bout Me”, by Morgan Wallen, the, uh, hot-button country artist about whom many folks certainly have thoughts. I haven’t heard this song as of this point in this paragraph, and I suspect it’s not as good as Frank Ocean’s pillow-pop classic “Thinkin’ Bout You”, which is the next song you get when you type “thinkin bout” in the search bar. Mr. Wallen, a reformed butt-rocker, has a harder edge than many of his southern-pop peers, and an excellent article I linked to earlier in this piece, written by a (non-right-wing) writer who’s spent just a little more time with young Wallen’s proudly endless albums than I have, suggests his lyrics even bespeak hip-hop (gasp!) influences. Perhaps this explains some words he enjoys using. The beat of this one is ripped unaltered from hip-hop; the lyrics might pass too, if rapped, though not in what I perhaps unfairly call “truck nuts voice”. Wallen is feeling upset, and entitled, about a recent breakup in this enduring hit, not helping his case by singing the song like an asshole. (More on this later.)

Country really is in its butt-rock era, in a sense – the guitars are amped-up and grinding, the (male) vox are growly and real-ass proud about it. “Need a Favor”, by something called Jelly Roll that’s miles away from Morton, was cited recently in an AA meeting I attended by someone it caught unsuspecting on the radio. We’re a very talk-to-God crowd in AA, and contra Wallen, there’s a humility in this song that’s not matched at all by its sound, but which pushes its stridence into something resembling passion. I’ve just found out via Google/Wikipedia that Jelly Roll is apparently an “American rapper”. He looks like a heavier Post Malone – also an “American rapper” even though everything he puts out sounds just like a pop song – and has a narrative about being incarcerated many times, which also lends some poignant complexity to his hit’s hook. Verdict: annoying if you’re in the wrong mood, but not necessarily bad for your health.

Next in my discovery journey is finding out who the War & Treaty are – they’re a Black husband and wife who weave country and rock into more traditionally Black styles like soul and blues. It makes sense that they’d team up with Zach Bryan, one of the better and, dare I say it, more soulful heavy country hitters hanging out in the high end of these charts. “Hey Driver”, which doesn’t trouble you with electric guitars or even drums at the top, is really stirring. The juxtaposition of tW&T’s full-bodied harmonies against Bryan’s voice, which crumbles once it hits the air, is gorgeous, and the lyrics boast a complexity rarely troubled with on most of these hits. It’s all sincerity, but for the most part, I feel like it earns it. Though the Billboard charts continue to exhibit a kind of separate-but-equal mélange of genres, this sort of crossover still feels rare – even if so much pop, R&B and country takes production cues from hip-hop.

At #16 (we’re at #16 btw) is the ever-restless, currently-somewhat-exhausted Miley Cyrus, whose tired but empowered “Flowers” is already one of pop’s great breakup anthems and stands as one of the songs of last summer. I spent some time in Ms. Cyrus’ canon last spring for a piece I’m proud of, but it didn’t dispel the impression I’ve always had that behind that fabulous voice and insouciant demeanor is not a very clear artistic vision. Cyrus swings from new tack to new tack, and unless she’s put a truly fantastic single together – she does this every so often – there’s always a trace of “unconvincing” there for me. “Used to Be Young” is scarcely different. A piano ballad, something she seems to personally favor, it has an air of reflective weariness (cf. “Malibu”) and light penitence (perhaps for She is Coming?). The media was rarely kind to her, but the hurt only comes out in her songs. The hook is solid, if a little programmatic (“you say I used to be wild, I say I used to be young”), and the music narrowly avoids sappiness with an atmospheric, beaty arrangement. And the fact is, when she starts to belt, she thins out her competition.

“Religiously” by Bailey Zimmerman – I would’ve typed “Blake” based on his face and sound if I hadn’t looked twice – is another revved-up, growly country song about having been deserted, and unlike Mr. Wallen, Zimmy doesn’t wink at you that she was super wrong to leave. The chorus – “I ain’t got the only woman who was there for me/religiously” – skirts patriarchal discomfort, but the lucky among us have had a deeply patient, unwaveringly supportive partner, so the regret is broadly relatable. The religious content is also rather muted – not like this is worship music or anything, though I guess it could pass if it were cornier – weaving the spiritual and secular in a seemingly seamless way. But it’s not not corny. It’s not clear if BZ has a sense of humor, and while his voice has some nice gristle to it (a la ZB), like most of country’s current heavy hitters, the music sounds straight from the factory (a factory with mandolins).

Lil Durk (feat. J. Cole)’s “All My Life”, #14, is also corny, but not enough to drag it down. The slow unfurl of its polysyllabic ruminations (there’s an element of hip-hop the rest of pop would do well to absorb), the classic-Kanye style kids’-choir hook, the simple, gorgeous chord progression: this is a song that aims to make you cry, and more or less earns it. Cole’s climactic middle section about slain young rappers is the highlight, of course; never were more brilliant pop stars cut down too soon than in the modern rap era. But the whole thing has a humility and sense of dynamics that arrests you the whole way through, even the verses you’re not following perfectly between choruses. There is a problem here, though – the single’s sweet sugar was harvested and glazed over by none other than Dr. Luke, one of music’s accused whose charges seemed credible enough to strip him of his license to practice. Can’t Ke$ha count on us?

#13 is “Flowers”, and #12 one of three fantastic hits from the indisputable movie of the summer. Barbie was fainter for me than I wanted, though I’m not sure how much more subversive – it’s quite subversive! – it could’ve been while still nailing the something-for-everyone thing. And anyway, what do I know? I’m just a Ken (or perhaps an Allan). “Barbie World”, the #12 in question two weeks ago – remember, this is all two weeks ago, I make the rules here – is the weakest of the trio. It’s a trap-haze interpolation of the old Aqua hit, a great song which nevertheless felt so aggressively hyper back in the ‘90s, it could hit like a form of torture in the wrong mood. Nicki Minaj, my original 2010s hero, hasn’t helped herself personally for a bit, but her effortless, earth-scorching command, even at a low temperature, is a perfect vessel for the universal empowerment this theme and its film intend – “all of the Barbies is pretty” indeed. #6 on this chart is Dua Lipa’s mint-condition, made-to-order disco anthem “Dance the Night”, the sort of banger that feels like it’s been around forever. The last Barbie hit, Billie Eilish’s startlingly canny “What Was I Made For”, a ballad that astounds a little harder every time it languidly unfolds, hung in at #22.

Oliver Anthony Music had dropped just outside the top 10 at this time. Part of my picking an earlier chart is that I wanted to write about him; that said, I don’t know that a single song has had more written about it in the recent past, and all in one week. Much was made of Anthony(whose beard conceals his build)’s irritation with people who use taxpayer-funded welfare to buy cheap treats. In fact, his fatphobia is the clearest toxicity in the lyrics, though the reference to “minors on an island somewhere” – as if the U.S. government did a thing to keep Jeffrey Epstein from hurting people – codes conspiracy theorist. But all the carping about his fishy success belies the fact that the song sounds great. Mr. Music’s voice is searing and powerful, the stark banjo and the outdoor ambience a production coup, and if it wasn’t so clear he was coming at this from the wrong place (though to be fair, he’s abjured any party affiliation), it would speak to the great open secret of U.S. politics, which is that bullshit pay is everybody’s problem, and these wedge issues, however serious, are there to distract us from uniting against our oppressors. As Billy Bragg put it in his pitch-perfect rebuttal, “join a union”. We’ve just been reminded strikes still work.

Having already touched on #6, I’ll breeze through 10 to 7. 10 is Rema & Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down”, an Afrobeat-graced pop hit with a vibe much resemblant of Bad Bunny and other recent Latin pop. Gomez’s post-Waverly Place penchant for coming on like she’s absolutely done with everything and is too tired to be bothered anymore suits the single’s quiet storm perfectly. “Vampire” is Olivia’s current piano-kissoff coup, and you already know how much it doesn’t suck. Gunna’s “Fukumean” gets stuck in my head here and there – well, just the “Fukumean” part – and I always subsequently wonder what it sounds like on the radio, where you still can’t quite say exactly what the fukumean. The music feels generic if peppy; the lyrics are conventional hip-hop aggro-bravado. SZA’s “Snooze” is no snooze, but also no “Kill Bill”.

I went through a breakup this summer, right around the time Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” blew up. His music is insistently catchy and melodically brawny, so for a short time “no way it was our last night” was sort of a pet chorus in my head. But this deteriorated quickly, paying attention to the rest of the lyrics – said night was booze-fueled, not the most relatable or charming thing for a grateful recovering alcoholic, and once again, Wallen’s greasy cockiness is an automatic turn-off. There’s very little indication that his ex wants to stick around, much less that Wallen, whose cultural function is primarily as a “cancelled” superstar half of the country is propping up in retaliation, has done a lot of self-interrogation about it. The song really does sound great, and its hook is invincible, but once again, it isn’t exactly good for you.

The late-breaking triumph of Taylor’s “Cruel Summer” would also leave a bad taste if the song weren’t one of her best. I say this because of the recent scenario in which our new pop hero Olivia Rodrigo had to pay Swift, whose business acumen seems genuinely frightening, for a touch of inspiration from this song (a chanted section…?) that could be ungenerously interpreted as some sort of theft for which some sort of repayment is in order. Their lawyers worked it out, but bad blood feels inevitable; Swift famously supported Rodrigo in a deliberately maternal way when “Drivers License” (sorry, “drivers license”) hit, but it’s not impossible to imagine that zillionaire cipher feeling a twinge of jealousy from which a few petty things might result. Rodrigo’s evasive responses in interviews seem to give credit to this suspicion.

Into the top #3, and here sits one of my favorite curios, Luke Combs’ musically beefed-up but lyrically unaltered cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”. Combs absolutely has truck nuts voice, and I’m still not clear what people who prefer that voice above all others do when he drops the line about his time as a checkout girl. It’s hard to pinpoint anything nefarious here; Combs has just sent an influx of money into the bank account of a more-or-less forgotten Black female singer-songwriter – though that song endures, and is now living in the high reaches of the charts, because it’s fucking fantastic. But then, I haven’t read any thinkpieces about it, and I’m getting about as tired of writing as you are of reading, so we’ll move on.

My boy Zach Bryan and our girl Kacey Musgraves are (well, were) at #2 with their gently broken collab “I Remember Everything”. With its soft bass-drum pound, quiet strumming, slowly sawn violins and swaths of echo, it sounds a bit like mists floating grimly over fields (antebellum, perhaps? Nah, not for Kacey). Here are two of our deftest, most openhearted country stars, and, finally, a country breakup hit with not a kernel of corn, setting its scene through pure suggestion instead of beating you over the head with a big new cliché in a sack full of old ones. Its magic dispels a little the closer you look, but it really works. So does the unflappable Doja Cat’s “Paint the Town Red”, noted by chartwatchers as the first rap hit atop the hot 100 in a hot minute. As with “Dance the Night”, once DC rolls in over the music, the song feels classic and eternal. Not unlike Dionne Warwick’s “Walk on By”, the source of its sample – a 60-year-old hit of such intense and incongruous fragility, it’s astonishing how well they worked it in. In the Spotify age, all pop is eternal. To that end, any summer whose soundtrack is woven into your soul is endless.

[just-slightly-chayotic]

tagged by @scattered-stardust to post 6 of my favourite songs! thank you for tagging me!!

(i'm going to limit myself to one jeff song despite pretty much listening to only his music since july)

1. Stranger by Jeff Satur - this song has had a chokehold on me since it came out. the first time i listened to it was the day it was released. my spotify is still on my home country's timezone so despite living in a country where it's an hour earlier, i could listen to it on spotify at 11pm instead of midnight. i was on a call with my best friend who still didn't have access to it so i played it on my laptop so they could hear it too. we spent the evening listening to it on loop until we went to sleep.

2. Doing This Again! by Bears In Trees - even with my newfound obsession with Jeff, they were still my top played artist in 2022, which says a lot. their music just speaks to me. the amount of times i've screamed this specific song at the top of my lungs at 6am in the morning is,,, well. it's a lot.

3. Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen - a classic of course. i grew up listening to my dad's cassette tapes of Queen, i don't actually remember if this song was on one of them or not but this is a song that always has me dancing and cheers me up no matter what mood i'm in.

4. IF NOT FOR YOU by Måneskin - a new favourite! first time i listened to their new album was the day after it came out when one of my best friends texted me about it. we spent an hour listening to it together and commenting it and we agreed that this song is a favourite for both us.

5. Car's Outside by James Arthur - since my best friend and i are long distance and goodbyes are always incredibly hard (and they keep getting harder), this song is something that we decided is our song. it never fails to make me cry.

6. Drinking Song for the Socially Anxious by The Amazing Devil - they're another of my favourite music artists! their vocals are amazing and their lyrics speak to me. this song especially. just give it a listen, you'll see why

(no pressure) tagging: @fuckyeah-itme @alwaysandforeverlost @booksnchocolate @risu442 and @the-water-nixie

[vacantgodling]

2022 Year in Review Tag!

thanks so much @magic-is-something-we-create i feel like this year has been a huge jumble ngl but let’s be positive about it lol :’)

also this is just a general list not top 5 cuz i didn’t do much this year

5 movies i watched

in terms of new movies:

american psycho — i actually enjoyed this movie a lot but it’s genuinely bc this movie is much funnier than i thought it would be. all deeper meanings and commentary aside patrick bateman is a fucking specimen

kwaidan — obsessed with this movie ngl. the first three segments are top tier (kurokami, yukionna & HOICHI THE EARLESS ESPECIALLY IF YOU WATCH NO OTHER PART PLEASE WATCH THIS ONE I CANNOT PRAISE IT ENOUGH). however the last one was super lackluster in comparison to the other three. tbh i feel like if the last one was the first one it would be a really good progression from okay to the best bc you really can’t follow hoichi the earless with anything imo.

tales from crypt (1972) — watched a lot of old horror this year (bc my partner is a horror movie buff and has been getting me into them for awhile now lolol) but this movie was a lot of fun! i want more ridiculous anthologies and movies tbh. make movies fun again tm.

jeepers creepers — never seen it before and MY GOD was screaming the whole time i was watching bc no?? we do not need to investigate you KNOW it’s a creature. all of this might’ve been avoided if y’all just minded your damn business 😔

then off the top of my head i rewatched my comfort movie sherlock holmes bc fuck iron man, rdj’s sherlock is his best role to me. i definitely wanna watch more movies next year.

5 shows i watched

ah i mostly just watched anime this year

chainsaw man — stressed. everyone is sketchy and i’m stressed

rewatch of demon slayer with my friend bc demon slayer is the only thing that matters :) finally have hulu so i can fucking watch season 2 i just haven’t gotten around to it yet 😭

way of the househusband — finally got around to watching the anime this year and just as the manga, it’s perfect

jujutsu kaisen — i love it but at what cost. also i’m a simp for nanami oof

death parade / nana — i’ve only watched the first episodes of each but nana stresses me out (lovingly) and i think death parade is fascinating i just need to make more time to watch shit lol

5 songs of 2022 (*separate from spotify wrapped*)

odo — ado -> got introduced to this song recently and just absolutely obsessed with it. it’s the song that may be sparking a change in one of my wips that i mentioned lol

devil — max changmin -> came out in january and this song owns the whole fucking year idc idc idc

go back — se so neon -> UGH THIS BAND their songs slap so hard but go back is genuinely just so good

濁 (daku) — the gazette -> this whole album. but i want this song directly injected into my veins.

better — boa -> CRACK. THERES CRACK IN THIS SONG. but boa >>>>>>

5 albums or artists of 2022

i don’t have 5 but these three specifically:

devil (the 2nd mini album) — max changmin -> this album owns my ass. cannot believe he started the year like this. how fucking dare lol.

the gazette, always my beloveds

lowlife princess: noir — bibi -> she snapped with this one. every song and mv snapped. bibi vengence & animal farm especially

5 books i read

definitely didn’t read 5 books lol didn’t have time or space mentally. however i will say i started to read bram stoker’s dracula this year, got stuck on the part about paprika, thought it was hilarious and never finished chapter 1. it’s super good from the bit i read so far, i’m just easily amused and don’t have patience 😔

5 characters from media

nanami (jjk) — feral about a man a single man

like everyone in demon slayer but tanjiro komado my fucking BELOVED 😭

hanzo (ovw) — 6 years strong obsessing over this man pff

link — i am once again pointing at my botw self insert au side blog lmaoooo

gojo / rengoku share a spot only bc i love them but ow pain :)

sorry i don’t listen to podcasts lol

and finally

5 positive things that happened in 2022 no matter how small:

got conveyor belt sushi for the first time! i wish it was closer by but maybe it’s better i’d be there every day

created a new writeblr so i could start getting more confident talking about my stories. i think it’s marginally worked! i’m working on myself still but i feel like i’ve been more open and indulgent this year

5 years with my partner!

had a pretty good birthday for the first time in years

despite the struggles working from home has done a lot for my mental health and i want to try and secure another wfh job in the future.

this is an open tag! i hope everyone had a decent year to some extent 💛

[unhingedblahaj]

[music/artist review] "Into Sands", written and performed by Ley Soul

I can't lie: I've listened to this song almost nonstop today.

As the digital clock struck midnight, Ley Soul's triumphant return to the top of my monthly Spotify summaries was all but confirmed with the release of her newest single, "Into Sands". I'd briefly met Ley Soul in person over the summer of '24, in [redacted], [redacted]. We caught up about the last year of life experience and personal growth in a whirlwind of a conversation that let me see her in a different light. You see, I'd known her before the runaway social media success and trips to LA where she'd write songs and produce music; I'd sat in the same classrooms as she had.

I can't speak to any more of her musical heritage and upbringing beyond what she explicitly told me, but what I can confirm is that her musicality stands upon equally immovable pillars of talent and diligence. Like the satiated customer in a Michelin-star restaurant, I realize my comments exist in context far larger than my purview, atop considerable commercial acclaim and a TikTok press conference of worship paired with what seems at times seemingly non-existent shame. Ley Soul has captivated a niche--something I've only grown to appreciate more--and expanded on her basis set of soundscape vectors. In that conversation from summer '24, she'd mentioned experimenting with non-conformity to equal temperament in response to my praise for "Fortune Eyes", which I had then dubbed my favorite work of hers thus far. While my over-intellectualizationisms attempted to frame this as atonality or microtonality, she smiled as she reassured me that the feelings being evoked mattered more. For her, music, it seemed, had transcended the framework of proficiency and culminated to an expression of self. If such a trajectory were given a blanket title, one might call it artistry.

That's not to diminish the growth in technical mastery demonstrated in this 4-minute, "heavenly", "trippy asl", "soty" (song of the year). Ley Soul's breakout single, "Intergalactic Janet", had never resonated with me due to its simplicity and derivative nature (not to deride taking inspiration, but even Ley Soul herself admits her 19M stream single could be confused for the likes of Erykah Badu). I was still very happy to hear that a friend of mine had found some level of commercial success, but frankly, I couldn't pretend I didn't feel a similar sense of disdain for the "common folk" who created financial incentives in the mediocre that others had expressed with the success of someone like... I don't know, Ed Sheeran? Katy Perry? I don't know who the boomers point to as ruining music nowadays.

My fears were Thanos-snapped out of existence with "Fortune Eyes". Genre staples (such as compressed bass with boosted mids and complex percussion arrangements) aside, Ley Soul's brazen experimentation instantly reminded me why I was drawn to her as a person. She'll prove to you she knows all the rules, and alternate between sharp jabs that demonstrate the comprehensive nature of her prowess and inevitable combinations that demand and reward relistening. As for the last minute of the song, in terms of my analysis, exemplified that she had a firm grasp on what sound she wanted, and was pretty darn close to achieving it. Attempt to relive my surprise when she offhandedly mentioned that she wasn't super satisfied with the song's ending. This isn't even her final form.

"Into Sands" manages to do everything "Fortune Eyes" did, but better, somehow. Ley Soul's vocal agility and tone take center stage again, with everything from the ostinato that plays over the intro, choruses, to the breathy harmony lines, to a brilliantly orchestrated belt mix owing their vibes to singular, phenomenal performances. (For nerds: her controlled usage of vibrato in the multiple lines and harmonies from 2:34 to 3:02 does things to a certain corner in your chest.) While Ley Soul's lyricism has never been dense, her preferred level of verbosity highlights her control of tone (especially vowel placement!!) and her inhuman riffage. Her presentation, while aided by the forward and permeating production magic of Elijah Hill and Matt Kahane, oozes with the confidence that comes with the complete encapsulation of one's objective.

Listening to this song consecutively with Ley Soul's other singles (some released, some only on YouTube), it's not difficult to consider this her most technically proficient, cohesively polished, and (at least personally) vibe-a-licious single thus far. I do hope to retract this statement, because in case you weren't aware, Ley Soul has two more pre-save links live right now.

[radiochick]

Conclusions on Camping In Alaska

Wholeheartedly, I love Camping In Alaska. I found them when I was 14 going into my freshman year of high school when I was a little worse for wear. I know it might seem weird to love a band for helping explain their angst and woes, but I am so grateful for what they've done. Not to make this too weepy I had my down moments for the first half of high school and this band really stuck with me. I really relied on them to help take my pain away and when you listen to their music late at night while laying on your bed just staring away it feels like the universe has been solved. I genuinely held them to this degree and still do. Yes, there are other bands that have similar feelings to this such as Macseal; however, CIA just has a small twinge of difference. Maybe by the different recording styles that show throughout the different albums. Or where they were in their lives that fueled the energy and feeling behind each piece of work. They speak to the masses in their own individualistic way.

It's common knowledge that their debut album, Please Be Nice, has gained the most recognition and helped boost a new generation of listeners. Unknowingly, talking to the thousands of listeners who felt the same way at that age or another at some point in their life. I initially found them by their infamous song “c u in da ballpit” and would continue showing my friends the band by this song. Their lyrics spoke to my old depressed, angst self better than any other music. I was wrapped up in my sadness and this helped finish the cake. Sorry, if you took it the wrong way I’m not saying their album made me more depressed; instead, it helped speak for my sadness when I didn't know what it was. It spoke to me and my venture to be free in the iconic line, “When I can’t sleep I’ll drive my car to the top of Monte Sano and I’ll watch the cars pass by and I’ll feel alright.” Having that urge to drop everything and just be free or go with the wind was one flame that never blew out. This allowed me to escape in a state of mind so prevalent it brought tears to my eyes.

It’s really important to me seeing bands playing an iconic feeling that was huge and impactful in their life over what might top charts. Still it blows my mind how they didn't get the early recognition they deserved when this was first released. Maybe it was made ahead of its time to really have the effect like it does currently. In interviews I read they are said to have much of their love for playing from wanting to share their music with others (from doorsatseven.org). When I first found them they had less than 500 Youtube subscribers and weren’t even on Spotify. I just found them one random night and was mesmerized by this new sound. My two greatly passionate years filled by mid-west emo and post-emo were fueled by CIA. No one topped them in my mind, but the love for them wasn't up to par with how great of artists they were. Then, over the years I saw how they climbed and climbed in their notoriety. This brought a huge smile to my face seeing my favorite band become more and more popular. I could sense how amazing they were and only wanted for more people to see this as well.

I know this isn't much of a review. I mean I can't really review any of their music without saying how it's the best. The only circumstance I have is to give context behind the band and what ignited the flame behind each release. This was merely a rant induced by my need to once again show people how much I truly love this band. Now don't just base this off of my opinion figure your views on your own by going and listening to them. Personally, I would recommend Freight Train or Bathe. Alas, this is a personal matter so choose whatever you feel like.

[justmeinatree]

okay realistically i could just say one direction as a band, and then Harry, Louis, and Niall as solo artists for four of the five because i really do still love the music they made as a band and obviously i adore our boys as solo artists. but for the sake of actually giving an interesting answer, i'm not gonna name any members of one direction 😂 naming my top 5 is sooo hard because it's like being forced to pick my favorite children and my favorites change all the time but at the moment i'd say Three Days Grace (in particular the older stuff when Adam Gontier was still the lead singer, they've been a favorite of mine since my early teenage years), Bastille (Bad Blood is still such an elite album after a decade idc what anyone says), September Stories (they do a lot of spoken word stuff so it's a bit of an acquired taste but Every Word, Everything and Home have been in my top 100 songs on Spotify every year since I made my account), The Smiths (Morissey sucks as a person lol but his ability to turn his misery into absolutely gorgeous lyrics goes unmatched and Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want and There Is a Light That Never Goes Out both have such an otherworldly vibe to them), and Beth Crowley (she does a lot of songs inspired by books that I've never read but I really love the way her lyrics always tell a story and I wish she was more popular!!)

i know you didn't ask for all these details but i can't talk about my favorite artists without adding at least a few comments 😂 i could seriously talk about music all day so i'm loving that you asked this!! 🫶

but now i obviously have to ask you the same question...top 5 artists/bands? 👀

-🤘

okay so i’m loving the variety here ! a lot a lot !! i’m also now curious how one direction / solo 1d would rank ? just out of pure curiosity because i obviously can’t decipher based on your list here 😅

now asking for my top 5 is 😩 lol top 6 is even easier than top 5 for some reason 🤷‍♀️ so is top 3 lmao for some reason 5 is just messing with me but here we go ! and i’ll preface this with 2 points. firstly, i’m not putting one direction or any of their solo careers, but mostly because they honestly probably don’t rank in my top 5 (and cue the absolute massacre i’m gonna receive in my inbox, especially considering i’ve been blogging about 3 of them for the last 10+ years. but listen, top 5 of every artist EVER, cmon 😅) and secondly, you will very much be able to pin down my fav kind of music. i really do like a lot of artists from a lot of different genres, but i do have a fav and it will be blatantly fkn obvious. alright, here goes 😂

first, and always motha fkn first no matter what, green day. they are my everything, their music from 80s through to now has shaped me into who i am today, more than anything else. jesus of suburbia is the best song ever written, nothing will ever top it, like everyone else can stop trying, we have the best song ever, yall can go home 😂 then i’d say afi. fantastic band from the start, but their decemberunderground album is my favourite album of all time, so beautifully written. and fun fact, the only album that i have tattooed twice (or i should say once but getting the second next time i’m getting tatted) ! now we’re gonna flip things a tiny bit, and go with steve miller band, hands downs the BEST stoner music ever. they have the vinyls i reach for most, it’s just such a fkn vibe, i adore it !! (also sliding in an honourable mention for oasis, because that’s another vinyl i’m always reaching for when stoned 😅). fourth, i would say good charlotte, simply because they are fkn fantastic, and their young and the hopeless album is the one album i turn to constantly when life is hard and it just resets me, idk what it is 😂. and then in fifth, i’m going with our lady peace, i feel like they’re super underrated but they have some fkn bangers, they deserve more love ! and then i’m throwing in an honourable mention to counting crows because that 90s vibe is unmatched, and it brings me so much nostalgia for easier times.

sorry for the bible 😅 i hope you enjoy my rant about my 5 (or 7 😬) top fav bands that quite clearly capture the essence that is my punk rock heart 🫶