#on some of them i like the production better than the lyrics or vice versa but still

[fingertipsmp3]

Finally listened to the anthology songs and they’re so fucking good omg. I don’t know if I can rank them, I just love all of them

[stewy]

your take that john's writing became more shallow after he met yoko is so on point. before he got with her, his songs were a lot more poetic, subtle, thematically and structurally complex. a lot of his post-yoko work is full of extremely on the nose and fake deep lyrics.

see, the thing is that i believe John copied and bettered the style of whatever artist he was obsessed with. his early Beatles songs are so damn good, it's the 50s style of songwriting + Paul's + his own struggles and insecurities. there is nothing like his writing from the time. then he found about Dylan and ended him in his own game by writing the songs from Help!/Rubber Soul/Revolver. he got into experimental shit and came out with the stuff on Sgt. Pepper/MMT (no one else in the fucking world could write I Am The Walrus lmao. It's like one of his short stories put to song, but better).

when he got with Yoko... while he was still working with Paul, it had that distinct Beatle touch because he was also writing with the general audience in mind, but the stuff on Imagine is so... meh. Me & My Monkey, Julia and Oh My Love all have lovely lyrics but they're all so empty, much like Yoko's poetry. there's no feeling or humor in them, imo. my take is that he just took himself too seriously when she was around, of course it was impossible to crush his sense of humor but since she was a Serious Artist, he had to be an equally Serious Artist, and that just wasn't him. fuck, my favorite stuff from John are his stories on Skywriting; that's him and no one in the world could write like that. it's charming, non-sensical, hilarious, intelligent... it's him, completely. kinda wish he had worked it back into songs, but :/

another thing: some of his songs about Yoko are so obviously about Yoko that they can barely be classified as love songs, just Songs About Yoko. Dear Yoko, Oh Yoko, like... okay. the WORST worst aspect of The Ballad is how detrimental it was to him as an artist, he just had to write this shit and put it on albums because otherwise their love wasn't real? huh? and i actually think her songs about him are GREAT (lyrics-wise, never heard a song of hers) and he made HER a better writer, unfortunately not vice-versa.

(production-wise, i think John was a better producer than Paul because he actually tried to pick up the vibes from his lyrics/demos and put it into the final material, and that's where you get on POB, Mind Games, WAB and (some of) DF. unfortunately, he learned a lot from Spector's Wall of Sound, so a lot of it sounds like... well, Spector's Wall of Sound. but whatever, WAB [and his self-produced tracks on Rock 'N' Roll] is amazing bc he actually finds a perfect medium that he didn't in MG).

[multimetaverse]

HSMTMTS 1x10 Review

Act 2 was a great finale that capped off a great season though somewhat marred by Disney censorship. Let’s dig in!

Finally Ricky and Nini have found their way back to each other. Sweet callback to Ricky lighting Nini up with his phone as Nini does the same. Breaking Free was great though I had to keep pausing during the EJ to Ricky transition because it was so cringey. Ricky and Nini really do have the best chemistry on the show and it shines through this ep. Joshua did a great job improvising Ricky’’s confession to Nini as did Olivia reacting to it. Tim mentioned in an interview that originally Ricky was supposed to tell Nini that he thinks he kinda you knows in a callback to the premiere but on set he realized that it was too cheesy and decided to let Joshua come up with a confession based on memories of his and Olivia’s real life friendship. That was certainly the steamiest kiss we’ve yet seen on Disney + but it was well earned

 It speaks well of Tim that he recognized that his own writing wasn’t good enough and that he trusted his actors to take charge. It also goes to show how much of a difference it makes having the showrunner actually on set in Salt Lake, whether that was Tim or Disney’s decision. It’s a sharp contrast with Andi Mack where Terri the showrunner was based in LA and only rarely visited set while Michelle Manning was the producer in charge in Salt Lake, a split which I think hurt the show in some ways

That rainbow heart sign from the Mathew-Smith family was lovely. It’s great to see Seb’s family of Utah farmers being so supportive. This also confirms that Seb is out to his family, and since Miss Jenn seemed to greet Carlos’ father near the beginning of the ep it’s likely that Carlos is also out to his family

A historic first for Disney with a Seblos cheek kiss. Though of course while it’s progress it still isn’t equality. It’s not so much the Rini kisses that really drives home the inequality since they’re the main couple and were always going to kiss in the finale but rather it’s the Redlyn kiss. It’s not like Redlyn has gotten any real development nor did their story line really need a kiss so early. They got to kiss simply because they’re straight. That being said, it does once more show that the limits are looser on Disney +, we never would have gotten even a Tyrus cheek kiss on Disney Channel

Unfortunately Disney for the second ep this season released promotional photos of Seblos scenes that were cut from the episode itself. It’s not queerbaiting in the traditional sense but it is baiting the audience as they know that a lot of people are very invested in Seblos and seeing that rep on screen and Disney is willing to use that to draw in viewers while cutting the actual on screen rep down. What’s worse is that if it wasn’t for Disney itself letting us know that these scenes existed we’d never know that Seblos scenes were being cut. And of course, it’s a waste of time and money for the show to film these scenes only for them to be cut. A big complaint with Seblos this season has been their lack of development but that seems to be less on the writers who are in fact giving them more scenes then on Disney which is cutting them down to the bare minimum

It’s all shameless triangulation on Disney’s part, trying to be progressive but not so progressive as to alienate conservatives. It’s not like any homophobes are still watching the show after Seblos got together. So far it seems like the Disney censorship on HSMTMTS is coming mainly in post production like it was in Andi Mack S2 with the cut bash mitzvah scene and the edited look back which is awful but is still better than the much heavier censorship we saw in Andi Mack S3 that was coming in pre-production when things like Cyrus being able to talk about his feelings for TJ and vice versa were just never being written. Hopefully Seb being a main character in S2 means that the censorship lessens at least a bit or at the very least stays in the post production stage

In an interview done early on in the season, Tim talked about sometimes taking giant leaps and some times taking small steps in terms of the representation on the show and know we have a much better sense of what that means in practice. There was the giant leap of Seblos getting together at Homecoming and the small step of them kissing on the cheek. Afaik Tim hasn’t addressed the Seblos cheek kiss which is probably for the best and if he does I hope he has the good grace to not lie to the audience about his ability to have gotten an actual Seblos kiss approved. I do think we’ll eventually see a Seblos kiss though I think the earliest that could happen would be the S2 finale

Very telling that Ashlyn assumes EJ is behind Ricky’s exit and not a good look on EJ’s part to not tell Miss Jenn at least that Ricky left. . Good for him though for playing to lose and giving up the role of Troy to help Nini and Ricky. Confirmation that he paid for Gina’s ticket and we got our first Hell Yeah on the show. I don’t like it but it does seem like that scene was set up for Portwell in S2; at the very least it seems like Gina may have started to feel something for EJ

Pour one out for those poor audience members having to sit through that trainwreck of a second act. You know you’re really in trouble when you have to send your choreographer out there as an understudy

I loved Big Red’s little xylophone during the intermission 

Nice to see Nini and Gina end on a friendly, supportive note. Hopefully that continues next season

Kudos to Olivia and Matt for really selling the high school theatre actors barely keeping it together on stage aspect of the performance. Nini and EJ have so little chemistry that it’s almost hard to remember that they were dating for several months

Mr Darbus’ office set looked great. Nice touch to have Miss Jenn mouthing the lyrics to Wondering off stage

Lynne really sucks. Can’t say I’d miss her if we don’t see her in S2

Will be interesting to see how Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara save their jobs

Realistically I don’t think Nini’s performance was strong enough to earn a spot at YAC; someone like Gina or Seb would have been a much more credible choice imo. Nice touch to have the Dean leave through one door and Ricky the other

Now that the season is done it’s hard to see any traces of whatever more mature direction former showrunner Oliver Goldstick wanted to go in. The whole season seems very coherent and consistent in terms of tone. We did learn from Tim and Olivia that her song All I Want was a re-shoot so maybe it was a replacement for a song or scene that was pushing the envelope more than Tim and Disney wanted

One thing that may or may not be connected is that EJ’s panic attacks from the original character breakdown made no appearance this season and who knows if we’ll ever seen EJ having panic attacks or suffering from anxiety. Disney seemingly had no trouble showing Jonah’s panic attacks on Andi Mack which is doubtless where HSMTMTS took the idea from but it’s also true that Jonah’s anxiety story line was abandoned halfway through S3 and though it’s likely just the result of bad writing it can’t be ruled out that Disney got cold feet over focusing on mental health in both Andi Mack and HSMTMTS

Looking Ahead:

One benefit of this review being so late is that we now know the spring muscial! Beauty and the Beast which seems to suggest that all future musicals will be Disney owned properties

Tim also confirmed that they will still be incorporating songs from HSM 2 and 3 into the show which will certainly help pad out the 16 extra songs they’ll be doing in S2. Having 12 eps will be a big help to the show; 10 eps just wasn’t enough to properly deal with all the characters and plots

HSMTMTS really turned out to be a delight and while I think S2 will be as well there are definitely potential issues ahead that will need to be deftly dealt with. Nini either going away to YAC and then coming back to SLC or just not going to YAC is probably going to be wrapped up in an unsatisfying manner. In all honesty this kind of plot would have worked much better if it had been saved for Nini’s senior year

Whatever plan Ashlyn is cooking up to keep Gina in SLC is also probably going to be poorly done as there’s no reason Gina’s mother would willingly leave her daughter in another state

EJ is either leaving the show after he graduates or they’re going to have to contrive some way to keep him around East High in future seasons

Seb now being a main will be interesting, if nothing else to see what Disney’s limits are. Tim has hinted at their being drama for Seblos in S2 and I hope that it serves to develop them and is not just a means to keep them apart so there can be two gay mains but no gay relationship. As an aside Tim revealed that Joe originally auditioned for EJ which is wild; it’s funny that both Joshua Rush and Joe Serafini auditioned for EJ when neither of them had any realistic chance of being cast

I have no strong feelings on the cast list for Beauty and the Beast though I do think it’s likely that either Kourtney or Gina end up playing Belle as I think having a black girl play Belle is just the type of subversion that would appeal to Tim. Miss Jenn did say that she wanted Kourtney to come speak to her over break and while Gina is a bigger character I’m not sure if Sofia’s singing is quite good enough to carry the lead in the musical while I think Dara’s definitely is 

I’d say it’s very likely EJ ends up either as the beast or as Gaston since he’s in what should be his last semester. And if Gina also gets a big role it would make it easier to play with Portwell in S2. If EJ is the beast I could see Seb getting Gaston in another subversion of expectations. Regardless I think with Seb now being a main and with Joe having one of the strongest voices in the cast that he’ll play an important role

Until next season Wildcats

[amalthea9]

Assorted Self Ships: David Warner x Me

🍬Assorted Selfship Asks 🍭

🎨 How would you describe your ship aesthetic? (Include a moodboard if you like!) 

I’m new to creating aesthetics but here’s what I made.

🎁 Have you and your FO(s) given each other any meaningful gifts, material or otherwise? What are they and why are they special?

After learning about crystals recently, David gave me a garnet ring. Garnet is a stone of passionate and undying love, which he knows I love both the stone and power behind it.

📖 Is there a quote/lyric that fits you and your FO(s)?

Shakespeare quotes, because Shakespeare is our love language.

“I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?” - Benedict - Much Ado About Nothing

“I love you with so much of my heart that there is none left to protest!” - Beatrice - Much Ado About Nothing

“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.” - Hamlet

🐚 What do you do to feel close to each other when you have to be apart? 

For me, I think of his smile, and his bright blue eyes. For David, it’s my laughter, my smile, and how I have one blue and one green. But they change with what I wear.

🤗 How do you and your FO(s) express affection for each other? Do you tend to engage in PDA?

DEFINITELY PDA. David loves to hold my hand in public, kiss my cheek, even my neck to make me blush and giggle.

🧗‍♂️ Are you and/or your FO(s) the adventurous types? What kind of adventures do you undergo together?

My idea of an adventure is to go to a staged haunted house. And David loves it because I am so excited and all smiles and squeals, because I am never frightened. I delight in the thrill and surprises.

😚 What was your first kiss with your FO(s) like?  How did you and your FO(s) react?

The first kiss was him using his height to keep one of my drawings from me. I showed it to him and he snatched it, lifting it high above me with a devilish smile. I playfully demand it back, giggling the whole time. I am so close to his face, and he stares at my lips. I hope for what he wants for the drawing, and with flushed cheeks, I get on my toes and peck his lips tentatively. He quickly brings me into his arms and we kiss deeply, a kiss that’s been simmering for months.

🧸 Do you have any items irl that remind you of your FO(s)?

I don’t yet. If I could make a doll of Evil Genius from Time Bandits I would because I know David would love to give me that.

💋 What are the kisses you share typically like? What kind of kisses do you prefer? (eg. ‘good morning’ kiss, ‘i missed you’ kiss, kisses in the rain, etc.)

David loves morning kisses. He loves greeting me with “Good morning, beautiful.” Even though my breath is bad and my hair a mess. He loves it. 

📚 How do you spend your free time together? Do you usually go out or do you prefer to stay in?

Definitely stay in. We prefer watching films, going on walks in the park, or just staying at home. He reads while I draw. We also go to Shakespeare plays and theatre in general.

🍯 Do you and your FO (s) use pet names for each other?

I call him ‘bean pole’ and I am ‘acorn’ hehe. Bean pole came out of nowhere for me to call him, but acorn is a reference to Lysander calling Hermia acorn because she is so short hehe. And since I’m much shorter than him, he called me that once and I insisted that be my pet name. Of course when David is approaching 50, I call him Daddy a lot 😏

💕 Would a stranger meeting you and your FO(s) for the first time be able to tell that you’re together? If so, how would they be able to tell?

Probably from the fact we hold hands almost always. Or David has his hand on the small of my back.

🌱 How have you and your FO(s) changed each others’ lives?

David believes in me when I don't. He is always encouraging me in my artwork and self healing. He never stops telling me I can overcome my lack of self worth and confidence.

David has told me I changed his life by being so supportive of his work, whether it be theatre or film. Even when his heart isn't in it and he's feeling more like it's just a paycheck, I tell him he will be wonderful in it no matter what others' think. He knows I always have his support and love no matter what.

🥰 What was the first thing that attracted you to your FO(s)? What was the first thing that attracted them to you? Who fell first?

For me: his eyes, smile, and voice. David said it was my smile and sweet demeanor. I definitely fell first.

⚔ Are you and/or your FO(s) protective? How do they react if you get hurt and vice-versa?

David is very protective, to the point of not wanting me to work the oven because of that one time I scarred my arm with a burn,  bless him. I get protective when David is sick. I get very mother hen over him.

👀 Any spicy headcanons about your FO(s)/your relationship?

David wasn't much into kink until we tried some light bondage on me and spankings. Now he enjoys exploring what both of us like. Huehue 

🦒 Is there a height difference between you and your FO(s)? Do you have to make any accommodations because of this? 

David is 6” 2’ and I am 5” 4’, so my head comes to his chest. So he always has to lower his head to kiss me or I pull him down. He loves kissing my head at random whenever I am close to him.

😘 Which of you is the tease? Is the seduction a success? 

David is DEFINITELY the tease huehue. He's always whispering in my ear words that make me shiver. Or he'll just look at me a certain way across the room that makes me flush and KNOW he wants me to be flustered.

🕯 How would you and your FO(s) pass the time if the power went out? 

Reading by candlelight or just talking

💘 How did you and your FO(s) meet? What was your first interaction like? Was it love at first sight or did you take some time to warm up to each other?

We met at a Shakespeare in the park production of the Tempest. The actors came out to greet the guests. David played Caliban, and I was able to tell him how much I loved his performance, saying how Caliban has always been very dear to me. He thanked me and we talked a bit more, and said good bye. I didn't think he was interested and he later confessed he was shy too. But a week later, I saw a production of Midsummer Night's Dream, and there he was again as Lysander. This second meeting, I got bold and gave him my number, never thinking he would call me. He did the next day, and our first date was over coffee. 

I was smitten at first sight, and David felt the connection right away but he wasn't sure if I was interested. It didn't take long for us to both adore each other.

🤩 What do you most admire about your FO(s)? What do they admire most about you?

Me for David: his passion for his acting. How despite the onslaught of his stage fright, he pursued film instead. He continued to act in any medium he could and gave it his all.

David admires my willingness not to give in to my depression and my past abuse. How I continue to try and better myself and heal.

[insanityclause]

When coronavirus closed the theaters on March 12, there were still 16 shows left to open in the Broadway season. Audiences will get to see some of them later, others probably not — but what of the more than 20 plays, musicals and miscellaneous offerings that had already faced the press? It seemed unfair not to celebrate them, so on Friday, just after it was announced that the Tony Awards will not go on as usual this year, we sat down (in cyberspace) to devise a Tonys of our own. Naturally, we made our own rules.

BEN BRANTLEY Well, Jesse, even in a season that’s 16 plays short, there’s still a fat if imbalanced roster of intriguing shows. Have we ever before had such a preponderance of jukebox musicals that might qualify for Best Musical? The good news is that some enterprising minds managed to inventively retool the genre you once described as the “cockroach” of Broadway.

JESSE GREEN The cockroach has evolved! “Jagged Little Pill,” “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” “Girl From the North Country,” “Moulin Rouge!” and — since we’re playing by our own rules here — even “American Utopia,” the David Byrne show that was deemed ineligible for the real Tonys, are all jukeboxes, all worthy and all eligible for ours. Maybe not quite all worthy.

BRANTLEY Perhaps it’s appropriate then that the last show to open on Broadway was the most unorthodox of the “jukebox” shows. I use quotation marks here because that label seems too confining for “Girl From the North Country,” the Irish playwright and director Conor McPherson’s work that uses the songs of Bob Dylan to imagine life during the Great Depression in Duluth, Minn. The more I think about “Girl,” the more innovative and haunting it seems to me.

GREEN For me it took some time, and the show’s move from the Public Theater to Broadway, to appreciate how McPherson was deploying the music in this musical. The songs do not function the way songs normally do; they never address the situation at hand, and sometimes even contradict it. Yet in that gap, poetry grew.

BRANTLEY For me, “Girl” deals with the ineffable and unsayable through song in a way that makes it the most religious, or at least spiritual, show on Broadway. I have found this aspect of the show stays with me, as an oddly comforting reminder of the hunger for communion in this time of isolation. But moving on to matters closer to profane than sacred, what about another mold-breaker in a very different sense: “Moulin Rouge!,” based on the Baz Luhrmann movie about la vie bohème in gaslight-era Paris.

GREEN Here was a case where the gap between the story, such as it is, and the musical materials — found pop from Offenbach to Rihanna — did not produce poetry. For me it produced a headache.

BRANTLEY Ah, I had a swell time at “Moulin Rouge,” and I thought the far-reaching songbook became a kind of commentary on how such songs form the wallpaper of our minds. And then there was “Tina,” which was more business-as-usual bio-musical fare, although illuminated by a radiant, cliché-transcending performance by Adrienne Warren as Turner.

GREEN The creators of musicals really offered a sampler of ways to respond to the jukebox problem. “Jagged Little Pill,” built on the Alanis Morissette catalog, made the smart choice of abjuring biography and instead attaching her songs to a new plot (by Diablo Cody) that grew out of the same concerns and vocabulary. Or perhaps I should say “new plots,” because it is not shy with them. There are at least eight story lines.

BRANTLEY To be honest, this was the show that gave me a headache, because it was so insistently earnest in its topicality and, even when it was trying to be funny, humorless. So, of the new musicals (and we haven’t touched on “The Lightning Thief,” your personal favorite) what would you give the premature Tony to?

GREEN The one that wouldn’t be eligible: “American Utopia.” Joy and sadness bound to each other through David Byrne’s music and Annie-B Parson’s movement: What else do you want from a musical, even if it’s just a concert?

BRANTLEY I loved “American Utopia.” I think, though, I’d have to go with “Girl From the North Country,” but I wouldn’t have predicted that after seeing it in London two years ago. I find more in it every time I revisit it.

GREEN Despite all the Best Musical possibilities this truncated season, only one, “The Lightning Thief,” had a new score. Yet most of the offerings sounded new anyway, the result of terrific arrangements and orchestrations. I’m thinking especially of Justin Levine’s magpie-on-Ecstasy song collages for “Moulin Rouge!,” Tom Kitt’s theatricalization of post-grunge pop for “Jagged Little Pill” and Simon Hale’s excavation of the deeply layered Americana in Dylan’s catalog for “Girl.”

BRANTLEY Here, I’d have to say it’s a tie between “Girl” and “Moulin Rouge!,” each a remarkable accomplishment in a very different way. As for best revival, the undisputed winner is Ivo van Hove’s divisive revival of “West Side Story,” but that’s because it is, remarkably, the only musical revival so far.

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GREEN I liked “West Side Story” better than you did, Ben, perhaps because I wasn’t reviewing it. I lapped up the new things it wanted to show me (while also hunting for the old things it wanted to hide from me) and didn’t worry about the elements that laid an egg. (“Gee, Officer Krupke.”) Its evocation of innocence and hopelessness felt more like real life now than I’ve experienced in previous revivals.

BRANTLEY I concede the point intellectually. But the acid test for me with theater — and musicals in particular — is how much it makes you feel. And to borrow a lyric from “A Chorus Line,” for the most part “I felt nothing.”

GREEN I admit it was odd that there were no obvious breakout performances in “West Side Story” — which brings us to our first lightning round. Who wins our Tonys for leading actor and actress in a musical?

BRANTLEY Best Actress: Adrienne Warren, for “Tina” (though Karen Olivo in “Moulin Rouge!” is pretty fab, too). Best Actor: Jay O. Sanders in, perversely, a non-singing role in “Girl From the North Country.” You?

GREEN Same. I think we are having a socially distanced mindmeld. Will that also be the case with the nine new plays and four revivals that opened before March 12? With one exception, the revivals were not as thrilling as the full slate promised to be.

BRANTLEY For me, the winner is Jamie Lloyd’s spartan, merciless revival of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” which brought harsh clarity to the work’s emotional ambiguity.

GREEN And ambiguity to the play’s harsh formality — its semi-backward construction. It was certainly the best “Betrayal” I’ve seen, yet I hold out some love for the revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” which in retrospect turned out to be a farewell to Terrence McNally, its author, who died last week. I felt that Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald did it, and him, justice.

BRANTLEY It was certainly a reminder of his shrewdness and compassion. I was perhaps a little too conscious of the Acting, with a capital A. But it was a welcome addition to the season. For Best Play, we have a far more varied field, no? I suspect we’ll agree on the winner here, the season’s great iconoclast.

GREEN Yes, “Slave Play,” by Jeremy O. Harris, wins on sheer disruptive energy, even before considering its intelligence as playwriting, its knockout production (directed by Robert O’Hara) and its fearsome challenge to renegotiate race in America.

BRANTLEY But for all its shock value, what made it a wonderful play — as opposed to just a bracing exploration of dangerous ground — was its heart. By the end, you felt so completely the pain of its characters, all trying to navigate the perhaps insuperable hurdles of interracial relationships.

GREEN I think “The Inheritance” wanted to be that kind of play, too: a story of intimate relationships yet also a gay manifesto with the multipart heft of “Angels in America.” It got the heft, anyway; “Slave Play” ran 120 minutes; “The Inheritance,” 385.

BRANTLEY “The Inheritance” certainly gets points for ambition — and for the fluidity of Stephen Daldry’s production. And might I put in a word for the prickly comic abrasiveness of Tracy Letts’s “Linda Vista,” a lacerating anatomy of toxic masculinity disguised as brooding charm?

GREEN I liked what “Linda Vista” wanted to do but found it flabby. Perhaps straitened times demand slender plays. Certainly, the other new drama I greatly admired was whippetlike: Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside,” an existential mystery wrapped in a literary one, or vice versa. Among other things, it allowed Mary-Louise Parker, as a Yale writing instructor, to deliver a Tony-worthy performance. And now that “How I Learned to Drive,” the other play in which she was set to star this season, has been postponed, she doesn’t have to compete against herself. Is she our winner?

BRANTLEY I am going to declare a tie between her and Laura Linney, who gave a very subtle, and emotionally transparent, performance as the title character of “My Name Is Lucy Barton,” adapted by Rona Munro from Elizabeth Strout’s novel.

GREEN I buy that. But let’s not forget Joaquina Kalukango in “Slave Play,” Eileen Atkins in “The Height of the Storm,” Zawe Ashton in “Betrayal” and Jane Alexander in “Grand Horizons.” It was a very strong semi-season for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

BRANTLEY And for Best Actor?

GREEN The real Tonys decreed that Paul Alexander Nolan was eligible for his “supporting” role in “Slave Play,” but in my Tonys he’s a strong candidate for “leading.” Still, I’ll go with Tom Hiddleston, in “Betrayal.” Or at least he wins in my newly invented category of Best Use of the Lack of a Tissue. His facial leakage was Vesuvian.

BRANTLEY He was superb — and a reminder of the cathartic value of the tears of others in theater. Of course, there’s so much to cry about now in terms of opportunities lost this season. But I’m not writing an elegy for, or even a definitive summary of, this season yet. It will be fascinating to see how it reincarnates itself, won’t it?

[tillidontneedfantasy]

'Norman Fucking Rockwell!' - Lana Del Rey REVIEW: Beautiful, Insane, and American-Made

"L.A. is in flames, it's getting hot / Kanye West is blond and gone / 'Life on Mars' ain't just a song," is how Lana Del Rey describes the most devastating losses of our time; climate change and Kanye West becoming an "enlightened" Trump (and Christ) supporter. An astute appraisal. Despite the fact that the world through Lana's (and many others) eyes may be deteriorating, she continues to enrich her own world of music. Her sixth studio effort, Norman Fucking Rockwell!, is her most critically acclaimed album to date, topping many, if not all, end of the year lists. Even on this decaying land, we are always changing and adapting and evolving (or in some cases, devolving). Lana Del Rey has evolved splendidly over this decade, and has become one of the most notable sources of inspiration for young female artists.  Norman Fucking Rockwell! is filled with much more source material, particularly for singer-songwriters, as the songs bleed into another and tell the tale of a woman trying to find a love that is secure and safe, something many of us wish for and all of us deserve. At this point, Lana is tired of holding it all in, as seen on the admission "Fuck it I love you." Considering Lana's authenticity has been questioned throughout much of her career, this unabashed honesty is what makes Norman Fucking Rockwell! such a feat.

BEST TRACK: "Norman fucking Rockwell"

A brutal yet beautiful love song to her imperfect, immature muse, "Norman fucking Rockwell" sets the stage for a dreamy, bittersweet love letter of an album. She describes her lover as a 6"2 man-child who blames the news for his shitty poetry. Likening him to Norman (fucking) Rockwell himself, he colors her blue, seemingly exasperated by her as well. Not uncommon among the artistic community, he seems to be a narcissist, as Lana sings, "You talk to the walls when the party gets bored of you." Yet, despite her litany of complaints, she wants no one but him, as she declares, "Why wait for the best when I could have you?" Maybe because the best objectively doesn't exist; we all have flaws, and if you can love someone despite them, and vice versa, then it doesn't get better than that.

WEAKEST TRACK: "Bartender"

Sonically, "Bartender" is plucky and enjoyable, but overall, the track is easily dispensable to the album. She speaks of trucks and a variety of beverage choices and her love for her bartender, and if I didn't know any better and just read the lyrics I would assume it was a country song; honestly, it would have done both her and the country music community best to sell it to some country singer and profit off of the royalties.

THE IN-BETWEENS

One of the strongest aspects of this album is its gorgeous production, most notably on the haunting "Cinnamon Girl," a track that explores Lana's history of fraught relationships, stating to her muse "if you hold me without hurting me / you'll be the first who ever did." She continues this theme of searching for the person who will not keep her at arms length, but rather pull her into them forever, on "How to disappear," a breathtaking track with some of Lana's most compelling vocal work of the album. Although pleasing to the ears, some songs feel inconsequential, such as "California" and "The Next Best American Record."  At times, the album might seem to drag, as it does on "Venice Bitch," a nine and a half minute beautiful song that loses its magic after about five. Lana still injects her staple morbidity in the touching "Happiness is a butterfly," when she casually states, "if he's a serial killer, then what's the worst that could happen to a girl who's already hurt?" which is quite an alarming thing to say, yet somehow makes sense, and so is the brilliance of her lyricism.

BEST PROSPECTIVE SINGLE: "Love song"

One of the most tender tracks on the record, "Love song" has mass appeal, to the cynical and the hopeless romantics. "I'd just die to make you proud" she proclaims, and wouldn't we all for the one we love? Much more eloquent and poignant than Ed Sheeran ever could, the song illustrates the typical picture of romance, head upon a chest, together in the backseat of a car, using stars as a metaphor for the self...but then it asks the very question at the core of love: "Is it safe to just be who we are?" I hope both of their answers were yes.

****

Ultimately, the album's overall theme is a pendulum between love and loneliness, yet finally stops swinging at the closing track, "hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it." This track encapsulates Lana's current emotional state at this point in her life, most particularly in the final lines of the song:

"They write that I'm happy, they know that I'm not But at best, you can see I'm not sad But hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have But I have it Yeah, I have it Yeah, I have it I have"

The meaning of "hope" here can be interpreted in many ways. Maybe hope is dangerous for the person hoping, because it could set up expectations that will never get met. Or maybe it's dangerous for everyone else, because the person who yields hope can have unimaginable power. I believe to look at it as the latter. We live in a society where so many people are tearing each other down in an attempt to make them feel hopeless and helpless. But rebellions and revolutions are built on hope. The road to recovery from mental illness is paved by hope. If you have hope, you can do anything. And Lana has it. Watch out. Grade: 4/5

DISCLAIMER - REVIEWER'S BIAS: I have never been a fan of Lana or particularly interested in her music- I particularly hated "Summertime Sadness" no matter how often it was in my head. This album got such rave reviews, and I love Jack Antonoff, her main collaborator on the album, so I knew I had to listen. I definitely enjoy a handful of songs but overall her music still does not resonate with me as much as I’d hope. However, I can still acknowledge that it is objectively good, and I did absolutely love the production. I respect her uniqueness and her as an artist very much. Maybe one day everything will click for me- we just haven’t gotten there yet.

[songwritingtipsandtricks]

New episode of the podcast to this blog! 

Transcript: 

Hello and welcome everyone again to another episode to this podcast. My name is Kieper, and I am thrilled to talk to you today.

This podcast is dedicated to writing lyrics and overcoming writer's block. I hope the previous episodes helped you with just that. If you like the show so far, I'd love to hear your feedback on the content and really appreciate your ratings in whatever application you are listening to this show to help this show further develop. If you know anyone that might benefit from the tips we are talking about, feel free to share the program with them.

So last week, we were talking about writing lyrics with the mindset of a programmer. And we came to the conclusion that we need to write every day, see structures in the code, solve future problems and look at other people's code. And I hope these commandments helped you with just that and you have tried to use these techniques in your songwriting already. Maybe it even paid off somehow.

In the past week, I have been searching for something new to talk to you about. And then I realised that this corona shutdown itself is something we could be talking about. As it gives us as songwriters a lot of opportunities to grow, write songs and collaborate, even though we are apart from each other. So this week is dedicated to the songwriters Home Office. We will be talking about routines in your quarantine, some software to use in your writing and how you could collaborate with others while they are not physically present.

So what can you do when everything stands still, most concerts for this year got cancelled and you don't know what to do? First of all, relax, it is quite essential to lose all the tension that builds up over the months of routine and everyday life. Look at it as an extra holiday for the first couple of days. Nothing is more toxic than pressure when you are trying to be creative. It is art after all that you are trying to produce. Drink some tea, read a lot, do all the things that you wanted to do when you were too stressed from working your sideline jobs perhaps.

When boredom hits, you will get creative automatically. It might surface in lyrics that pop up in your mind. It might also be an interest in covering some songs that inspire you, and you would like to incorporate in your songs. Try out some new styles or tunings on your instrument and develop your skills. It might ignite a spark already. While we are mostly talking about writing lyrics, knowing your instrument is an essential part of your career as well. And if your instrument is your voice, well then go ahead and do regular singing exercises to increase your strength and range. Try imitating singing techniques and scales of your favourite singers. Read a lot about your instrument and about techniques to further improve your skills. Notice this time as an opportunity for you to focus on your creative path and use it wisely.

When it comes to reading, read some blogs or listen to podcasts that target your field of interest. These formats are easy to follow along and portable. So whenever you are making breakfast or shower, try listening to a podcast, read some blog posts that inspire you and see whether something pops up in your mind. For me, quite a lot of ideas pop up from podcasts and phrases that the hosts are using.

A high profile strategy for writing better lyrics is looking at other's songs. So when you are listening to music, try to follow the story, or read the words alongside the music. You might as well use a mindmap to understand the full story. After that, you can use that mindmap to write your own story based on this blueprint by altering some factors such as character traits, settings and relationships. Most popular stories in books are based on the same foundation by narrating differently. So try using this with your favourite songs. You can also try to change the perspective to tell the story from a different angle.

Okay, so much for development and finding and making up new stories, after all, there are some rules that we need to follow when writing coherent and good-sounding lyrics. So you might want to look up a webpage to find out more about literary terms, meter, syllables and basic rules to writing poems. This is a powerful tool to write lyrics that fit your music and even make your music follow the words. If you know about this, then you can translate words into music or vice versa. It is because speech has a rhythm, it has patterns, and there are so many useful devices to make our story more appealing and convincing. So look up some basic rules of writing poems.

And after that, you might want to analyse whether your favourite songs follow some of these rules, or where they break with them. As we said last time, it is essential to see patterns and schemes in songs. Repetition is quite crucial in pop music, as it gives the listener a silver lining to follow. Imagine for a second, you are listening to a song by your one of your idols which you have never heard before. Still, after the first chorus, you can follow the melodic line and sing along to, because there are a lot of repetitions in the song that vary only slightly from the one prior. So try some repetitions both lyrically and musically to give your listener something to follow along.

A significant opportunity opens up with this because you can use the rhythmical blueprint of another song for your next song. Analyse the meter of the song and how the patterns of the different parts are structured to write your song following the same blueprint.

What can you do else than writing lyrics? Well, besides your instrument, knowing how to record yourself helps to make proper demos of your newly written songs. So while you might not have an entire recording studio at hand, there are some ways to record yourself. First and maybe the most used method would be the voice memo application on your phone, which is in your pocket most of the times, I guess. So wherever you are, you can quickly record a song idea. Another tool on your phone would be GarageBand on your iPhone or WalkBand on Android. Personally, I have only used GarageBand, yet WalkBand should be able to do the same with some more limitations. In GarageBand, you can record yourself, add virtual instruments, add loops from Apple Loops to find interesting beats and samples to try something new. You could also use live loops to use it in a live setup if you want to or make a remix. So endless possibilities right in your pocket. Interestingly enough, you can even do a multitrack recording with an interface or use amps when you are busking.

But this is just for jotting down ideas. The proper software would be on your computer, I guess. So whatever digital audio workstation you are using, you should be a pro in using it to your benefit. So know everything about it. Watch as many videos and tutorials as you possibly can. It should be your second nature. With a proper interface and mic, you are able to do everything in your DAW, you don't need a recording studio. Well, not for now and not for your usual work. The most famous DAWs would be Logic Pro X, Ableton Live, ProTools, Cubase and so many more. So find the right DAW for your work. It is just like finding the right pair of shoes. Once you know about your DAW, you might as well want to watch some production videos of your favourite songs to understand how great producers make songs stand out and share their tricks and best practices.

So one thing that is really important for becoming a better writer is to not focus on writing at all. Try learning something new every day that is not work-related. Watch documentaries or join some online courses on a variety of subjects. Personally, I try to complete one course each month on FutureLearn a platform hosted by the BritishCouncil. The classes are free, and surely there is something for everyone. Take a walk outside and sketch a tree or a river, do something for fun and self-reflect on this later in your writing. Find one moment each day that could be worthy of writing about even though you have not been trying to find something. Find inspiration in your actions. In time, this will lead to an open mind that is ready to find new things to write about in every little thing you do.

So how can we write songs together in these days? Remote collaboration is possible through Skype, Zoom, FaceTime or WhatsApp Video calls. However, I found a useful tool on the web a few days ago, and it inspired me to collaborate with others and write new songs. Songcraft.io helps with writing lyrics, tabs and chord sheets with others in real-time. So you could talk via FaceTime and at the same time write lyrics, put the right chords to them and find words to rhyme or paraphrase them. So when it comes to collaborating on the same project, try giving this a shot. Maybe this sparks imagination. Accompanying this program, I use RhymeGenie and TuneSmith that have a more in-depth dictionary and functionality to adjust the search. The urban dictionary, Merriam-Webster, or MacMillan provide us with the correct definition to words we want to incorporate.

And as always, turn off that inner critic and just write, you will still get better at writing when you are doing it. So do not think you are at your peak yet. Just persevere. It is a steep and rough way to the point you want to reach, so take step by step. You will always find something to rephrase.

So that is it for today already. I hope these approaches help you with writing great lyrics and awesome songs this week. I would really appreciate your feedback and ratings on the platforms you are listening to, all the scripts will be available on my Tumblr, Facebook and Webpage. If you have an approach that helps you and you would like to share with me, simply send me a voice message via the link in the description and get in contact with me. To support the show, you could donate on Patreon and get exclusive access to exercises, reviews of songs and exclusive episodes to this show.

So much for this time, have a wonderful week and happy songwriting.

[thesinglesjukebox]

HAYLEY WILLIAMS - SIMMER

[6.00]

Just disappointing we couldn't go with "Simmer of [6.90]"...

Tobi Tella: Ominous and guttural, the quietness and control in the production and performance compared to the pure fury of the lyrics makes it even more potent. [8]

Alex Clifton: There's so much to be angry about these days: structural inequality, climate change, the rise of fascism, the continued existence of billionaires without limits while too many people have to scrape by... the list could go on, but I'm sure you feel just as weary as I do. I'm still learning how to deal with anger in general, particularly because I tend to bottle every emotion in my body until it explodes out, usually with horrifying intensity. There's a trick to learning how to be angry but using the anger in a productive manner, letting it fuel your movement forward through definitive action. Otherwise, you get lost and swept away in the anger until there's nothing left but pure incandescent rage. Women in particular are taught to "simmer down" and mask their anger, although over the past four years we've thankfully seen a definite increase in the number of vocal and angry women on the world's stage. I'm glad we have more women speaking up now, but at the same time I do think there's a balancing act involved that few have perfected, in part because we've rarely had the opportunity to do so publicly. "Simmer" explores this push and pull, the desire to "give in" while ensuring that the anger doesn't take hold of you so there's nothing left. The production on this is great, making Williams' vocals sound as if they're delivered through gritted teeth (con--trol--) and the atmospheric breathing signals trying to calm the fuck down. The more I listen to "Simmer," the more it keeps opening itself up, much like the depths of anger. However, this is far more smartly channelled than a pure rant on how things suck -- it's a meditation on all aspects of the feeling. I'll be thinking about this one for a while. [8]

Alfred Soto: With Taylor York producing, "Simmer" could've emerged under the Paramore moniker: a Bold New Direction, etc. And like the frequent best by the band, it's modest and catchy but also retrograde: here, like Radiohead and Burial circa 2007. Against this spare electronic backdrop Hayley Williams' boldness turns into stridency on the first two listens, perhaps with the effort to make lines like "how to draw the line between wrath and mercy" sing. It will do. [5]

Brad Shoup: Give in, she sings. But she doesn't: not to the sensual abstraction of middle-aged Radiohead, not to the wrath that's actually quite a thick line away from mercy, if you think about it. "Simmer" does what it says on the tin: no lids are blown. [5]

Katie Gill: There is some QUALITY text painting going on in the chorus which I, as a sucker for text painting, appreciate. I'm a little less certain about the conceit of the song itself. It sounds remarkably un-Paramore, which is good for helping Williams establish an identity as a solo artist. But it also sounds like it's trying to hop on a trend that's been going on for the past few months. I suspect I won't be the only person to mention Billie Eilish in my review but dang, we really do live in a post-Eilish world now. [6]

Will Rivitz: Anything that sounds like a cross between How To Destroy Angels and Lane 8 will manipulate my serotonin receptors better than any SSRI I could imagine. The poise of the verses' bass groove, the choruses' guitar stabs, and the pauses Williams takes which rip tablecloth upon tablecloth off while maintaining the perfect order of the cutlery atop them make me feel even better. This song makes me float. [9]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Pros: Williams' ever-increasing infatuation with excessively active percussion got away from ho-hum '80s pastiche and is now at least in late-'00s/early-'10s glitchy art rock. Cons: Somehow that means we get to hear the midway point of Feist and Thom Yorke which, big surprise, just ends up being a tedious version of Phantogram. [1]

Katherine St Asaph: I'm not sure when this happened -- normally other artists sound strikingly like Hayley Williams, not the other way around -- but Williams' vocal inflections, her stretching of vowels like taffy and plucking words out of the air carefully, as if with micro-tongs, sound near-identical to Tori Amos. Compare "Smokey Joe" -- a spiritual precursor to "Simmer," in its measured, tiptoeing vocals for lines like "if I kill him, there are complications" -- or especially "Curtain Call," where you could practically paste Tori's vocal on "protection" into this and vice versa. The arrangement, too, has a certain mutedness in its pitter-patter drums and bass and ghost-wisp vocals that reminds me of Fumbling-era Sarah McLachlan. (So much music does lately, first to mind Ex:Re, and the similarities go so little acknowledged; someday someone will remember for more than one thinkpiece's time to remember this stuff as an actual vector of influence on a generation of musicians.) The problem you can guess from the title: the song simmers, and nothing past. [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[glassprism]

Thoughts on the different language cast recordings/dubs for the 2004 movie? I assume they're better than the English one. Thank you

Gah, fine. I suppose after linking to all my reviews of the international cast recordings, I should do something similar for the dubs of the 2004 film.

German dub - Uwe Kroger, Jana Werner, Carsten Lepper. This is probably my least favorite dub, and also the one I listened to first because I knew I would dislike it. Uwe Kroger’s singing is not that bad, on some parts he’s even good, but he added a constant rasp which I think is him trying to imitate Butler and constantly grated against my nerves. Jana Werner as Christine also sounded weak, thin on the high notes or whenever she raises the volume of her singing even a bit. Major plus though is that Carsten Lepper, possibly my least favorite German Raoul, has to match up with Patrick Wilson’s singing, and the result is that he sounds nicer than he ever did in the actual stage production.

Spanish dub - Juan Carlos Barona, Julia Möller, Paco Arrojo. I’d actually never listened to this one before, as Barona and Moller had been in the Madrid production of Phantom before, and why should I listen to them dumb their voices down to 2004 film level when I can listen to them as they actually sound? Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised at how much Barona did not sound like Gerard Butler - there was a distinct lack of growling and he definitely let his voice boom out a few times. I wish I could say the same for Moller, sadly; she sounded much lighter, artificially lighter, than she did in Madrid. Pago Arrojo as Raoul was fine.

French dub(s) - Laurent Ban, Cecilia Cara, Damien Sargue/Fabian Richard. I listened to both versions, the Montreal version and the one released in France, though quite honestly my soundtracks may be mislabeled, so when I think I’m talking about the French version might actually apply to the Montreal version and vice-versa. Anyway, I had an opposite reaction to this compared to the Spanish dub, in that I was rather unpleasantly surprised at how much I disliked it. Laurent Ban and Cecilia Cara were basically Butler and Rossum clones; I particularly did not like Ban’s voice, which was as nasal and growly as Butler’s. This applied to both versions. I did like Cecilia Cara (or I assume it was her) in what I thought to be the Montreal version, as I didn’t think she was trying so hard to sound light and pop music-y. Both Raouls were fine, though I think I had a slight preference for whoever was in the French version (or I assume it was that version).

Italian dub - Luca Velletri, Renata Fusco, Pietro Pignatelli. This was the cast I was looking forward to the most. A lot of it is because of Renata Fusco’s Christine, who gives the impression that she has a pretty good voice but was forced to downplay it. She also gets some points for acting a little differently than I expected, most notably in the ‘Final Lair’ where she sounded angrier than any of the other 2004 dub Christines, and more so than some stage Christines too. Luca Velletri was all right as well, not extraordinarily memorable, but also not an egregious attempt to be a Butler clone. And Pietro Pignatelli was fine; to be honest I’m finding it hard to distinguish the Raouls.

Japanese dub - Osamu Takai, Miyuki Numao, Masayuki Sano. This was an interesting one, a dub made when the 2004 film was shown on Japanese television and, unlike the German and Spanish dubs, using the same lyrics as in the stage production (though with some cuts made to accommodate the changes in the film) and many of the same actors as well. As such, and possibly because it was released in 2010, the singers make only the most minimal effort to sound like the film’s singing (or maybe they just missed the memo to do that). Osamu Takai in particular has a booming voice that he’s barely bothering to restrain, while Miyuki Numao and Masayuki Sano both sound noticeably stronger and less pop-flavored. As you might guess, it made this the most pleasant of the dubs to listen to.

[midsummersky]

(translated by midsummersky)

OOR magazine interview: Arctic Monkeys To the moon and back

Major Turner to ground control! From his Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino on the moon Alex Turner observes the digital human. He does that like no one else, the space cowboy from Sheffield. The sublime sixth album of Arctic Monkeys creeps up on the listener just as gracious as a feline predator. The sound is miles away from unruly, bouncy indie jewell Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not, the band’s debut record. A better reference would be Everything You’ve Come To Expect (2016), the second album of The Last Shadow Puppets. Turner’s side project happily flows into the waters of Arctic Monkeys. And vice versa. The one thing we’re absolutely sure of: as always, whenever that nifty Turner turns up, something peculiar is bound to happen. In the 11-song tracklist of Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, one by one wonderfully melodic pieces, this magisterial word artist presents himself as the best writer of lyrics of his generation.

By Tom Engelshoeven // Photography: Zackery Michael

We’re not allowed to know anything beforehand. Not even the album title. Listening to the songs is allowed though. In a room of the Town Hall Hotel in London, a lady from Domino record company informs me that the new album has been recorded, mostly, in Paris and that Alex Turner is extremely involved in the production process. Then the 32-year-old singer enters the room in expensive designer clothing, including a military jacket carrying his name TURNER on the chest pocket. His shoulder-length hair is tied back in a short ponytail. And the goatee which has gotten an earful from the internet. You may think he’s lost his cool, but there’s little to notice about that in our conversation. In the hour that follows Sheffield’s most famous son, currently residing in Los Angeles, tries to carefully and accurately explain his thinking methods. In that attempt, he shows a pleasant kind of openness. He often loses his words, resulting in long quiet pauses in which he searches for the right way of explaining, yet there isn’t one second where I get the idea that he actually tells me everything he knows.

– So, France. In La Frette? Yeah, La Frette is the name of the studio, but also of the town, La Frette-sur-Seine.

Surprisingly enough the internet is buzzing with rumours. It was often said that you would be working at some mysterious location. You’d been spotted in Sheffield, but Paris had never been mentioned. It was a secret! I almost recorded a Shadow Puppets record in that studio, but we didn’t get to it. The producer had already come over to Los Angeles for a recording session, prior to this one. Now it was our turn to fly over to Europe.

You mean James Ford? Yes. I started writing and recording this album in my own little homestudio in LA. We took those recordings to a real studio where we continued working on them wth James and the rest of the band. In September we made our way to the studio in La Frette to really tie it all together and finish it.

How long did that take you altogether? About five weeks. In the first two weeks it was just us, the band, to rehearse everything. After that James Ford and some other friends came in to play as well. We all stayed in La Frette and only sometimes got out to spend a weekend in London. The previous Monkeys record we made in a very different way. Back then, we all lived in LA, spent the day in the studio and then went home in the evening. Obviously this time it was not like that. Back then, we were all in a town in the midst of farmlands in Lincolnshire. Doing everything together: getting up, having breakfast, dining out.

Did spending all that time together in La Frette result in a different kind of record from the one you had in mind at the start of recording? No, to be honest it didn’t change that much. I already did a lot before we started, so it didn’t deviate that much.

– If I had to find an adjective for this new record, it would be ‘elegant’. It’s not music that bangs on your door, but songs which creep up on you like predatory animals. That was exactly how I wanted it to sound. I can’t disagree with you, I can see how you’ve managed to draw that conclusion. I guess your next question is going to be ‘why’?

Maybe in contrast to your previous album? AM was heavily based on hiphop beats. The guitar really took up the spotlight back then, but this new record sounds much more like a piano record. A piano in an old nightclub with those red, velvet curtains. It’s good to hear you describe it like this. Maybe you’re even better at that than I am. But perhaps I can give an explanation for how we’ve gotten to this red, velvet carpet? Did you say a tapestry on a wall? I like the idea that this album sounds like a wall of velvet tapestry. Yeah, that’s rad. For the first time, I wrote everything on the piano. When I was young, I played a bit of piano before I got to the guitar. But to be honest with you, I was never that good at it. I remember getting that guitar for my 15th birthday, I slept with it in my bed that night. I was constantly busy noodling around on it. Such a relationship I’ve never had with the piano, but I was able to play a couple of chords. For the past couple of years, I’ve visited a lot of studios and spaces where there was a piano available. More and more often I sat down at them and when I turned 30 I got one from my manager, a good friend of mine: a Steinway Vertegrand.

You’re singing about it twice on this album, if I’m correct: ‘Back there by the baby grand’ in One Point Perspective, and ‘It stays between us, Steinway and his sons’ in album closer The Ultracheese. That’s right, suddenly that piano became the epicentre of my small room. And there I was. The more I was sitting there, the more my fingers slipped to various places. A kind of character was born in my head. That way I convinced myself to start writing songs again.

You became a piano man? Exactly.

– From the first two songs, Star Treatment and One Point Perspective, a character starts to grow. I’m wondering, are those songs perhaps about your future as a singer: a scenario that’s looming in the future? Once upon a time you used to be that extremely promising young lad, but on here you sound like an artist singing about his bygone days. It starts with looking back.

Yes, that excellent first line: ‘I just wanted to be one of the strokes’. That was really how I looked at it back then. Star Treatment was the very first song I wrote for this album. In that song, as I hear it these days, there is a lot of uncertainty. It’s almost a song about an attempt to write a song. I’m lost somewhere, no idea whereabout. I’m reflecting and suddenly thinking: ‘here I am right now, and long ago, I used to be there’. That theme and that tone, it reaches past this one song and continues on the whole record.

You just wanted to be one of The Strokes? You could explain that as not so respectful towards The Strokes, though that was absolutely the last thing I meant to say with it. I just told myself. Just two minutes ago, or so it feels like it, I was standing in the crowd for one of their gigs and I thought I wanted to be in a band. And now I’m here and searching for something to write about. That feels very confusing: what do I want to express? And when I’ll know, how the fuck am I going to say it? Without it sounding washy. That’s the puzzle which sparked writing Star Treatment. The title is, of course, a play on words with a two-sided meaning. In that time and place, I had already thought about what the album was gonna be called: The Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino. It’s a place on the moon. I fantasised about writing a commercial text for a hotel and casino on the moon. In that case ‘The Star Treatment’ would have been the ultimate slogan! I can already visualise the commercial in my head. I love those commercial visuals for hi-fi devices from the 70s. Highlighted just like that, accompanied by neon lettering. Yeah, if I had to create and advertisement for a hotel, I would definitely put ‘Star Treatment’ in there. But it also comes from a different place. 

My dad used to tell me, on evenings where the sky was really clear and we were outside together, how far away those stars were from us. I’ve hear him say that a hundred times. I thought it was so fascinating, again and again I asked him ‘tell me again!’. Then he would point out the brightest star and say: you’re not seeing the light of that star as it shines right now, but like it was many years ago. That light took all those years to reach your eyeball. And then he would explain how fast that light had travelled to blind me. It blew me mind.

Just like how one second you wanted to be one of The Strokes and then another you’re sitting here. To be honest, I still want to be one of the strokes.

That ‘golden boy’ who’s in bad shape you’re singing about on Star Treatment, that’s you then? That confused character who doesn’t know whether he’ll ever write again. Yeah, more or less. I believe I stole that ‘golden boy’ description from Leonard Cohen.

In One Point Perspective you’re also singing: ‘A singer must die’. Also from Cohen. That’s why I thought were singing about the future of a star or a singer. The unavoidable moment where he’s stuck in The Tower Of Song. I put that line by Cohen in the lyrics because he died in the week of the American elections. I don’t think we need to talk about the historic impact of those days. There was a real feeling of despair in the air, like: this is the beginning of the end. Everyone was so upset, scared of the future. And then to top it off, Leonard Cohen passed away! That’s the feeling I’m reporting on in the song, that the Apocalypse had become a priority. ‘A singer must die’ was the most beautiful way to work Cohen into the song without having to drop his name.

– If I had to view the album from a helicopter’s perspective… Drone! Haha, I really think drone recordings ruin everything. Every time I see an aerial shoot I just know it was a drone that did that. It’s just not cool. I’m sorry for interrupting, keep going.

… then I had to say this record is about the USA, about how computers and machines direct our lives, the language of the digital era and sir Trump. I have tried so hard to keep him out of this.

Well, there’s a song called Golden Trunks. Yes, he finds his ways to sneak in. He’s very skilled in that area. He’s getting enough air time as it is, and I didn’t want to grant him anymore. Now it’s just one verse that’s about him. But look, he’s even entered our conversation!

You’re singing: ‘Leader of the free world reminds you of a wrester wearing tight golden trunks’. And still, something kept me from confronting him. It’s become a sort of competition: who’s got the most witty way to say something extremely denigrating about him? That competition is absolutely going nowhere, except again it’s about him.

In that song Four Stars Out Of Five you’re observing how we’re constantly letting our lives be led by digital devices. Like, there’s a nice restaurant on the internet, oh Gosh four stars, we need to go there. You’re also singing about the digital age in The World’s First Ever Monster Truck Front Flip: ‘The exotic sound of data storage, nothing like it first thing in the morning / You push the button and we do the rest’. How the young and hip are being herded like sheep. And the words that help them: ‘start your free trial today’. Everything you just mentioned is so present in our daily lives, it’s impossible to ignore. I found it quite hard to dig up some poetry from that. It took me a while before I succeeded. The simple fact that I was writing about stars and science fiction has helped me. Science fiction is a recurring theme on this record.

One number is even called Science Fiction. You’re almost ridiculing that genre a little bit. Yeah. Namely because science fiction is really funny most of the time. I just can’t help it. It’s so fascinating to me how writers of sci-fi books keep making up new worlds to comment on their own worlds. Essentially, that’s wat happens most of the time. I realised I am partaking in this as well. You’re inventing this Moon Casino thing to be able to talk about Facebook. Not that I’m actually talking on Facebook.

Science fiction is easily outdated though. That’s something really amusing as well. On the news, everyone was raving on about 1948. Like, now it seems like it really is fucking 1948! It was so funny, I had to put it in Star Treatment. Everyone saying it’s fucking 1948. But a lot of the lyrics on this record are inspired by a book I read, Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman. I can’t remember when I first heard about it but when I read that title, I immediately thought: this is what you have to read in the modern age. Even though, it’s practically written when television was the most dominant factor in our lives. Postman argues how that time – but I think also ours – bears much more resemblance to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley than to 1948. Because in Brave New World people are letting themselves be molded by something they have called onto themselves and not by a power from outside, like in 1948. That was the point I wanted to make.

Something else I took form that book was the idea concept of the information-action ratio. Like, what actions are to be expected when people are being fed information. I read Amusing Ourselves To Death around the time of the presidential elections. Retroactively, I thill think of it as an interesting read. It really hit the bull’s-eye for me. In that time, I was fanatically keeping up with the news, I’m laying off that a bit for now.

According to our conversation, it appears as if you made a really politically-themed record but rather than that, you’re describing your life as of right now without really judging at all. Yes, I think it is really important to preserve a sense of discretion. Good writing stills are based on the ability to suggest. You don’t need to provide a roadmap, but you do need a sense of humour. That is important, yes.

I laughed out loud at the line ‘swamp monster with a hard-on for connectivity’ in Science Fiction. It reminded me of all those people working in IT who really do pay their bills with their ‘hard-ons for connectivity’. What’s also funny is that character from Batphone who introduces a perfume called Integrity. ‘I sell the fact that I can’t be bought’. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if one day I would drive past a billboard advertising a perfume called Integrity. It feels like it already exists in this world. The rest of the song just wrote itself.

One of the reasons it took you so long before this album was born, was because the other members of the band suddenly became fathers. You didn’t, obviously, but has that changed your view on the world? Has it changed you guys as a band? Yeah, because they need to take care of their kids now! The real scope of the impact is yet to be defined. Touring around when everyone has got families at home, it’s something we haven’t done yet. Well, no. Nick [O’Malley, bass] had a boy when we were still touring around with AM. All the other babies have been born after that. How it has influenced our life on the road, I wouldn’t know yet. I think they’re more capable of answering than I am. But parenthood has had absolutely no negative impacts on our spending time in the studio. We had a fantastic time. Because of all those family happenings we hadn’t seen each other as often as we would’ve liked. But there was a great lot of enthusiasm, energy and excitement when we were in France. It’s just that sometimes they were facetiming with their kids.

 – Your previous album was very much about lust from the perspective of someone at the end of his twenties. ‘I want that woman in my hotel room tonight!’ It’s the complete opposite of the baby monitor life of a young dad. A friend once told me: I’d love it if you wrote something else than ‘I love you, you love me, why’d you only call me when you’re high, blahblahblah’ for once. That was when I thought: I’d like try because I had never done that before. On our last Puppets record I detached myself from that image, it was already lessening. Not that shit anymore about a girl in a hotel room and I want to meet you. That’s how I got to the songs The Dream Synopsis and Sweet Dreams, TN. I’d never walked the road of love that far along. Maybe I even exaggerated on purpose. It caused a definite fracture with the past, which pleases me.

Lovesongs become cheese really quickly, that’s just the way it is. The closing number which is also about love, is called The Ultracheese and appears to not contain a single hint of irony. Is it hard for you to ignore the irony factor? Well, one of the many things Cohen teaches you is that he’s prepared to take time to deliver his message. The more songs you hear from him, the more you discover who he really is. It’s a large scala of oeuvre which makes that clear. Listening to his songs, but also his commentaries, has encouraged me to take my time. Not just in terms of working pace. You can also take the time to spread out your message over one whole record, or maybe even several records. A few nice punchlines here and there, that’s all right. But I don’t really feel that urge anymore to wrap all the things I have to say up in one short moment. This insight is relatively new to me.

How much of The Last Shadow Puppets has actually flowed on in this Arctic Monkeys record? The fundamental difference between both projects us that The Puppets are based on a partnership between me and Miles Kane. That’s the distinction, but lyrical-wise I’m less and less thinking about what project I’m writing for. Back in the days, it was very much like: now I’m doing The Puppets, then The Monkeys, then The Puppets and when that’s done, the Monkeys again. In the meantime, we’ve come to a point where AM somewhat started resembling the last Puppets record. I had already been working on the piano loop for Star Treatment when I was writing Everything You’ve Come To Expect. That was when it all started to become more intertwined.

There has been a lot of speculation about this new album, maybe causing a lot of pressure on you. Was that difficult for you to handle? That’s mainly part of a world I try not to stick my hands in. If I had heard anything about it, I might’ve been more worried. But I don’t really have any social media, so I’m not entirely conscious of it. I do feel that people have been looking forward to this record a lot because, since I’ve left the UK, people keep asking me: when is that record gonna come out? That level. But it’s not as if I’m looking at my phone every other minute.

Your girlfriend Taylor Bagley was trying to pick a fight with some fans, saying ‘he doesn’t do it for any of you cunts, he does it for himself’. Does that even reach you or not at all? No it doesn’t, I try to stay out of it on purpose. In any case, it doesn’t bother me with making music.

Is that maybe why you’ve thought up a hotel and casino? To escape everything? The idea to name a record after a place comes from how I feel about albums I really love. An album like that really is like a destination to reconnect with yourself. I so urgently wish I could rent an apartment on Dion’s Born To Be With You, an all-time favourite of mine. I’d pack my bags this instant and just leave for a while. I told you about that room with the piano in LA, right? At my place we call that room The Lunar Surface. It’s from that rumour how Stanley Kubrick just staged the whole moon landing in his basement. Every time I sat down to work on songs in my basement, I thought: he’s gonna come down to fake the moon landing any time now. That’s how the moon entered the story. And the calm, thanks to an Apollo mission.

Is Taylor a muse for you? For years now, you’ve surrounded yourself with models and great women. What kind of influence did those women have on your music? Is she my muse, you’re asking? Living together with Taylor brought stability to my life, giving me courage to talk about certain things on this record. It’s a conclusion a friend of mine came to when I played a couple of new songs for a few friends on the piano. He told me: your life is so much more stable than some years ago when you had AM. An understandable conclusion, but whether it’s the absolute truth and whether everything really is that black and white, I’m not sure of. Because songs are not always an exact depiction of how your world is at that moment. •

[biolabs-soldier]

Long post:

I was never a fan of rap growing up, but when I went to college, I became exposed to it more. I mainly gravitated towards Eminem. I cannot explain why, but once I heard how real his music can be-- the fact that be bases his songs off of his own experiences-- I immediately became more attuned to the lyrics in his songs.

One song I can honestly relate to, whether it was Eminem’s intention or not, is “Lose Yourself”. Yes, I know the song is about his journey to becoming the rapper he was at that point in time, but using my own experiences, I can honestly say that I can apply this to my life.

I have been lucky enough to not have many barriers in my life, but the recurring barrier that I still battle with today is my stutter. I have had it since I began to talk and I have gone through hell. The constant bullying as a kid, even from family, the fear of being made fun of wherever I go. However, listening to “Lose Yourself” helps me when I feel stressed because I can honestly relate to the lyrics, even if Eminem’s story is nowhere near mine, and vice versa.

If you have read this far, I implore you to keep reading so you can get into the mind of a stutterer. If not, there are no hard feelings.

Yo! His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy There's vomit on his sweater already: Mom's spaghetti

Speaking is nerve-racking for stutterers. Even daily conversation with friends can be stress-inducing. You can become physically nauseous as your body is physically cramping as you squeeze the words out.

He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready

No one can tell by looking at someone if they have a stutter.

To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out He's choking, how? Everybody's joking now The clock's run out, time's up, over—blaow!

You seem like you don’t know what you are saying, or what you mean to say. [I suffer from mostly “blocks”, which is when words are stuck in your throat until you can force the sound out... sometimes painfully]. You can even just sit there and make a little yelp, and people laugh. Your time to ask a question or say something can pass right by you.

Snap back to reality, ope there goes gravity, ope There goes Rabbit, he choked, he's so mad but he won't Give up that easy, no, he won't have it, he knows His whole back's to these ropes, it don't matter, he's dope He knows that but he's broke, he's so stagnant, he knows When he goes back to this mobile home, that's when it's Back to the lab again yo, this whole rhapsody Better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him

The world keeps spinning, regardless of your feelings and hardships. You need to dig deeper into the sand and lift yourself up. A daily struggle when constant physical strain on your throat, eyes, and stomach are recurring.

You better lose yourself in the music The moment, you own it, you better never let it go You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo You better lose yourself in the music The moment, you own it, you better never let it go You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo You better…

Regardless of your stutter, you need to say what you need to say. Even if you can’t speak fluently at all.

His soul's escaping through this hole that is gaping

Words can hang in your throat and slowly slither out, just a sound. “s-s-s-s”

This world is mine for the taking, make me king

As we move toward a New World Order

A normal life is boring; but superstardom's Close to post-mortem, it only grows harder

You can lead a normal life with a stutter, but there are internal struggles you fight with daily.

Homie grows hotter, he blows, it's all over

You can speak fluently for a while and then psyche yourself out because you are speaking so fluently.

These hoes is all on him, coast-to-coast shows He's known as the Globetrotter, lonely roads God only knows, he's grown farther from home, he's no father He goes home and barely knows his own daughter

Another reference to having a normal life. People like you, and you even have relationships, but sometimes you can look in the mirror and not even recognize yourself.

But hold your nose, 'cause here goes the cold water

These hoes don't want him no mo', he's cold product They moved on to the next schmoe who flows He nose-dove and sold nada, and so the soap opera Is told, it unfolds, I suppose it's old, partner But the beat goes on: da-da-dom, da-dom, dah-dah, dah-dah

People’s true colors show and those you thought were friends can be talking shit about you behind your back.

No more games, I'ma change what you call rage Tear this motherfuckin' roof off like two dogs caged I was playin' in the beginning, the mood all changed I've been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage But I kept rhymin' and stepped right in the next cypher Best believe somebody's payin' the Pied Piper All the pain inside amplified by the Fact that I can't get by with my nine-to- Five and I can't provide the right type of life for my family 'Cause man, these goddamn food stamps don't buy diapers And there's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life And these times are so hard, and it's gettin' even harder Tryna feed and water my seed, plus teeter-totter Caught up between bein' a father and a prima donna Baby mama drama, screamin' on her, too much for me to wanna Stay in one spot, another day of monotony's Gotten me to the point I'm like a snail, I've got To formulate a plot or end up in jail or shot Success is my only motherfuckin' option—failure's not Mom, I love you, but this trailer's got To go; I cannot grow old in Salem's Lot So here I go, it's my shot: feet, fail me not This may be the only opportunity that I got

Having a stutter is one of the most frustrating things I have ever experienced, and I have seen myself at my angriest when I cannot speak, have a block, or have a stutter more than usual. You psyche yourself out when your future comes into play: getting interviews, making friends, getting into relationships, etc. Regardless, the world doesn’ t give a shit if you stutter or are fluent. You need to lift yourself up from your ashes and keep going. Work for what you want, always know your limits, and do your best to meet them and even surpass them if possible. Recognize your own achievements because no one else will. No one knows the pain you’re going through and no one else can understand it. Just do your thing, go for what you need to do to succeed in life.

If you read all of this, I am extremely grateful. It’s easy to read the words and have the patience, but if I were to read this, I doubt many would have the patience to listen.. let alone hold their tongues.

In short, Eminem is a relatable rapper, and his music has gotten me through some hard times. So listen to “Lose Yourself” once and maybe see it in a new light.

Thanks for reading, everyone!

[elliot-corfield]

UNIT D10 PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL

Following on from what i researched about youtube premiers, i want to discuss music videos as a form of promotion, networking and monetisation. Music videos are definitely on the rise, especially in the metal scene, they are always getting bigger and better. Darker, scarier and more gruesome. They are always evolving and adding a whole new layer to the music, some music videos being basically mini movies, it's easy to see how important they are with the money spent on them. Take the band Spiritbox for example, they definitely love music videos and most of their songs have one, some big production and some just standing around playing, that's the beauty of a music video too, they're very accessible to musicians, just having the visual element is enough. An example of this is memphis may fire with their latest releases, all the videos are shot in the same room with some tvs and each video just has the tvs a different colour or flashing a different way, cheap and effective because it adds another element to the song, it's like your 5 senses, there are more ways than just a good song to hook the listeners, a good video can really make a song perfect or even attract a new audience altogether. In terms of networking, a music video requires many factors on a big budget such as a lighting team, filming crew and sometimes even a director and all those people you can network with and either work with them again in the future or they'll ask you to come back and this creates more work and money for both parties. Equally other people watching the video may then hire your band or the film crew for a job so you can mutually benefit from each other. Equally fans of their work may even become your fans and vice versa. In terms of monetisation, it's very similar to the premier in that you'll get ads etc from youtube that pay you but equally if your band are doing the work for someone you'll be paid by them so there's good money to be made from videos. However the biggest benefit in my opinion is what comes next and that's in the form of using these videos on YouTube to get the attention of react channels who i think are very useful to musicians for criticism and exposure, having a cool video for them to play with the music and react to will definitely get you a lot more attention and i think they're on the rise in popularity and loads of bands now are making videos to get their attention and also for the above reason I've said, having a badass metal song with a really cool video just makes it that level better and being able to have that sort of hype with your song is invaluable to you as a musician. In terms of applying music videos to my own work and how it could affect my ep. A music video is for the visuals and not always production and so filming myself just playing the track maybe with some editing or making my own visualiser with some cool design work or a lyric video or even using the media students at college would all make a successful music video and add that level of visuals to my track to take it to the next level of professionalism.

[fmdseolhwa]

1-10

famedkrp idol life & career meme : accepting!

1. what is your favorite single you’ve released?

"I like our singles on our Square Two single album the most. Playing With Fire was a song that I would have listened to and added to my playlist if someone else had released it. Stay showed our voices off the best out of our singles so far, in my opinion. I wish we performed it more now because I feel that I’ve improved as a vocalist since then. One of those two is my favorite!”

2. what are your favorite b-sides/non-title tracks you’ve released?

“We don’t have a lot to choose from since we’ve only released two mini-albums to date, but I have a soft spot for Really off of our Square Up mini. It’s not the most hype song of ours, but it’s another example of a song I’d listen to if we hadn’t released it. It flows well and has some good lyrics. It’s easy for fans to sing the chorus along with us.”

3. what is your least favorite song (title track or b-side) you’ve released?

“I don’t hate any of our songs. My least favorite depends on the day and the stage. I’m not big into Forever Young. Most of the song isn’t bad and it did well, so people must like it, but the end of the song isn’t for me. It’s almost like our producer had an idea for two different Forever Young songs and didn’t want to get rid of either, so they combined them."

4. if you could do a duet with anyone in the industry, who would you choose?

“Anyone. That would mean Gold Star was letting me have more activities than what Femme Fatale does. Okay, not anyone. It’s just that I’d be more excited at the idea of getting to sing a duet than I would about whoever I was singing with. Is that bad?”

5. what do you think of your/your group’s concept?

“It’s fine. We could have debuted with worse, and I can’t think of a realistic concept I’d be more content with. I never wanted to become an idol because idols have such strict concept boxes to fit into, but as an idol, Femme Fatale’s concept is better than plenty of the alternatives. We get to dress well most of the time and crowds all over the world like our songs.”

6. what is one thing (a concept, a genre, an outfit, etc.) you would least like your company make you do?

“All respect to Aria, but I wouldn’t be able to stand doing something like Ah-Choo. It’s a pretty song in isolation, but I’m not a naturally cute person. If anything, I have resting bitch face, which doesn’t vibe with the whole innocent and bright thing. I’d ruin the whole concept for the group.”

7. what one thing (concepts, genres, styling, frequency of comebacks, etc.) would you like to change about your current career as an idol?

“If we could come back more often with songs we have more say in, that would be nice. I understand it from a business perspective. It makes us seem exclusive and it could be argued part of the reason our comebacks do so well is because the breaks in between hype them so much, but that doesn’t mean that it’s my favorite part of my career on an emotional level. I know why we don’t get to be involved much in the production either, but, again, if we don’t ever grow, we’re going to stagnate.”

8. if you could be in any idol group, which one would you choose?

“I’m good with Femme Fatale. I have my problems with our career, but I don’t meet a lot of idols who are completely happy with everything their company does for their group. At least in Femme Fatale we’re successful and know we’re not on the verge of disbandment. Silhouette wouldn’t be bad, but I wouldn’t fit in there as well as Femme Fatale either.”

9. if you could say one thing to your ceo, what would it be?

“Nothing. She’s a busy woman and I wouldn’t have anything life-changing to tell her. Vice versa, too, I’d bet. If she wanted to open the door for me to share all of my thoughts with her, she would have already cleared a few hours in her schedule and called me into her office.”

10. if you were auditioning for your company today, what would you perform for your audition, or what would you change from your original audition?

“My audition was very impulsive, but I feel I did well anyway. It wasn’t that long ago. I’m a better singer and dancer now, but Gold Star saw something in me other than polished talent that I wouldn’t want to risk erasing. I could tell myself to re-consider giving up the career path I’d been working my whole life for so easily, but I don’t know if I would have listened or if even wish I would have.”

[itsrahulpradeepposts]

Five successful digital marketing case studies that brought good results

Digital marketing is a vast platform that offers a wide range of opportunities to those who know how to make use of them. It makes it easier for the brands to connect with their audience and consumers and also helps their consumers understand their brands better by clicking with them emotionally. Emotions and feelings bind both of them in a relationship that is honest and adds loyalty to the brand value.

Following are five of the successful digital marketing case studies that brought about good results and positive impact among the audience. We hope that you are able to learn more with the help of these digital marketing case studies.

1. Lays- #SmileDekeDekho

Case Summary:

Lay’s is a potato chips initiative from the parent company PepsiCo that initiated the ‘Smile Deke Dekho campaign’ in October 2019. The unique selling proposal was that the brand promoted the message of how a simple smile can connect different individuals universally and simultaneously convey the emotions and the mood effortlessly through each flavour and packet of chips. The uniqueness of the initiative was engaging the influencers on various social platforms in advertising the brand for them. Not only that Lay’s customised more than 350 curated packs for the Influencers.

Resulting reverberation-

A feeling of personalised and customised product that is uniquely curated just for the customers

It is a way to connect with the consumers individually and vice versa. The campaign reinstated the power of a single smile and the power of positivity it brings.

The campaign accelerated the use of social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram by asking the consumers to pose a smile with their packets of Lays.

2. Burger King

Case Summary:

Burger King is legendary when it comes to establishing their digital footprints in the space of digital marketing. Their digital campaign in the US made a pure genius marketing strategy. The constant competition among the two brand rivals, Burger King and Mc Donald’s, often caused a ripple in the waters of digital marketing space. Most brands wish to incorporate the use of the latest technologies into their marketing strategies and make optimum use of the technology. Since these are usually novice and new, some mistakes follow.

Burger King is one such brand that does love to play with the technologies to create a marketing experience that its consumers least expect it to. Such is a marketing strategy that is weaved with voice-enabled devices. This digital campaign stressed on featuring the catchphrase of google’s voice-activated tools, “Ok, Google, what is the Whopper burger?”. And as a result, any home device that is nearer and able to hear the prompt would enable itself and read up the famous whopper burger by Burger King.

Resulting Reverberation-

The aim to introduce the consumers with the brand and its product, The Whopper burger became a viral success.

Even if the campaign wasn’t entirely a success, it did set a tone for the other brands that could not be replicated.

3. Zomato

Zomato is yet another digital food giant that could not escape but master the world of digital marketing. The brand is known to be winning hearts on social media, all due credits to its mastery in digital marketing space. Its tweets, for example, have been consistently promoting customers to brand and vice versa engagement.

Resulting Reverberation-

A highly interactive digital marketing platform that influences and motivates people to join the Zomato community of foodies

Incorporating memes and current issues have made the brand’s presence on digital media, quite remarkable and prominent.

4. Nikon

The brand Nikon launched a campaign ‘I am..’ intending to take the audiences 2

back on a nostalgic trip that is a fresh breath of air in itself. It encourages the

audience to indulge in joyful clicking than merely click pictures. Not only that, the commercial shows an array of instances like ‘I am The White Shark’ where a father captures the sight of his toddler playing with foam. The brand promotes capturing the little moments of life in a way, telling the audience to live, not merely exist.

Resulting Reverberation-

Help consumers and customers connect themselves with the brand.

Create memorable moments and inspire and promote a sense of achievement

5. Times of India

Times of India is a daily newspaper brand that is known in every household in India. But sadly it has been seen as a struggling newspaper daily having more robust digital news platforms emerge. The new digital marketing campaign by the Times of India has been raking up emotions attached to the print newspapers in every household.

The campaign that was run was named as #NewspaperMornings. It was narrated in the voice of famous lyricist Gulzar, to the audience in the form of a short film that also featured his poem. The film conveys the message that the brand wants to reinstate in the hearts of its consumers, “Some relationships never change”. The film weaves an emotional aspect of the presence of newspapers in our lives, with the morning cup of chai, the thirst for a piece of new and unknown information as well as to be a part of the intense debate.  

The lyrics like “Bina akbhar ke, chai subah ki adhoori lagti hain…na din chadhta hain poora, na poori aankh khulti hain”, set forth the ball of nostalgia moving.

Resulting Reverberation-

The campaign film collected 22 million views and above in a matter of a week over the social and digital platforms where it was shared.

This brings us to the end of the blog on successful digital marketing case studies that brought good results. This is how you or your brand can leverage digital marketing to create waves in the market today. If you wish to learn more about how to build successful brand campaigns and learn the basics of digital marketing as well, join Great Learning’s PG Program in Strategic Digital Marketing by Great Learning and upskill today!

[vroenis]

2020 Music In Review

When this was a draft, it opened with a bit about me not writing, but then I started playing board games again and wrote two bits on board games. In the trashfire that 2020 was (add “trashfire” to dictionary, no I did not mean “trash fire”), and 2021 continues to be, somehow I ended up getting back into board games. Actually there are good and logical reasons I returned to them and if you’re interested in that, I go into some of it in those journals, but more interesting is just playing the games so you should totally HMU if you’re local, sorry I don’t do virtual/digital, I like handling physical pieces and sharing food.

The most natural way for me to wrap a year for me is in music and since Melbourne locked down in March, I spent a lot of time working from home and listening on my own gear which I can’t express enough the joy at being able to do - firstly at having good reference transducers and secondly not having to listen to trash radio.

Writing about art is always a bit weird but it’s good fun so we do it anyway so let’s write some words about art. There are three main ways I engage with music in no particular order - more or less however I happen to notice them;

Music and musicianship - tonal and rhythmic composition

Technical production - recording, editing/manipulionation, processing/production, mixing and balance, and mastering

Song-writing/lyrics - should there be any - excludes vocal performance as this is covered under the first one.

To get weirder about it, I tend to have both emotional and also pragmatic responses to those three things separately so that means there’s a wackadoo matrix of 6 criteria I seem to be assessing every piece of music I encounter against and yep, that’s a thing I do, all the time, every time. The better a piece of music is, tho, the more the line between the emotional and pragmatic blurs as the overall quality of the work is established. I might begin with an initial pragmatic appreciation of an excellent mix and balance, and technical execution of a recording and production, then come to get a feel for how emotional a work is - and vice-versa. Sometimes on rare occasions, it all happens at the same time - an album is just a smashing work of excellence in every way and I just love every aspect of it more over time.

It’s worth mentioning I don’t really have any great axe to grind with pop music - there has always been and continues to be great pop, and good pop isn’t by any means easy music to create. For me at least, and likely many people, what destroys pop as a listening experience is repetition which usually isn’t under the listener’s control, but an unfortunate side-effect of the underlying culture that sustains pop as an industry. I still appreciate and admire so much about pop-music and always keep a little in my collection from each decade. No matter what, always remind yourself that the kids are OK and that there’s always great pop-music around - stay in touch with it. Some of it is truly awesome, and I use the superlative with sincerity.

Albums Of The Year

A few things happened on the way to me actually getting to write this journal, including some surgery (I’m fine), but also I ended up nominating no less than 4 Albums Of The Year. I think they deserve their own lengthier write-ups, in a weirdly me thing to do, I feel like I want to talk less about them and you should just go and listen to them but they have been getting a lot of air-time on my channels - in any case, here’s a lazylink to the instagram post I did for them. They’re all great and they feature in the lists coming in this entry so give them a listen, they’re outstanding.

Personal Charts

When I set out to write a musical summary of the year, I went to my last.fm page to see what I’d listened to by number of plays polled. As mentioned, given the Covid lockdown and working from home so much, I’ve actually gotten to register a lot more of my listening on the site whereas in general so much of my listening happens offline, so to speak, be it in the car or on my mp3 player. This year has also seen a serious shift in my buying habits shift entirely to Bandcamp for a few reasons; Google shut down their Play store in favour of streaming because naturally it favours them and not artists - it also just makes sense for them from infrastructure and administrative perspectives, but also I just did more and more research and naturally found more and more artists and Bandcamp just made sense. I want to write a digest as to why you should do the same but I feel like people need to find their own way there or approach me directly so the motivation comes from them. Streaming is bad for artists and while I and indeed artists don’t want you to close your premium accounts just yet because closing any revenue streams to artists in any way is bad, I encourage you to do some research into just how much revenue there is in streaming, and what your expectations are for how you think the artists you love so much are supposed to make a living. I guess if your engagement level is fairly low, or the culture you’re into is pop-music, then this is the end of the discussion and that’s OK, we don’t need to take it any further. If you’re in any way curious about what this issue is, this video by Benn Jordan is a great place to start.

There are two charts I’d like to share - one is my top 10 albums I’ve chosen, the other is the same albums by number of plays as per my last.fm polling. These aren’t the top 10 albums I polled, mind-you. Sometimes I listen to an album a whole bunch just because I’m into it or because it slaps, but it isn’t one I’d nominate as an album that encapsulates the year.

You’ll immediately notice not every album was released in 2020, however my conditions are that they either had to have been released close enough to 2020 that I’d have done heavy listening in the year, or I had to have purchased them in 2020 so they were new to me in the year.

Here are the 10 albums I chose;

And here they are by number of plays polled in 2020 - bear in mind I probably played one or two favourite tracks a few times more, so they don’t neatly divide by number of tracks listed on the album;

A few immediate things to note;

- Dreams Are Not Enough is significantly underrepresented because I don’t listen to it at my PC while I work. In general, I definitely listen to this far more in environments offline, but also it’s not exactly an all occasions album given its tone and atmosphere, if you know what I mean, and if you don’t - give it a listen and find out.

- La Favière on the other hand is more or less a bit of a party so I play it a lot… yet when it comes to my personal rankings, it’s not that I like it less per se, it’s just that I love the other albums more - tons of respect to Iversen. It still made 10th on a list of hundreds of albums and netted 161 plays out of thousands of files I have.

- Had I done this kind of list in 2019 and known about Reid Willis, I suspect The Longing Device would have been an Album Of The Year then. It was a dead ringer for an Album Of The Year for me this year except then he released Mother Of and that is an absolute killer, so he outdid himself and I selected that instead. Reid Willis is a genius.

- There’s a long story as to why I only bought Hanan Townshend’s soundtrack for To The Wonder in 2020 but at least I was delayed long enough to not produce any more plastic, given my original intention once upon a time was to get it on CD. In any case, I had to buy it on iTunes and was bedstricken from illness for days after. iTunes is cursed.

Telefon Tel Aviv - Dreams Are Not Enough (October 2019)

In 2009, Telefon Tel Aviv released their album Immolate Yourself and then Charles Cooper died. I didn’t actually find out about his death until after I’d heard the album a few times over, but the album stayed with me for the 10 years to the new album as a landmark like no other. In part for the mourning of Charles, but simultaneously and separately as something that stood apart as some sound for my life that no other music could touch. Maybe The Haxan Cloak’s Excavation, maybe Darkside’s Psychic, but each of those in different ways.

10 years later and Joshua Eustis continues his long journey and releases Dreams Are Not Enough in the Telefon Tel Aviv name. After my first listen, I tweeted to him that I felt like deleting the rest of my music collection which we had a laugh about (he’s a very sociable person, by the way, if you’re not an asshole - he’s also someone you can learn a lot about the industry from). The thing is - I want to have these kinds of exaggerated reactions to the art I engage with - I want them to be world-destroying. Sure, not every piece of art has to be immense and euphoric and devastating, but it can’t all be run-of-the-mill either.

It’s difficult for me to describe Dreams Are Not Enough in practical terms, it is still a Telefon album, it is also Telefon without Charles, it’s also mourning him, is it moving on in his absence? It is definitely its own art for you to engage with as a unique work, to you the individual. It’s uniquely Telefon Tel Aviv in a way that no other electronic artist does the same way - it feels a specific way and there are times when no other music will do. One of my running jokes is that Porpentine’s Howling Dogs and Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero will be my Game(s) Of The Year every year forever and Dreams Are Not Enough now with Immolate Yourself are going to last 10, 20 years - longer - as Albums Of The Year forever too because there’s just never anything else like them.

Reid Willis - The Longing Device (January 2019)

The good thing about having made my choices earlier in 2020 is that Reid WIllis’ Mother Of wasn’t out when I wrote-up the list, so I get to talk about The Longing Device.

Reid Willis was an absolutely random find on Bandcamp. Occasionally I like to dive into subgenres and just go hunting. You can imagine that 9 times out of 10 this is a fruitless endeavour and might think this is frustrating but I really enjoy doing it as an exercise in critical listening. By whatever turn of divine Bandcamp listing, I came across the first chronological album he has up, Crude Healing (2016) and from memory listened to four tracks before instant-buying his entire discography available. I did go hunting on the Google Play store before it was shuttered and buy the most recent album from 2013, The Sunken Half listed from his older works before he jumped over to Bandcamp for all his newer albums and it’s definitely a transitional work to what he does now and well worth having. While Crude Healing initially blew me away, The Longing Device is a more mature album that has been more carefully shaped, skills having been honed and focussed into a less raw and yet more powerful sound. Very rarely am I ever an “I liked your old stuff better than your new stuff” kind of person, in general I tend to go with an artist when they evolve and grow unless on occasion they go in a completely different direction in which case hey - I respect it but sometimes it’s just not something I feel.

Here Willis’ orchestrations are careful, beautiful and languished in the right moments - cut with beats and edits, and the beats and edits likewise deftly cut with orchestrations. This is such a stunning exhibition of creativity, it’s one of the more esoteric examples of my music collection and also in some ways perhaps one of the more approachable works. Then in November Willis released Mother Of where he just takes everything to the next level.

Mat Zo - Illusion Of Depth (October 2020)

In July of 2020, Above & Beyond released their ongoing regular compilation Anjunabeats volume 15 and finished the first disc with a bangin’ Mat Zo track called Problems, an instant favourite of mine as soon as I heard it. It’s a tough year for DJs and musos all round not being able to tour, Josh Eustice and many others have been doing year-round commentary about irresponsible alleged “underground” gigs have nothing to do with the old-school spirit of underground at all and have turned into superspreader events, and how publishers and labels haven’t supported artists through Covid. Leading up to October, Anjuna and Mat Zo promote his forthcoming album and I have to admit, I’m pretty hyped and then it drops.

Holy shit.

In a year of such terrible events, this felt like such a timely dose of positivity that arrived at just the right time. I wrote a whole damn entry for this on instragram, and it’s one of my Albums Of The Year, but far out the digest of this album. On one hand, it’s a hugely technically accomplished work - it’s a diverse exhibition of styles, musicianship, stellar production, and absolutely pristine mix and balance - on the other hand, it’s just an absolute fucken banger-riot-party of an album. The album stands up to a clinical listening on reference transducers, it’s such a delight to audition and examine in every way, but you can set all of that aside and just enjoy the experience, front to back through the tracks in order and as an album, that’s becoming quite rare. There are levels of production discipline on display in this album, especially for electronic music in difficult mixing environments with potentially cluttered frequency ranges that a lot of artists need to learn from, yet Maz Zo executes with ease. This has a lot to give no matter who you are, whether you want to sit down and listen, dance all night or go for a drive - a word of warning, it might make you want to drive fast!

It’s also worth noting that Mat toured this album virtually in Minecraft in order to be Covid-safe and that is absolutely freaken amazing.

Hanan Townshend - To The Wonder (April 2013)

Not the best choice of cover-art, but to be fair, no-one likes Terrence Malick films so it doesn’t really matter. Like most things, getting into music tends to be multifaceted. To The Wonder is my favourite Malick film and yes, I love many of them (you can check the Film Notes page), probably because it’s the most intimate and grounded of his narratives. I still like the more grand and abstract stories he tells, they’re very much my bag, too, but To The Wonder really is a simple story about people told from a closeness that is for some perhaps uncomfortable, but I love that closeness. There’s a dream-like quality to Malick’s filmmaking and indeed cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s photography that is both surreal and organic that makes the film feel very real and then like recollection once it’s done. Hanan Townshend’s music perfectly matches it, and then like all good soundtracks transcends the purpose for which it was written and can be applied to life outside of its matching media. There is a certain framing I have in my mind and at times, with the way I quite literally see, that makes me cue this soundtrack. Very few other soundtracks have this kind of power - Kenji Kawaii’s work for Ghost In The Shell (inclusive of Innocence), Hajime Mizogughi’s Jin-Roh and Cliff Martinez’ Solaris would be some of the others.

Daniel McCagh - Altered States (April 2020)

Another semi-random Bandcamp find, I was chuffed to learn that Daniel McCagh is from Albury, NSW, Australia. It’s always amazing to find local artists who are this astonishingly talented. I tend to associate Australian musicians at the not-quite-there-yet level of art and still do. That’s not a criticism of the artists themselves, it’s a criticism of our government and their backwards attitude towards arts funding and economics in this country. We are a developed country in the age of the internet where information and culture is shared instantly but we deny our people opportunities in so many ways - in education, facilities, commerce and economic infrastructure - the state of internet services in this country for a start is appalling and has been behind global standards forever. It will take us so much time, funds, resources and coordination to catch-up and of-course the longer we wait, the greater the cost and each successive government makes their excuses as to why we can never quite afford to do things right.

Props to individuals who can make it stick, tho, and Daniel McCagh is one of them. It’s probably shockingly unfair to hold someone up on a pedestal every time they do well but I can’t help it - Altered States is on par with Reid Willis’ and other dark ambient/electronic works or whatever genre you want to put them into. On Bandcamp these darker synth and drone-centric artists are a dime a dozen and to be fair, a lot of them are quite good but finding works that truly stand out in excellence can be difficult. The low play-count is due to having only found and bought the album quite late, but it goes into rotation fairly often and it’s a growing genre in my collection.

The 1975 - Notes On A Conditional Form (May 2020)

The closest thing to pop music to hit this list, NOACF was going to appear at some point - just getting pipped at the finish-line by Reid Willis, all told. I listened to this in the car quite a bit when I was still in rotation in the office before full lockdown.

Writing about The 1975 will be a Thing - either you’ll know something about them or nothing at all. For me, I guess I engage with them entirely differently from superfans - I’m in my late 30s so it won’t surprise you that I don’t have a TikTok account nor do I op a Spotify account and I’m not active at all on Facebook altho neither are gen Z. That said, I’m not entirely sure who their core fanbase will be - they don’t strike me as chart-topping, TikTok everpresent pop-culture icons. Their lead singer certainly has the awareness of pop-culture to communicate with their fan-base to keep up, but they don’t seem to engage at the same level of the lists you see on say, Todd in the Shadows - but I’ve not watched enough of him to know if he’s ever mentioned them.

Anyway I’m enough of a musician (read: snob) to dig their lofty musical stuff - it’s the perfect follow-up and follow-on from ABIIOR and I Like It When You Sleep... before that. Their sound stays uniquely theirs while slowly evolving with contemporary sounds, all the while the production stays top-notch and I’m always pleased with what I hear from a mixing and balance perspective. It also sort of launched with one of the most exciting singles I’ve heard in a while If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) which has to be one of the absolute best recreations of the quintessential 90’s sound yet with contemporary production discipline I’ve ever heard. Many have tried yet most have failed. I always have so much respect when an artist can nail this kind of thing because it’s immensely difficult to do and I’m so proud of The 1975 for pulling this off. All of their genre homages and tilts on this album - actually on all of their albums since I Like It When You Sleep… have been stellar and I continue to be impressed.

I’m also completely onboard with their performative behaviour - they remind me of the angsty political U2 et al of old, but with the necessary contemporary tilt we need. Matty as a front-person is grounded, sensible, vulnerable, flawed - been thru some shit and talks openly about it. I don’t care how much of it is genuine, it reads and plays genuinely. I’m not a superfan so I don’t have posters of him on my wall nor hang on every word he says, but if I was 16 or 23 and did, I think he’s saying the right things. Setting that aside because it doesn’t matter, as a late 30’s adult, this album is fucking great and the band is aging, whether the fanbase likes it or not. There is so much creativity in it and I feel like while they play like they don’t care whether anyone comes along with them or not, they actually really sincerely hope we all do - and I also hope we all really do come along with them because I am coming along with them. None of this “play Antichrist” bullshit - leave the past in the past. Play Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied. They just cancelled their 2021 tour plans due to Covid which was a really good move, and confirmed a new album in the works, and I can’t wait to hear what they have coming.

The Midnight - Monsters (July 2020)

One of the most exciting releases last year, I was amped for the drop and was anticipating another solid, top-notch contemporary synthwave album from who I regard to be one of the very best in the genre. They’d released America Online some months prior which I really loved but it didn’t really indicate what the album was going to be like. Monsters ended up being waaaaay better than I expected - and I expected it to be really great. I don’t know whether it was a conscious decision by the band that perhaps the synthwave space was perhaps wearing out the 80’s a little bit - even pop-music was starting to take nibbles at the genre albeit pretty poorly by comparison, not that radio-punters would know it. With the new album tho, we’re taken into this wonderful in-between of not fully 90’s but not wholly 80’s either and even some contemporary r’n’b thrown in there but always stellar production and it’s just a massive album. It’s like a film you watch that ends up being an instant favourite you wish you could watch again for the first time because that first experience was so great. EVERYTHING lands perfectly in this album… with perhaps the exception of the lyric 

“friends become lovers under covers” 

in the song Prom Night because celebrating teens being sexually active is probably not something I cherish too much but hey, whaddayagonnado some things are just facts LET’S TURN THIS INTO A TEACHING OPPORTUNITY ABOUT CONSENT let’s not at least not right now.

Jeremy Blake - Object Permanence (December 2019)

Jeremy Blake is also known as Red Means Recording and he is a Synthlord. He has a YouTube channel and I am a superfan of his, so much so that I wrote a feature about him right here in this journal. I have a lot of his albums and Object Permanence is one of my favourites.

Jeremy is the definition of good faith. Everything he does is done with the intention of creating goodness in this world, in whatever way it can, somehow. Whether it’s just by listening to something that you might find pleasing, or whether it’s watching a video intended to help you create music on a piece of hardware or learn about software or licensing or platforms, distribution or business in some way. I happen to really dig the kinds of music styles he’s into as we seem to have had similar roots when it comes to some of the rock and electronic music we grew up on and have been into in our music lives, so the music he makes now really gels well with me. It was super difficult to choose between the album he released before this called Soft Music To Do Nothing To and Object Permanence but ultimately I think this is the right choice as far as an exhibition of his talent goes. Soft Music is still great, it’s more of a long jam he performed with only three pieces of gear which is pretty amazing and I listen to it all the time, but Object Permanence has some distinct tracks in varying styles I really get into.

I highly recommend Jeremy’s YouTube channel as an entry-point into his style, but if you’re a synth-head and like beats, breaks and groovy bleeps and bloops, you definitely won’t go astray by dropping into any one of his albums on Bandcamp.

The Paper Kites - On The Corner Where You Live (September 2018)

File The Paper Kites under “holy shit another Australian artist that isn’t rubbish” and from Melbourne, my hometown at that. In 2018, they split their new tracks effectively into two albums which works really well. The first is called On The Train Ride Home which is wholly downtempo and almost entirely acoustic with no drums, the second is this album and is a more energetic. I don’t actually prefer one over the other and have just made myself a playlist with contributions from other artists that only includes songs from On The Train Ride Home, but for this list I chose the second album for its exhibition of the band’s overall breadth of song-writing, performance and production. I guess I associate this sound with bands like Rogue Valley and other north and Pacific Northwest bands in the US but to be fair, I don’t really go hunting for this kind of sound - Nashville?? I don’t associate this very cooled-down acoustic-electric sound with Nashville, it’s not very Country (I have some Country in my collection which probably doesn’t surprise you), it’s almost like ultra-chilled mid-90’s ballad in a sense. Someone will have to tell me what it really is and where to find more but only of this calibre because I’m picky about quality. Google says they’re “folk music, folk rock, indie rock, alternative/indie” and that’s useless so throw that in the bin where it belongs.

This sound is definitely a mood. I hunted thru my entire collection including the aforementioned Rogue Valley and started a first playlist of just this kind of thing. I have the acoustic list done and will do an electric counterpart that will include more material from this album, as well as the one song I bought from Night Traveler called Don’t Forget Me as long as it’s not too energetic, it all depends on what makes it to the final list. This music speaks of drives thru rural landscapes, late nights in the city, time alone or with just one other person, closeness, loneliness, introspection, of long journeys and separation.

Iversen - La Favière (August 2018)

The story of how I got this album is hilarious - one of my gaming friends who buys stuff on Humble Bundle and itch.io and god knows what else tweets me this link and says “hey there’s this synthwave bundle for like $2 you should get it it’s $2 it has all this music in” and as someone who won’t buy bad music for even $2, I go investigating and you can listen to some samples and lo-and-behold, most of it is pretty great. I paid a lot more than $2 as that only got you 4 albums and for another $5 or something, you got another 4 albums plus I always pay more because I want more revenue to go to the contributing artists. I ended up not liking about half of the music on offer but in the bundle I discovered Lost Outrider, Morgan Willis and Iversen, all of which I’ve gone on to buy more music from on Bandcamp. As for La Favière, I bought it again on Bandcamp because I love the album so much and wanted to support the artist - it’s really excellent. Oddly tho, two of the best tracks from it were bonuses that only came with the bundle version and not the Bandcamp version, called Sunset Rider and Visions of Blue, so if you want those, I’m not entirely sure how you can get a hold of them - I’m sure if you contact Josh Iverson and tell him you want to pay for them, he’ll try to sort you out unless there are labels involved in which case, not his fault. Regardless, you still get one of the best chilled synth tracks of all time In Dreams which is worth the price of admission all on its own, it is absolutely epic and you should give it a listen.

Goodbye 2020

Time of writing is Sunday 16th January and what a ride it’s been already, hey. I might still write up my actual Albums Of The Year given two of them didn’t get mentioned - Reid Willis -  Mother Of and Gidge - New Light, so I cheated a bit, but they’re my nominations, awards and lists so I can do whatever I like. I’m always excited about music, both listening with a critical ear and also emotionally engaging with it. There’s never a shortage of good new music or discovering material I hadn’t from years past. Sometimes it feels like wading thru endless fields of dross to find the gold but it’s always there and getting to it is a true delight.

There were honourable mentions and I couldn’t quite get the list to 10 - there are 8. I might write them up but for the moment, here they are in vague order of vagueness. Importance? Order of purchase? I got into Lapalux and Enter Shikari very late in the year. Apparat’s - LP5 is a very special album to me, almost Dreams Are Not Enough special. I do want to talk about how Jacob Collier’s album is both very very good and also not good enough. 

The majority of the music listed here can be purchased on Bandcamp. There are links to most of it on my Bandcamp profile if you want to go hunting - I might add lazylinks later-on if I get the time.

Here is my last.fm full listing for 2020 if you’re curious about that kind of thing. Stats are great.

[amoralto]

Hi, I don't know if you remember but a few months ago i sent you an ask about john's preception of paul's supposed indifference in the media in the early 70s, and i was wondering if your still planning to respond? I mean if not thats totally cool, i just would be really interested if you have even incomplete fragments that you haven't posted (cause you posted a few in the past, i think?) Anyway, i really love what youre doing with this blog, have a great day!

Oh, I remember very well, my dear long-suffering anon, and at this appallingly ponderous rate I’ll probably have a response written up to my own fathomless standards within the next two years or so. 😞😓😩😖 I’m so very sorry; I’ve said so before, but it befits me to say it again. My overall productivity where @amoralto​ is concerned has ground to a halt this past couple of weeks for colourless personal reasons of depression and malaise, so I’m feeling awful about that as well. More fragments I can provide, though - they’re mostly just Thoughts From Several Years Ago, me looking up old notes I made when I was working on this response to your ask, but I hope it provides at least a modicum of entertainment:

I don’t prescribe to the idea of attributing someone’s entire personality to a specific, singular event, but the childhood experience of finding himself in the position of effectively having to choose, symbolically, between the love (and affection, guidance, trust, loyalty, presence) of his father and his mother, would have significantly impacted his ideological makeup and ingrained within young John Lennon a predisposition to see love as a zero-sum game where going with one means abandoning the other forever, and having it both ways is an impossible lie, because you’ve never had it both ways, and in fact, you will see to it personally that you won’t have it both ways, because you’d rather fuck it up yourself than let them fuck it up for you, because they will always leave you anyway. So I’d imagine that as a young John Lennon growing up in schism, comparing your household to others’ and painfully aware of what you don’t have that they do and vice versa and all else, you’d both justify the notion and rebel violently against it. Fulfill your own prophecies. Hence the impulsive, headlong infatuations with gurus, and the incensed, guillotined fallout afterwards. Hence the inveterate need for a parental figure, alternately resenting their authority and desiring their attention and coddling.Why these systemic issues with love, family, and abandonment seemed to pronounced themselves so profoundly in relation to Paul in particular is probably for all those indefinable symbiotic reasons that have been waxed lyrical about. Just as it was a magical buoy for their partnership in its naive and romantic beginning, this indefinable and ineffable quality to their relationship was also an obscure leaden weight to their partnership in its latter-day disillusionment. It’s not so much the fact of its ambiguity itself that was an issue, but that it was conditional, and neither was consciously aware of it until, well, the conditions arose. I mean, this isn’t at all meant to be a summative Where Did Our Love Go? précis, but just in terms of their communication with each other as emotionally hedging Northern lads, their relationship, from John’s perspective, seemed to depend on an implicit awareness and understanding of each other, on the reading of each other’s minds, on recognising each other’s unspoken thoughts and desires and enacting upon them, which he eventually realised was unrealistic and unsustainable (even if he never necessarily stopped longing for it). But they couldn’t have grown as a partnership without expecting and accepting each other to grow as individuals apart from each other, and they couldn’t have gone on continuing to looking to each other and expecting to see their own reflection without depleting themselves.But, uh, rather than go into histrionic ramblings about ego and identity and projection and fear, I think what I mean is: knowing what you don’t want isn’t the same as knowing what you do, and in such immovable contention there was only going to be disappointment and despair. Not knowing what you want but expecting the other to know and give it to you, and not get it? Hurt, rage, betrayal, you never loved me if you did you would have known I was in pain you moon-eyed fucking Engelbert Humperdinck I bet you knew and you just got off on seeing me suffer.

On that note, a candid illustration of John’s Paranoid Troll Logic, circa mid-1966 to early-1967, i.e. the “I was going through murder and I knew Paul wasn’t” period:

1. You’re happy and working and I’m sad and idle.

2. How can you be happy and working when I’m sad and idle?

3. If you really cared about me being sad and idle you couldn’t possibly be happy and working.

4. Maybe I’m sad and idle because you don’t really care about me.

5. Maybe you’re happy and working because I’m sad and idle.

Or two: 

1. I’m miserable, and if we’re as close as I think we are, you should be able to tell.

2. If you’re not able to tell, it must mean we’re not as close as I thought we were, which makes me even more miserable.

3. Maybe the reason why I’m miserable is because we’re not as close as I believe we were, and I can’t tell how close you believe we are.

4. I can’t ask you about it, of course, because I shouldn’t have to, and it’s your fault anyway, you should be the one asking me first, it’s not like you’re the one who’s miserable.

 5. … Maybe you’re making me miserable. On purpose.

Or three:

John: Sometimes I don’t even want to be in this fucking band anymore. I can’t stand being Beatle John, it’s going to suffocate me, but in the situation we’re in I don’t even know who else I can be. We’re in this together, Paul. You understand. We need to break away from all this.

Paul: Hey, I’ve got an idea! Let’s make a record where we all pretend we’re in a made-up band! Then we won’t have to be in this band, not really, because we’ll be other people playing other people’s music! It’ll be liberating!

John: … Remember when we just canceled all our engagements and went to Paris?

Paul: Sure I do. You know what, you should come out to London with me some time, it’s an amazing scene! All the music and plays and films and happenings… John: Hey, why spoil it when you’re already having so much fun without me around? What’s so good about all that, anyway? Pretentious tossers, the whole lot of them. Not that I care. Paul: They’re not so bad. Have you written any new songs? John: I haven’t written anything in weeks. Bothered.Paul: Well, bother yourself, then! And get something done by Friday. We have an album to make, you know. I’ve already written about four new songs - nothing much, just some melodies I whipped up in between this and that, but we can work with them.

John: You’ve just come here to gloat, haven’t you.Paul: Are you having trouble writing? I can help you out! What are partners for? Not today, though, today I’ve got a gallery to set up and two articles for the International Times to write and then dinner with Groovy Bob and a lot of artsy mingling to do with my new queer friends you’re so intimidated by for some reason. Want to come along? John: No, because I’m in pain and you don’t care and I hate you for not loving me enough. Run along, I’ve got my own lysergic work to get to. This ego of mine’s not going to destroy itself, you know. Paul: Alright, alright, I’ll leave you to it. See you on Friday!John: … Please don’t leave me.

And some waffle on Paul’s manner of Dealing With Things By Not Acknowledging Them (which, when aligned with John’s Desperate Need For Verbal And Explicit Acknowledgment, would hurtle them both towards a terrible ending):

As an affect of his stubbornly persistent optimism, to put it glibly, one could see how Paul’s need and inclination to focus on the enactive and positive side of things would also preclude an avoidance of anything he thinks he can’t achieve, help, or deal with, because direct confrontation of the problem would entail the risk of him losing control in that situation, which would render him vulnerable, or worse, being seen to be vulnerable. The avoidance thus manifests as both a defense and a coping mechanism for uncomfortable situations or unsavoury trains of thought - remember, this is someone who isn’t inclined toward navel-gazing, who doesn’t at all like to examine his own thoughts or emotions,  because it would hang him up. He has to deal with them in some way, though, so what can he do? Diffuse (project onto someone else), deflect (be hostile and passive-aggressive), or dive behind a piano, essentially. So if Paul’s way of handling things (during the Beatles years at least) was to avoid the Negative, redirect attentions and efforts to something Positive and hopefully in the process overwhelm the Negative entirely by all that is Positive, then you can see how the avoidance played out in, say, the case of Brian’s death (Let’s all travel far far away from this smog both figuratively and literally and make a new film about us going on a mad bus trip and make a new album to go along with it and be together all the time as a band again because we can totally manage ourselves and this will prove it and everything will be fine!), or the latter-day disintegration of the band (Let’s plough through the sessions because things have to get good before they get better and it’ll be a good album because we’re us and at the end of it we’ll all be proud of ourselves because it’ll prove we can still do it and maybe just maybe we’ll stay together and make more good albums and everything will be fine!). He couldn’t ignore the plaguing tensions at hand, and knew he couldn’t address it directly without inviting confrontation or contributing to the existing tensions, but he knew what he could do, practically - make music, and involve others with making music. As long he was actively doing something, then he was actively moving himself and everyone elseforward, and if they kept moving forward for long enough the problem would recede into the distance until it ceased to be a problem entirely. And so he did, until they were far along enough to move onto the next phase, or until they couldn’t possibly be moved anymore.