#or sometimes just a selection of songs from those 3 albums

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

i have only been listening to russ's last 3 albums for like a week or two now and i can't stop

[dlstmxkakwldrlarchive]

(article) SHINee's ONEW hopes to make people happy with his songs

Singer Onew of popular K-pop group SHINee has been deeply thinking about happiness, a theme that heavily influenced his latest release."I think it's wonderful to be someone who can have a positive impact on others and make them happy," he said during an interview Thursday with a group of reporters.

"It's a great merit that I can lift someone's mood. When people tell me they've been comforted by my songs, it feels like I'm truly living," he said.

This introspection led to the creation of his third individual EP, "Flow," a departure from his previous albums -- his first solo album, "Voice" (2018), second EP titled "Dice" (2022) and first full-length solo album, "Circle," (2023) -- which centered primarily on his distinctive voice and emotional expression.

Instead, "Flow," due out Tuesday at 6 p.m., is designed to resonate more broadly with the public, featuring songs that are easy to follow and enjoy together.The album is led by "Beat Drum," an upbeat pop track characterized by "kitsch" vocals in the chorus and a synth melody, according to promotional material from his label, Griffin Entertainment. The lyrics compare the feeling of a racing heart to the rhythm of a drum beat.

Also included are five B-side tracks, all of which maintain a bright and cheerful tone.

"I wanted to become closer to the public, so I put a lot of effort into making songs that are easy to follow," the 34-year-old explained. He also tailored the choreography to be accessible, allowing more people to catch on after just one viewing. "I hope even those who don't know me can feel a bit of positive energy," he added.

Onew stressed that while his unique voice and emotional depth will continue to be central to his music, his current focus is on expanding his positive influence.

The vocalist also has a goal of creating his own performance brand.

"I think a concert becomes richer and more enjoyable when many people can immerse themselves in it and have fun together. I want to create an atmosphere where it's not just a performance by me, but an experience where everyone can play together," he shared.

After taking a hiatus of over 10 months due to health issues, Onew returned to the stage in May.

During the break, the vocalist had the opportunity to attend a Coldplay concert in the United States.

"I loved the excitement and anticipation that I felt while waiting for the show," he said, expressing hope that audiences would experience the same thrill at his concerts.

Performing in front of fans and reuniting with his bandmates were what he missed the most as he recovered from neck surgery. He lost so much weight after the surgery, making his fans feel concerned and worried about his health.

"Now, I'm in great shape. In fact, I'm so well that it's almost a problem," he said with a laugh.

He spent a lot of time traveling to places like the U.S., Japan, and Austria during the break, giving himself the space to think deeply on his own.

"While traveling, I learned how to fail. There was a time when I tried to catch a train during a typhoon and ended up sitting on the platform for six hours. Sometimes, things just don't work out. But I realized that you can always try again later. That was the biggest lesson I learned."

After this realization, Onew changed his attitude about performing. He used to believe he couldn't go on stage unless he was 100 percent perfect, but now he's more open to taking risks.

This new attitude led him to boldly take on producing for the first time while working on this album.

"I challenged myself by getting involved in producing, selecting demo tracks, trying out different ideas, and communicating with writers to incorporate my thoughts into the songs. It was a big challenge, but it was a fun experience," he recalled.

Onew also tried his hand at rapping for the first time.

"I was debating whether to use more melody or try rapping," he said.

He thought rapping might work, so he gave it a shot, and fortunately, it turned out well.

"This new challenge has become a great motivation for me," he said.

He has also started taking guitar lessons recently because he wants to play during his concerts.

"I read somewhere that singer Lee Hyori said she started learning something new and that in 10 years, she could become an expert. So I thought, 'It's not too late. If I start now, I could be playing in 10 years too.'"

[whiskeyswifty]

1989 is so odd to me. it's in my top 3, some of my favorite songs in her discography are on it, and i've always found it so wild the way it seems to be an either you love it or you hate it album? it's either near the top of an album ranking or near the bottom, in my experience, and i was wondering if there's a way to explain how polarizing it is. not even among the gp, i've seen a lot of swifties insist her other pop albums are better and it's the worst, while others think the opposite, and i just find it all so interesting.

you're totally right, it's so polarizing within the fandom, which is hilarious considering how for the general public it's her most widely agreed upon enjoyable album. soooo bizarre to me. you'd think it would at least be middling among fans, but no! in my experience, a lot of taylor's albums and how they're favored by a fan, or detested, come down to what that fan's involvement was with taylor and that album during it's initial release. i'm willing to admit that at this point, 1989 doesn't stick out as the groundbreaking body of work in the current lineup of her albums like it did at the time. it was the first of many like it, and over the years has given way to some songs that are better than some on 1989. also she's since developed that sort of synth sound with jack that is now commonplace and a bit of a signature for her. these days it's a bit more polished than the experimental version of that on 1989. there are many arguments you can make for how 1989 isn't that "special" in the vacuum of her ouvre as it is today.

but i'll say it's more than just the songs in a vacuum. the name for her current tour is apt because she truly operated like many pop stars before her and created those chapterized eras around her albums (sorry she didn't invent it, far from it, and she didn't even reinvent it. it's textbook). with the music came entire personas and aesthetics and narratives and ways of communicating. and while the internet has preserved a lot of things, the experiences of being a fan, or even a particular type of fan, during each of the eras is a singular experience that you cannot reconstruct through photos and articles if you weren't there or an active part of it. that's not to try and gatekeep, like i don't care when you became a fan lol it doesn't affect me at all or how you compare to other fans really. but i'm saying it has a direct effect on your relationship to an era and the album of that era, for better or worse. sometimes it is just that you weren't old enough to be an active late teen/adult fan during the time surrounding 1989 and you don't understand how golden that time was comparatively. sometimes it can be because they don't like that kind of pop music insofar as their personal taste and that's not what they came to taylor for whenever it was they came to taylor, be it country era or folklore era or whatever. sometimes its a combination of both, as when you were born dictates the musical landscape you were plopped into and thereby influences your taste and what you consider "your" music is sometimes more happenstance than anything you actively selected. i digress.

it really was a golden time for people who were a certain type of fan, the right age with the right taste and the right amount of history with her at that time. context and meta context of it as it pertained to her place in the world at that time, and not to mention the overall in-real-time experience of her IG presence and the clues she dropped for each track, her complete physical makeover from hair to clothes, the squad friend group, the way 1989 music contrasted the rest of popular music at that time and what we'd been used to from her. the real time evolution of just her public persona and the song subject matter and the production style. i could go on. but there was a lot about that era, and about all of her eras, that are more than just the songs that skew how people feel about them, or have no feeling about them at all. a huge part of it is it's about how you experienced them in real time, and how they imprinted on you and what you brought to it. it's funny cuz the only other album that has such a visceral polarity about it is reputation, but that's for the totally opposite reason. it is widely agreed upon to be her least enjoyed album by the general public (and many critics) but a large amount of fans will put it at the top. i still think the reasoning is exactly the same, despite the inverse circumstance. what it was like to be a fan of hers during the circumstances surrounding that album, the narratives and the relationship she had to her fans at that point, and going to that concert which for a lot of younger fans was their first taylor concert, have cemented that album as their favorite. it was about the ERA and whether or not you experienced it as THAT kind of fan at that time that makes you a rep fan. the same way that NOT being a fan of a certain kind during the 1989 era and experiencing that might affect how lukewarm you are towards that album if that kind of music isn't your taste to begin with. it means nothing to them. people can be sensitive about it because she's advertised that a huge aspect of her work that she's proud of is her songwriting, so fans are quick to point to songs on their favorite albums as having "excellent" song writing compared to others or whatever as to why they hold it on a pedestal. all of her albums have highs and lows in that department, so that's a moot point for the most part (and a matter of taste really when it comes down to it). the reality is it's simply the way life unfolded for them and when an era did, or didn't, capture their attention and devotion. there's nothing about that that makes someone a better or worse fan of course, it's just the way things happen and why some fans cannot be swayed from their favs or moved to give a shit about something that they only ever heard diegetically in their own life at that time in a CVS.

the last thing i'll say is that a HUUUUUUUGE part of why 1989 is such a benchmark for her, and the general public's relationship with her, was that it wasn't just groundbreaking for her. it was groundbreaking for pop music. it completely changed the sounds of pop mainstream music and was an injection of originality that now probably sounds old hat. i can totally see how a person who came to 1989 many years later was already a part of a world saturated with 1989 copycats and derivatives, and to them that was "generic" pop music, and so it probably doesn't sound that special if you heard it too late. or if anything it sounded like something else they'd already heard and not uniquely taylor in the way they may have been used to something being "uniquely taylor". i personally think 1989 is a cut above the copycats, and a cut above all her other pop work to this day, but i'm sympathetic to those who didn't experience it at the right time to be receptive to it in the way it was received by the rest of us. i'm sorry you missed out! it was a rip roaring time.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: M. Sage

Colorado musician, artist and educator Matthew Sage produces a unique form of ambient music, one that focuses on personal experience rather than obscure intellectual objectives or new age mysticism. Through both his own sounds and those he curates via his Cached Media imprint his goal is to unearth the beauty within the seemingly mundane. With Paradise Crick, his latest and most fully formed release, he casts his gaze on the great outdoors, envisaging a camping excursion. In his review, Bryon Hayes found that the record was “his most visceral work, as he ornaments his typically ambient palette with an assortment of palpable shapes, colors, and textures.” In addition to making music, Sage also enjoys seeking it out, often from non-traditional sources. For this edition of Listed, he runs down some of the more interesting records that he picked up on recent thrift store diving excursions.

10 recent thrift store finds in no particular order — I hit the flea markets and thrift stores once or twice a month and get weird CDs and cassettes. I like buying stuff that I would otherwise listen to on streaming… or never listen to from these local companies. We have CD players in our vehicles and I listen to CDs a lot driving. Cassettes mainly happen in my office when I am writing or drawing. So… a lot of what I look for is sort of “functional music” that I can do stuff to. I also snag up favorites from bands I love… I found 3 Wilco CDs at one shop last week!

Anyway, here are some recent favs.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy — Master and Everyone

Found in Longmont at the thrift store with the curated CD selection. Long time BPB fan, and I especially like how subdued this one is. Maybe not my all-time fav Oldham out there, but it’s great and the CD is in great shape.

The New American Orchestra — Blade Runner Soundtrack

Found at one of the flea markets in Fort Collins. Maybe the one with the lavender? This is an orchestral adaptation of the original Vangelis score, and it is about as smooth jazz as it gets. Incredible sweeping melodies. This version of “Blade Runner Blues” feels like something hiding on “In a Silent Way.” Ambient jazz for sure.

Chet Baker — Let’s Get Lost

Another one from the Longmont spot. Been obsessed with Chet Baker for a while now in that when I don’t know what I want to listen to, I just throw on any Chet’s greatest hits album and feel content. I love the arrangement on “My Ideal” with the toy piano and Chet’s voice and trumpet.

John Coltrane — The Gentle Side of John Coltrane

Also from the Longmont spot. I, of course, love wailing Coltrane. But I also think his sweet songs are some of his best. “After the Rain” is especially informing some of the arrangement choices I’ve been making on some new Fuubutsushi songs.

Shanghai Film Symphony Orchestra — An Dun (Calming the Emotions)

I buy a lot of random CDs like this, and I can’t remember where exactly this one came from. But yeah, foreign/new age/private press, etc. weird CDs… and most of the time they aren’t great… but this one is very good. When I find something like this that I like I google it later. When I did that with this CD, I found it on YouTube and this is my favorite comment about it: “Whenever I play this on a construction site, at first the guys complain. Then later they thank me for playing it. Saying they've never felt better.” My toddler seems to enjoy it in the car… I do too.

Claude Debussy — Images pour Orchestre. Preludes: La Fille aux Cheveaux de Lin

70 minutes of Debussy from Longmont ARC. Lots of solo piano from Peter Schmalfuss. I like that these recordings feel soft. Sometimes classical piano feels really hard, lots of attack, almost like microscopic. These recordings are more spacious. Chris from Fuubutsushi swears by Ravel, but I am team-Debussy.

Georgia Kelly — Seapeace: Music for Harp

Can’t remember where but found this in Colorado in a stash of pretty heady new age tapes. Later found out it’s a cult classic. It is a self-released one — the album was later reissued on other formats by new age labels — so I love knowing Ms. Kelly herself released this copy into the world and it has since ended up in my possession. The whole thing is on YouTube!

English Meadow: Environments — Environments 1, 4, 12: Slow Ocean, English Meadow, Intonation

I have all the Environments titles on LP and have since started collecting cassettes when I see them in the wild. These 3 are specifically my favorite Environments, so finding them all in one go felt like a thrifting triumph. I feel like English Meadow specifically sounds nice on cassette.

[lgcmanager]

NOVA MISSION 002

SCHEDULE TYPE: TRIMESTER ( PART 1 OUT OF 2 ) SCHEDULE RESTRICTIONS: cannot be paired with another trimester schedule, unless stated otherwise.

on SUNDAY JULY 9, at 9PM, as the girls finish up with last minute rehearsals, GEUM SHINHYE gathers them on the floor in a circle, around her. "TOMORROW, your album will officially be released. there's currently a lot of demand for you girls, thanks to NOVA AMARE, so the schedule is rather packed. you'll officially begin promoting on music shows on THURSDAY, however, the company has decided to hold a DEBUT LIVESTREAM between 5PM and 6PM KST on JULY 10, during which, the mini-album will be played and end right on time for the release of the album and HYPE BOY's music videos. during this hour, we will also celebrate SEO MINSEO'S BIRTHDAY."

PROMOTIONS

as mentioned above, the girls will begin music show promotions on thursday JULY 13. during the first week, they will perform both 'ATTENTION' and 'HYPE BOY', then, starting from the 18, will only perform the title track; 'HYPE BOY'. this round of promotion will end on AUGUST 6. during this last week (AUGUST 1 to AUGUST 6) , the group will perform "STAY W!TH ME", the song's MV then be released on AUGUST 7.

after laying out the promotion plans, SHINHYE tells the girls that although their promotions are ending in august, there will be no break offered, as the company already has plans for them to be revealed on AUGUST 7.

MEETING WITH THE FANS

on JULY 13, the NOVA members will have a small fanmeeting with their fans outside of the building. as the fans gather around, each of the members will be handing them handmade gifts that the girls have made a few days prior to their comeback ( it’s up to all of you to decide what those gifts were ). then sometime around JULY 13 to JULY 30, after their pre-recording/schedules, the members will be having ( almost ) daily fansigns or online video calls with the fans. you may use this as an opportunity to write netizen articles if you wish to do so.

GROUP ACTIVITIES

just like their male counterparts in NOVA IUVENTA, the girls are currently in high demand, thus additional activities are to be filmed during their promotion period, starting with KBS' FM 'KISS THE RADIO' where they will sing 'ATTENTION', 'HURT' and 'HYPE BOY' live. this will be followed by a recording of 'HURT' and 'HYPE BOY' with a live band for 'it's LIVE'. they will also appear on STUDIO CHOOM with the choreography of 'HYPE BOY' and film a DANCE RELAY of the song for MNET.

to ease the girls into appearing on variety shows, they will only attend 'MMTG', where the mc, JAEJAE, will mostly focus on introducing the girls to the public, including their previous public appearances and memes going around their fandom.

last but not least, the girls have been selected as the new ambassadors for LEVI'S and will shoot a campaign for the brand. as part of the promotions, the girls are asked to pick ONE item from the current collection ( see newjeans x levi's ) and pair it with items of their own wardrobe to present both a TRENDY way to wear levi's clothes and their own PERSONAL STYLE.

NOVASCOPE

with the girls officially debuting, the content previously filmed will finally be revealed to the fans. NOVASCOPE episodes will be released every monday, lasting anywhere between 7 to 15 minutes. here's the content of the first episodes:

EPISODE 1 (JULY 10): debut mini-album recording

EPISODE 2 (JULY 17): debut mini-album dance rehearsals

EPISODE 3 (JULY 24): milan's birthday surprise

EPISODE 4 (JULY 31): 'STAY WITH ME' and 'ATTENTION' behind the scenes

EPISODE 5 (AUGUST 7): 'HURT' and 'HYPE BOY' behind the scenes

EPISODE 6 (AUGUST 14): spain behind the scenes (off schedule)

EPISODE 7 (AUGUST 21): sena's birthday surprise

EPISODE 8 (AUGUST 28): nova iuventa behind the scenes

naturally, SHINHYECAM will be at the ready to follow the girls behind the scenes during their debut promotion period and the LEVI'S campain.

AND MORE...

starting now, NOVA's instagram posts will be going directly through their own official account 'stella_nova'. furthermore, the members are now eligible to do OPEN EVENT 006 ( FANSITES ) and OPEN EVENT 007 ( BIRTHDAYS ). details about that can be found in their respective posts.

REQUIREMENTS

DEBUT PROMOTIONS: write a 4 replies (minimum 8 lines) with another NOVA member about anything related to their schedules ( ex. guest appearances, photoshoot, preparing for the live performances, fan interactions, etc. ) for +6 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE and +6 NOTORIETY !

LEVI'S CAMPAIGN: write a 300+ words solo about the outfit created for the campaign for +5 POINTS MODELING, HOSTING and/or VARIETY and +7 NOTORIETY !

make sure to use the hashtag lgc:novamission for everything pertaining to this mission. you have until AUGUST 19, 2023 at 11:59PM EDT to complete the requirements and validate your points. please submit the following form ONCE on the points blog.

TITLE: MUSE NAME ∙ NOVA MISSION 002 - DEBUT PROMOTIONS: +6 ( skill points distribution ), +6 notoriety [ LINK ] - LEVI'S CAMPAGIN: +5 ( modeling, hosting, and/or variety ), +7 notoriety [ LINK ]

[jimin-bangtan]

BTS’s Solo Chapter - Part 3

This post includes my thoughts about the remaining 3 BTS members' solo projects.

💜RM released the 2nd album of the group. His chosen, self-written songs expressed personal feelings and explained his thoughts and views about experiences and situations. While the songs, to me, all fall into a mellow category, they all had different sounds and feels. RM decided to go the route of a collab.-heavy collection of songs. His choice of collaborative partners was eclectic and thoughtful. The collaborators ranged from legends to indie performers and not just from Korea or Asia but from other parts of the world as well. (fun BTS connection: RM’s Indigo collaborator Park Ji Yoon sang the Coming of Age Ceremony song that Jimin and JK did a dance cover to in 2016.) Since RM is a world-class lyricist, his words were rich with his usual imagery, thoughtfulness, and cleverness that is found in much of his work. His album was critically acclaimed, especially from within the music industry. RM ensured himself as the musicians’ musician with this album that flows effortlessly from start to finish with musical ease. As far as promotions, RM decided to stay closer to home and go for a smaller, intimate feel with his performances. He did in-depth one-on-one interviews, a live Tiny Desk performance, 2 videos, 2 visualizers, and a small theater, onstage showcase that included a few of his collaborators as guests. I was also surprised to see an online day-in-the-life video series, where RM guided us through his day and even invited us into his home. He listened to his album with a friend and, of course, continued to speak to fans through Lives. The album and roll out were easy and comfortable in ways that seemed to suit RM to a T. While RM’s promotions did not appear to reach out far, based on size and location, his choice of artists touched a variety of musical genres and global regions in a subtle but expansive way.   [Still Life and Closer are my top favorites.]

💜Jung Kook (JK) had been recording and producing covers of English-spoken, often American, Pop songs for years.  His collection showed that he tended to like romantic and sometimes sad songs.  Like V, JK was known to already have a collection of prepared songs for his album, but seemed to change course for the actual release. Also like V, JK decided to work with ‘outside’ sources for his album, and being new to the process, he seems to have been struggling with pulling a project together. He ended up working with the American branch of Hybe, who gathered songs for JK to choose from. His first 2 pre-released songs seemed heavily influenced by this collaboration. Like the songs or not, it worked out extremely well for JK to put out two very attention-grabbing, upbeat songs that heightened the anticipation of his current fans as well as newfound fans, globally. It appears to me that after those 2 songs, JK took more control of the direction of his album. The remaining songs he selected returned more to the type of Pop songs we had become accustomed to hearing JK sing with his covers. The remaining songs did not have Rap collabs or risqué themes. They were more of the sad and/or romantic songs about feelings that JK tended to like. That is not to say he should not or could not have gone out of his norm, but after the controversies of the content of the 1st two songs and the verses by the 2nd collaborator, it was probably the better option. Even though the rest of JKs album was in the more familiar Pop sound he was known to do, there were many impressive displays that showed the development of his voice, style, and visuals throughout the entire album. Although he originally expected to do a mini EP, JK ended up creating a full length album, and he did so in record time. In only several months, JK had recorded all 11 songs and filmed 3 videos, several live performances, and dance practices too!  In addition to this great feat, JK also completed the album fully in English! A language that is not native to him nor is he fluent in - yet. That is a remarkable achievement, regardless of his late move for starting an album while he was struggling for direction. The pre-released song “7” and the full album did well, garnering the group’s 2nd ever Billboard Hot100 #1 for a Korean soloist, among other earned accomplishments. What made JK’s solo moment stand out from the rest is that, due to his interaction with Hybe America (I think), JKs promotional investments and activities were more extensive than any of the other members. In addition to countless remixes and visualizers, there were other interesting observations. JH did Lollapalooza festival and a listening party; JK did Global Citizens festival and a listening party; JM did an American TV show appearance, JK did an American TV show appearance; V and RM did live sets for Tiny Desk performances, JK did live sets for Audacy (with dancing and storytelling), Suga did a concert, JK did a concert. Yes! In addition to a live broadcasted NY Times Square performance, a solo sit down interview with a well-known journalist, and a live I Heart Radio performance with a band, JK performed a free, live-streamed concert in Seoul with 2,800 present fans and 1.2 million people watching online! It was a whirlwind of numerous high visibility, promotional items, more than seen or expected for a BTS member’s premiere solo debut, and he did it all very well, with grace and fluidity, in spite of the rushed time frame. There were certainly advantages and disadvantages for JK choosing to take that route, but no one can deny that it was an extremely successful venture for JK and Hybe.  [Yes or No and Somebody are my top favorites.]

💜💜Jimin’s (JM’s) album ended up being a cathartic exercise for some emotional stress he had been feeling. The unfortunate moments that caused the stress may have been blessings in disguise because it all became the inspiration for his first solo album. Jimin chose to work with inhouse producers, who have worked with BTS for years. He had actually approached PDogg (lead, veteran Hybe producer) in bad emotional shape and asked for help gathering songs, but PDogg suggested they create the songs together. JM agreed and ended up practically living with PDogg and working with this small production team for almost a year to write and produce the entire album. I have already written about JM’s work so I won’t go into that detail here. I’ll just sum it up to say that it is my favorite album of the solo period. [See my Pre- & Post- Release FACE thoughts & my After Promotion FACE thoughts posts.] Jimin’s album told the chronological story of his anguish, evolution, and triumph throughout his pandemic experience in grand fashion. He showed a larger range of his voice, while still using his recognizable tone and higher pitch. Even his longtime fans were surprised by the different style of songs he used to express himself.  He was directly involved in the lyric writing, composition, and production of every vocalized track. Writing his own songs was a stressful, frustrating, and difficult - but rewarding - process for a first time solo presentation. In spite of the challenge, Jimin really ended up enjoying the process, and the entire experience was captured for Jimin’s Production Diary documentary, which was released on WeVerse [See my Jimin’s Production Diary Documentary thoughts post.].  In addition to these great familiar resources, JM also got help from an expert lyricist, who happens to also be a good friend and BTS member, RM. He also reached out to good friend and BTS lead vocalist, JK, to perform background vocals for a special hidden track. Before promotions began, Jimin helped build anticipation and awareness of the album by releasing multiple video clips of him doing a collection of BTS’s memorable dance choreography to a medley of BTS’s songs. Since JM ended up doing a mini EP album, he had requested that he be able to make a visual album but was rejected. He did complete 2 well-produced & well-received videos and only needed 2 ½ more (½ possibly for the short interlude) (or visualizers?) but was still rejected. We don’t know exactly why. We also don’t know why Jimin’s promotional period was markedly shorter than anyone else’s. It was about 9 days long, in which he did an American TV show appearance as well as a few Korean game shows, a talk show, a radio show and 2 fan events. Eventually, he recorded or performed on a few music shows, and that was about it. Jimin had gotten very thin for his promotional time period and looked exhausted, but happy, during the strenuous preparation and performances. In fact, it has been said he was treated at a hospital for the aggravation of his long standing neck/muscle/back problem while practicing and executing the expected, Jimin-leveled dance performances. Jimin seemed to be enjoying himself but also seemed very shy and nervous performing alone for the first time. Still, he pulled off the work and presentations like the BTS pro he is. In fact, along with other outstanding awards and records, Jimin became BTS’s and Korea’s FIRST soloist in history to debut at Billboard’s Hot100 #1 position, and he accomplished this with a Korean song and no collaboration. Jimin’s album and results surprised everyone - or maybe no one, considering his successful, well-received, previous solo work for BTS. His solo album and performances had been highly anticipated, and he did not disappoint at all.  [Set Me Free, pt 2 and Face-Off are my top favorites.] 

I had saved Jung Kook and Jimin’s solo efforts for last because JKs was the last album released and because JM is my bias. Also, their promotional situations became complicatedly linked by being the subject of passionate debate within the fandom, for good or bad. To be discussed in Part 4.

TO BE CONTINUED -- PART 4 TAKES ON THE MORE COMPLICATED OUTCOMES OF THE SOLO ERA AND CONSIDERS THE FUTURE (Chapter 3?)...

[albumwalloffame]

Top 10 Best Album Covers of 2022 - Part 2

#5. Defunctland - Lines: Music for Waiting in Queues of Learning About Them

Yes, THAT Defunctland, and no I’m not just putting this album cover on here because that FastPass video was freaking amazing (Still not over that Shapeland reveal), but again, the minimal aesthetic just makes this one nice. To be fair, I do think a large reason I am so in love with this album cover is because I did watch the video so I get the aesthetic choices. I guess this is just me saying, if you aren’t watching Defunctland, do it, now!

#4. Bonnie Raitt - Just Like That & Judy Collins - Spellbound

It was a tough choice for these two, but in the end I decided to let them share this spot. They both have that similar feel, the kind of Bruce Springsteen’s “Letters To You” sort of feel. I think I like the more grounded and down to Earth style of Bonnie Raitt’s cover, but the beautiful colours of Judy Collins’ does give it something. It’s like Bonnie is staring off in the distance thinking about her life and career while Judy is looking at some spectacular lightshow thinking about her life and career. Both of these are beautiful images, and I just could not decide which one I liked more, so we have a tie.

#3. The Wonder Years - The Hum Goes On Forever

Sometimes, I feel like talking about an image only destroys it. Like, I could talk about how beautiful this image is, about the reflections, about the sky, about the fact that it’s upside down but probably intentionally so since the album title is also upside down, but I just feel like you can absorb all of that by looking at it. Sometimes, all an album cover needs to be is just a pretty picture.

#2. Julian Lennon - Jude

Again, I feel like any attempt to talk about this one would just ruin what is a very powerful image. This photo, taken by May Pang really does capture sorrow, and the album title, being a reference to a song written for Julian, this was so close to being my number one album cover of the year. However, there was one that I immediately adored.

#1. Ella Henderson - Everything I Didn’t Say

Going back to the “Versions of Me” idea, this image is very beautiful, and honestly kind of powerful. Seeing the artist sitting on top of a big pile of books, books that contain everything that wasn’t said, maybe even entire stories that could have branched off from those words that were never said. It’s very poetic, it almost makes you think about all of the things you could have said, but never did, and how those things might have turned out. On top of that, the light purple background keeps this cover from looking too dark while also not being too bright. Honestly, this is the album cover that, if I was pawing through a record selection at a store, this cover would get me interested in buying the album, and that is what an album cover should do after all.

Honourable Mentions:

1. Inna - Champagne Problems #DQH1 2. Charli XCX - Crash 3. Eddie Vedder - Earthling 4. Kep1er - First Impact (EP) 5. Get F*cked - The Chats 6. Yeule - Glitch Princess 7. Mary J. Blige - Good Morning Gorgeous 8. Amorphis - Halo 9. Harry Styles - Harry’s House 10. Bloodywood - Rakshak 11. Lindsey Stirling - Snow Waltz 12. Dark Funeral - We Are the Apocalypse

[wannabe-cartoonist-blog]

I thought this was a call-out post for ME so I got very scared but you were so nice ajsjfjdjkdkf. Thank you?? I think you make a lot of excellent points here though. I personally love being as accurate and selective as possible when it comes to music choices in fics since those can really help set the tone and setting. That being said, do I always adhere to that? No. I mean, the showrunners themselves don’t even follow those rules sometimes. 

I kinda went on a rant here, so the rest of it (plus my own personal Steve playlist!!) will be below the cut! But thanks for engaging with me, I love thinking/talking about this stuff!!

It’s a pet peeve of mine when writers spam music and song lyrics in a fic, to the point where the majority of the fic is just like the lyrics, so I’m glad you think I incorporated the music into my fics well. A personal fav fic that has a banging soundtrack is AO3 user MrsEvadneCake’s In A Strange Land. If you haven’t read that fic before, please do!

For my stories in specific, Steve’s like for ABBA is tied to his mom liking them. They ARE his mom’s albums, but he listens to them more than her these days out of a sense of nostalgia and loneliness. Your suggestions are awesome, by the way, and I also think Steve would like The Cars (to the point where he’d be like “hey, I recognize this song/band” when it plays). I think Just What I Needed is an excellent Steve + Nancy song, as its a deceptively peppy song about an unhealthy relationship. It’s even in my Steve playlist hehehe.

I’ve mentioned it in my fics before, but I truly think Steve isn’t overly picky when it comes to music. I’m pretty sure that he’s a fan of most anything that’s on the American Hot 100 at any given point. My boy is basic like that LOL. He can’t even name a favorite movie or the show he is apparently a big enough fan of to remember the main character’s name, but not know the show’s title (Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties, mentioned in season 3 when they’re watching Back to the Future and again when applying at Family Video). He’s just not overly invested in pop-culture stuff like that, like someone say, Jonathan or Max, but it adds to his characterization I think. That being said, him bothering to remember song titles or artists should indicate that hey, he really likes this song/person and/or it has significant value to him! At least, that’s my opinion anyway and what I try to convey in my writing. Here’s my very very self indulgent Steve playlist for anyone interested. There are a couple of songs from In A Strange Land in here (Romeo and Juliet, and This Charming Man), and some songs cater to my stancy/stoncy agenda lol (the previously mentioned songs, plus I’m On Fire and This Must Be the Place, to name a few). But there’s also some “canon” songs in here, meaning songs we’ve heard playing in Steve’s car/his house (Raise A Little Hell, Hammer To Fall, Sunglasses At Night, Love Is A Battlefield, I Melt With You). The playlist gets more disjointed as we get to the end of it sorry about that lol. But these are the songs I like to listen to when writing for the character. :)

I like ABBA as much as the next guy, but I kind of hate how in the Stranger Things fandom it’s become the go-to example of era-appropriate preppy pop music . They were huge in the 70s yeah, but their last major hit One Of Us came out in 1981 (a full two years before season one), and they became seen as incredibly uncool for the rest of the decade. According to an interview with The Guardian in 2021, they were so disliked by 1982 that Björn Ulvaeus thought they’d never get the group back together. It wouldnt be that weird to headcanon one of the older characters liking them, but headcanoning the younger ones enjoying them unironically and without shame, especially the ones characterized as being "hip" or up to date with whats cool (which is why it`s so odd that Steve of all characters is the one most often subjected to this phenomena).

I have literally never seen anyone in this fandom mention The Go-Gos. Ever. That is an actual crime. You are all going to jail. The closest I’ve heard y’all get is mentions of Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven Is A Place On Earth, which came out in 1987, a year off from season 4 and definitely way too late for the first three seasons. The Go-Gos were literally the most popular all female rock band of all time. Head Over Heels is the U.S. national anthem and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. That second part was a joke but the first one is true. Personally I’d headcanon Steve and El in particular liking them. Steve because I’m pretty sure the only artist we see him listening to in canon is Pat Benatar, so him liking another, albeit much peppier, female lead rock act doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch. El because she deserves to have fun. If you want some song recommendations, my favorites from them are Head Over Heels, Turn To You, and Can’t Stop The World. Especially Turn To You, that song goes so goddamn hard.

Another band that I like and was popular at the time that I never see any mention of in this fandom is The Cars. I will admit though that that may be partially because the name “The Cars” is really hard to search for since both words in it are incredibly common. I also headcanon Steve liking them, he just seems like a The Cars kinda guy. Maybe Max as well (though I was a bit more confident in this headcanon before season 4). My song recommendations for them are Just What I Needed, Bye Bye Love, Let’s Go, and It’s All I Can Do (just note that these particular songs are actually from 1978-79, just because I happen to prefer their earlier work. It would probably still be considered pretty relevant, since there`s a world of difference between older songs by a band that is currently popular and older songs by a band that currently publicly disliked, but I thought I should address it anyway, since a lot of my argument hinges on relevancy. A couple songs that are more apropos are Drive and You Might Think, which are both from 1984).

I like a lot of other songs an artists from this time period and general genre, but these were the two that I thought were the most egregiously overlooked in the very, very specific context of the Stranger Things fandom, as well as being two of my favorites.

Sorry if this post came off as aggressive, you can headcanon literally anything you want (that’s kind of the point of headcanons lol), even in the face of historical inaccuracy, it’s just the ubiquity of that misconception in this fandom that bothers me a little, especially since it typically means overlooking other period and genre appropriate bands, especially ones I happen to like. Again, there’s nothing at all wrong with ABBA, or headcanoning ST characters liking ABBA. I especially liked WriterRose‘s (@wannabe-cartoonist on here I think) depiction of Steve liking ABBA in “Bah humbug” where the kids find one of their records in the player at his house and he tries to convince them it’s his mom’s. The music references in that entire fic series are great actually, you should go read it if you haven’t.

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

Oldies but Goodies, Vol. 2 1987 Doo Wop /  Pop / R&B / Pop-Rock / Girl Groups / Soul / Rock & Roll

RIP to the Los Angeles radio DJ legend Art Laboe, who passed just ten days ago at the age of 97. Laboe's record label, Original Sound, managed to blaze quite a trail for itself when it came to music commerce, because they were really one of the first labels to capitalize on nostalgia by pioneering the concept of the oldies compilation. While they also released new music, what Original Sound really became known for was taking hits by different acts from years past and repackaging them all into brand new LPs.

And those LPs happened to sell like gangbusters. Volume 1 of Original Sound's first series, Oldies But Goodies (also the name of Laboe's radio show), reached #12 on Billboard's album chart in 1959 and managed to stay on that chart for a total of *183 weeks*. And other volumes charted too. So, when you're digging through dusty record bins or used CD stacks, or scrolling through YouTube or Spotify and you see all these low-budget oldies comp titles, you can thank Art Laboe and his Original Sound label for really nurturing that whole industry into existence.

But Oldies But Goodies appears to have been something of an iterative series. Officially, there's only 15 volumes, but as new music continued to come out, volumes would continue to get re-released with updated track-lists, sometimes replacing the entire set of songs from the original edition of a respective volume. Plus, original editions were released on LP, but with the advent of both the cassette and CD—mediums that allowed for longer runtimes—this meant that not only could Original Sound reissue their whole series on new media, but they could also add somewhat fresher songs to keep things a bit more contemporary. The series had started out as primarily doo wop-centric, but as time wore on and pop, rock, soul, and r&b continued to evolve, so too did the Oldies but Goodies series.

So, here's a box set of five different volumes from the series, released in 1987, one year after the release of the series' fifteenth and final volume. It's an eclectic bunch of hits from a bunch of different genres, spanning the early 50s through early 80s. And while most of these selections were pretty damn big hits in their day, this set also appears to have some local Los Angeles flair to it too, with some hits that didn't perform all that well nationally, like the Frank Zappa-co-penned "Memories of El Monte," a 1963 doo wop metasong of sorts that was made in tribute to the dances that Laboe held at El Monte Legion Stadium, and was led by Cleve Duncan of The Penguins ("Earth Angel"), who makes multiple references to and mimics parts of songs that were played at those famed El Monte dances. Zappa also plays xylophone on it. And it didn't chart nationally at all, but Laboe loved it and it's since become something of a local LA classic.

And then there's also some tracks that were released on Original Sound itself, like the great late 50s instrumental, "Bongo Rock" by Preston Epps, a song that got covered by the Incredible Bongo Band in the 70s, which has since become a hip hop-sample staple. And in case you couldn't tell by the name of the song or the name of the group that famously covered it, the song's got bongos and it rocks 😎.

So anyway, for those keeping score, it looks like this five-CD set of 82 songs is comprised of the 1987 CD reissue of Volume 3, the 1986 CD reissue of Volume 5, the 1986 CD reissue of Volume 11, the 1987 CD reissue of Volume 14, and the 1986 CD reissue of Volume 15.

RIP to a radio DJ king and a guy who changed the game when it came to selling music. I've got a couple more Laboe comps in the near offing, so stay tuned for those as I continue to explore his legacy ✌.

Highlights:

CD1:

The Monkees - "I'm a Believer" Lesley Gore - "It's My Party" The Turtles - "She'd Rather Be With Me" The Beach Boys - "Surfin' Safari" Frankie Ford - "Sea Cruise" The Del Vikings - "Come Go With Me" Betty Everett - "Shoop Shoop Song" Preston Epps - "Bongo Rock" Huey "Piano" Smith & the Clowns - "Don't You Just Know It" The Shields - "You Cheated" The Platters - "My Prayer" The Penguins - "Memories of El Monte"

CD2:

The Skyliners - "Since I Don't Have You" Bob & Earl - "Harlem Shuffle" Jean Knight - "Mr. Big Stuff" Dion - "The Wanderer" The Shirelles - "Mama Said" Johnnie Taylor - "Who's Makin' Love" Bobby Lewis - "Tossin' and Turnin'" Bobby Day - "Rockin' Robin" The Dominoes - "Sixty Minute Man"

CD3:

The Diamonds - "Little Darlin'" The Kingsmen - "Louie Louie" The Soul Survivors - "Expressway to Your Heart" The Angels - "My Boyfriend's Back" The Righteous Brothers - "Soul and Inspiration" The Dixie-Cups - "Chapel of Love" William DeVaughn - "Be Thankful for What You Got" Bobby Hebb - "Sunny" Betty Everett - "You're No Good"

CD4:

Bill Haley - "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" Martha & the Vandellas - "Dancing in the Street" The McCoys - "Hang on Sloopy" The Chiffons - "He's So Fine" Lou Christie - "Lightning Strikes" The Shirelles - "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" Alicia Bridges - "I Love the Night Life" The Dramatics - "What You See Is What You Get" Dionne Warwick - "Don't Make Me Over" The Crests - "16 Candles" The Platters - "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" Jackie DeShannon - "What the World Needs Now"

CD5:

Joe Hinton - "Funny How Time Slips Away" Barbara Lewis - "Hello Stranger" Al Wilson - "Show and Tell" Tierra - "Together" Gladys Knight & the Pips - "The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me" Dionne Warwick - "Walk on By" The Turtles - "Happy Together" Roy Head - "Treat Her Right" The Shangri-Las - "Leader of the Pack" Shocking Blue - "Venus" George Baker Selection - "Little Green Bag" Bill Deal & the Rhondels - "What Kind of Fool (Do You Think I Am?)" War - "Low Rider"

[bts-teaspoonff]

Fangirl pt. 3

Genre: Romance, Slow Burn, Idol A/U

Pairing: BTS OT7 x reader

Rating: PG

Summary: Y/N, being a huge fangirl, finally got her chance to work alongside her favorite idol group as a backup dancer. She gets to know each member personally and realizes that her feelings may be more than fangirl-idol attraction.

Word Count: 5.6K

Taglist: @nochujeonjk @i-like-puppy-mg @miyochan @satotakeru14​

PARTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | .... masterlist

So far, your week of waiting for the company’s response was uneventful to say the least. You exchanged contacts with some of the dancers and they have all been very friendly with everyone. You were busy with work at the gym and at the dance studio so that made you take off your mind from the backup dancer job at least for a while.

During those days that you were waiting, you took double shifts in the gym and twice the amount of classes in the dance studio. You wanted to push yourself just to ease your nerves. Also, you need to pay this month’s rent alone since your roommate and best friend is out on vacation.

Lisa, your bestfriend. She’s been with you ever since college. Both of you only started living together when your brother moved out but she used to always live near you. When she moved in with you, she would always leave to travel somewhere for at least a month then come back to you. That was now your routine with Lisa. She loves travelling so much that she promised to fulfill her bucketlist as soon as both of you graduated. Her family is pretty well-off and she manages this online clothing shop to finance her trips. You and Lisa constantly video call each other almost every day. Sometimes, you would even answer each other’s call even when you’re in the shower. Of course, you already informed her about your pending job in Big Hit. She almost exploded from happiness when she got the news. She was hiking that time and it almost gave you a heart attack when you saw her jumping from happiness near the ledge. You could say that she’s your #1 fan and you are hers too.

The day came when you received the email. You were eating your breakfast at that time, taking a big bite of your omelet sandwich. You choked on your glass of water as you read the email saying “Congratulations. You are now formally a part of Big Hit’s Dance Team.” You read the other contents of the email as you generously drink water once more. You are soon to be expected to start two days from now. You can’t contain your excitement as you feel your face beaming with happiness. You could just dance your ass off right now from joy. You walked to your room with a sandwich still in your mouth as you reach for your speakers. You blasted Anpanman by BTS on full volume and pranced around the room. You also took your RJ and Koya plushies, hugged it and twirled around. You buried yourself under big Chimmy, Tata, Cooky, Mang and Shooky plushies on your couch.

You nervously entered the Big Hit building once more and went straight to the practice room. You made sure not to order a big glass of coffee this time, even though it’s very tempting. You just made a small cup of coffee at home, a routine that greatly relaxed you. You enter the room with one hand tightly gripping the strap of your cross body bag. You saw familiar faces and was grinning from ear to ear. It turns out that everyone was accepted and no one was left behind. A few of them ran to you, hugged you and then pushed you to join some of them sitting on the floor.

The dance directors and choreographers gathered all of you to discuss the plans for the dance team. Everyone was then assigned to different artists to solely focus on their performances. They started calling out the names of the dancers and the artists who they will be working with. Our main dance director started with TXT and you were not on the dancer’s list. You silently chant each of the boys’ names one by one, as if you were having a ritual on your own, until the dance director mentioned BTS. Your ears were on full concentration mode as he calls the names of the dancers one by one. As if on cue as you were continuing to chant the boys’ name and imagining your name being called, you heard your name slip from the dance director’s lips. You really tried your best to not shout and celebrate. You feel like you won the lottery at this point from your chain of good luck lately.

Each dance team then went on to different practice rooms. You, along with other male and female backup dancers, were present in another practice room as your dance choreographer started informing everyone that BTS is planning an online concert months from now. Everyone will be performing a lot of new numbers, including new dance breaks that will be mainly composed of you with the other female backup dancers.

For the first week, everyone started the dance practices without the boys yet. Everyone would spend hours being taught group performances by different choreographers. Two of which are old songs from their old albums and two were from their latest album. At first, you struggled to keep up with the other dancers but all of them were nice in helping one another when one has a hard time with performing the steps. You also made friends with the male backup dancers especially those who were close to your age. All of you were quick to get acquainted with each other and that made work very fun. You would always be light on your feet when coming to work since you’re glad you could make new friends who share the same passion. Everyone was so nice to you too since you’re the youngest out of the female backup dancers but there are also two male dancers younger than you.

You were also excited for your new work since you would get to see Jiyong almost every day. When one of you are free, you would always eat together. Your heart is filled with happiness right now. Your mind is now at a place where you’re just sitting on cloud 9.

Your body couldn’t really handle three jobs at the same time so you chose to quit teaching dance classes at the dance studio. You informed the dance studio owner about your new job to which she congratulated you non-stop. She knows how much of a big fangirl you are to BTS so she couldn’t be more proud of you. She then proceeded to convince you that no one better than you should handle the BTS dance classes. She made good points that convinced you to stay but only if you handle selected classes that works around your schedule. Luckily, she agreed and gave you at least one class a month. You couldn’t really argue with her since she pays you generously per class that you teach.

You retained your work in the gym since your shifts works around your work in Big Hit. You could handle your new work schedule and you really need to earn money for the apartment fees and your BTS merchandises. You also informed the gym owner about your new day job and he congratulated you non-stop as well. He nicely let you adjust your shift to better work around your new schedule.

So far, everything is going into place. Your new job, new acquaintances at work, quality time with your brother, and Lisa will be returning soon from her trip. You could just sit down and inhale all the good air that’s surrounding you lately. You’re scared that given this amount of good luck around you will be soon replaced by strings of bad luck, but of course you’re highly hoping that will not happen.

You went home late one night from a hectic shift at the gym. One of your clients arrived late for her schedule but still came, coinciding with the timeslot for your other client. You still accommodated the two of them and went back and forth for them during their sessions. You had to be the one to close the gym that night also. You ate like there’s no tomorrow that night since you were so tired from dance practices and the sessions at the gym. You just went to sleep right after dinner, slamming yourself into the bed and into the sheets.

You didn’t wake up from your alarm the next morning. Good thing that you had already wash your hair last night so you just fashioned a bucket hat and hurriedly fix yourself before you went out in a rush to try to arrive on time for your dance practices. You arrived at the lobby entrance just in the nick of time with a few minutes to spare, rushed to the elevator and tried to catch your breath while you wait for the lift to arrive on the right floor. You hurriedly ran out the elevator and to the hallway when you heard your phone ping. You took out your phone in your pocket while rushing in the hallway. You saw Lisa’s name at the top of your notification screen but chose to read it later and kept your phone in your hands.

You were approaching a corner in the hallway so you decreased your pace but was still slightly running. As you were about to take a turn, your head bumped into something soft but obviously firm that was moving towards your direction. You were slightly pushed back but somebody’s hand caught your arms as you were about to fall backwards. You soon realized that your head bumped into someone’s chest, somebody who’s very tall. You look up and saw Namjoon. I really got to stop meeting the boys by bumping into them like this. Your mouth fall to the floor in shock and embarrassment.

His hands were big and his arms were tan and toned. He still excludes this gentle giant aura, the same way you pictured him every time you see him on social media and on the pictures in your phone. He still has his hands around your arms as you try to help yourself back up from almost falling to the ground. As if you could feel fire on your arms around his touch and time stood still. Both of you apologized to each other at the same time. You both chuckled as you withdraw your hands from each other. As you were about to introduce yourself, you noticed that your phone was on the floor and under his foot. He also soon notices this as you try to bend down to reach for your phone.

You took the phone under his foot and checked it. You stared at your phone screen and was shocked to see the screen cracked. You saw Namjoon looking at your phone as you check but quickly hid it realizing that your wallpaper was all of the members of BTS. You wouldn’t want to embarrass yourself more by letting him know that your lock screen and home screen are photos of them. Unfortunately, Namjoon has already noticed the crack on your phone screen even before you hid the phone away from his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that I stepped on your phone.” Namjoon panicked at the sight of the cracked phone screen.

“No, it’s okay. It’s my fault also for not being careful.” You assure him but he clearly looks worried about the cracked phone. “Nice to meet you. I’m y/n. One of the new backup dancers assigned to BTS. I’m looking forward to working with you.” I bowed.

“Nice to meet you and looking forward to working with you as well.” He bowed as well. “I’m really sorry about your phone. Can I do something about it?”

“Honestly, it’s okay. It’s just a small crack.” No it’s not entirely okay because the crack almost encompasses the whole screen. It’s my fault anyways so he doesn’t have to feel bad about it. You don’t want to burden him about your phone. “Also, I’m sorry but I’m really in a rush for practice. See you around. Nice to meet you again.” You bowed and rushed towards the practice room.

“Wait.” Namjoon raises his hands while looking at you, rushing away from him. Although he was truly worried about your phone, he actually caught a glimpse of your lock screen. It amuses him to remember you trying to hide the phone from him. Of course he knows that their fans would have the members as their wallpapers but usually their staff wouldn’t really have the boys’ face plastered on their belongings.

You are still in disbelief that you met Namjoon. Your heart is still in disarray as you try to replay the scene in your mind. His hands are big and he’s so tall. His chest is so toned that even though your head bumped into him for a split second, you could almost remember the ridges of his chest.

…..

“Shit.” Namjoon exclaims as he slumps back on the couch of Hoseok’s studio with four other members in the room. Jimin, Taehyung, Hoseok and Jungkook all turn their heads as their leader enters the studio.

“What got you in a dump, hyung?” Jungkook asks in concern.

“I stepped on a phone and destroyed the screen.” Namjoon puts his hands on his face. He’s wondering how he can mend the cracked screen situation with you. Your face suddenly appeared at the back of his mind and honestly, a part of him find you adorable and beautiful. The way how your fringe falls perfectly on your forehead and on your long lashes. You were a little pale but still, he got a long look at your face and still finds you attractive. He never got interested with female staff members but there was something about you that piqued the leader’s attention.

“Whose phone?” Hoseok, seated in his chair in front of his equipments, turns his chair to face all the other members.

“One of our female backup dancers.” Namjoon groans out loud in frustration, breaking him from his daydream.

“How did you even step on her phone?” Jimin asks his leader, seated on the far corner of the couch beside Taehyung.

“I saved her from falling then I didn’t realize her phone was under my foot.” Namjoon sits straight up, shaking his head.

“You never disappoint, hyung.” Jimin laughs while reaching for Namjoon’s shoulder to pat it. Taehyung sits back to give access to Jimin’s hand to reach Namjoon.

“Give her one of our extra Samsung phones. I think we still have some of those. Go ask the staff.” Taehyung suggests.

“You really are the God of Destruction.” Hoseok chuckles at his good friend.

“I’m so embarrassed. I just want to bury my face right there and then.” Namjoon pouts in frustration.

“I think I can help you ease your frustration.” Hoseok turns his chair around back to his monitor. He pressed a few buttons and music started playing through the speakers. “How is it?” Hoseok plays the song that Namjoon, Taehyung and himself are working hard on. He glanced behind to look at Namjoon’s face. Namjoon stood up and walked to Hoseok’s chair.

…..

I am so tired. I think I’m pushing myself too far this time. You still have a few weeks before Lisa returns so you doubled your shift in the gym. You could really use the extra pay since you spent your extra savings on a few BTS merchandise and on repair fees for the air conditioner at home. The double shifts will only last until this week so you have no problem with it.

You came into the practice room, still groggy from lack of sleep. You glanced at the huge mirror across the room and saw your pale face and poor complexion. Gosh, you have never looked this bad since finals week in college. You tend to forget to take care of yourself when overworking or fatigued. You took a sip from the cup of iced Americano on your hands and sat on the floor with the other dancers.

A few minutes after, the choreographer came in and soon follows the 7 ethereal beautiful boys. They bowed one by one as they enter the room and thanked us for our hard work. You try to fix any unruly strands of hair on your sweaty forehead and straightened your back.

Namjoon entered the room first, greeting all the dancers with a smile. The leader exuding off a charismatic aura as he leads the group in the room. Jimin and Hoseok soon followed, both of them hand in hand giggling and skipping but released their hold on each other and laughed out loud after a few steps inside. The two main dancers eager to meet the dance team. Taehyung and Jungkook silently followed their hyungs, strutting like models with their hands in their pockets. I saw the maknae sporting a man bun that compliments his face and almost making him look like a Greek God, especially with how his tight black long sleeve shirt faintly gives a silhouette of his sculptured chest and back. Taehyung’s disheveled curly do accentuates his bear-like cuteness but still gives off a masculine appeal. Lastly, the two oldest entered the room greeting the dancers. Yoongi entered first with Jin’s hands on his other member’s back. The two of them silently entered the room, ensuring that they greet all of us first before joining the other members at the side.

Your eyes scanned the members one by one as the choreographer informs everyone about the dance practice for today. As you were admiring the amazing view in front of you that was gracing you this morning, your gaze met with Yoongi’s. He then slightly put his head down while looking at you. You couldn’t really paint his expression right now but you dare to say that he looks bothered. Like a puppy that chewed his toy and is being scolded by his owner. He then turns his head away to talk to the other boys when he saw you openly reading his face.  

You were so confused at Yoongi’s bothered expression when you caught him looking at you. You don’t remember bumping into him or meeting him today. Yet, his aura today is a lot softer than the day you met. For your first and second (may I say terrible) encounters, he would always look so irritated or pissed at you specifically. I mean who wouldn’t, you’re crazy clumsy ass kept on bumping into him.

Everybody’s in their respective blocking and is set to practice once more. The moment the music started, your heart kept doing somersaults. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. You are now dancing with the 7 boys. The pinnacle of your fangirl chronicles. You could never imagine that someday you will share the same stage as them. You truly respect them for their art and passion so you give your all even on their first full dance practice with the dance team. Of course, Jimin and Hoseok doesn’t disappoint. The two energetic boys that came skipping inside the room just moments ago became two dancing machines. You couldn’t stop smiling that you could feel your face could tear off. Your fatigue went away as you savor this moment. Nothing matters right now, only this moment.

The music stopped. All took a minute before polishing the dance moves on a specific part of the song. One female backup dancer nudged you on the waist, giggling. “You happy?” She was one of your good friend on the dance team. She knows that you’re a big fangirl of BTS and how ecstatic you are about your new occupation.

“Dream come true but I’m still so far off from being perfect. I need to be at my best to be deserving of sharing the same stage with them.” You whispered to her while giggling. She pats my head in adoration and you looked at her.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re doing a good job.” You smiled back at her. Soon you heard the choreographer call out everyone to gather to start practicing again.

Two hours were spent in the practice room, dancing nonstop. Slowly, you could feel your fatigue catching up to you but you refuse to take a break. You could see everyone’s passion and hard work so you don’t think you deserve to take a breather. Everyone was giving their all from the boys and girls on the dance team, the 7 BTS members and even with the choreographers. A longer break was given after the two hour mark. All of the other dancers walked straight to their bags to get their water bottles. The 7 boys also went to the water dispenser at the corner of the room near the door to take a sip of water as they catch their breath. You walked towards the door, excusing yourself out to use the restroom. You saw Namjoon and Yoongi noticing you as their eyes follow you before I opened the door.

You took a few steps away from the dance practice room and was stopped in your tracks when you heard a familiar voice calling your name. “Hey!” you turned around and saw Jiyong walking through the hallway in the same direction as you.

“Hey. What’s up?” Jiyong walks up to you with a smile on his face.

“I’m on my way to the recording studio.” He turns his head and caught his eyes on the dance practice room. “Are you guys practicing right now?”

“We are on a break as of the moment.” You wiped your sweat off your forehead. “Who knew that even dance practices was this intense?” You saw Jiyong examining your face and he lifts up his hand to land on your cheek.

“Your complexion’s not good. Are you eating well?” You froze in place. Is my complexion really that bad? Actually, if I remember correctly, I only ate crackers this morning and haven’t got a chance to drink water since I was rushing to go to work.

“Oh. Jiyong-nim.” You and Jiyong quickly looked towards the practice room door when you saw Namjoon, Yoongi, Jimin, and Jungkook about to go out of the room. They saw Jiyong caress your cheek and their faces are painted with bashful expressions. They immediately thought that you might be in a relationship with Jiyong. “You guys know each other?” Namjoon asks your brother.

Jiyong quickly placed his arms on your shoulder and around your neck. He laughed as he rubbed your head. “What do you think?” He placed his hand under your chin to lift up your head straight to present to the boys. The four of them puzzled by your brother’s question and took them a few seconds before it registered to them that you and Jiyong are twins. You totally forgot that Jiyong mentioned that he was good friends with the boys. I want to hide right now.

“No wonder why she looks familiar. She reminds me of you, hyung.” Jimin exclaimed.

“You’re twins?” Yoongi asks Jiyong. Your brother nods his head while giving his boxy smile.

“Identical, in fact.” Jiyong proudly stated as he further rubbed my head, making a mess out of my hair.

“That’s amazing, Hyung. I didn’t know you had a twin.” Jungkook exclaims as well, in fascination. You were just quiet in your brother’s arm. He released his hands around you and you stood up straight. Taehyung and Jin noticed the commotion of the four boys and also peeked out the door. Jimin informs the two boys and you saw Jin opening his mouth in astonishment, releasing a loud gasp in his tiny comedic voice.

“Take care of my sister. If one of you mistreats her, I’ll give you a hard time in the studio booth.” Jiyong jokingly teases the boys.

“You know I’m older than you right?” You quickly hit him on the shoulder as the boys laugh.

“By two minutes.” He looks at you and laughed. He glanced back to the other boys. “Anyways, she’s a big fa…” You pinch his waist to stop him from talking. He cries out in pain but at least that stopped his mouth from rambling.

“Excuse my brother. He likes to tease me a lot.”

“Well, I have to go to the studio booth as well. If you’ll excuse me.” Jiyong finally excuses himself out. He walks away and left you out in the hallway with the 7 boys just standing outside the practice room. A short silence from all of you filled the hallway before they resumed from walking out of the practice room.

“I have to excuse myself too.” You bowed, turned around and continued walking away.

“Wait.” You heard Yoongi call out as his footsteps catch up to you. Not long, he caught up and stopped in front of you. He scratched the back of his head with his head down. “I owe you an apology.”

Yoongi was uneasy at the thought that he disrespected you twice at the expense of his mood that day. The last thing he wants is to never get the chance to apologize to you. He couldn’t really concentrate on the dance practice today as he could see you avoiding him. Whenever he would try to take the chance to apologize to you during breaks, you would always be around the other dancers.

“Apology? For what?” you froze in place out of shock and wonder from yoongi’s statement. You stare at the man in front of you with his head slightly down. The air between the two of you was so still.

“The day we met… I am aware that I was not at my best self and it turned out I was rude to you. Even if I was having a bad day, there’s no excuse for my lack of respect.” He lifts his head up and looked straight in your eyes. As much as you appreciate his apology, you couldn’t really respond to him as you realized that one of your idols is just an arm’s reach away. Never have you imagined that someone you just watch over and over again from the small screen of your phone would be humbling himself before you to apologize. You don’t really know how to handle the situation.

“It’s okay. It’s my fault as well. I guess I have to learn not to be as clumsy anymore.” You laughed as you placed your hands on your nape. His face slowly lit up and the air between both of you started getting lighter. “Here I thought you’re actually disliking the idea of working with me. You were wearing this irritated expression whenever our eyes would meet during practice.”

Yoongi got beet-red thinking that’s how he comes off to you when he was actually irritated by the fact that he can’t get a chance to talk to you alone. “No. I was just…. trying to find a chance to apologize to you.” You smiled so sweetly at the thought of occupying yoongi’s mind during practice and even made him worry on how we would approach you. Yoongi notices the change in your expression and his heart skipped a beat. There’s something so adorable with the way you smiled that caught Yoongi’s attention. He took a good look at you and realized that you were actually good looking despite being so sweaty from practice.

“I would like to begin again.” You held out your hand to Yoongi. He looks at your hand and back to you. “I’m y/n. It’s an honor to work with you. Let’s do our best to show everyone the best performances we could give.” You flashed a smile so big that made Yoongi pleased as well. Your passion to give your best performance fascinated him.

He shook your hand and his heart skipped another beat. A smile like that fits you so well. You almost remind him of Hoseok. Someone who embodies sunshine. Also, he admits that you really look beautiful. Not that he wants to compare you to the other female dancers but he can admit that you’re the most attractive out of all of them. He had his eyes on you the whole morning and was amazed by how you transform into a dancing machine when music starts.

…..

You just concluded your last session with a client at the gym. Despite having a chance to go home early, you kindly offered to the gym owner that you would stay until closing time. You asked permission to use the small studio in the gym. He gladly allowed you and you were ecstatic to finally have a space where you could freely practice. Back at home, the apartment that you share with Lisa is just the adequate space for living, but not so much to consider it as a space to practice. You own a floor length mirror but it’s beside your bed. Your arms and legs have bumped your bed so many times that you could almost file a physical abuse case against the innocent piece of furniture. The small studio in the gym may not be as big as the practice room in Big Hit but it has enough space for you to fly and dance around. Plus, there’s a huge mirror on the entire wall. You’re actually fortunate to have the studio by yourself.

As you start practicing the dance numbers inside the small studio, the gym owner quietly manned the reception area in your place. Only a handful of customers are now currently using the gym and usually at this time of night, influx of customers is at bare minimum. Suddenly, someone enters the gym and walks to the reception area. The gym owner turns his head towards the door.

“Hyung!” The gym owner was surprised by the sudden visit of his friend. He shoots up from his seat to welcome the person who just came through the door.

“Jungkook! What are you doing here?” Jungkook appeared in front of the gym owner wearing his huge black hoodie and a black cap to hide his face. The gym owner walks around the reception table and hugs Jungkook.

“I just tried a new route to run and I remembered your gym was along the way so I thought to pop in and say hello.” Jungkook hugged his friend tightly. They continued to chat as Jungkook quickly noticed the music that was coming from inside the gym. The gym owner also noticed Jungkook looking towards the direction of the sound.

“That’s coming from the studio… which reminds me, one of my employee just got in as your backup dancer. She’s so dedicated and diligent that she spends her extra time to practice here after her shift.” The gym owner offered to usher Jungkook towards the small studio. Jungkook was intrigued and fascinated that one of their backup dancer works at the same place as his close friend. The music gets loud as they get near the studio and he gets a glimpse of somebody dancing eagerly to one of the songs that they were just practicing to this morning. They look just outside the door and Jungkook’s eyes were glued to you as you dance.

He recognizes you immediately and was captivated by how you were working so hard this late at night. He noticed that you weren’t wearing the usual baggy cargo pants that you love to wear for dance practices. You were wearing tight gym leggings and a dri-fit shirt. Nevertheless, you still exude charm and power when you dance to their songs. Jungkook admits to himself that the sight of you in tights dancing to their powerful songs charmed him.

He opened the door and you were late to notice the sound of the creaking door. You were surprised to see Jungkook’s reflection behind you as you strut to the music. Jungkook jumps in surprise when you gasped out loud at his presence and you ran for the speakers.

“Noona, I didn’t mean to surprise you.” You bent down to stop the music. Quickly, you stood up and turned to face him. Jungkook was still walking towards you. He removed his cap and ran his hand through his hair. He was sweating a bit but still, the sight of him sweating makes him look like he’s sparkling. You wondered why in the world is he inside the same studio as you are now. “Hyung’s my friend and I happened to be in the same area so I dropped by. I didn’t expect Noona was working here.”

You peeked towards the door and the gym owner was smiling and waving his hand. He must’ve been the one who informed Jungkook that you were practicing here, you thought. Your attention came back to Jungkook. You admired how handsome Jungkook looks right now despite being barefaced. “May I help you with something?”

“Do you want to practice together? I mean if only you’re comfortable with it.” He offered. Suddenly, you felt like everything slowed down and the two of you remained. You want to slap your face in disbelief that Jungkook actually offered to practice with you. Jungkook slowly walk towards you and you react by stepping backwards.

“I’m having a hard time learning a specific part in the choreo so I may not be the ideal practice partner… for you right now.” You feel as though the space between the two of you has shrunk. Jungkook smirks at the sight of you slightly panicking as he steps closer. Jungkook has been eyeing you ever since the first practice session with them this morning. He saw how his hyungs, Namjoon and Suga, kept on looking at your direction. He discovered that you were the same girl that they were talking about. You were the one whose phone was destroyed by Namjoon, who caught the attention of Jimin and Jhope during the evaluation, and who constantly occupies Suga’s mind about when to apologize to you. You piqued his attention with the way you had these encounters with his hyungs. He also noticed your charm whenever you execute the intricate choreograph during practice, just as Jhope and Jimin describes. He’s determined to have this chance to dance with you.

“I’m sure I want to practice with you.”

Next part: 4

[etakeh]

I posted this as part of something else earlier, but I feel like it’s important enough for it’s own post. 

Back in the 80′s, Al Gore’s wife & friends decided that Rock Music was The Devil.  Sometimes literally.  So they started up a little group called the PMRC - 

Dee Snider, lead singer and songwriter for Twisted Sister, testified at a senate hearing about it. 

Transcript, courtesy this internet web page, with full contents of the hearing here.  I encourage you to at least look at that contents page, to see who was involved in the hearing.  John Denver, Frank Zappa, and Uncle Al Gore, MTV.

Any emphasis added is my own.

==================

I do not know if it is morning or afternoon. I will say both. Good morning and good afternoon.

My name is Dee Snider. That is S-n-i-d-e-r. I have been asked to come here to present my views on "the subject of the content of certain sound recordings and suggestions that recording packages be labeled to provide a warning to prospective purchasers of sexually explicit or other potentially offensive content."

Before I get into that, I would like to tell the committee a little bit about myself. I am 30 years old, I am married, I have a 3-year-old son. I was born and raised a Christian and I still adhere to those principles. Believe it or not, I do not smoke, I do not drink, and I do not do drugs.

I do play in and write the songs for a rock and roll band named Twisted Sister that is classified as heavy metal, and I pride myself on writing songs that are consistent with my above-mentioned beliefs.

There are many facets to this complex issue and time does not permit me to address all of them. However, my feelings are expressed for the most part by the August 5, 1985, letter to the Parents Music Resource Center from Mr. Stanley Gortikov, president of the Recording Industry Association of America.

This letter was a formal response to the PMRC petition of the RIAA. The only part of this document I do not support is Mr. Gortikov's unnecessary and unfortunate decision to agree to a so-called generic label on some selected records. In my opinion this should be retracted.

Since I seem to be the only person addressing this committee today who has been a direct target of accusations from the presumably responsible PMRC, I would like to use this occasion to speak on a more personal note and show just how unfair the whole concept of lyrical interpretation and judgment can be and how many times this can amount to little more than character assassination.

I have taken the liberty of distributing to you material and lyrics pertaining to these accusations. There were three attacks in particular which I would like to address.

Accusation No. 1. This attack was contained in an article written by Tipper Gore, which was given the forum of a full page in my hometown newspaper on Long Island. In this article Ms. Gore claimed that one of my songs, "Under the Blade," had lyrics encouraging sadomasochism, bondage, and rape.

The lyrics she quoted have absolutely nothing to do with these topics. On the contrary, the words in question are about surgery and the fear that it instills in people. Furthermore, the reader of this article is led to believe that the three lines she quotes go together in the song when, as you can see, from reading the lyrics, the first two lines she cites are an edited phrase from the second verse and the third line is a misquote of a line from the chorus.

That the writer could misquote me is curious, since we make it a point to print all our lyrics on the inner sleeve of every album. As the creator of "Under the Blade," I can say categorically that the only sadomasochism, bondage, and rape in this song is in the mind of Ms. Gore.

Accusation No. 2. The PMRC has made public a list of 15 of what they feel are some of the most blatant songs lyrically. On this list is our song "We're Not Gonna Take It," upon which has been bestowed a "V" rating, indicating violent lyrical content.

You will note from the lyrics before you that there is absolutely no violence of any type either sung about or implied anywhere in the song. Now, it strikes me that the PMRC may have confused our video presentation for this song with the song with the lyrics, with the meaning of the lyrics.

It is no secret that the videos often depict story lines completely unrelated to the lyrics of the song they accompany. The video "We're Not Gonna Take It" was simply meant to be a cartoon with human actors playing variations on the Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote theme. Each stunt was selected from my extensive personal collection of cartoons.

You will note when you watch the entire video that after each catastrophe our villain suffers through, in the next sequence he reappears unharmed by any previous attack, no worse for the wear.

By the way, I am very pleased to note that the United Way of America has been granted a request to use portions of our "We're Not Gonna Take It" video in a program they are producing on the subject of the changing American family. They asked for it because of its "light-hearted way of talking about communicating with teenagers."

It is gratifying that an organization as respected as the United Way of America appreciates where we are coming from. I have included a copy of the United Way's request as part of my written testimony. Thank you, United Way.

Accusation No. 3. Last Tuesday a public forum regarding the lyric controversy was held in New York. Among the panelists was Ms. Gore. Trying to stem the virtual tidal wave of antiratings sentiment coming from the audience, Ms. Gore made the following statement:

I agree this is a small percentage of all music, thank goodness. But it is becoming more mainstream. You look at even the t-shirts that kids wear and you see Twisted Sister and a woman in handcuffs sort of spread-eagled.

This is an outright lie. Not only have we never sold a shirt of this type; we have always taken great pains to steer clear of sexism in our merchandise, records, stage show, and personal lives. Furthermore, we have always promoted the belief that rock and roll should not be sexist, but should cater to males and females equally.

I feel that an accusation of this type is irresponsible, damaging to our reputation, and slanderous. I defy Ms. Gore to produce such a shirt to back up her claim. I am tired of running into kids on the street who tell me that they cannot play our records any more because of the misinformation their parents are being fed by the PMRC on TV and in the newspapers.

These are the only three accusations I have come across. All three are totally unfounded. Who knows what other false and irresponsible things may have been said about me or my band.

There happens to be one area where I am in complete agreement with the PMRC, as well as the National PTA and probably most of the parents on this committee. That is, it is my job as a parent to monitor what my children see, hear, and read during their preteen years. The full responsibility for this falls on the shoulders of my wife and I, because there is no one else capable of making these judgments for us.

Parents can thank the PMRC for reminding them that there is no substitute for parental guidance. But that is where the PMRC's job ends.

The beauty of literature, poetry, and music is that they leave room for the audience to put its own imagination, experiences, and dreams into the words. The examples I cited earlier showed clear evidence of Twisted Sister's music being completely misinterpreted and unfairly judged by supposedly well-informed adults.

We cannot allow this to continue. There is no authority who has the right or the necessary insight to make these judgments, not myself, not the Federal Government, not some recording industry committee, not the PTA, not the RIAA, and certainly not the PMRC.

I would like to thank the committee for this time, and I hope my testimony will aid you in clearing up this issue.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Snider.

Mr. Snider, let us suppose that there is music which, say, glorifies incest; not yours, but suppose that there is some music that glorifies incest. Do you think parents should know about it, or do you think that it is just a matter between whoever is selling the record and whoever is buying it?

Mr. SNIDER. As I said in my testimony, I think it is very important that parents be aware that these lyrics exist.

The CHAIRMAN. How could they find out about it?

Mr. SNIDER. Well, quite simply, as a parent myself and as a rock fan, I know that when I see an album cover with a severed goat's head in the middle of a pentagram between a woman's legs, that is not the kind of album I want my son to be listening to.

If I read a title on the back of, say, Somebody's Ice Cream Castle, a title called "If the Kid Can't Make You Come," whatever it is, I realize that is a sexually explicit song. By just looking at the cover, looking at the lyrics, looking at, I should say, the titles, that should cover just about all bases.

The few albums that do not express their intentions on the cover or in the song titles, I think a parent could take it home, listen to it. And I do not think there are too many retail stores that would deny them the ability to return the album for something different.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that most parents, or even kids for that matter, know everything that is on an album when they buy it, when the child buys the album?

Mr. SNIDER. I do not know half the things that are on half the albums I own. Some of the bands I listen to, I listen for musical reasons. Other bands I listen to for lyrical reasons.

I know that AC/DC, one of my favorite bands, sings a lot of songs glorifying hell and damnation. I am a Christian. I do not believe -- I do not want to go to hell and I do not want to be damned for all  time. But I do like the feel of the songs. The lyrics have no effect on me.

Other bands who have more to say, I listen to their words and I learn from their words.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that now there is adequate basis for parents to know what is on the records that their kids are buying?

Mr. SNIDER. I think if they really are concerned, there is. But quite honestly, I do not think that the majority of parents are in reality as concerned as the PMRC or myself. I do not think they really want to spend the time to listen to what they might consider to be a bunch of noise. They put it on and they cannot understand a thing that is being said anyway.

And so I think most of them do not spend enough time with it.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hollings.

Senator HOLLINGS. Yes. Mr. Snider, I think I would just take the opportunity to make an observation. You and I would differ as to what is obscene or what is shocking or what is vulgar, and persons of goodwill will differ on that particular score.

I think that somewhere in this hearing record, we should not be on the defensive and we should not create the atmosphere that we are powerless. The absolute nature of your statement that we do not have any authority -- I only want to refer everyone to the Pacifica Foundation case, where the Federal Communications Commission was questioned as to its power to regulate public radio and TV broadcasts that was indecent but not obscene.

You see, they differed between what was indecent, what was obscene, and what was shocking. They had the seven dirty words. I think everyone remembers that case on the west coast, and the Supreme Court of the United States found that the FCC positively had the authority, and the responsibility.

I am quoting from the language of the Supreme Court:

Patently offensive, indecent material presented over the airwaves confronts the citizen not only in public, but also in the privacy of the home. The individual's right to be left alone, plainly outweighs the first amendment rights of an intruder.

This is not just a forum to rally one way or the other and hope something happens. This is a forum with a definite responsibility with respect to Congress in enunciating the duties of the Federal Communications Commission, which have been constitutionally followed.

I understand your opinion. That is why we invited you up here, to hear your words and not mine. I think that the general nature of all of this testimony of noting censorship, and first amendment absolutism, does not pertain with respect to the broadcast media. That is, of course, the main media that I guess you would agree to actually sell the records, would it not be?

Mr. SNIDER. Yes. Except I would like to clarify something. I said no authority has the right or necessary insight. I did not say you were not able to. I said you do not have the right or I do not have the right or the RIAA.

Also, we are talking about the airwaves as opposed to a person going with their money to purchase an album to play in their room, in their home, on their own time. The airwaves are something different.

I think that the FCC and even MTV have done a fair job in keeping profanity and obscenity and things like that off the public airwaves. But as far as what you listen to in your own home, that is something totally different, I feel in my opinion.

Senator HOLLINGS. I think that the record ought to be elaborated to show just that.

Previously, about 5 or 6 years ago, we had the TV networks before this committee, and pursuant to that particular hearing they then came back. I remember CBS specifically. They demonstrated how they had this film, and then got together with the producer and removed certain scenes of violence and certain four-letter words, and did not offend the producer's sense of art in the production itself.

We have made some progress. The bottom line with respect to these particular records, the Supreme Court has found, is that there is that right and that responsibility.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Gore.

Senator GORE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SNIDER. Excuse me. Are you going to tell me you are a big fan of my music as well?

Senator GORE. No, I am not a fan of your music. I am aware that Frank Zappa and John Denver cover quite a spectrum, and I do enjoy them both. I am not, however, a fan of Twisted Sister and I will readily say that.

Mr. Snider, what is the name of your fan club?

Mr. SNIDER. The fan club is called the SMF Fans of Twisted Sister.

Senator GORE. And what does "SMF" stand for when it is spelled out?

Mr. SNIDER. It stands for the Sick Mother Fucking Fans of Twisted Sister.

Senator GORE. Is this also a Christian group?

Mr. SNIDER. I do not believe profanity has anything to do with Christianity, thank you.

Senator GORE. It is just an interesting choice. I was getting the impression from your presentation that you were a very wholesome kind of performer, and that is an interesting title for your fan club.

You say your song "Under the Blade" is about surgery. Have you ever had surgery with your hands tied and your legs strapped?

Mr. SNIDER. The song was written about my guitar player, Eddie Ojeda. He was having polyps removed from his throat and he was very fearful of this operation. And I said: Eddie, while you are in the hospital I am going to write a song for you.

I said it was about the fear of operations. I think people imagine being helpless on a table, the bright light in their face, the blade coming down on them, and being totally afraid that they may wake up, who knows, dead, handicapped. There is a certain fear of hospitals. That is what, in my imagination, what I see the hospitals like.

Senator GORE. Is there a reference to the hospital in the song?

Mr. SNIDER. No, there is not. But there is not a reference to a woman, sado-masochism, or -- well, bondage, yes.

Senator GORE. There is just a reference to someone whose hands are tied down and whose legs are strapped down, and he is going under the blade to be cut.

Mr. SNIDER. Yes, there is.

Senator GORE. So it is not really a wild leap of the imagination to jump to the conclusion that the song is about something other than surgery or hospitals, neither of which are mentioned in the song?

Mr. SNIDER. No, it is not a wild jump. And I think what I said at one part was that songs allow a person to put their own imagination, experiences, and dreams into the lyrics. People can interpret it in many ways.

Ms. Gore was looking for sado-masochism and bondage and she found it. Someone looking for surgical references would have found that as well.

Senator GORE. Why do you think there is so much sado-masochism and bondage in some of these new songs?

Mr. SNIDER. I cannot speak for the other artists. I am really only here to defend myself, and hopefully by speaking for myself as one person, songwriter in a band that I feel has been unjustly dumped on, that will just warn us of the dangers of what we are trying to do here. I really cannot speak for the other bands.

Senator GORE. Now, you made reference to a comment about T-shirts. I would simply note for the record that the word "T-shirts" was in plural, and one of them referred to Twisted Sister and the other referred to a woman in handcuffs. And it was not intended, as I understand it, to say that you appear with a woman in handcuffs.

There are a lot of different T-shirts and advertisements around today. I have noticed from some of the fan magazines particularly featuring heavy metal music that little sado-masochistic outfits are advertised, with the fingerless gloves and spikes and studs on them, and that these little S&M outfits are marketed to teens and preteens. Is that correct?

Mr. SNIDER. Well, they are marketed. Who buys them I am not sure.

I would just like to say, in reference to the comment about T-shirts, I have with me a taped cassette of the exact --

Senator GORE. No, I am reading from your transcript of it in your statement.

Mr. SNIDER. I will have to check the transcript, but when it was said there was no question she was referring to a Twisted Sister T-shirt. There was no question if I played the tape for anybody.

Senator GORE. Well, in your own transcript it is in plural, "T-shirts," and two examples are cited. But I do not want to belabor that point.

Now, you said that you can look at the titles of albums and look at the covers and tell what kind of material is inside. Does the title "Purple Rain" give you an indication that the material is about masturbation?

Mr. SNIDER. You mean the album title "Purple Rain"? No, it does not. I did not say in all cases. I believe I covered that there are occasional albums that are a bit misleading. I said I do not  think a store would refuse a parent who came in and said, "I do not like what is on this record. I would like my money back."

Senator GORE. So the choice the parent has, then, is to sit down and listen to every song on the album; right?

Mr. SNIDER. Or read the lyrics if they are on the record.

Senator GORE. I think that is pretty general agreement that if the lyrics are printed that is one possible solution for this.

Let us suppose the lyrics are not printed. Then what choice does a parent have? To sit down and listen to every song on the album?

Mr. SNIDER. Well, if they are really concerned about it I think that they have to.

Senator GORE. Do you think it is reasonable to expect parents to do that?

Mr. SNIDER. Being a parent is not a reasonable thing. It is a very hard thing. I am a parent and I know. OK. I am a new parent. I only have one child, maybe. But I am learning that there is a lot to being a parent that you did not expect. It is not just always a cute baby. There is a lot of labor, a lot of time, and a lot of effort that goes into it. It is not totally pleasurable.

Senator GORE. And you will find when they get a little bit older that when they are exposed to the kinds of themes that we were presented with earlier, if you love your child you are going to be concerned about that. And if you want to protect that child from unnecessary exposure to inappropriate material, you sometimes need a little help, the kind of guidance that is presented in the movie industry.

It is totally unreasonable in my view to expect parents to sit down and listen to every single song in the albums that their children buy in order to fulfill their responsibilities as parents.

Now, the only thing in your statement that I felt at all comfortable about was when you said you shared some of the concerns of the PMRC. I would simply conclude by expressing the hope that artists and the record companies will find a way to manifest that mutual concern in some self-restraint, and show a responsibility and give parents a break.

You are right: It is tough being a parent. It is even tougher being a kid. And if both are going to be able to deal with the kind of material that is coming out in popular music, it seems to me the industry has a responsibility to give them a little help.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Rockefeller.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Mr. Snider, do you feel that you have a responsibility as an artist to those who would hear those words that you write?

Mr. SNIDER. I feel a tremendous responsibility. And as I said, I do not put anything down on a record that I cannot stand behind 100 percent. I do not sing about drugs, sex, alcohol. I do not advocate sexism, the use of drugs and drinking, and so I do not write about those things. I only write about things I believe in.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. And that is the way you define what your responsibility is -- that is, not to write about things that you do not believe in?

Mr. SNIDER. Yes; I would say to write about things that you can stand behind. I feel myself to be a moral person and I think that I . . . have a lot of positive things to tell people about. And like I said, everything on my records I will stand behind and say, "Yes, I wrote those words and this is what it meant and this is what I was trying to say -- Yes."

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Do you think that parents, not only those who are in PMRC but other parents who are concerned here and across the country about the development of new trends in music and the lyrics that go along with that music, are naïve or somehow missing the point?

Do you think that they are unduly worried about some of these writings about sado-masochism, suicide, rape, and other things? Do you think that this is not really a serious problem for this country and our young people?

Mr. SNIDER.. That is sort of a multiple question. I do not think they are naïve and I do not think that at times they are unduly worried. But I do think sometimes they take it overly serious.

I mean, there are monster movies on all the time, they have been going on for ages, and people watch a monster movie and they get scared, and they walk away and it was just a movie. Rock and roll many times is the same thing, to try to get an effect of either laughter, sadness. A lot of the heavy metal bands are trying to scare people and just make them scared like a horror movie.

Vincent Price is not having problems because he has done all of these monster pictures. He is just an actor. I am not going to say I am just an actor, but I am entertaining people and a lot of these bands are entertaining people.

And when they were reading some of these lyrics before, I could not help but laugh. I mean, I had not heard some of them, but some of the lyrics were ridiculously ridiculous. I mean, a kid, even a kid reading that I think would go, oh my God, what is going on? It is ridiculous is the only word I can think of, some of the lyrics.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. In the vehemence with which you attacked Senator Gore's wife, I detected a defensiveness somehow on your part, a lack of assuredness on where you stand on this. Why did you feel it necessary to attribute some of the qualities to her that you did? Why was that important to your testimony?

Mr. SNIDER.. First of all, I was not attacking Senator Gore's wife. I was attacking a member of the PMRC.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. You were attacking Senator Gore's wife by name.

Mr. SNIDER.. Her name is Tipper Gore, is it not? I did not say the Senator's wife. I said Tipper Gore.

Second, defensive. I have been working very hard. I believe in the music that I play. I believe we have a very bad reputation and I have been doing a lot on my part to try and say, hey, this is not a bad thing, this is fun, this is fantasy.

Kids are coming out, they are screaming, they are yelling, they are letting out their emotions, and they are going home, they are feeling better because they let out a lot of their frustrations.

As I said, I pride myself on writing lyrics that are not offensive and that are saying something positive. Most of our songs are about personal freedom. And when somebody tells me, after all I have done to fight against sexism, that I have a shirt with a spread-eagled woman -- 

Senator ROCKEFELLER. All you have done to what?

Mr. SNIDER. All I have done to fight sexism. The whole Twisted Sister thing is very ambiguous: guys wearing makeup. We do not act like women; we act like men. We do not cater to the males or females in the audience. It is just one audience.

So when someone says there is a song about sado-masochism and bondage, or someone says "We're Not Gonna Take It" is violent lyrical content, which is what it has been rated for, yes, I am defensive. Yes, that gets me angry. I am trying to get adults to see that heavy metal is not totally a bad thing.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. How many months in the course of a year do you spend on the road away from home?

Mr. SNIDER. In the course of a year, it would be tough to say. Over a 2-year period, I would spend about 11 months on the road and 18 months at home recording albums, things like that, doing videos.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Eleven months on the road in a 2-year period?

Mr. SNIDER. Yes, because you do a tour and then you go and record albums. I have been off the road now for 10 months.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Do you take your child with you?

Mr. SNIDER. He comes sometimes.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Nine years from now when your child is 12 and in school, will you take your child with you?

Mr. SNIDER. Absolutely.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. When your child is in school?

Mr. SNIDER. Oh, no. Thank you for clarifying. No, I would not take him out of school.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Then how would it be possible for you to, as a responsible parent, to spend the time that you suggest listening to these records and finding out what it is that you want your son to listen to and what you do not want him to listen to?

Mr. SNIDER. To be perfectly honest, 9 years from now I am going to be well retired and I will be spending more time with my son than any other parent probably ever spends. And that is one of the beautiful things about rock and roll, is that I can retire hopefully at a very early age.

But even now, I am very lucky that I have a wife who I have been going with for 10 years now, we have been married for 4, who is the most incredible mother. And while I am gone, she fills the role, and has a very difficult job, too, of mother and father.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Do you expect later on, then, that she will be going through these records?

Mr. SNIDER. I think both of us will be doing that.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Do you expect me to believe that?

Mr. SNIDER. You can. I am terminally teenage. I will be listening to my son's records.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. What about families where both parents have to work, which is an increasing phenomenon in this country now, because they have to survive? And the whole notion of parents ents sitting down and listening to record after record, tape after tape -- that is what you suggested -- does that not strike you as just a little bit naive and unrealistic?

Mr. SNIDER. No, it does not, because I know the reality of the record-buying market as a record buyer. With my allowance, I was able to, if I was lucky, afford maybe one album a week at the most. Usually it was one a month. Albums cost anywhere from $6 to $10, and that is a lot of money to a teenager, or to a pre-teenager it is a ridiculous sum.

And to a teenage kid that is a considerable amount of money. And so to listen to one record a week, I do not consider that a hardship.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. Might I ask just one final question, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Bearing in mind that it is 12:30 and we have a lot of witnesses left, yes.

Senator ROCKEFELLER. I will bear that in mind and will not ask the question.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Pressler.

Senator PRESSLER. Basically, I want to get down to your recommendations in terms of governmental action, either by this committee or by any Government body. You would recommend no governmental action in this area?

Mr. SNIDER. Absolutely.

Senator PRESSLER. What about industry actions? Would you recommend any type of voluntary labeling?

Mr. SNIDER. I do not feel that the industry -- it has been expressed by many other people that each artist has an individual agreement. One of the big things is artistic freedom in your contract. I do not think the industry can pass a ruling on that.

Senator PRESSLER. And so your legislative recommendations, would that apply just to -- not to broadcast? You would put broadcast and things that are over the airwaves in a different category than things people buy and show in their homes?

Mr. SNIDER. Well, I think we are talking about the purchase of albums and the lyrical content on the albums. That is what I am directing it to at this time.

Senator PRESSLER. So you would disagree with any action on those albums, be they by private industry or Government, any type of labeling?

Mr. SNIDER. If somebody would ask me what my opinion was, I had said earlier that I did not think there would be a problem for a parent to return an album they had taken home and found it dissatisfactory. I would like to believe that, but some retail stores will give you a hassle if you try to return an open album.

If you want a solution, maybe they could bring back -- in the fifties, you could listen to an album in the store before you purchased the album. Most record stores play the albums in the store, and there is usually a stack of those albums opened already that, if you want to go over and take a glance at the cover, which I have done many times myself, you could go over and do that.

So if you want to take some sort of industry action, I would think it would be to force the retail stores to allow people to return product that they are not satisfied with: satisfaction guaranteed.

Senator PRESSLER. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Snider, thank you very much.

Mr. SNIDER. Thank you for your time.

===================

did you see what he did.  he said, “Ms. Gore was looking for sado-masochism and bondage and she found it.” TO AL GORE.  I love him for that.

he also said “If the kid can’t make you come” in a senate hearing, and I love him for that as well. It’s in the official senate record.

[let-me-write-shit]

I love your writing! Can you please write a piece where y/n has been a friend of him for years (all one d years too) and she is famous as well (kinda maggie rogers vibe) they write songs together etc. After the heartbreak from Camille she is always there for him and they realise that they have always been in love with each other, a bit of angst ofc 😂 Thank you very much!! 😍😍

A/N: Thanks so much for the request and the kind messages when I was sick, @irelilien. I loved writing this. I know it’s probably not EXACTLY what you were thinking, but I hope you like it!! <3 <3 <3 

Warning:  ANGSTY ANGST ANGST!!!

Word Count: 3,961

Requests are OPEN! If you have a request for a blurb, oneshot, imagine, whatever, Send me a message HERE!!!

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Started Off As Friends

“Will you relax, Harry?” you laugh, scooting to the edge of the office chair where you sat, reaching over and grabbing Harry’s hands away from his face to reveal his scrunched up eyebrows and dramatic frown, something he always did when he was frustrated. You took hold of his forearms as he pouted and tugged on your arms, making the wheels of your chair roll closer to him, your knees touching and his forehead falling towards your stomach.

Honestly, he could be such a baby sometimes. But as your hand instinctively plopped onto his head, running your fingers through his curls and massaging his scalp, you couldn’t help but smile. For years it had been like this; you and Harry were inseparable since the day you met. Back then he was still in One Direction and you just helped them write songs. You were one of the youngest songwriters on the team and they were impressed by it. Eventually, you began to release some of your own work, and when Harry went solo he often called on you to help with some of his songs, most of which always ended up on an album or being released.

You were there when his fame kicked off. He was there for you when you lost a family member. The two of you hardly even had so much of a fight, more like little bickers here and there. You were there through all of the One Direction drama including when you and Niall had a brief but scandalous (and absolutely not true) rumor spread that you were secretly dating and eloped, something Harry would cry laugh over whenever it was brought up. After all, if there would be any rumors of secret relationships between you and a member of One Direction, it would be with Harry. You were the closest out of all of them. You two had been through a lot in your friendship. More than most. And that included heartbreak.

You’d met practically every girlfriend he’d ever had. You knew details of his relationships that you really didn’t need to know about. And you’d been the subject of many jealous fights. But he’d always have your back. Until Camille.

Everything started great. You thought things had been going so well between them and Camille seemed to really like you. Oftentimes you’d get together just the two of you and have a girl’s night. But everything changed the night of one of your concerts. You were playing in London and the couple came to support. Throughout the night they had a lot to drink and each time you looked down things seemed to get increasingly more tense between the pair. Towards the end, it looked like a full-blown argument had ensued and they both stormed out of the arena. You assumed they were just going to talk it out and would meet you backstage afterward. You assumed Harry would fill you in on all the details later. But hours had passed and everyone had already backed up to leave. It wasn’t like Harry to just leave without saying anything. You called and texted but got no response. Not until the next day.

‘So sorry for leaving like that. We’ll talk later. -H’

But you never did. He practically ghosted you, only getting brief, cryptic texts or calls at random points in the day. The emotional circle-jerk you went through was next-level. Confusion, anger, sadness, indifference, and back to confusion. It was a never-ending cycle. You had later come to find that he only talked to you when Camille wasn’t around. And if she found out you were in communication, another argument would ensue and you’d hear about it whenever Harry called to complain. That’s all it was; a few calls and texts to whine about his relationship until the texts and calls stopped altogether. You hadn’t even seen his face for nearly seven months. For the longest time, you wanted to cry. You felt betrayed.

And finally, a month ago, after seven months of waiting, you had decided you were going to let him go and stop waiting around for him. But, when your phone rang at 11 PM that same night, your toughness crumbled to the ground. You had half a mind to yell and let it all out, or to just hang up, but you couldn’t. Not to him. Not when his heart was breaking. Instead, you invited him over. You must have drunk two whole bottles of wine by yourself, listening as Harry cried about his breakup and catching you up on all the issues they had. And you helped him through it.

For weeks he stayed with you so he didn’t have to be alone. You’d distract him with movies and games, stay up all hours of the night listening and reassuring him. You’d cry with him, laugh with him, and eventually, you’d help him channel his feelings into music. The two of you had written more songs than you can count about Camille and he finally had a sense of what he wanted his new album to sound like, picking a selection of songs on a demo and bringing it over to get your thoughts.

Listening to it brought on its own type of heartache for you. You remembered writing some of those lyrics with him. You remembered how broken you felt having to act like nothing was wrong and you were just happy to have him back. But the truth was, you were still hurt. You never did find out why he left so suddenly in the first place and coming back to you after all that time felt more like a slap in the face than anything. He knew you’d welcome him back with open arms He knew he could take advantage of your friendship because he knew how much he meant to you. Or, at least, he had an idea.

By the end of the demo, Harry looked so unsure that you were almost certain he’d start to freak out and second-guess himself. He rolled his head on your lap so that his cheek was against your thigh and groaned, “It feels like it’s missing something. Maybe I should have added ‘She’s Flames’.”

You shook your head as he sat up, “No. It’s perfect.”

“But what if-”

“No,” you cut him off, looking deeply into his eyes, “I wouldn’t change a thing. Not a single word, not a single piano key, not a single song, not even a single song order. Harry, it’s perfect.”

He relaxed his shoulders, letting his lips twitch upwards into a smile, and when he finally spoke, he took her hands in his again and said, “What would I do without you?”

You shrugged your shoulders, slipping your hands back and spinning in your chair to face your computer again, clicking away at the screen and layering instrumentals on your own music you were working on before he came over. Having a little makeshift studio in your flat helped when you couldn’t get in any time at a proper studio.

“Probably sulk at your own house instead of mine,” you mumbled, trying your best to sound like you’re joking.

“Hey, that’s not fair,” he whined, switching seats to a roller chair next to you.

You ignored him and continued to work while he talked beside you about possible release dates for his album, cover art, and which songs he wanted to have as his singles. You listened, adding your input where needed, as he carried on, grabbing your phone off the desk beside you and entering in your passcode. You didn’t mind, it was something the two of you always did. There was never any malice or reason behind it, it was just out of sheer boredom. You’d often scroll through each other’s social media dashboard or pictures. You had nothing to hide. Or, so you thought.

You became so hyperfocused on what you were doing that you almost didn’t hear it. It blended in with what you were working on so much that the sound of your voice singing from the speaker of the Harry held in his hands almost went unnoticed. But by the time you realized what he was listening to and snapped your attention to him, the damage was already done.

The knife of insight tore its way in me

A brash collision without sympathy

And maybe when the sun goes down I’ll come round, I’ll come out

Maybe we could take some time,

Unwind, figure out

When the knife of insight tore its way in me

Hit me up if you’re feeling down

Give a little, oh we’ll figure this out

Keep me up, keep my mind around

After dark, after light

Let it go if you want get loud

Make a little fuss, oh its all allowed

Beautiful how it all pours out

After dark, after light

Oh the knife of insight brought me to my knees

Broke me down and taught me how to see

And I know and I know and I know

That maybe we should take some time

Get this out, make this right

Maybe when the sun goes down I’ll come round, tell you all about

When the knife of insight brought me to my knees …..

You were at a loss for words, caught off-guard by him finding that voice note of a song you had recorded late one night three months ago. You could hear the wooshing of cars passing by in the background, remembering you recorded it on a drive to meet up with friends for dinner and didn’t want to forget the wave of creativity. Funny thing was, you completely forgot all about it.

You searched his face, hoping he didn’t understand what you were singing about But Harry wasn’t stupid. He’s worked with you long enough now to know your writing style. And with one look at the time stamp of the recording, he could tell this was written in the thick of when he had stopped seeing you.

“What’s this?” he asked softly, looking up at you.

He knew, he just wanted to hear you say it. You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of an explanation, though. For weeks you had thought about what to say or how to confront him for what he did. But confrontation was never your strong suit and all the rehearsed speech had suddenly vanished from your memory.

Quickly, you grabbed your phone out of his hand and shut the music off, “Just something I was working on. Forgot it was still on there.”

He watched as your body tensed, hastily shoving your phone in your pocket. He could see right through your nonchalant attitude and he pressed again, “Is it about me?”

“Harry,” you breathed, forcing a laugh. But your refusal to look him in the eyes was your tell.

“It is, isn’t it?” His question sounded more like an answer, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“How you felt,” he turned your chair so that you were forced to face him and you looked nervously up at him through your eyelashes, his expression sincere, “Obviously you were hurt about whatever I did.”

Your mouth fell and he seemed to realize almost instantly that he had a poor choice of words. But, before either of you could say anything, Harry’s phone began to ring on the coffee table, catching both of your attention. And by a cruel coincidence, you saw that it was Camille calling him. His eyes widened and hastily silenced his phone, but the damage was done. You let out an incredulous laugh and stood up.

“It’s getting late. I think it’s time for you to leave,” you said firmly, avoiding his gaze.

You heard him stutter. He wasn’t used to you being stern with him. “What? Why? No, please, let’s talk about this.”

“Talk?” You laughed angrily, “You want to talk? Now? That’s rich coming from you! Alright, Harry, let’s talk, then,” your words were like ice and your heart pounded, finally getting the courage to look at him as you let it all out, “Ten years you’ve been one of my best friends. I’ve done so much for you. I’ve put up with a lot being your friend. All the backlash and drama and spite from your horrible girlfriends. But you always had my back Until her,” you motioned towards his phone.

His eyes fluttered, listening to you get angry. It was a side of you that rarely showed. And when your voice began to crack, he gulped.

You continued, “I was always nice to her. Always. Until one random day, she decided to hate me for no reason. And what did you do? Nothing! You ran after her like a lost puppy and avoided me for almost a year!”

“I didn’t avoid you!” Harry shot back, defensively.

“You didn’t avoid me?” you laughed in a hiss. “Harry, you dodged all of my calls and texts! I never saw you! And when we did talk, the Queen herself couldn’t know about it or you’d have another fight!”

“Don’t call her that. That’s not fair,” he pleaded.

“You want to talk about fair? The way you treated me wasn’t fair! All I was to you in those seven months was someone to complain to, but only if I was kept a secret!”

“That’s not true. Besides, it’s not like you ever complained at the time! You should have said something!”

“I shouldn’t have had to! You’ve always had my back and ended things with other girlfriends for a lot less!”

“I can’t keep ending relationships just because you don’t like them!”

“I never asked you to!” your voices were getting louder now, almost certain that if someone was passing by your open window, they’d be able to hear every word. “Never once did I ask you to break up with anyone or even hint at disliking them. You always did that on your own!”

“Because you’re my friend!” he shot back, his eyebrows furrowing and the crinkles by his eyes more prominent. Your back and forth was quicker now. Both of you speaking even faster.

“Then why did it change with her? Friends don’t treat friends as a last resort!”

“How did I treat you like a last resort? Because of a few missed calls and canceled plans? I was busy!”

“For seven months? No, you weren’t, Harry! You were a coward!”

“And you were jealous!”

“So what?” you snapped back. You could see the shock in Harry’s eyes, but you kept going, “So what if I was? It never made me treat you like dog shit on the bottom of my shoe! You ignore me for weeks at a time and when I finally get a response it’s because you’re crying about another fight you had with her and how neither of you trusts each other. Did I complain once? No. I listened. I never turned my back on you because that’s what a good friend does.”

“That’s what a good friend does? So now I’m not a food friend?” Harry scoffed, “I can’t read fucking minds, Y/N! How am I supposed to know you’re upset if you don’t tell me?”

“How am I supposed to tell you if you never answer my calls?!”

“I came back!” Harry yelled, “I’ve seen you almost every day for a month! You’ve had plenty of time!”

“Did I?” you sneered, “Harry, you were heartbroken about your breakup! What would you suppose I do? Tack on some more reasons for you to feel sorry for yourself? Cry about how you were mean and broke my heart? You didn’t need me getting after you! I recorded an idea for a song on my phone, and now you’re mad because I expressed my feelings in a song that you were never meant to hear?”

“You don’t get to decide what I can and can’t handle, Y/N!”

“You think you could have handled the added guilt?” you should back, bordering the edge of condescension, “I helped you write two albums worth of breakup songs about her, Harry! I sat here for hours a day every single day for weeks helping you write lyric after lyric explaining your love for a woman that hated me!” you were on the verge of tears now. “And here I am, the idiot helping you through it, only to find out you’re still talking to her!”

“I’m not talking to her! I called to ask if I could put something in a song!” Harry shot back, “And she didn’t hate you!”

“How can you not see it?” you breathed, wiping a tear from your cheek, “I have to watch a man I care so much about going through shitty relationship after shitty relationship. And I’m here, like always, waiting for you to wake up and see that you deserve better! You can’t even admit what you did because you’re too busy defending a girl that broke your heart!”

“I’m not defending her, Y/N! I’m sorry that I hurt you, but it’s not her fault! She didn’t hate you, she was just jealous and untrusting and she had every reason to feel that way!”

Heat rose to your face and your voice got more fierce, “I always treated her with respect! And I never gave her a reason to feel that way!”

“You didn’t, but I did!”

“What does that even mean?! Why would she hate me for something I didn’t even do? That doesn’t even make any sense, Harry! You avoided me for months and you’d argue if she found out you were talking to me, and you’re saying that it had nothing to do with me?”

“No. I mean, yes. Kind of,” he started to get flustered and began talking faster, “It was my decision, not hers. And I’m not defending her. I wanted to talk to you, Y/N, but I couldn’t!”

You were getting angrier. It felt like you were going around in circles with Harry and you were frustrated that he wouldn’t give a direct answer. “Why? You keep beating around the bush instead of just giving me a reason! What possible reason could you have for dropping a friend of ten years out of nowhere? I didn’t do anything! So, why?”

“Because I accidentally told her that I’m in love with you!” he blurted out.

His voice was loud and perturbed. But as soon as the words left his mouth he knew he might have just made a huge mistake. Harry never meant to tell you. He was perfectly happy with keeping this a secret for as long as it took to get over you.

You froze, sitting backward and raising your eyebrows, mouth ajar, “You what?”

“I didn’t mean to,” he spoke quickly, trying to justify himself, “We were drunk at your concert and, I don’t know, it just kind of came out and we started arguing. I didn’t even realize what I had said until the next morning when she was still angry.”

The memories of the night of your concert came flooding back. Images of their slowly fading happy faces turned to anger and fighting started to make sense. But what he was saying didn’t. He was in love with you? Surely he didn’t mean that. He showed no inclination of romantic feelings towards you. There had to be a misunderstanding. What he meant to say was ‘he loved you like a sister’.

When you didn’t speak, he continued to try and explain himself, hurriedly speaking again; something you hardly ever saw from him. Usually he was calm and cool, even when faced with uncomfortable situations.

“I tried to tell her I didn’t mean it and I had no clue why I said that, but she didn’t believe me. She kept saying ,‘I see the way you look at her’ and ‘Everyone knows it. I’m not stupid!’. So I just kept telling her she was crazy and started talking to you less and less to prove her wrong. But she never trusted me after that. And whenever she found out I was talking to you, it gave her more reason.”

“I-” you tried to speak, but he just kept talking, more unsettled now, “I kept trying to tell myself it was nothing. But when we broke up, the first person I thought of was you. I knew you were probably angry with me, but you helped me anyway. You were there for me like you always are. And I knew that Camille was right. It was always you. And honestly, I hated you for it.”

You recoiled, surprised as he started to get more agitated. He continued, “You were there since the start of it and you made me set this impossibly high standard for my relationships! That’s why they all failed miserably! That’s why they all hated you! Because they knew they couldn’t live up to you!”

“You’re blaming me for this?” you argued back, “I didn’t make you compare anyone to me! I didn’t even know because you were too chicken shit to say anything to me!”

“I couldn’t say anything to you! You were my best friend! I didn’t want to lose you! Those few months we didn’t talk were hell! I thought about you every day! Besides, what difference would it have made if I did tell you? You can’t honestly tell me you felt the same!”

“Stop assuming you know how I feel!”

“Well, am I wrong?!” he shot back, seething.

“Yes! You’re wrong!”

There was silence, the two of you just staring at each other, faces filled with frustration. His eyes flickered across your face, looking for some kind of sign as both of your chests rose and fell. His tongue grazed his lips, wetting them from all the yelling. And like the flash of light, both of you lunged forward at each other.

The mess of hands wildly roaming each other’s bodies and tangling in each other’s hair was dizzying. Hungrily, your tongues circled as if you were starved and the only salvation left was his breath entwined with yours. You both stood, only to be pushed backward on your desk, your keyboard slipping out from under you and crashing to the floor. You could feel your back press against your monitor as you eagerly fidgeted with the buttons on Harry’s shirt and before you could undo the last one, he had already managed to undo yours, pulling it down your arms and tossing it somewhere to the side.

Harry became impatient, finally pulling away from your lips and tanking open his shirt, making the last button pop off and roll underneath the desk. You for your first good look at each other; panting, out of breath. Half-naked, you could see every tattoo on his chest that you had always longed to kiss under the dim light of your flat and the veins in his arms bulged as he gripped onto the desk underneath your thighs. His eyes looked fierce and almost rabid as he looked you up and down. There was a moment of pause and thought. Slowly the two of you cracked a smile. And the smile turned into light laughter.

“I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do this,” Harry whispered, pressing his forehead against yours and weaving his fingers through your hair just behind your ears as the warmth of his palms lay flat against your cheek.

You smiled, closing your eyes and placing your hands over top of his, breathing in his scent as you softly spoke, “Probably just as long as I’ve waited for you to do it.” And you gently pressed your lips to his once more.

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@odetostep @mylittleangel9403 @thurhomish @fallingfordolans

[tmbgareok]

ok genuine question this time? what's your process like for knowing which songs to play live? i've seen you multiple times and it seems vague.

JF: ha! It might seem vague, but it is actually pretty much fully engineered (sometimes in reverse). Like a lot of puzzles-and putting on a show is often a puzzle-some of the decisions are for impact, some come out of necessity, and some are just our preference. 

What might make our show seem a little discombobulated compared to most, is to some small degree or larger, we change the song selection and sequence pretty much every night. So over the course of a tour, or even just returning to a town a second night, we will really be drawing from an entirely different set of songs. While this strategy keeps things fresh for us and keeps our crew scrambling, it also mixes everybody up a bit, and can generate huge train wrecks inadvertently-but hey-it’s just a show.

Go to 1:04 in this video...

The lucky thing is our songs are show and we play two sets, so we can check off a lot of boxes and not leave anyone disappointed (including ourselves) We typically play a good handful of audience favorites, because people really like that. We typically play the best of our current material because it keeps things fresh for us, and we include a wide rotation of lesser-known songs from our deeper catalog because not only does it surprise people who come back to shows to hear something so unexpected, it keeps us rehearsed on songs that might do for an album-themed show.

In general, the sets are broken into a series of segueing songs-like 3 or 4 or 5 songs running directly into each other (sometime many more). Again-because the songs are short, we don’t want to lean on the audience to have to applaud and then wait between every songs. The fellows in the band know by a series of slashes on the setlist that John or I aren’t going to talk between these songs so it creates a kind of musical momentum. I suspect the actual tempos usually increase over these mini-sets, but of course there are exceptions. We do look out to not run the peak energy songs that might get us huffing and puffin directly into quiet songs that require a ton of breath control to sing or you get that “festival vocal” vibe where one of us can’t really sing in full voice because we are too amped up. And finally, we often trade off lead vocal chores at least after a couple fo songs, just because otherwise it kind of becomes a slalom ride. Breaking things up regularly that way allows us to kind of personally regroup and focus up on how the show is flowing overall.

If we are working with a horn section or Curt on trumpet, I will usually put those songs in blocks so the horn players aren’t coming on and off the stage over and over. In a similar effort, I will try to put accordion songs together so John isn’t constantly taking the accordion on and off. 

A few years back we introduced a small format part of the show-nicknamed the Quiet Storm-where John and I play as an acoustic duo (ac. guitar and accordion) and are sometimes joined by Marty on the electronic drums and sometimes Curt on the trumpet. The break down of the electronic drums can be done in less than a minute, but the set up takes ten, and while their footprint isn’t huge, our stage is already often tight for space, and just working around those electronic drums for two hours to use them for ten minutes didn’t seem smart. So it was either opening the show with it (a low key opening but possibly effective if we were trying to create an intimate vibe) or using the set break as a time to set up the drums. So ultimately it was really out of a lack of a ton of options that the Quiet Storm ended up as the opening of our second set. If we had more crew or worked on bigger stages we could easily rethink it, but as I said before, many things in the show are out of necessity.

We almost always do multiple encores essentially because it telegraphs our gratitude. We could easily structure the show another way, play the exact same songs in the same sequence, and just declare “encores are bullshit” but to be candid the tradition of encores is something everyone from the front row to the back understands, and if a performer wants to try to reinvent that, I have a strong suspicion the effort would be widely misunderstood.

I miss doing our vaguely constructed shows. I hope someday we get to do them again!

[nutty1005]

Xiao Zhan: It’s Your Turn

Translator’s Note: This article comes from VogueMe Magazine 2020 Feb Issue.

Currently, the trend in the entertainment business is to get famous overnight, the statistics dictate everything – a drama, a variety show, a song… all of which could give birth to a super idol, fame, commercial value and opportunities that come along with it. In 2019, the drama “The Untamed”, adapted from an internet novel, became this window of opportunity. This is the story of a young man who received the opportunity. And like other idols created by their era, his fanbase grew immensely, radiating throughout the youth, his name etched in time. All of these simply points to this – it’s now Xiao Zhan’s turn.

1

The summer of 2015, Xiao Zhan had not yet realized that he was going to job switch from the design firm opened by his teacher. The teacher did not feel so as well – as Xiao Zhan left for the talent search variety show, he told him, “Go play, come back to work once you’ve been eliminated.”

The show was called “X-FIRE”, and positions itself as a large scaled youth talent development inspirational show. During broadcast, the description says “16 secretly trained youths painstakingly selected from a few thousand 16-24 year olds”. At that time, Xiao Zhan was 23 years old – nearing the upper age limit.

Xiao Zhan just wanted to “play around a bit”. He felt that he would be just touring for a round, and he would be back after a week. As the former class Cultural Committee Member in his university, Xiao Zhan loved singing, won quite a few inter-school cultural activities awards, but never trained in dance-singing. Xiao Zhan, who graduated in graphic design, learnt drawing since young, but never thought of becoming an artist, because “it is hard to survive as an artist, you still need to earn a living”. He was willing to lead a simple life and go to work everyday, with a direct and clear life plan – as a graphic designer, do his work well, then open his own firm.

The summer 4 years later, the name “Xiao Zhan” meant a lot of different things – a member of a pop group, the lead actor of one of the most popular drama, the owner of a Weibo account with more than 22million followers, or as what Chinese entertainment business puts it – a “top traffic”. The topics and imagery surrounding him includes – Xiao Zhan’s looks, Xiao Zhan’s design talent, Xiao Zhan’s professionalism, Xiao Zhan’s role as Wei Wuxian…

And like the other idols who broke out in this era, he has his own set of records – moderators of Bilibili (a video hosting site in China) nagged that his drama fans uploaded so much of his videos that they “almost see him 800 times a day”, Xiao Zhan was jokingly proclaimed as “The Man who caused the Bloodbath of Bilibili”; he became the cover person of a magazine, and the two mobile sales platform app broke down consecutively on the day of the sales; his popularity in 2020 only got higher – on 9 Jan, according to Tian Mao statistics (TN: Taobao eShopping Mall), the Portrait magazine, where he was the cover person, sold out 100,000 copies in 3 seconds, overall sales exceeding 13million Chinese yuan, a poster was spread all around the internet with the accompanying text “a fandom that brought paper media back from its grave” – this is the Xiao Zhan statistics.

But different from the breakout idols, Xiao Zhan did not encounter major controversies (TN: This was published early Feb), and his career did not seem to go through much fluctuations. He never thought that he would be at this point – “Sometimes you’re not ready, but life has already pushed you to ahead. What you can do is to quickly keep up with the pace.” He is now at the stage where any of his actions are “studied under a magnifying glass”, but he feels that his stress levels are not as high as his previous few years, “the past few years, I had the drive but nowhere to use that, now I know how to work hard.”

2

During the initial auditions, Xiao Zhan still continued to work as per normal, go onstage – sing – leave, which was quite fun. After the selection down to 32 persons, he did not think much of it, and left his work to go to Beijing to practice the dance for the variety show. After the selection down to 16 persons, he practiced everything – dancing, vocals and flexibility training.

He did not think much of what would happen later. The winter in Beijing was especially cold, after the show recording, it would be around 3am or 4am, and there would be fans waiting for him outside of the studio – Xiao Zhan felt quite sorry for them, “All are young girls, it’s so cold and so dark.” He felt surreal having fans. When the 16 of them went to Zhejiang TV “Running 2016” New Year Eve performance, he saw the stage and felt that it was especially big and he was especially happy, and kept making sure he remembered the moves so as not to make any mistakes. After the final battle, Xiao Zhan’s team lost, but he and a few of his teammates were rescued by fan votes.

In 2016, Xiao Zhan debuted as part of X-Nine. During the signing of the contract, Xiao Zhan finally realized that he was going to make a career switch. “When you look at it now, 23 year old is also still a child, but no one took me as a child then.” – Xiao Zhan was the oldest in the group, he made his own decision to sign the contract, he thought that if it did not work out, he could go back to work, there was no need for him to paint himself into a corner.

3½ years after his debut, Artist Xiao Zhan still had to explain to interviewers his obsession with going to work. That day, he had a pimple on the left side of his face, and the makeup artist was applying essences on his face. The makeup room was simply a curtained area in the basement of the Art Gallery, full of passing staff, the editor was discussing the shooting schedule with his manager, the stylist was here delivering clothes, and he sat there with his eyes closed, allowing others to apply whatever it is on his face.

Xiao Zhan’s eyes are long, and also wide, he is very fair and his side profile is graceful and beautiful. With his looks, one would imagine that his personality would be cooler, more introvert, with mild melancholy, like those prince-like male leads in romantic dramas. But his personality does not really match his looks – he is serious, disciplined, he does not talk much initially, but overall he is a relaxed person, and quite funny occasionally.

“A lot of art students do not want to go to work,” the interviewer said. Xiao Zhan learnt drawing since young, some of his happiest moments in his childhood would be to win drawing awards or to have his works praised by his teachers, other unimportant happy moments includes had a good lunch, went to an amusement park, or had a liking for a girl in high school.

“They never went through the society school of hard knocks,” Xiao Zhan said. He described himself as someone who went through “quite a fair bit of knocking”. Since young, his father thought him to be independent, taught him budgeting, and told him stories about Bill Gates’s children… “I wanted to say, god, you’re not Bill Gates.” Despite all these, Xiao Zhan stopped using his parents’ money ever since his university graduation.

Xiao Zhan not only learnt drawing, he also learnt violin, go and Chinese calligraphy… pushed him to study in “National Key” middle school, “National Key” high school (TN: National Key refers to the top range of schools in China). He was an obedient child, but as a standard art student, Xiao Zhan was better in humanity subjects, and his math was not good, hence all the while he had always been the mid-bottom of the pack, which worried his family of 3 quite a fair bit.

Studying graphic design in university, Xiao Zhan felt that his university life was quite comfortable – everyday before class he would adjust himself a bit, although in the end it seemed like it did not work well after all, but at least his results were decent. Xiao Zhan emphasized that he was “definitely not the school hottie”. He was a good student. After he had learnt what the teachers taught, he started a studio on the side. The design studio would take on poster and logo design work; the photography studio only have 3 persons, Xiao Zhan did the photo taking, the other 2 did lighting. Before graduation he went to intern in a design firm, hence it was easy for him to find a job. Within a year of working, his monthly salary was around 4,000 to 5,000 Chinese Yuan, which would quite alright for Chongqing at that point in time.

Being part of a boy group releasing albums, shooting web dramas. The way to do things right was quite different from his previous job – his characterization in the group is a warm guy, although Xiao Zhan did not like characterization, he seriously fulfilled his role, and he was obedient. When someone in the variety show suggested that he lose some weight, he replied “I’m quite thin already I still have to lose weight”. As a commoner, Xiao Zhan was 183cm and 150lbs, his mother would always say he was too thin, and he felt so himself as well. That person showed him the film, “the camera lens is a really scary thing, I literally looked like a ball”. It was not easy for Xiao Zhan to lose weight, so he did it brutally. He was so hungry that he dreamed that he was eating. Xiao Zhan is now 127lbs, but this was not his thinnest.

“How was it like after debut?” “Unoccupied.” (TN: Xiao Zhan used the Chinese phrase “picking at his feet” to describe the state of emptiness.) Xiao Zhan’s words were paced and gentle, most were caught unawares by the sudden switch to casual humor, he might not be laughing, after others laughed he would continue his conversation seriously.

After his debut, he felt that he was freer than the times when he was still an intern. But he did not allow himself to stay free, he took vocal and dancing lessons, making sure that he could do sing-dancing to the best of his abilities. But he was still a bit lost – when he was still a designer, his future was clear and straight, but after his debut he had no clue where his future led to.

3

“I could count the number of dramas I’ve acted in with my fingers,” Xiao Zhan said. After which, he started counting them – “Battle through the Heavens”, “The Wolf”, “Oh! My Emperor”, “The Untamed”, “Joy of Life”, “Jade Dynasty”, “The Oath of Love”… the earliest work “Super Star Academy” was not counted – It was shot with his boy group, he was still fat, and he had no clue what he was doing.

Acting was his own idea. When he started auditioning he had not even attended any performance classes, he saw the director, took a piece of paper that indicated the scene and lines, and just went for it. Xiao Zhan did not feel that it was awkward, it was something he wanted to do, so he would do so without any inhibitions, and grasp every opportunity to do so. Singing was something that he always liked, his first single after debut was a song voted by his fans. With the stage and his fans, with attention, he would always want to do it better. Acting was something totally foreign to him.

The first turning point was “The Wolf”. When auditioning, within 2 hours, Xiao Zhan had tried many roles – the bounty hunter who was threatening someone, the prince whose brother was about to be executed… Xiao Zhan won the role of the bounty hunter – the 4th character on the character roll, Ji Chong. During the pre-shoot training he was still acting in “Battle through the Heavens”, daytime he would be shooting, nighttime he would be having performance classes. He did not feel it was tough then, as long as he had time to sleep. “Work is something I am willing to do, I will only feel very motivated, tomorrow must be done better than today.” Xiao Zhan liked Wei Wuxian, felt that he was vivid. When acting, during the first month he would be second guessing himself everyday, is the portrayal accurate? Would the audience accept it? Xiao Zhan checked with the director everyday. After a month, he stopped asking, he felt that he was Wei Wuxian. Dramas adapted from web novels are rarely positively received, his hopes for Wei Wuxian was that “I hope people would not dislike the character because of my acting”.

The summer of 2019, the drama aired, and the real turning point arrived.

Billions of fans, frequent trending topics on Weibo, appearing on multiple magazine covers and even causing the sales platform app to crash…

He is one of the few artists in Weibo that sets his account as “only posts in the past 6 months are viewable”, but it did not affect his popularity. His interaction with his fans are witty, the statistics are more than enough to attract attention. Last year on the Chinese Valentine’s Day (TN: 7th of the 7th Lunar month), he posted a photo informing his fans that he had put on weight, his pants folded up, legs in the swimming pool. One of his fans replied, “Fine, good to know that your leg hairs are doing fine.” This reply was boosted to the top with 190,000 likes.

“After watching ‘The Untamed’ and ‘Joy of Life’ and then meeting you, I feel like you are very similar to your performance method, calm. You are like an AI, whatever you do you’re especially precise.” “You’re highly professional.” The interviewer concluded.

At the start of the conversation, Xiao Zhan just finished an exterior photo shoot, we were both seated, leaning forward and warming hands above the radiator. He said, “Artist is just a job, I don’t like artists to place themselves on a pedestal, just like today you are the reporter who is interviewing me, today I am someone being interviewed. Cooperation, is just so that we can complete our jobs, coming in for the photo shoot is my job today, every single staff is also executing this job, it’s just the role is different.” Because he went through the society “school of hard knocks”, he respected and understood the truth behind teamwork.

As someone who once had to face clients, he knew how it felt as someone at the receiving end of endless unreasonable requests, and therefore he did not want to be someone like that. His standards for work is consistent – high efficiency, good results, everyone is happy, no one has to serve another person. Also “once I am done I will knock off, after I knock off no one should come find me, let me be alone.”

“Everyone works to fulfill their needs, they have entertainment after they knock off, they have freedom and privacy. As a public figure, artist, the product is yourself, the works are also yourself. You have to output materials, contribute works, and then gain the opportunity to grow, for higher social status, value and better lifestyle. For some people, besides their career, they also included their dreams,” the interviewer said.

“The understanding is very thorough. You win some, you lose some, after becoming a public figure it meant that there are multiple pairs of eyes staring at you, anything you do would be judged. Whether it is positive or misguided. Truth and falsehoods, isn’t this circle just like this? Whether the rumors or the gossip is true or false, who knows?” Xiao Zhan said.

4

On 5 Jan 2020, Xiao Zhan was working in a sculpture garden in Shanghai Songjiang, shooting a series of photographs to be the cover of VogueMe. It was cold, the gallery’s doors were open, and the wind blew from the first floor to the basement. Everyone was wearing winter jackets.

In the morning, beside the metal sculpture on the first floor, Xiao Zhan and model Chen Yu faced the camera separately. As the shutters rolled, they did not exchange glances or touch each other. As the photographer requested the model to sit on the ground, Xiao Zhan said his only sentence to her, “Careful your head.” and used his hands to shield her head from the protruding portion of the sculpture.

That day’s Weibo opening advertisement was also Xiao Zhan. As per the photographer’s request, he tilted his head up slightly and gave a cold gaze, or side glancing a faraway place, but also at the same time, he was smiling sweetly on mobile phone screens, promoting a series of instant food products.

In the afternoon, the team went to the exterior, to a concrete sculpture beside the gallery entrance, where he and the model stood in front of, facing the camera. The arm was on the model’s shoulders, and the two of them looked at the camera – he was even thinner than the model. In yet another set, the staff erected a ladder to one of the rooftop grass patches on the gallery buildings. An ice cold rock slab was selected, which the assistant padded using a jacket, and tested the light levels. After which, it was Xiao Zhan’s turn. He was wearing a red jacket with blue shirt, wearing a baseball cap, lying on his side on the rock slab, supporting his head with his arm. In between shoots, the assisted would hand him a long wool top, with deep blue diamond checks, quite thin. The top was flipped over, he slipped his hands into the sleeves to protect the front of his body, his assistant handed over another water bottle that contained warm mineral water to warm his hands. Xiao Zhan basically did not speak, he placed the bottle on his neck to gain some warmth.

An artist’s job, the profession included losing weight, staying hungry, freezing and staying up overnight, wearing winter clothes in summer is the norm, not drinking water prior to any shoots to prevent water bloating on screen… people who do those well may become famous, if they look good or are lucky they may become even more famous. Now Xiao Zhan has an opportunity, and like his previous job, he chose to be down-to-earth and do it well.

In the evening, the green screens were setup in basement 2 of the gallery. 17:44, Xiao Zhan was in position, his manager reminded the stylist to take note of the clothes’ proportion – “The sweater is too long.” Hence, the sweater was folded up. After the camera assistant brought down the Apple machines, the cameraman adjusted his machines, and started shooting the video. Quite a few scenes were done in one take, in the middle there was a break, the manager and the camera crew were discussing camera positions. This was the 10th hour of the shoot, Xiao Zhan sat behind the table, laid his head on a prop gift box and waited quietly – we could not see if he was tired or not.

The shoot ended, and the sky was already dark. Xiao Zhan has not yet knocked off. The media had ended their work, the manager was darting around, arranging for Xiao Zhan to change out and get on his car, to rush to his rehearsal that night – they were already behind schedule. Both teams bid their farewell, Xiao Zhan warm and gentle, still unclear whether he was tired. After less than an hour’s journey, he would need to go onstage to sing, and thereafter, his work would be to complete the costume testing of 20 different sets of clothes.

The Initial Cold

The time set for the shoot was 9am, Xiao Zhan arrived at the rural set at 8.30am. His overnight flight arrived only the day before, meeting Xiao Zhan on the cold morning of a deep southern winter, his spirits looked great, his face having the same kindness as usual. The endless job schedules taught him how to conserve his energy – no casual conversation, not even to his staff; take every opportunity to eat or rest; absolutely no procrastination, ensure efficiency, do his best to accommodate and complete every job. He is a highly disciplined and professional artist.

In this shoot, the warm, gentle smiles have been replaced by cold, sharp glares, the metal and concrete sculptures gave him a few minutes of inner emotions and narrative, his scenes with the model was almost like he was acting in the set of “Last Year at Marienbad”. Xiao Zhan displayed emotions and charm very different from usual self – this is the power of an actor. The darker filters and monochrome imagery restored the caution that the youth of his age would have, it was the concealed feelings of a sunny boy. With such an idol, not only he can warm your hearts, there are still much to expect from him.

[demivampirew]

Keep Calm and Go to London chapter 44

Previous Chapters in the masterlist

Triggers: (fluff overload (?) ); crying (happy tears, though), talking about work related long distance relationship; talking about drug abuse and alcoholism and murder (related to a movie role); anxiety and talking about past break up.

Tag list: @mary-ann84​  @yespolkadotkitty​ @constip8merm8​ @iloveyouyen​  @wondersofdreaming​ @alyxkbrl​ @solariumss​  @sweetybuzz25​ @thethirstyarchive​ @agniavateira​   @honeyloverogers​ @hell1129-blog​   @lunedelorient​​  @michelle-1185​​  @madbaddic7ed​​     @summersong69​​ @kaatelyyynn​​ @henrythickcavill​ @wolvesandhoundshowltogether​ @desperate-and-broken​ @peakygroupie​  @ivvitm1109​  @the-soot-sprite @whyyoudothistomecavill @thevelvetseries @thetaoofzoe @thereisa8ella @darkbooksarwin​

Ticking tocking like a bomb Throws me back to when I had you closer Skin to skin we get it on Without the love I feel you going bolder You can promise castle, treasures, babies I don't care 'Cause right now you're just enough for me I want you near Like a fairytale to feel your breath right on my neck You remember what I love so baby take me back Turn down the lights down low and kiss me in the dark 'Cause when you're touching me baby I see sparks You make my heart go You You, you make my heart go You You, you make my heart go

To the rhythm of Hillary Duff's Sparks, you dance around the Airbnb as you cleaned the place. It was your free day from the set, so you decided to spent it the best way you could. Time truly flies in an incredible speed, at a moment you and Henry were kissing when the clock hit midnight and it was officially the new year and next you were back on London; he went back to The Witcher set and you soon got into another plane going to Washington when your next project was set to film.

Not only a month had passed since the last time you were together in the same place, but also Valentine's Day was around the corner. This was going to be your first celebration together as a couple, but unfortunately, you would have to settle for a zoom celebration. So you needed some cheerful music to lift your mood.

On the bright side, you finally got what you've always wanted since you started to act: be in a movie with Meryl Streep. She was beyond lovely and she was mentoring you a lot about acting and the film industry. You had a vast experience when it came to the music industry, but film was still quite new to you even if you have acquired a reputation there as well - all those big awards you got from your previous roles and a big fanbase was a powerful combination for success when it came to movies. As for music, you were a great musician with lots of fans but it wasn't that what made you a force to be reckoned with; it was the fact that the songs and albums you wrote and produced were all complete successes; you 'discover' some of the biggest selling artists and you made a lot of money for the rich bastards that control the industry which made you irreplaceable for them.

Another thing that you loved about this project, besides working with Meryl and the script that was quite interesting and gave you a lot of space to grow as an actor, was the fact that you got to work again with your friend Anne Hathaway.

She was a big part of your rise to success. She was your co-star on your first movie role that you seek even in you had no previous experience in acting, but thankfully the director saw something in you, especially good chemistry between the two of you since her character and yours were lovers caught in a toxic relationship due to your character's drug abuse and alcoholism which ended up with your character in jail for killing her lover. That role landed you your first big award which got you quite a prestige: your first role and you won an Oscar for it.

You were preparing lunch while dancing to Blackpink's DDU-DU DDU-DU when the doorbell rang. It was Anne who arrived to have lunch with you.

- Hi, babe! How are you?- you greeted her. Even if you were in the same movie, you did not share many scenes, so you mostly hang out outside the set. - Hi, sweetie! I'm great, you? I brought your favourite dessert! -she replied handing you a bag with pastries.

- Good. Thank you so much, you shouldn't have bothered!- you told her as you closed the door and walked to the living room.

Hanging out with her was as easy as breathing. When you're famous, more often than not you have to be careful with the things you shared about your life because you never knew who could be trusted to keep information private. It would often happen the someone, even if doing it unconsciously, they could share personal information that you did not want out there. With Anne, that wasn't an issue. She could be trusted and she was a loving friend who would listen and give great advice.

After a long conversation about work and her family, you shared with her that you were missing Henry more than you should. That in the past weeks you were experiencing a lot of anxiety because you feared that this time apart would Henry decide on ending things with you like he did a few months before, because he thought it was the best and because he couldn't handle the distance between you two and that was hard for you too. Anne shared her own struggles with being apart from her husband and her child for work. "It's never going to be easy to be apart, but it gets bearable with time," she told you, "if your love is pure, nothing will stand in the way of you two," she assured you.

Anne was one of the few friends who know about your struggle with coming with a decision about having children. What you liked about talking with her about that subject, was that she did not try to sugarcoat the struggles of being a mother. She opened her heart and talked freely about the issues she would have sometimes, but at the end of the day, her son meant the world to her.

During and after dinner you continue the chat, laughing as if you were two teenagers. Friendship is a powerful antidote for heartache and being homesick.

After she left, you picked up the phone and realized that you missed the chance to have your good night call with Henry, because of the time difference and the fact that he went earlier to bed because he needed to be up at 3 am for work. He had not called because when you didn't reply to his texts he realized that you still were busy hanging out with Anne. He promised that you would talk the next day, leaving you his wishes for you to have fun and assuring you that he loved you deeply. You sighed, sad to know that you would have to wait to talk to him and to be honest, anxious that he might have thoughts again that you should be apart because of the lack of time to be together.

You sat on the couch and opened your Instagram account to see what was going on with your friends. As soon as you opened the app, you saw that Henry had shared something on his stories. You clicked on the icon of his profile picture to see it: he shared four photos of you and every single picture was accompanied by the lyrics of a fragment of a song.

In the first photo, in which you were kissing his cheek and he was laughing because of the tingles, he chose the song Die A Happy Man by Thomas Rhett " You're a saint, you're a goddess, the cutest, the hottest, a masterpiece. It's too good to be true, nothing better than you. In my wildest dreams. And I know that I can't ever tell you enough. That all I need in this life is your crazy love. If I never get to see the Northern lights. Or if I never get to see the Eiffel Tower at night. Oh if all I got is your hand in my hand. Baby I could die a happy man yeah".

In the next one, he was the one kissing your cheek while your hand touched his face. The song he selected for this was She's Everything to Me by Bradley Presley "She's the voice I love to hear. Someday when I'm ninety. She's that wooden rocking chair. I want rocking right beside me. Every day that passes. I only love her more. Yeah, she's the one. That I'd lay down my own life for. And she's everything I ever wanted. And everything I need. She's everything to me. Yeah, she's everything to me. Everything I ever wanted. And everything I need. She's everything to me."

The third one was one of you hugging Kal and the chosen song was In Case You Didn't Know by Brett Young "In case you didn't know, Baby I'm crazy 'bout you. And I would be lying if I said, that I could live this life without you. Even though I don't tell you all the time. You had my heart a long, long time ago. In case you didn't know, you've got all of me, I belong to you. Yeah you're my everything".

The final photo was the one of your New Year's kiss, taken by his nephew Thomas - of course, as most teenage boys he reacted like it was too cheesy, but he took it in exchange of your promise that you'll reward him with an autograph of one of his favourite musicians, Slash, who you knew. The song he paired it with was You Make It Easy by Jason Aldean. "Yeah I'm down for life, you got me wrapped around your finger. And I like it just in case you can't tell. You make it easy. Lovin' up on you. Make it easy. With every little thing you do. You're my sunshine in the darkest days. My better half, my saving grace. You make me who I wanna be. You make it easy. Stealin' kisses undercover babe. I see forever when I see your face. And I swear God made you for me".

You were on tears and with a huge smile that made your face hurt. Anne was right, your love was pure and there was nothing it could destroy it, not even distance.

[rhubarbbaby]

Strawberries and Art 1

Jihoon x Y/N

Genre: College AU, Fluff Word Count: 2k Summary: Like every passionate art student, you spend most of your time immersed in your drawings and paintings. The day you meet Jihoon, your everyday life suddenly gets a lot more exciting…

All chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

Chapter 1

Changing the song that was currently playing on your phone, while at the same time trying very hard not to reduce your walking speed was definitely (much) harder than you thought. Twenty minutes ago you had still been asleep in your comfy bed while dreaming about... dreaming about what?

The memories of your dream had slipped away the second your alarm went off. The excessively shrill, piercing tone you had set for your alarm used to get you into a lot of fights with your brother when you were still living at home, because “What the fuck is that sound? Can´t you just use that weird guitar riff like any other fucking normal person?” Although you did always feel a tiny bit of pity for your brother and knew that he had a point (you would of course never admit that), you never changed the sound. You surely were not fond of it yourself but you needed something to pull you out of your sleep.

Even before you started attending university you were used to staying up late. Undeniably, staying up late was and will never be a healthy way to treat your body, you are very much aware of that. Your body wanting to sleep for seven maybe even eight hours was something you have always considered the cruelest inconvenience, the most ridiculous joke, the crudest rule the universe has set for you. Late at night was the time it was the easiest for you to pour all your thoughts, all the inspirations you had collected during the day into your drawings. How were you supposed to bend all your whirls of ideas into drawings if your body was basically screaming at you to finally go to bed? How presumptuous of your body to expect you to fulfill his basic needs.

But no matter how tired you were you nearly never managed to fall asleep before one in the morning which made you resort to the drastic measure of changing your alarm sound to said very shrill tone. After sometimes only four hours of sleep, your body was not willing to let you jump out of bed as simple as that.  One could say the fatigue almost holds you captive every morning until around nine am when you normally start to free yourself from the clutches of your own tired body.

Yesterday you unintentionally set the aforementioned alarm an hour too late which had led to you now having to rush to the lecture hall. Your art history class would be starting in three minutes and you needed at least another five to even get to the entrance door. Despite having had to open the music app on your phone just to select a completely different album until you could finally pick your desired song, you were sure you didn´t lose more than a few seconds. Now accompanied by an uplifting song (not too uplifting though because it was still only eight in the morning which was definitively too early for upbeat music) and the tapping of your shoes on the asphalt you were practically running to your destination.

The moment you finally reached the entrance door a wave of relieve swept over you. Your lecture had only started two minutes ago, which wasn´t too bad. You hurried down the hallway and slipped quickly through the door. Your eyes darted to the front to see if the professor had already started the class. Luckily for you she was still setting up the projector for her visual presentation.  While you tried to breathe calmly, which turned out to be quite a challenge after you had just crossed the entire campus in record time; you were looking for a free seat in the back. But this was an art history class. At eight in the morning. Nothing like an art history class before ten guarantees such an absurdly small amount of participating students. It was not difficult for you to find a free seat. (To be precise: you caught sight of more than twenty free seats.)

Seeing how many of your fellow students had deemed this class as “not worthy waking up for” you suddenly felt a bit insecure and ridiculous. You hated to miss class, even if it was art history. You knew that by simply listening to the professor you would already internalize some of the information. That meant you wouldn´t have to study as much at home anymore which meant you had more time for your drawings. Simple equation. Nevertheless you were feeling like the biggest nerd sitting in a half empty lecture hall with five other students.

Shaking your head slightly as if to get those unnecessary thoughts out of your brain you decided that it wouldn´t do you any good to continue thinking about your situation, so you simply took out your notebook and a pen to prepare yourself for the lecture. Four minutes after the professor had started speaking, your thoughts were already drifting off and your notebook got slowly filled with small doodles instead of the notes you were supposed to be taking.

Putting your things back into your bag you looked at your phone to check the time. It was 10 am. The professor´s voice long condemned to a pleasant background noise, you had spent the last two hours dozing and scribbling in your notebook. You hadn´t had breakfast and you were not hungry but you knew that giving your body some fuel in form of food would be the right thing to do right now. It was Friday and you knew your friend Jo did have morning classes just like you, so you decided to shoot her a message.

You: Hey wanna get breakfast?

You already felt your phone buzz after you left the lecture hall.

Jo: Sure! I´ll wait at the cafeteria.

Happy that you wouldn´t have to eat alone you grinned at your phone and started walking towards your friend. Entering the cafeteria you saw Jo waving while sitting at one of those big tables on the side. You shot her a smile and made your way over. With an overdramatic sigh you slumped down in the chair opposite of her.

“Was art history that bad?” she chuckled. “Honestly? I was just too tired to pay attention. I will never understand why classes that early even exist... It´s inhuman.” you retorted while shaking your head to emphasize your point. “Pretty sure some really sick sadistic psychopath invented morning classes.” She laughed but you knew she hated to get up early just as much as you. “Does Hansol not have class this morning?”

Hansol had been Jo´s boyfriend for a few months now. It´s definitely not that you are one of those girls who are obsessed with finding a boyfriend, haunted by the mission to find a pretty boy to post pretty Instagram pictures with, but Jo and Hansol´s relationship was kind of perfect, or so it seemed to the public eye and even though you (most certainly) were not one those girls, you couldn´t help but feel a bit jealous. Jo was one of your best friends and you were aware that their relationship wasn´t always ideal. They had smaller and sometimes bigger fights, like any other couple but they both were as happy as you had ever seen them and they supported each other unconditionally. When they got together you were scared you´d feel excluded when the three of you would hang out but Hansol turned out to be a total sweetheart (there really was no other way to describe him) who made sure you never felt left out.

“He does. He just was too lazy to get up today.” She shrugged. “You want pancakes? I´ll go get the food.” “Sure!” Fifteen minutes later both of you were not hungry anymore. “I didn´t even realize how hungry I was.” “I only ever realize how hungry I am when I start eating.” you agreed. “I totally forgot to ask you but did you already start drawing that portrait assignment?” “Don´t even remind me. I still have no idea who I´m going to draw. I don´t just want to draw some random celebrity. Everyone is going to do that and I really want it to be good.” “Yeah…but not everyone will be doing it as good as you. But like, have you thought about asking someone to model for you?” “Jo, are you indicating you want to be my muse?” you laughed with her tuning in right away. The mental image of her posing for you was more than just ridiculous. Just as she was about to answer, a boy interrupted the two of you. “You´re Hansol´s girlfriend right?” he asked her.

You had seen him passing you on the hallway before but until now he had never caught your eye. One look was enough for you to realize how pretty he actually was. Just like a mathematician who recognizes numbers everywhere with which they can explain mundane processes, just like a linguist who notices every subtlety of every single word and could distinguish the hidden delicate messages between each syllable, just like that you saw lines, strokes, patterns in the most varied and vivid colors that joined together in your imagination to form drawings and paintings in every place. You could be looking at any flower and the way the petals bent, the way the leaves curled around the stem would just make sense to you. That´s how you were looking at that boy´s face right now. His face seemed to consist out of tender drawn lines that intervened at the perfect spots. His eyes, his nose, his mouth that was slightly twisted upwards into a smile, everything just fit so wonderfully together you inevitably had to think about how amazing it would be to draw him.

“Yup, that´s me.” Jo´s voice had yanked you back out of your thoughts. “Me and Hansol have a class together. I forgot I still had one of his books and I think he needs it to study for that exam next week. Can I just leave it with you?”   He was holding out a book to her. “Sure! That´s really sweet of you, looking out for him like that.” With a comically exaggerated gesture he bowed before us. “The pleasure was all mine,” He grinned. “I´m Jihoon by the way.” “I´m Jo and this is Y/N.” Only now he turned his upper body and finally looked at you. You felt like a deer caught in the headlights. Maybe it was just your imagination, caused by the desire to be noticed by this undoubtedly (really fucking) attractive boy, but his gaze seemed to have remained on you for a tiny second too long for it to be considered normal.

“Delighted to meet you guys.” he stated with a childlike smile on his face which made his eyes disappear. “There´s this party tomorrow. Hansol said he´s coming. You two should come as well.” “We´ll think about it! Sounds like fun though.” Jo answered for the both of you. “Perfect! I should get going. I have class in a bit.” His gaze was turned back onto you. “You´re still going to eat that?” “Wha…What?” “That strawberry. You´re not going to eat that?” Only then you realized you had left a single strawberry on your plate. “No..you can have it.” You stuttered your reply, your eyes wide from embarrassment because you hadn´t immediately figured what he had meant. He picked up the strawberry and took a bite. “Thanks!” he grinned. And then he winked at you. Just like that. Without warning. Promptly you could feel your cheeks turn slightly red and you wanted nothing more than to hide your face in your hands but at the same time you could still not stop staring at his face. In that moment you would´ve sworn that wink was the cutest (but somehow also hottest) thing you had ever seen in your life. “See you at the party!” with that he turned away from you and made his way over to the exit.

Only now your cheeks slowly lost color and your breath seemed to slow down again. You looked at Jo. She looked at you. You didn´t have to say anything , she had already deciphered you. “So you think he´s hot?” she beamed. “So fucking hot.”

What you couldn´t have seen, of course, was the smile with which Jihoon had left the room. What else was he supposed to do when you were that damn cute?

Hi! It´s me, Jo. I´d like to thank you for reading my stuff! I really hope you enjoyed it. If you have any feedback, comments, requests, questions please let me know!