#the beatles are so trans coded | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

paperlovesadness · 1 year ago

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I'm sitting outside in the sun in wet jeans - following advice on how to stretch denim to better fit you - making breathing room for myself and my thighs who are hated by jean sizing everywhere - and I'm getting sappy about Tumblr and fangirling and this community of lovely, unapologetically excited people I've met here.

This is something not many will probably read (long posts can be tough, I get it) - it just kind of all spilled I guess? Incoherently but with passion. So why not set it free when it's already here.

You see - I can't help but credit Tumblr as this huge part of my inner child healing journey. And particularly the girlhood part of it all.

Subconsciously & even consciously I've felt so so ashamed of these "girly" sides of me all my life. Especially in their "prime time" of my tween and teen years. I'd love things secretly - or at most - talk about them only after loudly labelling them as "guilty pleasures" (quite a terrible concept) or acting like it's all done with a tinge of self-aware irony.

But being a hopeless romantic; loving your favorite characters with your whole being; squealing over your favorite music and the musicians who make it; talking about your favorite songs and lyrics and photos; drawing, editing, making fanart of things that make your heart sore; sharing your fantasies and dreams; crying about quotes and big ideas; writing stories - those are all such beautiful things.

I've immersed myself back in the worlds of blogging and fanfiction and musical fangirling and... In many ways I haven't felt this good since I was a kid - still untouched by society and it's shaming of the endless supply of passion I had in me towards the things I loved.

And fangirls are a force. Fangirls are what made the music industry what it is. They're who discovered the Beatles and Leonard Cohen and Frank Sinatra and David Bowie - amongst so many others - and when they did the hard work - only then was it all taken over and appropriated by men who claimed only they can "truly and objectively" appreciate it.

It's girls - bright, unapologetically excited, passionate girls who care for pretty things and things with a soul and things with a story, with romantic connotations - girls who love to curate aesthetically pleasing landscapes and spaces around themselves - it's those girls who contributed hugely to an actual analogue photography and vinyl pressing revival & re-popularization.

I'm in my late twenties. I've only recently let myself pierce my ears and start wearing makeup sometimes. And care openly about my appearance and fashion choices. It's very much still all queer coded and slightly gender-mixed. Because that's me. But caring about these things has always been categorized as a "girl thing" = therefore = shameful, shallow, not something to be proud of.

I'm continuously curing my incredibly hurtful and internally misogynistic complex of "not being like other girls". There are still biases and automatic-judgements I'm fighting on the daily. But it's become so much clearer and easier to do so.

Im more ways than one I want to be exactly like other girls. I want to grab the hands of all the fangirls around this site and dance with them in a circle and tell them they look great whatever they choose to look like and I want to sit down in a meadow and make flower crowns together and squeal over our favorite things.

And to be clear I'm not saying be girly. I'm saying embrace you inner girlhood.

And that could be so many things. Just... Never be ashamed of the parts of it that society deems shallow and embarrassing or worthless.

And just... Thank you for being girlies with me 💗

(girlies & girls as usual used as more of a state of my mind and being; not a strictly gendered term. This applies in all, most or many ways to queer people & of course non-binary and trans experiences).

#thoughts thrown into the tumblr void #kind of like an actual blog post #sorry if it's incoherent or maybe relies too heavily on stereotypes in some ways? I've tried to find better words #when we do inevitably function in such a categorized society - and I hope the divide weakens and ceases to exist entirely one day #in the meantime we still exist here - with these linguistic and actual imposed divides and sometimes we need to heal within them too #I'm making less and less sense aren't I #anyway - maybe this resonates with someone - maybe it doesn't. Maybe you read it - maybe you don't. I think I just needed to say it #this is maybe the best way I could. Eh - words can be such a trap fkr thoughts and inner workings -#but we still love them with their limited waya of helpings is express; don't we. It's the best we've got #/#my posts #thoughts #blog stuff #fangirls #&#girlhood

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kemetic-dreams · 4 years ago

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Possessed: Voodoo’s Origins and Influence from the Blues to Britney

Blissed-out, ecstatic union with our divine selves — we seek it at raves and rock concerts, and in the desert with the Burning Man. I try to get there when I’m jamming with my band — but I didn’t realize until I wrote The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu how much this longing relates to West African spirituality, and the Voodoo concept of possession.

Vodou (the proper Kreyol/Creole spelling of Voodoo) is a neo-African religion that evolved in the New World from the 6000-year-old West African religion Vodun. This was the religion of many slaves brought from West Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean.

Vodun was brutally repressed by slave-owners, yet its powerful beats, ethics and aesthetics endured. We owe our concepts of cool, soul and rock and roll to it.

The roots of rock are in a West African word for dance — rak. As Michael Ventura wrote in his important essay on rock music, “Hear that Long Snake Moan”:

The Voodoo rite of possession by the god became the standard of American performance in rock’n’roll. Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, James Brown, Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Jim Morrison, Johnny Rotten, Prince — they let themselves be possessed not by any god they could name but by the spirit they felt in the music. Their behavior in this possession was something Western society had never before tolerated.

Vodou possession is not the hokey demon-possession of zombie movies; it’s a state of union with the divine achieved through drumming, dancing and singing. It’s becoming “filled with the Holy Ghost” in the Pentecostal Christian tradition or attaining yogic bliss through the practice of kirtan, singing the names of God — Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.

In the Yoruba culture of West Africa, being able to connect with one’s inner divinity is called coolness (itutu). In Yoruba morality, generosity indicates coolness and is the highest quality a person can exhibit. In American culture, we say that nice person is cool, or that a musician “has got soul.” We notice “Southern hospitality.”

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade carried these ideas to the New World, particularly as slavers burrowed inward from Senegambia on the West African coast to the Kingdom of Dahomey, a Vodun stronghold.

Dahomey spread across much of today’s Togo, Benin and Nigeria and was heavily involved in the slave trade. Vodun practitioners were shipped overseas by the thousands when the Fon people of Benin conquered their neighbors, the Ewe, in 1729. Many Fon were also kidnapped and traded into slavery in exchange for textiles, weapons, brass pots, Venetian beads and other European goods.

Vodun is a Fon-Ewe word meaning God or Great Spirit. This supreme creator was represented as the giant snake Dan carrying the universe in its coils. Today, in Haiti and American Vodou strongholds like New Orleans, Dan is worshiped as Damballah, the Grand Zombie (the Bantu word nzambi means God). He’s John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling Kingsnake”.

Branching off from this almighty God-force are spirit-gods called loa. During Vodou ceremonies, a loa may descend the center post of the temple to possess or “ride” a worshiper who has reached a sufficiently high state of consciousness. The morality implicit in this is stated in the Haitian proverb, “Great gods cannot ride little horses.”

Vodun practices like drumming were definitely noticed by nervous colonists who had imported fierce warriors and tribal priests to work their farms. After a deadly rebellion in the South Carolina colony in 1739, the colonists realized slaves were using talking drums to organize resistance. The Slave Act of 1740 in South Carolina barred slaves from using “drums, horns, or other loud instruments.” Other colonies followed suit with legislation like the severe Black Codes of Georgia.

Soon, religious repression was in full swing. Slaves caught praying were brutally penalized, as this excerpt from Peter Randolph’s “Slave Cabin to the Pulpit” recounts:

In some places, if the slaves are caught praying to God, they are whipped more than if they had committed a great crime. Sometimes, when a slave, on being whipped, calls upon God, he is forbidden to do so, under threat of having his throat cut, or brains blown out.

Vodun practitioners taken as slaves to plantations in Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, and Jamaica were also prohibited from practicing their religion. But enslaved Vodun priests arriving in the Catholic West Indies quickly grasped similarities between their tradition of appealing to loa to intercede with God, and Catholics praying to saints for intercession. By superimposing Catholic saints over the loa, slaves created the hybrid religions Santeria (saint worship) in the Spanish Islands, Vodou in Haiti and Candomblé in Brazil.

On Aug. 22, 1791, Haitian slaves revolted on a signal from Vodou priests, who consulted their oracle to determine which military strategies would succeed. The revolutionaries defeated Napoleon Bonaparte’s army and declared independence Jan. 1, 1804, establishing Haiti as the world’s first black republic. Freaked by a successful slave revolt, the United States and Western Europe slapped economic sanctions on Haiti, turning the prosperous colony into an impoverished state that could no longer sell the products of its fields.

In 1809, Vodou arrived in the United States en masse when Haitian slave owners who had fled to Cuba with their slaves were expelled. Most relocated from Cuba to New Orleans, nearly doubling the city’s size in one year. Today, 15 percent of New Orleans practices Vodou, and it’s popular in other U.S. cities with African and Haitian communities.

Among the arriving Haitians was Marie Laveau. She became the leader of New Orleans Vodou practitioners in 1820 when she was elected the human representative of the Grand Zombie. (Former White House Social Secretary Desirée Rogers is descended from Marie Laveau.)

Laveau kept a python named Zombi, and danced with it on her shoulders while presiding over ceremonies. This image was appropriated, with other Vodou nods, for Britney Spears’s “I’m a Slave 4 U” performance at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards.

The sensationalistic 1884 book Haiti or the Black Republic by Sir Spencer St. John, slammed Vodou as an evil cult, with gruesome descriptions of human sacrifice and black magic — some of which had been extracted from Vodou priests via torture. It became a popular source for the Hollywood screenwriters who began churning out voodoo horror flicks in the 1930s.

The first musician to bring pop-Voodoo imagery to the stage was Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, who would rise from a coffin onstage with a bone in his nose. Hawkins had intended for his hit record “I Put A Spell On You” to be a soulful ballad. But once the producer “brought in ribs and chicken and got everybody drunk, we came out with this weird version,” Hawkins admitted, adding “I found out I could do more destroying a song and screaming it to death.” Hawkins kicked off the undead craze among rockers like Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson.

Meanwhile, despite the severe repression, Vodun practices crept into Southern black churches. Descriptions of black Baptist church services in the late 1800s and early 1900s depict the congregation dancing in a circle in a “rock” or “ring shout” as they follow the deacon, who bears a standard.

It was the deacon’s job to whip parishioners into a frenzy of fainting and speaking in tongues called “rocking the church.” The concept of a deity “riding” with a worshiper transferred to these Christian churches, where the cry “Drop down chariot and let me ride!” was often heard, as well as “Ride on!” and “Ride on, King Jesus!” This became the solidarity shout, “Right on!”

Blues singers fronting big bands, like Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushing, copied the way church solo singers belted over the choir. The radio beamed this new “shouting blues” all over black America. It was picked up by country blues singers like Muddy Waters and T-Bone Walker, who had moved to Chicago and used it with their new electrified bands. These, in turn, inspired rockers like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones

Africans brought here as slaves carried with them incredibly strong aesthetic, ethical and cultural values that not only withstood the shock of their forced transplantation to the New World, but transformed and invigorated it. Their influence made us uniquely American. It’s why we respond to that Voodoo beat.

#africans #african culture #vodun #vodu #kemetic dreams #jimi hendrix #blues #jazz music #jazz #yoruba #igbo #africanspirituality #africanamericans

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razanartuk · 3 years ago

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about me tag game thing

i was tagged by the wonderful @nothingunrealistic! thank you very much ily <3

under read more bc i was not capable of keeping my answers brief this time around

why did you choose your url?

this...was supposed to be a short explanation but it turned into quite a tale so strap in i guess because we are going on a ride. back in 2017 i was just getting into musical theatre rp and i was still feeling too shy to really talk to anyone ooc so i would just wait for people i wanted to interact with to post starter calls so i could just do things in character with them the easy way. So i did this with my friend cam, who posted a starter for me using a lyric from If I Could Tell Her. she linked the song so i could listen to it, so i did and i went ‘wait a minute, is that Ben Platt from Pitch Perfect?? (and other things too, but i only recognized his voice at the time bc of the acappella girl movies)’ and yes it certainly was.

i had zero idea what the plot of Dear Evan Hansen was about at that point, and for some reason based off Just That One Song and the poster art of who i assumed was Some Guy in a Polo Shirt i started to think it was about some jock guy who broke his arm and had an emo/goth friend who had either died or gone missing under mysterious circumstances. also i intuited that Evan had a crush on his friend’s sister but he couldn’t tell her that directly or his emo friend would kick his ass. so i was like mostly wrong, but a little bit right.

oh and i knew jared and alana were characters from the show bc cam said that they were i think?? but i had no idea what their role was. so after listening to if i could tell her, i listened to good for you and all i really got out of that was that evan the apparently not-jock guy had done...something... that really hurt jared and alana. and at that point i finally decided to go look up a plot synopsis and i found out i was waaay off base. but honestly this is why cast recordings should include scene dialogue in the songs bc otherwise you just get soundtracks like dear evan hansen where the songs have like. zero context. we really just go from waving through a window to for forever to sincerely me without like. any reason as to what is happening huh. It’s honestly not a surprise anymore that all those people on twitter had no idea the plot isn’t about gay teenagers.

anyways. cam was writing jared and she made a post at one point about wishing somebody would write alana and i was like ‘oh i could do that!’ (after i had actually Seen a bootleg and finally knew what the whole story was, of course) so i made a multimuse rp blog featuring alana beck, nabulungi hatimbi, chloe valentine and some other characters, and cam started sharing her headcanons with me that alana is trans, jared and alana were close friends when they were little kids but they sort of drifted apart as they got older and their priorities in life changed, jared was the first person alana came out to when she realized she’s trans, etc.

one night i started talking about wanting to pick a more theatre-relevant url for my blog and trans-[character name] urls were getting pretty popular, and at least 3 of the friends i made through rp had changed theirs to coordinating trans-[character name] and i think it was cam suggested i should make mine be trans-alana so i did. eventually i realized the unhyphenated version was available so i changed it to transalana with no hyphen and i have lived here ever since. sometimes i think about changing it but i feel like transalana has become a part of My Brand and i am not so great with coming up with cool names for things.

any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them

in theory, i have sideblogs... i don’t really use them, but of the ones i do have, there is:

emsbookblog - this was supposed to be where i would post excerpts of the book that i’m working on, but i think i did that maybe one time roughly 2 years ago and then promptly forgot about it/got nervous about my writing and was scared to share anything else. the rest of the stuff that is there is assorted writing tips. i don’t really know what to do with it now. i probably should post all my little thoughts about em and anita and caleb there instead of infodumping on my main from time to time, but if i do that then i have to promo a sideblog and direct people over to it which is always annoying to me when i could just do it on this blog which is much easier

dearnovelhansen - this is basically no longer used, but was a sideblog i made specifically to talk/complain about the novel adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen which was about 3 years ago?? maybe? i can’t be trusted to understand the passage of time. but to summarize: i thought it was an honor just to have the story be made more accessible since many of us couldn’t see the stage performance, but i hated a lot of the creative liberties that were taken. my main grumbles are that everyone who isn’t evan or connor is done so dirty in the novel. connor’s still kind of done dirty in the book, but not as much as like. heidi, alana, jared, and zoe are.

horseisle3 - this one was meant to be a place where i could just enthusiastically post screenshots from hi3, but instead it turned into a blog where i occasionally reblog other players’ hi3 content and bitch about how bad the game admins are bc hi3 is the tumblr famous (infamous?) homophobic horse game. the game where it was once okay to call your club store the gulag bc according to their head of hr, ‘it’s just a russian word for prison’ but you can’t say ‘im gay’ without somebody accusing you of corrupting young children who play the game. unfortunately there aren’t very many good interactive horse games out there, so this one is still about as good as it gets. it’s either that or star stable and i don’t care about star stable.

mlaenie - i’ve had this url saved for i don’t even know how long. way way way back in the day when i wanted to escape from the clutches of the onceler fandom i abandoned my first blog where i basically had an alter ego i guess?? and i decided to just be myself on the new blog. i don’t fully remember who came up with it, but one of my sister’s mutuals suggested that if you scrambled the letters in your name you could come up with aesthetic-looking urls. so lauren’s url became lrauen, and to match with her mine became mlaenie, which i abandoned on tumblr after about a year or so? but have continued to use as my main username on twitter, reddit, youtube, xbox, steam, and discord. i barely ever use any of these accounts aside from twitter, steam, and xbox, but yeah. so i’ve decided to try and turn this empty sideblog into a place for video game thoughts maybe. we’ll see how long it lasts this time around.

how long have you been on tumblr?

i made my first tumblr account in december of 2010, but i didn’t understand how to use it at all or how to customize my theme to look cool and unique so i quickly abandoned it. i made a new account in september of 2011 after some kids at school and my sister told me i should and i have been trapped here with varying degrees of activity/inactivity ever since. i have witnessed the rise and fall of the lorax/onceler fandom, hyperfocused on lord of the rings, star wars and back to the future all at the same time, and for the past 4 years i’ve mostly been a musical theatre blog with assorted other fandom stuff mixed in. i feel i have seen everything and nothing, but mostly i’m just tired and bored.

do you have a queue tag?

no bc i don’t use a queue. i’ve tried using it in the past but i irrationally feel pressured to sustain a coherent theme to queued posts and my brain simply does not vibe with that so i just don’t use it at all anymore. Instead i instantly reblog or post several unrelated thoughts in succession and then don’t post again at all for 3 days. the way god intended

why did you start your blog in the first place?

my very first blog was intended to be a place for me to post all of my petz 5 animals’ profile info, but i didn’t have any understanding of how coding worked at all and i don’t think i really wanted to learn, either. so it just sat there, unused. my second attempt at blogging was as a classic rock fandom person, so as you can probably imagine i was pretty pretentious about ‘modern pop’ vs the beatles, the rolling stones, the who, the monkees, and so on. and then i slowly devolved into a lorax fandom blog and everything went to shit so i made a new blog for lord of the rings/the hobbit which later evolved to include star wars and back to the future blogging. and then for the past 4 years i’ve been mainly a musical theatre blog with other random stuff i like thrown haphazardly into the pot. wonderful.

why did you choose your icon/pfp?

because my url is transalana and two of my most prominent lgbt headcanons are that alana beck is trans and a lesbian. i gotta be shouting out @kinqmike though bc she’s the one i adopted the trans alana beck headcanon from in the first place!

why did you choose your header?

in 2017 i was hyperfixating on Dear Evan Hansen (and Be More Chill, but there weren’t many gif-able videos then considering it ran for a month in New Jersey in 2015 and there was only one yet-to-resurface 35 minute bootleg) so i just grabbed a random gif off of google. i really should get to replacing it with a new header of my own though. i just don’t know what i should do for it.

what’s your post with the most notes?

i have lost track of how many notes it has (i think it’s somewhere around 200 now?) but when Will Roland and George Salazar performed Two Player Game on Good Morning America, i posted a screencap of their Jeremy and Michael along with that one quiz answer meme that says stuff like ‘i want to see it grow up healthy’. i didn’t tag it with any ship names or anything because i was anxious about having it show up in the tags, but somebody who reblogged it from me did tag it as boyf riends and i firmly believe it took off because of that. i don’t think i make posts that are relevant enough to amass thousands of notes, even by accident. which is probably a good thing bc if i did i would have to block so many of them.

how many followers do you have?

on this blog? 175 according to the counter. how many of those are still real people and how many are bots and abandoned accounts? i have no idea.

how many people do you follow?

i try to keep it somewhere around 200. i think i’m sitting at 180 right now but i kind of need to go through and clear out the really inactive blogs.

have you made a shitpost?

let’s think about this for a second. i’ve been on tumblr for nearly 10 years. you might even be able to say i’ve made more than one. they’re just not what you would call...popular shitposts.

how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ post?

that stuff makes me so incredibly anxious that i have to fight the urge to want to yeet my laptop or mobile device through the closest window whenever i read it, so i try very hard to avoid any sort of ‘if you don’t reblog this, i’m judging you’ posts. i find them very manipulative and not particularly helpful

do you like tag games?

yeah babey!! i just frequently forget to do them, but please know that if you have ever tagged me in a tag game i felt incredibly touched by the gesture and the @mention even if i completely forgot to do the thing afterward

do you like ask games?

i do! but also rip to literally anyone who has ever sent me an ask meme bc it takes me so long to answer them. i’m still working on a micro fic prompt from a few weeks ago. also, horrified to realized that it has in fact been a few weeks and not 3 days anymore.

which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i don’t know that any are tumblr famous as a whole. but probably @neverheardnothing

do you have a crush on a mutual?

in any sort of romantic connotation? no. not that i’m aware of. there are mutuals that i have friend crushes on where i want to be friends with them but i get so anxious when it comes to meeting new people that usually nothing ever comes of it. i’m really not good at small talk or other casual conversation either which, as you may or may not be able to imagine, sucks. i just wanna skip over all of the awkward introductions and ‘hey how are you, how is life, what are you doing with yourself?’ stuff. not because i don’t care about it. i do, but i think most of my friends/the people i want to be my friends are also depressed and anxious so asking these basic questions about life tends to uh. make us all nervous. and i don’t do much with my life so i always have the most boring answers anyways.

i’m not tagging anyone officially bc the @ thing has just completely given up on me at this point, but if you want to do it, go for it. and then say i tagged you so i can read it c:

#mel.rtf #abt me #tag games

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br4inm4tter · 2 years ago

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I'm bored so imma just write them instead of being asked them :))

Black and silver

Pepsi box blue

Yes very much so

Way too often

YE. Ss lol

A few moots from different blogs of mine

Yes

Funnel cake

Have I ever uhhhh... ummmmm yes

Drums

PUPYPY MONKEY BABEY!!!!

I don't know u well lol

Yes, especially clouds

I made fun of trans people and then realized I was trans

It was the office before they took it off :((

pretty rocks and MLP

A few yes :)) I love outlast and dbd

vampires

have i listened to slipknot? YES I LOVE THEM

I honestly cannot remember.. it wasn't really a crush more like infatuation though

HELL YEA I DO

tired bored jittery awkward and ditsy

womensn!!♡

Not sure but maybe

Films

you smell of dead flowers

Gum if that counts

Do I have a favorite color? Black and pastel pink :)

Yes

Neither lol

SHIT by bo Burnham

Secluded cottagecore life

English

oh so many

Yes I love them!!

"fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for!" -slipknot, surfacing

what's my favorite song? Custer by slipknot

I LOVE THE BEATLES- Eleanor Rigby

headphones

my autistic coded ass eating the same breakfast which consisted of a bowl or oatmeal 2 sausages w syrup every day at the same time with my dad for over five years before he'd take me to school in his old jeep while blasting SOAD and ACDC then carrying me on his shoulders to the bus stop

YES!! I collect bones, bottle caps, bottle tabs, r4zors, acorns, and more

vanilla Chai tea :)) (w creamer)

grandma's killer fruitcake

record stores!!!

not weird to me

vanilla, cookies, cotton candy, blueberries, strawberries, muffins, cherry medicine, gasoline, etc

is there any bodies in the attic? no but there's one behind the dumpster where I work at (/j)

weird asks because i’m bored

if you have a lighter, what color is it?

pepsi box blue or cheetos bag orange?

do you like pasta?

how often are you on tumblr?

are you only doing this because you’re bored?

what blogs do you mostly interact with?

can you swim?

have you had water today?

which do you prefer, cotton candy or funnel cake?

have you ever [insert question]?

bass or drums?

favorite tv commercial?

can we be friends?

do you admire the clouds and color of the sky?

what’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you?

a netflix series that’s your favorite?

an earliest obsession you remember?

do you play video games?

zombies or vampires?

have you listened to [insert musician/band]?

your first celebrity crush?

do you have a collection of cool rocks?

five words that describe you?

what have you learned about yourself?

can you tie a cherry stem with your tongue?

do you believe in aliens?

books or films?

an unusual song that’s your favorite?

the last thing you ate?

do you have a favorite [insert question]?

have you gotten bit by a dog?

do you write better with a pen or a pencil?

a song that gets stuck in your head?

when you hear “ peace ” what do you think of?

a school subject your good with?

how many alarms do you have set?

do you shop at thrift stores?

what’s the meaning behind your url?

is there wise words you live by?

what’s your favorite [insert question]?

you gotta have a favorite beatles song, what is it?

earphones or a speaker?

what do you remember from your childhood?

do you collect anything?

favorite tea?

a christmas song you secretly like?

book stores or record stores?

how weird were these questions?

what scents do you like?

is there [insert question]?

send me some!

#ask game #rambles

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loplainlointhemorning · 5 years ago

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can i get some gay classics recommendations?

I don’t particularly read like, LGBT books bc I kinda just read whatever I end up with, but I do watch tons of LGBT films so I’ll hit u with that.

1. My Own Private Idaho, a brilliant film, one of my favorites. The main character is a gay man(I intend to give u the specific orientations of the main characters in case u want some specific representation) and deals with themes of abuse, abandonment, mental illness, unrequited love, homelessness, etc.

2. Brokeback Mountain- The “gay cowboy movie”, the two main characters are gay men trying to uphold a relationship in(I believe?) 50’s rural America. broke my heart mountain

3. Pink Narcissus- One of those art films with no plot. I saw a terrible copy while half asleep & on meds and it still blew my mind with how beautiful it was. the main character is a cute twink and I kin him.

4. Velvet Goldmine- My favorite movie of all time, there really is no main character but all of them are LGBT. It has huge bisexual representation, it’s beautiful beautiful beautiful, it’s partially based on the lives of David Bowie, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop. Half the script is Oscar Wilde quotes.

5. Kill Your Darlings- A pretty innacurate but fun none the less movie about the beat poets(Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs) centering mainly on Ginsberg. Everybody is fucking gay. I love it.

6. Shortbus- Directed by John Cameron Mitchell and uh, filled with porn, I haven’t seen the whole thing but I respect it so much bc it’s campy and everyone’s homo and it’s a ride. Literally.

7. Liquid Sky- Canon bisexual characters, plays seriously with gender, will make u feel so valid as a genderqueer person, weird plot, GREAT clothes, I love Anne Carlisle.

8. The Runaways(2010), a biopic abt the all girl band The Runaways. Bc the characters are teens and it kinda deals w them dealing w repressed bisexuality I think it’s really important for teen girls to watch. It meant a lot to me.

9. Trainspotting/Trainspotting 2: Neither Of these r explicitly gay but Renton is coded bisexual and he & Sick Boy are practically married by the end of the 2nd one so. Really makes u wanna shave ur head.

10. Desert Hearts- Adorable lesbian movie abt two gays in the desert. Really sweet, really poignant, Cay is SO cute, and I loved the whole thing.

11. Women In Revolt- Two of the main characters are bi, Candy is straight.....? Maybe they’re all bi. I have no idea. Not v important. It’s an Andy Warhol movie & the three main characters r played by trans women(Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis), all three of whom have ended up being pretty major in LGBT history. Aside from that they’re just really cool girls, especially Candy, who’s my favorite of course. This movie is hilarious and fun and the ending is stellar and I think a very good representation of accidental brilliance.

12. Some Of My Best Friends Are...- Candy is in this one too and gives, no doubt, one of the most moving performances I’ve seen in any film ever. It’s centered around a gay club at New Years(I think? May be Christmas, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it) and it’s just. She’s the best part but all of it is fascinating. Major trigger warning for trans violence though.

13. Aimee and Jaguar- Absolutely fucking heartbreaking but one of the most compelling wlw films I’ve ever seen in my life. Takes place in Nazi Germany- A relationship between a Nazi sergeants wife and a Jewish woman. You can imagine how it ends.

14. Fried Green Tomatoes- I FUCKING LOVE THIS MOVIE AND THE BOOK IS EVEN BETTER. Bisexual/Lesbian relationship, not explicit in the film but explicit in the novel. However you can still tell they’re gay in the film so, not that bad. Takes place in 1920’s Alabama so there’s a lot of racial stuff to sit through obviously. I don’t know if you’re in the mood to deal with that, so.

15. The Color Purple- This movie messed me up for two whole days, I read the book and it didn’t affect me half as much. It’s beautiful. A lesbian relationship between two black women in the South in I believe the 1910’s, though the relationship isn’t even as important as what’s going on in the foreground. The ending is happy though and that’s a change. It just tears you up but it has the decency to fix itself, I only ever saw it once a year ago but I’m desperate to see it again.

16. Hedwig and the Angry Inch- this movie saved my life when I was 14 and has such a fascinating story regarding gender, it’s kind of short but it’s packed with JAMS(it’s a musical) and Hedwig Robinson is my real mom. I don’t wanna spoil anything but yeah, trans rock diva from Germany tells her tale, just watch it.

17. Wilde- Biographical film abt Oscar Wilde. Watch it. Inhale it.

18. Orlando- I read the book for this one too but I prefer the movie!! More cool nb gender shit!! I love it!! Watch it!! Tilda Swinton kisses some Russian chick and it’s wild!! Best thing ever. Roll with it.

19. Two Of Us- Ok so I know it’s not cool to like The Beatles rn but uh, if you do like them, this is a film about John Lennon and Paul McCartney that speculates on a visit between them after the Beatles broke up. It’s. So gay. Paul makes John cry by telling him he’s beautiful. John kisses him in an elevator as a “”””joke””””. I LOVED it when I was 14 and I recently rewatched it, very entertaining.

#aberdeen spoken word

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bottomshelfreviews · 5 years ago

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My Top 20 Albums of the 2010s

There was a lot of great music released this decade, so narrowing my list down to twenty was incredibly difficult. The albums listed here are ranked according to my enjoyment of them and the sentimental value I attach to them.

20. Batushka - Litourgiya (2015) | Label: Witching Hour Productions

Many have hailed Batushka as being one of the most interesting black metal acts to emerge in recent memory, and I’m inclined to agree. The Polish group reminds me of everything that drew me to black metal in the first place. Their 2015 debut, Litourgiya, is atmospheric, sinister, and overall sounds larger than life. The inclusion of Eastern Orthodox chants in their sound only further contributes to the sense of doom and gloom this record evokes.

19. Knuckle Puck - Copacetic (2015) | Label: Rise Records

If any of you were into or even vaguely aware of the pop punk scene in the early to mid-2010s, then I am sure you’ll recall what YouTuber Finn McKenty and others have affectionately dubbed the “sad boy era” of pop punk. This new crop of bands, who dominated the Vans Warped Tour lineups of the first half of the decade, had more in common with emo than they did the “goofier” pop punk bands of years past. Copacetic, in my opinion, was the perfect marker for the decisive end of this era. Although the time in my life during which I mainly listened to this genre of music is over, I still find myself revisiting this record over and over again.

18. Lingua Ignota - All Bitches Die (2017) | Label: Profound Lore Records

Lingua Ignota (the stage moniker of multi-instrumentalist Kristin Hayter) is truly a force to be reckoned with. Hayter’s music is punishing and heavy, and her stage performances are no different. Beyond the brutality, however, there is beauty, and an important message to behold. A survivor of domestic abuse herself, Hayter pens what she calls “survivor anthems,” using her music as a method through which to process her experiences. 2017’s All Bitches Die is a hurricane of rage, delivered through both beautifully-sung vocals and harsh growls from Hayter. Lingua Ignota is an artist to keep an eye on, and although she just released another full-length, 2019’s Caligula, I cannot wait to see what she does next.

17. Vein - Errorzone (2018) | Label: Closed Casket Activities

This spot very nearly went to the 2017 release, Forever, by hardcore heavyweights Code Orange. Although it is difficult to tack a genre onto Massachusetts band Vein, they have been welcomed into the hardcore scene with open arms, taking it by storm following the release of this breakout album. After attending the record release show for Errorzone at the Billerica Masonic Hall during the summer of 2018, I immediately became entirely and utterly obsessed with this album. If you are a fan of hardcore, metalcore, or nu metal, then this album has something for you, and all of these genres are mixed in a way that doesn’t come off as tacky. After seeing Vein for the second time this past summer as one of the opening acts for straight edge hardcore legends Have Heart at one of their Worcester reunion shows, I only became further convinced that Vein are hardcore’s next big thing.

16. BROCKHAMPTON - SATURATION trilogy (2017) | Label: Empire

Okay, so I’m technically cheating with this one, but it makes sense to me to consider all three SATURATION albums as one cohesive unit. Formed in Texas but now based in Los Angeles, hip-hop collective BROCKHAMPTON took everyone by surprise when they released three albums back-to-back spanning summer to winter 2017. Since then, BROCKHAMPTON have gone on to attain considerable success and popularity, but for me, nothing they do will truly match the “magic” of SATURATION. Doing nearly everything themselves, these young men are among the hardest-working musicians in the industry today. While I may be partial to certain albums in the trilogy over others (cough, cough, SATURATION III), each album is full of bangers and appears to be a hip-hop classic in the making.

15. Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun (2017) | Label: Sargent House

A seasoned musician by the time Hiss Spun dropped, the 2017 record was Chelsea Wolfe’s fifth full-length. While I love a majority of Wolfe’s discography, in my eyes, Hiss Spun is her crown jewel. This album is sludgy, gloomy, and heavy, but as always, Wolfe’s songwriting reflects her childhood roots of being raised listening to folk and country music. Wolfe has explained that the lyrical themes present on this album have to do with various health issues she has faced, and her writing’s focus on the body as a vessel can be downright unsettling at times, but in the best way possible. Hiss Spun is cathartic but uncomfortable, a space that Wolfe is more than content to dwell in.

14. Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues (2014) | Label: Total Treble Music

Punk band Against Me! were already a seasoned and established group by the time Transgender Dysphoria Blues was released, but, it was their first full-length outing since vocalist and guitarist Laura Jane Grace came out as a trans woman. The album’s lyrical focus on the struggles of gender dysphoria and not feeling like you belong in your own body is not only refreshing, but needed. Not only that, but it’s just a damn good record. Lead single “True Trans Soul Rebel” is anthemic while lyrically dealing with a challenging topic. Other tracks, like “Black Me Out” and “Unconditional Love,” are bonafide punk bangers that are all too tempting to jump around to. Transgender Dysphoria Blues is not only Against Me!’s most important record, but it also just may well be their best record.

13. Lorde - Pure Heroine (2013) | Label: Universal

In my opinion, Lorde is THE pop musician of the 2010s. Still a teenager when her debut album dropped and when lead single “Royals” was dominating the airwaves, Pure Heroine introduced Lorde as one of the most interesting new voices in popular music. Not only that, but its lyrical critiques of wealth and consumerism were a challenge to the pop status quo of the time. While I wasn’t too fond of “Royals” upon my first few listens to it on the radio, I became far more appreciative of Lorde when I listened to Pure Heroine in full for the first time. It has catchy hooks and a lot of the other usual hallmarks of pop music, but the memorability of the album established Lorde as a new kind of star and separated her from the rest of the pack. “Tennis Court” and “Glory and Gore” are still favorites of mine, and although I adore her sophomore release Melodrama, I’m still convinced Pure Heroine is Lorde at her best.

12. FKA Twigs - MAGDALENE (2019) | Label: Young Turks

British singer FKA Twigs had been quiet for a long time leading up to the release of 2019 full-length MAGDALENE. Prior to its release, her last project had been the 2015 EP M3LL155X. And oh boy, was the wait worth it. MAGDALENE is perhaps her most breathtaking work yet, everything sounding lush and ethereal. Taking inspiration for the title from the Biblical Mary Magdalene (there’s even a track on the album named for her), MAGDALENE explores emotion, womanhood, and the ways in which the two are intertwined. The lyrics to single “home with you” reflect the nurturing nature and caregiver status that women are typically expected to uphold: “I didn’t know that you were lonely / If you’d have just told me, I’d be home with you / I didn’t know that you were lonely / If you’d have just told me I’d be running down the hills to you.” Even the lyrics to radio-ready “holy terrain,” which features American rapper Future, reflect a desire to be wanted by a partner once “I’m yours to obtain.” MAGDALENE is a record that demands the listener’s attention from start to finish.

11. We Came Out Like Tigers - Agelessness and Lack (2012) | Label: Dogknights Productions

Out of the same UK town that produced The Beatles came “blackened skramz” outfit We Came Out Like Tigers. I discovered this group via Bandcamp, and they were my entryway into learning that there was an entire subgenre of bands that combined two of my favorite genres: black metal and screamo/skramz. Even with all of the wonderful music I subsequently dove into, We Came Out Like Tigers’ 2012 release Agelessness and Lack still stands out as a favorite of mine. The first track, “An Introduction,” includes folky guitar and spoken word lines before you’re thrust into the sonically complex “Sous Les Pavés La Plage.” The complexity is exactly what continues to make me revisit this album. The band is constantly switching between quiet and loud, and for a young band at the time, they had completely mastered when to make a song big and when to tone things down. Agelessness and Lack is both punishing and delicate. Sadly, We Came Out Like Tigers are no longer together, but this record will long outlive them.

10. Animal Flag - Void Ripper (2018) | Label: Triple Crown Records

I almost gave this spot to Animal Flag’s beloved 2016 record LP, however, Void Ripper was a record that I could not get out of my mind. On this record, the Massachusetts band covers genres varying from pop punk (“Candace”) to post-rock (“Fair”), and this variance pays off. Void Ripper may come off as a thematically dark record to many, but the hope present in it is palpable. The track “Stray” utilizes the metaphor of a stray dog to convey the message of feeling lost in life. Interestingly, religion and the doubting of one’s faith is a constant theme throughout the album. The track “Why” states, “No god above / There’s evil all around,” and “Fair” asks, “Do you feel close to God yet?” Questioning of faith is a common experience for those who were raised religious, only adding to the relatability of Animal Flag’s work. Sonically stunning and lyrically heart-wrenching, Void Ripper, to me, is Animal Flag’s magnum opus.

9. My Chemical Romance - Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (2010) | Label: Reprise Records

Anyone who knows me personally knows that My Chemical Romance are, and have been, my favorite band. Their 2010 release Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys was their last full-length prior to their infamous breakup in 2013. Danger Days is not my favorite My Chem album by any means, and it was polarizing for many long-time fans when it dropped. It marked a huge musical shift for the group and sounds more like a straight-up rock and roll album than anything else they’ve ever released. The concept for the album was based around a comic book series frontman Gerard Way was working on at the time, a series that would eventually begin to be released during the summer of 2013. Like anything My Chem had ever done, everything about Danger Days was meticulously thought through and on brand. Lead single “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)” is a slick rock and roll anthem, and tracks like “Bulletproof Heart” and “S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W” are personal favorites of mine. On this album, lead guitarist Ray Toro truly shines with some of the best musicianship he’s ever displayed during his time in the band. Danger Days is both glam and futuristic, a party at the end of the world.

8. SZA - Ctrl (2017) | Label: Top Dawg Entertainment

SZA’s Ctrl is one of those records that possesses the power to instantly transport me back to where I was when I first discovered it. It was the fall of my freshman year of college, I had just gone through a breakup, and I was unsure of what I was really doing in life. The R&B singer’s reflections on life, love, and feeling undesirable (the song “Supermodel” is a good example) had struck a chord with me, as they did with countless other listeners. The themes present on SZA’s debut album are melancholic, but it’s through this melancholy that SZA is able to convey relatability and hope to her fans. This relatability, to me, is especially present in the song “Prom,” in which SZA laments, “Am I doin’ enough? / Feel like I’m wastin’ time.” Ctrl is great, soulful stuff, just how all good R&B should be, and above all, it’s filled with earnest honesty. Undoubtedly, Ctrl is a record that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

7. Ghost - Opus Eponymous (2010) | Label: Rise Above

Many have pegged Swedish band Ghost as the breakout metal group of the decade, and I couldn’t agree more. Hard rock and metal publication Loudwire even named frontman Tobias Forge as their metal artist of the decade. Although their debut effort Opus Eponymous is not the record that propelled them into stardom, it effectively set the groundwork for the hallmarks of their sound present on subsequent albums. Part of Ghost’s appeal is, of course, their theatrics. Forge masquerades as a demonic anti-Pope in Papa Emeritus I, and the rest of the band is filled with masked “Nameless Ghouls.” Beyond their creative “devil church” concept, Ghost just makes damn good music. Forge is an astounding vocalist and has a real knack for crafting sticky melodies. I’ll never forget the first time I heard “Ritual,” with its catchy introductory riff (great opening riffs seem to be Ghost’s “thing” now: think “Square Hammer” or “Mummy Dust”). Although themes of Satan and the demonic are common in a lot of heavy music, this was the very first time fourteen year-old Kayla had heard anything remotely of the sort. The same goes for the equally-catchy “Stand By Him,” and their ode to blood countess Elizabeth Bathory, “Elizabeth.” Anyone who is aware of my current love for black metal will likely laugh at this, but upon first listen, I was horrified yet enthralled. Even after years of being a fan of this band, I can still say with confidence that Opus is full of the catchiest metal songs I’ve ever heard.

6. Lana Del Rey - Born to Die (2012) | Label: Interscope Records

Lana Del Rey, up until her critically acclaimed 2019 record Norman Fucking Rockwell!, has historically been met with mixed reactions. However, it’s her major-label debut Born to Die that made me fall in love with her. Del Rey set herself apart from the upper echelons of the pop world with her deep, sultry vocal register and love of old Hollywood glamour. Her music has a grand, lush, cinematic quality to it—think of the track “Ride,” taken from the extended Paradise edition of this record. It’s hard to say anything about Born to Die that hasn’t already been said, but like countless other records on this list, Del Rey’s debut possesses major sentimental value to me—I’ll never forget hearing “Video Games” for the first time. Some have critiqued Del Rey for her melodrama, but I believe this melancholy attitude is what makes Lana Del Rey, well, Lana Del Rey. Born to Die was a new kind of pop record, one that was dreary and marked by a self-aware sadness.

5. Turnover - Peripheral Vision (2015) | Label: Run for Cover Records

Turnover was, and still is, a band well-loved by kids who listened to pop punk and emo. When Turnover decided to reinvent themselves in favor of a more shoegaze, dream pop-infused sound for their second record, it paid off extremely well. Peripheral Vision effectively made Turnover the torchbearers of this sonic shift within the pop punk/emo scene, but in my opinion, no band or release since has come close to touching them. Not even Turnover themselves with their later releases. Peripheral Vision is dreamy and atmospheric, and at times, feels like a warm hug. Its melodies are infectious and stay with you, like in tracks such as “Humming” and “Take My Head.” This record reminds me of a warm spring day. Peripheral Vision opened a lot of minds, including my own, and was one of the catalysts that pushed my music taste beyond the pop punk I was so comfortable with. From here on out, Peripheral Vision is the record I’ll choose to play on a sunny day.

4. The Wonder Years - The Greatest Generation (2013) | Label: Hopeless Records

The Greatest Generation marked a shift in maturity for The Wonder Years. It is undoubtedly their masterpiece, dealing with issues varying from vocalist Dan “Soupy” Campbell’s mental health struggles to coming of age in the suburbs. In my eyes, The Greatest Generation is the defining record for this era of pop punk, and I believe its appeal and relatability allow for it to expand its reach far beyond the pop punk scene. “The Devil in My Bloodstream” is a heartbreaking take on dealing with depression, and “We Could Die Like This” provides a snapshot of monotonous suburban life, even including the brand of cigarettes Campbell’s grandmother smokes and the lyrics, “If I die, I wanna die in the suburbs.” The album ends triumphantly with the seven minute-long “I Just Want to Sell Out My Funeral.” With The Greatest Generation, The Wonder Years have achieved what I think is the defining coming-of-age record of the decade.

3. Balance and Composure - The Things We Think We’re Missing (2013) | Label: No Sleep Records

Do you remember that part of the decade when it seemed that every pop punk/emo band had taken some sort of influence from 90s grunge? With their second record, Balance and Composure put out the best album to come from that era of the scene. The Things We Think We’re Missing was a huge leap away from the band’s first effort, Separation. From the immediate nuclear blast of an opening track in “Parachutes” to the slower (but still raucous) closing track “Enemy,” Balance and Composure compiled a collection of tracks that was instantly memorable and iconic. Even more toned-down moments, like the acoustic track “Dirty Head,” are still laced with the same desperation and aggression. The guitar work on this thing is incredible, and frontman Jon Simmons’ vocal performance soars. I listen to this album probably about once a week, and I foresee it continuing to be in my rotation for a long time. Make no doubt about it, this record is filled with angst, but as I get older, I feel like The Things We Think We’re Missing grows alongside me.

2. Movements - Feel Something (2017) | Label: Fearless Records

I haven’t felt this way about a new band in a very, very long time. California’s Movements are such an incredibly special band and convey emotion in a way very much unlike most of their contemporaries. After an impressive first EP with Outgrown Things, I was hoping for Movements to continue to deliver with their debut full-length project. And, oh boy, did they deliver. Feel Something mixes elements of post-hardcore, emo, and spoken word in a refreshing manner, despite the fact that this type of genre-blending was certainly not invented by Movements. Frontman Patrick Miranda’s lyrics are pensive and thoughtful, and delivered in a manner that grounds the notion that he knows what he’s talking about. The lyrics to opening track “Full Circle” are delivered with an earnestness that only a person who’s experienced the lows of depression themselves could possibly be capable of. Miranda perfectly captures the monotony of going through the cycle of depression: “It comes in waves and I’m pulled below / It’s not subjective, it’s clinical / Drown myself in the undertow of all my imbalanced chemicals / And the cycle comes full circle.” Even the song “Deadly Dull,” which is centered around living with Alzheimer’s and having all of your memories be erased “every time you fall asleep,” gives the impression that Miranda has had first-hand experience with what he’s singing about. For such a young band, Movements have perfected the craft of emotive music in a manner that few others have.

1. The Hotelier - Home, Like NoPlace is There (2014) | Label: Tiny Engines

Not only is The Hotelier’s sophomore effort my favorite record of the decade, but it might also be one of my favorite records of all time. Massachusetts’ The Hotelier marked their place in the 2010s “emo revival,” but, to me, Home, Like NoPlace is There is more than just an emo record. It’s intensely personal and conveys grief like no other. It’s personal because of the simple fact that many people likely have a topic covered on this album that they can relate to, from losing a loved one, to struggling with your identity, to being in a toxic relationship. The most popular song on the record, “Your Deep Rest,” features vocalist and bassist Christian Holden lamenting over their friend’s suicide and wondering if they could have done more. Holden sings, “I called in sick from your funeral / The sight of your body made me feel uncomfortable.” “Housebroken” utilizes the metaphor of a dog relying on its owner to convey the message of feeling stuck in a toxic relationship. The album ends on a triumphant note with “Dendron,” and with it, you get a sense of closure, as if the emotional journey the album took you on is wrapped up neatly with a nice little bow. Despite this closure, this album stays with you for a long time, and listening to it requires your full attention. The Hotelier are a special band, and Home, Like NoPlace is There is one of those records that only comes around once in a lifetime.

Honorable Mentions:

- Citizen - Youth (2013)

- Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want (2018)

- Pianos Become the Teeth - The Lack Long After (2011)

- Behemoth - The Satanist (2014)

- Title Fight - Hyperview (2015)

- Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)

- Grimes - Art Angels (2015)

- Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me (2017)

#top lists #music reviews

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