#this has to be the most mainstream less original music ever

[tenrose]

Well then, it's more embarrassing than when I was into Superwholock 💀

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #68: 2017

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Ed Sheeran, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar, The Chainsmokers, Migos, The Chainsmokers, Sam Hunt, Imagine Dragons, Post Malone. End description]

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It's easier more than ever to see the effects of streaming on the pop charts. As electropop and club music become a distant memory, the pop music of the late 2010's works better with individual listening. As mentioned before, streaming works better for album listening, much more than the iTunes era which encouraged the purchasing of individual songs (which was great for singles artists, but not necessarily for albums). Some artists were able to hack this system. For example, Drake's Views (featured on the previous poll) was notable for having 20 songs on its tracklist -- which is a lot for a pop release. Unlike the iTunes era or even the CD era before, longer albums with shorter songs flourish more in the streaming landscape.

Streaming also helped to continue blurring the line between genres and audiences. Without going too much into it (because this is a topic I could ramble on about endlessly), genres were not handed down to us from Mount Olympus or something. Genre is a tool of marketing, and the lines drawn between them can have a variety of cultural, racial, economic, gender, religious, and other variables between them. These lines were more prominent in previous years before streaming made it easier to access just about every kind of music at once. This is when we start to see the rise of a concept known as the "monogenre". In order to cater to as wide an audience as possible, everything starts to sound like everything. A little rock, a little indie, a little trap, a little tropical house, a little festival EDM. There were also those who criticized the streaming era in how it promotes a more "passive" listening style, since playlists and algorithms could continue playing ad infinitum without the listener needing to seek out new music themselves. While I certainly see the evidence of that on the charts, I don't think this tells the complete story.

As a less cynical counter-argument, streaming has made it easier for listeners to find music that otherwise wouldn't have been marketed to them. I believe that this could be one of the factors behind reggaeton finding a growing audience among English speakers. Obviously reggaeton did not originate this year. The roots of the genre can be traced back to the 1980's in Panama where it would later grow an even larger audience in Puerto Rico. The genre would grow in popularity in the States as well, especially in the early 2000's. But if you weren't paying attention to Spanish language music (and you didn't grow up in the Southwest), it was easy for mainstream audiences to miss it. Reggaeton includes influences from dancehall and hip-hop, so it makes sense that the genre would find a mainstream English-speaking audience when those two genres were also shaping pop music. Because Despacito wasn't just big for a reggaeton song. It wasn't even big for a Latin pop song. Despacito led to Daddy Yankee becoming the sixth most listened-to artist on Spotify in 2017, and led to an influx of Latin and reggaeton artists who were able to cross over without English language remixes. Billboard magazine has an article here about the "Despacito Effect".

[turtlemagnum]

i think my first exposure to AI art might've been this video where somebody was testing out this new, weird thing where they automatically generate a song using AI, and i couldnt help but feel that it was an indictment of the modern music scene that a goddamn computer could effortlessly and accurately replicate the generic swill that passes for popular music nowadays. didnt have a vocalist synthesized yet but those have been becoming a thing too, or so i hear.

i saw a little article about how the newer generations of gamers are turning more and more to retro games. as somebody technically belonging to the "newer generations" this felt self evident, as frankly most of the gaming i do nowadays is almost invariably in an emulator. i think that to a certain extent, most of the best mainstream games that are going to be made already have been, at least for the forseeable future of major developers with games made scientifically perfect for milking you for the most money possible rather than as an art form. im sure it's all gonna collapse in on itself eventually, from what i hear some of the older folks who lived through more than i have we've been here before. hell, pretty much anybody who cares even a bit about gaming history knows first and foremost about the gaming crash of the early 80s, mostly spurred on by the temporal equivalent of modern cheap asset flip garbage that floods most stores these days. it's hard not to feel like we're about to see a massive crash yet again, with the ones inheriting the earth being the little fellas, and of course nintendo. which, makes sense, their earliest history is of weathering shit just like this, of course they'd know when to spot enshittification and stay clear of it. i'm in no way saying that nintendo is exempt of being a shitty corporation, but i will say that from a business standpoint they're one of the only ones i know of that actually seem to understand the idea of sustainability on a broad scale. hell of a lot better than the likes of activision, thats for damn sure. but back to what i was actually trying to get at before i adhd tangent'd, i think it makes a lot of sense that when the majority of the shit being put on the market is corporatist, design by comittee, prefab trash with aggressive monetization and a consistent attitude of fixing any problems in patches, it makes a hell of a lot of sense that we'd go back to our roots. NES mario is the same as its ever been, has been for over 30 years, and will be in another 30. you dont gotta worry about them patching it to make it actually function as advertised, or patching it from being something you enjoyed into something you hate, or having fomo marketing based microtransaction bullshit. the most that's gonna change is that every now and again, nintendo will make the only version they give not have flashing lights for epileptic folks, or patch out mike tyson because he sucks and replace him with a white guy, and the white guy's less hard but thats ok because it's still pretty hard, and either way it's a good game, fun, and you can still find the original on rom sites and also probably ebay if you dont have a vpn but do have a disposable income, so dont worry about it. getting sidetracked again, ANYWAYS-

what i wanted to get at is that i wonder if we're gonna see a similar resurgence in other old kinds of media just like, in general, for the mainstream. like why watch the 22nd reboot of ghost busters when the originals are right there. king crimson's still good, why dont you listen to them instead of bemoaning how your new favs are problematic, even though i dont think fripp can reclaim the fag slur (im gay, i can it's fine). i've recently been watching fist of the north star and original dragon ball, ilike the m. there are books. lots of those, actually,. you can read em! if you have the attention span. i honestly think we might be seeing more and more of this, now that im looking out for it. like i see just like, random people mention how much they like prog rock or 1930s dracula. relatively normals talk about how they like lemon demon these days. those stupid aestheticized classic anime accounts on twitter get sososo many likes. can you tell im sleep deprived writing this? i can, and im writing thjis. im writing this SO HARD. send poast.

[twistedtummies2]

Year of the Bat - Number 12

Welcome to Year of the Bat! In honor of Kevin Conroy, Arleen Sorkin, and Richard Moll, I’m counting down my Top 31 Favorite Episodes of “Batman: The Animated Series” throughout this January. TODAY’S EPISODE QUOTE: “Life used to be so placid! Won’t you PLEASE put down that acid?! And Say That We’re Sweethearts Again!” Number 12 is…Harlequinade.

Ladies and gents…let’s discuss Harley Quinn for a bit, shall we? I’ve been saving up the chance to really dive into Harley till now, because I felt it was important to wait till this episode for reasons I’ll go into. Almost without any argument or doubt, Harley Quinn is the single greatest and most lasting legacy that “Batman: The Animated Series” left behind. Of all the characters and concepts that the show fostered or expanded on, Harley is the one who truly broke the mold: an original character made for the series, she started off as sort of that one semi-obscure Batman Villain that only “real fans” who loved the TV show knew about…then started to make her way into more mainstream recognition, slowly at first, and then suddenly with explosive intensity. She’s now got her own TV show, a couple of movies with her as the main character, and more comics than you can shake a stick at, not to mention numerous other adaptations in other media. For me, however, the version from the DCAU will always be the truest and greatest version of her character: the first and still the best. Harley was originally voiced by Arleen Sorkin, and the character was partially inspired by her, as well. I say “partially” because Harley’s truest inspiration – and this is most obvious in her earliest appearances – were the henchgirls that frequently popped up in the 1960s Batman TV Series. (In fact, there are at least two specific henchgirls who I am convinced directly influenced Harley’s character, since both seem almost identical to her.) Over time, the character became more fleshed out and really blossomed into a major player in her own right. In my opinion, the episode that OFFICIALLY settled Harley as a mainstay was this one: “Harlequinade.”

The plot begins with the Joker stealing a nuclear bomb, of all things, and then going into hiding. Knowing time is of the essence, Batman and Robin decide to team up with the person they know is closest to the Joker’s cold, black heart: Harley Quinn. Harley agrees to help the Dynamic Duo out in finding the Joker and dealing with the bomb, in exchange for an early release from Arkham Asylum. What follows is a wild, chaotic ride of hijinks and shenanigans, as the trio bounce around Gotham trying to track down the Joker, complete with a random musical number…yes really.

This, I feel, is the episode that really put Harley on the map. Before this, yes, we knew she was a fun character, and she had a lot of great lines and moments, but she was always in another person’s shadow, whether it be the Joker, Poison Ivy, or even both. This, the Honorable Mention “Harley’s Holiday,” and one other episode I’ll get to later in the countdown really solidified her as a proper character in her own right. We learn more about Harley in this story, with little hints to her backstory and a better idea of her philosophy and motivations. We also get a greater idea of her beyond just being a villain, as she proves to be a surprisingly capable helper and even shows signs of right thinking. She’s not as far gone as the Joker is, she has things she values and cares about that make her more human and sympathetic. You can really see this episode as the start of where Harley would go in later/more recent years, with her becoming less of a villainess and more of an anti-hero: a wild card who can’t always be trusted, but makes for a surprisingly great ally in a tight pinch. It’s not by any means the darkest or most complex story, nor even the greatest look into Harley’s mind and personality we ever got…but it’s a LOT of fun, and one of the main stories that helped to make Harley who she is now, for better or for worse.

Tomorrow we move on to Number 11! Hint: “Why don’t you show them what an overdose can do, Daggett? Why don’t you tell them about ME?!”

[cinemacentral666]

Melancholia (2011)

Movie #1,113 • Ranking Lars von Trier #7

The second chapter of LVT's "Depression Trilogy" is another genre experiment and it's crazy that he's doing this so late into his storied career. This never gives off sci-fi notes in any traditional way (hard sci-fi, at least) and that's probably to be expected. But it nevertheless fits into that mold (in addition to being a disaster/doomsday prepper offshoot, as well). Told in two parts with an otherworldly fantasy-style introduction, Melancholia tells the story of an ill-fated wedding night where the looming destruction of the earth is only hinted at (we do, however, see this inevitability in said intro segment). But, this being von Trier, we didn't necessarily need to see the rogue planet colliding with earth to know how it was going to end. It could only end in one way: with a hopeless and fatal sadness. Or, in the eye's of the tragically, irreparably depressed person: perfectly.

The film is sprinkled with subtle details, character quirks I found to be uncommon for a von Trier film. These added to the sense that this production was aiming at something fundamentally different with its form, almost as if it was satirizing a mainstream movie of outwardly similar ilk. For example, Kirsten Dunst's nephew calls her Aunt Steelbreaker throughout the film. But this odd, superhero-sounding nickname's origin story is never explained. It's the perfect detail, just out of reach of our ability to fully understand it. It's the kind of juxtaposition LVT loves, asking far more questions than it answers.

On the heels of the divisive Antichrist, it's striking just how normal this movie is. In many ways, it feels like the biggest and most classic Film he's ever made. From its bombastic soundtrack prominently featuring the music of a Richard Wagner to its playful use of a wedding gone awry to set the action, it's as if von Trier is mocking the very notion of a Big Hollywood Movie while also utilizing its form to get across his ideas.

The idea for the film emerged while he was in treatment for the depression that has haunted him in recent years. A therapist told him a theory that depressives and melancholics act more calmly in violent situations, while “ordinary, happy" people are more apt to panic. Melancholics are ready for it. They already know everything is going to hell. ("The Only Redeeming Factor is the World Ending", The Danish Film Institute)

Whereas Antichrist tackled depression from the sick and depraved viewpoint of someone entangled in its web, Melancholia suggests an outside look: both how it affects the people around the ill person, and the simple notion that the infliction is so much bigger than they could ever truly comprehend and, ultimately, out of their control. In Antichrist, its mother nature that is inherently evil, the causation for humans' irrational and illogical behavior. But in Melancholia the root cause is less of the focus; why people are evil and/or destructive isn't the point. It's that they must pay the price for this behavior, one way or another. The destruction of the planet is secondary to what was already lost and not coming back.

Two children are killed in a flashback in both films: one at the very beginning (Antichrist) and one at the very end (Melancholia). The latter is the result of neglect and the former from a catastrophic, uncontrollable event. But it seems as if the cosmic force, the energy in both instances, is the same. Melancholia is the more successful movie, not because of its restraint in comparison, but because of the nuanced angle it takes. There is an acceptance here. It's just as, if not more bleak than the previous entry, but it doesn't necessarily come across that way. At one point Kirsten Dunst, suffering from an incurable depression, corrects herself: she says "the earth is evil" before landing on "life on earth is evil." The earth — functioning as it does as a conceptual notion of human consciousness — can never be good or evil. It has a built-in expiration date even if that notion is impossible to grapple with for the 'normal' human mind. What Melancholia seems to propose is that the depressed CAN unpack that idea. And it's perhaps the only reason she's able to find peace at the end of the world.

SCORE: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ll be counting down all of Lars Von Trier’s movies right here at @cinemacentral666 every Thursday through September 2023

[whileiamdying]

One Night In New York

When Ike and Tina Turner came storming into Manhattan in 1971 [April 1st, 1971], they were red hot. "Proud Mary," the biggest hit of their career, was burning up the charts; in the aftermath of their late Sixties tour with the Rolling Stones, they had graduated from the chitlin circuit to glamorous big-money venues. Crossing over to the American mainstream. they were discovering wildly diverse audiences - hippies at rock festivals, high rollers in Vegas, highbrows in New York City. Their new-fangled form of rhythm and blues, rooted in Ike's Delta blues and filtered through the psychedelic funk celebrated by Sly and the Family Stone, had, at long last, hit its stride.

Their Carnegie Hall performance caught the excitement. Five years earlier, they'd been scuffling. Five years later, they'd be splitting up. But here in the early Seventies, despite or perhaps because of a boiling tension, the duo was on fire. The Carnegie concert really wasn't a concert at all, but simply the Ike and Tina Revue, unadulterated and unshackled, down and dirty, and thank God, unfazed by the sophisticated surroundings.

In retrospect, it's tempting to read the repertoire as autobiography.

When Tina sings as a wronged woman, especially on her brilliant rendition of the ominous 12-bar blues, "I Smell Trouble," I believe every word. I also believe that Tina, along with Etta James and Aretha Franklin, forms a holy trinity of female soul singers. Ike's role as orchestral architect is no less brilliant. In the annals of soul music, he ranks high among its most influential leaders. As an inventor of the tight-and-right small band sound, Turner molded the minds of B.B. King, Ray Charles and James Brown, to name but three. On "I Smell Trouble," his guitar provides the perfect comic counterpoint to Tina's lament. I also love the way he sings around her on Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long." Whatever happened off stage, their on-stage rapport was magical.

"If people just listen to the music," Ike recently told me, "they'll hear that me and Tina were on the same wavelength. We listened to each other. We worked off each other. For years we were in sync. I listen to this concert now and remember how we spoke a musical language like a secret language that's salty and sweet."

That language is evident in "Proud Mary," a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's original version a top-five smash in 1969-that rose to #4 on the pop charts. The concert version contains Tina's famous locution: "We never ever do nothing nice and easy," she explains. "We always do it nice and rough."

"Tina," says Ike, "had a way with words. I'd encourage her to say whatever she liked before singing. That kept the crowd on the edge of their seats. She was rapping before rap was called rap. Tina was a cool talker. She could work the crowd. real nice.. and rough."

There's much to savor here: the rough-and-tumble re-reading of Jessie Hill's infectious "Ooh Poo Pah Doo"; Tina's heartbreaking interpretation of "A Love Like Yours," whose country flavor gives us a feel for her Tennessee childhood; the raucous "Honky Tonk Woman," which takes the song to a level of theatricality unknown to the Stones; Tina's Tina-ization of Sly' spirited "I Want to Take You Higher" and Aretha's riveting "Respect."

"Tina's got her own sound," says Ike. "Maybe I helped bring it out, but it was there from the get-go."

Tina also has her own intensity, the quality that sets her apart. Her unrelenting focus is both thrilling and frightening; her stage persona incorporates high drama and smoldering sexuality in a manner that leaves audience weak and wanting more.

The tale of Ike and Tina has taken on mythic proportions. Like Adam and Eve, they are folk legends and archetypes of ruined romance. Tina has written her book. One day I hope Ike will tell the story from his point of view. The man-woman issues surrounding power and the abuse of power excite our anger and fears. The fact that those emotions are so evident in the music made at Carnegie Hall some quarter-century ago speaks to the expressive genius of both artists. And the further fact that the music still sounds fresh and vibrant still explodes with the force of nature is another validation of the timelessness of vital rhythm and blues.

— By David Ritz

David Ritz's latest collaboration is BLUES ALL AROUND ME, the autobiography of B. B. King. He's also written books on Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Etta James, Smokey Robinson and Jerry Wexler - plus the lyrics to "Sexual Healing."

[brotendo5]

A review of Lil Yachty’s “Let’s Start here”

After multiple years of obscurity and his latest flop of “Poland” which shouldn’t have ever been released, Lil Yachty has managed to defy expectations and shine through in his latest album. Moving from rap and hip hop to rock with jazz influences was a bold move however I see it as an essential move for him to be launched back into the mainstream. Lil Yachty isn’t afraid to wear his Pink Floyd influences on his sleeve which shines through most of the album, especially in the opening track. while at times this blatant influence elevates the music it feels at low points that this influence is overwhelming and just feels like listening to Pink Floyd. The album can be split up into three parts the rise, the fall, and the ascension. The first part of the album lays heavily into the psychedelic rock genre, and this is the part that takes the most inspiration from Pink Floyd. The album opens with the track the BLACK Seminole which is a powerful and great first track that really sucker punches you when you go into the album expecting more of what he has previously released. The synths combine cleanly with the autotuned vocals which in turn contrast beautifully with the guitar and percussion. Running out of time is the next notable song on the album which sounds less like psychedelic rock and leans more into the R&B aspect of the album. The bass on this track sounds like something from a Steve Lacey track which works surprisingly well in the context of the album. In the song WE SAW THE SUN, I first realized that the album was about Lil Yachty’s career, WE SAW THE SUN is a song that is about what he sees as the peak of his career and when he felt most in tune with his music, and this track reflects that well this track feels truly original and not like he’s trying to be someone else which boosts the track. The tracks from drive ME crazy to sAy sOMETHINg are what I would call the fall of the album which discusses Yachty’s fall out from mainstream music and his drug addiction at the time. IVE OFFICIALLY LOST VISION is easily the best track out of this section of the album, the psychedelic rock pairs perfectly with the topic at hand and the synth once again is used beautifully. Finally, the last part of the album, or what I called the ascension reflects Lil Yachty’s attempt to come back into the music scene, ironically this is the weakest part of the album. The tracks sHouLd i B and The Alchemist lean far too much into pop and R&B which makes both tracks feel like they don’t belong in the album luckily REACH THE SUN is a beautiful conclusion to an already great album. Overall, I would rate “Let’s Start here” an 8.4/10. Despite being a beautiful album and a great listen, it still has some low points such as sHouLd i B and The Alchemist. It also has some songs that sound a bit too much like their inspiration which subtracts from the originality of the album, however the production and overall album works incredibly well the synths were tastefully done and the vocals were all done well.

[dustedmagazine]

Jonathan Shaw: Another Year of Pissed-off, Wholly-grossed-out (and Sometimes Political) Music

Adios, 2022, and good riddance. There were a few bright moments: this past fall, Lula unseated Bolsonaro in Brazil, an excellent development, but the margin of victory was very, very slim. On the other side of the globe, Putin raised the bullshit spectre of national socialism to justify his adventurism in Ukraine, and Italy elected a straight-up fascist. In the States, a number of elections associated with the federal midterms tipped to liberal institutionalists: Mark Kelly for the junior Senator’s seat from Arizona; Josh Shapiro for the Governor of Pennsylvania; Maggie Hassan for the junior Senator’s seat from New Hampshire; and so on. In all cases, those folks were the less awful choices, contrasting with the whack Christian nationalists and white supremacists being run by the Republican Party. But there’s little reason for leftist partisans to celebrate. The liberals nodded earnestly and voted “Yea” when the Biden Administration moved to deny rail workers their right to strike — for sick leave, we might note, in the middle of a triple-demic. Meanwhile, preening, cynical opportunists Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz attempt to sell themselves as friends of the American working class. The mind reels. And Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green? They won their elections and are heading back to Congress to do what they do best: fomenting ethno-religious fanaticism (is that you, Q?) and fundraising, packing open-carry pistols all the while. The paranoid style in American politics has gone mainstream.

So, what’s an old punk to do? Fuck knows, but I’ll keep listening to angry records. It was a good year for punk music. Releases from Lexicon, Mastermind, Klonns and dozens of other bands demonstrate that punks not dead yet (and yes, I know there should be an apostrophe back there — but credit where moronic credit is due: the Exploited insisted that “Punks not Dead” back in 1981, sans apostrophe, and I stick with the verities). A bunch of other even noisier, heavier and smarter punk records came out this year, some of which are featured in the list below. 

Meanwhile metal, in its manifold and multi-hybrid forms, also responded to the infuriating times we are living through with some supremely intense and intelligent music. Heavy metal and “intelligent” can make for an ambivalent combination, but several of the records listed below are as cogent and intellectually ambitious as they are sonically punishing. Still, the most satisfying metal record I played this year (over and over again) was a slab of ill-intended stupidity called Determined to Rot, from cave-man death metal outfit Mutilatred. Ohio has gone full-on reactionary in its political climate; no wonder music this recalcitrant and ugly originated in Toledo. 

I won’t pronounce Determined to Rot the “record of the year” or “the year’s best,” because I don’t think 2022 was capable of producing positive superlatives. (And as ever, I make no claims for the objective “greatness” of any of these records. Y’all should learn from my mistakes.) Rather, Mutilatred’s music is furiously effective in direct proportion to the willfully ignorant abuse with which it assails the world. Maybe it’s not “good” or “pleasing,” but it’s the record that will always signify 2022 to me. I include nine additional records that I played very, very often this year in the list below, organized alphabetically.

Bad Breeding — Human Capital (Iron Lung)

Human Capital (LUNGS-227) by BAD BREEDING

Sharp, politically engaged English punk, churning in the wake of Crass and Subhumans: poetically enraged lyrics and melodically complicated songs. If I were in a more hopeful mood, I would put this forward as the year’s standout record. The guys in Bad Breeding are smart and passionate enough to convince me that it’s possible to see a future for the lifeworld. The only problem is that the record eventually ends…

 Black Fucking Cancer — Procreate Inverse (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)  

Procreate Inverse by BLACK FUCKING CANCER

 …so I play this one. Black Fucking Cancer hates you, but don’t take it personally—the band hates everyone. Procreate Inverse is the most excoriating and merciless black metal record of the year. Ouch. 

 Class — S/T (Feel It)

Class by CLASS

If any release made me feel something like happiness in 2022, this debut cassette from Class was it. Likely that’s partly due to the time-capsule vibe of these songs, which evoke the early 1970s, when punk rawk, glam and power pop were inextricably up in one another’s business. Check out “Oh! the Nerve,” which is an intoxicating (and likely intoxicated) good time.

 Cloud Rat — Threshold (Artoffact)

Threshold by Cloud Rat

The self-described grind-punks have done it again, releasing a collection of terrific songs that synthesize hardcore, various sorts of metal, electronic noise and grind’s whirlwind. Song for song, this may be Cloud Rat’s most accomplished record—but it moves with such quicksilver and livid intensity that it’s hard to establish effective critical distance. Drop the needle and you’re in it, a maelstrom of musical and emotional ferocity.

 Mizmor & Thou — Myopia (Gilead Media)

Myopia by Mizmor & Thou

 A massive collaboration between blackened doom project Mizmor and Thou, the brilliant sludge band that has made some of the most compelling music of the last ten or so years. Like Thou’s collaborations with Emma Ruth Rundle, Myopia finds the musicians responding to one another’s forceful presences, creating something greater than the sum of its parts. Grim and grand.

 Mutilatred — Determined to Rot (Redefining Darkness)

Determined to Rot by Mutilatred

Not riff worship so much as weaponized riffage. The song titles say it better than I can: “Everyone’s Doing Shitty.” “Smashed by a Slab of Concrete.” “Waste of the Mind.” “Eroded Brain.” “Fuck Everyone.” Fuck you, too, dudes. More, please.

 Persona — Free Your Mind (Iron Lung)

Free Your Mind! by PERSONⒶ

Bugged-out hardcore punk from pissed-off queers—few records hit this hard, sound this desperate and still manage to lift spirits. “Race to the Bottom” might be, second-for-second, the most exciting two minutes of heavy music released this year. Hugely satisfying to fling your body around in time with vocalist Rebecca’s fulminating, or at least try to. 

 Rigorous Institution — Cainsmarsh (Black Water/Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Cainsmarsh by RIGOROUS INSTITUTION

Grotty punks from Portland making blackened crust? A lot could go wrong with that, but almost nothing does on this record, from folks with names like Savonarola, Shite and The Imp. I rarely say this when talking about heavy music but: Check out those synths.

 Scarcity — Aveilut (The Flenser) 

Aveilut by Scarcity

High-minded musicians making a black metal record about grief and mourning? Once again: so much could go wrong with that, but almost nothing does on Aveilut. It’s a black metal record to which the phrase “avant-garde” can be applied without any wincing.

 SkyThala — Boreal Despair (I, Voidhanger) 

Boreal Despair by SkyThala

Black metal and Igor Stravinsky’s neoclassical rigors turn out to be fecund sonic partners, at least in the hands of Ryan Clackner and the other, unidentified musicians that wrote and recorded this strange and exciting music. It’s exactly the sort of release one associates with I, Voidhanger: ambitious, unexpected and blackened to its core. Some swinging bassoons, too.  

Special shoutouts: To Sentient Ruin Laboratories — who always kill it, but who had an especially strong year’s worth of releases (a couple named above, Cryptae, the Lousy, Hold Me Down, Ceremonial Bloodbath and more). And to Lingua Ignota, who dropped an absolute stunner of a live show on Philly in December; the covers of “Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet” and “Jolene” curled hairs and toes, and “Man Is Like a Spring Flower” left me speechless.  

We still need to say it: Down with fascism. Smash all nationalisms. Turn this shit up.

 Jonathan Shaw

[therecordconnection]

Ranting and Raving: "Million Dollar Baby" by Tommy Richman

The top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart is a fascinating place. Most times, it’s filled with songs you’ve heard while out in the world or songs that you’ve seen your friends share on Instagram stories. Other times, you see something sneak in there that you’re completely unfamiliar with. You ask, “How did you get in there?” That’s how I became exposed to Tommy Richman and “Million Dollar Baby” for the first time.

The world has been having fun watching Sabrina Carpenter have the best summer ever. It would be even an even better summer if she could knock that boring Morgan Wallen/Post Malone collab off of #1 and give it to a song that deserves it (“Espresso,” which is so far my favorite song of the year. I wrote about my love for it here). The world also had a blast watching Kendrick Lamar pummel Drake in the most one sided fist fight caught on record. Billie Eilish’s new album has come out and she’s scored a new hit. Eminem resurrected Slim Shady from the grave to make peak white dad rap (by sampling one of the last Steve Miller Band hits) on “Houdini” (making it a second “Houdini” that has hit the music towers this year). Hozier is still enjoying success with “Too Sweet.” Shaboozey and Teddy Swims are less mainstream names, but they’ve been floating around for years; Shaboozey getting attention from being on the first Spider-Verse movie soundtrack and Teddy running a successful music cover channel on Youtube before transitioning to his own original stuff.

But then there’s “Million Dollar Baby” and this guy named Tommy Richman.

It’s been in the top ten for about two months now, peaked at #2 last month (poor kid didn’t stand a chance against Miss. Taylor Swift). That’s a damn fine first entry in the Hot 100, especially when it’s from a relatively unknown guy. I know what phrase you want to say (it rhymes with “Schmin-dustry Sch-mant”) and if you would be so kind, I’d like you to bite your tongue and not use that. Are we in agreement? You’re not gonna see that phrase used to describe him because 1) I think it’s inaccurate in the case of Tommy’s story and how this song blew up. 2) Some people (mostly the terminally online and those who have a mountain of sand where a brain is normally found) like to use the term “industry plant” without ever knowing what it actually means. Make no mistake, Tommy did have big help and resources from one semi-famous guy in making “Million Dollar Baby” pop off, but industry plants get big help when they pay somebody big money for it (usually a major label, which won’t be found in this story). There’s no crime in having help from someone bigger than you early in your career. Some people just get lucky and end up securing a connection that helps you breakthrough. It doesn’t immediately mean the siren has to start blaring. Here, take my hand and let me tell you how a guy goes from “nobody” to “Million Dollar Baby.”

For starters, Tommy Richman didn’t just magically appear out of nowhere. He has a Soundcloud account that he’s been posting music on consistently for the past seven years. His Youtube channel also has a backlog of stuff long before “Million Dollar Baby” ever blew up. Most of what you’ll find is your typical young “white boy who lives in his mom’s basement” rap. Nothing I’m gonna go crazy for, but somebody probably would. Everybody’s gotta start somewhere. It wasn’t until he got the attention of R&B singer Brent Faiyaz that he started the eventual rise to where we are now. If you’re unfamiliar with Brent, you might know him from the hook to GoldLink’s 2017 song, “Crew.” If not, you definitely know him for his guest appearance on Tyler the Creator’s 2021 banger “Sweet / I Thought You Wanted to Dance.” If that still doesn’t do anything, imagine The Weeknd if he was actually cool and didn’t make that weird and gross HBO TV show last year. Faiyaz has been a successful R&B man who came up making music on Soundcloud in the early 2010s and has been steadily rising ever since. Last year, Faiyaz launched an independent record label named ISO Supremacy and signed a partnership with PULSE Records. Tommy Richman is Faiyaz’s first signing so far, which is evident if you visit the “Releases” page on their website. At the time of this writing, the label has only released Faiyaz and Richman’s recent stuff. Brent and Tommy got connected due to Tommy knowing ISO’s COO Darren Xu. Darren saw promise in Tommy and thought he and Brent could go far together. After connecting, Faiyaz had Tommy as his opener on the Fuck The World, It’s a Wasteland tour. He also made the beat for and hopped on Faiyaz' 2023 track, "Upset."

None of this strikes me as fitting that phrase we all agreed wasn’t gonna be used. The Lyrical Lemonade blog interviewed him and had been paying attention to and writing about his music up to two years before he connected with Faiyaz and joined him on his independent label venture. I don’t find it at all strange that somebody connected with Faiyaz found Tommy somehow and thought his music was worth exploring and nurturing. You shouldn’t either.

And hell, call me Marty McFly, because I’ve seen this one. This is a classic. A successful R&B singer decides to take on some random white kid that got some buzz on the internet as a protege? If I had a nickel for each time that’s happened, I’d have two nickels: One for Brent and Tommy’s partnership, the other for Usher and Justin Bieber linking up and doing the exact same thing in 2009. History repeats, time is a flat circle, etc.

So, that brings us to the current moment and “Million Dollar Baby.” The first time I heard this I knew immediately how this got big. Say it with me everybody! TikTok. That app can make anybody (and I do mean, anybody) a star if you know how to use it to your advantage. Tommy strikes me as a guy who knew what he was doing. The world got a teaser of “Million Dollar Baby” on April 13th when he featured the chorus playing in a video and uploaded it as a sound for creators to use. It would be thirteen days before the song got officially released on April 26th. In between that time, he was promoting another song, “Selfish,” which is a fun party track and a song I like, but it sounds like funk made by a white boy. This is “funk” you’d hear in a Target commercial. No, that wasn’t gonna be the big one. Tommy clearly knew that was gonna be “Million Dollar Baby” and he was building up just enough anticipation from followers before pulling the trigger. You gotta make ‘em wait for it, you know? When he finally did pull the trigger, the song did numbers. Thirty-eight million streams during its first week alone. As of this writing, it’s been a Top 10 hit for two months and it’s still sitting at #5. You can buy your way onto the charts or find a way to game the system, but those methods only tend to work in the short term. They can’t keep you there. No, this song had to have done something right, otherwise it would’ve been a quick hit for a week and then immediately vanish. So what was it?

I can tell you. This song became a hit because that beat is just fucking unstoppable. It’s perfect lightning in a bottle. You’re lucky if you make something like that even once. Tommy is the only one credited with writing it, but he also has a five man posse of producers on board. So I imagine it was a team effort to polish this up and make it ready for Certified Hit Status. Regardless, the production on it is damn good. The beat is a total earworm and the bassline and synths that drive the song are incredible. It’s inescapable once it’s got its claws in you. There’s not a doubt in my mind that there are recent high school graduates and college students bumping and grooving to this at graduation/summertime parties as we speak. It hits you with everything it’s got after the intro and you can tell this was made with the intent that you will blast it from the biggest speaker in your house or at your function. This song was born to be played too loud while speeding down the freeway, your car shaking to its very foundations. This song was born to be the music choice to TikTok edits of your favorite Blorbo being hot. This song was born to make you feel like you have (*Checks notes*) “Main Character” energy (whatever that is). This is pure party music at its finest and I’m not shocked that this shot straight up to the top echelon of the charts. This bumps, this bangs, this does whatever you need a song to do. I love it... except it’s not without its flaws. 

For one thing, you can tell he clearly went to the TikTok School of Songwriting, which is where you throw classic songwriting structure away and just piss into the wind and see what happens. You also reject the notion that songs need these cool things called bridges and pre-choruses, which are used to help keep songs interesting. Most pop songs you hear follow a structure kind of like this:

Intro -> Verse -> Chorus -> Verse -> Chorus -> Bridge -> Chorus -> Coda.

Obviously not every song follows this mold, but it’s a gold standard model to follow, especially if you’re just starting out and writing songs for the first time. Tommy, like a lot of TikTok guys before him, decides that this structure is for suckers and goes with this:

Intro -> Chorus -> Verse -> Chorus -> Outro.

You’ve heard a lot about TikTok having done irreparable damage to song structure. That’s absolutely true and “Million Dollar Baby” is a very obvious offender. That platform only cares about the hook. It doesn’t need any of the other parts. Also, don’t make it longer than three minutes (this song is 2:35, which is a bit surprising). The rules to writing a successful TikTok hook go as follows: Make it catchy, write a set of words that sticks with people, and make sure it’s general enough that people can use it in all kinds of videos so it spreads around. In Tommy’s case, people really ran with the lines, “'Cause I wanna make it so badly / I'm a million dollar baby, don't @ me.”

My issues with song structure aside, there’s one glaring issue I have with this song, an issue which only became clearer and clearer to me the more times I listened to it: Tommy Richman is the least essential part of this song. He’s so inessential that you could remove him entirely and nothing would really change. If anything, the song works better as an instrumental. The beat and the production is pulling all the weight on this song, Tommy just signed his name on the group project when it was done.

“Million Dollar Baby” is simultaneously a blessing to have as your first major hit and also a curse to have as your first major hit. A blessing because it’s undeniably catchy and a ton of fun to listen to, but a curse because by around the seventh or eighth time you hear it, the weaknesses in the artist reveal themselves and you can never unsee or unhear them. 

Tommy’s first weakness is, well, that he’s named “Tommy Richman.” That’s the name of a guy who either changes my oil or makes a hoagie for me in Philadelphia, not a guy with a Hot 100 hit. His name honestly keeps making me think of Timmy Brabston, that kid rapper who had the honor of being roasted by Ethan Klein so hard that his “career” ended before it even really began. He mentions Virginia in the song and I almost think that going by Tommy Richmond would be funnier (like he’s a spiritual successor to Flo Rida). However, I suppose going by your government name is less embarrassing than trying to come up with a cool stage name, so maybe he’s smarter than me in that regard.

Vocally, I don’t think he adds anything to the song. He sings in a falsetto that kinda sounds like he’s doing Mick Jagger on “Emotional Rescue.” It also sounds like he’s doing his best impression of mentor Brent Faiyaz, to the point where I wonder what it would sound like if Faiyaz delivered it. It’s a weak delivery and when the song gets into the verse, the beat just completely overpowers him in the mix. You very quickly stop giving a shit about whatever he’s saying to you because you’re distracted by everything else. It took me about four listens and watching the lyric video before I started piecing together what he’s saying and even then, it’s not terribly interesting. I will say that the English major in me does take issue with part of his verse. Let’s play a quick game called, “Who the Fuck Is He Talking To?” 

Fifth line of the verse is this: “She a bad lil' mama, she a diva.” Okay. He’s clearly talking to me about a woman he’s involved with. Cool. The very next lines are these:

No matter what happens, he cannot come between us again I know we're better than friends (Better than friends)

Now I think he’s switched it. He’s not talking to me anymore and now he’s talking to the woman he’s involved with. The “he” in that line probably refers to an ex she has that was in the picture right before Tommy and Tommy is trying to re-establish their relationship, saying they’re better than friends. Got it. But then these lines happen:

I took her to Queen's Gambit (Yeah, yeah), showed around my friends Tried to pick some energy up, it don't matter

Is he talking to me again now? I assume he must be, otherwise why would he tell her that he took her to Queen’s Gambit? She would already know that. So he must be talking to me. But then, he immediately switches it again:

I know you haven't moved on if you tried (Oh, no) I don't believe it, baby, I know you lied (Oh, no)

He’s back to talking about the situationship he’s in with the woman. That means he can’t be talking to me, right? Do you see my confusion here? It just feels like Tommy’s whole verse was screwed up and got completely out of order. It feels like he’s trying to talk to two people at once and it doesn’t work. He’s either gotta tell me about this woman or the whole song needs to be from the point of view of him talking to this woman and their situation. In its current state it’s a complete mess, to the point where I think if you just removed Tommy and his lyrics from the equation, nothing would be missed. The song would be better for it.

If you want proof that this song is better without Tommy, there’s a really good instrumental version on Youtube. If you want to see a fun spin on it, guitar wizard Tim Henson of instrumental prog rock outfit Polyphia recorded a really cool version of it on his personal Youtube channel that’s worth checking out.

Tommy Richman and “Million Dollar Baby” are best described as a perfect summer fling. I’ve met him, there’s a spark, and I will have my fun with him and this song for the whole summer season... but I know in my heart that at the end of August, I will be leaving him behind for other things (Read: Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet, which I’m excited for and arrives on August 23rd). It’s a brief love affair that wasn’t born to last... and that’s okay. Give it a couple of years and I might hear “Million Dollar Baby” again somewhere and happily remember simpler days. Or, I’ll be wrong and this song and Tommy stick around for a long time and make me look like a fool. He put out a new song just a few days ago, “Devil Is a Lie,” and maybe that’ll end up being a second hit for him. I doubt it’ll hit #2, because it doesn’t hit the same as “Million Dollar Baby” and Tommy still shows the same weaknesses on that one that he shows on this one. The beat and production on “Devil” is again infinitely more interesting than him and it’s just a shameless Neptunes ripoff (which, honestly, I’m not even mad about. Any Neptunes sounding beat in this day and age is a warm welcome in my world).

The Billboard Hot 100 is a fascinating place. Everything can be all fine and normal and then something weird comes completely out of left field to help shake things up and keep you on your toes. If Tommy’s song did nothing else, it at least accomplished that. It’s a strange sound I haven’t heard get mainstream success for a bit and it seems like he’s got a good team with him steering him pretty well. I’ve certainly heard much much worse from TikTokers suffering from delusions of grandeur. Do I think he’ll stick around for a long time? Probably not, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m rooting against him. I’ll certainly have fun while he’s here. The million dollar baby has made it after wanting to make it so badly, the only question left to answer is if the million dollar baby can stick around. 

Good luck.

[wfmrish]

Fandom Culture Online

Fandoms are a subculture within the mainstream media enjoyers wherein people who like certain things get together as a community to share what they enjoy in a sacred space. The fandom culture has been prevalent in society since as early as the mid 1800s, it just has never been talked about enough. As any other subculture, there is a feeling of ‘otherness’ or disconnect from the popular or more dominant culture within the fans who utilize these spaces. 

The history of fandoms (in the western society) is a particularly interesting one since its origins do not resonate with the more widely popularized sectors of fandoms nowadays. Sports fanatics were some of the original members of this subculture: people who got together to discuss their love for competitive sports with set rules and structures. However, the target soon changed, taking the predominant meaning of fandom from simply casual enjoyers to people passionate about media. The first kinds of fandoms we discussed were those of science fiction. The target audience for science fiction books and visual media in the 1900s were meant to be, as is anything in that highly patriarchal era, men with an affiliation towards science and technology. Nobody anticipated the highly educated women in science, who were less socially accepted, to latch onto these pieces of science fiction and create a community that would be so culturally important to modern society. 

The early science fiction fandoms gave rise to fan creations like fanzines and fanarts depicting the characters, like Sherlock Holmes from the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, or those from Star Trek. Fans organized meetups and conventions (the very first fan convention was WorldCon in 1939, which is a science fiction convention held annually for the fans). Before the times of television and movies, when science fiction was limited to books and technology was not so advanced, the fandoms formed were notably local since communication across the world wasn't readily available. During these times fanzines were distributed by mail but distribution was limited. It was only after the emergence of television and films that technology advanced enough to create a platform for the fans to better share their interests. 

The digitization of fandom was quite a remarkable phenomenon in the ever evolving world since the people behind it were not the traditional revolutionists but simply women with advanced knowledge in the fields of computer science and technology who wanted to create a space for themselves to be safe and discuss similar interests. The internet provided a quicker and easier way for the fans to communicate with each other and a more secure form of distribution of content within the communities. At this time, primitive social media like MySpace, LiveJournal, etc provided the necessary means to form communities and have a safe space free for creative discussions and productivity. 

Although the origins of online fandom communities could be hard to trace back, the current most used platforms are Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram. Tumblr has a very important role in the journey of fandoms as we know it. It is a platform where fans are free to create their own content related to whatever their interests are and others can view and comment on the same. These creations include fanfiction, fanart, fan theories or even edits of characters or movies they like. The speciality of tumblr is that it's mostly free of outside intervention and fans can exist in harmony with minimal disputes. Apart from the prevalence of tumblr, the digitized era of fandom brought in new means to create fan content by exploring multimedia forms of creative expression. This was borne in the forms of fan edits, digital fanart, parodical musicals and songs, etc. Sites like FanFiction.net and Archive Of Our Own became hubs of digital fanfiction works where it is easier for anybody to read what they want to or share their own written works. 

The digitisation of fandom is not only limited to sharing fanworks and interests amongst similar minded people, the community formed is like any other with its own customs and traditions. A very interesting phenomenon to observe is the evolved lingo in digital fandom spaces. People not part of these communities will find themselves flabbergasted at the terms and phrases used within the members. As a non Supernatural fan, if one hears the phrase ‘Dean’s widower arc’ it is not going to mean anything to them, but a Supernatural fan is going to know the intended meaning and will understand the exact thing referred to with the term. Digital fans have developed a certain language in itself to make it easier for them to communicate amongst each other with limited words. This is a result of limited word limits in text based platforms such as Twitter and also the need to be quick and fast while expressing your thoughts and opinions. Nobody has the time or energy to explain specific things a million times, so it's easier to form short forms for them that the entire fandom as a whole acknowledges and utilizes. These phrases often become inside jokes since non fandom members have a hard time understanding them. ‘Super mega gay hell’ is a phrase that if any random person not in touch with the fandom communities sees will be baffled, but most fans (even non Supernatural ones) have recognised is a reference to when Castiel, the angel died for confessing his homosexual love. 

In the digital space, with the multitude of platforms present at the moments, fandom culture is at its peak. As citizens of the networking world, it is hard not to come across fandoms and participants of such areas in everyday life. They have crafted a special place for themselves in the online world and different aspects of the larger community coexist peacefully (or as peacefully as they can). They have formed close knit communities where each member supports each other and it is the perfect example of a successful online community.

[iusedtogotogigs]

Mark Hollis: A Perfect Silence by Ben Wardle

Not long since I finished this wonderful book about Mark Hollis of Talk Talk by Ben Wardle. Full of fascinating details about this most brilliant musician and singular character, I’ve become a bit obsessed…

I have been a fan for years but the book has got me seeking out B-sides, rarities, live performances, covers and interviews and I’m loving it all. He’s such a beguiling character, full of contradictions: the lead singer of a classic 80s synth-pop band whose voice was a perfect fit for that early 80s sound, but who was always much more interested in jazz and classical. The band leader singing in front of thousands night after night who found that a pair of sunglasses made it feel like they helped block the world out and never performed without them again, and not at all after the band had toured their third album. The hero to thousands who loved his band, nigh-on a god to those of us for whom his later albums are the work of a genius, who more or less retreated from the music industry entirely in his 40s, and hardly recorded anything for the last twenty years of his life, preferring instead to devote himself to a quiet life with his family. And although this may just be a judgement borne of snobbery never has anyone so steeped in learning and culture - mainly music in his case but also movies and books - had a speaking voice so much like Henry’s Cat’s :)

And so much of what he said, the way he made his music, the way he lived his life and especially the way he left it all (making music) behind for a quiet life, really resonates. The way he used his voice as an instrument, that his voice and the words were subservient to the music, not the other way round, and the way his wrote his lyrics accordingly.

The way his last three albums came together is utterly fascinating. Endless session musicians were hired and given no instructions, but instead just asked to just play along however they saw fit (literally in the dark on Talk Talk’s last two albums). In many cases what they played was never used, in others a sequence of just a few seconds would be salvaged but then dropped in somewhere other than where it had originally been played. In his quest for the perfectly spontaneous performance he gave up on demos - as that spontaneity would be lost in the re-recording - and coldly overlooked the playing of his most trusted fellow musicians including fellow founder members Paul Webb and Lee Harris. He cost his record companies more money in studio time than they could ever hope to recoup from sales of the resulting albums - Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, and Hollis’ eponymous solo album - which have come to be regarded as masterpieces but were never going to sell well.

Ben Wardle brilliant captures the symmetry between Hollis’ love of silence, the spaces in-between the notes, and the silence of his refusal to give interviews or do anything that might reveal anything of what he was up to in his last years.

The desire for privacy, for quiet, to walk away from doing something when to everyone else it might seem like such a good thing, because ‘it was time’. So much resonates.

YOUR HOMEWORK:

The masterpiece album that first took Hollis and Talk Talk right away from mainstream commercial music is Spirit of Eden.

I urge you to seek out 'The Colour of Spring' the first track from his solo album ‘Mark Hollis’: https://open.spotify.com/track/7kYsV81UkV4z7UuF94u8T6... ...and specifically the gentle piano chords starting at around 2.02. So sensitively played and with so much silence around them. Quiet isn’t for everyone but for this Hollis fan, for whom there isn’t enough of it, it’s exquisite, one of my very favourite pieces of music.

Also, one of Talk Talk’s last ever live performances, at Montreux in 1986, when they were absolutely flying. The full gig is available but for a shorter intro this version of Living In Another World is ace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hop1tb-DR_k Ignore the mid-80s hair and clothes - they look like a funny-looking mix of rock-gods and office nerds with Hollis somewhere in the middle - and the hair-band guitar posturing at the end(!) and admire the song, arrangements and Hollis emoting. He didn’t like touring and never wanted to perform live again shortly after this, and yet his performance is fantastic here, so impassioned.

This has long been a favourite song incidentally. You can’t really hear the bass part very well here - listen to the album version - but it’s an absolute cracker and I’ve been trying to learn it for the last few days.

And of course, read the book: https://amzn.to/42XP4Yn

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[overnighttosunflowers]

did you get to see the Katrina Lenk company? what did you think? I kinda wish I'd seen it more than once

I did! My friend and I actually flew to London to see that production before we knew it was going to transfer to Broadway, and then we saw it here on March 9, 2020 and somehow did not catch COVID from the experience, and then I saw it again with my partner in July before it closed.

I thought the American production was all-around better than the UK one with the notable exception of Katrina Lenk, who I felt was miscast. She did a much better job in July 2022 than March 2020—having time to grow in the role helps, I imagine—but for me she’s just a vocal mismatch (and I say this as someone who ADORED her in The Band’s Visit). I have a good music vocabulary but a very poor vocal performance one, so forgive me if this is poorly expressed, but “Being Alive” (for instance) needs to really build and she just didn’t have the power to sustain it, kept dropping back down in volume and intensity at key moments. I suspect this was partially the fault of the arrangement, which could’ve been a better match for her vocal range. I also didn’t like her interpretation of Bobbie as much as Rosalie Craig’s; I think Bobby works best as a sort of affable-if-distant everyman/woman and Katrina played her much more specifically and with more of a sardonic edge.

Also, there are many things I like a lot about the genderswapped production—it really successfully breaks down some of the tired and more stereotyped gendered roles in the couples from the original, for one thing, and the additional layer of Bobbie having a biological clock ticking is interesting—BUT I was disappointed by the way it handled queerness. The US did a better job with this than the UK, where the (originally male) character who asks Bobby if he’s ever had a gay experience is replaced by a tremendously queer-coded woman… who then instead of hitting on Bobbie reveals that she’s pregnant. I was genuinely floored by that. The US toned down her queer-coding, so that change didn’t bother me nearly as much here—no weird foreshadowing for a moment that doesn’t happen. The UK also VERY heavily aligned Jamie (genderswapped gay Amy) with the women in a way that felt almost a little homophobic and the US production was less weird about it. Also, Jamie, who spends the morning of his wedding day freaking out about getting married and almost losing his nerve, has a line—“Just because we can [get married] doesn’t mean we should”—which obviously resonates way differently coming from a gay character vs a straight one. It’s a laugh line regardless of who’s saying it, but in a gay context I think it has more pain and complexity to it, and my subjective feeling was that the US production played it weightier in a way that I appreciated.

But in both productions, I think a lot is lost by a refusal to just lean into the queer vibes that the original itself already has. (In my opinion! But that’s its own essay.) Instead of using the genderswap to get even queerer, the genderswapped production backs away from queerness. (The production team said they’d considered making Bobbie bi and it “didn’t work,” but I feel pretty sure that what “didn’t work” was relatability for mainstream ticket-buying audiences.) Most notably, in the original, Joanne breaks through Bobby’s inertia by saying they should sleep together. “I think you and I should make it.” This was changed to, “I think you and Larry [her husband] should make it.” Wildly different implications, no?

And then after that, of course, she says to Bobby, “I’ll take care of you,” to which Bobby replies, “But who will I take care of?” Or that’s what she says in the original. In the genderswap, she says “You’ll take good care of Larry,” to which Bobbie replies, “But who will take care of me?”

Which. Company is a show about intimacy and vulnerability and finding the courage to want something scary. To commit to something that will ask a lot of you. To let someone need you too much, hurt you too deep, know you too well, crowd you with love, mock you with praise. To stop keeping a safe distance in favor of experiencing life in all its richness.

And yes, there’s the fact that if Bobbie is a woman, socialized to be a caretaker instead of, well, a care-taker, arriving at the question of “Who will I take care of (emotionally)?” with respect to a heterosexual relationship lands differently than when Bobby is a man. But in my opinion, flipping the question is a lazy way out that undermines the overall thrust of the show. Yes, it can be scary and vulnerable to let someone take care of you; but that’s not what Bobb(ie/y)’s struggling with. She’s struggling with the fact that a relationship will ask a lot of her. Who will she take care of?

There are plenty of ways they could’ve handled this that I would’ve liked better. The simplest, I guess, would’ve been to keep the original line and approach the delivery with nuance. That doesn’t solve the weird Joanne/Larry swap, but hey. Or they coulda just made Bobbie queer. The show’s already about wrestling with the complexity of relationships. Queering Bobbie offers a whole lot of depth to play with, imo. BUT that (like the rest of this!) is my own highly subjective take.

Anyway this is way more than you asked for, my anon friend, but I hope it was interesting! I love this show very much.

[cosplayinamerica]

I had the opportunity to send some questions to Andrew Liptak about his new book Cosplay: A History so I asked him about his cosplaying days first.

1) What was your first cosplay and what are you working on currently?

My first “real” costume after Halloween costumes was an Imperial Stormtrooper. It was a costume that I’d coveted ever since seeing A New Hope in theaters in 1997, and I’d spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make one. In my final year of high school, my high school band played music from Star Wars (I played trumpet), and we were able to get a member of the 501st Legion to come and join us.

His costume blew me away, and that summer, he sold me an FX kit (the then-standard Stormtrooper costume that was out there), which I then assembled and wore for a little over a decade before I replaced it with a more accurate version. I still have it: it’s on a mannequin in my basement.

I’ve got a couple of random projects in the works now that are in pretty early stages. I have a Shoretrooper kit from 850 Armor Works that I’ve been piecing together. I’d originally bought it for my wife, but she sort of lost interest, so I’m planning on doing it up as a Captain variant of that particular costume. I also have a First Order stormtrooper kit that I want to put together to replace my existing FOTK (this new kit is plastic, so it’s much, much lighter than my current fiberglass costume.) And finally, I have a 212th Airborne Clone from Revenge of the Sith that is done: I just need to get it to fit me.

2) Has cosplay impacted your life personally?

Cosplay has impacted my life considerably: it provided a community at a time when I most needed it in the years after college. After graduating, I had disposable money and a car, so I was frequently out and about throughout New England trooping with my local 501st garrison. I’ve made some of my best friends in the world through the group, and it’s still a big part of my life.

But it’s also imparted an element of what I call “practical creativity”. I grew up in a household that had a workshop and I learned from my dad how to do things like cut wood, construct things out of it, change my own oil in my car, and generally do things on my own: working with my hands. Cosplay reinforced that: it’s helped me realize that with time, patience, and a little research, you can do a lot of things on your own: I’ve painted houses, redid my bathroom, fixed leaks/cracks/carpet/siding, etc at my house, and found creative solutions that I might not have arrived at if I hadn’t spent time building costumes. I know more about glue, paint, cutting materials, and whatnot, because of that experience.

3) What trends have you seen in cosplay from when you first started till today?

There are so many things that have changed! I think the first is just how popular science fiction and fantasy franchises have come since I started back in 2003: Star Wars has always been a mainstream thing, but the act of cosplaying has come a long way along with that growing popularity. Those films and genres have always been popular for good reasons: they’re exciting and interesting, and it’s good to see people reacting to it more and more, and with less shame than they might have before.

There are two other big trends that come to mind: the advances in how we use materials to build costumes has changed quite a bit. Materials like EVA foam and Worbla weren’t nearly as popular when I started, so the adoption of those materials makes it easier for cosplayers to start in on this hobby. Things like 3D printing and YouTube tutorials also really help.

The other is logistics, helped along by big online platforms like Amazon or Etsy: it’s easier than ever to buy a costume or the components. When I bought my first set of armor back in 2003, I had to know a guy who know a guy. Now, you can just click a couple of buttons.

4)  What's the process like in writing this book?

Long. The pitch for me to write it first came in 2016: the earlier version would have been entirely about the 501st Legion. But as I researched, I realized that I couldn’t just tell the story of the group: I had to expand it out beyond its borders to talk about the context of where it came from, which is what this ultimately became.

From there, it was a matter of coming up with an outline, which guided what I had to research: there was a lot of work in finding early examples of cosplay, looking through documents and records from older conventions and fan groups to try and get a clear story for how this hobby evolved over the decades.

The other component of that was interviews: I attended a whole bunch of cons in 2019 before the pandemic, and interviewed a whole bunch of folks about their experiences and history as cosplayers, and photographing them at cons. It was a lot of fun. It was also the tip of the iceberg: there are so many people in the cosplay field, with so many stories, and while I got a good cross-section of folks, there were so many rocks that I’d tip over to find a whole new thread of stories and people to talk to. But, the reality of the book is that there are deadlines and a finite number of pages, so you take what you can get and work with it.

5)  Has the book changed from the original conception to how it is today?

Very much so. As I noted a moment ago, I had originally set out to put together a book about the history of the 501st Legion. That didn’t end up happening for a variety of reasons, but I repackaged and repitched it as a history of cosplay as a whole. (The original title was Knights in Plastic Armor). I’m happy that I did that, because the larger story of cosplay is rich and fascinating.

But even while writing the book, we made some significant changes. I had originally outlined the book in three parts: When We Cosplay, Why We Cosplay, and House We Cosplay, which has been reorganized a bit for this final version (it’s much stronger now). There were also some interesting topics that I came across while researching: a picture of a reenactment in the 1800s led me down the path of living history and military reenactments, which I included. A chance encounter with a book about Jules Verne led me to track down details about a costume party he threw, and things like that: every new revelation brought with it new details to uncover, and every new interviewee brought me new fidelity to the history.

A good example here is a woman named Astrid Bear, who was heavily involved in the science fiction fan community. She was party to a lot of those early developments from an early age, and she outlined something really interesting to me in my interview with her: Star Trek had a huge impact on the cosplay community, because the costumes were relatively comfortable. When the show arrived, costuming at cons was largely restricted to designated times for specific events. When Star Trek arrived, it brought in new fans, but also new attitudes: fans started wearing the costumes in the halls (there was some friction from long-term con goers about this!) and that change in culture helped to bring about the con environment that we see these days.

6)  Were there topics cut from the book that you hope to revisit one day?

Not so much things that were cut: we made some cuts for length and clarity where I got a little too into the weeds, but there were some things that I’d hoped to have gotten to that I didn’t end up covering that much: I wanted to do a chapter about Furries, but just didn’t get to that. I also wanted to put together a chapter about the KKK and how they used masks to convey their horrible views, and the repercussions that came with that: masking laws and whatnot that still are on the books today. Author Arthur Conan Doyle liked to dress up as his character Professor Challenger, which I learned too late to include as another early example.

I’m hoping though, to actually write those chapters (and some others — I have a short list) up, and release them to my newsletter, Transfer Orbit as a series that I’m thinking I’ll call the “Lost Chapters”, which should be fun to do in the coming months.

7) Advice for first time cosplayers?

I think the best advice that I have is to make characters that you love: don’t pay attention to the cycle that we’ve found ourselves in where everyone rushes to make the most popular character of the moment (and by extension, don’t get sucked into the world of social media likes and churn). Make that obscure character that you’ve always wanted to do, take the time to make the costumes that you want to make, rather than rushing to meet a self-imposed deadline or to stay relevant.

Also, make sure you use proper ventilation when you’re using chemicals / sanding / painting, etc., wear safety equipment, and so forth. Safety first!

[guynamedultimax]

Obligatory Friday Night Funkin’ fighting game AU post (part 2 of idk how many)

Even though I’m a lazy fuck I know there’s people out there who wanna read this so let’s just get it over with

-AGOTI: Trapped in the Void like in his own mod’s continuity, has tentacle-based powers that allow him to raise pillars from underneath the ground like he did in the Void. Usually freestyles and is pretty damn good at it. Chaotic neutral, hangs out with Tabi and Ayana when not busy.

-Aldryx: AGOTI’s older brother, they’re mostly the same but he is more composed and responsible...even if you can barely notice it. Has been scouting for AGOTI ever since he disappeared in the Void under the “orders” of Solazar. They have the same powers, but Aldryx prefers a more aggressive rock beat in comparison to his brother’s freestyling.

-Solazar: Solazar is a unique type of fighter, a Composer. They’re exceptionally well-versed in most types of music and have their own unique fighting style that can’t be easily imitated. Most of the times Composers are figures of great wisdom and/or power. DD is also secretly a Composer but rarely uses all of his powers. Sol is to this day one of the few other people who is actively fighting off DD’s rise to power and is trying to push his adopted screen demon sons to cooperate with GF and BF’s efforts to stop DD (despite the fact that one of them is friends with Tabi, who still has beef with GF).

-Nikusa: Not doing anything for her until her part of the FNF Entity mod drops but she exists in this universe.

-Tabi: Before Funkin Fightin’ was a thing, GF was in love with Tabi but nonetheless used him to try and conquer her father’s empire. When he turned music into a form of fighting, Tabi didn’t know how to hurt a fly, and so GF ditched him to DD, who turned him into what he is today. He is now out to personally get GF, DD and anyone who might get in his way for revenge. Uses a fight style similiar to BF’s but isn’t afraid to play dirty against someone who he feels has wronged him. After the restaurant incident he’s a tournament member who is wanted by the authority.

-Ayana: Before Pico, BF dated her, and while she still clearly loves him, it’s clear for her that he moved on. Still, she knows GF’s up to no good and is repeatedly trying to warn BF about it. She and Dalia have Tabi hidden in their house. Has a fighting style similiar to that of Mommy Mearest, although unlike her she actually fights fair and doesn’t try to seduce her opponents.

-Dalia: EDM has been less and less mainstream as time went on, but Dalia still isn’t afraid of spewing out good tracks. EDM artists are known for being glass cannons in the Funkin Fightin’ business, and she’s no exception, she’s the second strongest EDM artist on the block. Is in a relationship with Ayana. She is also prone to stopping her sets to help her friends back at Apollo against demons.

-Miku: In-universe she’s BF’s older sister, and due to her working specifically in the Vocaloid industry, GF’s parents can’t lay a single hand on her. More often than not she insists on protecting her brother as if he was still little. Has Camellia as musical backup during her Funkin Fightin’ fights due to her being mostly a martial pacifist.

-Sarvente: Nuns shouldn’t fight, am I right? Sarvente is one of the few people who is in DD’s tournament to promote her church. Still she knows in the moment she’s going to go full power she’s going to scare away literally everyone in the arenas. Has been costantly receiving funds by a mysterious sponsor alongside Ruv.

-Ruv: As a former hitman, he knows exactly how to fight. He just needs to learn to do it to the rhythm of the typical Russian ballads he listens to in his free time. Has refused to fight Sarvente even in her demon form. Is also in the tournament for the church, but also to avoid other hitmen sent to kill him for his retirement. Also has been receving funds by a sponsor.

-Selever: The mysterious sponsor. Has found a way to enter this universe (and is doing money with cryptocurrency), but if he interacts directly with Ruv or Sarv, or if he gets found and defeated by a being of higher power like Composers, Updike or Auditor, he’s sleeping with the fishes. Annoying as ever, half of the tournament opponents have beef with him due to him behaving like an annoying asshole. Also calls for Rasazy’s backup with some attacks and plays dirty like hell. His goal is to defeat DD so he can live with his parents in peace.

-Shaggy: In this continuity the entirety of Mystery Incorporated is alive and well and not dead of old age. Not even Shaggy knows how he has his powers, but he isn’t really complaining, as long as his friends are left in peace by the supernatural. Is fascinated by Funkin Fightin’ and is choosing a musical style on which to base his rhythm.

-Matt: Originally trained other people in various sports, but after his loss with BF he became obsessed with trying to defeat him in Funkin Fightin’. Trains under Shaggy to achieve this goal. Still, he has a code of honor and wants a fair fight by any opponent. Doesn’t have a specific musical style yet and is not willing to use Wii Sports music like one would expect from him.

-Zardy: Isn’t partecipating in the tournament and interacts with nobody. There is only one rule: don’t enter his maze for absolutely no reason. He’s going to wreck you with Halloween songs and by swinging around his farming tools. The only ones allowed in are Tricky, Monster and Starecrown for the Friday night poker game, where he is prone to winning at least against Tricky; Starecrown and Monster are just too 300 IQ for him to face head-on.

-Camellia: Remember when I said Dalia’s the second strongest EDM artist on the scene? Guess who’s first. His techniques as a Composer are known for breaking many body parts, so Masaya Oya only ever works as backup for BF’s sister Miku. But if you actually manage to bring him to a Funkin Fightin’ fight on his own you’ll regret it deeply. Dude is as strong as Shaggy and Matt COMBINED.

-Sky: BF’s number one fangirl and leader of his two-member fanclub, her beef is mainly with GF, but to beat her she has to go through BF first. Behaves a lot like Knives Chau from the Scott Pilgrim franchise. Writes fanfics. Has a very...weird fighting style, and does it to the beat of anime openings apparently.

-Starecrown: The, erm...OTHER member of BF’s fanclub. Is unironically best friends with Sky due to their shared interest in BF and usually carries her around as if he was her pet. Is very polite and tries not to come off as scary with his stares, but it’s beyond his power. Nobody ever even understands his fighting techniques, only the musical screeches he emits when he does it to the rhythm.

NEXT TIME: Hopefully everyone related to Bob, Undertale/Underverse characters, Eddsworld cast, CJ & Ruby, ENA, Nonsense, if possible even more

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Hi! I hope you’ll answer this question bc it bothers me quite a lot.. https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-mean-now-that-BTS-are-partial-owners-of-Big-Hit-Entertainment do you think it is true what the second person (Christine Herman) said? After reading this, i started to wonder…what if BTS does really have only profit in mind while doing new projects these days? Maybe they don’t really care anymore about creative and meaningful lyrics and sound? With Butter and PTD…all this generic music sung in English. Of course they say “we wanted to make fans feel good”, “butter and ptd represent who we are” and all these things fans want to hear but.. do you really think it’s true? moreover, don’t get me wrong, i don’t find product placement in their reality shows as something terrible, i believe this is a normal thing, however, nowadays the members really film ads and do marketing a lot. so yeah, for some reason i began to question their integrity dhsjjss i hope you will understand from where my concerns come from and won’t find this ask stupid sjdjjdjd

After reading that persons answer I can immediately tell you that I basically don't agree with an overwhelming majority of what she said (even more so since a lot of it just makes her sound like a manti that hates the company and basically would want them to make music for free or something). Generally I don’t agree with most of the opinions this person holds, and also Quora really isn’t a good source for info or good opinions, most of it is written by mantis, haters, and toxic shippers with an agenda so most ARMY will tell you to stay as far away from that website as possible.

Anyway, her focus in that answer was on money, since BTS are shareholders (and how that’s a conflict of interest despite other artists doing the exact thing but no one really cares or ever thinks about it), but what she failed to consider and note was that Big Hit Music, so BTS' label, isn't part of HYBE in the sense that shareholding has no baring on it since BHM is private. So while BTS profit off of HYBE doing well, and have a small percentage of a voice as shareholders, that has nothing to do with BHM in the classical sense, even if BHM's earnings reflect well on HYBE numbers and the shareholder money. 

BHM was made private to ensure their artistry would remain untouched, that was the whole point of that.

Even if they weren't HYBE shareholders, take Namjoon as example. He has more than 170 KOMCA credits, is among the top 3 Korean artists with the most credits and is also the youngest of them all. It is said that his earnings from that alone can sustain his family for 3 generations over. Look at Hobi and Chicken Noodle Soup, that song was a hit and he paid the original creator of that song 2 million dollars upfront and earned a lot back due to how successful it was. Same goes for Hope World which, again, was and is still immensely successful. Look at Yoongi and his work both as prod. SUGA, featuring artist SUGA, and as Agust D, as well as the credits he holds for his work on BTS songs (giving him as well a total of over 100 KOMCA credits, just like Hobi). Bangtan have worked and continue to work extremely hard for their music, put their heart and souls into it, and it shows even if their style changed as they grew older and more mature.

Yes, money is a major motivator, but looking at the above paragraph, do you really peg the members as these corrupt money hungry sellouts with no music related integrity? Who would need to sign major deals and would throw away their passion to just release empty shells of music for the sole reason of money? Am I naive enough to believe that they don't care about money? Of course not, we live in a capitalist society and even if BTS wouldn't care about money anymore at this point, HYBE very much does, and yet still I can't find it in me to agree with any of what was said in that answer that person wrote.

More below the cut:

And that point about how Hyundai cars were sold out because of BTS, isn't that the point why literally any company ever hires celebrities to advertise and endorse their product? And sure, again, I'm certain they earned a lot on these deals, they aren't the first or last or only ones in the history of ever to do so. Besides, look at JK and what he's done for small companies, or Tae who wore a brooch made my a small creator at the airport which catapulted that creator into the eyes of millions of ARMYs enough so that they could move to a proper studio and earn money with their work. Or the modern hanboks JK wore which led to the brand being able to move into actual stores in malls because of their sudden new popularity and demand. Or him wearing a bracelet that helps whales with a percentage of the money from the sales of said bracelet. And for all of that JK and Tae didn't earn any money at all. JK himself said that he's more conscious of the brand he wears now because he wants to help smaller businesses in these trying times, not because they pay him to do so (especially since they would never be able to afford that), but because he's aware of the influence he has and how he can use it to help others. Sound very much like a capitalistic villain, right?

As for the product placement bit, have you been on YouTube recently? Have you noticed that many, if not most, YouTube videos by “bigger” creators (and by that I mean even people who are around the 100k subscriber mark) begin with them thanking whoever sponsored that particular video and give you a scripted minute to two minute long ad before getting into the actual topic of the video? And In The SOOP featuring Chilsung Cider, FILA clothes and the random mention of how good Samsung phones are isn’t much different from it, though really, if you’re not someone interested in fashion much, would you really notice or care that they wore FILA? It’s just...clothes? If it weren’t a BTS related show, would you even notice it much? And it’s not even like they mentioned those brands every five minutes or anything, just a few times, which sure sounded a bit out of place at times, but personally I thought it was easy to look past. That’s just how things work nowadays and it’s odd for people to behave like somehow BTS are the first and only ones to use product placements despite literally every movie and show doing it in subtle and less so manners.

The answer by that person you sent also mentioned the Hyundai song for their car IONIQ and, unsurprisingly, that person wrote it off as just some commercial jingle but I’d actually disagree with that. Not to sound like a Hyundai and Samsung stan, which I am neither of, but I actually think those two knew best how to utilize the artist they have spent millions on signing a deal with. Hyundai didn’t just write them off as pretty faces with a millions strong fan army behind them and that’s it, they remembered that they are musicians so they gave them a song and made a whole music video for it as well. And say what you will, it is a good song. Then, just a few days ago, Samsung stepped up their game and we were given Over The Horizon Prod by SUGA of BTS. For those who aren’t Samsung users, Over The Horizon is their signature ringtone and basically their company sound, and over the years different artists were asked to make their own version of it. And this time they reached out to Yoongi and asked if he’d like to do it as well. It’s kind of a big deal. Sure, Butter is used in one of their commercials much the way Dynamite was last year, but that’s beside the point. Would that person make the same claim about Imagine Dragons whose song Believer is also part of the ads for the new Samsung phones? I have my doubts.

Furthermore, and I don't want this to come across as mean toward you but, I think it is uncalled for to question their artistic integrity based on a total of 3 (three) English songs when last year alone we received 50+ songs, most of which were in Korean, among them the entirety of BE which was, according to the members, the album they were most involved in ever when it comes to both music and everything around it.

You can dislike their English songs, that’s more than fine, they have a very extensive discography you can listen to instead, but questioning their integrity based on them doing something that most, if not every, artist on their level does (as in sign ad deals with brands etc) is a bit much if you ask me. Does that mean indie artists whose songs get picked up for commercials (or for Netflix shows or movies) and thus it catapults them into the mainstream are also just money hungry people with no integrity and ones who don’t care about their music? Or is that, again, just a standard Bangtan is held to (as in that their integrity is questioned based on everything, even the most trivial/normal things) that only applies to them and no one else?

In the recent Weverse Magazine article about how Permission to Dance came to be there is a lot of talk about not only that song but also Butter and Dynamite, among the things being discussed and talked about they mentioned how the original lyrics for Butter were much more materialistic but that the members didn't like that so they asked for that to be changed. Likewise the original lyrics for Permission to Dance, as you'd expect from the penmanship of Ed Sheeran, were much more romantic, almost proposal like, which wasn't what the members wanted either so it was, again, adjusted in a way that would fit what they, as well as the A&R team, wanted. While you may not like these songs, they still had a say in them to a certain degree, could say yes or no and ask for adjustments. Why else would PTD take eight months?

While they might outsource their English songs, their main focus, so their Korean (as well as Japanese) discography is still centered around them, their lyrics, their songs, their sound. Of course you’ll also find outside producers and some lyricists on those as well, because that’s how music works these days, as in collaboratively, that doesn’t change anything at large. Their integrity is still very much there, their hearts are still in it, what other reason would any of them have to say that they want to continue for a long time, for Yoongi to say they want to figure out how to make their career last as long as possible, for JK to say that he wants to sing forever?

Admin 2 also wanted me to add that in their opinion, to a certain degree (though not fully of course), their English songs are like a way to laugh at and expose how shallow the English-centric music industry is. As in, while they made music in Korean with deep and meaningful lyrics, the US industry didn’t care but once they switched to easy to listen to sound with easy to understand English lyrics, they suddenly paid attention, are played on the radio, and even received a Grammy nomination which they wouldn’t have gotten for a Korean song ( A1: regardless how much Black Swan or Spring Day really would’ve deserved it...). 

[voice-of-anarchy]

These Are The 10 Best ARCH ENEMY Deep Cuts (by Metal Injection)

Starting life as something of an extreme metal supergroup helmed by former-Carcass lead guitarist Michael Amott, Arch Enemy have created their own niche in the heavy-music world with their fusion of melodic death metal and the arena-ready, classic metal sounds of the 70s and 80s.

While their first three records with frontman Johan Liiva gave them a respectable career in Japan and parts of Europe, it wasn't until the addition of vocalist Angela Gossow on 2001's Wages Of Sin that their international career exploded. Today Arch Enemy are arguably as big as they've ever been on the worldwide stage, with Gossow's replacement Alissa White-Gluz amicably stepping into the lead singer role in 2014.

With a 11 studio releases and almost three decades of history to their name, Arch Enemy have a huge amount of modern metal anthems under their collective belts. But what about the less raved about tracks? They've got some killer deep cuts across all eras – so what are they? Read on and find out…

"Despicable Heroes"

A whip-cracking thrasher from 2003's Anthems of Rebellion, "Despicable Heroes" two minute beating is as straight to the point as Arch Enemy gets. No traces of melodicism here; just furious riffs, blitzkrieg drums and possessed vocals. Considering Anthems… is the album introduced a couple of more mainstream friendly tracks – "We Will Rise" for example – "Despicable Heroes" is a great example of how punishing Arch Enemy can be when they want to. Never played live and with low streams, it's a perfect way to kick off our list.

"In This Shallow Grave"

"In This Shallow Grave" is arguably Rise of the Tyrant's most underrated tune; the 2007 release is loaded with so many great tracks that our choice has been overlooked for far too long. Which is damn shame as "In This Shallow Grave" sees the group in full flight – heavy verses, a melodic, guitar-led chorus and that guitar solo section – man! It's the perfect example of the Amott brothers Chris and Michael's penchant for the blisteringly fast and the highly emotive. It's really everything you'd want from an Arch Enemy song, and deserves more appreciation from fans and artist alike.

"Losing Faith"

We're going all the way back to Arch Enemy's 1996 debut Black Earth for "Losing Faith". It's a bobbing and weaving track, moving between two unique, riff-driven feels. One is almost bouncing, whilst the other is prime headbang fodder. Original frontman Johan Liiva puts out a solid – if not a little uninspiring – vocal performance, with the rest of the act carrying the lion's share of the song. A number that has yet – and unlikely to ever – to see the stage, it was also ignored when Arch Enemy re-recorded a bunch of their earlier material for The Root Of All Evil compilation in 2009.

"Matchkampf"

A deep album cut from the excellent Doomsday Machine, "Matchkampf" – translating to "Power Struggle" – is a fist-pumping track that moves at a raging, almost violent pace. It's a powerchord heavy number, with very little of Arch Enemy's usual singing guitar  – although the boys can't help themselves when the solo section pops up. It also a packs a nice key change at the tail-end of the song to keep things fresh. The last section of Doomsday Machine is overlooked, with the cracking "Matchkampf" being the most forgotten of the lot.

"My Shadow And I"

A classic sounding Arch Enemy number from their tenth full length – and first with uber-shredder Jeff Loomis – Will To Power's anthemic "My Shadow And I" should have been at the very least released as a single for the LP. It's first half is more in the band's more melodic vein, with the second packing a off-to-races tempo pick up, before a thumping half-time section cranks the heaviness up a notch or two. Rather than being given the film clip treatment, it's instead been tucked away towards the back end of the record, and has yet to feature in an Arch Enemy setlist.

"On and On"

Another latter-day choice, "On and On" is lifted from 2014's War Eternal – a record most notable for the debuting of current Arch Enemy vocalist Alissa White–Gluz. A big tune with a thunderous bridge and instantly memorable chorus, it's actually co-written by another debutant – one-time lead guitarist Nick Cordle. A strong track that seems to have been forgotten about as one of the lowest streamed from War Eternal, "On and On" almost sounds tailor-made for promotional play, but alas it wasn't meant to be.

"Seed Of Hate"

With definitely more than a nod towards Ozzy Osbourne's"Bark At The Moon", "Seed Of Hate" is a hard rocking, early days Arch Enemy classic. Penned solely by Christopher Amott, there's certainly more to the Burning Bridge track's Jake E Lee style main-riff – with a restrained verse passage and real ear grabbing chorus. Like the previously listed "Losing Faith", the uptempo banger was not redone for Arch Enemy's The Root Of All Evil nostalgia trip. Which is a shame, as it's a fun, underrated tune.

"Shadows & Dust"

Lifted from the superb Wages of Sin – Arch Enemy's first album with Angela Gossow – "Shadow & Dust" is tremendous track that has rarely been played by the band. The closer for the record's standard edition, it's such such a great melodic death metal song – basically the perfect example of Arch Enemy's sound. Great riffs, big chorus and singing guitar melodies – what more do you want from them? It's only sin is being on arguably their best full length, and thusly been overlooked for it's more well known brethren.

"Tears Of The Dead"

Taken from Arch Enemy's sophomore release Stigmata, the 1998 record saw them build upon the momentum from their debut Black Earth. Some great material on here, but a song that's been under appreciated for years is the excellent "Tears Of The Dead". It's got an epic feel to it, with loads of powerful riffs and melodies, and is one the high points from the Johan Liiva-era of the group. Perhaps it's only reason for being forgotten is due to the album's huge closer "Bridge of Destiny" having stolen our selection's thunder.

"The Oath"

A deep cut cover of a deep cut original, Arch Enemy's take on Kiss' highly underrated barnstormer "The Oath" is an excellent example of tweaking a song just enough to make it your own. The heavy, fast-paced track makes for a perfect tune for our guys to tackle, and aside from the screamed vocals and lower-key, Arch Enemy keep their take on "The Oath" pretty damn close to the original. Laid down during the aforementioned Rise Of The Tyrant sessions; the huge, modern metal production works perfectly – and frankly, if you didn't know any better, you'd think that it's an Arch Enemy original. That is the sign of a great cover.