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soundsof71 · 3 years

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FIVE ALBUMS YOU NEED IN YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW!!!

aka, My Top 5 of 2020, but I didn’t want to seem too retro!

Yep, I have a classic rock blog. Yep, I think that the best rock and roll in history is being made RIGHT NOW. And yep, ALL of it is being made by women.

(Shown at top, Nova Twins by Ant Adams [x] and The Tissues by Michael Espleta [x]. I was planning to make a collage of all my faves in concert, but not all of them were able to play in 2020. Both of these photos are pre-pandemic.)

There’s been quite a bit of movement on this list, and all five of these have spent some time at Number 1 as the year has done (gestures broadly) All This™. Anyone looking for rock and roll is going to dig any of these.

Rocking out is just the start of it, though. Wrestling with my bipolarity and schizophrenia is tough on a good day, and there haven’t been too many of those lately. The plague has also taken its toll around me, with two family members dead and a third who’s doing better, but will likely never be all the way back. (Mask up, kids!)

I’ve written plenty about how deeply Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers have moved me this year (and will do so again), but in those rare stretches where I’ve had enough spare energy to listen to music at all these days, I’ve mostly been looking for more than beautiful music. Heavy times need heavy lifting, and I find that in heavy music.

The five albums here have all helped carry me, pointing the way toward light.

1) BULLY, SUGAREGG

Alicia Bognanno is a force of nature as a guitarist, vocalist, composer, and producer/engineer. (While working on her degree in audio engineering at MTSU, she interned with Steve Albini, who remains both a fan and an admirer). A Nashville transplant from Minnesota, she’s still a natural fit in her home on Sub Pop: as heavy as Soundgarden, as hooky as Sleater-Kinney.

I was blown away hearing her searing honesty while working through her discoveries of her bisexuality and bipolarity (double bi!), and her triumphant roar lifts me out of my seat every time I listen.

“She sings the hell out of [these songs], her voice fraying to the point of combustion every time she launches to the top of her range. This is phenomenal music for converting anger and anxiety into unbound joy.” ~Stereogum, Album of the Week

Also, check this fantastic interview with Alicia in the New York Times talking about what she’s gone through to get here.

TURN IT UP!

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2) GANSER, LOOK AT THAT SKY

Ganser syndrome is a rare dissociative disorder characterized by nonsensical or wrong answers to questions and other dissociative symptoms such as fugue, amnesia or conversion disorder, often with visual pseudohallucinations and a decreased state of consciousness. ~Wikipedia #it me

‘Just Look At That Sky’ doesn’t presume to offer solutions; it’s an honest document of what it feels like to wade through anxiety, day by day, not a survival guide or handbook of answers none of us actually have. Whether or not you pay attention to this, Ganser are simply one of the most invigorating, exciting new bands. ~Clashmusic

I saw one very positive review compare Ganser to a cross between Fugazi and Sonic Youth, but I think they hit much, much harder than either of those. And as you can surely guess, I also deeply relate to their themes of mental illness and dissociation while trying to make it through All This™. But my god, are they TIGHT. This is a BAND.

Ganser has two fantastic lead vocalists, and on “Bad Form”, bassist/vocalist Alicia Gaines wrote the song for the voice of keyboardist/vocalist Nadia Garofolo. Alicia also wrote a FANTASTIC essay on the strains that making an album during a pandemic puts on the mental health of the entire band at talkhouse: “Writing, recording, reaching out, balancing relationships outside and within the band, I found (and still find) myself under-rested and agitated to no particular end. More than not doing enough, I was not enough.”

(If you can’t relate to that, I can’t relate to you, tbh.)

This video also does a fantastic job of showing dissociation. TURN IT UP!

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3) THE TISSUES, BLUE FILM

“Blue Film” is a ten-song shot of dagger-twisting electro-(s)punk. It’s completely addictive from the very first listen. The tour de force is “Rear Window”, an art-punk masterpiece of slashing guitars and mad caterwauling. Copious doses of jaunty poetics and social commentary reward the earlooker patient enough to untangle Kristine Nevrose’s hysterical meowing about intergalactic salt shakers and hysterectomies, but I’m too emotionally invested to look under the hood.” ~ Sputnik Music

“Rear Window” is in fact my most-played 2020 track. TURN IT UP!

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4) GUM COUNTRY, SOMEWHERE

It’s not all heavy! But even when I’m looking for something light and hooky, I need a bite, and Gum Country has done it with the kind of swirly, feeedback-laden wall of sound that Lush or Yo La Tengo would make if they lived in LA. (Recent transplants to SoCal from Vancouver, I do think that the sunshine has gone straight to their heads, in the very best way.)

Indie music nerds will know guitarist/composer/singer/front woman Courtney Garvin from The Courtneys, and she really does throw up a glorious wall of sound. I adore this video too! Sweet, swinging, fun -- and yes, the drummer is playing keyboard with one hand while slapping the skins with the other!

I mentioned earlier that all five of these albums have spent part of the year at #1 on my list -- I think that this one might have spent the longest stretch there. Like all shoegaze, even as hooky as this, the truth of these songs is revealed in VOLUME. TURN IT UP!

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5) NOVA TWINS, WHO ARE THE GIRLS?

Now, THIS is heavy! Amy Lee (vocals, guitar) and Georgia South (bass) are fucking LOUD, and insanely intense. A mix of grime, hip-hop, metal, punk, and good old rock and roll, they’re a harder-hitting, more theatrical Prodigy, with a pyre of intensity that recalls the heaviest howls of Rage Against The Machine. Indeed, Nova Twins spent a good bit of 2019 playing heavy metal festivals and toured as openers for Prophets of Rage. (Tom Morello has been a fan and supporter from the beginning.)

As you may have noted in the photo at the top of this post, their musical audacity extends to visuals too: they design their own clothes, hair, and makeup, they art direct their own videos, and more. They impress the hell out of me, and I’ve been a huge fan since hearing their first singles in 2018. I’ll plant a flag and say that Georgia South in particular is the most innovative musician on any instrument in any genre right now, but they’re both absolutely monsters.

I’m honestly not at all sure that #5 is high enough for this, but I’m absolutely certain that after this video, you’re gonna need to rest for a little. LOL

“Taxi” is the story of two gleefully and creatively violent women shaking up the local crime syndicate as they use a vintage cab for their moving murder scene. This is the movie that Robert Rodriguez wishes he was making with Sin City, if it were combined with Blade Runner and The Matrix. And gangsters. And a snake.

I’m gonna take your crown I’m gonna, I’m gonna bleed you out We demand it by the hour We devour, control, power

I’m gonna burn it down Even the, even the royals bow

So not the same kind of therapeutic work being explored on this rekkid, but you know what? Fucking shit up is therapeutic too!

Definitely take this full screen, and for the love of fuck, TURN IT UP!

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SO. Not done with the best of 2020 yet? I’m sure not! A lot of my favorite songs aren’t on albums (at least not yet), so for an unedited list of everything I’m finding, check out my Spotify list, 2020: Shuffle This List! 268 songs and counting, over 15 hours, and not finished yet. I’m still checking out everyone else’s Best of lists (including yours! Message me links to yours!!!), so will probably be adding to this for most of 2021, too.

And for more banging tracks by women from 2020, plus a few 2019 gems that I’m still grooving to, check out my more thoroughly curated Spotify playlist Women Bangers: A Tumblr New Classics Jam. (You’ll see a couple of these tracks there!) I’m working on a YouTube playlist and an essay to properly roll that one out. I’m also still tweaking the ending, but the three dozen or so tunes there are definitely bangin’.

Tell me if you hear anything you dig here, and tell me what YOU’VE found! We’re gonna get through this together.

Yr pal, Timmy

#me #new classics #classic rock #women in rock #best of 2020 #bully #ganser #the tissues #gum country #nova twins #essay #youtube #punk rock #punk

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glapplebloom · 4 years

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((Early Schedule means earlier releases of this.))

I am so glad the first non-Zord Power Ranger fight was Jason. While everyone says Tommy is their favorite Ranger, mine was always Jason. I like Red, he was the first Karate Guy and he was a great leader. With the added benefit of him showing up in the upcoming Power Ranger Team Up for Beast Morphers, he was a shoe in to represent the Rangers against the Turtles.

With the upcoming Crossover between MLP and Transformers in the comics, you could look at the two Megaman/Sonic Crossovers since one of the writers for that will be working on it. But the current Crossover with TMNT and Power Rangers is a good example of what to expect. So many fun interactions.

One of the more questionable things is how Jason scales to other Rangers. Specifically Rocky with the Ninja Morphin Powers. A lot of people think they don’t because its a different set of powers that in theory would be more powerful than the originals. But this is what Ninjor said...

You now possess the power of ninja deep in your souls. Come now and learn of your new gifts. Behold the power of grace and beauty of your new Ninja Zords. These zords have drivin by the forces of the ninja and it fuse with light and strength. There are far superior to the zords of the past. Well, before your power came from the brute strength of the dinosaurs. Now it comes from the swift intelligent cutting of the ninja. Your new power coins come with new more advanced powers.

Those new advanced powers? They’re the Ninja Forms. These predate the Civilian Powers later Rangers would have. While useful to fight off the Tengu Warriors (and Rito), they usually morph when it comes to fighting the Monster of the day. And outside the Metallic Armor (an add-on by Zordon and Alpha), there was nothing different from their original Dino Ranger Powers. Same costume. Same weapons. Just an in-between state that allows them to defeat the stronger mooks. All this plus the various team ups where Jason can stand alongside other later Rangers (including the supposed superior Zeo), Jason should likely scale to Red Ninja Morphin Rocky.

Ever wondered how Jason got his Dino Coin back? Boom’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 2018 Annual explains it. Rocky kept it around like Adam did in Space. Only instead of keeping it, he decided to give it back to Jason after he was done being the Gold Ranger. Thus the later appearances of them have Jason with Dino Morphin and Rocky with Ninja Morphin (yes, he does use the Ninja Morphin Powers in his team up).

Now how could I tell he’s using Ninja Morphin and not Dino Morphin? When Rocky does his fighting stance, he does an Ape Pose. His animal was the Ape. So in between Forever Red and Ninja Steel, they fixed up his old coin so he can once again be the Red Ninja Morphin Ranger.

Did you know the Power Blasters could destroy the Megazord and Dragonzord? That’s because before the Zords got upgraded to be Thunder, their Power Weapons were upgraded. Back against the Might Morphin Mutants, when it came to hand to hand they were outmatched. But after they upgraded they one upped them before Rita made them grow. And when Pirantishead took control of them, they threatened to destroy the zords before turning it against Pirantishead.

Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger (Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger) had an episode known as Delusional Imports. In it, their villain made it so people believed Power Rangers came before Sentai. Got to say it was kind of unflattering, but it was pretty funny. And it does show their passion for the original Sentai that Power Rangers were based on.

After the Research was done, what showed up in my recommendations was Austin St. John talking about how he got the role of Jason. It is an entertaining story. On that channel, you can also see stories of his first live appearance, being the Gold Ranger, a touching story about Thuy Trang (Trini the Yellow Ranger), and a trailer about his story about Forever Red.

While we were working on Jason/Leonardo, the Death Battle Curse struck. Outside the announcement of the Power Rangers/TMNT Crossover comic, David Yost (Billy the Blue Ranger) made an appearance for the Toys that Made Us Season 3 for Power Rangers. This is the first Power Rangers related thing I’ve seen him in since leaving Zeo. Though before that he also appeared in Power Rangers Anti Bullying.

To fill in the Turtles side: my favorite Turtle is Raphael. As a kid it was Mikey but seeing the 4Kids Turtles made me enjoy Ralph. It continued with the 2012 Turtles and I am glad to see Ralph in the leader role in Rise of the TMNT. Sadly, I don’t follow that series and now that its on Nicktoons, the chances of a third seasons are low.

And I regret not following it SO BADLY because I just found out about Foot Recruit. Its like if Lord Hater and Commander Peepers had a kid. And voiced by Zelda Williams? If she was in episode 1 I would have been following it from the start. Here is the video that made me love her.

One more Ranger Tidbit: in the comics instead of going to a Peace Conference, the three rangers were chosen by the Morphin Grid to be Omega Rangers. I missed this fight with Lord Zell, but as you can tell there was still plenty for Jason.

#other

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davedimartino · 7 years

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NEW THIS WEEK 12.15.08

It would be foolish to envision a bunch of sweating accountants pacing up and down the halls of the world's remaining record labels, warning executives high and low that unless certain albums see release before year-end, their numbers will be at an all-time low!

And who in the world could imagine a scenario wherein matters of "overall musical quality" and "not cutting any corners" were overlooked merely in order to meet a corporate deadline?

Nope! Coincidentally, just one week before the holidays, everybody finished making their new albums at the same time!

And guess what? I'll be meeting them all at Applebee's on their way to the mall! You're welcome to join us!

Soulja Boy Tell'em: Souljaboytellem (Interscope) I am nearly rendered speechless by this, my favorite rap album ever--a veritable smorgasbord of sonic delight dripping with profundity on countless levels! With a charming variety of repetitive honks, beats and bleats, Soulja's latest contains 16 tracks of surrealistic, half-garbled phrases largely revolving around the wonderful song titles! Just look at them!: "I'm Bout Tha Stax," "Booty Got Swag," “Wit My Yums On," "Whoop Rico," and--best of all--the revealingly titled "Soulja Boy Tellem"! A careful listening can't help but remind you of that peculiar sensation of being halfway between sleep and wakefulness: familiar words take on new meanings, nonsense phrases make startling sense, and, as always, you suddenly realize that you're not wearing any pants! I would say that my unqualified favorite here is the startling "Yamaha Mama"--which also features the distinguished Sean Kingston and may represent the all-time apex of both artists' storied careers! In short: anyone who does not instantly love this record is either flawed as a human or simply hasn't heard it yet!

Fall Out Boy: Folie A Deux (Island) Though I don't count myself as one of Fall Out Boy's biggest fans--I saw some guy at their recent LA show who had to be at least 6'8"!--I was pleasantly surprised by this album! First, I liked its title! French is great! Secondly, cartoon covers are always good! Thirdly, in case you've forgotten, Fall Out Boy is one of those bands who don't employ that same pinched-nose, nasal singing style that Blink-182 popularized and the godlike Yellowcard took to ultimate perfection, so they don't sound stupid and old-fashioned! Finally, there seem to be some real songs on this album--good pop songs--and even Elvis Costello drops by to sing on a track! Wow! Plus one of these guys is married to Ashlee Simpson, so it has to be good! I wish all album reviews could be like this!

Anthony Hamilton: The Point Of It All (So So Def/Zomba) Returning for his third "official" studio album, singer Hamilton remains one of today's finest R&B singers! He's highly respected, works with many of today's best new artists, and enjoys a stylistic versatility that surpasses many of his more commercial peers! Among the tracks here is "Cool," featuring David Banner! Sadly, he's too good to make fun of--so there's no point in mentioning that he looks like he's about to throw up in a sink on this album cover!

All-American Rejects: When The World Comes Down (DGC/Interscope) They're a good-hearted bunch, the All-American Rejects, and they've spent the past few years methodically building up a large and loyal fan base that are sure to love this brand new album! They've opened for Bon Jovi, they've promoted milk in a national publicity campaign, and they even covered Britney Spears' "Womanizer" for Yahoo! In short, they're simply perfect human beings and deserving of all your support financial or otherwise! Don't reject them--as they clearly expect on the basis of their name--but instead embrace them! Sure, why not?

Keyshia Cole: A Different Me (Geffen/Interscope) A highly regarded R&B vocalist who's actually referred to her previous two albums as "painful"--no time to put that in context!--returns with a whammer-bammer showstopper that features a guest appearance by Tupac Shakur as well as Monica (the singer, not the veterinarian assistant) and should sell by the boatload if her well-meaning supporters have their way! That said, this habit of today's most popular vocalists deliberately confusing their money-bearing fans with such album titles as A Different Me and I Am…Sasha Fierce is disturbing--it's harder than ever for consumers to focus these days, gals, so start going with things like Hey Clerk, File Me In Front Of Natalie and I, Beyonce, Would Like You To Buy This! Nice cover, though!

Plies: Da REAList (Big Gates/Slip-N-Slide) Could it be true that this is "the Ft. Meyers, Florida-based rap superstar's third full length release in just under 16 months"? Hard to believe, considering the extraordinary amount of time the admirable fellow spent penning such new favorites as "Me & My Goons," "F**k U Gon' Do Bout It," and the near-anthemic "Pants Hang Low"! Those wondering how this near workaholic manages to retain his sanity need go no further than the surprisingly candid "I Chase Paper," in which the rapper details how his sadistic school friends often used to bully him while he was earnestly folding newspapers for his paper route! No, wait--that was Fall Out Boy!

Ghostface Killah: Ghostdeini The Great (Def Jam) There's no denying the enormous influence and impact the Wu-Tang Clan have had in the world of popular music, so this new greatest hits CD/DVD set by founding member Mr. Killah should certainly be welcomed by those who care! Featuring remixes with new verses--it is said--this album is only handicapped by its trite and ubiquitous title, recently employed by the likes of Hilary Duff, Willie Nelson, and Morrissey in just the past six months! Dude, I, Ghostface wasn't taken!

Saliva: Cinco Diablo (Island) Like you, I've often wondered what it would be like to write about this album while listening to Gerry & The Pacemakers singing "You'll Never Walk Alone"! Boasting--if indeed inanimate objects can actually boast--one of the finest album covers of the year, Saliva fans will likely be "drooling" over the hot sounds on display here! Between you and me, if I were writing its product description for a well-known retailer, I'd probably call this "the ultimate alt-metal post-grunge must-have CD this twisted holiday season!" Then I would get fired and listen to the new Soulja Boy album in my car a lot! Yes, it's that good!

Jamie Foxx: Intuition (J Records) The second album by actor/singer Foxx, this collection features guest appearances by T.I., Lil Wayne, Kane West, T-Pain, Ne-Yo, Timbaland, and The Dream, and is highlighted by the stunning cover picture of the singer wearing sunglasses! I don't know, there's just something cool about guys who wear sunglasses! And when you consider the album title--it's like he knows you're intrigued by him! You should definitely buy this!

Ha Ha The Moose: Alce En Vivo De Los Muertos (Fatboy Records) Years from now I will fondly look back at the time I actually wrote about an album by someone called Ha Ha The Moose! What will you be doing?

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