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#also he sings 'one margarita' but not this version it's that country version

volaviwrites · 6 years

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I Would Teach My Feet to Fly

Dick escapes Gotham for Los Angeles in December, but everything reminds him of Jason and their failed relationship. At least he can surf. Now if he just stop hearing that song everywhere he goes.

A Christmas fic inspired by “The River” by Joni Mitchell, especially Robert Downey Jr.s version. It’s also a loose sequel to the my fic “The Candle” but can be read on its own.

Dick all but snatched the opportunity to get out of town, because, God, he thought he was over it, over Jason, but seeing him on the street the other week had ripped off the thin scab that he had been able to pretend was true healing.

And it wasn’t even officially winter yet, but November had been cold even for Gotham, and Dick tolerated the cold, had slowly grown used to it over the years, but fundamentally he was still the child who’d spent his winters in Florida off the Gulf Coast. Maybe a change of climate, a view of a different ocean, some trees that still had actual leaves on them, would be good for him. No snow, no bare branched trees, just balmy beaches and 70 degree weather.

Dick deliberately ignores the voice in his head that tells him that his quick agreement to run B’s errands in California had nothing to do with the fact it would dramatically reduce his chances of seeing Jason for the duration of the trip.

“La la la denial,” he sings quietly to himself to the tune of ‘Silent Night.’

The grand foyer of the hotel has swaths of real pine garland, a giant fake tree decked in tasteful gold and crystal, and a grand piano playing soft holiday music. While he’s standing in line to check in, the musician moves to a few bars of Jingle Bells, then starts the melody line of ‘The River.’

Dick closes his eyes.

He’s not that kind of guest, but part of him wants to find someone in charge and complain about them playing such a depressing song at this time of year. It wouldn’t even be that out of character, really, since he is checking in as Richard Grayson-Wayne, billionaire’s son. Though Dick doesn’t want to risk TMZ running an article speculating on why a song about a broken relationship and heartbreak provoked such a reaction. And if this song hits a bit close to home, well, that’s hardly the piano player’s fault.

When had Jason bought the ring? Why did he finally decide to sell it, two years after they broke up?

Two years after Dick broke up with Jason.

Dick steps forward when he realizes that the clerk has been calling him for at least a few seconds. He plasters on his smile, the smile that has earned him more than one headline in gossip magazines and tabloids, more than a couple of flirtatious comments from Extra hosts. The check in process goes smoothly, but he still has to endure the rest of the song, thinking of all the times he fucked up, was too needy, too demanding, expecting Jason to change. And now he’s lost the best relationship he ever had.

He’s moving to the elevator as quickly as he can, but not before the song has finished.

Before the encounter on the rainy street, Dick had barely seen Jason in civilian clothes since the break up. Nightwing and Red Hood had managed to carve out a respectable, if cooly civil, working relationship - Bruce’s training in emotional suppression for the win! But that’s it. Nothing else. Not a word.

He knew that Jason had eased away from the whole drug lord mob boss thing. Red Hood rarely even killed these days.

But scathing words can’t be unsaid.

Not for the first time, Dick wishes he could fly away.

The business that brought him here was a felicitous overlap of Wayne Enterprises and Batman interests. Dick is going to ceremonially break ground at a new wing of the Children’s Hospital, and have a few “for the sake of appearances only” meetings with some West Coast executives. Meanwhile, Nightwing needs to deliver a new form of Kryptonite to Star Labs and wait for them to stabilize it before returning it to Batman. B didn’t want to risk transporting the mercurial element through the Zeta tubes, and there were very few people he trusted enough to travel across country with it.

Richard Grayson-Wayne smiles for the cameras. He goes shopping on Rodeo Drive. He eats at a trendy vegan restaurant in West Hollywood that just happens to have some of the best cocktails and spicy margaritas on the West Coast. He perhaps drinks one too many in an attempt to suppress memories of Jason carefully learning to cook a vegetarian version of khoresh bademjan. After Damian decided to quit eating meat, but missed the Iranian eggplant stew usually cooked with lamb, Jason made it a personal mission to replicate the dish as closely as possible.

The combination of chiles and tequila burn going down, though they can’t quite disguise the tang of regret.

He spends an early morning at El Porto Beach, catching some winter waves. He’s not a great surfer, but he took a week’s worth of lessons in Hawaii as a young teenager. This had been back when Bruce and Alfred actually went on occasional family vacations, and the key skills of surfing are balance and flexibility, something that Dick has been granted from birth and worked hard his entire life to enhance.

The feel of the Pacific Ocean at his back, the thought of thousands of miles of undulating waves, the unexplored depths, the unknown cold crevices, reassures him in a bleak midwinter kind of way. He thinks of fish that are luminous in the dark, of scudding sail boats, krakens and storms, stretches of nothing but water and sky, of mermaids. Here there be monsters.

Dick has always loved too well and not wisely. He loves slowly, softly at first, and then sudden and all at once, like sand falling from an hourglass. He’s needy and emotional, yet not always conscientious of his lovers own emotional issues.

As the beach starts to fill with tourists, he heads back to his rental car. He unzips and peels off the top half of his wetsuit, so similar to his Nightwing costume. Sand sticks to his feet in the outdoor shower. He ignores the glances from the others at the beach. Whether it’s for his scars or his muscles, it doesn’t matter to him. Their speculation washes off him easier than the sand. Easier than regret.

Back in the car, Dick checks his cellphone out of habit more than expectation.

There’s a text from Jason. His pulse quickens.

“Dickie. Let’s get coffee when you’re back in Gotham. -J”

He scrubs his hands through his hair, already drying salty and wavy. The phone sits heavy in his hand.

Thumbs slow and uncertain, Dick types back, “Sure. Sounds good.”

As an afterthought, he sends a second text. “Come to LA. I’ll teach you how to surf.”

Dick sits for he doesn’t know how long waiting for a reply before giving up and driving back to his hotel. He curses himself for being an idiot. Yet when he’s walking through the lobby again, he hears the chime of a text alert over the sounds of the piano hitting a minor chord, then a major lift.

“I already know how to surf, Goldie. Used to live on a tropical island with Kori and Roy.”

Dick bites his lip. He wishes he could skate away from here on a river of ice. Or at least go back to the beach and let the ocean pull him away with the rock of the waves and the inexorable pull of the tides.

Then his phone lights up with another text. “I’ll be there tomorrow.

AO3 link

#my fic #jaydick #jaydick fanfic #volavi's fic #christmas fic #angst with a happy ending

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jim-reid · 6 years

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Sporran Co-Despondents

Keith Cameron / NME 24.09.1994

After ten years on the road, The Jesus and Mary Chain find themselves in pretty much the same place they've been for years: on licensed premises sitting at a table filled with margaritas and naked dancers. But, reckon Jim and William Reid, the place may be the same but they've moved on. Keith Cameron drinks his fill. It is across the road from the Moulin Rouge. There appears to be an al fresco Ann Summers party in full swing just next door. And our chosen late-night Parisian refreshment stop rejoices under the name Lili La Tigresse. Yet the ultimate piece of circumstantial evidence confirming that this is not the place to come for a quiet lager top and quick game of dominoes hangs above the bar, in the form of a trapeze, a young woman of insufficient dress straddles it and begins to swing extravagantly. Her stilettoed feet come within inches of grazing the startled features of one Mr Jim Reid. Well "Hey! Hey! Hey!", as the man himself has been won't to utter on many an occasion over the past ten years. What more could you want from a Paris rendezvous avec le Jesus et Mary Chain? There are frozen margaritas on tap, dodgy-looking heavies in every corner and the naked chicks are said to "do" "it" "all night long". Pretty soon we'll hit the sidewalk take ourselves to the dirty part of town; you know the place, where all our troubles can't be found. Whaddya say, Jim? Jim?? Hey Jim, where ya goin'?! "Gotta get some kip. 'Night." Aw! Never mind, here's William. Yo William! Have a seat, have a drink, lets talk about the last time you were here and got chased out of town by the local vice squad in cahoots with a gang of machete-wielding LSD-crazed nuns. "Aye, I went to the Highlands for my summer holidays last year. Fuckin' rained every day. Hey, did you just see a girl with no clothes on dancing on the bar just now? Anyway where was I? Oh yeah, the ferry to Skye was a bit choppy, though..." The Jesus & Mary Chain are growing up so gracefully that their unrelenting progress is hard to believe. Some would say this is just as well. We are ten years since they stuck a pointy boot through the ear of a nation and screamed "Fuck" for 20 minutes before trashing the joint and still getting home in time to cop as much sulphate as they could before maw and paw came home from bingo. It's not pipe and slippers time yet but we can forgive them for at least beginning to consider acting their age. Even in a dodgy bar in Paris at two in the morning... This ten year-year tour of duty in rock's field of dreams has seen the brothers Reid resolutely ploughing the same furrow, against the odds and expectations of others, unearthing different ways to say much the same old things. "Fuck with me and I'll fuck with you / Isn't that what we're supposed to do / Kick me down and I will kick you too," sings Jim on 'Dirty Water', a new Jesus & Mary Chain song. "But you break me in two / And you throw me away / Knock me on my back / I'll send a heart attack," sang the same man on 'You Trip Me Up', a ten-year old Jesus & Mary Chain song. To the band's detractors, the fact that either lyric could conceivably fit in either song proves that the Mary Chain are a pair of con-men, desperately flogging their one trick pony 'til the poor beast can take no more. OK, so the early song was soused with feedback while its junior sibling bathes in a soothing acoustic balm – no matter, both are cut from the same starry-eyed cloth. Of course, claim the fully-paid up Chain-holders, this is the whole point. Rock'n'roll's corpse has been exhumed and defiled so often that nothing truly new of worth is ever likely to emerge. What makes The Jesus and Mary Chain so remarkable is that through persistently drawing upon the same chords, the same words, the same obsessions – they manage to continually reinvent themselves as a slightly but subtly different version of the old model, and still succeed in being unique. For, as much as they sound like other bands, no other band sounds quite like the Mary Chain. It really is ten years, then. Ten years of proving that the rule book need never be purchased, let alone read and its strictures followed. Compared with their contemporaries only the Mary Chain have enjoyed continuous chart success allied with critical acclaim. Primal Scream's star might have shone brighter at times but at others it's resembled a black hole. Ironically, in view of their early hell-raising activities, the Mary Chain have assumed the role of rebel rock's dependable elder statesmen. This month's new jacks come, last year's young things slip into oblivion, but Jim and William just keep on playin' their song. How much longer they are inclined to do so seems the not unreasonable topic for discussion this morning after the night before. Reeling from the dual impact of hangovers and a day-long interview schedule, both Jim, in his 33rd year, and 36-year-old William betray the haunted look of men for whom this business long ceased to be a respectable occupation. "It feels like it's getting hard to deal with as the years go on," considers William. " 'Cos I think the business side of it it getting less and less interesting. Making records, writing songs is just brilliant. It's brilliant to be able to do that and it's good to be good at it. But the rest of the stuff it's appeal is wearing thin. To be honest, for me it was only the first five months being in the group that was any real fun, and after that it seemed a chore." "I still like touring, though," adds Jim. "I still like seeing new places, still like to get around. I mean, I'd rather be sitting in Paris talking, than some shithole in London." The Mary Chain are in Paris not just to shoot the breeze with a chorus line of earnest local hacks. Last night they had performed live for only the second time with their latest out-of-studio line-up, following a bizarre liggers-only set at Soho's sleezemungous Madame Jo-Jo's the previous month. Joining guitarist Ben Lurie, who has been part of the set-up for five years now and is therefore eligible to sit in on interviews, are bassist Lincoln Fong (Moose) and former Curve drummer Steve Monti, who as well as hoping to make the Mary Chain his new regular seat of employment is also currently a Blockhead. "Great fun," he says of working with the venerable Mr Dury, Curve, he says, felt like playing with U2. And this lot? "Well it doesn't feel like U2, put it that way." The performance for French national radio's The Black Session – hosted by Bernard Lenoir, whose fierce enthusiasm and avuncular appearance result in him routinely being dubbed "the French John Peel" – was by the band's own admission "rusty" but proved them still capable of bristling the neck hairs when it counts. Moreover, in front of a rapt audience it served as a graphic demonstration that outside their own country at least the Mary Chain are still very much regarded as mythical rock'n'roll outlaws. At home, however, it's different. Or that's how the Reid brothers perceive matters, certainly. The generally cool critical reception meted out to the new 'Stoned and Dethroned' album seems to have confirmed their opinion of Britain as a fickle place that refuses to accord them their deserts but instead views them as a faintly comical cabaret act. "This record's been reviewed all over the world but it's been reviewed particularly fucking nastily in Britain," says William. "It's like it's the worst record in the world. I wish I could have somehow released the record without our name on it, as if it was by a new band, 'cos I'm sure it would have been seen differently. I'm sure it would. But no, it's The Jesus & Mary Chain and we've got a lot to live up to." "There seems to be no way we can win," sighs Jim. "You make a record with loud guitars and it's like (tuts)'Mary Chain, still got that feedback thing...'You make a record without feedback and it's, (tuts) 'Mary Chain, softening getting old..." Such are the problems of having made one of the landmark albums of the 1980s – people will always insist on remembering it. But aren't you proud of the fact that you carry this baggage around with you, that you made such an impact on the national pop psyche that people maintain these preconceptions? "I think I would be if it wasn't such a fuckin' albatross around our neck," says William. "We do get a lot of respect outside Britain. We're seen as an important band. But in Britain it's totally different, we're just a bunch of old fuckin' has-beens... Which is not true. Yeah, the baggage we should really be proud of, but when you read a review of your record you don't wanna hear about 'Psychocandy'. That was almost ten fuckin' years ago. We're different people and we cannae make that music. We've done it, we've done it as best we could and we moved on. And I think we've kept moving on." So how would you prove to someone that you weren't an old has-been? William: "I'd say listen to our new record. This record's pretty mellow, it's quiet. But it's no' because you get to a certain age and then all of a sudden realise, 'Oh, I don't know how to make noise'. It's just because we wanted to make this record. We recorded the (decidedly un-acoustic) 'Sound Of Speed EP' at the same fuckin' time." Jim: "I wouldn't even try. It's ludicrous. Anybody that thinks it can never really be convinced otherwise." If only bands were somehow incapable of reading their own reviews. Despite the fact that their records sell more than respectably, Jim and William's assessment of their esteem in Britain appears entirely based on what the press has said about them. This goes a long way to explaining why it's been over two-and-a-half years since they toured this country and why they have no plans to do so again for the foreseeable future (though they're off to the USA soon for six weeks). Which in turn might have something to do with why one of the bands that supported them on that last Rollercoaster tour – Blur – are a considerably hotter property than the Mary Chain at this present moment. As they are no doubt aware, making good records is not necessarily enough. But if that is the only aspect of being in a band that gives them any joy then why bother with the rest? "Unfortunately," says William, heaving a gargantuan sigh, "we are not in a grand economic situation. We're no' rich. Our records don't sell millions. So to maintain the sales we've got to do the interviews and photo sessions and 'travel the world'..." He spits the words out like someone has laced his mineral water with prune juice. "He says Paris is as good a place as any to be," nodding across at his brother. "I don't think so. I don't want to be in Paris right now. There's other places I'd like to be right now and people I'd like to be with. This is my work. And the reason I say I love songwriting is 'cos it never feels like a job. It's a pleasure. The rest of it's abstract. I wonder what would happen if we never did it, never spoke to people, never did photo sessions, TV interviews..." "I imagine," counsels Ben, "that people would think we're a bunch of snotty bastards." "But people already think we're a bunch of snotty bastards!" yells William. Couldn't you afford to give it a try? How well off are you? "We're no' poor. But if we stopped making records we could be poor. If we suddenly gave up we couldn'ae easily survive." "I had to fire my butler last week," Jim deadpans. "Caught him stealing the last hundred quid out of my safe." In many ways, Jim and William are ill-suited for life in this, the fifth decade of that multi-formatted, superannuated behemoth known as Rock (Inc). Despite their artful manipulation of video imagery they are deeply uncomfortable in front of any type of camera lens. Nor are they the most natural live performers in the world, which led to a notably traumatic experience on the second Lollapalooza tour in 1992. William: "It was the most soul-destroying experience I've ever had in the group." Jim: "Going on at four in the afternoon in broad daylight, it's not what the Mary Chain's about at all. And then there was all the backstage bullshit with everybody talking about guitars and having this wild great time...We shouldn't have been there. We thought it was gonna be more like a European festival on the road, and we get there and it's 4pm with a bunch of American kids sitting there waiting for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. You're playing your heart out and there's silence. Ten weeks' worth. It was hellish." "It's happening to Nick Cave this year," adds William. "He's stiffing badly. When we play live there's got to be a certain mystery to the show, because we're not the greatest showbiz performers, and the same with him. When you see Nick Cave you wanna see him in darkness with a bit of smoky atmosphere. Broad daylight in Oklahoma just isn'ae sexy! "Lollapalooza was an exercise in hypocrisy, the whole thing. The philosophy behind it was freaks, weirdos and outsiders get together and let's all be free. But backstage we kept to ourselves and instead of letting us be free about that people got fucked off with it. It was supposedly a celebration of freaks and weirdos but we weren't allowed to be freakish or weird." Perhaps unsurprisingly then, the Mary Chain turned down the offer to play the great celebration of freakish weirdosity and 13-dollar pizza that was Woodstock 2 ("it sounded tacky," sniffs William, "and it was!"). Can it really be that after ten years they still find the most fundamental aspects of being in a rock'n'roll group problematic? "I think we've settled down a bit," says Jim. "We don't fuck up as much as we used to, 'cos the whole situation was a lot more intimidating at the beginning. We just didn't think we were good enough. We believed in the songs but presenting the songs to an audience scared the shit out of us. So we used to get really shitfaced before we went onstage and there was always some incredible fuckup gonna happen. These days it's a lot more relaxed and it seems to be in front of people who want hear the music and accept it any way you give it to them." See? They've always wanted to be a regular band. Which perhaps hits the nerve as to why when some people listen to 'Stoned and Dethroned' and hear the groovy swing of Jim's duet with Hope Sandoval or the Drifteresque hand-jive of new single 'Come On' they maybe think, "This is nice but..." In conquering the demons that once led to their shows being so singularly chaotic, the Mary Chain succeeded in removing much of the excitement. "That might be true," ponders Jim, "but it's easy to be exciting onstage. You could walk onstage with a gun and shoot a dog. That's exciting, but so what? There's more to what we do than sheer in your face excitement, that's only one element, a small element, to what a band should be about. So OK, we don't walk onstage and fall over, you lose something if you don't do that. But I think what you gain from not doing that is more important. Excitement is easy, you just walk on with a road drill and destroy the stage. But anybody can do it. And if that's what you're into buy a road drill and a stage and do it yourself!" Every revolution eventually assumes the robes of the regime it succeeded. But maybe The Jesus And Mary Chain were never the revolutionaries some of us took them to be in the first place. And it might well be that they're getting tired of being misunderstood. "I'm sure there's gonna be an end to The Jesus & Mary Chain." Says William, "and sometimes it feels like it's right around the corner. Right after Lollapalooza I was thinking, 'I don't want to do this'. Same with him – you go through phases where you just want to stop it." "I think recently I've felt it could finish," nods Jim. "Whereas before we've just kinda talked about it. It seems more real now. I can actually imagine life without the Mary Chain. These days I could easily do it. Sometimes you just wonder, 'Is this worth it? I could do something else with my time." Such as? "I'd still like to make music but just not within this band. It's just the fact that we've been doing this for years and years and years and years. And you like to see there's some kind of progress in terms of people listening to your music, and sometimes we get really frustrated. You play the same clubs as you played in 1985...It's a thought." And one they seem reasonably preoccupied with at the moment. The previous evening, oblivious to the theatrics at Lili La Tigresse, William had expounded at length and with utter enthusiasm about the simple pleasures of music, of picking up a guitar and writing a song, purely for his own enjoyment. He'd said he writes maybe 40 or 50 a year, of which maybe eight are deemed worthy of recording ("ten, if you're lucky"). As the margaritas kicked in, your correspondent blithely predicted that they'd write ten more classics to shut the doubters up. Suddenly, William Reid's ebullience melted away. "We might. We might...Remember when you went from primary school to high school? They're just one summer apart but it's like moving from complete innocence to total cynicism and world-weariness. That's what the music business is like. We're hard. We started out and we thought we were soft as shite but we've been here for ten years now and we're hard. We've seen a lot and we've changed. Sometimes it's best not to know certain things."

#interview

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beautyindisguise00 · 4 years

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WHAT’S THE BIGGEST SURPRISE YOU’VE EVER HAD?

Friday night October 16 2020 @5:50pm

1. WHERE ARE YOU FROM? Wisconsin

2. WHERE DO YOU LIVE AND FOR HOW LONG? i’ve been in wisconsin my whole life of 24 years. lived in my hometown all the way til i moved to college. after i finished college i decided to stay in the town i went to college in for work purposes

3. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT WHERE YOU LIVE? the different options around town of where to shop, eat, and other fun things to do

4. WHAT DID YOU LOVE THE MOST ABOUT THE TOWN YOU GREW UP IN? the lake. i love the fact that the lake was only a 5 minute drive and i was able to go there whenever i wanted. but also, the memories of the town.

5. DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS? not anymore

6. WHAT WAS YOUR 1ST PET’S NAME? thumperlina for my big fat brown bunny

7. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SEASON? fall

8. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE? i watch a lot of movies so i dont really have a favorite

9. FAVORITE MOVIE IN THE PAST 5 YEARS? avengers infinity war. avengars endgame, crazy rich asians, knives out, and maleficent 1 and 2

10. WHAT’S A MOVIE THAT YOU LAUGHED THE HARDEST DURING? ouf, i dont remember

11. WHAT’S A MOVIE YOU CRIED THE HARDEST DURING? avengars, crazy rich, and also while you were sleeping but that’s a drama

12. WHAT’S THE BEST-ANIMATED MOVIE EVER CREATED? the good dinosaur

13. FAVORITE TV SHOW? my two all-time favorites are one tree hill and the office

14. FAVORITE TV SHOW THAT IS CURRENTLY ON? chicago pd and fire

15. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE RESTAURANT? olive garden?

16. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? chicken alfredo, really good sushi, fried rice, curry

17. LEAST FAVORITE FOOD? any seafood --> shrimp, oysters, clams

18. WHAT TOPPINGS DO YOU GET ON YOUR PIZZA? pineapple and ham. hahaha yes, im that kind of person

19. FAVORITE BEVERAGE? coffee, strawberry lemondae

20. FAVORITE DESSERT? cheesecake or red velvet cake

21. IS THERE A DESSERT YOU DON’T LIKE? pumpkin pie

22. CAKE OR PIE? cake!

23. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? mackinaw island fudge, mint chocolate chip, strawberry cheesecake

24. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE CONDIMENT? honey mustard

25. WHAT DO YOU GET FOR BRUNCH? crepes with nutella and strawberries

26. IT’S 4 AM ON A SATURDAY NIGHT, WHAT DO YOU EAT? fried noodles with two poached eggs

27. WHAT ONE THING DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR FRIDGE AT ANY GIVEN TIME? eggs

28. WEIRDEST THING YOU’VE EVER EATEN? duck and this one indian thing i dont remember

29. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BAND? one direction and tenth avenue north

30. FAVORITE SOLO ARTIST? liam payne, harry styles, niall horan, louis tomlinson, zayn malik. hahaha and ed sheeran, halsey,

31. FAVORITE NONLIVING MUSICIAN? --

32. FAVORITE LYRICS? “and if the whole world was watching, i’d still dance with you” “baby im falling. head over heels. looking for ways to let you know just how i feel”

33. FAVORITE SONG OF ALL TIME? theres no way i could choose

34. FAVORITE ALBUM? again ^^

35. WHAT’S THE LAST SONG YOU LISTENED TO? currently singing like to the “while you were sleeping” ost right now “it’s you” by henry

36. IF YOUR LIFE WERE A SONG WHAT WOULD THE TITLE BE? beauty in disguise

37. WHAT SONG WOULD YOU PROBABLY BE CAUGHT DANCING ALONE TO? any of my current favorites right now

38. IF YOU COULD SING A DUET WITH SOMEBODY WHO WOULD IT BE? halsey. that would be so cool

39. IF YOU COULD MASTER ONE INSTRUMENT WHAT WOULD IT BE? guitar

40. WHAT IS YOUR GO-TO KARAOKE SONG? ugh, i hate karaoke

41. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING OR THE LAST BOOK YOU READ? probably back when i was rereading one of the “to all the boys i’ve loved” trilogy

42. WHAT’S A BOOK THAT YOU PLAN ON READING? prayer by tim keller. i just ordered it online and it should be coming in on monday

43. WHAT’S A BOOK THAT YOU READ BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE WAS READING IT? twilight series. haha

44. WHAT’S A BOOK THAT YOU READ IN SCHOOL THAT POSITIVELY SHAPED YOU? mhmm...i dont remember. not that it posititive shaped me but the great gatsby was really interesting. also, when i was student teaching, i read number the stars with my kids and it was a great historical fiction book to read

45. WHAT’S A BOOK IN SCHOOL THAT YOU HATED? i didnt hate it, but there was this one book we read in ap lit and as a project, my friends made the movie version of it

46. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK? to all the boys trilogies

47. WHAT’S A BOOK YOU WISH YOU HAD WRITTEN? ^^

48. DARK CHOCOLATE OR MILK CHOCOLATE? i like both but if i had to choose, then dark

49. UNDERWATER OR OUTER SPACE? underwater like in a submarine or something were i knew i was safe

50. DOGS OR CATS? dogs for sure

51. KITTENS OR PUPPIES? ohh, puppies of course

52. DOLPHINS OR KOALAS? dolphins! i really wanted to swim with dolphins when i was in florida but it didnt work out in our schedule

53. BIRD WATCHING OR WHALE WATCHING? whale watching

54. WHAT IS YOUR SPIRIT ANIMAL? i dont really know. probably a sea otter. haha theyre so chill and they stick around with their peeps

55. TO BE OR NOT TO BE? aint that the question to be answered

56. IPHONE OR ANDROID? iphone

57. TWITTER OR INSTAGRAM? insta

58. VINE OR SNAPCHAT? snap. i never had a vine but i remember watching a few vines. well i guess tik tok is the new vine now

59. WHO SHOULD EVERYONE BE FOLLOWING RIGHT NOW? Jesus. haha kidding not kidding

60. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE APP? WEBSITE? probably youtube

61. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL? psych

62. WHAT WAS YOUR BEST SUBJECT IN SCHOOL? psych and math

63. WHAT WAS YOUR WORST SUBJECT IN SCHOOL? ap lit

64. WHAT SUBJECT WOULD YOU TEACH IN SCHOOL? psych or a lower level math class

65. WHAT IS ONE THING YOU WISH YOU KNEW IN HIGH SCHOOL? enjoy what you love doing as much as you can

66. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOURSELF AT 13? girl, be confident. you are beautiful. you are smart. and you are enough. dont worry about what others think and dont worry about the future because i got you.

67. HOW TALL ARE YOU? 5′0

68. WHO IS YOUR FASHION ICON? eh, no one really

69. WHAT’S YOU FAVORITE FASHION TREND? well since right now is fall, i really like long cardigan with cute booties

70. WHAT ARE 3 THINGS YOU ALWAYS HAVE IN YOUR BAG (BESIDES PHONE AND WALLET)? phone charger, hand sanitizer, and a mask. haha oh covid days

71. WHAT IS A CURRENT TREND YOU HOPE DOESN’T EXIST IN 100 HUNDRED YEARS? masks

72. WHAT’S YOUR MUST HAVE FASHION ACCESSORY? eyebrows done? haha my clothing fashion is pretty simple so i dont really have accessories but maybe a watch i guess

73. HEELS OR FLATS? depends. on a day to day then flats but for special occasions then heels

74. DIAMONDS OR PEARLS? eh, i guess i like both

75. BLOW-DRY OR AIR-DRY? usually air dry unless i need to be ready asap

76. WHAT COLOR DRESS DID YOU WEAR TO PROM? i didnt really attend my high school dances. my first and last hs dance was homecoming and that was only because i was on the homecoming court. i wore a red strapless dress

77. FAVORITE COCKTAIL? sex on the beach, mimosas, strawberry daiquiris, margaritas

78. WHAT DO YOU USUALLY ORDER AT STARBUCKS? white chocolate mocha. either hot or iced depending on the weather

79. COFFEE OR TEA? coffee. i tried to drink more tea but i always resort back to coffee. haha

80. HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR COFFEE? i usually make my coffee at home. i just put in a mocha or caramel kcup then add in creamer. some days i’ll add in half and half or some chocolate/caramel syrup

81. WHO IS A PERSON YOU WANT TO HAVE COFFEE WITH? megan markle. odd but why not

82. WHAT HISTORICAL FIGURE DO YOU WANT TO HAVE COFFEE WITH? general vang pao

83. IF YOU COULD LIVE IN ANY HISTORICAL DECADE, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHERE? probably the 90s

84. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COUNTRY TO VISIT? havent left mine yet. haha

85. WHAT’S THE LAST COUNTRY YOU VISITED? my own. haha

86. WHAT’S A COUNTRY YOU WISH TO VISIT? somewhere in the east. maybe like france or italy or korea or taiwan

87. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE STATE TO VISIT? florida

88. WHAT’S THE LAST STATE YOU VISITED? michigan

89. WHAT’S A STATE YOU WISH TO VISIT? colorado, new york, california

90. WHAT’S THE BEST VACATION SPOT? bora bora! ouuu someday for me i hope!

91. WHERE DOES ONE GO ON A PERFECT ROAD TRIP? honestly, anywhere. just gather your friends, pack up, stock up, and drive

92. FAVORITE CITY? right now, probably orlando

93. PILATES OR YOGA? i like both but if i had to choose then yoga

94. JOGGING OR SWIMMING? swimming!

95. FAVORITE WAY TO WORKOUT? ugh, at home

96. LEAST FAVORITE WAY TO WORKOUT? at the gym lifting weight. i always feel so awkward

97. BEST WAY TO DECOMPRESS? shower, then dinner and movie in bed with a glass of wine

98. WHAT’S THE BEST FIRST DATE IDEA? dinner and a drive to a fun spot

99. WHAT’S LOVE? genuine love towards someone regardless of their flaws, always

100. MAJOR TURN ON? neck kisses, vlines, touching

101. MAJOR TURN OFF? bad hygiene, rudeness, cockiness

102. WHAT’S THE WEIRDEST THING A GUY HAS DONE OR SAID TO TRY AND IMPRESS YOU? stalk my facebook and screen shot my old posts and send them to me OR ignoring my non-subtle hints that i have a boyfriend and do not want to hangout alone to “netflix and chill”

103. WHAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT SOMEONE WHEN YOU MEET THEM? their smile and personality and how they made me feel

104. DO YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT? nah

105. BEST GIFT YOU EVER RECEIVED? im not really a big gift person but my mom gave me a micheal kors winter jacket

106. LAST GIFT YOU GAVE A FRIEND? i bought some baby shower gifts to my boyfriend’s brother and sister-in-law’s baby, baby Grace :)

107. BEST GIFT TO GET FOR SOMEONE? like a generic gift? probably wine or a watch depending on the occasion

108. WHAT’S THE BIGGEST SURPRISE YOU’VE EVER HAD? my boyfriend coming to visit me last christmas because i was so stress out and i thought we were suppose to meet up around christmas but he had his own plans that i was not aware of which then made me even more stress when i found out his plans but overall it was a very nice surprise and definitely helped me destress afterwards

109. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR? white

110. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR? probably brown

111. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE TYPE OF FLOWER? i dont think i have one

112. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE COMEDIAN? dont have one either

113. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE ACTION STAR? chris evans, tom holland

114. BEST SUPERHERO CREATED? captain america

115. IF YOU HAD ONE SUPERPOWER WHAT WOULD IT BE? to teleport

116. WHAT’S YOUR KRYPTONITE? too much snow. haha

117. BIGGEST PHOBIA? deep waters and heights

118. FAVORITE DISNEY MOVIE? dont have one

119. FAVORITE DISNEY CHARACTER? ^^

120. FAVORITE HOLIDAY? christmas

121. WHAT’S YOUR BEST HALLOWEEN COSTUME? a dead bride. haha

122. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PLOT-TWIST? whenever my favorite characters in a tv show gets killed off

123. IF YOU COULD DO A FLASH-MOB WHERE WOULD IT BE? new york, like how cliche and iconic that would be

124. WHAT’S THE COOLEST THING IN YOUR BEDROOM? my pineapple lamp

125. IF YOU GOT A TATTOO WHERE WOULD IT BE? probably on my side or somewhere on my arm

126. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE CURSE WORD? shiiiiiiiiiit

127. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOARD GAME? exploding kittens not really a board game but close enough

#beautyindisguise00 #gettoknowme #q&a #survey #questionnaire

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bobbystompy · 5 years

Text

My Top 127 Songs Of 2018

Previously: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

Not the most ever... just the second most ever. The record of 132 stands. I hope it is never broken.

As always, criteria and info:

This is a list of what I personally like, not ones I’m saying are the “best” from the year; more subjective than objective

No artist is featured more than once

If it comes down to choosing between two songs, I try to give more weight to a single or featured track

Each song on the list is linked in the title if you wanna check any or every out for yourself; there is also a Spotify playlist at the bottom that includes 122 of the 127 songs

Well?

youtube

/grins

127) B.o.B - “Food Fight”

Some triplet rap, pretty boring, and I have no idea what this song is supposed to be. But the “Food of the WiFi” part makes me laugh, and I always picture my buddy Matto singing it to his eye rolling wife (even though I’m pretty sure he’s never heard the song before).

126) French Montana f/ Drake - “No Stylist”

This song sucks -- even Drake can’t save it. French Montana is cancer except you don’t get to die.

125) 21 Savage - “Monster”

Not a huge Savage guy, but the Gambino verse helps.

124) The Kooks - “All The Time”

Kind of a lazy chorus, but it’s aight.

123) Sean Paul f/ Jhené Aiko - “Naked Truth”

Love Aiko, have never cared for Paul... but the collab weirdly works.

122) REASON - “Summer Up”

My buddy Josh sent this one, and it’s got the warm vibes. Money stretch:

P asked me is REASON still workin', shit N***a, is Amber Rose still twerkin', gold diggers still flirtin' horny teens still jerkin', all my exes still lurkin' black lives still hurtin', black lives still hurtin'?

121) Nipsey Hussle f/ YG - “Last Time That I Checc’d”

B’s vs. C’s. And a beat that sounds like DJ Mustard combined with ‘90s G-funk. Also, YG’s bandanna scarf is just very cute.

120) Thrice - “Only Us”

Weirdly, another reds and blues music video. But this time, it’s kids at a summer camp. This could absolutely be used by networks as a pump up song for sporting events.

119) Anderson .Paak f/ Kendrick Lamar - “TINTS”

Anderson .Paak -- ohhhh, that dot will always annoy me -- really does not make bad songs. Kung Fu Kenny fits right in, and it’s a very easy hit-the-spot driving song.

118) Mr Hudson f/ Vic Mensa - “Coldplay”

A serious song that uses an emotional reliance on Coldplay to take objective shots at Coldplay, which is pretty hilarious. Vic’s verse is good (”I lost my Queen poppin’ Ace of Spades at King of Diamonds ... I hate Coldplay”).

117) Logic f/ Wu-Tang Clan - “Wu Tang Forever”

Long cypher song. If you care about hip-hop, you probably know Drake also released a song called “Wu-Tang Forever” five years ago (which featured no members of Wu-Tang). There was talk of a remix -- RZA even recently said he wished they did -- but Inspectah Deck articulated why it didn’t happen back then:

“When I finally got to hear the song, I was more or less like, ‘Wow, I thought it was a tribute song like, it would be in respect of all eight members,'” Deck said. “And when I heard it, it was about a girl.”

You can just sense the colossal and spiritual disappointment.

Well, this one is more about fire than females; you’ll shout “Wu-Tang” proudly at least once. My MVP verse is Ghostface.

116) Jhené Aiko f/ Rae Sremmurd - “Sativa”

Rae Sremmurd* still sound like little kids to me. Conversely, Jhené Aiko is all that is woman.

(* - never knew they were brothers until just now)

115) Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs - “First Time”

Sam Coffey first got on my radar with The Clash-sounding song “Talk 2 Her”. This is less of that and more, like, ‘80s hair metal. It’s almost hard to tell if this is sincere or parody. The video absolutely does not take itself seriously.

114) Saves The Day - “Kerouac & Cassady”

Always been impressed with the very unthreatening Chris Conley’s ability to create such sinister, dark, and menacing imagery. This maybe has the most bleak closing line of any of these songs.

113) 5 Seconds Of Summer - “Youngblood”

This is what Fall Out Boy tries to sound like with their new stuff... but they just suck so bad now.

112) She Killed In Ecstasy - “Dissension (Gold)”

I remembered this being a dope instrumental before totally forgetting about the just-as-awesome vocals; great band name, too. Recommended by my friends Jim and Bill over brunch after taking in their show at Subterranean in Chicago the previous night. This could be the closing theme for a critically acclaimed TV show.

111) Night Birds - “My Dad Is The BTK”

Straightforward, bratty punk rock that promotes snitching (if you’re sure it’s for the right reasons).

110) The Decemberists - “Once In My Life”

Why does such an outwardly melancholy song still feel so damn uplifting? Probably the video. They have a long statement attached on YouTube, so for sure peep if this catches your interest.

109) Mad Caddies - “She’s Gone”

Here we have a straight up reggae cover of NOFX. Sometimes I don’t think I like this song at all, but it might just be hard to separate it from the original; almost wish it was possible to go in with a clean slate. Maybe you can on my behalf?

108) Rivers Cuomo - “Two Broken Hearts”

Would you rather not know the video uses Bitmojis or the pre-chorus promotes two different ice cream brands before the song ends?

107) XXXTENTACION - “Train food”

This song is intense; gave me memories of listening to Kendrick’s “The Art of Peer Pressure”. X not surviving 2018 makes it that much more haunting.

106) Kanye West & Lil Pump f/ Adele Givens - “I Love It”

Not sure why, in his most embattled year yet, Kanye decided to be a part of such a derogatory song towards women. Listening to it makes me feel bad. And sure, the MAGA imagery will be what we think of when we think of 2018 Yeezy, but this picture shouldn’t be too far off either.

Shark: jumped.

105) New Lenox - “Do You Think We Made The Most Of Those New Years Eves”

That is a very long song title. But not as long as the time since passed on this reflection of the final night of the year, over a decade now gone. But even though he’s looking back, you know Chris Trott gets to hit reset at the end of the night, whether it’s December 31st or January 1st. And when NYE hits again, whether you return to the same party in the same place or a different experience in a totally different hemisphere, celebrating something is what makes this all matter.

(Full disclosure: yours truly has a minor backup vocal part in the outro)

104) Jeff Tweedy - “Having Been Is No Way To Be”

This for sure made it on the list because of the “And if I was dead, what difference would it ever make to them?” line, but upon closer scrutiny, the “And I’m sorry when you wake up to me” line is even more crushing.

103) Panic! At The Disco - “Dying In LA”

Brendon Urie’s voice is so polished and full. This song is him in complete control, and he knows it too (the “Dyin’ in LA” falsetto part at the end of the chorus is... probably not necessary).

102) Sugarland f/ Taylor Swift - “Babe”

Though Taylor’s impact in the music video is significantly stronger than her impact in the actual song, it’s still rock solid country. Or... country solid country?

/curtsies

101) ZHU & Tame Impala - “My Life”

This song has such a dancy cool on the power of its instrumentation; really doesn’t need vocals at all.

100) Kidd Russell & Southside Jake - “Slow Motion”

The poppiest SSJ has ever sounded. This is his best song to date. I’m not so sure if “Shots kill the butterflies” is an actual expression, but it should be.

99) Hop Along - “What The Writer Meant”

Hot damn, what a voice. This song is beauty in our not-often-beautiful world.

98) Retirement Party - “That’s How People Die”

This reminds me of a female fronted version of the departed Modern Baseball. Eager to see how they develop and definitely plan on checking their Audiotree session soon.

97) Lil Peep - “Sex With My Ex”

It’s... really good, you guys. The grimy nihilism of the “Fuck me like we’re lying on our deathbed” is palpable. It’s impossible not to think of the heights Peep would have almost definitely hit had he not passed. Also, super interesting tidbit on how the album got posthumously made:

Lil Peep died of an accidental drug overdose last November [2017] at 21. Afterward, attention turned to his computer. First, it went to London, where the files were backed up by First Access Entertainment, the company that helped guide his career.

Then it went to his mother, Liza Womack. In an interview in her cozy Long Island home, sitting on a nondescript couch that belonged to Peep and was shipped cross-country after his death, she calmly recalled walking into an Apple store, handing the laptop to a clerk, and saying: “My son died. This is him. Take this and put it on a new one.”

96) Kurt Vile - “Bassackwards”

I was on the beach, but I was thinkin’ about the bay

This has Kurt Vile’s signature laid back-ness (good) but also has a 9:46 track length (VERY VERY BAD). I’m not saying it has to be even four minutes long... but, like, could you have given us seven, KV? All of that aside, it really doesn’t slog at all despite mostly staying the same the whole time. Though I still can’t stop thinking about how much shorter it should be.

95) Christine And The Queens - “Doesn’t matter”

Kinda ‘80s pop sounding. Also, there’s a foreign accent there. British maybe?

/googles

French! Even better.

94) Brendan Kelly And The Wandering Birds - “Shitty Margarita”

Wish the drums were louder, BK.

93) Courtney Barnett - “Nameless, Faceless”

Barnett does not fuck around with her chorus/old adage:

I wanna walk through the park in the dark Men are scared that women will laugh at them I wanna walk through the park in the dark Women are scared that men will kill them

This type of perspective, down to the description of how she has to hold her keys in a way your average dude might not think about, remains so crucial as we all hope to continue to better understand each other.

92) Jeff Rosenstock - “Powerlessness”

Meet me at the Polish bar I'll be the one looking at my phone Shaking like a nervous kid Absolutely terrified of being alone

...it doesn’t sound how it reads. All of his skittish energy fuels this fist pumping jam. And don’t miss the guitar solo.

91) Charli XCX - “5 In The Morning”

Pretty standard fare pop song, but Charli makes it cooler and better than if the average person jumped on.

90) Pinegrove - “Darkness”

Gonna be honest: it was nearly impossible to listen to Pinegrove in 2018 without thinking of the sexual coercion accusations from the previous year. Jenn Pelly’s long ass piece really did nothing to help matters. So because of all this, I listened to their new album “Skylight” wayyyyy less than originally anticipated. The few times -- really maybe ‘time’ in all actuality -- I was able to separate the story from the songs, it definitely became enjoyable. This has head clearing guitar leads and a lyric straight outta Sublime’s “Garden Grove”.

89) Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson - “Bad Dreams”

Brooding, nighttime, driving; good ingredients for a successful duet.

88) Meek Mill f/ Rick Ross & JAY Z - “What’s Free”

Now, if I’m Rick Ross, I spend my entire career avoiding any situation where people can compare me to Biggie. But since Rick Ross is Rick Ross, he went with the opposite plan. This is his (to my knowledge) second reimagined Biggie song*, and... it’s... it’s rough. I mean, how far can you take it with the line “Mona Lisa, to me, ain't nothin' but a b***h” and end with a gay slur. Pass.

But we also have the GOAT. In classic Jay fashion, he spits a lot of good words, you know it’s complex, and there’s no way to process it without more listens. And yes, the immediate brand checks are super annoying, but he pushes through and delivers some bars:

They gave us pork and pig intestines Shit you discarded that we ingested, we made the project a wave You came back, reinvested and gentrified it Took n****s' sense of pride, now how that's free?

When he finishes, the song itself ends, and we have one of the more long and uneven Jay cameos ever put on wax. It’s, like, a 5-star B-.

(* - the first being 2014′s “Nobody”, a take off “You’re Nobody [Til Somebody Kills You]”, featuring French Montana, which spawned an all-time Rap Radar comment, “If someone killed French, he’d still be a nobody”; I will bring it up with the most minor of segues for the rest of my life)

87) Red City Radio - “In The Shadows”

I tend to prefer Red City Radio playing more uptempo, but they drag us down to a slower speed for this one. This centers around the cryptic “I show no fear when I know that the devil’s here” line, and the guitar solo is definitely overqualified for the genre.

86) Kanye West - “Yikes”

/cracks knuckles

The song: banging chorus, solid beat, lyrics meh. Of course it was the song he got Drake for, because it’s the only one on his solo release that vaguely resembled a hit.

The album: Calling “ye” bad is a little unfair, but the best and realest description is sadder: it’s Kanye’s most inessential record. It was forgettable at best and cringeworthy/offensive at worst. The one about his daughter was particularly appalling:

Don't do no yoga, don't do pilates Just play piano and stick to karate I pray your body's draped more like mine And not like your mommy's

This doesn’t even get into the entirely warped mental health takes that I’m not nearly qualified enough to address.

Kanye himself: Every Kanye fan has defended Kanye, some Kanye fans have abandoned Kanye, but 2018 was legitimately the tipping point where it felt like we all finally had enough, in unification. Shock, betrayal, and disappointment are probably the best adjectives. When you are willing to forgive someone for 90% of their behavior, and they up their bullshit to 110%, an understandable separation must occur. At this point, the man we once called Yeezus is now the hip-hop Louis C.K.: no type of constructive or negative feedback can penetrate his brain, and any new attempts at creative output only make everything worse.

85) Royce da 5′9′’ f/ Eminem & King Green - “Caterpillar”

As lyrical as it gets on this list, but what else do you expect from Em and Royce? Not a huge fan of the chorus (at least that loud part in the first half). Eminem legit goes off for, like, ten lines with a pooping metaphor to close the song.

84) Nicki Minaj - “Barbie Dreams”

Staying in the redone Biggie songs lane, we have Nicki with a passive evisceration of your favorite male rapper. You can call it crass, but I’d argue her playfulness makes the whole thing work, combined with the fact that it’s flipping the male gaze on its head. And though she’s having fun, some of these movie punches catch real faces. My favorites:

3) “Drake worth a hundred mill, he always buyin' me shit / But I don't know if the pussy wet or if he cryin' and shit”

2) “I remember when I used to have a crush on Special Ed / Shoutout Desiigner 'cause he made it out of special ed”

1) “Had to cancel DJ Khaled, boy, we ain't speakin' / Ain't no fat n**** tellin' me what he ain't eatin'”

Goodbye forever, DJ Khaled.

83) Bad Bunny f/ Drake - “MIA”

I do social media for my high school alma mater’s football team, and this song first got on my radar when of the players tweeted something like “I can’t understand a word, but this is really good”. I was piqued, and it delivered. Nobody cultural appropriates quite like Drizzy Drake. Also, am I the only one who would have maybe been happier if the song was called “Bad Bunny” and the featured artist was M.I.A.?

82) Phoebe Bridgers - “Christmas Song”

Christmas songs are hard to write because they’re either taken or terrible, but Bridgers definitely carved out her own lane. This could work as a single person under a spotlight or sung by a group of lonely strangers finding camaraderie at a bar; within the song, you actually get both scenarios.

81) Remo Drive - “Blue Ribbon”

Got into this band for the first time in 2018, and though some of their older songs got more spins, this was my favorite from the new album.

80) The Sidekicks - “Twin’s Twist”

Mostly just impressed they were able to seamlessly integrate the “Chronic 2001″ into lyrics of a lighter rock song.

79) Real Friends - “From The Outside”

My favorite chorus they’ve ever written. While remaining thoroughly pop punk, the catchiness puts it more on the pop side of that spectrum.

78) Mike Posner - “Song About You”

Posner sounds like he’s barely trying, and it’s still so, so good. Favorite moment is this non-rhyme: “Since you’ve been gone, I got nothing to do / I sleep until noon, I wake up and feel bad”. It’s like a pop freestyle or something.

Also, extra shout out for how well he took his social media roasting after the Thanksgiving performance in Detroit. Love this dude.

77) Bad Religion - “The Kids Are Alt-Right”

What if I told you Bad Religion made a song with an intro that sounded like Andrew W.K.’s “Party Till You Puke” but were somehow still able to stay afloat? Hell, I’m confused too. The satirical lyrics mark 2018 for what it was. The pre-chorus, I remain torn on.

76) Blood Orange - “Saint”

You said it before

Looped keyboard beat over some smooth lyrics and melodies.

75) Juice WRLD - “Lucid Dreams”

I cannot change you so I must replace you

Still unclear how this *isn’t* a Post Malone song.

74) Tancred - “Queen Of New York”

Own the city.

73) We Were Sharks - “Drop The Act”

Ohhhhh, I love this production.

72) Cloud Nothings - “Leave Him Now”

This band continues to possess all of the melodic fury (and the Russell Westbrook of drummers).

71) Childish Gambino - “Summertime Magic”

Wasn’t big on “This Is America”*, so Glover releasing an ode to the best season as an alternative selection helped.

(* - at least not the song; vid was interesting)

70) The 1975 - “Love It If We Made It”

The 1975 are one of those bands where liking them makes you feel like an alien because everyone else either loves or dogs them. I’m keepin’ this casual, aight?

Also, since all writers are contractually obligated, we must mention the “Fucking in a car, shooting heroin” line which opens the song.

69) Kississippi - “Cut Yr Teeth”

Saw this band play in a classroom at a high school (google “BLED FEST”) in Michigan in May of 2018. They were fun, diverse, and covered Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle”. This tune is a little more serious and locked in.

68) Muncie Girls - “Picture Of Health”

Every part of this song is well-written, but it all builds to a massive chorus.

67) Justin Timberlake f/ Chris Stapleton - “Say Something”

There was a time, in January 2018, when not a ton of music had dropped yet, and this song was everywhere. It was like the dead-of-winter equivalent to the Song of the Summer. This one definitely gets docked some points for what I’d call weak lyricism. You can tell both dudes were way into it though, which does help make up for it some.

66) Interpol - “The Rover”

As speedy as I’ve ever heard Interpol; pretty unskippable.

65) Dashboard Confessional - “Catch You”

Imagine if this were the only Dashboard song you’d ever heard. You’d think they were, like, happy. Our protagonist has a trustworthy assurance that should put you at ease.

64) Gulfer - “Secret Stuff”

No singing on this list will alienate you faster than the first eight seconds of this one.

63) Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - “Talking Straight”

Though this feels like two band names in one, RBCF know exactly what they’re doing as it pertains to the actual songwriting. This would fit right in during the mid-2000s garage/indie rock boom; could listen to the chorus on a loop.

62) Rita Ora f/ Cardi B, Bebe Rexha & Charli XCX - “Girls”

This song has the unique distinction of being think pieced and outraged cycled before I even got a chance to hear a second of it. The case:

Now, it goes without saying that the best people to explain why this song feels damaging and hurtful to queer women are queer women themselves – girls who kiss girls whether they’ve been gulping back Malbec or not. “A song like this just fuels the male gaze while marginalizing the idea of women loving women,” wrote Hayley Kiyoko on Twitter. Kehlani said it has “many awkward slurs, quotes, and moments”. MUNA’s Katie Gavin noted that in ‘Girls’ she hears “the familiar chorus that women’s sexuality is something to be looked at instead of authentically felt”.

To her credit, Ora apologized the very same day that piece came out (PUN INTENDED). What’s weird is the idea of this song being problematic made me like it more. It gives the sexual flippancy of the chorus authenticity. I don’t know, man -- this stuff is complicated.

Not complicated? Cardi B’s awful green screen cameo featuring cheap looking special effects.

/shakes head in disappointment

61) Eminem f/ Ed Sheeran - “River”

Though not apples to apples -- since he’s not spitting -- we shall remember this as the time Ed Sheeran > Eminem in a song.

Marshall remains our unquestioned king of the ‘relationship dysfunction’ genre.

60) Culture Abuse - “Calm E”

Everyone’s getting back together

The writers of the perfect and generational “Dream On” continue to stay in the mellow lane with their subsequent releases. When you can pull off both, why not?

59) Brian Fallon - “Silence”

Fallon covers -- /checks notes -- Marshmello f/ Khalid, but it really could be an original. Dude really knows how to pick ‘em. I remember hearing this randomly at Shinto (a sushi/hibachi place) in Naperville; don’t remember if it was this or the original. Such a moving chorus.

58) Okkervil River - “Don’t Move Back To LA”

Gotta appreciate the persistent sentiment -- even though it’d be the opposite of my advice. Also took about 99.9% of the year for me to stop calling this band “Overkill” River in my head.

57) Natalie Prass - “Short Court Style”

Uber catchy and with a real groove.

56) The Interrupters - “She’s Kerosene”

2018 Rancid, down to the raspy-ish singing from Aimee Allen.

55) boygenius - “Me & My Dog”

When I heard Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and someone named Lucy Dacus were forming a super group, I was stoked. This tune was the one that jived the most with my vision of the project. Amazingly sick harmonies, dropping elbows on your heart like a professional wrestler, and introspection on introspection.

I wanna be emaciated I wanna hear one song without thinking of you I wish I was on a spaceship Just me and my dog and an impossible view

So, so, so, so good.

54) Shack Wes - “Mo Bamba”

How do you explain “Mo Bamba” to someone who doesn’t like rap? How do you explain “Mo Bamba” to someone who does like rap? I don’t know, but I am Teddy Bridgewater now.

53) Lil Dicky f/ Chris Brown, Ed Sheeran, DJ Khaled & Kendall Jenner - “Freaky Friday”

If you thought Rita Ora’s “Girls” was messy, allow me to introduce you to our last bad rap song on the list. Actually, maybe the Virginia Tech women’s lacrosse team would be a better candid--OHHHHH LADIES NO!!!!!!!!11111111

So yeah, whether it’s the most lightning rod word in American history, cultural appropriation, reverse cultural appropriation, or even just a good ol’ “I Blame Chris Brown” take, this attempt at comedy hip-hop got put under a microscope for all the right and wrong reasons. No one came out unscathed. But, like Ora’s song, if you can ignore some components (read: nearly everything), it’s so god damn fun, man. I mean, Dicky and Chris Brown swapped bodies -- pretty nuts. And it’s rare for an MVP line to be “How his dick staying perched up on his balls like that?”

52) Jay Rock f/ Kendrick Lamar, Future & James Blake - “King’s Dead”

I gotta go get it- I gotta go get it- I gotta go get it- I gotta go get it

The back half of the Future verse is the worst part about this song... yet the most fun to talk about. He raps auto-tuned, in falsetto... and these are the lyrics:

La di da di da, slob on me knob Pass me some syrup, fuck me in the car La di da di da, mothafuck the law Chitty chitty bang, murder everything

What a disgrace. Yet, almost like a whimsy 2 Chainz verse, it’s really fucking memorable.

51) Soccer Mommy - “Your Dog”

Noticeably good bassline? Check. Skin crawlingly bad band name? Check. Cool swearing? Yup.

50) Vince Staples - “FUN!”

Vince could rap his way out a bottomless pit; floating elevation flow.

49) Dan + Shay - “Tequila”

Tried so hard to get this one next to “Shitty Margarita”. Genuinely love this song. Maybe it’s the mountains in the music video, but that chorus just soars.

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48) Meg Myers - “Numb”

Look up in the air and see this tidal wave chorus crashing through the world in slow motion.

47) The Penske File - “Fairgrounds”

My new working theory -- which really feels more like fact -- is how cool lyrics with the phrase “Meet me...” are. It creates this aura of unknown, mystery, and maybe even danger; like anything could happen if you just agree. Here are some from songs just off the top of my head:

Meet me by the lake

Meet me at the reservoir

Meet me in Montauk

Meet me in the middle (more on that one later)

Meet me in the back

Meet me at midnight

The list goes on. So please say “yes” to The Penske File at the fairgrounds, won’t you?

46) Lil Wayne f/ Swizz Beatz - “Uproar”

Weezy goes this entire song only using “oh” rhymes; not sure how he does it. Sometimes, I listen to this and pretend I’m a buffalo.

45) Cardi B - “Be Careful”

Cardi sampled Lauryn (wayyyyyyyy more on this later) and made it work. The chorus always sticks with me, and though the verses have a few bumps along the way, they might even be better.

44) Elway - “Crowded Conscience”

Elway pulls up their roots in this All Colorado Everything lyric video, and you’ll be ready to tap the Rockies when the singalong chorus finishes.

43) Pkew Pkew Pkew - “Passed Out”

A punk rock drinking song with a real bummer of a chorus for how happy the theme itself comes across.

42) Joyce Manor - “I Think I’m Still In Love With You”

I have no scientific proof, but Barry’s lyrics seem to be getting worse and worse. The drug references are still there, sure, but there’s an almost elementary simplicity to the proceedings. Still, like “Heart Tattoo”, this song doesn’t get in its own way and takes advantage of the basic words to create a big, big hook. You sing along even though it feels too easy at times.

41) Alkaline Trio - “Throw Me To The Lions”

So much desperation in the chorus; this could work as their last ever song.

40) The Bombpops - “Dear Beer”

My favorite opening line on this whole list -- the sweet and simple “I’m about to hit send / I’m waiting for the weekend”. Before you know it, a full blown self-loathing chorus. It’s got it all.

39) Foxing - “Lambert”

In quiet awe listening to this masterpiece of a song. Saw this band way up close in 2018 -- here is a picture:

Hello, Foxing

38) Lucero - “To My Dearest Wife”

Civil War soldier or rigorous rock and roll touring schedule? Either way, the Lucero singer misses his wife and family, and he’s gonna let you know they’re on his mind. I saw them open for Frank Turner in 2018, and he played their new album front to back -- before it had been released -- as their entire set because “I promised to do this when drunk on Instagram”. Gotta respect a man with principles.

37) BlocBoy JB f/ Drake - “Look Alive”

Favorite Drake hook of the year. BlocBoy JB... less necessary. Also kinda crazy to think we didn’t know who producer Tay Keith was at the beginning of 2018; definitely made his impression felt by the end.

36) The Front Bottoms - “Tie Die Dragon”

As psychedelic as I’ll ever get. Unless it’s, like, The Beatles. But that’s different.

35) The Lawrence Arms - “Laugh Out Loud”

Released on their Best Of record (legitimately titled “We Are The Champions Of The World) and an “Oh! Calcutta!” b-side from 2006, TLA prove even their leftovers can be a main course.

34) Tinashe f/ Future - “Faded Love”

I know he’s a rapper and she’s a singer, but nothing is more illustrative of how much harder women have to work compared to men than the 1:36 mark when Tinashe sensually sings “Let’s just feel this feeling”, doubled with Feature’s auto-tuned ass doing the exact same thing, only 10x worse. Not enough to taint the song, even a little. His verse, however...

33) Chance The Rapper - “65th & Ingleside”

Chance -- who almost always makes the correct choices -- did this super annoying thing where he released a bunch of songs in single batches in 2018.

“But Bobby, he gave you tons of free music! Why are you complaining?!”

Because we couldn’t easily sequence it, bruh. Look at this shit!:

Not even Drake would pull this stunt. EP next time, Chano.

Anyway.

Fun lines, really contagious beat, and a few types of flows; he spazzes at the end.

32) Complainer - “Drunk (Again)”

Gotta love when a song can’t start until multiple beer cans crack. These guys are a tiny band inspired-by-but-better-than Jeff Rosenstock, and I hope they get so much more traction.

31) ScHoolboy Q f/ Kendrick Lamar, Saudi & 2 Chainz - “X”

I LIVE ON TEN

Always read this title as the letter X even though the word “ten” is used 40 times in the song.

30) KIDS SEE GHOSTS (Kanye West & Kid Cudi) - “Reborn”

From Kanye’s only useful project in 2018 comes “Reborn”. Luckily, it’s mainly Cudi on this track (chorus/bridge/a verse). It feels like Ohio’s son is breaking through... or breaking out; verging on real triumph over his demons. Kanye, meanwhile, is surprisingly understated (read: good) and fits into all of his parts like a non-OJ glove. The sparing use of Yeezy reminds me of how the master himself used to feature people like Chief Keef just enough to harness the talent but not enough to ruin the song or do too much. Those alpha days appear to be way in the rearview now.

29) Travis Scott f/ Drake, Swae Lee & Big Hawk - “SICKO MODE”

Stacey Dash, most of these girls ain’t got a clue

This joins “Mo Bamba” in the Top 2 of Rap Songs That Need To Be Played At All Parties In The Year 2018. While “Bamba” is more consistent -- seriously, “SICKO MODE” is four songs in one -- almost nothing tops hearing the start of this and immediately anticipating the rest (like the opening of “Tuesday” when that was hot). The third part is probably my favorite. #likealight

28) SOB X RBE f/ Zacari & Kendrick Lamar - “Paramedic!”

Our third selection from the “Black Panther” soundtrack. Second favorite beat of 2018; I can’t not move the second it drops.

27) Drug Church - “Unlicensed Hall Monitor”

Favorite guitar leads of 2018. It’s as sleek as the vocals are gruff.

26) Matt And Kim - “FOREVER”

Was a dead tie between this and the equally emotional “Youngest I Will Be”. But this one has a vid -- and they make the best vids. This song also references the 1992 Dream Team. Our world will never be shit if they stay a part of it; first time I’ve came close to tearing up so far. These two inspire.

25) The Ramblin’ Boys Of Pleasure - “Joyce Jawbreaker”

Speaking of turrs, my band of 14 years released our maybe last song ever in 2018. Written in Maine, titled for Joyce Manor and Jawbreaker, and about lost love, Chicago, futures, playing music with your brothers, tiny hands, and found love. We also did a video:

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24) Ariana Grande f/ Nicki Minaj - “the light is coming”

I really, truly am not excluding “thank u, next” to be contrarian. While I agree that is her defining song of 2018 -- and biggest hit to date? -- “the light is coming” is so much more unique. It goes in so many directions while the hook ties the rope around you a hundred times. Yep, I’m right.

23) Laura Jane Grace & The Devouring Mothers - “Apocalypse Now (& Later)”

Wish I could forever keep this song’s opening line as my mantra: You make me walk away from the hate I carry.

22) Restorations - “Nonbeliever”

Another band that should be bigger, so they can always be free to do anything they want. This song will always boil down to this part, which captures the push and pull of 2018 America:

I love your protest lines Oh, but who has the time? We all saw the same thing at the same time, okay? Got a partner for starters And a kid on the way Can’t be doing all this dumb shit no more

For how crass, clumsy, and non-rhyming that concludes, the song itself ends dire.

21) The Get Up Kids - “I’m Sorry”

One of my favorite videos of 2018. Similar to “Apocalypse Now (& Later)”, I’m not sure if it’s about a love interest or a kid. Does it matter? No. But it does to me.

20) Antarctigo Vespucci - “Freakin’ U Out”

A band name for the ages. With Chris Farren (of Fake Problems) on vox and Jeff Rosenstock on instruments, this song could power a car -- or at least one person who didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.

19) Bayside - “It Don’t Exist”

Anthony Raneri has a new grill, but this song feels 50 years old. A classic in real time.

18) The Carters - “APESHIT”

Is this artsy, all-time vid somewhat undermined by the Migos ad libs?

Yes.

/makes note to maybe dress up like this for Halloween next year

17) Post Malone f/ 21 Savage - “rockstar”

This song is so good -- albeit misogynist and also bad -- it makes me genuinely eager for a 21 Savage verse. And though I love any bars relating to his 12-car garage...

my favorite 21 savage quirk is his yearly 12 car garage updates:

2016: “why you got a 12 car garage?”

2017: “they like ‘savage why you got a 12 car garage / and you only got 6 cars?’”

2018: “why you got a 12 car garage? / cause i bought 6 new cars”

(via @ottergawd)

...his intro line is just so, so terrible: “I've been in the Hills fuckin' superstars / Feelin' like a popstar”. You know that’s... not really a rhyme, right?

16) Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness - “Ohio”

/will always, always death stare that dumb name to start any Andy section

Ah, but if we did start with a lyric?

Katie’s counting crows

This song is about leaving the worst state for one of the best. But if we’re doing that, why do we feel so melancholy?

15) Kendrick Lamar & SZA - “All The Stars”

You've gotta be mesmerizing to make Kung Fu Kenny look pedestrian, but SZA's galactic hook does just that.

14) Frank Turner - “1933″

Frank isn’t from here, but he’s setting out to remind us of where this all began.

13) The Wonder Years - “Sister Cities”

As far as pop punk legacies are concerned, The Wonder Years’ is secure. There is no longer necessity to churn out bangers; they’re already on the Mount Rushmore. Still, they go. Every part of this song is essential: the build up verses, blown out chorus, Panic! At The Disco 2005-era hi-hat off-time drum transitions, end-of-the-rope bridge. The true standout is the closing of V2:

I'm guarded like I'm wounded, my first instinct's always “run” I wanna turn to steam I wanna call it off I wanna lighten the dark I wanna swallow the sun

Good guitar leads add even extra.

12) YG f/ 2 Chainz, Big Sean & Nicki Minaj - “BIG BANK”

“Alexa, what does big bank do to little bank?”

The highlight line from each:

YG: “Ayy, I set the bar, I'm the fuckin' bar / Look in the sky, I'm a fuckin' star / I don't fall in love 'cause I be lovin' hard / Do everything like my shirt, extra large”

2 Chainz: “Big shit like a dinosaur did it”

Big Sean: “I'm rare as affordable health care”

Nicki: “Told em' I met Slim Shady, bagged a Em / Once he go black, he'll be back again”

Let this also be remembered as the song that created a Madden controversy.

11) Dean Summerwind - “Parked By The Lake”

What is there to say about the legend that is Dean Summerwind? With only one song on Spotify, he’s batting a clean 1.000. Calling this genius feels like an understatement. It’s real, it’s parody, it’s persistent, it’s ours.

10) The Dirty Nil - “Bathed In Light”

The Canadian Local H. Reaaaaaaaally wanna see them live in 2019.

9) oso oso - “gb/ol h/nf”

I stylized oso oso as “Oso Oso” last year to stick it to their frontman Jade, but a year later, I’ve lost the energy. Blame Ariana Grande. This song -- which stands for “goodbye old love, hello new friend”* -- has my favorite chorus of the year. It’s so simple, it’s obvious: “But I still come through, when you want / And if I serve no use, where do I get my purpose from?”

Also, this is indie/pop/punk/rock’s version of “SICKO MODE”: got more parts than “The Wire”.

(* - had to look that up multiple times in 2018 and never retained, despite it being the bridge of the song... I didn’t notice)

8) Kacey Musgraves - “Space Cowboy”

If any song *survives* the existence of this list, I hope it’s this one. Kacey has this predictable-yet-surprising way of taking existing tropes and co-opting them with her own twist. Homegirl is like the Jim Nantz of pop/country in that way.

7) Direct Hit! - “Welcome To Heaven”

This song makes me want to die to, you know, check. Blustering chorus, fascinating premise, and charged up while simultaneously patient/in control.

6) FIDLAR f/ The 90s - “Are You High?”

This not being on Spotify was one of the worst non-Michigan football things to happen to me in 2018. Man, I hate Michigan football.

5) Drake - “Nice For What”

- My favorite beat of 2018 (New Orleans bounce, ftw)

- My favorite release of 2018 - Drizzy said it would drop on a Friday - We were thinking morning or midday (not late evening, in the last remaining hours of the day, when were were faded and had waited so long it was almost forgotten -- it hit perfect) - On top of that, he also sampled Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor” -- the same week Cardi B did the same -- with even more pulsating results - I will always interpret that as a real or sneak diss, yet no one I know has ever said anything

- My buddy Josh sent a selfie vid of him and his girl and some friends bopping to it; I’ll remember that forever; the moment felt like such an event, as if the world simultaneously celebrated at such an atypical time

- Drake deserves 30% less credit for this female empowerment anthem because of the “these hoes” sample

- Maybe a Top 5 Drake song, all-time

- There is no planet, solar system, or multiverse where 2018 Drake finishes ahead of 2018 Pusha T

4) Pusha T - “The Story Of Adidon”

You are hiding a child.

Let’s not mince words: this is the No. 2 greatest diss track of all time. Pac is No. 1 -- this will not be debated. From there, Nas is DQ’d for “Ether” homophobia, annnnnnd no one else is in the realm. King Push...

- Unearthed a photo of Drake in blackface and uses it as the art for the song - Goes at Drake’s mom (”Marriage is something that Sandi never had...”) - Goes at Drake’s dad (”Dennis Graham stay off the 'gram, bitch, I'm on one”) - Outs Drake for having a child (and hiding said child!*) - Goes at Drake’s baby momma - And -- /gulp -- goes at Drake’s longtime producer 40 for having multiple sclerosis, suggesting he will not be alive soon**

He does this over “The Story Of O.J.” beat... a rather chill backdrop, all things considered.

(* - Drake responded later with the line “I wasn’t hiding my kid from the world, I was hiding the world from my kid” which just isn’t cool at all but is competent enough to win some people back over; /barf)

(** - HOLY FUCK***)

(*** - much debate occurred in the aftermath regarding if Push “went too far”; I was 50-50 at the time but now am 100-0 that it was the right choice; this song is cyanide venom, so why pull back even an ounce?)

Though Drake survived -- turns out the mainstream pop boost is bigger than hip-hop beef -- he took the fattest of L’s on this one.

Really can’t decide on a lyrical ending, so I’m gonna go with two:

Surgical summer.

If we all go to hell, it’ll be worth it.

3) Spanish Love Songs - “Buffalo Buffalo”

In my head, this was gonna end up ahead of The Menzingers, but that would be like putting Greta Van Fleet ahead of Zeppelin. Spanish Love Songs were my breakout band of 2018. They released my favorite album, I saw them as an opener at Sub-T in Chicago, and I promised their bassist I’d see them in Florida at the Fest (this did not materialize). While their vocals and guitar leads sound identical to Scranton’s finest, if you listen to them as much as I did, you’ll realize they offer a sound and perspective* of their own as well.

(* - no one hates themselves more than this singer)

2) The Menzingers - “Toy Soldier”

There’s so much to be sad about these days

/that guitar intro

Followed by the best musical moment of this year: from 0:06 to 0:07 -- the ever-so-slight delay before the band blows it out. Spent a lot of time in 2018 debating if I should change my Twitter bio to “I lost my accent in the plague”. Listened to this song on the floor of the living room on my 32nd birthday; then I read “The Great Gatsby”. From there (at this point, it was past midnight), I realized this sounded like The Lawrence Arms’ “Requiem Revisited”, which was inspired by Naked Raygun’s “Soldiers Requiem”. It’s all a triangle of that perfectly fitting punk chord progression. That’s right: I am Pepe Silvia.

1) Horror Squad - “I Smoke The Blood”

Best song title of 2018. Best song of 2018.

This has 729 views on YouTube -- be the 730th.

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Spotify playlist.

Thank you for reading.

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thetrumpdebacle · 6 years

Link

MOSCOW — The boss of a Kremlin-funded news organization accused of playing a role in Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election says she hopes the deep rift between Moscow and Washington can be mended.

Margarita Simonyan has been editor-in-chief of RT — formerly known as Russia Today — for more than a decade.

But until recently, few had heard of her outside Russia.

Then her name was mentioned 27 times in a report by U.S. intelligence agencies that was published in January. It described RT as the “Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet” and said it “served as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.”

It alleged that government-financed RT America sought to “influence politics [and] fuel discontent” in the U.S.

Forbes magazine ranked Simonyan as the 52nd most powerful woman in the world this year — 13 places ahead of Hillary Clinton.

“I am very saddened by what is going on right now between Russia and America,” the 37-year-old Simonyan told NBC News at the network’s Moscow headquarters earlier this month.

“I lived in America. I love America,” she added, referring to a year she spent as an exchange student in Bristol, New Hampshire, in 1995. “We are not Communists anymore. We have changed, but for some reason the establishment doesn’t recognize it and doesn’t give us a chance to show that we have changed. You don’t have to be afraid of us anymore.”

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman on Friday said the Kremlin views deteriorating relations with the U.S. as a major disappointment of 2017. Following allegations of meddling in the presidential election, the two countries have been exchanging tit-for-tat measures all year, ranging from restrictions on embassy staff to legislation targeting state-owned media.

RT America — the U.S. arm of the organization — was forced to register as a “foreign agent” in November, prompting a response from the Kremlin that called restrictions on Russian broadcasters in the United States an attack on free speech.

Russia retaliated earlier this month by designating Voice of America and Radio Free Europe as “foreign agents.”

RT has never made a secret of being a Russian TV station, Simonyan said, likening it to the U.K.’s publicly funded BBC.

“I don’t understand why any country is given a chance to make its point of view seen and heard by the world, and Russia is not given that chance,” she said. “Russia is said to be propaganda for doing exactly that. We are no more propaganda than the Voice of America or Radio Free Europe is propaganda.”

Simonyan, who covered the Second Chechen War and the 2004 Beslan hostage siege as a young reporter, took charge of RT when she was aged just 25.

The network has since been through a major transformation. Rebranded from Russia Today in 2009, it’s now a global, round-the-clock news network with 2,450 employees around the world, seven TV channels, digital platforms in six languages and video news agency RUPTLY.

RT says 70 million people in 38 countries watch its channels every week, and its content has been viewed more than 5 billion times on its YouTube channels.

With its “Question More” slogan, RT says its objective is to identify under-reported stories that mainstream media won’t cover.

“If all the media are singing one song, it gets dangerous, it really does,” Simonyan said. “Just remember the Iraq war. It’s important to at least try and say something different.”

Asked if RT aims to influence audiences in the West, Simonyan maintains RT sets out to inform. “If you think informing is influence, then you can put it in those words.”

U.S intelligence agencies disagree. A declassified version of the “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” report said:

“RT’s criticism of the U.S. election was the latest facet of its broader and longer-standing anti-U.S. messaging likely aimed at undermining viewers’ trust in U.S. democratic procedures and undercutting U.S. criticism of Russia’s political system.”

“The Kremlin staffs RT and closely supervises RT’s coverage, recruiting people who can convey Russian strategic messaging because of their ideological beliefs.”

“In recent interviews, RT’s leadership has candidly acknowledged its mission to expand its U.S. audience and to expose it to Kremlin messaging.”

“RT’s reports often characterize the United States as a ‘surveillance state’ and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use.”

“RT America formally disassociates itself from the Russian Government by using a Moscow-based autonomous nonprofit organization to finance its US operations … In addition, RT rebranded itself in 2008 to deemphasize its Russian origin.”

“Russia’s state-run propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.”

However, RT anchor and correspondent Kate Partridge, 47, said she had never felt pressure to report something she was not comfortable with.

“I am allowed to object,” she said. “But I can’t think of when I have been in a situation where I felt really fiercely against something.”

But others have spoken out.

RT America anchor Liz Wahl quit on air in 2014, saying the channel “whitewashes” the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “As a reporter on this network I face many ethical and moral challenges,” she told viewers from her studio in Washington, D.C. “I’m proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth. And that is why after this newscast I am resigning.”

One of her colleagues, Abby Martin, also criticized Russia’s military intervention in Crimea, calling it “wrong.” In response to Martin’s comments, RT said in a statement that “contrary to the popular opinion, RT doesn’t beat its journalists into submission, and they are free to express their own opinions.” Martin left the channel in 2015.

Andrey Kiyashko, the 29-year-old deputy head of news at RT, dismissed allegations the network offers nothing but Kremlin propaganda.

“It is a serious allegation and I would suggest to those people to pay a bit more attention to what’s going on in their own media landscape in terms of the bias in the news before they make such accusations,” he said.

Earlier this year, RT launched its FakeCheck project to “weed out and correct inaccuracies, bias, misinformation and outright falsehoods in global coverage of major news stories.” However, a recent Poynter Institute analysis of the project suggested it “mixed some legitimate debunks with other scantily sourced or dubiously framed fact checks.”

In October, the network also had to pull a video segment about a burger joint in New York that allegedly offered a Vladimir Putin burger, in a tribute to the president’s 65th birthday and his political stature. The story was picked up by some Russian state news agencies as well.

But thanks in part to a very observant Russian journalist, the story came under scrutiny and the joint eventually refuted the existence of the celebratory burger.

RT’s video agency that published the segment deleted the video, saying that upon further review “it did not meet its editorial standards.”

Partridge also dismissed claims RT was more propaganda than journalism and said her work features “so many checks.”

She added: “By definition, there is an editorial concept here to show the other side. But you can say that about any media organization.”

Partridge echoed her editor-in-chief’s remarks, saying she thinks RT, and Russia in general, are misunderstood.

“I think it’s just a fear because it’s so unknown and because of the Cold War history, because of so many things — where it gets kind of a bad press and I think it has built up almost as de facto truth.”

via The Trump Debacle

#IFTTT #The Trump Debacle

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fighterdancingthroughthefire · 7 years

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My mom told me today on my 23rd birthday that I became an adult. I told her I’ve been one for at least 5 years now. But it also got me thinking. What would I tell each version of me. Not just five years ago—but the years that changed me the most. Because by now I see how different every single one was. I would tell 16 year old me that the pothead is not the universe. I would tell her to get a job. I would tell her to match her makeup shade better to her skin tone. I would tell her that there was so much more than skateparks and stoner friends. I would tell 17 year old me to not look for her value in a dude. I would tell her getting wasted and body counts should be the least of her skankish concerns. I’m not slut shaming anyone—but it’s not really something to brag about either. I would tell her that her friends are good people—they took care of her when no one else did—but she doesn’t have to be something she isnt. 18. She’s drinking. All of the time. She has a foreign ex boyfriend who loves beer and can’t function without it. A foreign ex that she loves. She loves him in a way that she has never loved someone. It’s confusing. She didn’t even love the loser stoner that took her virginity this way. She’s IN love. And she chooses him over school. Over friends and family. She actually spends her first Christmas away from her family with him. He’s everything. Her mom cries a lot and says he’s a loser. She ignores this. But he calls her “Princess.” At the time she finds it cute—melts her heart. If she were to hear that shit today she would probably throw hands in an instant. 19 now. An Army girl, and she meets THE great love. The two paths finally cross. She meets the person that changes everything. She lives in paradise. Still doesn’t have a car. But her boyfriend drives a beat up Oldsmobile that she loves. God she loves that car. Anyways, she chills with that boyfriend on the back porch of his friend’s yard. It’s kind of the spot and they drink and sing “Drift Away.” She fights with him a lot...but she loves him more than she has ever loved anything in her life—ever. 20. She gets married outside of Starbucks. They go to a sea park afterwards. They stop at ocean sight views. She steps closer to the edge of the cliff—he doesn’t. A few weeks of marriage later; they go to a kickback at the beach. She looks at the water and thinks, “This is it. This point right here in my life; this is the pivot point that will change everything that happens after this.” Work is getting a little more stressful. People judge her for getting married. She changes her name. At first it scares her. Who am I, if I’m not myself? What does this new wife do? 21 at last. They spend it with her drinking three margaritas at chillis—her favorite restaurant. She looks at him and thinks that things might be coming together. She’s gained weight and they fight all of the time. But she still loves him and he still loves her. 21–part 2. It’s a new year. They spend it drunk in their living room—dancing to country music. She would never admit it—but it’s one of the best nights of her life. Ever. He plays that song and she falls even more in love with this man. She’s gone all out for the holidays. She spent so much money on a tree and decorations and everything. She wants to make it feel like her mother did, when she wasn’t growing up in her family. She wants lights and candles and that tiny city replica and train tracks. Her husband never had that. He tells her she’s overboard. But still she loves him. And he loves her. She has been drinking more. There’s a night she ends up at the hospital because she drank so much. He gets in the tub with her. He calls her mom. She was crying and the ambulance had to drive them both to the hospital. Because he had been drinking too. I really think they come home the next day and eat McDonald’s and watch that Christmas movie that always plays on repeat. She lays on the floor because he knows that sometimes she just sleeps on the floor because it helps with hangovers. 21. Part three. They fight. It was bad. Stupid and bad. He drinks crown royal and she takes shots too. Not just once but every time they spend the weekend. He had this favorite song called crown royal. I don’t even remember the details anymore. Who said what or did what? They walked home. They used to always walk home after drinking. Because his friends lived so close. I think this night was bad. It’s funny. I used to write about it all of the time.. and now I can’t remember the details. His friend drove us. Wait. And we got McDonald’s. Wait. And we fought about McDonald’s. Wait. And we were gonna watch game of thrones..because he had never seen it. But we fought. Over cigarettes. Over him smoking. THEY fought. I mean. Do you know that any man she talks to or date, somehow them smoking is a turn on. How fucked up is this chick?

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newstfionline · 7 years

Text

Hallmarks of Soviet postwar building boom finally meeting their demise

By Andrew Roth, Washington Post, April 17, 2017

MOSCOW--The Soviets built Margarita Smurova’s five-story apartment building--and tens of thousands more like it--with an expiration date that’s long since passed.

She thinks the building is still in fine shape and could last a few more years, but Moscow has different plans.

Look out her window and you’ll see what those are: two identical apartment houses razed, a mountain of debris left scattered as if in the wake of a hurricane or bomb blast.

Nearly all of Smurova’s neighbors have left, but she’s holding out, unsatisfied with the replacement apartment offered her by the government (her mother is in a wheelchair), and is battling the city in court. Meanwhile, the gas to the building has been cut. Thieves are looting the vacant apartments.

“I really think the city is trying to kill its own people, evicting them like this,” she said, leading a reporter up the stairs into an abandoned fifth-floor apartment with a balcony overlooking the wreckage.

For Smurova’s parents, who moved into this building from a communal apartment in 1965, it was a chance for a new life with privacy at home and green public spaces outside. Today, the “khrushchevka,” named for the former Soviet leader who ordered its earliest design, is better known by Russians as a symbol of aging Soviet-era infrastructure.

“I love my five-story house; it’s practically a pathology,” joked Tatyana Chaynikova, 68, Smurova’s neighbor, the busybody of the condemned apartment block. “After my husband died, I put everything I had into this apartment. And now that they’re moving me out, what will I have left?”

In 1954, the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev began the largest urban development project in history. Facing a severe housing shortage and a booming postwar population, the Communist leader commissioned a prefabricated apartment house that would transform the country. By the time he was ousted from power in 1964, as many as 54 million Soviet citizens--a quarter of the population--had moved into new apartments , a number that would grow to more than 127 million in the five years that followed. In 1961, for the first time, the Soviet Union’s urban population had surpassed its rural population.

Cutting-edge for their time because they were quick and cheap to build, but also because of the effort to include green space around them, the apartments were not known for their aesthetic appeal. Some early versions were built with cheaper materials only meant to last 25 years, or until the Soviet Union had successfully built communism and would replace them with something better.

“We are not against beauty, we are against superfluity,” Khrushchev said, ordering state architects to try to make them as pleasing as possible, given their limits.

Now, in Moscow, their time is up. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin in February announced what may be history’s largest urban demolition project, eliminating nearly 8,000 buildings, mostly five-story building stock including that built under Khrushchev, in a resettlement project that will ultimately transplant 1.6 million people.

Smurova’s apartment building, which is just now slated for demolition under a project approved in 1999, shows how messy those disputes over housing can become in Russia.

The project is part of a sweeping, although contentious, change for many Muscovites, whose city is growing wealthier even as it is run by an administration that rarely seeks public consensus before launching large beautification projects such as parks and road works.

Critics say it’s a handout to Russian property developers.

“I know the mood and expectations of Muscovites,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told Sobyanin during a televised meeting in February, greenlighting the project. “They expect these buildings to be torn down and new housing to be built in their place.”

Some are happily bidding farewell to aging apartments, known for their low ceilings, thin walls and faulty plumbing.

But khrushevki were a major step forward for urban planning, said Kuba Snopek, a Polish architect who did research in Russia and wrote a book called “Belyayevo Forever” about the importance of self-contained, midcentury Soviet housing developments called “mikrorayony,” or microdistricts, which regulated urban expansion by ensuring access to green spaces, public transportation and municipal buildings.

“It’s very easy to communicate the flaws of this architecture,” said Snopek, who sought to have Belyayevo, a region of Moscow, put on the UNESCO World Heritage List. “It’s vulnerable because it is ugly and doesn’t look precious. But it’s hard to communicate its values because they’re invisible.”

When they first appeared, the apartment buildings were hailed as a revelation. In the 1962 musical film “Cheryomushki,” based on an operetta by Dmitry Shostakovich, a young couple literally sings the praises of the new apartments. “The whole apartment is ours, ours. The kitchen is also ours, ours. The windows are ours, the doors are ours. I can’t believe my eyes,” they sing.

But Russian attitudes toward the prefab housing grew darker in later years, particularly as the apartment buildings grew larger and the infrastructure decrepit. In the 1988 movie “Autumn, Chertanovo,” about a Moscow microdistrict that served as a testing ground for experimental architecture, fatalistic graffiti daubed on a wall during the film reads: “I was born here, I will die in Chertanovo.”

But love them or hate them, residents worry about getting decent new apartments if their old ones are torn down. Some are organizing for a legal and political battle.

“We owners are not going to just give away our apartments for what they give us,” said Kari Guggenberger, an IT developer who also runs a Facebook group called “Muscovites against the demolition.”

“In two months, there are going to be lists of houses to be torn down. So in two months, there’s going to be a storm.”

#Russia #Russian apartments #khrushchevka

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