#but then. i do listen to a lot of music of youtube or the radio
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let's talk racist algorithms
i have a weird relationship with music for reasons i won't get into, but as an example, despite loving music, i have not been able to make myself listen to music on purpose in about 6 months. Music is weird for me. BUT I DO LOVE IT
I'm a poet, if i'm really feeling myself i'd even say i'm a word-smith, so rap has a really special place in my heart
The first rap artists i heard and bought an album from them on tape cassette and would listen to all the time were Snoop Dogg, McHammer, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (that's Will Smith for you young ones) De La Soul, and Vanilla Ice
This was 7th and 8th grade. Rap was the new rock, the kids were going wild for it, and because my school let students select the lunchtime PA music, Vanilla Ice was played at lunch almost every day at school.
We had zero black students at that school.
(I still remember the exact day Vanilla Ice stopped being popular at school, but that's about the severe homophobia of the time and a different story)
Now let's come back to today. When I listen to music it's often on Youtube, or Pandora. And i noticed a problem with these platforms pretty early on.
See, I had taken a big break from rap. Like i said, i have a weird relationship to music i don't have time to get into, but i didn't pay much attention to what was happening in rap for a long time. I'd had a friend who was excited to get me to geek out over Eminem with her a few times, and i went through a phase where i was in love with Digable Planets (high key recommend if you like an indie feel with a smooth jazz sound and east coast vibes)... I had a secret love for that one verse by Left Eye in Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls, could sing every word of Shoop, and i adored every Missy Elliot song that i heard on the radio. And that was about it. As a lyricist myself, the one that stuck in my head the most from this time was eminem, because lyricism is his whole thing.
I don't go to concerts. I don't buy albums. I tend to like specific songs more than specific artists. I know, i know, but that's not the point. When i can listen to music without it fucking me up mentally, I listen to music on Youtube and Pandora
And lyricism is my main attraction to rap, so when i came back to it on Youtube I put in Eminem first.
And right away, Youtube started recommending other rappers to me. And very quickly, i discovered that i was being recommended mostly white rappers.
I really like Hopsin, I went through a Dumbfounddead phase, i was into Dax for a minute, i like Domo Wilson, the J. Cole songs i like I REALLY like, I'm obsessed with Snow tha Product, I love the first Janelle Monae album i heard, i still fangirl over Missy Elliot, it's no surprise i like Joyner Lucas...
All of these i discovered and listened to via Youtube.
But because i like eminem, because I had a phase where i enjoyed a couple indie artists like Watsky, Wax, and Dan Bull, and because my depressed ass was drawn to NF and now a little Ren, when Youtube recommends rap artists to me, 90% of the algorithm recommendations are white artists. White men, specifically.
I had a similar problem with Pandora.
I actually had to create a special Pandora station that i seeded with three black artists and then ONLY liked non-white artists AND disliked every white artists that came up, just to get a station that wouldn't turn itself into a white rap channel.
It makes me furious, because i don' want to care about who is a white artist and who is a black artist!!!! I just want to listen to music that i like!!! But these bullshit music platforms make me have to care a lot about who is white and who is black just to not be pushed into racist music tastes and i fucking hate it.
And, if i'm being super honest, one reason i really hate it is because i know i probably really do have some internal racist tendencies when it comes to music, because i was raised white in america, and i really resent having to fight these fucking algorithms instead of, idk, being helped by them. I need to be able to look at my feed and assess it for my own unacknowledged racism... like, if there was no algorithm, and i looked at my music history and saw all white artists, i could be like, OH. I need to look in the mirror about this. But instead i have to play this weird tug-a-war with the platform about it and i can't tell what's my own deficiency and what is being forced on me. But SOME of it is being forced on me.
I mean for fucks sake, Snow tha Product does half her lyrics in spanish and the algorithm sees me love her and STILL recommends mostly white men. Hundreds of hours of listening to her, and zero spanish artist recommendations. Its infuriating.
Anyway, if you're curating your music tastes mostly online, and you start with white artists at all, then you really really gotta work to not fall deep into the bias.
And if that's what's happening with the music, how much more insidious must the social commentary content bias be
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the fact that i made it to hozier's top 2 percent in spite of not having started listening to his music before august says something about me. or maybe it says something about hozier's popularity bc my wrapped claims i only listened to him for 798 minutes😭 girl how
#okay 798 minutes isn't less for someone who listens to music mostly on youtube or the radio but still#how can it be so low and still be his top 2 percent#also wrapped claims i only listened to about 3000 minutes of music which seems ridiculous#but then. i do listen to a lot of music of youtube or the radio#ever since getting ublock listening on youtube on my laptop has been easier than listening on my laptop on spotify#hey doesn't youtube do a wrapped these days? let's see how i fare in that
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We’ll Meet Again
Alastor x GN! Reader
TW: Fluff! Alastor and Reader were lovers in life, soulmates, slight memory loss, brief mention of reader taking their life, a little OOC Alastor.
AN: I heard PARANOiD DJ’s take on Alastor singing We’ll Meet Again and just couldn’t help myself, it seemed far too perfect. While I know he says the song is “past his time” it felt too perfect. Please forgive any spelling or grammatical errors, otherwise! Enjoy! :)
You were delighted with the sound of someone playing the piano and humming as you left your room to start the day. You descended the stairs of the hotel to see the radio demon at the piano in the parlor, delighted to hear his skillful playing. It reminded you a lot of when you were alive. You moved closer to see him play and potentially talk and sing with him. You stood listening to him play for a while before he looked up to notice you had been lured in by his music.
“Ah! I didn’t see you there. Don’t be shy, make yourself comfortable” Alastor spoke as he played a little tune on the piano once again while speaking to you, his fingers dancing absentmindedly along the ivory keys. “You play?” You asked as you sat down next to him on the bench, making him chuckle at the rather obvious answer to your question, but he was delighted to see your recognition nonetheless. “Surprised? I’ve been known to tickle the ivories from time to time” he replied, a laugh track playing afterwards that you couldn’t help but giggle along with. “You make it look so effortlessly easy. I knew someone once who was extremely talented at playing and singing like you are” you responded, making him smile a little softer at the compliment and connection you had made. “Ahh there’s few things more entertaining than a good song, don’t you think?” He asked, making you hum and nod in agreement as you awaited to hear what he had in store to play for you. “I’m rather fond of this one! It’s a little after my time but it is such a…thoughtful melody” he added, emphasizing the word thoughtful as if the song had a more personal meaning to him. He cleared his throat before playing the soft melody, the crackling radio static filling the air for a moment before he continued and began to sing.
”We’ll meet again”
“Don’t know where”
”Don’t know when”
”But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day”
He began to sing, and your eyes widened a little at the lovely sound of his voice. For a demon you were shocked that he could have such an angelic voice, yet something about that song, something about that voice felt so…familiar. You couldn’t quite place it, perhaps you’d heard it in passing when you were alive?
“Keep smiling through”
“Just like you always do”
“Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away”
He continued to sing and you couldn’t help this festering feeling within you that you knew this song, that his voice sounded so familiar. Hearing him sing this brought you home, to back when you were alive. You closed your eyes for a moment as you reminisced on old times, a smile rising to your lips as you recounted the way you would lean over a piano with a loving smile and sing along to songs being played by your lover. He was a radio host back then, just like Alastor. You recounted the way his mother used to praise his skills and his voice and yours as you would sing together, the smell of her famous jambalaya filling the air. Strange how the face of your lover seemed to be a blur to you, it had been quite some time since you’d died, and unfortunately they had died before you did.
“And I will just say “Hello””
“To the folks that you know”
“Tell them you won’t be long”
“They’ll be happy to know”
“That as I saw you go”
“You were singing this song”
It was then that it clicked, the song he was singing was a song you used to sing quite often. You saw it, remembering the way you would visit your lover’s grave and sing to him as if he could hear you from beyond the mortal realm. It was the song you sang at his funeral as you comforted his loving mother who couldn’t bear the news that her son was gone and about to be lowered six feet below the cold dirt of the earth. You had visited his grave everyday, giving him life updates as you could, wishing, praying you could hear his voice again just one more time. You had hoped that perhaps in some way he could hear you until you could find one another again in the afterlife.
One day the sadness had just become far too much for your heart to bear, the depression and loneliness consuming you to the point you hardly could will yourself to leave the house unless it was to visit him. Hardly able to bring yourself to leave his tombstone in the cemetery once you had arrived, and in a flitting moment of pure heartbroken melancholy one evening, you took your own life. That was how you unfortunately got here, granted you didn’t live the purest life, your lover and you were partners in crime outside of your otherwise pure moments together at home. Then his face came to you, and in an instant the pieces all fell together in your mind. It was him. You had finally found your lover after so long spent apart and so long searching and yearning.
“We’ll meet again”
“Don’t know where”
“Don’t know when”
“But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day”
He began to hum the previous melody, tears coming to your eyes as you looked at him, finally understanding why that smile reminded you so much of someone. So much of home. He had been here before you for so long and it took just now to realize it. How you longed to cup his face and kiss him like you used to, or to simply hold him within your embrace after so long.
“We’ll meet again”
“Don’t know where”
”Don’t know when”
“But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day”
You finished the song with him as tears streamed down your face, the droplets landing along the ivory keys with a soft “plap” before looking to him. He smiled a little softer, his brows more relaxed as he heard you sing along, happy to see that you made the connections at last. Your singing was as angelic as he remembered. “Alastor…” you said in realization as he turned to you, seeing the tears in your eyes and the streams rolling down your soft cheeks, almost bringing tears to his own eyes. “Yes, Mon Cher?” He asked, making you smile at the usage of the nickname he would call you back when you were alive. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? That the one I’d been searching for all this time had been in front of me?” You asked, and truth be told, it was because he was scared you wouldn’t want to be with him anymore upon seeing what he had turned into, that perhaps you had no longer been in love with him, but he wouldn’t admit to that. “Because darling, I knew one day we’d meet again, and that one day it would all return to you in time” he said confidently, covering up the real answer as his arm came to circle around your waist and pull you to him. “Oh Alastor…how greatly I have missed you” you said, your hand coming up to cup his cheek tenderly, something that had it been anyone else, he would be disgusted. But this was you who was caressing his cheek with care, you who had been looking upon him so lovingly. For a moment he felt as if he had been alive again, back at his home in New Orleans with you by his side, singing with him as he played the piano. For a moment, it felt as if he had been granted a slice of heaven despite being in hell. You leaned forward to press your forehead against his, careful not to tangle your hair within his horns as he shut his eyes, a small tear lingering within his waterline.
For the first time in far too long, he finally felt at peace. At home.
#hazbin hotel#hazbin alastor#alastor x reader#alastor#alastor fluff#hazbin x reader#hazbin x you#hazbin x y/n#SoundCloud
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I usually reblog, rather than make my own posts, but seeing everyone in the gaze community deal with their grief by writing things down has given me some courage to do the same. I hope it will help me in my grieving process and i hope to help everyone who does relate to what i write. So this will be my farewell letter.
Dear Reita,
I got the news seven days too late, like how it usually is for me coming into a fandom.
I became a fan about 8 years ago, i was doing a creative education as a designer, listening to random music on Youtube with autoplay. Suddenly i found Red, the first song that got me into the Gazette, i was glued to my screen and intrigued with the looks of all members. But why the hell was that one guy wearing a band around his nose? I needed to get into it. So i did.
The gazette then became my first and favorite Visual kei band, i’ve been trough a lot in my life and whenever hardship struck me, there was always an interview that would make me laugh. When i had boring days in school we even played a game, my friends would ask me “why is he covering his nose?” And i would make up the weirdest stories on the spot. That resulted in some charms with titles like ‘reita and the smelly drummer.’ And ‘reita the drugs dealer.’ It varied from poking fun and making up the stupidest thing, to making you some cool guy who fought bad guys. It would always make us laugh, even though, i was making up these stories to friends who weren’t even necessarily in the fandom, because everyone who saw you once, knew your name and so knew who you were.
I wrote fanfiction, many in where you play a big part of the story, not as a love interest, but as a brother of a character based off of me. All because you once said in a radio show that you feel like you’d be a great older brother, hell did i take you up on that one.
I never got to see The Gazette live, i used to curse you all for skipping my country and forcing me to travel for 5 hours to see you all. In 2018 i was almost at that point, but i couldn’t go because of my exams and because i had no friends who wanted to come with me. I always promised myself: one day, i will see them.
It hurts me to realize that day will never come, at least you won’t be there anymore. I accidentally open instagram, and find a grief post written by Hiroto of Alice nine, in the hashtags your name. Shock, that’s the first thing i felt. I must be going crazy. But next up was Miyavi’s post and as i read that it slowly starts downing upon me, my heart sinks to my stomach and a lump forms in my throat as i rush to jrocknews to confirm they aren’t just playing a sick joke.
I start crying like most of the sixth guns, but only after i start reading the members messages. Why am i crying? We’ve lost a talented bass player who inspired so many people to also start making music. The world lost ‘the world’s Reita’ who was always poking fun at the drummer. The bookstores lost their most unexpected romance buyer. Many lost their source of love and joy. I’ve lost my fictional brother.
But most importantly, your actual family lost a loving family member who bought his mother an entire house to repay her for raising him well. The Gazette lost a member. Kai lost his fear during interviews of whatever you are going to say next. Ruki lost being in your personal space no matter how big the dressing room. Aoi lost the person who’s jokes he could laugh the hardest about. Uruha lost his longtime best friend, and now can no longer feel your heart racing before the show, nor can he feel your hand searching for his heart.
I hope everyones feelings reach you, i hope that whichever way you passed, was peaceful and without pain. I hope that whenever it is our time, you come in your mustang to pick everyone up. Usually as a driving instructor i call shotgun, but i’ll leave that space to your close relatives. That way i can’t judge you for turning around while parking, rather than using your mirrors.
Thank you for everything Reita, you will never be forgotten. Once my grief is gone, i promise to remember you with a smile rather than cry. I also promise to be a fan of The Gazette no matter what they decide to do now you’re gone.
And to whomever read my entire message, thank you for reading this unhinged post.
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ok ive taken a deep breath and steeled myself. what do you think of liu yu
I'm going to put this under a cut because I rambled a little, but I wanted to offer my detailed impression :P Rest assured! No tearing to shreds occurred. He remains intact.
Well, I didn’t know who this guy was, so I took myself to the ole Wikipedia and my first thought was wow! Look at those label names.
Second thoughts: Ooh, dancer. I'm looking forward to see how the dancing is (if he still dances).
I have heard of INTO1 but don't watch idol competition shows, but it's impressive that he placed first. I decided to listen to/watch two songs/performances: his first single, 靠岸, from 2019, and his most recent single from 2023, Focus.
靠岸 didn't seemed to have an official video, so I ended up watching a live performance from a show called Mr. Radio.
youtube
I was pleasantly surprised by this song! Seeing that he had been on Produce Camp, I was expecting a more pop kind of song, but this was a song I could imagine playing in the OT of a drama (in a good way!). I think his performance was a little shaky here, but I sense that maybe he was nervous? Either way, he seems a little shy here, where this song would really benefit from a powerhouse performance. Idk, maybe it was also a sound mixing issue. I like the song, though. Very pretty. I went to listen to the studio recording and it was a lot better—much closer to what I was hoping to get. The oooooh part sort of reminds me of a Zhou Shen song whose title I can't remember at the moment. It was space themed, though. (EDIT: the song I was thinking about was Cassini)
Next up!! Focus. I watched the Official Music Video on Youtube first.
youtube
Coming off 靠岸， I could see from the thumbnail that this song would be closer to the pop sound that I expected, so the things I was interested in seeing was the MV concept and the dancing. On first watch, I didn't really listen to the lyrics much, because there were no captions to read and I can't really tell what people are saying in pop songs anyway.
I have to admit that going into the video with the big gray space only, I thought it was pretty ugly at first. I just think that the CG structure on pale BG concept always looks cheap no matter who does it, though, and Liu Yu seems like a sort of tiny guy, so with all the dancers around him, I initially thought he looked a little swamped by them.
At 0:48 when we got a flash of the all-black cowboy look, again I was a bit disappointed, thinking that there wouldn't be much edge to concepts.
Then we got to the, I'm gonna say, test lab sewer gothic, and I thought "ok, at least that's something". It's definitely be done before but there's more production in that set and look, so at least the whole video isn't just going to be a gray void. The flash of Liu Yu standing in as his own princess was kind of interesting (disappointed this character never showed up in the music video again)
Now I know said I wasn't going to rip him to shreds and that's because....!!! When the beat dropped, I went "ok wait" lol. At 1:03, I witnessed evidence of stage presence and was like "oh we are so back, baby"
Still not a fan of the big pale space, and I think Liu Yu's charisma was most visible in the sewer gothic scenes and weakest in the scenes where he's wearing the silver ice skating outfit looking blouse, but maybe that's just because it distracts you with his little twig body. I personally can't buy into the energy of someone who looks like the most movable object on earth.
3:03 the "yuh" made me laugh tho
MV looks ranked (best to worst):
One thing that I didn't like about the MV (but understand is necessary) was that the video kept cutting right as I thought to myself "Oh, this is a nice bit of dancing", and I wish the shots had been wider on the dance moves instead of cutting him off at the ribs. A wider dance version in the sewer (I know that's not what it was but jhkalfjl) would've been appreciated by me. With that in mind, I decided to see if there was a dance performance video and there was! As suspected, the choreography in the beginning of the song is also just not that strong or compelling to me. It sort of gives intermediate hiphop 2 dance recital. My favorite part of choreo is the breakdown at 2:56.
Anyway, I hope these impressions were sufficient! I didn't check him out on any variety shows so I can't comment much on what I think about his personality, but from a music/performance standpoint, I think he's pretty good. Not really the kind of stuff I listen to anymore but if I still kept up with idols, maybe I'd check him out from time to time :)
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hm.
i think this is coming up because longmont potion castle came into conversation recently. the last time i saw you, really saw you where it was just the two of us, we spent the night on the couch in your condo listening to longmont potion castle tapes. "rope" was my favorite.
i saw you again, later, with your soon-to-be wife, who was wonderful. i still hadn't progressed to taking hormones, but you introduced me easily, just like you had with your roommate within weeks of me leaving my ex and deciding to transition. no faltering. you always got me.
i'll always remember you making me stop my car, saying, "psp psp psp kitty, first pets are free," and making new cat friends.
you would have been so much better at being in your thirties than i am. i suck at this. you would have been so good. you would know what to do in this stubborn world.
we started a tumblr for our radio show in 2010. i updated it every week but struggled, because it was so much different from livejournal. i still have that account attached to mine, because there's a picture of us as the icon, and despite how i've changed, i'm not ready to let go of your (occasionally terrible, joanna newsom and titus andronicus, really?) music taste, or the picture of us together in my old kitchen, back when we used to have vodka and pickle parties to watch new episodes of jersey shore.
this isn't an anniversary of your death, it isn't even close. it's just a random day i'm remembering you again. your wife wouldn't let me see your ashes the last time i asked, because she was still grieving and lost, and i respect that, but i really just wanted to read you italian elon musk tweets. you would have fucking loved italian elon musk twitter. you would have been an answer to a lot of things happening now that we don't have. you were so fucking smart, and funny. someone uploaded your one-time standup show when we were college students to youtube, and i've watched it more than once.
if anyone ever deserved to be alive, it would be you, and i'm so mad that you aren't. life was taken from you in the ugliest way. it was taken from you and you were taken from us, and no one had a say, and every now and then (today) i get real fucking angry about it.
i still drive past your old house sometimes and expect to see your franksteined together car. i remember how soft your hands were. your stupid mountain unicycle. the way you made us all listen to drake but also the first press the smiths album afterward like a balm, only to chase that with fucking drake like he was the second coming. you laughed like jimmy carr getting punched in the solar plexus. i miss you so much. i can't remember how long it's been.
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Audio + CC link: https://youtu.be/ulyrcg0Fmqw
ENG SUB: JokerOutSubs x RADIOAktivno collab: 'Umazane misli' Album Presentation
We are very happy to have been able to collaborate with Boštjan Najžar from RadioAKTIVNO podcast (Facebook, YouTube), who very kindly reuploaded the removed video on YouTube again and agreed to collaborate with us by adding subtitles!
Below you can find the transcription of our translation of the interview, which originally aired on 23.11.2021, on Radio Prlek/RADIOAktivno YouTube channel.
Everyone: We are Joker Out.
Bojan: And you are listening to RADIOaktivno.
Boštjan: We've heard 'Gola' by Joker Out, from the album 'Umazane Misli'. Today with me on the RADIOaktivno show on Radio Prlek all the members, Martin, Jure, Kris, Bojan and Jan.
Everyone: Hello.
Do you have any dirty thoughts?
Jan: Every day. Yes, more and more. That's what connects us, that's what's always stuck with us. I think we're born with dirty thoughts. We've just released that on a CD.
Now you have finally made them public.
Bojan: Yes, it took a while, but these dirty thoughts have changed in the last two years, since the album should, in theory, have been released originally, they have evolved a lot. And they have evolved in such a way that we are now really very happy with them. So, yeah, the physical form is finally with us.
Anyway, Joker Out, you've been playing your cards successfully for a few years now. Are there many Jokers in the game?
Kris: Yes, there are exactly five in the game, right? Each one special in their own way. That specialness and dirty thoughts, as they say, unite us, too, don't they. I don't know what else to add to that.
Do you play cards?
Jure: Do we play cards? No. Socially, we don't play cards. No.
Bojan: We’ve actually never played cards.
Jan: We were at the casino last time.
Bojan: Hey, we were. And on average, I think, we were in a deficit, just two euros in total, or four.
Jan: Something like that.
That's a good result.
Bojan: Really good.
Kris: So kids, don't go to the casino.
Bojan: Yes. You will always lose.
Five Jokers, well connected.
Martin: Seems pretty well connected to me. We kind of complement each other nicely in what we create and what we do. What else can I say? Well, if there are only two Jokers in a deck, here we have five. Kind of.
Bojan: Like the Power Rangers.
Jan: Yes. Power Rangers. Power Rangers. Power Out. Joker.
Bojan: Is there a pink Power Ranger?
Jan: Joker Rangers.
Martin: There's a pink Power Ranger.
Bojan: I am the pink Power Ranger. Bojan.
So does each one choose his own colour, or is it assigned to a particular member?
Kris: Yes, I think basically the colour is assigned based on his character and temperament. So maybe pink really suits Bojan, yes.
Kris, which one for you?
Kris: Yes, I don't know which Power Rangers are left.
Bojan: Red, yellow, green.
Jan: You can have one of your own.
Bojan: Black.
Kris: Is Jan the black one?
Bojan: Jan is the black one.
Kris: Jan is the black one, right.
Bojan: Jure is the yellow one, right?
Jure: Am I the yellow one, or what?
Kris: Is he the yellow one?
Martin: Nooo.
Bojan: Yes, I don't know, is it?
Kris: I would say, the green one?
Jure: Green.
Kris: Jure is...
Bojan: Green.
Jure: Well, come on.
Kris: Hey, what's left, red and blue still, Jurko?
Martin: Yes, yes.
Jan: Jurko is more…Martin is more the blue one.
Kris: Well, I'm the red one and Martin is the blue one.
Power Rangers are always in action, are you always in action too?
Martin: Yes, especially lately, I think, that we're pretty much in action. Well, from all points of view, musical and others, socially. What else can I say on this topic?
Jure: There's a big thing in the works right now. So, we have to split up the tasks and that's it, yes.
But there's a lot of "sweet" work now?
Jure: Yes, yes and no, right?
Bojan: If you interpret it that way, it's much easier. If you tell yourself that it's "sweet" work, then many things that originally are not directly related to music, but are just things that we have to do along the way, to be successful, it could work, after all. We have a lot of "sweet" worries, we often have worries that we would like to or be able to give to someone who tolerates them better than we do, or just not have them.
Kris, were you going to add something else?
Kris: I just wanted to say that there's a lot of sweet powder as well. To get this, the context of one of the songs will come in handy.
UMAZANE MISLI
Gola' was the opening track, the second will be the title track for the album, 'Umazane misli'.
Bojan: Yes, 'Umazane misli' is one of those extremely upbeat, good-mood songs, which was kind of our attempt at Brit pop and we feel that it was very much the beginning of a certain vibe that we would like to maintain. It's also a very particular song because it was sung by one of my classmates from college, who had never sung or stood in front of a microphone in her life, so it has that touch of naivety. So yes, a very beautiful song that I hope we'll listen to.
Umazane misli' by Joker Out's album with the same name. You are a five-member band, I read online, you started from the ruins of Apokalipsa, in 2016.
Bojan: Yes, on the ruins of Apokalipsa and then Buržuazija (Bourgeoisie). These were the two bands that kind of broke up and then formed this current whole. Except for Jurček, Jurček joined us this January from the ruins of many other bands where he was forged.
But Buržuazija is still active. So you have taken away a member from them?
Jan: Yes, they got replaced. I mean, no matter what, Buržuazija always finds a way to its position.
Kris: True. The class struggle continues.
Jan: But, yes. I mean, this is a band that's replaced every member five times, at least, so...
Bojan: They're really a living organism.
Jan: Resilient. They're resilient, yes.
Martin: That's the question, right, if you replace every part of the boat, is it still the same boat?
Bojan: No, it's not the same boat, but it is a very good thing for Buržuazija, because I would say they are in the best possible shape right now. Maybe I dissed Jan and Kris with that, because it wasn't so good when they were there, but yes... Great band, still, or rather now.
Kris: Yet I 'Still' ('Vedno') enjoy it.
Jan: Yes, that.
Then today, Jure, you are actually the youngest member, joining the band?
Jure: Oldest member but youngest in the band, yes, I think.
In experience with Joker Out, I mean.
Jure: In experience with Joker Out, yes.
Bojan: He's the only one with a sweater on, so actually, kind of, the levels balance out.
Jure: I try to get on your level.
Have you received him nicely?
Kris: Absolutely. He's fitted himself in so perfectly into our band that I actually sometimes forget that we've been together for... - Just... - ...less than a year.
Bojan: He still has to adress us formally and eat at a separate table.
Jan: He did make us a really great roast once, so that's when we finally accepted him into our band.
Bojan: True, yes.
So you also have entrance exams in the group?
Bojan: Informal ones.
Given that Jure is cooking a roast to enter the group, what did the others do then to get in?
Martin: That is only for the members of Joker Out to know, right? Something like that.
Anyway, we first got in touch in 2017, Kris texted me then that you had a song, if it could be presented on the radio. If we could do an interview, but then Kris immediately left Bojan holding the bag.
Kris: Yes, that's when I, I don't know, I think I got lists from my mum of 30 music editors and we wrote to everyone when we released our first single 'Omamljeno telo' and I was genuinely surprised and I thank you, for even answering, so thank you very much. I really did, however, leave Bojan holding the bag at the time and still, I would do it again. That's just the duty of the frontman, or how should I say it? He has privileges and duties.
Usually the frontman is the most exposed member of the band.
Bojan: Yes, that's just kind of how it goes generally, but I will say that we have, especially in the last few months and in this final process of making the album, greatly expanded the public exposure of the whole band. And I personally would like to see this be brought to the maximum level, if possible, so to say, to be as exposed as possible. Not only because I find it to be right, but because I also sometimes feel like not going to every single thing.
VEM DA GREŠ
The next song will be 'Vem, da greš'.
Kris: What can I say about this track, listen to Bojan's sufferings.
Bojan: No, we have one interesting thing about 'Vem, da greš'. Vem, da greš' had three forms. It was a very slow balladic song at the beginning, but it kind of got on our nerves during the recording process and we didn't know what to do. We ended up speeding it up a lot. Mark Pirc, our video producer, had to edit the whole video again and shorten it by one minute, because we'd also shortened the song. Jan recorded the last guitar parts two hours before we sent the song to be mixed, so two months of work was practically in the trash, in such a bombastically short time before the mix itself.
Kris: May I add, it doesn't look to me like it was all garbage, because we would never have come up with this in the last four hours if we hadn't done that two months before.
Bojan: But Žarko clicked 'move to trash', 'delete'.
But then it was left in the bin anyway?
Bojan: It was left in the bin, yes. And also on his old computer, so we'll never hear that stuff again, even if we wanted to.
You've been accumulating experience on stage for quite some time, from various competitions and things like that.
Kris: Yes, it's true, as soon as we formed as a band, we also started looking for gigs, because we knew it was the only way for people to actually hear our music and feel it. Because what you see on YouTube, maybe doesn't capture you as much as live music. And there are, basically, at least for young bands in Slovenia, quite a lot of opportunities to show off, various competitions and bands battles and so on. And we've entered everything. Even when we weren't playing well, we thought we were better than everybody and we went to play. And basically, well, apart from showing off to the audience, you also get to know a lot of the young music scene, with whom it's very good to link, and I think that this has also helped us a lot in the long term.
What has it given you?
Martin: First of all, I think that these opportunities make it possible for young bands to come out of some kind of closed space, where they feel comfortable since they practice in front of each other and create some music to perform and show what they've been creating for the audience and let's them see how the audience reacts or, especially, how they don't react to your music at the beginning and it gives you some first experiences that are very important for then performing in front of larger audiences on bigger stages.
How is it, being in such competitions or opening for a more famous band that has stage experience behind them?
Jan: The first time we played as the opening act for Big Foot Mama in Domžale, I kind of felt so privileged, I was, I think, so privileged to be able to take part in it. So without going through that and being an opening act to bigger bands, also you can't become what they are now. So, 25 years ago, yeah. So, yes, it was interesting to feel a really big stage for the first time, right. And now we're kind of almost used to it, I think.
Kris: Do you know the song 'Garbage Hip Hop?'
Today it's different when you're the one on stage.
Jure: I don't know, I don't know if it's different. I think you have to make the same effort. You have to make the same effort. Maybe, okay, now people, people maybe percieve the opening act and the main band a little differently. But still, if you play what you what you agreed on, if you have good energy, communicate with people, it doesn't matter whether you're the opening act or the main band.
Bojan: Are you going to tell me that you don't feel a thousand times sexier on stage right now, than you did then? Don't lie.
Jure: No, no, I don't know if I do. No. I mean, I'm at the back, I'm the drummer, it's the same to me.
Bojan: Drummers, poor drummers, they never see the crowd and they can't even be seen on stage. But we'll buy you a pedestal, my dude, three metres high, dude, for everybody to see.
Jure: Lights.
Bojan: Then you're gonna see.
How do you feel as a singer now, when you're the frontman in a band and you have an opening act, compared to when you were the opening act?
Bojan: Yes, it's really one of those interesting leaps that we actually can't believe has already been made, I will say, honestly, as if we were just now realising that we had come to this point that someone is our opening act. We really do have a lot, a lot of work to do. But we are very happy to do a concert and there's somebody else before us. But we know that this role was ours, literally, for the last four years and we have always welcomed it with the greatest joy and pride. And it's a must on every musician's journey, so, yes, we're looking forward to a lot more opening acts, and hopefully as many as possible, that then will be back as the main ones, in the future.
To make the competition fiercer?
Bojan: Absolutely, I think that without good and healthy competition, there is no scene at all. So the more musicians we have, that are growing and that people are listening to, the more we will have an audience that wants Slovenian music.
PROTI TOKU
Is 'Proti toku' next?
Jure: Proti toku', that's a new song, yes. We finished this one together, right? After I joined the band. So, this is one of the latest ones. I don't know what else to say, 'Proti toku'.
Kris: Okay, so 'Proti toku' is the first track, you're going to hear from our new album and it's brand new. It's actually fairly well known amongst our audience, because we've been performing it for at least three years, I believe. But it's in a completely new format because we turned it upside down three times in the studio and we hope you like it.
Considering your music, are you a rock band?
Martin: We're definitely a rock band. By the way, we discussed this just yesterday, how as young performers, well, we are still young performers, but in the early days, we didn't know exactly how to define our genre. When we were asked what our genre is, and we were maybe a bit thoughtless, or you could say thoughtful, when we replied that our genre was 'Shagadelic' rock and roll, which is still what we all agree on.
And if we translate that, what is that supposed to mean? We know that there are many different kinds of rock.
Martin: I don't know how to translate that, as somehow...
Bojan: Fuckable is a literal translation. Fuckable.
Then we know which audience you are targeting most.
Bojan: Yes, everyone who is looking for...
Kris: Middle-aged males.
(laughter)
Jan: I mean, yeah, yeah, we are rock, right? I mean, rock isn't just leather trousers and beer, it's also smart clothes and beer.
Bojan: It's the eternal question of defining who is rock and who isn't. In our band there are three electric guitars, a bass and drums and I think the sound of our guitars is distorted. I don't know what else people want from us. Now, the fact that we're young, obviously, objectively speaking, girls find us charming, obviously degrades us into not being rock or something, according to many people. But sorry, not sorry, Guns N'Roses will never be on our setlist.
Were you in a dilemma at the beginning about what to play and which direction to follow?
Jan: We definitely were. I think we have quite different musical backgrounds. At least I was a little bit more metal at the beginning, which didn't really suit the other members, because Bojan doesn't sing "raaah". His voice is more delicate. Then, yeah, we explored a little bit, experimented some more with funk, but it didn't work out, because we just aren't... that funky, well, but... So, yeah, in a bit of a roundabout way we've reached this Shagadelic style, which we still hold on to.
How many adjustments were there at the beginning then? And brainstorming, different ideas, ways of looking at where to go and how to move forward?
Kris: Ugh...
Others: We still do that a lot. - It still happens.
Kris: That's constant. It's always present. It's a shouting match and the loudest one... No, no...
Bojan: And if you shout the loudest, you win.
Kris: Yeah, yeah. No, but seriously usually we had very different ideas, but somehow we at least let everyone speak their mind, and if it was really bad, it was just... Like that, the rest... But if anybody had a half decent...
Jan: Why are you looking at me now? (laughter)
Kris: Sorry... (laughter). But if anyone had a half decent idea we were like, okay, let's go and try to develop it and somehow we've always found a joint thread, invariably.
Would you also take a vote when you create then? To vote, like in a democratic fashion?
Jure: No, we don't, we don't take votes.
Bojan: Žare has this...
Jure: Yes, we do understand and know each other enough, so we know exactly which buttons we can and can't push.
Bojan: Our opinions don't really count, because in the end, Žare has the last word.
The producer has it then.
Bojan: Right, yes. We often bring the arrangement and then after 25 seconds we're faced with dissaproval and a horrified look on the face of Žare Pak, so we have to get back and rehearse ASAP.
The expression says it all.
Bojan: It tells it all. All of it, all of it.
Jan: And the vowel, right?
Bojan: He uses a vowel, ə... - əəə...
Several members: əəə...
Martin: Which we hear quite often in the band, right?
Bojan: Now we can write a book called 'The Thousand and One ə'. And Žare, we'll basically take Žare's, we'll write a whole book out of one ə.
After all, the Slovene language also has several e's.
Bojan: There are more, but believe me, Žarko probably knows even more of them.
DOPAMIN
Next up will be 'Dopamin'.
Martin: Dopamin' is a very exciting song from the album, because it's quite different from the others but it's still Shagadelic and it's ours and you can hear that. Although we kind of went out of our comfort zone creating it and what's particularly interesting to me, it's how well the fans have embraced it. So let's listen to 'Dopamin'.
Kris: Dopamin' is actually the best song to play after this whole rock 'n' roll debate we just had. It's a song that was essentially created two weeks ago, let's say, to completion. We had already been working on it with no real progress for a year and a half, because we, I had lots of different lyrics, this is actually a song I wrote, lyrics and melody for the most part, the only one on the album, and there was constant back and forth between Bojan and me, who's going to give in and when will the final version of the song be good enough.
Bojan: Yes, I would like to say that I am extremely happy, that Kris's debut made it onto the album and I'm not apologising to him one bit for any rejections that may have come his way, because they've led to a great song.
You have ten songs on the album, is there more material, is this a selection?
Jan: Yes, we've written at least 70 thousand songs in our life, but...
Martin & Bojan: They're cherry-picked.
Jan: They're cherry-picked, right. It's the cream of the cream of the crop. Well, yes, there is already more material coming up for the next album, which will be released at some point we've written at least one song.
Bojan: And a half.
Jan: One song and a half, yes.
Martin: Which won't pass the ə-test, right. The ə-test we were discussing earlier, so we'll see what happens.
Bojan: People always want to know how many E's are in their food, but we're interested in how many ə's are in Žare's answer.
There can be a lot of ə's in the studio with this technique.
Bojan: Loads.
Although I do miss some songs from your ealier period on the album. Have you separated then those perfect beginnings from the more recent period?
Bojan: Yes, actually we said that we would like this album to sound cohesive and represent our choices for example which period defined the Joker Out people know now. We have many songs that were part of our beginning, and we're not ashamed of them at all, but we feel that maybe they stylistically and sonically don't belong on this tangible product we have in front of us now. But we're discussing how and in what way we can put them into, if possible, physical form, and present them to the whole of Slovenia.
How do you go about creating then? Do you have a dedicated person who does the music? who writes the lyrics, or do you work together?
Bojan: I mean, people from the label usually come in, bring all the material...
Jure: And the money.
Bojan: We go to the photoshoots, pose and smile, do some interviews.
That's what most listeners think, but I know that's not the case.
Martin: I have one comment. Yes, this, this label is the Cultural Arts Association Joker Out, isn't it?
Bojan: Yes
Martin: Kind of. This label takes care of the whole creative process, finance and everything else, really, so we're pretty much the ones to blame for our own fate.
Kris: Right, in fact, this is how our creation process flows, as far as music is concerned, we all work together. You can start a song by, let's say Bojan or I can start making a framework for the song, with the lyrics and the melody, or someone could bring a melody on guitar to the rehearsals, a groove on the drums, like, a chord progression and we just build from there and then usually Bojan will write some lyrics over it and the melody and then we build it up until the producer screws it up, as we've mentioned a couple of times today and then we try to glue the pieces back together somehow.
Bojan: We're doing a mosaic, through and through.
Kris: Yeah, yeah, right, right. But in the end, the suffering is always worth it, obviously.
So gluing is popular with you, too.
Jure: Gluing is popular? Yes, it is. I mean.
You take a little bit from this song and cut up the other one.
Jure: Exactly. We can't do without it, yes. But it's more Žare's job, it's what he does.. We put together some stuff when we rehearse, we think it's nice, we record it, we're like, okay, smashing, let's go to the concert and let's promote it. And then we get to the studio our plans crumble..
Martin: As a label we have everything ready, but then we're just not on the same page as our producer.
Bojan, then you're the one who's responsible for the lyrics?
Bojan: Yeah, most of the lyrics on the album are mine, yeah.
Jan: Or the main culprits for the lyrics are the girls, who captivated Bojan in our favour.
Are there many of them?
Bojan: Well, you know how, I'm fascinated by, not only by the girls, girls as well, of course, but I'm fascinated by everyday things, a glimpse of... Every single glimpse of the world can fascinate you or disappoint you. When I write it's more often out of disappointment than out of fascination. But yes, I think there is a lot of inspiration around us.
BARVE OCEANA
Next up will be 'Barve oceana'.
Jan: The next song is 'Barve oceana', yeah. It's a song which has the colours of the ocean. Well it's also a song, that's undergone quite a lot of changes. At the end we added one genius synthesizer sound.
Bojan: We used this weird organ belonging to Žare from the '70s.
Jan: Žare's organ from the 70's, pardon me.
Martin: From Sweden.
Jan: Yeah, does anyone else have anything to say?
Bojan: Was that all you had to say, because...
Jan: I don't know, dude. What would you add?
Bojan: Yeah, 'Barve oceana' is one of those songs, that conveys, I'd say, not discontent, but more of a concern about the direction our society is heading in. Our consumption is increasing and very few people ask themselves what they can give back. It's about a certain desire to distance yourself from the material towards, let's say, the more elemental realm.
You've won several music awards recently, in the last two years, I believe?
Bojan: Yes, in 2019 we were awarded the Golden Flute for Newcomer of the Year. In 2020, we received the Golden Flute for Artists of the Year. This year, our song 'Umazane misli' also won the Radio Maribor and SI Frišno Award the favourite song by audience vote in the previous year. I don't know, did we win any other awards? Except...
Martin: Yes, there's one coming up. So, the publishing house Cultural Arts Association Joker Out, will be honouring Joker Out with the most Shagadelic record of the year award, so we're expecting it and looking forward to it. (laughter)
And you'll probably get a plaque as well, a gold or diamond record for record sales.
Martin: That's right, because that's what the label would give to the band. So we haven't decided on the colour yet, we're considering platinum, diamond. But we're going to discuss it at the label and then present it to the band, something like that.
What do such high sales mean?
Martin: Yes, it means that basically the CD as a product is not just for listening to music, it's also an experience for the listener. We've put a lot of effort into the design of the CD and I think it's a good looking tangible product. But at the same time, the listeners support us by buying it, so we're very grateful.
Is it just storefront sales or does it include digital sales as well?
Bojan: Digital sales as well. Actually there are some standards applicable, in terms of how many streams count as an album sold. We, of course, do not follow them in any way, because we're self-published and we can totally get away with it. So when Martin said, we're going to give ourselves one award, I believe we'll be handing out many. It is because when people come to our place, it will look like we've already got decades of awards behind us.
Earlier, you also mentioned that you participated in the Frišno Fresh festival and played with the Big Band. How did that feel, when your song actually got a whole new arrangement?
Bojan: It was phenomenal, because we, I'll say, we're all fans of the musicians, who were in the line-up. Maybe Jan's words after the concert or during the concert would best describe what it meant to us.
Jan: Yes, I listened to the band perform this song and I've been a long-time fan of Primož Grašič and Blaž Jurjevčič. And when I watched Grašič, let's say, as he played my piece, I got... It was just a special, special feeling. It was just... Yes, exactly.
Bojan: Emotional.
Jan: Emotional.
Bojan: Please don't cry Jan, it's okay. We're wiping away tears, it's okay.
But overall, all the compositions sounded very good.
Jan: Yeah, really, I mean, those are really world class musicians, kudos to the arrangers and the mothers who gave birth to them. So, yeah, basically, I just didn't see it coming. But it was refreshing to hear these songs, we hear on the radio on a regular basis in a slightly more jazz-like style.
Did you have a part in making the arrangements?
Bojan: No.
Kris: Yes, in fact, technically speaking we did, because we noticed that they took the original arrangement and incorporated certain harmonies into the new one. Which is actually quite an honour for us. That such accomplished jazz musicians...
Bojan: They weren't above it.
Kris: ...incorporated our amateur harmonies into their grandiose compositions.
METULJI
Metulji' is next.
Bojan: Metulji' is a song that was written, let's say, at the same time as 'Omamljeno telo'. In 2017, that is. Our biggest issue with this song was, that it had a very Yugo-nostalgic rock feel to it, which was not the sound we wanted. We just didn't know how to manifest what we heard in our heads. and that's why we decided at the time not to record the song. And that's why we only recorded 'Omamljeno telo'. But now this song has got, as far as I'm concerned, exactly the sound I always imagined, and I didn't know how to recognise it or explain it. Daniel Bogataj joined us for the arrangement, and another violinist (f) who... Daniel did the arrangement for strings and also recorded most of the string sections. So the song is very special, I'll say, as far as our album is concerned, it has a slightly more classical feel to it and it's also my personal favourite.
The promotion is already behind you, as you can read online, the response has been great.
Kris: Yeah, in fact it's hard to believe, that it's really all over. I, I believe, I speak for all of us here, when I say that I haven't really gotten down to earth yet from the whole thing. It has been quite an incredible experience. Both nights, the energy was high, Cvetličarna was packed. Who would have thought? Certainly not us five years ago.
Jure: We had no idea even back in September. In the middle of September we were, we were like Cvetka, we know it's happening, we can start renovating our place now. So we started to renovate the place, all of it, and then it was the end of September, okay, we were clearly lagging. So we had to find a new rehearsal place, so we were able to rehearse at all.
Bojan: Because of how many metres of timber we do now have in our place waiting for us?
Jure:Yes, far too many cubic metres of timber. We installed drywalls, the whole thing. We were filthy and then we had to sit down and pick up the instruments. And we had to rehearse and work for the whole month. It was really exhausting.
Now then, while you're renovating the place, or your rehearsal space, do you have dirty thoughts as well?
Jure: We had dirty hands.
Bojan: Hands, yeah.
Martin: And everything else.
Bojan: Sweet powder and white dreams. The was a lot of dust, because we had to sand the drywall, it was all over the place. And we ended up painting it white so it became a kind of... a shiny white space, our white dream. So, yes, we will also have a new rehearsal space soon and we'll personally and we'll personally invite you to the opening, so we can talk a bit, record something, you can see all these mighty accolades.
That's what I'm interested in, yes, to take a photo and release it to the public, into the world.
Bojan: Absolutely. I think the world needs to see it. It's imperative.
Do you already have a designer(f) for the awards?
Martin: Actually, we don't have one yet. But I promise we really will do our best with these awards, so maybe another band will join our label eager for the awards. We can also make some additional plans with them.
Jure: But that would mean some serious money, you know.
Others: Money talks.
Martin: Money talks, let's just put it that way.
Kris: When we sign the contract, we can go for a beer together.
Bojan: The only negative thing, I have to add, about applauding yourself in self-publishing, is that you pay for the awards yourself. So, we borrowed a lot of money as a band for these awards, but it's all worth it for the glitz and glamour.
Will the other band coming to your label, be called Joker In then?
Martin: Yeah, we'll see about that.
Jure: A wedding band, you know?
Martin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bojan: That's what they are, for weddings. A medley of Dalmatian songs, yeah. A six-hour repertoire, no biggie, and you can hire us from next April onwards, thank you.
Martin: Kidding aside, we've already received these kind of requests. For Dalmatian songs, weddings and stuff.
Bojan: Oh, yeah. I once made a joke on Val 202, when the host asked us about our repertoire, how many songs we performed, and I jokingly mentioned, that we also play a medley of Dalmatian songs, and then we received a couple of requests in the mail for birthdays and weddings.
Martin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jure: Oh, my.
When you're conditioning, you need to get as fit, as, let's say, the musicians out there on the rafts in Belgrade who play for eight hours straight without taking a break.
Bojan: But for the moment, I'll just say, that as far as the rafts go, we only ever go there to party. Otherwise, yeah, we've played once or twice with other bands at the same event and when the guys told us, how long their setlists were, we realised, that with one gig, they actually perform as much as we do in month, so...
Martin: But the guys also benefit financially, don't they.
A SEM TI POVEDAL
The next one will be 'A sem ti povedal'.
Kris: A sem ti povedal' is another exciting track from our album.
Bojan: They're all exciting...
Kris: Come on, they're all exciting songs, especially the exciting ones. It's special because it perhaps has the hardest sound...
Martin: It's dark, dark.
Kris: The hardest, darkest amongst all the songs on the album and for an extra touch of eroticism Erazem Grafenauer has recorded a classical guitar intro.
I've read somewhere that this is the most anticipated album of the year.
Bojan: Yeah, for us it is.
Jan: Yeah.
Bojan: We've been busy making it.
And last but not least, for the fans.
Bojan: There's absolutely a lot of people who couldn't wait for this album to be released.
Jan: Amongst others, the five of us.
Bojan: Amongst others, the five of us, most of all, definitely our parents. But, unfortunately, there were, unfortunately, the circumstances didn't allow us to get the album out sooner than we did. And we're glad we've released it now and that we have been able to introduce it to the world with these two concerts. So we have no idea if it's the most anticipated one. For us it was absolutely the most anticipated. But we hope that if this one wasn't, the next one will be.
You've placed yourself on the cover in colours.
Jan: Yes, in the colours of the ocean and the Power Rangers. Yes, we went to shoot that cover or the cover photo to a mansion.
Bojan: To Rogaška Slatina..
Jan: In Rogaška Slatina, yes. Jan Pirnat took the photo. So, yeah, basically this light beam represents our path as it bounces off various walls and eventually finds its way to the top.
Bojan: Plus, there is another explanation, that this beam basically represents the dirty thoughts that confront us, penetrate through us, and are then projected out into the world.
To the audience.
Bojan: That's right.
Otherwise, you also invest a lot in video production. In fact, you seem to support every single with a video.
Kris: Yeah, it seems to me the only right thing to do is to support every single with a video. Even if you don't, if we didn't want to, it's the modern standard. And many people might disagree, that we invest a lot in video production.
Martin: But we do.
Kris: We are making a huge effort. And the main thing is when we do videos, we also like to be involved in the actual writing of the script. and deciding what it's going to be about.
Jan: Every time we draw straws to see who's next, who's going to sacrifice a kidney for the production.
Bojan: Exactly. That's exactly it. We are missing a few kidneys in the band because of these videos.
Can your music be accessed via Facebook or in another way, through your website?
Martin: Our music is actually accessible, we've tried to make it accessible, it's virtually everywhere on the internet and through Facebook, Instagram, now even on TikTok. Maybe the label will consider, if it's worth releasing a TikTok single, because that's supposedly popular right now. Anyway, it's something to think about, but it's exciting. And we have a website, we're putting a lot of effort into it ourselves, to make it as organised as possible and appealing to everyone. Since the other day, you can also buy our CDs, T-shirts and sweatshirts and everything else to support the band, so we don't have to sacrifice as many kidneys in the future.
Kris: If not, there are also Russian torrent sites. Everything is available there as well.
Bojan: Besides, we sing in the Cyrillic alphabet,right?
But with advice like that, there will actually be one golden or platinum record less.
Kris: Yeah, what can I say, we have ourselves to blame.
Martin: Well, we also have one more record for torrent listeners, So basically, we are on trend, it seems to me, in this respect.
Kris: The ones from the Russian websites, are in this red and gold, very communist style, this...
BELE SANJE
Next up is 'Bele sanje'.
Kris: Yeah, that song, when we perform live, Bojan always mentions that it's about nightlife horrors. So, listen up.
To conclude, will you be applying for EMA?
Bojan: Hey, is that a girl, or what?
Bojan knows the girl quite well.
Bojan: Honestly, there hasn't been serious consideration of applying for EMA. Maybe if we ever get carried away. But it seems to us that now that Måneskin has won it would be a bit, how do you say, tacky, imitative, for us to give it a try now. Like, now it's an obvious recipe for victory. So we are waiting when the next extreme will emerge, that's totally the opposite of our band, and win Eurovision, and next year we'll apply.
Jure: Well, we would need some support. No, not for going to EMA...
Bojan: 100 million euros.
Jure: You've got a new piece of music and... You put on a show... and that's where it ends.
Bojan: That's it. Let's say 100 million euros of support would be lovely. If we can manage.
Martin: We'll ask the label to pay for it.
Jure: Or if you buy the merch, well, maybe. Or if someone... [inaudible]
Anyway, as I understand you are already creating new material?
Jure: We are creating new material. If not with guitars, then at least in our minds. So... It's forever bubbling in the depths of our ever-dirty minds.
Anyway, I guess, now you're aiming for as many stages as possible, and the listeners are welcome to check the schedule on all the social media sites...
Martin: And on the website
... because it can vary from day to day, right?
Kris: Yeah, at the moment, we have a lot of interest for our gigs up to the end of the year and we hope we'll be able to have I'm knocking on wood, 10 to 15 concerts more and it will basically serve as...
Bojan: A mini-tour.
Kris: A mini-tour for the 'Umazane misli' album launch. We begin... a couple of days ago we performed at Rakičan castle, it was awesome.
Otherwise, again, as Martin says, we should mention the website, because you're one of the few bands that still maintains it.
Martin: Right, but it's interesting that we set up this website as some kind of vital inconvenience, and it turns out that people really like to visit the website where you can always find information, where in your vicinity we are going to perform in the near future, and all other relevant news.
OMAMLJENO TELO
We will end with the song 'Omamljeno'.
Jan: Its full title is 'Omamljeno telo'. It's basically our earliest track on this album, which you can tell from Bojan's slightly more boyish voice.
Bojan: And Tomi Meglič impersonation.
Jan: Yeah, right.
Jan: ♪ For you ♪
Bojan: ♪ to conjure up... ♪
Jan: But yeah, I think this song is excting because, it is the same now, when it is released, as when it was created, on one of the first ever rehearsals.
Bojan: It's the only song actually, we brought into the studio and that's exactly how we recorded it.
Jan: We knew exactly what it should be and that's how it remained.
This is our final song. Jan, Bojan, Kris, Jure and Martin, thank you, for being guests on the RADIOaktivno show at Radio Prlek. Have a successful and most productive future.
Jan: Thank you very much for inviting us.
Others: Thank you.
Bojan: Thank you very much for the invitation, we wish you the same.
Kris: We will come again sometime.
Martin: We hope to be back with you soon.
I hope so.
Martin: We do too, thank you.
-~-~-~
Transcript + translation by: drumbeat and @varianestoroff, ENG review by IG Gboleyn123, CC by drumbeat, Tumblr transcript by @kurooscoffee.
DO NOT REPOST, and if you quote, please link back!
#joker out#bojan cvjetićanin#kris guštin#jan peteh#jure maček#martin jurković#jokeroutsubs#collaboration#RADIOaktivno
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Do you genuinely exclusively listen to pop? You really live like that?
1) no, i listen to a pretty wide variety of genres, i. just mainly post about pop because it’s my special interest and i know the most about it.
2) this is a really funny ask to send to the guy who’s taste in pop is like. experimental stuff made in some teenager’s basement in 1999 that can only be found on 300 view youtube cd rips. i am not the type of pop music listener you are thinking of. Pop music is a very, very wide genre. There are hundreds of subgenres. My specific interest is in twee pop. It’s not really known for having a super mainstream prescense, aside from maybe belle and sebastian. However, like i also don’t shit on mainstream pop (ok i do on what’s big rn, im really not a fan of a lot of current stuff) but my other interests lie in 60s bubblegum and power pop (which is largely based on the 60s pop sound, but can be found as the starting point of a lot of 90s pop bands) so i can’t say im entirely against non-obscurity, i just find it fun to dive into it. But i am kind of tired of pop music being treated like a less cool or ‘cheap’ genre because people don’t understand what it is. a lot of people pull out the ‘pop means popular’ argument but like.. not anymore, really. Words for genres change over time, which can be good or bad. “Lo-fi” was coined to mean music that was produced imperfectly, and is now more associated with studying music on youtube. “Emo” was coined for emotional hardcore, but got associated with a lot of pop punk until that meaning overtook it. Pop is more related to stylistic choices at this point, really. I think writing it off because you don't like what plays on the radio is kinda silly, because i don't listen to that either. If anything, i have much stranger music taste than the average person
#sorry to go all pretentious mode for a secobs#this is just a good example of someone not understanding what im talking about when i talk about pop
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Does anybody else remember Pandora?
Not the box, or the fictional planet where James Cameron's blue alien cat people live where there's a literal mineral called "unobtanium" that can only be harvested from that particular planet. My man literally called that shit "unobtanium," fucking portmanteau of "unobtainable" and the "-ium" suffix for newer elements. No. That has absolutely nothing to do with anything else I'm writing beyond this point. This is a post about music.
This is a post about the customizable internet radio station Pandora. And also it's going to briefly cover ClickRadio, it's going to talk about my experiences with YouTube Music, Spotify, my own iPod and how I find and listen to music, and how it's a core part of my creative process and I put a bunch of music references in pretty much all of my creative work. None of it being musical, by the way. I can barely carry a tune and I can't play any instruments more complicated than a kazoo.
It also got really long and rambly, look, I'm high, I'm sorry. You've been warned.
It's 2001. I'm in high school. My life looks like this drawing I made a few weeks ago.
Music is a big part of my life. The internet was a lot slower. It would take several minutes to download an .mp3 file of a song that was only about three and a half minutes long, so I would listen to the radio a lot. But the thing about listening tuning into radio is that it's not the internet. You can't pick which song to listen to whenever you want. If you want that, your best bet is to own the songs you want on their physical CD releases, or risk exposing your mom's computer to a million viruses. But in order to skip a song, you have to press a physical button to skip a song. And of course, if you're listening to the radio where you can discover new songs, you can't skip the latest Limp Bizkit or Disturbed track with the vain hope that maybe they'll play "One-Armed Scissor" by At The Drive-In or "Go With the Flow" by Queens of the Stone Age, or any single off of Kid A. Everything you hated the most, hated more than Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys, was all lumped together under the formless "alternative rock" label, which weirdly included hip-hop artists like Eminem, House of Pain, Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, Gorillaz and Outkast; all stuff that I guess radio stations looked at and thought "yeah, this can appeal to white people."
You know I heard Dynamite Hack's version of "Boyz N The Hood" before I ever heard Eazy-E's? That should be a crime. That should be considered a human right's violation. Fuck you, Dynamite Hack for introducing the entire world to the concept of ironic hipster covers hip-hop songs which led to the fucking white people with ukeleles versions of Tupac songs. I am so glad that we, as a society, have all come together against these dynamite hacks and decided this was cringe and something that belongs in the past.
But this isn't an essay on awful YouTube music trends of the early 2010's, this is listening to music in the internet age in the early 2000's.
In 2001, ClickRadio launched. It was a desktop application that allowed you to listen to radio stations via the internet, but it had something real radio stations did not; if a song like, say, Dynamite Hack's cover of "Boys N The Hood" came on, you could click a thumbs down button and it would let out this cartoonishly loud "thud" and then that station would never play that song for you again. And if they played a song you really liked? You could click a thumb's up button and it would play that song more often.
I cannot understate how fucking mindblowing an idea this was in the early 2000's. Yes, ClickRadio would slow down your computer as the Neopets Flash games you would play gringing for Neopoints to get a Halloween brush for your Lupe that you named after a member of your favorite band. Anybody else do that?
No? Just me? Okay then.
ClickRadio would quickly get enshittificated, within only about a year or two being filled with more and more unskippable ads. I went back to just loading up MP3s in Winamp and playing music that way by the time I was in college, but it was a pain having to listen to whatever song I had physically on my hard drive, or a few years later, going to YouTube to see if somebody uploaded a crusty version of a NoMeansNo song with a Spanish-speaking DJ speaking in the opening bits of the video. Not ideal.
But then Pandora showed up.
I don't remember where I first heard about Pandora, but after Napster, there were a bunch of music start-ups hoping to be legitimate in the eyes of artists and record labels. Clickradio was just a radio station. But Pandora... was an experiment of The Algorithm.
You see, Pandora started what is known as the Music Genome Project, a way of organizing music into hundreds of different subgenres across five large umbrella genres; Pop/Rock, Hip Hop/Electronica, Jazz, World Music and Classical. What Pandora did was use this as a way to allow users to craft their own custom radio stations. And not only would it play the stuff you liked, but it would be tailored to a seed artist or song; you put in Nirvana, you get a lot of 90's alt rock radio faire, but then maybe it plays Mudhoney. Maybe it plays Sonic Youth. Maybe it plays Melvins, and you like it. And when you give a thumbs up, you hear more and more artists in similar subgenres. And let's say you've been looking into obscure or underground music for years before you start using Pandora, and suddenly you're introduced to artists you never would have come across more organically. And buddy, you'd bet my Pandora station was a fucking hodgepodge of hundreds of seeds, which allowed me to discover highly influential /mu/ core bands like Swans, Animal Collective and Neutral Milk Hotel, but also bands that are so obscure that their Spotify listens are in the lower four digits at maximum and maybe a couple tens of thousands of views on YouTube. So many songs I found through Pandora are from bands that I very rarely hear a lot of people talk about, but they've made songs that have just lived in my brain for decades.
And for a couple years, I'd be listening to Pandora radio while writing up new TF2 fanfiction to terrorize TF2chan with. Certain songs would come up so often because I specifically bookmarked them. I didn't really know a lot about shoegaze before Pandora, but now I own a physical copy of all three of Slowdive's albums, and you fucking bet "When the Sun Hits" was in heavy rotation while I was writing Respawn of the Dead.
youtube
Yes, this was playing while I was writing out Respawn of the Dead, chapter by chapter. And so was "Beautiful Plateau" by Sonic Youth, "The Sound" by Swans, "Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor and "End of the Line" by Murder By Death. And also this song by a band called The Clock Work Army, which split up and reformed into another band called Calico Horses, and I know this because I found this out while trying to track down a song that would play constantly on my Pandora station and it has, as of writing this sentence, 2,588 listens. And it might have more by the time you read this because I might just put it on loop because oh my god, I love this song so much, it hits so perfect for me, why don't more people know about this song?
It's not on YouTube, where I usually tend to listen to music, since I'll go through a rotation of songs that I call "work songs." I put on music while I write, and some songs are just so perfect that I can listen to them on loop with a very select number of songs that just never, ever get old for me. My neurons in my brain light up as though I was hearing it again for the first time.
Swans, Sigur Ros and The Dillinger Escape Plan are all artists who I found through Pandora that I've had the privilege to see live. By the time I was just discovering bands because I had a bunch of friends and mutuals with similar taste in music to mine, Pandora was slowly getting more and more ads. It was getting to the point where the free service would, if you were lucky, play only three or four songs before playing an ad. And when the length of those songs can span anywhere from less than three minutes for much of my beloved 80's and early 90's punk, to up to a half an hour for post-rock, noise, or ambient music. And the number of ads that played between songs had increased. What was just one every half an hour or so was now two to three for what could potentially be only after seven minutes of music. Pandora really doesn't like it if the music you like includes a lot of songs that are longer than an episode of The Simpsons.
I never hear anybody talk about Pandora anymore. Spotify is THE name in internet music streaming, and it favors listens of entire albums and other people's playlists. I don't like Spotify; sometimes I just want a specific song from a specific album. I could make a playlist of these "work songs," but I like when YouTube notices that I'm listening to music, and in the recommendeds, there's another song that I've listened to on repeat. Why yes, I would like you to play "Classical Homicide" by Dälek for me again. What's that? An hour loop of Deadmau5's "Professional Griefers" featuring Gerard Way? Yes please. I apologize for nothing. That dude's way better than Skrillex.
God, do you guys remember the Deadmau5/Skrillex shipping that was all over Tumblr in the early 2010's. I remember it. I remember it so hard. Everybody shipping them and the members of Daft Punk, posting Steam Powered Giraffe (blech) and Die Antwoord (lol) on my dashboard. In Die Antwoord's defense, they had some pretty funny music videos.
I got AdBlocker for YouTube, so the ads aren't a problem there. I mean, I could make a playlist for Spotify of my go-to songs, but I'd have to deal with ads. And there's something nice about YouTube's robots that sell my precious data to faceless corporations at least having the courtesy to be like "You look like you could use another stream of 'Anything (Viva!)' by Foetus. Or Scraping Foetus off the Wheel. Or... whatever, fuck it, it's J.G. Thirwell's band, okay? It's the guy that does the music for Venture Brothers."
Foetus was introduced to me through a friend but it was Pandora serving me up more of their music that made their albums "nail" and "Flow" ones that got the honor of Being Downloaded onto my iPod so I can Listen to This in my Car. I still use my iPod and even if there's albums that I haven't gone back to in years on there, I like having them there. I haven't listened to the soundtrack for Panty and Stocking in ages but having access to it so that I can FLY AWAY NOW, FLY AWAY NOW, FLY AWAAAYYYY on a long drive? I like having that option.
I still buy CDs so I can burn albums onto my iPod. My iPod doesn't have ads and switching between artists doesn't mean I have to flip through a CD binder. I also try to buy albums off of Bandcamp. Especially for smaller artists, or artists whose work I love enough to want to give them my money. I don't want to listen to ads. It throws off my workflow, shakes me out of the trance-like state that is pure, focused creativity. Whether it's working on comics or thinking about things I want to do in those comics, I'm usually listening to music. Sometimes the same album, hundreds of times over. I admit I haven't listened to that much King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, but I've listened to Nonagon Infinity front to back more times than I can count.
Nowadays it feels like I don't have a lot of friends who share my taste in music. I've so fully entrenched myself in fandom circles that I've been exposed to the average person's taste in music and I'm like "oh yeah, most people aren't as big of a fucking nerd about this as you are." You know how hard it is to get people who aren't music nerds to get into The Residents? Everybody I know that likes them already knew about them before we met, and people who had never heard of them before they met me usually find them deeply weird and never get fucking obsessed with them like I have. I own a physical copy of, not their original version of their album The King and Eye, which is an entire album of them covering Elvis that sounds like this, but the fucking remix of that album that does shit like this to their covers of Elvis songs. And you know what? I love both versions, but that remix of their cover of "Surrender" is a work song.
Listening to music is the only way I can guarantee that I'm actually working on something and not playing with my phone. I guess what I'm saying is... it sure would be nice if Pandora existed like it did back then right now.
Especially because I stopped cleaning up a page of my horrible Deltarune fan comic (MASSIVE Dead Dove warning, not even kidding, the entire story hinges on some very upsetting topics) just to write all this down and make sure there were links to every song in this essay. And like... I've even used the comic as a not-so-clandestine way into tricking them into listening to my music before. Whether it be directly namedropping bands and songs, writing about a specific character's taste in music and using that in the story somehow, or literally just making the title of one of my comic installments... this.
It is really good. 686 listens on YouTube. Absolutely criminal. And the example above? That's me not putting in hundreds of references into the comic and wondering if anybody else has noticed them.
I guess what I'm saying is that I am a huge music nerd, even though I always feel like I'm getting into artists super late (unless they're like Death Grips, but that was only after The Money Store had come out), but I fucking hate Spotify. I want more physical releases that can be preserved digitally, and I don't have the money to get into collecting vinyls as a hobby. All the vinyl I own is toys, and uh... I own a lot of those.
Thank you for reading through pure, uncut music autism mixed in with nostalgia and griping about capitalism because that's apparently where my head is at all the time when I'm not daydreaming my little stories or making up video essays in my head that will never be made. That's why I do stream of consciousness Tumblr essays full of minute details that absolutely are not necessary, but this is how my goddamn ADHD brain works. Now you know what it's like to be in my Discord server.
That post is, of course, pinned in the music channel.
As it should be.
... Fuck Pandora, I don't even fuck with it no more, I miss Grooveshark, weh, my playlist on that site was eight hours long before they shut it down in 2014. Devastated. I was in the middle of using it when it went offline.
Okay now I'm done for real, sorry.
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What do you think each Quarry counselor's favourite genre of music would be?
Emma - It’d be a mix of pop, female rappers, and show tunes. When you hit shuffle on her playlist, you never know exactly what you’re gonna get. One of the billboard top 100? Perhaps. The main theme to Interstellar composed by Hans Zimmer? Also very likely.
Nick - “Relaxing Sleep Music, Calm Music, Yoga, Sleep Meditation, Spa, Study Music, Rain Sounds” as found on YouTube (8 hours long)
Jacob - He’d claim to be a fan of rock music, but then he’d show you his playlist, and it’s all just swag rock.
Kaitlyn - Is actually a fan of rock music. Kind of a ‘rock snob’ as she will only listen to the old bands—scoffs at Jacob’s playlist. I could see her getting pumped to some ACDC, Queen, and Grateful Dead as she gets ready each morning.
Abi - 80s hair metal. One of her parents would play their favorite bands for her growing up, and she just attributes it to some good memories (she thought her mom was going to leave her dad for Jon Bon Jovi and used to cry herself to sleep over it). But I think if you asked her, she’d lie and say she listens to whatever’s on the radio.
Laura - This woman had an emo phase in middle school. I can FEEL it. I think she’d listen to a lot of alternative music, and a big chunk of her playlist would be all the greats she listened to back in the day (i.e. MCR, early FOB, P!ATD but only the albums Ryan Ross was there for).
Ryan - Like Laura, I think he’d be into some alternative bands, but lean more toward metal and punk (rather than pop-punk). Lana Del Rey would be his secret guilty pleasure.
Dylan - He’d be into some experimental, indie music. He just looks like the kind of dude to be like, “You listen to music with words in it? Let me put you on to some new shit,” and then just plays you an album of poly-rhythmic synth-jazz where every song is fifteen minutes long, and you just kinda have to nod along so you don’t hurt his feelings.
Max - Country. Or more specifically, CUNTtry. Just a bunch of women singing about how they’re gonna murder their abusive, cheating husbands. It makes him feel powerful.
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Im learning japanese rn and one thing I've noticed is that my voice when I speak japanese is A LOT quieter than when Im speaking English because if i speak loud I notice the words dont sound as clear- This language is forcing me to be quitter- which is honestly a good thing I talk way to loud😭
Ah, I hope I can help! ٩(,,•ω•,,)و⚑⁎∗ﾌﾚﾌﾚ
For me, learning how to pronounce certain words was pretty big, and the best way I did that was plenty of research combined with just casually listening. Whispering is a start, but you might develop habits that aren't so correct (just noting down what I saw in myself - particularly in pronouncing my "r/l's").
For starters, I used Buusu to begin learning pronunciation (before it was put behind a paywall :-\), but there are plenty other things available!
One of the biggest ones is japanesepod101, as they have many YouTube videos going over basically everything you need to know:
youtube
youtube
This channel's also really good as well ୧꒰*´꒳`*꒱૭✧
Alongside videos like these, you can also develop good pronunciation habits just by listening to anime (although not always the best example sometimes) and music! That's how babies learn to speak anyway, just by listening and piecing things together (๑>ᴗ<๑)
Other examples include podcasts, radio, Japanese YouTube channels (many have subtitles!), advertisements with VPN, and more (๑ˊ͈ ꇴ ˋ͈)
I think it's very important to note that pronunciation is very important in Japanese. Depending on the word, you can change the whole meaning of something just by giving it the wrong pitch.
Example: In English, you can change the message of a sentence by stressing a word like so,
This isn't my cat.
Turns into:
This isn't my cat.
Insinuating that the cat isn't yours, but is someone else's.
Japanese is sort of like that. Words can change meaning based on where you put your high and low pitches, so that's why speaking clearly when practicing is best to start off with.
Here's what I'm trying to explain since you can't hear through text:
youtube
But before you worry about all that, just having the basics down is best (๑´ㅂ`๑)
I'm sure you might know most of this already, and if you did then I'm sorry for wasting your time! I do hope some of this might've been useful though(;´∀`)
I tend to get my practice through talking to myself throughout the day ("yabbai!" if I mess something up, "mendokusai.." if I'm upset, etcetera etcetera). I also talk to my pets as well in Japanese to practice, seeing as they don't mind (៸៸᳐⦁⩊⦁៸៸᳐ )੭ﾞ
Wishing you all the best with your learning! I'm happy you came to me, and if you ever have any other questions I promise to answer them the best I can! (*´∀｀)ノ
I hope you have a lovely day!
#my friends ♡#learn japanese#learning japanese#japanese language#japanese langblr#nihongo#日本語#日本#💬#🔖#🧧#japanese#Japan#nippon#nihon
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Project Spotlight #3: Eart(h) FM
The year is 2072, and we're talking about the solarpunk sci-fi pilot Eart FM with team member Ari!
Tell us a bit about yourself and your teammates!
Hi, I’m Clover! I’m a writer, voice actor, and audio engineer. I’m helping edit Eart FM, and potentially voice act in it. I’m working on a few podcasts, but none of them have released yet. My first and favorite podcast is Wolf 359. I technically have a tumblr account, but I don’t use it, so you can find me lurking on various podcast discords, mainly the official WOE.BEGONE discord.
@lotsadeer: My name is Izze Sykes, I'm an illustrator, writer, podcaster, game designer, voice actor, and wearer of many hats. I'll be doing the cover art for this podcast! The first podcast I ever listened to was Welcome to Night Vale, don't ask me my favourite podcast that's like asking me to choose children, and I'm involved in a few podcasts at the moment! Hope's Hearth, an actual play podcast; Abbey Archives, a Redwall reread podcast; SCP Research Archives, an SCP article podcast; Colchis, a sci-fi audio drama; and Cauterized, a horror audio drama. Plus a few podcasts that are in the works. I like podcasts.
@aclickbaittitle: Hello, I am Ari! I like to say I am a storyteller. I am the organizer (?) for Eart FM and I also plan to sound-design and write. Like a lot of people I got into audio drama through Welcome to Nightvale and then it was history. My most recent project is a little short-fiction podcast called “Broken Hearted: The Friendship monologues”.
Hello, I'm Laurel. I'm a writer, digital artists, and self proclaimed voice actor. I will be voicing the role of "The Host" in Eart(h) FM! I have not participated in any projects publicly but I have be doing voice work for fun with friends and a bit on my joint youtube channel. My favorite podcast is definitely Penumbra Podcast, my younger brother showed it to me and I was hooked instantly. I don't use my tumblr anymore but you can find me on discord @ cyanosiis!
@timberfins/@elijahharpermusic: I'm Eli, or Timber, and I'm providing music! The first podcast I remember falling in love with was Welcome To Night Vale, but my current favourite is probably Within The Wires (unless we're also including non-fiction, where it's competing with Lingthusiasm). I sing with the Anguilliform Chorus in Eeler's Choice, and you'll also hear me in two Law of Names productions: Season 4 of Breathing Space and the upcoming Waterlogged.
Hey guys, my name is Johnny Fuent, I am a MBA student trying to survive in this trying world. I am a huge nerd, and love to travel. I have been to over 14 different countries and plan to expand that number. I also host my own podcast as well. My first podcast that I listened to was Campfire Radio Theater, and my favorite podcast is Midnight burger. Currently I am a writer for the podjam and happy to be here.
What's your podcast about?
Solar-punk sci-fi with anti space-colonialism sentiments. It is the year 2072, the poles have melted and humanity has taken for the stars, except for the HOST, . To cope with being the only human on earth, they’ve decided to create a Radio Show where they broadcast music from various times and places of the world. One day someone finally calls to the radio station an ECOLOGIST, living on the skirt of the iztaccihuatl bearing news that the earth is healing.
Together they embark on a quest for other humans that still live on planet earth, finding various communities and people, and begin to help the earth one day heal.
What are you most excited about in this event?
To collaborate with other creators in order to tell a story that is very dear to my heart.
Any advice for other participants, or those on the fence about joining?
Consult it with the pillow, but if come morning you discover that is just the nerves and impostor syndrome keeping you from participating, take that leap. At the end of the day, we are all just a bunch of people trying to tell stories the same as you.
This team is still looking for new members, adding: "We are currently looking for the ecologist voice actor. We are specifically looking for a chicane / mexican-american voice actor since we are writing the ecologist with an experience specific to said identity (don’t worry, you don’t need to know spanish or anything, as long as you have a connection with the ethnicity or identity, you are welcome to join!)"
If you're interested in joining their project, you can find their casting call here, or you can reach out in the Podcast Book Club Discord server. If you want to know more about the jam first, be sure to check out this post as well!
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╰┈➤ ❝ [straykids as fanboys] ❞
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pairing: no pairings. they don’t actually know you
genre: fluff, point form hcs
contains: uhhh…. fanboys!
cw: none
A/N: i like this idea a lot, but i didn’t really now what to write for some of them…. hopefully this is somewhat decent? but i have more stuff coming out soon, which i am a lot more confident with!!!
Bangchan
➙ he is quite famous in your fandom for his youtube channel, where he records covers of all of your music.
➙ you interact with his covers quite often! he tries his hardest to remain calm, and casual, but internally he is freaking out!
➙ fans constantly request collabs, you’ve seen it requested so much that you’ve actually considered the idea! maybe one day you will work together! (at least he hopes so)
➙ he is a huge supporter of everything you do. fans who don’t know you personally, would probably think that you and chan are friends
➙ he is very active in the community, and he interacts with you on a fairly regular basis
Minho
➙ he doesn’t hesitate to spend money on you
➙ he has many of your albums, and merchandise, but he rarely ever talks about you.
➙ people will go to his house and be stunned by the posters on his walls, since they never even knew he was a fan before.
➙ he’s not embarrassed by it, he just prefers to fanboy on the inside.
➙ (if you make any asmr content) he seems like the type to listen to it at times when he’s super tense, to help him relax, and sleep.
Changbin
➙ he goes to every concert, and somehow, ALWAYS shows up on the dancecam
➙ his face has been seen so many times that fans start to recognize him
➙ if your music ever plays on the radio, or in a store somewhere, he immediately drops what he’s doing and drops the whole routine
➙ does he care if people watch? NO! why should he 🤷♀️ it’s only embarrassing if he messes up the choreo, (which NEVER happens)
Hyunjin
➙ he knows EVERY SINGLE ONE of your dances. he might not even know the words to your songs, but you know as soon as he hears that beat drop, bro becomes a dancing machine
➙ he is likely a part of a dance group
➙ attends random play dances, and gets so excited when one of your songs plays
➙ hyunjin totally posts dance videos online, he likely has a youtube channel solely for that purpose
➙ he even posts slowed + mirrored versions, to help teach others the choreo.
➙ he might also be a fan artist, but i feel that he’d be a bit of a perfectionist about his art, and would be too scared to show any of it online… :(
Han
➙ something about him gives off editor vibes
➙ i think he’d have a tiktok account, solely for edits of you/your group
➙ he spends hours on AE producing mouth watering edits
➙ he’s got quite a decent following aswell
➙ you interacted with his account once, and he FREAKED. he swears it was the best moment of his life
➙ MAYBEEEE secretly writes fan fiction???
➙ but even if he doesn’t write it. he DEFINITELY reads it…. (we’ve all seen the clip where he seemed to understand the term “omega”….. meaning he HAS read fan fiction at least some point in his life.)
Felix
➙ lix is a super fan, and he is proud to be one. he’s not ashamed, why should he be? 🤷♀️ he thinks you’re cool, and if other people have a problem with that, that’s not felix’s issue to solve!
➙ he has binders full of your/your group’s pcs
➙ he trades online for rare ones
➙ he has every version of every album you’ve ever released, and he keeps them proudly displayed on his shelf.
➙ his walls are covered in posters of you/your group
➙ he giggles when he hears you mentioned, and would jump on ANY opportunity to talk about you and your music
➙ he is BROKE because of you
Seungmin
➙ he pretends not to care about you, in fear of being teased by his friends, but secretly he is a HUGE fanboy
➙ he has secret accounts on social media, where he can follow you, and interact with content related to you/your group, while still remaining anonymous
➙ he has a few of your albums, but he keeps them hidden underneath his bed
➙ his pcs are his prized possessions, but when he has people over they hide in his sock drawer
➙ when he hears your music in public he often catches himself accidentally nodding his head, or tapping his foot to the beat.
➙ he is quick to defend himself, before he is even called out for it “i just like the music that’s why i’m dancing. i don’t even know this song.” what a liar
Jeongin
➙ he goes to EVERY meet and greet. he’d drive hours just to attend
➙ you’ve seen him so many times that you remember his name. it almost feels like you are friends at this point
➙ he’s always super respectful, so it’s exciting when you see him at different events.
➙ he likes to bring you gifts which you always appreciate.
➙ he has gained a large following online for posting about his interactions with you. and you always repost his videos! (which makes him cry tears of happiness).
➙ he also likes to post unboxing videos of all of your albums! (if you are in a group) he gets so excited when he pulls you! his followers love to see his reactions.
#stray kids#kpop#bang chan#lee know#changbin#hyunjin#han jisung#lee felix#felix#seungmin#jeongin#stray kids reactions#stray kids headcanons
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Certified Saturday Morning Bangers of the 80s
(Incomplete, In no Particular Order)
I've probably done this post before, or something dangerously close, but I don't care, so lets rock!
Where possible, i've gotten extended cuts. This means video quality won't always be prime, but we're here for the tunes.
No Guts No Glory - Galaxy Rangers Theme
youtube
No Guts no Glory is a strong opener, both for one of the bizarrely common space cowboy shows of the 80s and for this post. It is a textbook Saturday Morning Banger, more believable as a real song than some actual 80s radio hits minus the name shoutout to Galaxy Rangers.
Can't blame 'em for working the song into an episode as a music video. This is something modern 'toons ought to do. 3 minute pop-song opener, make the full version in an ep, and use that section as a youtube trailer.
M.A.S.K. Theme - M.A.S.K.: Mobile Armor Strike Kommand
youtube
MASK is a show that, if it didn't exist, would be the fake 80s cartoon in other TV shows, and the theme song is the platonic ideal of 80s cartoon theme songs, a Shuki Levy-penned techno-pop earworm proudly belting the show/toyline theme without a trace of irony.
No one would mistake it for a radio hit, but it still hits right. See the laser rays fire away, indeed.
Count Duckula Theme - Count Duckula
youtube
I literally have a whole post about this theme song.
As a fan of novelty music, this slaps.
Wheeled Warriors - Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
youtube
Can you sue a theme song for false advertising? Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors was a notorious flop and a tower of missed potential. It's theme song, on the other hand, threads the needle evenly between the radio-ready Galaxy Rangers and the delightful cornball sincerity of M.A.S.K.
"Wheeled Warriors" may seem like an odd topic for a song but I remind you that Judas Priest exists.
Jem is My Name - Jem and the Holograms
youtube
This song actually would have topped the charts if the cassettes sold with the toys counted as album sales. That's not a joke.
It also beats the trend of "boast songs" with a guest verse from a rival band by literal decades. Truly a pioneer, truly, truly outrageous.
Zone Riders - Spiral Zone
youtube
Meanwhile, the opening to Spiral Zone was very indicative of what you'd get, a tonally odd mixture of high cheese and Poe-faced intensity. A chorus singing the concept of the show with the reverence of a hymn.
C.O.P.S. Theme - C.O.P.S. (Central Organization of Police Specialists)
youtube
No, not the FOX series that set humanity back decades, but the wacky 30s-retro cyberpunk G.I.Joe sequel. An excellent sample of a minimal theme song, not quire a pure instrumental, but a lot of fun and just pleasant to listen to.
I might post more later. But if you're looking for covers for your weird soundcloud project, there ya go.
#80s nostalgia#cartoon themesongs#jem and the holograms#Mobile armor strike kommand#spiral zone#wheeled warriors#galaxy rangers#count duckula#nosalgia#80s#1980s#cartoons#toyetic#Youtube
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youtube
Dear listener, I tried listening to six full hours of mainstream radio this week again. I tried, oh, sweet merciful Jesus, I tried. Lo, I have at this point all but confirmed that modern radio is a steaming pool of liquid dogshit. Given a second appraisal, it’s dogshit with a candy-coated hardshell for ease of ingestion! The disheartening repetition, the complete lack of cutting-edge creativity and genuine emotion, ten to twenty ass-ramming commercials in a row only to come back to the feckless frenzy of fail that comprises the vast, vast majority of modern music? It was all terribly grating, and somehow the music was even worse. As soon as I couldn’t take a millisecond more of the doldrums of modern radio, I went to YouTube and listened to two straight and comparatively blissful hours of immortal work by Antonio Vivaldi. So, get into the time machine again with me dear listener, and set course for the early 1700’s, a time when radio didn't exist! The social standards might not have been top-notch, but the powdered wigs were undeniably gorgeous, and the quality of the music… to die for!!!
As anyone who comes from a musical family has likely experienced, Vivaldi had the principles of composition fused to his DNA, and perhaps even down to the subatomic level with the help of his father. Having trained for priesthood in his early years, Vivaldi instead gradually gravitated toward a now celebrated career in music. Becoming an elite level violinist under the tutelage of his father Giovanni Battista, whom he regularly toured Venice and played duelling violins with, this legend of orchestra developed an immense capacity for transforming the basics of music into something so immensely interwoven and sublime that very few can or will ever dare so much as approach the legitimate majesty of his body of orchestral work. Known as something of an Italian religious dogmatist, his calling to the church and desire to be a priest secured him the nickname ‘Il Prete Rosso’ (The Red Priest) because he was a ginger, or in modern politically correct parlance… a natural red head. During a three-decade long gig serving as Master of Violin at an historical Vincentian orphanage, Ospedale della Pietà, Vivaldi managed to gather inspiration and organize his most emotionally powerful compositions. I could probably add a lot of unnecessary details here, but his greatest and most everlasting works are part of his ‘The Four Seasons’, a set of four violin concertos that are meant to express nearly the precise sensations and emotions of summer, winter, autumn, and spring. If you smash play on the above track you will be treated to Presto (from the Summer section), a song you probably know or have heard before. Presto means ‘quickly’ in Italian and is performed at one of the quickest speeds a human can possibly play music (second only to prestissimo speed, I think). Vivaldi also had a strange disease throughout all his life which many historians suspect might have been severe asthma. And with his penchant for taking numerous ‘leaves of absences’ to tour the world and develop an international reputation, this clearly mega-talented rockstar of yester-century ended up spending all the money he earned during his lifetime. Sadly, after approaching the end of his life and skidding through a decade’s worth of career decline, all accounts show that he died completely broke, having spent what little money he had left on multiple assistants that circumnavigated him through his now dire and at the time completely untreatable health issues. Vivaldi isn’t my personal favorite composer of all-time, I’ll leave that distinction to Bach (who himself was inspired by Vivaldi). But his works live on to this very day because he accomplished exactly what he strove to do; embody the excellence of execution in his craft to produce works that bring us together as human beings and sometimes inspire a rare spark of imagination to propel us to create the very best work we can possibly bring forth.
youtube
Right above this paragraph is a live variation of The Four Seasons, a classic musical work of art and transcendent beauty that I cannot recommend highly enough. Vivaldi sure did one thing that modern, corporately funded, concentrated and even desperate bands just can’t… and that is actually innovate. He had immense natural technical skills, had them brought to bloom by his family and his own efforts, and he ended up creating over 500 instrumental and choral works, plus about 40 operas. Have *you* created 500 instrumental and choral works and 40 operas!? Didn’t think so. So, get to work on that! And join me next time for some jaunty Brahms. Image source: https://www.craiyon.com/image/dPwZA5VRRTawSH1T9Sslcw
#vivaldi#antonio vivaldi#music on tumblr#classical music#the four seasons#presto#music from the 1700's#audio video#music video#audio on tumblr#classical composer#composer#baroque#legend#violinist#orchestra#Italian composer
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Get meaner
Alright. Uh.
Pop country is musical gentrification.
Hear me out.
There is a massive divide between rural life and city life.
Go to a city and most of what you're going to be hearing is pop music. Whether it's telly, radio, doesn't matter—in media, you're mostly gonna head pop. And pop, in itself, is largely corporate. To he point that a lot of it sounds the same—same beat, same story, etc. Pop as it is today is a mass-produced, oversaturated market and it's squeezing into every other genre it's out-competing. Rock, country, indie, folk, blues, jazz, etc, it keeps pushing more and more and influencing other genres because as it is today, pop is seen as the default, the safe, and it sells.
And country isn't like that. Country is getting smaller and smaller every day as more people over the generations in rural areas default to pop because it's what they hear on the radio, it's what their friends online listen to, it's this and that and it's encroaching.
Pop country is largely a shining example of that. It's the musical equivalent of a big corporation moving into a small town and buying up all the land, all the lots, out competing all the mum and pop shops, and gentrifying the place into just another city. Just another variant of pop.
And in the process you lose what made country country. You lose the connection to roots and heritage and community. You make songs so they sell to a generation who doesn't care and customers who just want background music instead of making songs to tell stories. Think of the most famous country songs of all time and most aren't cuz they're catchy, it's because they tell stories and usually ones that the listener can empathise with. Loving someone, a struggle with addiction, grief, family, connection to community—it's stuff that by and large, listeners can relate to or at least empathise with.
But now all that's on the radio in this new wave of country music is flashing money, and cars and boats, and babes in bikinis, and beer, and how fucked up you got on alcohol last weekend. Stories aren't being told but not for lack of people wanting to tell them—it's just that listeners don't want to listen, and record labels aren't keen to hire because it's not about making music or telling stories anymore and it hasn't been for a long while. It's just about money. The best songs are little personal projects that go up on YouTube or Spotify that record labels won't pick up because they're not a guaranteed sell to the masses. And if they do make it big sure, you'll get offered an $8mil record deal, but you gotta weigh if it's worth selling your soul for because you know that once you sign your name it's not gonna be your music anymore.
I've seen enough little towns ruined by corporate greed. I don't like pop country.
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