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glare-a13 · 3 years

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so i finished the jeanlisa playlist! not many songs on there, but here it is :) it’s around half an hour in total, so not too bad. i figured i’d do a post explaining why i chose the songs and the (sort of) story i imagine behind it. explanations will be under the cut!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/20XrumZtYBRtvWDBRfFaBf?si=2ny92pKySM6bD3KB_G4oig&dl_branch=1

talk about death/grief below the cut

the dandelion stands alone. the roses that once stood beside it have wilted, their lavender hue faded and their petals dried.

the overall story i had in mind for this playlist was jean dealing with the death of lisa due to her curse. it’ll be of course, from jean’s perspective but i think i have one or two that i imagined as lisa speaking. if you guys have other interpretations or think another order could be better, comment below or send it in my ask box! i’m super excited to hear what y’all think :))

die alone -ingrid michaelson

we open up with jean and her perspective on love

i’ve always thought that die alone could work for so many characters, like maki harukawa from danganronpa especially,

but i figured it could be a good one to open up this playlist with

just to show how lisa sorta

crashed her way into her life and made her realize that she isn’t just fated for some

noble.. knight… life.. yes ..?????

besties idk how to explain it but i hope w listening to the lyrics you get the gist <3

pink in the night -mitski

and here’s our first one from lisa’s perspective!

hah

what if i told you i think of it as lisa feeling alone/isolated in her final days

because

because she hadn’t told jean about the curse from the book

and she doesn’t want her darling to worry about her

she believes jean already has enough on her plate… that poor woman… she loved her so much she couldn’t bear to break the news to her

so she allows jean to continue working, without having to worry about her

hah

hm.

where’d all the time go -dr. dog

THE CHORUS

“she gets dressed up like a pillow, so she’s always iN BED / FLOWERS FOR THE SICK AND DEAD / SHE’S ON THE GO / WAY TOO FAST AND WAY TOO SLOW”

i just think. this tragic song fits lisa’s situation with the book.

i imagine this as lisa actually dying from the curse

whereas the last song is more of lisa thinking about her regrets and wanting jean to not worry about her

yet longing to spend time with her in her final days

i actually put this at the end of the playlist at first, but moved it when i thought of the point above

but “she’s on the go, way too fast and way too slow” just HURTS because i imagine jean saying it like

she doesn’t want lisa to die, but she also can’t handle watching her suffer

telephones -vacations

“i wish i could live without you / but you’re a part of me”

:))

yeah i don’t think this one needs much of an explanation

jean thinks about all the time she could’ve spent with lisa, remembering back to her fondest memories with her

regretting that she couldn’t have made more memories

hehe

rises the moon -liana flores

this one i imagine as lisa watching over jean in the afterlife

speaking reassurances and wanting to comfort her even with no way of contact

trying, urging her to move on so she can do her best to protect mondstadt, the city she loves, like she’s always wanted

she knows it’s hard to lose a loved one

the days go on… she cannot let this pull her too far from her routine

I ALSO THINK THIS CAN BE IMAGINED AS LISA VISITING JEAN THROUGH A DREAM

like the first point on this song but she speaks to jean through a dream

to reassure her that she’ll always be by her side

man i love this song sm it’s so comforting…

francis forever -mitski

now for the sake of this playlist, i’m taking some of the lyrics of this song very literally

like even the first verse…

i mean the first two lines already hit hard

lisa provided jean w something wonderful, making sure she took care of herself and keeping her company even when she overworked herself hunched over papers in the grandmaster’s office

oH! if you wanna think abt it more, i suggest going to genius lyrics and looking at the annotations made by people there, it’s a wonderful way to look at lyrics from others’ perspectives

and DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THE SECOND VERSE

“on sunny days i go out walking / i end up on a tree lined street / i look up at the gaps of sunlight / i miss you more than anything”

A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A

AND

I DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE THIS, BUT RISES THE MOON HAS A LINE THAT SAYS

“oh close your weary eyes / i promise you that soon the autumn comes / to darken fading summer skies”

AND FRANCIS FOREVER

THE SECOND CHORUS

“and autumn comes when you’re not yet done / with the summer passing by”

AA A A A A A A A A A AA AA A

feel better -penelope scott

i mostly did this one for the first verse

like,, “no one’s ever gonna love me like that again”

ouch

“i don’t wanna get over you / i wanna sit with you in bed”

i also think of this as the… the bitterness jean feels

what once was -her’s

another one that i feel,, doesn’t really need explanation

the first verse already smacks you in the face

“i guess i knew this would happen to you / inside i did but i refused to know the truth”

she just didn’t expect lisa would go so soon, you know?

they had barely gotten to spend time together

but time is cruel, crueler to some more than others

it’s unfortunate lisa was a part of that.

i didn’t know -skinshape

i actually made an entire post abt this!

check the posts under the jeanlisa tag on my profile, it should have the song linked and i have a whole explanation about it and why i think it fits them

do better -cuco

i just thought this was a nice way to end things

perhaps set in the future, when jean has started to accept lisa’s death and is coming to terms with her being gone

knowing that even though she’s gone from the mortal realm, the love they shared will always follow her.

and that’s all! hope this all made some sort of sense; i won’t really be proofreading it or anything since it’s just bullet points mostly. but yeah, this playlist was super fun to make, even through the tears- if you think i should make more, i think i should be having either a regular, non angsty jeanlisa one or a ganyu one on the way, so woOHOO !!

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deadcactuswalking · 4 years

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 31/10/2020 (Ariana Grande, KSI, Little Mix)

I haven’t heard that Ariana Grande album yet as of writing this but the lead single – and title track – “positions” has just debuted at #1 on the UK Singles Chart, her seventh song to hit the top and second this year after “Rain on Me” with Lady Gaga. Hence, that’s today’s #1 and we have a busy and pretty chaotic week of new arrivals. Welcome to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

A lot of their debuts from last week were completely wiped out on this week’s chart which surprises me, especially for songs I thought would hit it big like “One More Time” by Not3s and AJ Tracey. Our notable dropouts here range from bonafide smash hits like “Roses” by SAINt JHN and remixed by Imanbek, which hit #1, although I always preferred “Swoosh” from the same album, to pretty easy and quick fall outs from songs I’ve reviewed in the past few weeks. We’ve got songs that peaked in the top 10 like “Rover” by S1mba and DTG and “I Dunno” by Dutchavelli, Tion Wayne and Stormzy but otherwise that’s mostly it as a lot of these drop-outs are just songs that didn’t really reach their charting potential or have mostly had their day in streaming, like the surprisingly quick drop for “my ex’s best friend” by Machine Gun Kelly and blackbear, as well as “Destiny” by D-Block Europe, “Tap In” by Saweetie, “FRANCHISE” by Travis Scott, Young Thug and M.I.A., “OK Not to Be OK” by Marshmello and Demi Lovato, “Airplane Mode” by Nines and NSG and even “Outta Time” by Bryson Tiller and Drake. If you’re worried about the loss of MGK’s song being too soon for whatever reason, don’t fret as “forget me too” with Halsey, a much better song, is here at #72, our only returning entry for the week. I might as well run through the biggest gains and falls, those both being last week’s debuts. “Train Wreck” by James Arthur absolutely surged up to #24 whilst “Hold” by Chunkz and Young Filly absolutely purged down to #59. To be fair to the general public, I think I’d rather listen to something from four years ago than that song as well. Anyway, let’s start our new arrivals with a couple really interesting choices...

NEW ARRIVALS

#75 – “Sofia” – Clairo

Produced by Rostam

Clairo is one of those artists where I feel completely out of the loop on, especially with all the recent buzz from TikTok, and I was not checking for that album last year, and whilst I didn’t mind her feature on Wallows’ “Are You Bored Yet”, I’d never been intrigued enough to check out the solo work until I guess here we see it on the chart, which is big for the genre of bedroom pop, which again I know next to nothing about. Now, I like lo-fi indie rock fine, but I’ve never really tried to look into the bedroom pop micro-genre – if anyone has any recommendations, that would be appreciated – so this will pretty much be a first gaze into not just Clairo but the entire scene surrounding her. I’m not a Vampire Weekend fan by any means but Rostam on production just give me hope, even if the mix here is a bit too drowned in reverb and echo to give the guitars any more impact when they really should have, at least I think so, they’re pushed back in a way that makes an already pretty calm, fleeting indie single even more lacking sonically. Clairo sounds great on this instrumentation, admittedly, albeit kind of uninterested, but it really is about that fuzzy distortion in the drop that feels... oddly anti-climactic and seemingly pointless considering how little progression is made before or after it. Maybe this genre just isn’t for me, but I feel myself turned off from how Clairo’s pretty beautiful vocal harmonies are not reflected by the production here, whether it be the stiff percussion, abrupt ending or overall lack of substance. This is kind of disappointing as I really wanted to like this. The song is a pretty vague but longing ballad mostly revolving around her crushes on people she saw in the mind, particularly Sofia Vergara and Sofia Coppola, hence the name, and I think it’s actually really well-written. I especially love how the chorus seems to acknowledge that not only are these crushes clearly out of her reach as a teenage girl just discovering her sexuality but also mentioning how afraid she is to really develop on any of these feelings because of how it’s prejudiced against and in some countries outlawed, but the song easily works as just a confession of love without really realising the statement, so it doesn’t feel forced or unnecessary. Sadly, I guess Rostam had to put his prints on this one, but the song itself isn’t bad at all. Hey, I’m not going to complain about a song where I can look at pictures of Sofia Coppola for “research”.

#74 – “All Girls are the Same” – Juice WRLD

Produced by Nick Mira

It’s so odd and kind of heartbreaking to see the Genius comments for this track where they say Juice is “up next for 2018”. It’s also pretty amusing to see some of these annotations...

God, I love Genius.com. This is a 2017 Juice WRLD track from the late rapper that was released as a single from his debut album, Goodbye & Good Riddance. I don’t really understand why this had a resurgence – again, I’m going to assume TikTok or some kind of remix – but it is funny to see a bitter, immature and sloppily-written song about heartbreak and how “all girls are the same” next to a lesbian love ballad on the chart... and above said ballad because we clearly live in a society. I’m not going to mince words here: this is a pretty bad song, at least in my opinion. All respect to Juice but he’s clearly not on top form here, with an uninterested and badly-mixed vocal delivery over a really dull, jingly trap beat with awful bass mastering. In fact, the whole song is mixed awfully and sounds really muddy which may have been the point but it doesn’t complement Juice at all. The lyrics here are purposefully immature and at times stupid, especially when he compares himself to John Lennon and is so desperate for a rhyme the dude says this unnamed girl is from Colorado. I’m not going to deny some of the lyrics here are kind of haunting now due to tragic circumstances but I still get a chuckle out of the vocoder on his voice after massive empty spaces in both the beat and vocal track that makes the song sound clearly amateurish (to be fair to Juice, he clearly didn’t have access to the best studio equipment but it doesn’t excuse the major-label streaming release sounding this sloppy), as well as that opening line.

Broke my heart, oh, no, you didn’t!

Yeah, I’ll take “Robbery” over this any day, or even “Righteous”. Sorry.

#73 – “Martin & Gina” – Polo G

Produced by Hagan, Lilkdubb and Tahj Money

It seems we have two melancholy trap-rappers from Chicago appear consecutively on the chart. I love those types of oddities. If you don’t know Polo G, you probably should, at least from his hit “Pop Out” with Lil Tjay last year, and this is his most recent hit. I typically find his brand of mournful Auto-Tuned crooning about life on the streets remarkably genuine in comparison to most rappers but also admittedly really boring, at least for now. I can see this guy becoming a lot bigger and better but as of now he releases so much music and the quality and effort seems to fall by the wayside more often than not. In typical 2000s bling-rap fashion, this hardcore street rapper’s biggest hit from the album The GOAT (perhaps a bit early to call there, Mr. G) is a guitar-based R&B love jam for the ladies, except it’s not a sex jam...

Girl, I can’t wait ‘til I get home to f*** the s*** out of you

Okay, well, that’s one line.

Man, I’m tryin’ to get to know you sexually

Okay, but at least he’s trying to get to know her. The song’s lyrics do have a genuine heartfelt sense of love and companionship with his unnamed woman, and some of these lyrics are pretty funny and pleasant, albeit shallow. I love how in the first verse he says that even on her worst days she still looks “kind of cute”, in a way that makes this song more down to Earth than other thugs-need-love-too songs, especially when he acknowledges the troubles in their relationship, which may be undermined by the unfortunate implications that come with that “Martin & Gina” comparison but that’s really not the focus of the song, even if it is the title. He may talk about the shopping sprees now but there is evidence here that Polo G genuinely wants to live his life with this woman, especially when he says he wants them to move out to California and live in a mansion. There’s flexing there for sure but it’s less out of a desire to sound “cooler” than the other rappers or the audience, and more out of a desire to make the most out of this relationship in case, as he knows he might have to, he should “pull the stick out and shoot” to protect her. It helps that this is a damn good song with Polo’s catchy flow in both the verses and that infectious chorus, as well as a really slick guitar lick behind that trap knock. Yeah, this is pretty great. Check it out.

#71 – “Spicy” – Ty Dolla $ign featuring Post Malone

Produced by Ty Dolla $ign, Westen Weiss and damn james!

It seems that Ty Dolla $ign has finally clocked that people like him for his features and not his solo work as he has released his most recent album fittingly named Featuring Ty Dolla $ign, following a trend of recent massive collaborative albums in pop music. This particular album features the likes of Kid Cudi, Kanye West (twice), Anderson .Paak, Nicki Minaj, Big Sean, Future, Young Thug, FKA twigs because, well, sure, and obviously, Post Malone. I haven’t listened to the album yet, I mean it sounds exhausting but I don’t necessarily like what I’ve heard. “Expensive” with Nicki Minaj is soulless, “Ego Death” with Skrillex, Kanye and FKA twigs is chaotically misguided and a massive disappointment, “Track 6” with Kanye, .Paak and Thundercat is way too boring for these four artists, and that’s all I’ve heard, except that “Dr. Sebi” interlude with Young Thug that I thought was actually pretty damn good for a one minute snippet. I did brief through some songs on the album right now as I was writing this and I wasn’t really a fan of any of it, not even the songs with Future and Young Thug, artists I actually really like. The song with Kid Cudi was pretty amazing though, which I pretty much expected, I mean it is Cudi after all and he’s really felt revived this year, even if he feels out of place on a sex song. The serpentwithfeet interlude definitely adds to that song though, and it actually leads into this track with Post Malone. This is their second collaboration after their #1 hit “Psycho”, but it’s a lot less interesting, replacing the serenity and smooth flows with more fast-paced trap skitters, hit-and-miss flows that only make Ty$ sound all that great in the tail-end of his verse. Post’s verse is out of place and feels like a regression for him, with the verse sounding like it was taken straight out of the Stoney sessions. The guys have no chemistry and Post doesn’t even contribute to a final chorus, which feels particularly odd as there’s not a bridge to round any of this out properly as it just transitions awkwardly to the sixth track, titled “Track 6”. At least Ty$ isn’t facing 15 years in jail for cocaine possession now, which is something I brought up a disproportionate amount of times in older episodes of this show, because, well, sure.

#69 – “Whoopty” – CJ

Produced by Pxcoyo

CJ is an “up-and-coming” rapper with only one song that pretty quickly went viral. There’s something fishy about this. The only other song by CJ on Spotify and I assume other streaming services is this CashmoneyAP-produced trap song called “On Me” that is completely garbage. It does sound pretty odd that while he doesn’t sound dissimilar in “Whoopty”, this uninterested Auto-Tuned mumbler took three years to get another song on streaming and now he’s an energetic New York rapper using a beat that was literally uploaded to the producer’s website as a “Pop Smoke type beat” weeks before “Whoopty” was released, which, by the way, was an immediate viral hit on YouTube. Very strange, very unusual but not very worth talking about as the one thing “On Me” and “Whoopty” have in common is lack of quality. Sure, I like the Indian sample but it’s quickly drowned out by the booming 808s and pretty rote drill beat. Somehow, CJ sounds too energetic and excited to the point where he’s out of place on a beat this menacing. He sounds like a joke made by a record label to create some kind of popular generic drill track and it does not help that there’s a single verse, with part of it repeated as a bridge, and two repetitions of the same over-long chorus. When Pop Smoke rapped over beats, he was aggressive, sure, but had a smoky voice and a lot more charisma than this flat tonal sandpaper CJ brings to the table. It’s almost offensive to Pop Smoke’s legacy that this was rapped over his “type beat”.

#57 – “SO DONE” – The Kid LAROI

Produced by Omar Fedi and Khaled Rohaim

I figured I’d have to talk about this guy at some point, well, what better time than in the midst of a lot of mediocre American hip hop, although this isn’t American, rather it’s actually an Aussie at it this time, with this 17-year-old kid propped up by Internet Money and Lyrical Lemonade and mentored by the late Juice WRLD. This kid really likes capital letters, and naturally I listened to his last hit “GO!” with his mentor Juice... and, yeah, it’s not good. That hook is stupidly infectious – and the pre-chorus is actually more so – but his delivery is obnoxious and unconvincing, especially in comparison to Juice on the same song. Man, I wish that entire song was as good as its pre-chorus. Anyway, this is a new song, not taken from his debut mixtape aptly and rather politely titled F*** LOVE. It uses an unorthodox ukulele loop as its main sample but once again I’m not a fan of this guy’s immature delivery. Maybe in a few years this Kid LAROI will sound less like a Kid LAROI and more like a genuine rapper but right now he is just barely keeping on beat with a jangly pop beat that would sound really interested if accentuated by the right rapper but here it doesn’t work at all. I do actually appreciate some of the lyrics here, even if they are repetitive and vague. Hey, at least they’re family-friendly PG clean for the most part so he’ll get that radio push, but it’s not like it’s matters here in the UK. I’m sure this lad is the hottest thing to come from Australia this year... okay, well, maybe the second hottest – but I’m not a fan, even if some of these melodies are promising. In fact, I really like some of his ideas, especially in the chorus, I just think that tragically, Juice could have done them more justice than this Kid LAROI ever could. Sorry.

#47 – “Bad Guy” – Morrisson and Loski

Produced by BKay and Harry James

Duh. Okay, so these are both UK drill rappers who I’m not very familiar with although I’ve heard of Loski before. Morrisson is a complete unknown to me. They’re both from London, as one would expect. Is the song any good? Well, I do like that chopped violin sample but Morrisson is only vaguely convincing when he claims to know Vinnie Jones and to be Stone Cold Steve Austin, and when he mentions getting “white-boy wasted” with a woman sniffing coke, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but that’s actually the point. I mean, the chorus says this:

You need people like me so you can point your f***ing fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy”

The issue here is I’m not convinced. Morrisson’s double-tracked vocals aren’t intimidating or menacing and are mostly overshadowed by a pretty great beat. His delivery is also something I’m not a fan of and while I can’t say he’s uninterested or not putting his all into it, it just sounds weak, especially when pitted against this beat. Loski is here too, but he doesn’t add much to the “bad guy” idea, especially when he starts talking about The Simpsons and Family Guy. Not Mr. Burns or even that angry chicken that fights Peter, just Stewie, Brian, Bart and Homer. Admittedly, “shell out the whip like Mario Kart” is a pretty fun line and I appreciate his flow more than Morrisson’s... but, yeah, I’m not really a fan. I like the concept but it misses the mark on execution.

#44 – “Golden” – Harry Styles

Produced by Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson

So this is the opening track to Styles’ sophomore effort, Fine Line, an album I thought was mildly entertaining pop rock at best and lazy, absolutely worthless trite at worst. I don’t mind Styles’ take on classic 70’s pop and glam rock but I’ve also never found it interesting, and the songs are at times disjointed and at most times just plain boring. I understand I’m probably alone in this but I really disliked this album and I’m not excited that he’s pushing yet another single. The beeping keys that start the song are immediately met with the crash of a drum beat that sounds as flat as Harry’s singing in that obnoxious, sloppy intro refrain. The verse is equally as awkward, with the song lacking in any kind of substance other than that one line of “You’re so golden” which has been overly annotated by fans on Genius to mean a lot more than it does and should. It’s a confession of love but unlike “Sofia”, there’s very little to grab onto in terms of compassion for the singer and I quickly lose interest in what little story there is to the track. The bridge with the high-pitched guitar squealing and squeaky pitch-shifted murmuring is over and done with as slowly as possible and that refrain of nonsense vocalisations just continues without fear or even self-awareness of how annoying it is. This is probably ultimately harmless but it annoys the hell out of me and whilst I predict success for the track, I really hope against it as I absolutely do not like this at all.

#39 – “Teadrops” – Bring Me the Horizon

Produced by Jordan Fish and Oliver Sykes

Yes, that Bring Me that Horizon. Yes, the metalcore band. At least they used to be metalcore and definitely on that heavier side of Kerrang!-core, but what I’m more amazed by is how they continue to ditch the sound and continue to get bigger as they do so. After 14 years, you’d think these guys would stop getting Top 40 hits – hell, the only other hit they had before 2020 was “Drown” – but this is their third this year! I’ll admit I’m not really up to speed on Bring Me the Horizon – I listened to their last record (which was just fine but honestly probably worth listening to for “wonderful life” alone) but not this EP that the singles have been from, and definitely not their older stuff. For the sake of REVIEWING THE CHARTS, however, I did listen to their earlier singles – you can’t say I don’t do much for this show – and I’m overall not really sure on how to feel about this stuff. I still like “Drown” – and always have – but I’ve never been too big on metalcore so I’m actually surprised how much I really enjoyed the Linkin Park rip on “Sleepwalking” (which I’m impressed I remembered the chorus for). I remember liking the practically nightcore track “ouch” and, yeah, it still slaps. Some tracks are very heavy on the electronic, and “Can You Feel My Heart” is reliant on that vocaloid drop, about two years before that became the norm in pop. Just from a skim of their biggest singles, I’m honestly kind of a fan, especially “Throne”, even if I feel like the EDM influences just kind of go nowhere. Also, none of this screams “metalcore” to me but I don’t know, these guys seem to change their style a lot with the only thing staying consistent being Oliver Sykes, and his tone that shifts between nasal pop-punk-style crooning and chopped-up Auto-Tune growling. I talked to a friend about them and they like their earlier stuff mostly, although he “wouldn’t recommend” their debut album to anybody at all. Another friend said he refuses to listen to their music based on the pretentious title of their third record and honestly I think that’s a pretty fair decision. This song sounds like pretty standard BMTH, or at least from what I can gather from the singles and the formula they follow. It starts with a funky and cute, chirpy electronic groove before it’s drowned out by heavier drums and heavy metal guitar riffs, but this time said electronic groove is less integral to the instrumental and the shift to a funkier bassline in the verse might honestly be for the best, although I do love the way the instrumental is chopped up a bit at the end of each repetition of the chorus. It makes the song sound a lot more unique and even if it sounds just as 2012 as their 2012 stuff, I honestly think that’s fine, especially with that abrupt sharp contrast of his raspy yelling over breakbeats quickly followed by some crooning with light piano backing, which may make the song feel messy or structurally disjointed but honestly it works for the chaotic tone of the track and the angst that is presented in the lyrics. Also, although I haven’t evaluated this band since I watched a couple videos on Kerrang!, this feels oddly nostalgic. Huh. Some additional musings: That falsetto Sykes hits in the chorus is great. My friend said that he couldn’t finish the last album they put out which isn’t a good sign but to be fair to them it was an hour-long IDM record, because, well, sure. I’ve written way too much about Bring Me the bloody Horizon at this point so I’ll just move on but I’ll make sure to check out some of their stuff after this.

#37 – “Loading” – Central Cee

Produced by HARGO

Now back to normality, at least I think so. This is another UK drill artist I’ve never heard of. I like this beat, especially that sample of the horns that I’m surprised wasn’t found by crate-digging but it works pretty well under the drill beat; it sounds like a menacing “gangster” song, especially because of how that sample reminds me of 1930s Chicago. I’m not good on my American (or gang) history so that might be nonsense but you know what I mean, right? Black-and-white footage of men in suits gambling whilst women surround them and they all got their money from drug trafficking and they send out hits. Something like that, I don’t know. The song is kind of boring though, this Cee guy has zero charisma and the references to COVID make this immediately dated (not that this song is lyrically all that interesting anyway), and by two minutes the beat has run its course and just starts getting annoying. Yeah, not much to say about this one at all, but it could have been better.

#8 – “Sweet Melody” – Little Mix

Produced by Peoples, MNEK, Morten “Rissi” Ristorp, Oliver Frid and Tayla Parx

I wonder if now that I listened to Bring Me the Horizon for half an hour straight that the last four songs all sound worse, or at least less interesting, in comparison. Well, I doubt that really, I think these songs will just end up being less interesting. I mean, five separate producers on a simple three-minute pop track? This’ll be as market-tested and manufactured as possible, as one would expect from Little Mix. I didn’t mind their last couple promo singles but this song seems to have some actual traction and even a high-budget video behind it and hence it debuted as high as #8. Well, is it any good? Well, it’s no 2013 Bring Me the Horizon, that’s for sure. Jokes aside, the nonsense vocal refrain is kind of awkward and the R&B production here is kind of minimal and just... off, particularly in the first verse and refrain, where the singing and hard 808 is met with only accompaniment from one stray snare that is just... there? The drop doesn’t feel like it has a proper build-up either, and doesn’t even feel like it lives up to that non-existent tension. I do love the harmonies towards the end of the track and the “he would lie, he would cheat over syncopated beats” line is kind of a bar, I suppose, but yeah, this production is awkward and I’m not sure if it really does the girls’ talent justice. I would have preferred something more dramatic and with more of a climax than the skittering hi-hats and vaguely dancehall-inspired bass grooves, but alas, here we are with a pretty mediocre, uninteresting track, which wasn’t exactly unexpected.

#3 – “Really Love” – KSI featuring Craig David and Digital Farm Animals

Produced by Digital Farm Animals and Mojam

Ah, the trio we all didn’t know we wanted but definitely deserved(?): YouTuber KSI, legendary R&B singer Craig David and a couple virtual elephants. KSI is more than a YouTuber or prankster now to be fair to the guy, with songs like “Lighter” he has cemented himself as a genuine pop star and not in the way that songs used to get viral or even back in 2017 with Jake Paul. KSI is taking this stuff seriously and having fun with it, and, hey, he beat up Logan Paul once or twice so I guess I respect the man to some extent. I’m honestly surprised he got Craig David to be on the song with him. I mean KSI may be popular but I never put much thought into his music or even think it’s any good although the song has clearly debuted this high for a reason. Craig David has a janky hook that just plopped onto the track for a chorus and bridge, with pretty generic lyrics about love, which KSI develops on in some oddly specific ways. He’ll buy this woman Amazon Prime – I hope you enjoy the Borat sequel, guys – and she’ll “wreck his balls like Miley”. Classy. Honestly, the song is mostly fine – KSI’s flow is kind of awkward and stiff still but it’s a lot smoother than it usually is and he does deliver a pretty convincing performance here, as does Craig David, who sounds as great as he did 20 years ago over this groovy house instrumental, with a great bassline that really does fit Craig David more than it does KSI. The trap breakdown is pretty well done as well, which surprised me as I assumed the song would lose all momentum afterwards but, no, it keeps on chugging. This is listenable and far from bad but it’s mostly just a serviceable pop tune. I have no issue with this sticking around as it probably will. Now for the big one:

#1 – “positions” – Ariana Grande

Produced by TBHits, Mr. Frank and London on da Track

Man, I’ve just reviewed 12 songs, I do not feel like talking about the biggest and most important one now. Well, maybe it’s not that and instead the fact that I have this conflict with Grande’s music where someone so unbelievably and obviously talented sounds so incredibly disinterested in the songwriting and production, to the point where her performance is irrelevant. Sure, sweetener and thank u, next had their highs but the former is a complete mess and the latter feels so dull and oddly characterless. Again, these albums aren’t all bad but I feel like they’re still so rushed and infuriatingly so, with Grande having very little involvement, or at least it sounds like that in these albums. Regardless of how much she contributes to each record, it always comes out the other end sounding impersonal, so I’m actually glad she dropped the pretence and is now just doing purely sexy R&B stuff. I haven’t listened to the full album yet but with song titles like “34+35”, I can kind of expect what I’m going into here. That said, I’m not really a big fan of the title track and lead single here, although I can understand why it debuted at #1. Firstly, the video where she becomes the President of the United States for practically no reason is great. Secondly, the beat is pretty good and produced by London on da Track, who I’m kind of disappointed didn’t put his producer tag here. It would have at least been kind of funny hearing it transition into Grande’s sweet whispery vocal tone. I like the slick trap percussion, cricket sound effects and that chirpy guitar pluck, and especially those strings in the second pre-chorus which sound genuinely awesome. Ariana’s a great performer but the chorus is kind of weak, especially lyrically – I don’t mind the opening and main line about switching positions, hell, it’s kind of clever, but “I’m in the Olympics the way I’m jumping through hoops”? Really? The bridge is also pretty short and lazy; I feel like it could have actually been done away with or put as an intro and would have worked just as well replacing the second chorus with that final chorus, background whistle notes and all. That said, the song is a solid lead single and I am kind of excited to hear the rest of the album, even if this is at least somewhat of a retread.

Conclusion

What a mixed bag. I’m generally pleased with what we have here though and I am going to give Best of the Week to “Teadrops” by Bring Me the Horizon with an Honourable Mention to Polo G for “Martin & Gina”, although Clairo would have gotten close without Rostam on the boards. There’s nothing all that bad here except “Golden” by Harry Styles which does get an easy Worst of the Week, with a Dishonourable Mention to CJ’s “Whoopty” for just being lazy. Here’s this week’s “spooky” top 10 – it is Halloween after all:

You can follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for political ramblings if you so wish but I wouldn’t recommend it, especially if you like Keir Starmer, but all politics aside, thank you for reading this far and I’ll see you next week.

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voidcat · 4 years

Note

Congrats on 100!!! ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡ this is for ur milestone event... maybe CSH’s Vincent,,, with Fukurodani? It’s the first song on ur stardust playlist lmao and I was listening to it as I was crying over my exam ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡ pls no furry Akaashi 🥺. Thank you! And sorry for leaving so many asks T^T. I hope u have a good day muah ❤️ — KA

Thank you!!! Please no furry bs allowed in this blog, I’ll leave that to actual furries djcjfjfj. And never be sorry for leaving asks pls I love getting them (esp yours!!) you have a good day too<3

Warning: there will be mentions of depression and drinking.

Song: Vincent (by Car Seat Headrest)

Character: this was hard but Bokuto Koutarou

Here is my reasoning: when you listen to this song, especially the beginning (instrumental) is so energetic, lively, fun and just so Bokuto.

Just like him, I think the song first has the impression of a typical fun song, the way Will sings out some lyrics definitely has this effect too. People often see and paint him as this fun guy who switch moods so quickly, this would affect their view of him too.

“They got a portrait by Van Gogh / on the Wikipedia page / for clinical depression / (well, it helps to describe it x6)”

If a conversation happened to involve Van Gogh and Bo mentioned this, everyone would go “Oh I didn’t know that / what a interesting fact” etc. no one would ever questsion why Bo was on the Wikipedia page for clinical depression or how he came to knew that.

“It must be hard to speak in a foreign language / Intoxicado x6”

You can check genius esp for these lyrics (all annotations for this song are by the writer Will Toledo himself). These lines give me the impression if he Bo struggled with something (like depression) and went to someone (besides Akaashi) about it, they’d either misunderstand or brush it off as Bo being typical and “he will probably feel better in a couple of minutes”

An event such as this only drives the person further away from opening up and they end up trying to deal with the situation by themselves. (ie: drinking) next thing you know, he’s draggaed to a part by some friends and as an hour or so passes, he could start drinking recklessly, to fit in, enjoy the part like everyone else, to no longer worry about things and to avoid his thoughts.

(“I don’t have the strength (I don’t have the time) / I poured myself a drink (I told myself a lie) / You know I’ve worried (You know I’ve tried) / Don’t you know I’m not strong? (Don’t you know I’m not kind?) / Someone’s getting lucky (Someone’s calling the cops) / Someone takes me away (Someone make it all stop) / I had a bright tomorrow (I spent it all today) / Now I am silent at last / Now I have nothing to say x2”)

I didn’t mean for this to sound this sad but with how the song sounds so lively and happy at first, I feel like it fits Bokuto too. Because most of the time, he is only perceived as the friendly chatty guy who “goes through mood switches during matches” but overall lively and happy by the people around him. He is the type of person who’d bottle away his worries to not be a “bother” on others, he has his own layers and depth to him that is often masked or shadowed by his bright and cheery persona.

#kunimi anon #answered #send me a csh or hozier song and i’ll assign a character/ship/relatinship with a character #dei assigns songs #this will be the tag for this ‘event’#bokuto koutarou #haikyuu!!#hq bokuto #hq!! bokuto #milestone event

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years

Video

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BILLIE EILISH - BURY A FRIEND

[7.76]

Why you always play that song so loud? Oh.

Ian Mathers: Over a series of songs and videos, Eilish has practically offered a survey of fears and bad feelings: spiders, isolation, drowning, physical assault, mental illness, poison, other people as monsters, the self as a monster, etc. and here she leans harder than ever into the horror tropes, both sonically and visually. The sampled dentist drill, lyrics equally evoking the monster under the bed and sleep paralysis, the haunted house/nursery rhyme lilt of the verses, the bravado that at least partially stems from her narrative persona already feeling bad enough about herself that you sure as hell can't touch her, and of course the line that recurs over and over: "I wanna end me." It's the sort of thing you can imagine parents freaking out over, and even possibly the (yes, yes, very young) Eilish looking back years from now and thinking the better of. But, much as plenty of pop music conjures up outsized romantic sentiments that listeners gravitate towards despite not actually wanting to follow through with them in a literal sense, it also feels like the kind of darkness that I know many people who don't struggle with suicidal ideation still identify with in the context of a pop song. I'm not actually arguing for its total harmlessness so much as admitting that I don't think total harmlessness is necessary or even desirable in pop, maybe especially when it is from someone as young and who seems to be as tapped into a new vocabulary (sonic and gestural as much as linguistic) as Eilish is so far. The line and the song make me uneasy even as I love it and feel seen by it, as opposed to (say) Juice WRLD's bullshit which doesn't to me feel like it has any redeeming element at all. Eilish and "Bury a Friend," meanwhile, don't need a redeeming element unless you have a problem with the rich history of darkness in pop (as opposed to the rich history of misogyny in pop). Not for nothing does my friend Jess Burke describe her as "Fiona Apple for a Blumhouse future" and of all the paths to go down, that honestly feels like a pretty great one right now. [9]

Tobi Tella: Billie Eilish is one of the first true Gen Z pop stars, and as someone only a year or so older than her I'm impressed with how fresh her music feels on the pop landscape. The sense of dread that appears in most of her music is in full force here, and while I have found some of her music to be a little "2edgy4me," this works by fully leaning into it. It's unlike anything anyone else is making right now. [7]

Alfred Soto: If "Bury a Friend" is a gesture, an experiment -- as if Billie Eilish said, "Let me show how minimalist my music can be, and put in cool noises too" -- then its failure to be more than this is my failure. She's been tuneful before, which means she knows what she's doing. [6]

Jonathan Bradley: "Bury a Friend" sounds like the product of a musical landscape where anything can be heard on demand and none of it comes with context. Billie Eilish's artless murmur suggests that her roots lie in the DIY aesthetics of bedroom folk, but while her music can be wispy and personal in that mode, it wanders into other realms in which it seems not to realize it doesn't belong. This song is punctuated by producer Crooks intoning Eilish's name like a mixtape DJ's drop, while the shrieks that tear into the dark low-end pulse seem torn from Yeezus-era Kanye. There's even some Fiona Apple in the stops and starts punctuating her phrasing. Like Lorde before her, Eilish is adept at playing up the adolescent's attraction to darkness, and the haunted house atmosphere and lyrics about stapled tongues and glass-cut feet settle into a delicious murk. Perhaps most unsettling and most unexpectedly novel about it all is that Eilish doesn't sound like a paralysed gothic heroine. She sounds like one of the monsters. [8]

Katie Gill: Insert that Marge Simpson 'kids, could you lighten up a little?' reaction image here. It only makes sense that the hot new pop sensation is the musical distillation of nihilistic memes and the lolz I'm so depressed joke culture that's permeated the popular consciousness. To her credit, Eilish has her finger perfectly poised on the zeitgeist. Unfortunately, we've been dealing with the zeitgeist for at LEAST two years now. Such ironic detachment and 'I want to end me lmao' already feels out of date -- the fact that the song seems tailor-made to score an American Horror Story scene only dates it even more (those backing screams were a baaad choice). The main thing this does is make me wish that Eilish leaned in more towards her lighter fare. [5]

Vikram Joseph: I've been a Billie Eilish sceptic, but "Bury A Friend" is, if not quite Damascene, certainly revelatory. It feels deliciously, obscenely engrossing; that minimalist pulse, the mocking, nursery-rhyme motif ("What do you want from me? Why don't you run from me?"), those swift, decisive industrial gut-punches, the breathtaking turns of pace and time-signature tightrope-play. Most of all, it's fun, especially when her vocal affectations come off like a demonic sonic negative of Lorde. It feels like her entire aesthetic coming together, a camp horror-flick dark-pop queen finally wearing the crown she's been threatening to unveil for a while now. [8]

William John: At 28 I feel far too old to be pontificating about Billie Eilish, but what I will say is that if their new formula for chart success is to mine the aesthetic of Róisín Murphy circa Ruby Blue, then I'm ready to submit to our new zillennial overlords. [7]

Iris Xie: I've been hearing Billie Eilish everywhere I go, and her music always vibrates with a moody, dark warmth while I move through thrift stores, coffee shops, and sidewalks. Reclaiming whisper-singing from Selena Gomez is a fantastic move, especially when paired with that slight rhythmic drumming, sudden starts and stops, and that little omnipresent danger that I miss so much from f(x)'s Red Light. Our times are escalating faster to some kind of destruction, but in the air, there is exhaustion and energy of both a defiant joy and a quiet numbness. "Bury a Friend," and her album overall embodies that energy in spades. [7]

Will Rivitz: Jump scares in horror movies suck; they're cheap, calculated cash-ins on human predilection to react badly whenever something threatening pops out from the underbrush. Much more difficult to pull off, and much more impressive in its execution and creativity when it succeeds, is the slow-burn thrill. When a ghoulish, uncertain threat is buried ever so imperceptibly below the surface, it roils adrenaline in the most painfully pleasant of ways, as we fail to put our finger on anything about what's about to destroy us except that, make no mistake, it will indeed destroy us. "Bury a Friend" nails that most sublime skin-crawl. The lowing bass and teeth-scraping industrial synths roll around the aural triggers that make every hair on a back stand up with the cold impersonality of coins circling a hyperbolic funnel forever, the end always implied but never achieved. Appropriate, too, since Billie Eilish's main triumph is capturing the slow-burn existential dread of living as a young person in a world thoroughly ruined by those who won't live to see out the ramifications of their present actions. Obliquely, that's "Bury a Friend," a nightmarish Borges y yo resurrection, endlessly Genius-ready especially given the original story now has a Genius annotation itself. (The internet continues to be bizarre.) Instrumentally and lyrically, it's a warped and terrifying celebration of a muddling and destruction of identity supercharged by the less savory bits of our constant interconnectedness; it is, in other words, the best summary of Billie Eilish she could possibly present to us. Eilish affirms our base fears that things are fucked, we're all irrevocably in shambles, and there's absolutely jack shit we can do about it; we might as well learn to celebrate where we're at, since there's nothing else awaiting us. [9]

Alex Clifton: I can't remember the last time I felt this astonished by a song, nor can I remember hearing anything this sublime. I mean this in the gothic sense -- something beautiful and terrifying and subsiding where you've just got to stand and soak it all in. "Bury a Friend" is every nightmare and melodramatic thought I had as a teenager set to music, the suspicion that I was a monster who was better off dead and everyone knew. It felt so plainly written on my skin. But it's not just dark and monstrous. Billie feels scared and sad on the chorus: when we all fall asleep, where do we go? Something in her voice is so vulnerable that I feel cut open myself just hearing it. I fear some older people may hear "Bury a Friend" and write it off as emo teenage poetry, but it's so much more than that. It's the honesty of Lorde's first album mixed in with the sharp crunch of being a teen in 2019, living in a world constantly on fire with questionable prospects for a future. I would expect nothing less from a teenager to be honest, especially one as talented as Eilish. I just wish I had had the courage to be this dark and messy when I was her age. [9]

Will Adams: So much of the Billie Eilish discourse concerns her aesthetic and how it relates to Gen Z, but it often misses a key part of her appeal: how electrifying her music sounds. Tactile, confronting and claustrophobic, Billie and her producer brother Finneas create music that tightens its grip and refuses to let go, and "Bury a Friend" is as good an example as any. Alternately screeching, skittering and booming with sub bass (like "Black Skinhead" crawling with spiders), it conjures up a nightmare you can't look away from. [9]

Katherine St Asaph: A game that is both fun and great for making yourself acutely aware of how fast the grave is yanking you down is asking yourself, and being honest: if you were a teen today, who would you stan? Would you be an Ariana Grande Teen? A Blueface Teen? A Billie Eilish Teen? The depressing truth is that I probably would've been a Lana Del Rey Teen, but I could see myself reluctantly liking this for its weird drama, its dramatic weirdness. I'm convinced people confused about why Billie's dark music appeals to teens have never themselves been teens, the time of life where you endless-repeat Nirvana (ask Dave Grohl) or Sarah Brightman's cover of "Gloomy Sunday" or "Bury a Friend" and often make it out regardless. The flavor of darkness here is more than a little Tim Burton, in the twisted-nursery-rhyme melody, but there's also more than a little "Black Skinhead" and "Night of the Dancing Flame," and how many teen sensations can you conjure those references up for? [9]

Stephen Eisermann: Billie Eilish, especially here, is the exact representation of what would happen if Lorde pulled a Jack Skellington and entered the portal in the trees to find herself in Halloween Town. The same intriguing vocal tics, off-beat metaphors, and bold production choices -- just decorated with horror-tinged jack-o-lanterns and ghost sheets. In other words, I love Billie and I love this song. [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: "Bury a Friend" is less a song and more an intentionally jarring collection of phrases -- even Eilish's individual lines sound cut off, as if they've been reassembled from a previously coherent whole. Not every piece works -- Crooks' vocal additions are unnecessary and some of Eilish's longer phrasings in the bridge are too stylized. Moreover, the picture that this collage is supposed to be forming never gets cleared up. And yet there's almost an illicit thrill to listening to a pop song that sounds like this, in all of its chaotic terror and joy. [6]

Edward Okulicz: In truth, this song feels like it runs out of gas, but its first 30 seconds are incredibly arresting. It's not that the rest of it is bad, I mean there's a bit where she sounds exactly like Róisín Murphy and that's never bad. Over the course of a bunch of singles, Eilish has used lots of existing musical tropes in an interesting way and built up a style that's unmistakeably her -- maybe I'm just disappointed she's taken it to complete fruition in half a minute and maybe there's nowhere else for her to go but to do a full-on macabre Glitterbeat thing. She's got fans that'll go with her to any place she chooses. [8]

Taylor Alatorre: I'm inclined to dislike most of the well-manicured teenage dramascapes that make up Billie Eilish's discography so far. Maybe it's the narcissism of generational differences -- sure, I was moody and disaffected as a 17-year-old, but I wasn't this kind of moody and disaffected. You're doing anhedonia all wrong, kids! Yet somehow, "Bury a Friend" is able to dislodge me from this self-consciousness by brandishing its own self-consciousness as a weapon and waging a merry war on itself. It's a staging ground for a bunch of one-off experiments and on-the-nose signifiers and 2spooky vocal tics and vintage 2013 alt-pop tropes, all of which seem to communicate: "This is a song that I wrote, and I can debase it however I want." It's squeamish about its own existence yet sure of its purpose, with a simple driving beat that yields to miscellany while warding off the specters of musical theater. Its high point is an archly written low point: the sneeringly drawn out "wowww." in response to a blunt confession of suicidality. If it turns out that reducing the stigma doesn't always lead to better outcomes, at least we got some good banter out of it. [8]

Joshua Copperman: Huh, I guess we are seeing the beauty at the end of culture. And it's suicidal, it's offensive, it's ugly. Then it's fake-deep, and it's edgy, because Heaven forbid we legitimize the concerns of teenagers. The common thing is supposed to be how, as a teenager, everything feels like it matters, but today's teens are growing up in a political moment when nothing feels like it does, if it ever will again. Okay, that's a bit much -- there's a chance that actual teens aren't like this, and this is what people whose brains have been poisoned by Twitter pundits think teenagers must be like. It can't be a huge coincidence, though, that "I wanna end me," "why do you care for me?" and "I'm too expensive!!!" all wound up in a Top 20 hit by a 17-year-old. Like any good writer, Eilish sublimates those fears into a horror movie song from the point of view of the monster under her bed, a pure Tumblr or r/writingprompts move. But with this many Spotify plays, with this much success, it's hard to shake the feeling that along with the stellar "idontwannnabeyouanymore," Eilish is actually onto something with The Youths. Finneas O'Connor's bonkers production, with dentist drills and the 12/8 "Black Skinhead" bounce, certainly helps this stand out. (Rob Kinelski, too, has crafted a mix more interesting than anything his more successful contemporaries like Serban Ghenea have done lately.) Underneath the grimdarkness, what really separates Eilish is the sense of humor; the nursery rhyme bridge seemed a bit obvious, but after hearing songs like "Bad Guy," Eilish sounds completely aware of the tropes she is using. I have no doubt this blurb will age badly if her music gets worse after this, but who cares when there's not much aging left to do? Lead us into the apocalypse, Billie and Finneas! [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Billie Eilish #pop #music #music review #writing

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weshallneverrevolt · 6 years

Text

Trauma! at the Disco: “This is Gospel” and the Ghosts of Mental Illness

Like many people my age, I have a soft spot for mid-00s rock music. Being a teenage music listener in that time was very exciting; MySpace was thriving, and it opened up previously obscure genres. Before then, I doubt most people my age had never heard emo, or horrorcore, or post-hardcore. But by the time 2005 hit, we were all awash in black clothing and crunchy guitar riffs and lyrics about dying.

We loved this music for its emotional rawness, despite its clumsiness. If you listen to, say, Hawthorne Heights in 2018, lyrics like “cut my wrists and black my eyes” are cringey enough to be physically painful. But for a teenager of the time – even one not actually self-harming – there was nothing more cathartic than these over-the-top one liners.

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Still, the emotional truth was there, underneath layers of embarrassment. We can still feel it today, as one of those bands – Panic! at the Disco – is still capable of writing an emotional powerhouse of a song. That song in question is called “This is Gospel,” and for disaffected millennials it may be more cathartic than ever.

Note: this essay addresses psychological trauma, alcoholism, and substance abuse. Read with care if those things may upset you or hamper your path to recovery.

As we’ve all grown up, very few bands from the emo era have had real staying power. The ones that do embrace a theatrical edge that stretches beyond their genre. For instance, My Chemical Romance took teenage angst and made it into a Queen-esque rock opera called The Black Parade, and Skrillex parlayed his role in From First to Last into the equally angry, frenetic dubstep phenomenon.

This makes Panic! At the Disco especially interesting. Even on release of their debut, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, these guys were obviously something different. There was no screaming. The music was tinged with drum machines and accordions. Singer Brendon Urie’s voice was bright, clear, and almost operatic. The lyrics were literary – freshman year “I just read Fight Club” literary, sure, but still literary. Yet underneath these new elements beat the same teenage energy, where casual hookups were epic romances and someone not answering your text was the ultimate betrayal.

Though all of the original band members except Urie have since left, Panic! are still putting out albums in 2018. Their newest, Pray for the Wicked, sounds almost nothing like their debut. Given the band’s tumultuous history and shifting lineup, such a shakeup in their sound is understandable. Most of their original fans are probably as lukewarm on their current catalog as I am, but they’ve found their lane and stuck to it.

One element of the original sound, however, still persists: Brendon Urie can sing his ass off.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the piano version of “This is Gospel,” from their 2013 album Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die. The album version has the bombastic, electronic arena rock sound other bands from their era have (unfortunately) gravitated to; it’s rather generic, and the over-the-top production and poor mastering drown out Brendon’s voice.

But the band also released a gorgeous, stripped-down piano version, and it’s that version that really matters.

I mentioned earlier that Panic! has a bit of a tumultuous history. They started making music in their late teens, and when “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” launched their careers, they were too young to handle the fame. That had the most pronounced effect on drummer Spencer Smith, who eventually left the band due to his persistent drug and alcohol problems. Being a rock star is hard, but being a rock star at 19 sounds awful.

Per his own annotations on Genius, Brendan Urie wrote “This is Gospel” about Spencer’s addiction. It’s obvious from the lyrics, which are equal parts rage and a desperate plea. He leads off with this biblical verse:

This is gospel, for the fallen ones

Locked away in permanent slumber

Assembling their philosophies

From pieces of broken memories

From there, the song builds to a soaring chorus with the refrain of “if you love me, let me go.” Brendon’s voice is at once powerful and delicate, and his lyrics – comparing words to knives, expressing a “fear of falling apart” – convey a suffering but authentic friendship. Brendon’s anger is not at Spencer, but instead at Spencer’s addiction, a disease and all the awful things that caused it to fester.

Backing up to the opening verse, that biblical theme runs throughout the song. For Brendon, his friend’s addiction feels religious. It doesn’t always make sense, and his friend doesn’t always believe in it, but it still shapes his life. If you grow up religious, you can renounce it when you’re older…but the memories still persist.

Addiction and trauma can go hand-in-hand, but even separately they are almost mirror images. As an addict might drink til blackout night after night, a traumatized person relives their troubled past by acting out, or self-harming, or self-loathing. It’s a cycle you get trapped in, and most of it is tied to something that, far in the past, really messed you up. It becomes a set of rules you live by. A gospel.

There is a concept in psychology called the "repetition compulsion." It's the idea that most human behavior is driven by a need to relive past experiences, even if those past experiences were harmful. It's why people can repeatedly date terrible partners, why addicts can relapse, and why parents who abuse their kids were often abused themselves. Often, these people know what they're doing is wrong. They know they are hurting themselves and others. They fully understand that they should not do these things.

And yet, there is a powerful, emotional tug binding them to their trauma, one they may never overcome. It’s a past assembled “from pieces of broken memories.”

In this way, trauma is scripture, both functionally and figuratively. Like the Bible or Qur'an, it's a way of dealing with huge questions. Why am I here? Why do people do bad things? Why does my heart hurt so much? Trauma provides the earliest and most convenient answers, with the unfortunate caveat that those answers usually hurt you.

Brendon Urie was raised in the Mormon church, and left when he was 17. As a pansexual, slim suit-wearing singer in a rock band, he's pretty far from his LDS roots. Perhaps this is why his performance here - and his lyrics - are so heartfelt. Coming to terms with your trauma often feels like renouncing a religion, complete with all the burned bridges, strained family relationships, and sense of being eternally lost.

The aching truth of surviving trauma is that it follows you forever. It gives you rules for how you think, how you maintain relationships, how you view yourself. Because of those rules, you think it gives you stability. Sometimes that stability feels like love, in the same way that a good partner makes you feel safe. It's precious predictability. But if your trauma truly loved you, then - as Brendon sings - it would let you go. Admitting that is both important and unimaginably painful.

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Another of my favorite vocalists, Frank Ocean, has a similarly beautiful ballad called "Bad Religion." In it, he croons "if it brings me to my knees, it's a bad religion." Trauma is a bad religion, and worse than any of the others we create, it is often one we cannot choose. Leaving it behind feels like betraying an old friend. It’s a "fear of falling apart."

If trauma is the holy book of our lives, we can only move forward by burning it. Build a pyre with your trauma and stoke the flames until the heat frightens you. Let it all burn to the ground. Use the ashes as war paint, and maybe listen to Brendon’s advice:

Don't try to sleep through the end of the world

And bury me alive

Cause I won’t give up without a fight

#panic at the disco #brendon urie #this is gospel #too weird to live too rare to die #music #emo #2000s #2000s music #criticism #mental health #addiction #trauma #mental illness #my chemical romance #frank ocean #spencer smith #essay #why is it good #tw self harm

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aprillikesthings · 6 years

Note

Ok i didn't read the questions, I'm just keysmashing basically! FJOSMW

GOOD LORD well for the record I only read a few of these myself, so this is gonna be An Adventure For All:

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom

I never really leave a fandom, not completely; so I’m gonna go with “which one was my primary fandom for the longest,” in which case Harry Potter--though really it would be more accurate to say I was in the Harry/Draco fandom, and there were several years in which my only participation was reading the twice-yearly fic fests, plus anything new from fave authors. Still, we’re talking 2004 or so to 2012.

J - Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr

Hamilton. I’m not a musicals person (I can rarely understand sung lyrics), but at one point it was suddenly half my dash, like, overnight; and when I found out that it was sung all the way through and all the lyrics were available (with annotations) on genius dot com, I gave in; and read along while listening.

Also Welcome to Night Vale, now that I’m thinking about it.

O - Choose a song at random, which OTP does it remind you of

At some point a couple of years ago I remembered that the song Possession existed and realized “holy shit this is perfect for Jasper and Lapis” and proceeded to go through the jaspis tag and filling up my queue while listening to it over and over.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon

(this is oddly worded) I was very pleased when I discovered that I’m not the only person who thinks Amethyst used to swear like a sailor and had to train herself out of it when Steven came to live with them.

M - Your favorite fanart or fanartist

WHAT, LIKE, ONLY ONE??????

hhhhh if I had to pick one single piece of fan art the first thing that comes to mind is this one; I have spent......a long-ass time staring at it and have had it open in a tab for days on end multiple times.

W - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms

(lol none of these are gonna be a surprise I feel like)ElfQuest: KahviLord of the Rings: MerryHarry Potter: Draco Malfoy, but the fanon version of him tbh Sherlock: yeah Sherlock himself, which is uncreative, but there we areSteven Universe: Amethyst

#ask meme #life as a fan #thank you!!!#homosociallyyours

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iam-valrie · 2 years

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“About Adele on ‘30′”

Reaction/Review paper written by Marie Rosalina Valencia (Grade 12 HUMSS Quartz)

Famous English singer and songwriter Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (just known as Adele) has returned to the studio and has recorded her new album “30”-her fourth studio album released after six years. Her album was released on November 19, 2021-a month after she released her single “Easy on Me”. According to Genius, other than Adele herself, the writers of the songs from the album were Erroll Garner, musicians Inflo, Ludwig Göransson, producers Greg Kurstin, Max Martin, Tobias Jesso Jr. and Shellback. Other musicians include Chris Dave, Joey Pecoraro, David Campbell and Serena Göransson. The sound engineers who worked on her album were also Inflo, Riley Mackin, Shawn Everett, Steve Churchyard, Tom Campbell, Alex Pasco, Brian Rajaratnam, Julian Berg, Randy Merrill, Bryce Bordone, Todd Monfalcone, Șerban Ghenea, John Hanes, Matt Scatchell, and Tom Elmhirst.

The “30” album includes twelve hits on the tracklist if not looking at the Target Exclusive tracklist. The first song is “Stranger’s By Nature”, second song is “Easy on Me”, third song is “My Little Love”, fourth song is “Cry Your Heart Out”, fifth song is “Oh My God”, sixth song is “Can I Get It”, seventh song is “I Drink Wine”, eighth song is “All Night Parking” where Erroll Garner was featured with his great piano skills, ninth song is “Woman Like Me”, tenth song is “Hold On”, eleventh song is “To Be Loved” and the twelfth and last song is “Love is a Game”. On the Target Exclusive tracklist, the order of the twelve hits is the same-the songs that follow after considering the album as the deluxe version already in order are “Wild Wild West”, “Can’t Be Together”, and the duet version of “Easy on me” that featured Chris Stapleton-consisting a total of fifteen hits.

Each of the songs have their own meaning based on how the listener interprets the message or the lyrics of it-although the official meaning of the songs can be found on Genius some annotated by the fans and followers of the singer, and some annotated by Adele herself through interviews. Adele expresses her sincerity by being open to the listeners about the experiences and problems she has been facing recently-about her divorce with her ex-husband Simon Konecki, being famous, being a mother raising a child despite being famous, and having to deal with the pain of heartache and heartbreak and how she was able to get through it all.

As a music lover, I have heard some of Adele’s previous albums with the help of my mother since she was the one who was mostly interested to hear Adele’s work. I was glad to know that Adele was back after a while on hiatus and I have listened to “30” alone twice on SoundCloud and Spotify and after hearing all of the songs the second time, I have realized how there are three songs on the album I was able to relate to and would play on repeat in a single day. The three songs I liked listening to are as follows-first song I liked is “Cry Your Heart Out” because of the lyrics “When I walk in a room I’m invisible, I feel like a ghost”, “I created this storm, it’s only fair I have to sit in its rain” and “When you’re in doubt, go at your own pace”, second and third songs I liked are from the deluxe version of the album “Wild Wild West”’s lyrics “From LA to San Francisco, I lost my mind in San Bernardino, even Chula Vista and Modesto, I break my heart wherever I go” and “Can’t Be Together”’s bridge “Since we were together everybody's change, our reflections in the mirror no longer look the same. And we're only just beginning to live the lives we'll make, but I will always miss you at the end of each day” and the outro “But we can't be together.. no, we won't be together”. I love how Adele was experimenting with her sound in music by changing her style a bit compared to her other albums. I would rate the album 9/10, mainly because only these three songs stood out to me even though the other songs sound great, some of the songs on the album sound a bit repetitive with the music-but that’s just my opinion and critique on it.

Anyone can listen to Adele’s brand new album “30” as long as the songs stay uploaded for free on various music applications and websites.

Photo from Billboard

#reactionpaper #reviewpaper #reactionandreviewpaper #cnf #aboutadeleon30 #adele #stream30 #originalwork #byrie

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yr-bed · 3 years

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Referencesreferencesreferences

Lauren Oyler is my favourite living critic, and I’m excited to read her debut novel Fake Accounts. I’ve been reading a lot of the press around it, including this interview with The Atlantic where she answers the question “ To what extent do conspiracy theories and fiction relate to each other?” thusly

To great extent! You could say conspiracy theories are like bad fiction, which attempts to tie everything up and explain it all. Neither leave room for randomness or pointlessness or meaninglessness. But life is full of all these, and our desire to eliminate them leads us down narrower and narrower paths.

There’s also a tendency to read symbols and metaphors in life the way we read them in fiction, which creates all sorts of problems. When you read symbols and metaphors in fiction, you know where they came from: the author. If you find a symbol or metaphor in life, you might start freaking out about where it came from and what it really means. The specifics of the stories conspiracists tell tend to camouflage the more interesting elements about them, which to me are all about (1) motivation—why am [I] being told this?—and (2) their unstable relationship to the real: Some aspect of this could actually be true, or come from something real. Both are essential elements of fiction as well.

Which, first of all, is a characteristically incisive read on the proliferation of conspiracy theories within modern western political discourse. It also resurfaced in my mind today, a couple of weeks after I first read it, whilst scrolling through the Genius entries for songs from Black Country, New Road’s hot-off-the-press debut album, For the first time.

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I really really like For the first time. Opening your debut album with an instrumental called “Instrumental” and ending with a song called “Opus” are a sandwich of baller moves. “Track X” is what a love song written by Steve Reich might sound like. I’m not the only one to notice that considerable changes had been made to the lyrics and arrangements of pre-album singles “Athen’s, France” and “Sunglasses,” the latter of which was one of my most-listened songs in 2019 and 2020, if Spotify’s records are to be believed. Not being smart enough to figure out the changes for myself, and heeding Jarvis’s First Law, I went over to the often-ironically-named Genius with the expectation that the site’s membership may well have crowd-sourced annotations which would do the heavy analytical lifting for me.

[Adam Curtis voice] And then, something strange happened. Well, maybe not strange, but sort of interesting. The problem with Genius has been well documented by more intelligent documenters than I, as are the potential pitfalls of crowdsourcing knowledge in general. In this particular instance, the phenomena I happened upon wasn’t the proliferation of white boys clumsily trying to pick apart the internal rhymes and culturally-specific reference points of trap songs, but a form of context collapse typical of a lot of so-called cultural critiques you get on the Internet of 2021.

Talking to everyone and talking to no-one has lead to a curious reading of Black Country, New Road’s lyrics (part of a verbose, hyper-referential scene that primarily exists in my head, alongside Squid). Rather than drawing on the specific socioeconomic and cultural context the band exist in, and which they often directly call out in their music, there’s a grasping to read symbols and metaphors in an almost wilfully literal and dull fashion. And imho it sucks!

Above is a representative example from the Genius page for the single version of “Sunglasses.” It’s a song which wields the cultural signifiers of comfortable middle class existence in modern Britain with equal parts disgust and familiarity. Amongst The Guardian-friendly reference points are Nutribullets, single malt whiskey, complaining about mediocre theatre and, in the killer of an opening line, multi-part Danish crime dramas of the sort that air on BBC Four. All of these work in concert to produce, in the words of frontman Isaac Wood, a portrait of a family of “wealth or affluence.” Crucially, however, not one “written from a critical or even external position,” which is one of the more interesting aspects of the song (and the band in general), occupying as they do a self-reflexively privileged position not dissimilar to the Metropolitan Liberal Elite’s satirical voice of choice, Stewart Lee. It makes things slipperier, harder to gain purchase on. The mix of the specific and abstract in the song is intentional: you’re never going to uncover a “true meaning,” but you can at least get a sense of what they’re trying to communicate.

What the ironically-named Genius annotators choose to focus on, however, is not this fairly obvious deployment of cultural symbols amidst an otherwise allusive and elusive set of lyrics, but unpicking precisely which six-part Danish crime drama is being referenced. I will charitably admit that yes, perhaps there is a specific show Wood is referencing in his lyrics here, but: who gives a shit? That’s besides the point! “Knowing” that he’s singing about something called The Jack of Hearts doesn’t add anything to the song (it also belies a further cultural ignorance in that the phrase is clearly used here, paired with The Fonz, as a somewhat-ironic iconic “Cool Guy”). Susie Sonts would be spinning in her grave if she got anywhere near this shit.

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In “Against Interpretation”, one of the foundational texts which informed my way of thinking about art and criticism and I would argue is crucial in navigating the anaemic and non-confrontational symbol-chasers of today, Susan Sontag rails against the “contemporary zeal for the project of interpretation [...] often prompted by an open aggressiveness [...] The old style of interpretation was insistent, but respectful; it erected another meaning on top of the literal one. The modern style of interpretation excavates, and as it excavates, destroys.”

This is the dominant interpretative style of now. From politics to indie rock, there is a harried, prescriptive and literal approach to making sense of things, of settling on rote and superficial readings. A symbol has a literal meaning; A means A; references are not poetic allusions, but puzzle boxes to be cracked open and, once they have, mastered and then returned, inert and unusable, to the shelf. There are fewer attempts to approach texts in good faith, or to acknowledge the broader context in which people act and create, a bastardised deployment of Barthes which makes the word significantly less interesting, as opposed to the other way around. Do you think the couplet “Trips to B&Q with your other half / This is how the other half lives” in Squid’s “Houseplants” is part of a similarly vicious-yet-complicit takedown of middle class life, or calling out Jacob Riis’s 1890 work of photojournalism “documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums”?

There is a disengagement with context and, in its place, an analytical approach which -- in this instance -- appears to me to also shirk engagement with the “randomness or pointlessness or meaninglessness” of some of the cascading cavalcade of references, veiled and otherwise, culturally and personally specific, which is one of the most entertaining aspects of Black Country, New Road’s music. Instead it’s about finding a definitive meaning, often through the filter of other reference points which are not actually appropriate or relevant, as a sort of attempt to assert dominance over a text. As the conspiracy theorist incorrectly applies close reading to chaotic reality in order to create a kind of order, so the Genius annotator manages to lack the ability to apply close reading to a chaotic text. To further co-opt Oyler’s words, the paths ought to be sprawling off in all directions, rather than narrow and meticulously signposted.

Anyway. Back soon to actually talk about the changes made between the single and album versions of “Sunglasses” and “Athen’s, France,” with reference to Evangelion and Car Seat Headrest’s Twin Fantasy (Mirror to Mirror)/ (Face to Face)!

#black country new road #lauren oyler #susan sontag #criticism #context collapse #music journalism #genius

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anewhope4change-blog · 5 years

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The Struggle for Equality through Pop Culture

Maya Angelou (1928) vs. J Cole (2014)

Maya Angelou was born in 1928, the end of World War 1 and the beginning of “The Great Depression.” Maya Angelou’s poem “Equality” is a rhythmic poem built around the obliviousness of racism and culture ignoring the acts of racism. She talks about the people of this time, having the ability to hear and see African Americans but failing to actually listen to them. As Angelou talks about “whispers” in her poem, she is emphasizing the silence she feels. Angelou is a Civil Rights Activist and writes poems and short stories on culture and society. She writes from the perspective of an African American woman and speaks on how she feels against society and cultural differences. Angelou describes how society feels and how much society “cares” by saying “Take the blinders from your vision, take the padding from your ears and confess you've heard me crying, and admit you've seen my tears.” Finding equality is a problem but society does nothing to fix it or improve on society's ignorance. She repeats “Equality, I will be free” with the hope of change in the future. Angelou writes in hope for change. She wants to be heard and seen. Angelou makes a stand with her writing, motivating the readers to join the fight against racism. She wants society to pay attention, listen, and notice. She says “I” when describing her feelings and groups “we” when she describes what African Americans have gone through in the past and what she wants to see happen for them in the future. The strongest stanza in this poem was her first and second lines, “you declare you see me dimly” and “through a glass that will not shine.” In this stanza she compares herself, an African American woman, to glass, see through, clear, and shiny. Though she says “will not shine.” She uses the first line to mirror the second. Angelou is describing the glass as dim. She is saying though the idea of equality and living in a world where equality is respected and clear, it is not seen clearly and is also misunderstood. Let equality no longer be just a dream, a sheet of glass, or silenced thoughts.

Here we are, in the 2000s, still struggling for equality, a voice, and enough courage to take a stand. J Cole or Jermaine Lamarr Cole is a very famous rapper, songwriter, producer, and singer. His name is from the english origin and means “victorious people, dark skinned." Cole is a very popularly known icon in today’s rap culture. Cole has won album of the year twice, mvp of the year, and lyricist of the year 4 years in a row. He is known for rapping about the truth in society and the problems in his life he has faced or continues to face. He uses the internet to reflect on his internal and external pain in today’s cultural society. His song “Be free” was produced in 2014 to reflect on violence, racism, and police brutality. J. Cole’s chorus describes the act of imprisonment he feels to society, “All we wanna do is take the chains off, all we wanna do is be free.” He also says, “that their ain’t no gun they make that can kill my soul.” He is describing the act of silence. J Cole feels like society is silencing African Americans, like himself, in a sense of not being able to stick up for themselves and express how they feel towards the world of police brutality. J Cole speaks in perspective of himself and watching others go through the same. J Cole references Dorian Johnson, an NFL football player that witnessed the Michael Brown shooting in 2014, in Missouri, when an unarmed, 18 year old was shot in the streets by an officer. J Cole uses this horrific scene to help appeal to his emotions and his anger as he raps about a huge world problem of gun violence and police brutality. J Cole mentions in his song, “It don’t take no x-ray to see through my smile.” He is describing the act of faking happiness and how hard it is with acts of violence going on around us. J Cole calls his listeners to action to fight against acts of injustice. Cole performed live on The Late Show with David Letterman and surprised the crowd with an insightful change of lyrics. Cole added verses such as “Are we all alone?Fighting on our own. Please give me a chance. I don't wanna dance. Somethings got me down. I will stand my ground. Don't just stand around, don't just stand around” with a huge call to action for the audience to get up and help him stand up. He also said, “We so elated, we celebrated like Obama waited until his last day in office to tell the nation, brothers is getting their reparations, hey A man can dream, can't he? No disrespect, in terms of change I haven't seen any, maybe he had good intentions. But was stifled by the system and was sad to learn that he actually couldn't bring any,” referring to what was going on at the time when Obama was leaving office as he was fighting for African Americans to obtain money from the government for the past. Cole performs this song and each time, adds on to current events in the hope that one event will catch each listeners attention to join his fight.

Even Though these pieces of literature were written decades apart, they share the same powerful message. Angelou and Cole, both write in the views of African Americans who are silenced in their cultures and challenged in society. They both write and perform with hope filled minds to have the future change for the better. Reading and listening to two different styles written years apart, proves that the world is still oblivious to cultural differences and race equality. It shows that even time does not fix the way others are treated. No matter the point in time. Both literary pieces leave the open ended act of wanting the audience to take a stand. Angelou and J Cole both wrote and produced these pieces to open the eyes of readers, unsilence themselves in hope others will listen and spread the word to stand up against racism, police brutality, and gun violence. 5 years after “Be Free” was released and about 60 years after “Equality” was published, and these issues are still on today’s surface in 2019.

Works cited:

“J. Cole - Be Free Lyrics.” MetroLyrics, http://www.metrolyrics.com/be-free-lyrics-j-cole.html.

“J. Cole – Be Free (Live on The Late Show with David Letterman).” Genius, 10 Dec. 2014, https://genius.com/J-cole-be-free-live-on-the-late-show-with-david-letterman-lyrics.

“Maya Angelou – Equality.” Genius, https://genius.com/Maya-angelou-equality-annotated.

“Poetry of Maya Angelou.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 June 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_of_Maya_Angelou.

#pop culture #j. cole #jcole #j cole #maya angelou #equality #hip hop #rapping #civil rights #media

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ssaemchu · 7 years

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BTS members and lyrics: Rap Line

I’m doing an analysis of BTS members and the lyrics they write and how it shows their personalities!! Rap line post is gonna be LONG-ASS. Vocal line version here!!!

Namjoon OK YO there’s a lot to talk about when it comes to Rapmon ok but I’ll try to limit myself. First off, the man is a literal genius. Not just IQ-wise, but incredibly clever with his lyrics as well; his lyrics have really witty and intellectual references, that international fans need annotated translations because some of the things he writes are highly contextual to Korean hip-hop/street culture. He is acknowledged not just by the Kpop scene at large, but also by the underground rap scene and even collabed with MFBTY, LITERAL KOREAN RAP LEGENDS. Moreover, the way he writes to fit the groove and feel of the song is incredible. His rhythm is unique and even if you don’t know Korean, his rhymes are really catchy. And aside from his amazing rap, in general his song lyrics are very prose-like.

His mixtape is really reflective of his wit and skill as a lyricist. His raps often diss his haters who call him an idol rapper, a position which Namjoon used to hate but has now accepted as part of himself. Because he has never been one to conform with the crowd and is very individualistic, he doesn’t try to conform between ‘traditional’ hip-hop and ‘typical’ kpop raps, and he and BTS have almost created a sort of supergenre of kpop rapping, which raised the standards for all other kpop groups to follow. He is also very honest and writes about things that are not usually talked about in kpop. (For more proof of his wit just look for annotated translations.)

On a more personal note, i’d like to point to Whalien 52 and Reflection, which have very similar themes of loneliness. ok RM probably saw an article about that 52 hertz whale somewhere and thought wow that’s a metaphor for ME i should write a song about that whale Namjoon has never been one to hide his loneliness. As an introvert, he is most productive alone, but his introspection and his tendency to overthink makes him put a lot of pressure on himself, and he tends to be a perfectionist. He is always honest about this tendency through his lyrics and logs, which shows he’s aware of it. Reflection, in particular, well portrays the blurry line between being alone and being lonely. Ddukseom, he has mentioned before, is a place very close to his heart, and he goes there to write songs and be alone but still be surrounded by people. His honesty and intellect also makes him a good conversationalist, and he loves to talk about life and philosophy (just watch Bon Voyage s2). He is highly communicative and empathetic, which makes him a good leader. All in all, his lyrics show how he is highly empathetic and in tune with his feelings while also making them very relatable and digestible.

Hoseok J-hope isn’t as known as RM and Suga when it comes to writing songs. In their cyphers it is noticable that while RM and Suga are very intense and witty and are full-on dissing, J-hope’s raps are more of showing how successful they are as a group and that they back off, more defense than offense. However, this is not to say that he’s a bad rapper. J-hope’s style stands out the most out of the three of them because he adds a certain musicality to his lines, sometimes inserting some onomatopeia. Rather than rapid-fire, Hoseok’s rapping is more of a performance, an easier rhythm and flow that’s almost like singing, which is why I think he prefers trap style-rapping. It also suits his upbeat, energetic personality and his affinity for performing, more so than RM or Suga. RM has said that when it comes to producing songs, J-hope is better than him at coming up with catchy melodies.

1VERSE, which is the only mixtape he’s released so far (WHERE’S HIXTAPE), really shows his lyrical and melodic abilities. His rhymes are easy to listen to, but as I can’t speak Korean I can’t say much about being witty. That being said, Hoseok has a talent for making songs that make you want to dance!! MAMA, his solo song, is really personal to him, and you can tell from the lyrics how close he is to his mom. He talks about her to his members all the time. Despite his hyper image, he is a really warm and caring person. J-hope is one of the most thoughtful BTS members, and it shows in how he is the group’s moodmaker.

Yoongi Min Suga genius jjang jjang man boong boong!! Suga has participated in almost all of Bangtan’s songs along with RM. Unlike RM, Suga is better at making lyrics that fit the beat very well, along with melodies, so many of the songs he writes often make it into the final cuts (with the exception of the WINGS album bc he was busy with his mixtape). Similar to Namjoon, Suga often inserts references that would need annotations if you didn’t know the context. For some reason he’s known for his sexual innuendoes (”sending my listeners to Hong Kong with my tongue technology”). He also has a unique rhythm that’s a bit different from RM, although it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how they differ.

His lyrics are a lot more angsty, angry and dark. His mixtape AGUST D openly discusses his struggles with depression, OCD, social anxiety, and poverty. More than being tough or witty, Yoongi is very, very real. Like RM, he is very individualistic and introspective, and his lyrics show that. Unlike RM, Yoongi has a hard time being expressive so he takes it out on his songs. He’s expressed the duality of being an idol greedy for wealth and attention and having mental health issues. Because he had a difficult past, he doesn’t open up to people easily and acts cold, but because he knows how hard it is to feel loved, he is also very loving and caring to the members, even though he doesn’t always express it explicitly.

#bts #bangtan sonyeondan #bangtan #rap line #rapmonster #namjoon #suga #yoongi #jhope #hoseok #im in love #my own post

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iwrotemywayto-revolution · 7 years

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Can you imagine?

Request: You’re reading for Maria at the Hamilton workshop, but you’re far more interested in Eliza than Alexander.

Pairing: Phillipa Soo x reader

Warnings: none

Word count: 1,733

A/N: here’s day six of the @hamwriters‘ writeathon a bit late- also known as first time day! I know Pippa wasn’t actually part of the workshop cast but I’ve fiddled with it bc reasons. I’ve not written pippa x reader before so here goes

The room was empty except for a circle of chairs and a piano. You paused awkwardly in the doorway, checking the room number you had hastily scribbled down again. It definitely said room twenty, but what if you had heard wrong over the phone?

You wiped your hands on your jeans and walked in. “Hello?” you called apprehensively, peering around. You had had the call last night- Lin-Manuel Miranda of ‘In the Heights’ fame wanted you to read for a part in his new musical.

Which was apparently a rap musical about Alexander Hamilton. Okay.

Since no one else seemed to be there, you sat down in one of the chairs and fiddled with your phone, debating the merits of downloading an inane game to pass the time. You started to hum the song that had been on the radio in the taxi that had brought you there.

Almost ten minutes later, just as you were halfway through singing What the heck I gotta do, someone appeared in the doorway. “Hello, hello, hello!” Lin-Manuel Miranda grinned as he walked in, “sorry I’m late.”

You looked around at the other empty chairs. “It’s alright- you’re not the only one.”

He frowned, as if he’d only just noticed that the two of you were the only ones there. “That’s weird.” He pulled out his phone and fired off a text.

“I’m Y/N,” you said, half-getting out of your chair, “I’m reading for-” you checked your notes, “Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds?”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Lin held up his own script, which was covered in scribbled annotations in messy handwriting, “I’m your Hamilton.”

You raised an eyebrow and were about to respond when the doors open again and a couple of people arrived- you recognised Chris Jackson from In the Heights and Daveed Diggs, whose music you had started to listen to as soon as you found out he would be in the show.

You stayed sat in your chair as everyone started to settle down, some stopping to say hi to others before they made it to their seats. You looked to your right and felt your jaw drop. A beautiful girl, her dark hair pulled back in a high ponytail, and wearing a flowery scoop-neck and knee-length skirt, had taken the seat beside you.

She looked up and met your gaze. You hastily smiled. “Hi,” you said, voice higher than usual from nerves that made your heart thump particularly hard.

She smiled back and you knew you were lost- her smile was soft and gentle, her eyes kind and a dark brown. “Hi,” she said, “I’m Pippa.”

“Y/N,” you returned, throat dry, “Nice to meet you.”

Before you could make a fool of yourself, Lin clapped his hands and stood up. “So,” he grinned, “you’ve all heard my admittedly terrible demos, you’ve all got scripts. I’m Lin and this,” Lin gestured to Alex, who stood up from behind his keyboard and waved, “is the genius behind the music, Alex Lacamoire.”

Everyone murmured a hello as Lin took a seat. Alex cleared his throat. “We’ll run through the songs in order,” he said, “starting with Alexander Hamilton.” He sat down again and played a couple of scales. “Is everyone warmed up?”

You nodded, having done some exercises before everyone else arrived. Everyone else nodded too, and you wondered if that had been why they were late.

Scanning the lyrics for Alexander Hamilton again, you remembered that you only had the one line in it: “Me? I loved him”, so you settled back to hear everyone else.

Utkarsh grinned and introduced the musical as Burr, looking as if he wanted to be moving about the room even though it was a read-through. Chris, Javier, Joshua, and Daveed joined soon after. It felt somehow tense but freeing to be in the room- it felt like the beginning of something, you realised.

Then Pippa started to sing- quietly, soprano- and you saw her face change with real emotion. Too quickly her part was over and you joined in with the others to sing the ensemble part.

Alex gave feedback after you finished running through the first two songs and Lin scribbled furiously all over his script and sheet music, muttering about tempo and line changes as he did so. He asked Chris to try some new lyrics, got Daveed to swap a line with Joshua, and asked Pippa to sing her line with a crescendo instead of diminuendo and a slightly different inflection.

The next two songs went much the same, except that you only sang the ensemble parts, watching Lin rap his way through My Shot with impressive speed. Then you moved onto Schuyler Sisters. You, Pippa, and Anika all got up so Lin could see your dynamics, standing in the middle of the circle of chairs.

Utkarsh narrated again from the sidelines and your stomach did a flip when Pippa took your hand to ‘tug’ you into the circle properly. You bumped your hip against hers when you sang your first line, almost stuttering when she returned the gesture. Everyone sang the ensemble part and you stepped forward.

You put your hands on your hips and turned to face your ‘sisters’, “Daddy said to be home by sundown-”

Anika shrugged. “Daddy doesn’t need to know.”

You pouted. “Daddy said not to go downtown-”

Pippa raised an eyebrow and pointed towards the door, "Like I said you're free to go-"

After Schuyler Sisters you didn’t have much to do beyond singing the ensemble part. Instead you sat on your chair and watched Pippa perform Helpless, something twisting tightly in your chest when she kissed Lin at the end.

You wondered if you could change Satisfied to be about Eliza instead.

It was lunch time before you reached the end of the first act. “Well done,” Lin called to everyone after the end of Non-Stop, “you can all take an hour or so for lunch and afterwards we’ll work on Act two.”

“After we try some changes to Non-Stop,” Alex interrupted firmly, making everybody grin. There hadn’t been a single song that hadn’t been followed by Lin scribbling on his script and Alex on his sheet music, followed immediately by calls for corrections or alterations.

You grabbed your bag, wondering where to go. You didn’t know many places around the are but surely there’d be a Starbucks or something nearby. As you stuffed your jumper into your bag, you heard someone clear their throat.

You straightened to find Pippa standing there, a nervous smile on her face. “Do you have plans for lunch?” she asked, adjusting the strap of her bag, “I was wondering if you wanted to grab something- there’s a nice café around the corner-”

You were so surprised that you did nothing but gape for a moment. Pippa’s smile faded. “If you don’t want to-”

“No I do!” you found your voice and interrupted her, “I’d love to.”

Pippa’s smile returned full-force and she fell into step beside you as you headed out, waving goodbye to Lin and Alex where they were hunched over Lin’s script, whispering and scribbling.

You and Pippa settled down in the corner of the café, hot drinks and sandwiches cluttering up the tiny table. “So,” Pippa said as she pulled her hair out of its ponytail, “how did you end up here?”

“I worked with Lac on a project a couple of months ago,” you explained. You took a bite of your sandwich, “I wasn’t singing for him, just managing some stuff- but he heard me in the break room.”

Pippa laughed and raised her cup. “To what a little break room singing can do,” she suggested. You giggled and raised your cup too, tapping it against hers. You both took a sip, wincing when you realised it was still a little too hot to drink.

“Broadway, huh?” Pippa gazed dreamily out of the window in the direction of the Richard Rogers, “Can you imagine?”

You could see Pippa up there, inspiring joy and sadness and astonishment. “Yeah,” you murmured. Her hand was resting on the table and you wondered if it would be too soon to take it.

The first song after you came back was ensemble time for you again. Pippa joined you as you welcome Daveed, cocky and enthusiastic as Jefferson, home again. Then you sat back to watch Lin and Daveed spit their arguments to each other and then watched Javier and Pippa try to persuade Lin to take a break.

Javier knelt down to be Philip, miming the piano tune that Lac played in the intro. You stifled a smile and bit back a laugh when Pippa tried to beat-box. “I’ll learn,” she promised Lin in the feedback session. He gave her a hard look but nodded.

“For this one, Y/N,” Lin said, “your job is to be sexy.”

You felt your cheeks heat up and stammered out your agreement. You saw Pippa grin out of the corner of your eye and steeled yourself to try your best. Lin had reassured you that you didn’t need to kiss him, even though it was scripted.

Utkarsh introduced the scene again, handing over the narration to Lin after a moment. You stared at your line and anxiously calculated your cue. “I know you are a man of honour,” you sang, meeting Lin’s gaze. He was giving you his best smoulder and you fought back a grin, “I’m so sorry to bother you at home.”

You gathered your things, ready to leave. Lin and Alex had praised everyone’s efforts and reminded you to return next week to work with any changes that they might have made during the week. You shouldered your bag and turned to go, only to find Pippa standing there.

“This is starting to become a regular thing,” you laughed, stepping back a little.

Pippa laughed. “I was wondering...” she looked uncertain, poised on the balls of her feet as if she was about to run for it, “if you wanted to grab dinner with me.” She flushed a pretty pink and lowered her gaze, “you know, as a date.”

You took her hand hesitantly and squeezed it. “I’d love that,” you said quietly, relieved when she squeezed back.

The two of you headed out, hands hesitantly linked between you. You could have sworn you saw Lin wink at you as you passed him, but brushed it off. You’d rather have Eliza.

#phillipa soo x reader #pippa soo x reader #hamwriters #hamwriters writeathon #hamilton cast x reader #phillipa soo imagine #phillipa soo imagines

290 notes · View notes

drippeddaily · 6 years

Text

Album of the Year #23: Smino - blkswn

ARTIST: SMINO

PROJECT: blkswn

LISTEN

SPOTIFY

SOUNDCLOUD

APPLE MUSIC

BACKGROUND

Christopher Smith Jr., from St. Louis, Missouri, first made his way into the local music scene in 2012 under the name C. Smi, which he later changed to Smino in 2015 with the release of his debut EP, ‘S!Ck S!Ck S!Ck’. This EP was produced exclusively by Monte Booker, a member of Smino’s collective ‘Zero Fatigue’. Only two months after its release, Smino then went on to put out a second EP, also produced by Monte Booker, titled blkjuptr. Blkjuptr was met with generally positive feedback, propelling Smino’s musical career forwards and helping him find himself in the eyes of critics and bloggers.

After this second EP, it would be a little over a year before the world heard from Smino again, however, needless to say, it wasn’t prepared in the least for what was to come.

REVIEW

Blkswn.

In this full length debut album, with 18 songs spread over an hour and three minutes, Smino puts on display a sonic spectacle as he effortlessly weaves through musical genres, fusing hip hop with elements of funk, soul, and RnB.

The project kicks off with what is probably its smoothest track. Entitled ‘Wild Irish Roses’, Monte Booker instantly sets a funky tone for the track with a bubbly synth accompanied by some hi hats. This tone is carried through the rest of the album as well and plays a huge role in binding the album together. Smino is quick to jump in with a catchy, yet calm flow which helps convey a relaxed atmosphere as he tells a story of himself inviting a girl to ride around town with him in search of ‘Wild Irish Roses’ (a brand of wine) - a thinly-veiled sexual proposition. All in all, ‘Wild Irish Roses’, perhaps my favourite track off the album, is a very strong opener that sets both the sonic and thematic tone for the rest of the project.

With the way they seamlessly blend into each other, the next two tracks ‘Maraca’ and ‘Glass Flows’ could easily have been passed off as one long song. Smino’s versatility is blatantly apparent here as he surprises the listeners with a switch from an experimental intro verse to a very funky chorus on ‘Glass Flows’. His verses have a playful vibe to them, as he isn’t afraid to switch from singing lines to rapping lines to going into falsetto and then doing it over and over, all while somehow making the entire thing sound cohesive and well thought out. While the subject matter of the songs on the album revolves almost exclusively around Smino’s relationships with women, he keeps the content fresh by addressing various aspects of the relationships, each with varying levels of seriousness. This can be seen as he switches from dabbling in playful lyrics with sexual connotations in ‘Maraca’ to highlighting the precarious nature of his relationship with a woman in ‘Glass Flows’.

The song “Glass Flows” also marks the appearance of Ravyn Lenae, the first of six female features on blkswn. In this remarkably well executed track, her and Smino exchange bars, providing both Smino, and his female companion’s perspective on their relationship.

The next track, Flea Flicka switches the vibe up to a funkier and happier tone. And while it plays its role in the progression of the album, I personally didn’t welcome this departure from the atmosphere Smino had created thus far. This track didn’t feel as if it was put together all that well, comprising only two verses - a guest feature from Bari, and a second verse from Smino - with no hook or bridge to seperate them. A filler track for me, however, that is to be expected in any full length album.

After ‘Flea Flicka’, the album really starts to take shape and define itself. Spitshine takes its place as the grooviest track on the album for me, with a simple yet catchy melody and Smino doing what he does best with his innovative vocal delivery

Netflix and Dusse takes its place as one of the more playful tracks on the album. As its name would suggest, it’s about Smino trying to get acquainted with a girl. The lyrics on this track definitely stand out as Smino finds three different ways to describe that ass, two of them in the same verse.

That ass a creature

That ass on Sunset Hill, a beautiful view

That ass look like a fuckin' grapefruit

His creative way with words is also very much visible on this track with bars like

Pink Caddy, Pepto Bismol-bile

Suggesting that the colour of his caddy is similar to that of Pepto Bismol, going as far as to call it his Pepto Bismol-bile (like Batmobile).

Been on my brain, Miss Serotonin

In this line, he calls this track’s girl his Miss Serotonin - Serotonin being a chemical which contributes to feelings of joy and happiness in the brain.

The next track on the album, Anita, is one of the album’s defining/iconic tracks. Released as one of two singles prior to the album’s release, Anita is a track involving Smino showing appreciation for all the women who’ve had an impact on him, using the name ‘Anita’ as a general name for all of them. He uses the verses on this track to talk about his city, St. Louis, his family, and his crew, tying it up at the end with a beautiful outro where he spells out the words to the sentence, “Anita, I need her” over and over.

Lobby Kall is a fun track and not much more than that. It lets the album breathe after Anita and doesn’t say too much. With barely any Genius annotations to help me on this track, I’m quite lost as to what the verse was actually about. However, the track does end with a small skit which is presumably Smino turning up at his house drunk in the late of the night, with his girl who’s inside refusing to open the door. This is a set up for the progression of the album as Smino addresses his problems with drinking and smoking.

Edgar Allan Poe’d Up starts with what sounds like Smino bragging about smoking, drinking, and having sex, however he is quick to admit that he’s stuck in a cycle which has left him feeling mundane. Furthermore, he recounts his plans to break this cycle which unfortunately end up being ruined by a meddling shawty who sends him nudes, which then sent him spiralling back. He reverts to rapping about the girl’s body and manages to find yet another way to describe a girl’s head game before ending the verse. This track has a feature from TheMIND which I didn’t find memorable at all, however it does add to the track as TheMIND talks about his struggles with expressing his emotions and instead choosing to get over them by drinking.

Father Son Holy Smoke was the first song I listened to on the album because I thought the name was cool, before going to the start of the album and listening to the whole thing over and over. As is tradition, Smino throws in a bar about getting head, this time getting over with it at the very start. He has wide array of flows for this song which he weaves together beautifully. What Edgar Allan Poe’d was to Smino’s drinking, Father Son Holy Smoke is to Smino’s smoking, however, the latter is far better executed in my opinion. Through the track, Smino speaks of how smoking weed helps cool his mind, yet still manages to acknowledge it as an addiction which he indulges in to avoid his problems.

On B Role, Smino goes off with a flow that you can’t help but bob your head to. That being said though, this is a song which I don’t feel belongs on the album, despite liking it outside the album’s context quite a bit. The track starts off with an edgy crushed guitar riff which instantly deviates from the atmosphere that had been set up till now in too abrupt a fashion. With a better intro transition, it could have found its place, especially keeping in mind that the following track has a similar style of production too, alas imperfections are bound to be found on an 18 track project.

Blkoscars is another song on this project which I’m not fond of. It feels like the production is venturing into areas of experimental music which just leave you slightly confused after listening, or maybe it’s just me. Anyways tho, Jay2 starts off the song with a feature verse and he seems to be rapping like he’s trying to prove something. A good verse, yet once again, out of place for me. Smino comes in towards the second half to rescue the track with his funky singing. This is one of those songs which I only listen to when I’m going through the whole project - didn’t even remember what it sounded like when I started writing this.

The title track’s finally upon us at this point and it does amazingly well to bring the album back to its roots. The production’s free of its edginess and has reverted back to its laidback style. Smino goes Boom Boom Boom Sminoshima (as in Hiroshima) just as the kick kicks in with the bass and everything feels fine again. The singing on this song is snappy. Another interesting aspect is that Smino’s devoted the track to talking about his grind and shifted the focus from girls, drinking, and smoking. He also manages to throw in the line Smi-no, more like Smi-yeah, which is nice, I guess.

Long Run’s got an intro which reminds of the one on Maraca. It sets a vibe and that vibe completely changes soon as the verse starts. Once again he’s talking about a topic which although he has brought up, he hasn’t devoted a lot of time to on a track. Smino reflects on his childhood, where he grew up, and his community. Via Rose features on the chorus and delivers her vocals beautifully - probably my favourite feature on the album alongside Ravyn Lenae.

I feel like Innamission is one of those songs you sleep on for a long time until it comes up on shuffle one day and suddenly you open your eyes. Smino starts off by shouting out his crew, followed by a verse, which is solid. And then a prechorus, which is kind of exciting. But then the chorus comes on and without doubt, it’s the dopest thing you’ve heard in a good minute. I played that on the bus one time, and it was a bit disappointing when no one lit up when the chorus came on. I think it takes a couple of listens before it hits you. Or maybe it was just me.

Silk Pillows sounds like it’s rehashing a couple of ideas we’ve already heard on the album. Akenya brings a decent verse to the song, but for the most part this song felt like something I’d already heard over the last 20 minutes of listening to the album. However, we do see Smino go back to making sexual references in the track after a severe drought over the course of the last three songs. He says "D go deeper than an 808, boom boom boom". He also says "You a vet? I'm a dog", which makes me wonder what Smino thinks a vet does, but good music’s meant to raise questions so in its own way, this is getting the job done.

The production on Ricky Millions is very very nice. It’s something about the chords which makes it stand out. Smino’s got some catchy bars and Drea Smith captures the vibe of this track perfectly. The mixing on her vocals is done really well. All in all, I rate this track. It shows that Smino still has some tricks left up his sleeves, even towards the end of this 18 track long journey.

Amphetamine. What a way to close out an album. The track starts off with a somber tone, and Smino projects his emotions beautifully through his delivery. You can hear slight breaks in his voice in the chorus which really add to the effect. He talks about his struggles with addiction, and how he realises the negative impact it has on him. Yet, he’s still optimistic that he’ll be alright. If he makes it through the night, that is. Part 2 of this song is titled Krash Kourse, and could easily be its own song, however, it makes sense for it to be one long track, combine with Amphetamine, because you see Smino address everything he’s been talking about over the album. We see a verse from Jean Deaux, a chorus from Bari, and finally a verse from Noname to close the album. Thankyou Jesus, whoever you are are the last words you hear. It’s beautiful.

Favourite Lyrics

All the lyrics about getting/giving head

Woo, my bad, don't gag

Although it's cute that you choosin' me over breathin'

Shawty sucked me, I was 9

Head game crackin'

She a cluck with the fuck

She just wanna suck somethin'

Toppy, that's the topic of discussion

Shawty sling head like a Greek sword

My dick a cheat code, I stick for the joy

She sayin' it's sweet, callin' me chico

But if you real then I extract my grill

And I snack on that 'til that blood sugar build

That clean me up, I pick you up

I pick you, gimme that spitshine

Shawty she be comin off the top

Like some good writtens

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What do you think is next for Smino?

Do you think mainstream glory lies in Smino’s future?

Who would you like to see Smino collab with?

What do you think the weak points of this album were?

Is Smino taking rap in a whole new direction?

Which head bar is your favourite?

How do you feel about the variety of lyrical content in this album?

ARTIST: SMINOPROJECT: blkswnLISTENSPOTIFYSOUNDCLOUDAPPLE MUSICBACKGROUNDChristopher Smith Jr., from St. Louis, Missouri, first made his way into the local music scene in 2012 under the name C. Smi, which he later changed to Smino in 2015 with the release of his debut EP, ‘S!Ck S!Ck S!Ck’. This EP was produced exclusively by Monte Booker, a member of Smino’s collective ‘Zero Fatigue’. Only two months after its release, Smino then went on to put out a second EP, also produced by Monte Booker, titled blkjuptr. Blkjuptr was met with generally positive feedback, propelling Smino’s musical career forwards and helping him find himself in the eyes of critics and bloggers.After this second EP, it would be a little over a year before the world heard from Smino again, however, needless to say, it wasn’t prepared in the least for what was to come.REVIEWBlkswn.In this full length debut album, with 18 songs spread over an hour and three minutes, Smino puts on display a sonic spectacle as he effortlessly weaves through musical genres, fusing hip hop with elements of funk, soul, and RnB.The project kicks off with what is probably its smoothest track. Entitled ‘Wild Irish Roses’, Monte Booker instantly sets a funky tone for the track with a bubbly synth accompanied by some hi hats. This tone is carried through the rest of the album as well and plays a huge role in binding the album together. Smino is quick to jump in with a catchy, yet calm flow which helps convey a relaxed atmosphere as he tells a story of himself inviting a girl to ride around town with him in search of ‘Wild Irish Roses’ (a brand of wine) - a thinly-veiled sexual proposition. All in all, ‘Wild Irish Roses’, perhaps my favourite track off the album, is a very strong opener that sets both the sonic and thematic tone for the rest of the project.With the way they seamlessly blend into each other, the next two tracks ‘Maraca’ and ‘Glass Flows’ could easily have been passed off as one long song. Smino’s versatility is blatantly apparent here as he surprises the listeners with a switch from an experimental intro verse to a very funky chorus on ‘Glass Flows’. His verses have a playful vibe to them, as he isn’t afraid to switch from singing lines to rapping lines to going into falsetto and then doing it over and over, all while somehow making the entire thing sound cohesive and well thought out. While the subject matter of the songs on the album revolves almost exclusively around Smino’s relationships with women, he keeps the content fresh by addressing various aspects of the relationships, each with varying levels of seriousness. This can be seen as he switches from dabbling in playful lyrics with sexual connotations in ‘Maraca’ to highlighting the precarious nature of his relationship with a woman in ‘Glass Flows’.The song “Glass Flows” also marks the appearance of Ravyn Lenae, the first of six female features on blkswn. In this remarkably well executed track, her and Smino exchange bars, providing both Smino, and his female companion’s perspective on their relationship.The next track, Flea Flicka switches the vibe up to a funkier and happier tone. And while it plays its role in the progression of the album, I personally didn’t welcome this departure from the atmosphere Smino had created thus far. This track didn’t feel as if it was put together all that well, comprising only two verses - a guest feature from Bari, and a second verse from Smino - with no hook or bridge to seperate them. A filler track for me, however, that is to be expected in any full length album.After ‘Flea Flicka’, the album really starts to take shape and define itself. Spitshine takes its place as the grooviest track on the album for me, with a simple yet catchy melody and Smino doing what he does best with his innovative vocal deliveryNetflix and Dusse takes its place as one of the more playful tracks on the album. As its name would suggest, it’s about Smino trying to get acquainted with a girl. The lyrics on this track definitely stand out as Smino finds three different ways to describe that ass, two of them in the same verse.1That ass a creature2That ass on Sunset Hill, a beautiful view3That ass look like a fuckin' grapefruitHis creative way with words is also very much visible on this track with bars likePink Caddy, Pepto Bismol-bileSuggesting that the colour of his caddy is similar to that of Pepto Bismol, going as far as to call it his Pepto Bismol-bile (like Batmobile).Been on my brain, Miss SerotoninIn this line, he calls this track’s girl his Miss Serotonin - Serotonin being a chemical which contributes to feelings of joy and happiness in the brain.The next track on the album, Anita, is one of the album’s defining/iconic tracks. Released as one of two singles prior to the album’s release, Anita is a track involving Smino showing appreciation for all the women who’ve had an impact on him, using the name ‘Anita’ as a general name for all of them. He uses the verses on this track to talk about his city, St. Louis, his family, and his crew, tying it up at the end with a beautiful outro where he spells out the words to the sentence, “Anita, I need her” over and over.Lobby Kall is a fun track and not much more than that. It lets the album breathe after Anita and doesn’t say too much. With barely any Genius annotations to help me on this track, I’m quite lost as to what the verse was actually about. However, the track does end with a small skit which is presumably Smino turning up at his house drunk in the late of the night, with his girl who’s inside refusing to open the door. This is a set up for the progression of the album as Smino addresses his problems with drinking and smoking.Edgar Allan Poe’d Up starts with what sounds like Smino bragging about smoking, drinking, and having sex, however he is quick to admit that he’s stuck in a cycle which has left him feeling mundane. Furthermore, he recounts his plans to break this cycle which unfortunately end up being ruined by a meddling shawty who sends him nudes, which then sent him spiralling back. He reverts to rapping about the girl’s body and manages to find yet another way to describe a girl’s head game before ending the verse. This track has a feature from TheMIND which I didn’t find memorable at all, however it does add to the track as TheMIND talks about his struggles with expressing his emotions and instead choosing to get over them by drinking.Father Son Holy Smoke was the first song I listened to on the album because I thought the name was cool, before going to the start of the album and listening to the whole thing over and over. As is tradition, Smino throws in a bar about getting head, this time getting over with it at the very start. He has wide array of flows for this song which he weaves together beautifully. What Edgar Allan Poe’d was to Smino’s drinking, Father Son Holy Smoke is to Smino’s smoking, however, the latter is far better executed in my opinion. Through the track, Smino speaks of how smoking weed helps cool his mind, yet still manages to acknowledge it as an addiction which he indulges in to avoid his problems.On B Role, Smino goes off with a flow that you can’t help but bob your head to. That being said though, this is a song which I don’t feel belongs on the album, despite liking it outside the album’s context quite a bit. The track starts off with an edgy crushed guitar riff which instantly deviates from the atmosphere that had been set up till now in too abrupt a fashion. With a better intro transition, it could have found its place, especially keeping in mind that the following track has a similar style of production too, alas imperfections are bound to be found on an 18 track project.Blkoscars is another song on this project which I’m not fond of. It feels like the production is venturing into areas of experimental music which just leave you slightly confused after listening, or maybe it’s just me. Anyways tho, Jay2 starts off the song with a feature verse and he seems to be rapping like he’s trying to prove something. A good verse, yet once again, out of place for me. Smino comes in towards the second half to rescue the track with his funky singing. This is one of those songs which I only listen to when I’m going through the whole project - didn’t even remember what it sounded like when I started writing this.The title track’s finally upon us at this point and it does amazingly well to bring the album back to its roots. The production’s free of its edginess and has reverted back to its laidback style. Smino goes Boom Boom Boom Sminoshima (as in Hiroshima) just as the kick kicks in with the bass and everything feels fine again. The singing on this song is snappy. Another interesting aspect is that Smino’s devoted the track to talking about his grind and shifted the focus from girls, drinking, and smoking. He also manages to throw in the line Smi-no, more like Smi-yeah, which is nice, I guess.Long Run’s got an intro which reminds of the one on Maraca. It sets a vibe and that vibe completely changes soon as the verse starts. Once again he’s talking about a topic which although he has brought up, he hasn’t devoted a lot of time to on a track. Smino reflects on his childhood, where he grew up, and his community. Via Rose features on the chorus and delivers her vocals beautifully - probably my favourite feature on the album alongside Ravyn Lenae.I feel like Innamission is one of those songs you sleep on for a long time until it comes up on shuffle one day and suddenly you open your eyes. Smino starts off by shouting out his crew, followed by a verse, which is solid. And then a prechorus, which is kind of exciting. But then the chorus comes on and without doubt, it’s the dopest thing you’ve heard in a good minute. I played that on the bus one time, and it was a bit disappointing when no one lit up when the chorus came on. I think it takes a couple of listens before it hits you. Or maybe it was just me.Silk Pillows sounds like it’s rehashing a couple of ideas we’ve already heard on the album. Akenya brings a decent verse to the song, but for the most part this song felt like something I’d already heard over the last 20 minutes of listening to the album. However, we do see Smino go back to making sexual references in the track after a severe drought over the course of the last three songs. He says "D go deeper than an 808, boom boom boom". He also says "You a vet? I'm a dog", which makes me wonder what Smino thinks a vet does, but good music’s meant to raise questions so in its own way, this is getting the job done.The production on Ricky Millions is very very nice. It’s something about the chords which makes it stand out. Smino’s got some catchy bars and Drea Smith captures the vibe of this track perfectly. The mixing on her vocals is done really well. All in all, I rate this track. It shows that Smino still has some tricks left up his sleeves, even towards the end of this 18 track long journey.Amphetamine. What a way to close out an album. The track starts off with a somber tone, and Smino projects his emotions beautifully through his delivery. You can hear slight breaks in his voice in the chorus which really add to the effect. He talks about his struggles with addiction, and how he realises the negative impact it has on him. Yet, he’s still optimistic that he’ll be alright. If he makes it through the night, that is. Part 2 of this song is titled Krash Kourse, and could easily be its own song, however, it makes sense for it to be one long track, combine with Amphetamine, because you see Smino address everything he’s been talking about over the album. We see a verse from Jean Deaux, a chorus from Bari, and finally a verse from Noname to close the album. Thankyou Jesus, whoever you are are the last words you hear. It’s beautiful.Favourite LyricsAll the lyrics about getting/giving head1Woo, my bad, don't gagAlthough it's cute that you choosin' me over breathin'2Shawty sucked me, I was 93Head game crackin'She a cluck with the fuck4She just wanna suck somethin'Toppy, that's the topic of discussion5Shawty sling head like a Greek sword6My dick a cheat code, I stick for the joyShe sayin' it's sweet, callin' me chico7But if you real then I extract my grillAnd I snack on that 'til that blood sugar build8That clean me up, I pick you upI pick you, gimme that spitshine9Shawty she be comin off the topLike some good writtensDISCUSSION QUESTIONSWhat do you think is next for Smino?Do you think mainstream glory lies in Smino’s future?Who would you like to see Smino collab with?What do you think the weak points of this album were?Is Smino taking rap in a whole new direction?Which head bar is your favourite?How do you feel about the variety of lyrical content in this album?

#IFTTT #reddit

0 notes

deadcactuswalking · 5 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 10th November 2019

I think I should give an update on what I’m listening to as I don’t often do that on this show. Hold on, let’s check my last.fm... oh, yeah, 300 scrobbles for Weezer – in the past week. I really have hit rock bottom.

Top 10

For what should be the sixth consecutive week now, “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I is at #1, and somehow that’s the only thing staying stable amongst all the chaos as while I’d like to think this was a relaxed week where it cleared out everything from the JESUS IS KING album bomb and left only the remnants of that busy week, it really wasn’t, and instead was a full-on avalanche by its own accord.

The first most obvious example of that is “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa, debuting at #2, and that’s pretty much the only example of this week’s generally manic appearance in the top 10, as the huge comeback single becomes Dua Lipa’s 12th UK Top 40 hit and her seventh top 10 hit, her first top 10 since “Electricity” with Silk City peaked at #4 in 2018. I’ll be speaking more in depth about that song later.

Otherwise, we don’t have much interest in this first ten songs. “Ride It” by Regard featuring Jay Sean (By technicality) is down one spot to number-three.

Unfortunately, this has opened up possibilities for Ed Sheeran and “South of the Border” featuring Camila Cabello and Cardi B up a space to number-four.

Also down one space is “Circles” by Post Malone, surprisingly, at number-five, as I saw this as possibly making a run for #1 but that doesn’t seem as likely with the monster that “Dance Monkey” is.

“Lose You to Love Me” by Selena Gomez is down three spaces off of the debut to number-six, as I expected.

Staying steady at number-seven is “Good as Hell” by Lizzo featuring Ariana Grande.

Also still at number-eight is “Memories” by Maroon 5.

Now we have two one-space fallers at the tail-end of the top 10, first of all “Bruises” by Lewis Capaldi at number-nine. I don’t even know how this is still here.

Secondly, and finally to round off the top 10, “Outnumbered” by Dermot Kennedy at #10.

Climbers

There aren’t many climbers here at all but the only two notable climbers are in the top 20 and look like foreshadowing of hits to come, so that’s notable in itself, although very unfortunate as despite me being relatively ambivalent on the pretty decent “This is Real” by Jax Jones featuring Ella Henderson moving up 11 spaces to #19, I am immensely displeased about “hot girl bummer” by blackbear peaking higher than the original “Hot Girl Summer” as it reaches the top 20 at #18 after a seven-space boost, as if this hack needed any more attention put on him.

Edit: I forgot about Niall Horan’s “Nice to Meet Ya” up eight spots to #26 this week, which I’m happy about since it’s a great song and I’d love to see it find its way into the top 10.

Fallers

There aren’t actually as many fallers this week, or at least less than I expected, but there’s still a couple notable fallers to talk about here, such as “Follow God” by Kanye West down nine spaces to #15 off of the debut at #6 last week, as well as other losses for most of the debuts from last week (Well, those that are still on the chart), those being “Floss” by AJ Tracey featuring MoStack and Not3s down five to #27, “Orphans” by Coldplay down five to #32 and “Look at Her Now” by Selena Gomez down 13 to #39. Also losing out on five spaces this week at #33 is “Take Me Back to London”, a former #1, by Ed Sheeran and Stormzy, and remixed by Sir Spyro featuring Aitch and Jaykae.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

We actually do have a re-entry this week and it’s “Graveyard” by Halsey back at #40, meaning we have eight drop-outs, most of those being established smash hits finishing up their run, those being “Sorry” by Joel Corry featuring uncredited vocals from Hayley May from #32, “Ladbroke Grove” by AJ Tracey out from #35, “Senorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello out from #36, “Taste (Make it Shake)” by Aitch from #37, “3 Nights” by Dominic Fike from #38 and “Don’t Call Me Angel (Charlie’s Angels)” by Ariana Grande featuring Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey from #39, as well as, of course, Kanye West’s two hits from JESUS IS KING that debuted last week, “Selah” featuring uncredited vocals from Sunday Service, Ant Clemons and Bongo ByTheWay out from #19 and “Closed on Sunday” with A$AP Bari out from #20.

ALBUM BOMB: Krept & Konan – Revenge is Sweet

On the 1st of November this year, British trap duo Krept & Konan released their sophomore album Revenge is Sweet and it peaked at #5 on the albums chart. I haven’t listened to it because I personally don’t care much for the two rappers, but they are big enough to land two hits in the top 40, one of which was released as a single prior to the album but both bearing high-profile features, so I’ll have to talk about them.

#28 – “G Love” – Krept & Konan featuring Wizkid

Produced by P2J

First of all, I obviously do not have as much to say about Krept & Konan than I do about Kanye, so this will be a shorter episode in comparison to last week with JESUS IS KING since there’s a lot less to unpack and I have a lot less passionate opinions about the duo (Which, considering how disappointed I was with that album, is probably not a bad thing). This is pre-release single, “G Love”, Krept & Konan’s fourth UK Top 40 hit, and it features Nigerian singer Wizkid, who makes his second ever appearance on the chart. For what it’s worth, I actually very much enjoy Wizkid whenever he appears, usually bubbling under the top 40 with songs featuring Drake and Skepta, as he has a lot of charisma; honestly, I’m surprised this is his only his second appearance on the chart, and his first since “One Dance”, a Drake song featuring him and Kyla hit a record peak of #1 in 2016. It’s a pretty odd collaboration for Krept & Konan, but then again, Wizkid did a song with Skepta as well, so this could be good – and is it? Well, it isn’t a good first impression when the otherwise nice synths are clipping pretty badly but it doesn’t exactly create a bad vibe or atmosphere, and while Konan sounds half-dead on the hook, Wizkid’s high-pitched Auto-Tuned croon is pretty vibrant. Konan is equally dull on the verse, although admittedly both he and Krept have pretty funny opening lines, even if Krept is mostly talking about emojis for half of his verse (Not even kidding, apparently if you cross him, you’ll get emoji knives). I don’t really have an opinion about this song, to be honest, it’s a pretty generic Afroswing beat with some squeaky vocal samples, and Krept and Konan both sound like they did a one-take whilst high and left. There’s a weird empty space between the verses and chorus as well, it genuinely feels a bit janky at times (God, I haven’t used that word in ages). Wizkid doesn’t even have a verse, so this is pretty boring. Let’s hope the next song can redeem the duo...

#23 – “Tell Me” – Krept & Konan featuring D-Block Europe and Ling Hussle

Produced by Dabeatfreakz

Okay, so this is more in Krept & Konan’s wheelhouse and has honestly got me pretty excited because D-Block Europe are the funniest men in UK trap right now, and I don’t think they even realise it. Anyway, this is Krept & Konan’s fifth UK Top 40 hit, D-Block Europe’s sixth, and it’s actually also a pre-release single (Hell, this one’s got a video). If you’re wondering who Ling Hussle is, well, she’s actually an upcoming rapper and singer who hangs around these guys, seemingly, and hasn’t actually been able to crack a million views yet from what I can gather, so this really is kind of her breakout single and obviously her first to hit the UK Top 40. Can these five rappers make a cohesive posse cut? Well, of course not, it’s D-Block Europe, but they try, bless them. First of all, this really isn’t a Krept & Konan song, Konan is definitely there even if he’s drowned in Auto-Tune that makes him unrecognisable, but Krept has a really short verse, and Ling Hussle straight-up doesn’t, instead providing an admittedly pretty sultry hook with Young Adz, who somehow cannot handle the simple melody that Ling Hussle lays down and kills, having a stroke on the pretty bland piano-trap beat as he tends to do. Krept is also pretty pathetic here, with a hilarious falsetto that genuinely made me chuckle – although that was probably unintentional. The end of Krept’s janky verse is hilarious, with the beat just barely there, and it mostly being breathing sounds and one-syllable ad-libs while Krept barely gets words out, and it’s all drowned in Auto-Tune with so much weird empty space. It’s so bizarre, to the point where Young Adz’s obnoxious singing about wanting the woman to open her legs so he can “watch her pee” sounds pretty for-the-course. Genius annotators just gave up on Konan’s verse, and he and Dirtbike LB are easily the least interesting here, although Konan does spend much of his time making some strange, misguided metaphor for guns using Maggie Simpson. He probably has the best verse here, as it’s the only one that doesn’t completely collapse midway through. I can’t help but like this, though, because everything goes wrong at some point and no-one even attempts to fix it, much like all of D-Block Europe, who I’m starting to think are my favourite UK rap artists because they are so unashamedly awful that whilst most of their music is unlistenable, any deeper analysis forms a new genre I like to call Post-Cubist era trap-rap.

NEW ARRIVALS

#37 – “Opp Thot” – Poundz

Produced by HARGO

“I could never wife your opp-thot. Give me that neck, come bop-bop. I just want to jeet and skeet, don’t use no teeth, girl, give me that slop-top.” How poetic. It’s a viral song from Poundz, and hence his first UK Top 40 hit, and I have such little expectations that this could be Nostalgia Critic’s version of The Wall and I’d praise it to hell and back as if it were by Floyd. Seriously though, this isn’t actually that bad. Lyrical density isn’t there but I didn’t expect it to be, and the mixing on the version that is used for Spotify adverts might actually be better as the hi-hat is too centred with Poundz’s multi-tracked and kind of hurts my ears actually. There are actually some cool lines here, and punchlines that make me understand the viral success, like when he kicks someone “out like Brexit”, the loveable way in how he says he’ll shoot you (“Man get hit with the ostrich bird”), how he makes people run away from him “like Scooby”, and a couple of other funny pop culture references about Tetris, Snapchat and... getting your enemy sprayed like Fireman Sam. Yeah, that line won me over, because the beat is just a menacing piano line with some skittering trap beat behind it and honestly nothing all too special. It isn’t that bad though, there is some talent here.

#35 – “Break Up (Bye Bye)” – Cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK

Produced by Leland and Frederick William Scott

Features uncredited vocals from Jade Thirlwall

...Huh? Okay, so I knew of the new British edition of RuPaul’s Drag Race (Graham Norton’s a legend) but I actually have no idea how the “drag race” works. I know what drag queens are and do (If “drag queens” is the right term), but I don’t know the format of the show at all – although I know the American edition has probably been around for decades at this point. The people on the American show do release promo singles but they don’t ever get close to charting anywhere so I usually don’t have to worry about any of this, but I am a complete outsider to whatever fanbase this has, and that seems to be a sizeable portion of people since this did chart. So, I did some vague research and found out that this was written by MNEK, who you should know from “Never Forget You” and several other hit singles, for the fifth episode of the show, and is credited under the name “Frock Destroyers”. Classy. Listen, this is the cast’s first UK Top 40 hit, and I do not understand the show, I’m just going to make this clear because I won’t understand the song either (In fact, there are two songs and they have the same name but one of them is by “Filth Harmony” so I’m even more confused). Anyway, about the song: the horns sound really cheap and gross, as do the hi-hats and the awfully-mixed instrumentation in general, so much so that I’m actually distracted by the very questionable lyrics, mostly because of the awful bass mastering that isn’t only clipping but it just doesn’t have any impact in the drop. It’s not like the chorus is anthemic as it’s supposed to be either, because it just feels so rushed and random. The female lead vocal is delivered by Jade Thirlwall of Little Mix so it’s not like it isn’t a good performance, but it is so inconsistently mixed in comparison to what I’m assuming are the drag contestants, who are so much louder than everything, especially the second verse. It’s pretty catchy, admittedly, but this really is a bit of a trainwreck production-wise. I guess I’ve officially been frock-destroyed. Whatever that means.

Edit: I listened to the other version and it might actually be worse lol

#31 – “Kiss and Tell” – AJ Tracey and Skepta

Produced by Skepta

More UK trap? Okay, well, it was actually a pretty big week for the genre as AJ Tracey and Skepta are also here with their eighth and 15th UK Top 40 hit respectively, “Kiss and Tell”. AJ Tracey had a song debut last week which was okay and I’m generally indifferent towards the guy although his debut album was pretty lacklustre, and I’ve always been a Skepta fan, so in a way I’m excited to hear but I am worried that it could be pretty dull as well, considering AJ Tracey’s got top billing... but it is Skepta-produced and I haven’t heard many bad beats from the man, and this one is definitely very cute, with the twinkling synth melody and otherwise typical trap beat and 808s, as well as a haunting vocal loop. Honestly, everyone kills it here. Sure, “kiss and tell” doesn’t rhyme with “Astroworld”, but AJ Tracey’s flow in the first verse is insane, with some really great lines, especially the hilarious closing line about... something falling off a chair, let’s just say that. Seriously, this is probably AJ Tracey’s best ever verse, it’s rapid and slick, and works especially with his voice. Skepta also delivers a slightly slower verse here, but his flow is janky at times, and takes awkward pauses despite moments where he really kills it – in fact this verse parallels most of his discography. Skepta can be awkward and inconsistent but when he really kills it, I’m amazed, and he does impress me with his flow here sometimes, but AJ really shines on this song. I didn’t have much to say about that one, but it’s actually pretty great. I hope this isn’t a fluke, because if this is how AJ is coming in on his second album, it could be one of my favourite hip-hop albums of next year. We’ll see, but for now this is great.

#30 – “Thumb” – M Huncho and Nafe Smallz

Produced by Quincy

While these names may seem alien to you, they’ve actually charted before. Nafe Smallz and M Huncho both appeared with Gunna on the Plug’s “Broken Homes”, a song I wish I enjoyed more than I did, and Nafe also appeared on a pretty awful Skepta single called “Greaze Mode” (Probably a candidate for, if not, his worst song), so this is their second and third UK Top 40 hit respectively. The BBC refused to give it any cover art on their page, so I guess that could mean anything... but it most likely means that this is garbage, because this really is some awful, unforgivable dreck. First of all, let’s talk about the lyrics and structure for a bit. There are two renditions of the chorus, they’re both exactly the same, over-long two-part hooks delivered by M Huncho. There is one verse in the middle and it is entirely a trade-off between the two rappers, with Nafe Smallz being considerably more sexist and disgusting in his verse where he delivers a frankly terrible Young Thug impression. I understand that rap music has a lot of misogyny and disrespect towards women, hell, I have to acknowledge that as someone who just praised a song called “Opp Thot”, but at least have some attempt in hiding your lack of respect or sympathy for women, or being somewhat respectful in how you say everything, or at least funny in how over-the-top you’re being, perhaps. What Nafe Smallz says about the “slut” and “thot” that he doesn’t actually make effort to have sex with and just watches whilst smoking is frankly really revolting and upsetting, especially because it got into the UK Top 40 which really should say something about us as a music-listening public, that we let this get so high. Nafe Smallz’s meek, high-pitched, nasal voice is aggravating, so much so that M Huncho’s unintelligible murmuring in the intro might actually sound better. The beat has some infuriating bass mastering as most cheap UK rap does, and overall it sounds pretty type beat. M Huncho doesn’t necessarily sound bad here, but his Auto-Tuned flow does very little to change and makes the three-minute runtime feel exhausting. Admittedly, some of Nafe Smallz’s inflections sound pretty, and M Huncho’s stammering is lazy, evening the awfulness out between the two rappers out pretty well. Also, was there really any need for the whole theme of the song being about putting thumbs in... female posteriors? The outro is literally just “put my thumb up in her butt” repeated on loop. Yeah, no, I don’t like this. Next.

#2 – “Don’t Start Now” – Dua Lipa

Produced by Ian Kirkpatrick – Peaked at #30 in the US

This is the massive debut this week from pop singer Dua Lipa, one of my favourites voices in pop music right now actually, and someone who has grown on me immensely in the past year, although some of the songwriting still isn’t as strong as it should be and she still has a tendency to slip into the background of her own production. I’m hoping for that to change with her sophomore album, and this is (Probably – “Swan Song” still exists) the lead single off of that record. The cover art is going for a vaguely late-90s early 2000s look, and I’ve heard this is a more straight-forward dance-pop tune, so I’m hyped to listen to this... and yeah, as I expected, this is pretty great. Initially, I wasn’t actually impressed with the flavourless piano intro, but as soon as it kicked into full gear I knew the hype around this was worth it, because that bassline is INCREDIBLE. As someone who has recently found a lot of love for house music, this bassline is one of the best I’ve heard from the genre, and this is very much house, almost like French house to some extent, but also very nu-disco, meaning the cover art is very fitting for the era that both it and the song are attempting to replicate. Dua Lipa sounds great as she always does, going into her higher register with rhythmic, multi-tracked, almost-rapping cadences in the verse, but taking a sudden shift to a sweet diva vocal in the pre-chorus, which is beautiful, as the pianos sound good on their own, but the squealing synth comes in at the perfect time along with the hi-hats, the song is just so intricately structured... then we get the drop, which is just great, as well go back to the minimalist house beat where Dua Lipa aggressively tells off this ex who has just started putting any effort into the relationship after it ended, with sassy inflections and... random sound effects, which I’m not complaining about. The slick, disco guitar and groove in the second verse accentuates Dua’s lyrics detailing how he tried to break up with her, almost implying a manipulative or toxic relationship. The second drop is somehow more impressive than the first, with a stuttering “Don’t” hinting at the drop prior and some sampled cheering that, much like the cowbell, is a random sound effect, but adds more punch to the chorus. Once the post-chorus hit, I had to take a break from writing and genuinely calm down, I was really overwhelmed with everything happening, yet it doesn’t feel cluttered because everything comes in at the right time, sometimes when you don’t even expect it to, and the mixing is great, far from over-produced even as while it’s pure pop with a lot of manufacturing, it feels a lot more organic especially with the post-chorus, which is just gorgeous. I don’t want to even spoil it for you or myself anymore, so I think I’ll actually leave it at that. My commentary will just cheapen how brilliant this song’s climax, is, really. This is an amazing record and one of, if not my favourite song from Dua Lipa. I hope this has as much success in the US because if this doesn’t get on one of my year-end best lists for 2019 or 2020, I will be severely disappointed.

Conclusion

Well, it should be obvious, right? The Best and Worst of the Week go out pretty easily, Dua Lipa getting the Best of the Week for “Don’t Start Now”, and M Huncho and Nafe Smallz getting Worst of the Week for “Thumb” which is just gross. Honourable Mention is obviously going to AJ Tracey and Skepta for “Kiss and Tell” although Dishonourable Mention is a bit harder. I think I can’t go with the Drag Race because that would be unfair – it’s a bad song, sure, but if I understood the show more, maybe I’d see the appeal. I don’t want to step on too many toes, either. “G Love” is unremarkable, as is “Opp Thot”, so I’ll probably go with “Tell Me” by Krept & Konan featuring D-Block Europe and Ling Hussle. I hope you enjoyed reading, I’m off to listen to Pinkerton again probably, and I’ll see you next week, hopefully it’s not as busy.

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