#so. here I am. posting the entire thing. and subtitling + transcribing it for some reason | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

royalarchivist · 2 months

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Ironmouse: Part of the reason why I love this server so much is because everybody's so nice. Everyone! Like, every single person is super nice! And it's like- it's like, genuine nice, it's not like fake niceness. [...] I've literally talked to almost everybody at least once like outside of the QSMP. We've talked on Discord, people regularly check in on me, we get in group chats and we play games like outside of the server... You don't really find that sort of connection all the time with people.

Ironmouse recently talked about her experience on QSMP, and how kind all the members are. I'm posting the entire conversation instead of cutting it up like I usually would because I really enjoyed hearing her thoughts on the server.

[ Subtitle Transcript ]

Ironmouse: Honestly, I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I did. He's so nice, he's so- he's always been super nice to me. He's been so nice, I– part of the reason why I- I love this server so much is because everybody's so nice. Everyone! Like, every single person is super nice! And it's like- it's like, genuine nice, it's not like fake niceness. You know how sometimes like– you always hear like, "Oh yeah, you know–" when–

Ironmouse: Whenever you like, join like a new thing, right? Whenever you like join like a new thing, you always worry, 'cuz you always think: "Oh, are the people gonna like me? Are they gonna be nice to me? What if- What if- you know, what if this, what if that?" But everybody like genuinely was nice when I first came by, and everybody has been so nice to me– not just in the game, but outside of the game, and–

Ironmouse: Something special about the QSMP is like... People wanna be your friend like outside of the game? Like, I've literally talked to ev– almost– almost everybody at least once like outside of the QSMP, like... We've talked on Discord, people like regularly check in on me, and like we get in group chats and like we- we play games like outside of the server, and it's just like... You don't really find that sort of connection all the time with people? You know what I mean? It's very– it's very not common when you go on like, a content creator-like server or stuff like that, you know? You'll get like one or two people that you get close to and stuff, but like... Everybody is SO nice, and everybody's been so nice to me, and I can't tell you how many people like, wished me– not just like wished me happy birthday, or like wished- said, "Oh, you know, hap- Merry Christmas!" dadadada, it's like genuinely like... Asked how I'm doing, and like talk to me, and like... Just like– I dunno, it's just like so- so- it's so wonderful. Ironmouse: Like, I get that with VShojo a lot, like– we're all like besties, and we all like talk all the time, but I feel like it's different, 'cuz like VShojo– we're VShojo, we're like– we're our own group, but this is like... You know... You don't expect this sorta thing when you get invited to like be on some- be a part of something, you know? And it's- and it's been so– it's been so wonderful and everybody's been so GENUINELY nice to me, and I- I appreciate everybody on the server so much, and they're just some of the nicest people that I've ever met ever, and it's just–

Ironmouse: It just warms my heart, and I'm just really– really like, thankful to be a part of something so great, and something so positive! Because like, everybody's so supportive! Like– the time when like, I didn't like– I- I- I had a moment where it's like I– do you guys remember in December when I- I was not around a lot? And like, I had to take breaks and all this stuff and it turns out it was like the concert stuff? They all like would message me regularly, like, we would all keep up with each other, and we would all talk. And I remember telling them about like, how much stress I was under, and like all the- all the pressures of the concert and stuff, and– and they were cheering, and- and- and they were just so... so kind to me, it was just so– so sweet, and- and you know, I was in a group chat with a- with a few people, and they were all just so excited and- and- just super nice, and- and very- very sweet, and it's just– and it's just very– I'm sorry if I'm rambling! It's just...

Ironmouse: I dunno! I- I- I just enjoy being here, and I enjoy hanging out with everybody, and... it's just nice to meet really good people. You don't really find that. You don't find that sort of thing all the time. Don't get me wrong– it's not like I haven't met a lot of good people, like– I just feel like this whole like, my whole like– Ever, like– My streaming journey, I've just been nothing but surprised at the goodness of people? Don't get me wrong– I've met assholes and sht like that, and I've met- I've encountered some people that are NOT so nice. I'll never like, talk about it or whatever because that's their thing, and I'm just gonna do my thing and I don't wanna like, you know, spread any type of stupid drama or whatever the fck, but like... I'm just always surprised about how– how incredibly nice people are, and how genuine a lot of people are, and it's... It- it's just nice, especially since like– You're used to coming from like, a certain background and a certain like, environment where it's like, you've met a lot of like fcked up mean people in your life, and you've just been around a lot of like fckery, you know? So when- when you're around stuff that's NOT fcked, it's just like, "Woah, this is crazy! Is this- is this how life is supposed to be?!" And it's just- it's just really... it's really- it's really nice. It's very nice.

Ironmouse: Yeah, it's very refreshing, that's why I- I enjoy hanging out on here, everybody's just so nice to me. And it's not just like being nice just to be on-stream, it's nice off-stream, on-stream, friendship on-stream, off-stream, it's- it's just- it's just so- it's- it's- it's wonderful. It's wonderful. And I just have to say like... man, I'm just really thankful that like... it's crazy that like I got invited to be on here and I'm just really thankful that, you know... Quackity like, reached out to me and he's- he's just been nothing but nice, everybody- everybody's just so kind. Everybody's so nice. This is something truly special.

#QSMP #Ironmouse #February 11 2024 #Subtitles #*clenches fist* You don't want to know how long it took me to transcribe and subtitle this thing #anyways I saw people sharing a Twitter thread where Mouse talked about this #and I was like ''hey that thread cut some bits out''#so. here I am. posting the entire thing. and subtitling + transcribing it for some reason #anyways I'm shocked Tumblr let me upload this #I did lower the video quality a little bit (reluctantly) because the length + quality made the file size a smidge too big for Tumblr #but it's still pretty good quality imo. yeah?#I'm 100% applying to be a video editor the next time Quackity Studios is looking to hire folks again.#give me money so I can justify the time and effort I put into these things #Edit: Yeah I might make a shorter version of this too #just so I can direct people to this longer version as well #EDIT: LMAO I FORGOT TO POST THIS #Edited

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violetsystems · 3 years

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#personal

I can’t really tell if my mood is better or worse on Sunday mornings rather than the typical Saturday. Things have reached a point where it’s just not worth explaining how awful life can be. My life story at this point is slightly more convoluted than a side job in Cyberpunk 2077. It’s also seemingly just as insignificant. That is until I realize I’ve been writing here weekly for over two years at this point. I’ve been posting on this platform for what seems like over a decade. The value of this kind of journaling has been impossible to gauge. I just paid a full year for LinkedIn to keep my career contacts alive. I post in the hashtag cybersecurity almost every day. I have a solid list of five contacts that follow my company. I post the zero day news as it happens. I promote my brand and employability. As if this is the only thing that is valuable. A twenty year resume with management experience that gets picked over by AI and human just the same. I also forget sometimes I’m a musician. I was reminded last night when I posted the RP Boo “Bangin’ on King Drive” video. I was at that video shoot. Years ago I would just run into Bu in the street with his wife randomly. I appear nowhere in that video as I was edited out much like I was the only artist edited out of a Pitchfork review for a footwork compilation from Japan that protested Nuclear proliferation. If there were any more alarming trend for me it’s that most of what I try to succeed at is locked beyond a brick wall. I sit here from week to week trying to figure out ways to keep myself from disappearing. I worry about where I can actually pivot and when. I lay awake at night alone in my bed calculating what my runway for cash positivity is before I have to leave this city altogether. It sometimes feels completely futile and useless. Everybody in America is winner take all when there’s nothing left to take. It’s cutthroat and we’re all in this together at the same time. The amount of bullying I have to process per day has left me broken down and angry ninety percent of the time. And yet angry is a shitty look for me. I lose at video games all the time. And lately I feel as if I’m living in one. To explain that any further gets into some territory of oversharing. I’ve written paragraphs upon paragraphs about my life here. And yet nobody seems to acknowledge I exist other than here. Which leads me to believe a very few amount of people actually have the reading comprehension over 140 characters to look deeper into someone’s life, liberty and value therein. I think sometimes that it shouldn’t be this hard. That something is very wrong and deeply troubled about it all. And there’s not much I can really do about the things I’m up against when it’s only me fighting it from day to day out here. So I’ve fallen back to what I know. We are still very much in the middle of a pandemic. I’m happy the relief bill has passed. I’m waiting to pay my taxes until it’s official. Which puts me back in the same mood I’ve been in the last eight months. A complete state of abandon. This nefarious field of people watching you every day waiting to pin something on you. It never comes because I know better than to fall back into that trap as much as I can these days.

The worst of this mindfuck is over for me. I don’t actually really care too deeply about how wrong things are. Mostly because I’ve done my best to make due under impossible circumstances. You’d think someone like me after all these years would have something to celebrate. I kind of do. My birthday didn’t matter to anyone really out here much last month. It was a clear indicator that I had no real peers out here anymore. As evidenced as how everyone in footwork I helped back in 2014 has literally just ghosted like the rest of my professional network. I had a couple of things to fall back on. But it’s impossible to fall back onto anything when people would rather pretend you didn’t exist. I’m always supposed to read into these psychotic projections by society because somehow I’m supposed to realize more is expected out of me. I can’t figure this out completely. Like I brought all this upon myself. That’s the vibe I get from day to day. That because I don’t share my plans, agenda, or strategy with the real world I’m shit out of luck. The irony is that I do share it verbatim. Week to week. In a very coy, oblique way this is true. But I am also a writer. This is another talent I’ve been taught by society that has no value. I wrote emails for my bosses for years on my days off. On my birthday even. This doesn’t mean it is worthless. The audience is out there. If it weren’t I would have quit sharing my feelings a long time ago. I’m fairly aware at some point I’m going to have to put this all behind me. Hopefully when the world wakes up and returns to normal like nothing ever happened. That’s going on as we speak and I don’t even have a vaccine in my arm. It’s a constant state of fear and missing out projected back at you. That the reason I’m not happy is totally because of what I choose to take on in my life. And I’m supposed to get the message when people don’t actually communicate. I had this strange realization yesterday when I discovered all my videos were closed captioned. I watch movies with subtitles all the time simply because I love to read. My videos barely get ten views if that. I often think content is content. If you put it out there someone will eventually find it and wonder about it’s value. In the age of semi-spiritual machines it’s true that the algorithms seem to be the only curators out there listening. Everything I say out loud is transcribed and mothballed somewhere on Siri’s or Alexa’s servers. When I take a screen shot of the things I say off the top of my head, I’m often aware that something acknowledges I actually said them. It’s just nobody human really wants to pay attention. They are hardcoded over my videos as proof of the value of my words. Not like you can sell the speculative value of it yet. The first tweet is being auctioned off as a NFT and you wonder how worthless I have to feel at this point. I’m sure we all feel a little of this deep down. Disconnected and in some sort of weird emotional exile. I think it just makes me realize more of what I am connected to. A history of authenticity. A life that trades the catwalk for the streets as brutal and unforgiving as they are. Nobody can stop talking shit about me. But it’s almost always a hallucination. For a person who puts it all out there, I must be a shitty fucking writer. I can spend week to week writing the same thing. That I’m completely abandoned and ghosted out here on my own. And how it’s less unsafe and more simply a degraded quality of life when it comes to my rights as a human being to be happy. I’m supposed to get the message when nobody can bother to read mine. The writing is on the wall I guess.

So instead of pining on and on about it which I just did for two paragraphs, I still look for solutions. I still broadcast weekly to let people know I’m still alive. I make funny jokes to myself and screencap them to mask deep emotional scarring that is no fault of my own. I literally feel trapped and under duress almost all of the time. And yet, I don’t really have the luxury of taking the shit when I’ve had the hope choked out of me until I can’t breathe. If the answer is to keep ignoring the problem, it’s hard to be me. Because nobody can leave me alone. No one seems to have any sense of dignity as to what I’ve been through. I never claimed to be a victim. That’s not really me. I’ve survived and been resilient. I can see that working a six figure corporate job in New York or China is probably more worth my time in the not so distant future. I can also see that I’m worth more than what people sell me short for. I know we are in a dangerous time of confidence tricks. I don’t really have much to lose other than cash positivity. I can wait this out until the end of the summer for sure. And then I start to think about spending another winter being hunted and shunned at the same time. Mentally I can’t fuck with this city after what it’s done to me alone. I can’t keep being a superhero for people who can’t be bothered to understand how painful it is to be taken for granted after all these years. I just give up on everything in the past that isn’t working and move forward as best as I can. Just like they threw the entire contents of my office in the trash I can let it go. There is a very real emotional exhaustion I have to deal with from day to day. The level of psychological torture and abuse I’ve witnessed first hand in this city is at a level that is unlawful and unhealthy. I know too much about what it’s all connected to. And I know I’m better than all of this. I don’t know how to proceed. And this is a very real and dangerous situation that I am stuck in the middle of a shark tank feeding frenzy of well meaning but rabid idiots and the pricks that prod them with a sharp stick. I don’t have a future here in this city. I don’t have a future in this state or country if you wanted me to be real about. And yet I have so much potential if I just hold on for one more year. For one more decade. For another forty years when they turn my blog into a NFT after my death like I’m the next Van Gogh. Everybody will talk about how they knew me and how tortured an artist I was. I was so misunderstood and it was beautiful. They’ll fund a school with the proceeds that kicked me out the door because I was a blight on their payroll and budget. And I’ll be a digital ghost just the same. I feel like that very ghost now every waking fucking moment. It is a pain I cannot describe in words. It is a suffering that is goaded on in the worst syndicate driven way. I have nothing good to say about any of this shit anymore. I have no more room to break down and make things worse for myself. I just have to adjust my schedule and manage my emotions with it all because it’s my fault. This is the message I keep hearing in my head projected by silent looks as I picked up my prescriptions on foot avoiding everyone who wants to see if it’s true. If I really am the bogeyman. The source of the problem. Someone to blame. The scapegoat for everything that is wrong with the world. Convenient but ultimately not worth my time to humor. Which is why I don’t really know what to do anymore other than to stay inside and wait for justice. If there’s anything poetic about it, it’s that it runs pretty seamlessly at 1440p. Much clearer resolution than what this city wants to offer me after what it’s put me through. <3 Tim

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beihonglin · 5 years

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[about subbing.]

alright y’all sit tight and buckle up, i’ve held this in for three months now but today i saw a youtube comment demanding to know why it took so long for eng subs for a certain show to come out and i think some things should be made clear.

fan subbers are not obligated to do the subbing we do. we are people with our own lives who are busy with work and school and life. the time spent subbing takes away from our study time, our down time, or time better spent doing more productive things.

“but wait, surely it doesn’t take that long to sub a show? i see gifs on tumblr / translated transcriptions on twitter, so i know people are capable of translating things but nobody will sub the whole episode / it takes so long for eng subs to come out.”

it takes. so. much. time. in case you’re not familiar with the process (i know i wasn’t, before joining a subbing team), i’ll walk you through it with personal examples.

(1) obtaining the raw video:

content is often hosted on iqiyi, youku, tencent. unlike youtube, these platforms have little to no ‘fast’ ways to download the videos. for example, iqiyi uploads their episodes as .qsv files, which, due to their non-standard format, cannot be opened in any normal multimedia player and require the use of iqiyi's proprietary software. in order to decode the file and make it usable, downloaders have to find ccodes and ckeys, which takes time. to make it worse, these ccodes and ckeys change every few weeks, which means downloaders have to go on a hunt for them all over again.

even if you could find an online downloader for videos, video parsers such as this one often give you very little control over the quality of the video - most of the downloads end up looking like someone chewed it up and spit it out.

this means that whoever obtains the raw video has to use methods like coding or terminal just to get the hd file, which takes time and effort.

from here, the raw video goes to two people: the transcriber and the timer.

(2a) transcribing the video:

this is a step i skip when i am subbing alone or when i’m subbing in a team that are all chinese-speakers, but when i’m working in a team that has typesetters who don’t speak chinese, we have to provide a transcription along with our translation so that they can match the words on screen with the translations they put in. in some teams, there are members who only transcribe, but in smaller teams, translators have to do it ourselves.

transcribing takes time - it can take anywhere from half an hour to two hours for a five minute segment, depending on how used you are to typing in that language.

(2b) timing the video:

for me, this is The Most Time Consuming part of subbing - it’s the part i dread when subbing alone. it involves making sure your subs appear at the same time as the corresponding characters on screen, and often, if your subs appear even a couple of frames off, the entire sequence will look strange to the viewer. timing involves small adjustments made over and over again just so your subs look at least presentable.

it requires precision, which takes time. and it requires practice and being comfortable with the timing software - if you’re starting out with new software, you might take more than two hours to time a five minute segment.

even worse is when a video comes without chinese subtitles (rip all of us who ever had to sub these) - we don’t have a frame of reference and have to decide how to time by ourselves. we have to take into account sentence length and how fast viewers can read per second, how long a clause can be before viewers forget what was in the previous clause, and we have to make these decisions in tandem with how fast the people on screen are speaking. which takes time.

(3) translating the video:

i think this step is often what people reduce subbing to and is what most people are familiar with seeing, but i cannot stress this enough - it also takes time.

personally, i take an hour to clear five minutes worth of dialogue on a good day. and then i take additional time for the sfx captions. and then additional time to proof-read and make sure i didn’t mishear, misinterpret or mistranslate things. most of the time, interviews love using internet slang or gaming terms and for those of us who don’t game or spend most of our lives on weibo, it’s an extra step for us to search for the term, understand its meaning and the context in which it’s being used. which takes time.

when a video comes without chinese subtitles and the members on screen happen to Love Screaming Over Each Other... replaying the segment over and over again to try and hear what they’re saying takes time. and patience. and eardrum abilities.

in a team, it also involves proof-reading each other’s work. our translations team always proof-reads each other’s segments in case we catch something the others missed out on or mistranslated, or in case semantics are awkward and we have to restructure a sentence. i’m very, very lucky in that the subbing team i’m in have different strengths - one of us is better at chinese and explaining complex phrases, one of us is good at pragmatics and catching nuances and suggesting rephrases and one of us is good at semantics and making sure things are grammatically accurate. but sometimes teams are unbalanced and it takes extra effort to make sure things still turn out in the best quality possible.

in some cases, we can discuss one (1) word choice for a full ten minutes because there simply isn’t a phrase for it in english and we have to t/n it, or because multiple english words map to the same chinese word and choosing the wrong one will provide a wrong connotation. in other cases, we know that some scenes will be talked a lot about or giffed a lot by international fans, and we have to make sure that the translations have to be as accurate and as nuanced as possible so that nothing gets twisted. and in the worse case scenario, a wrong word choice can change a fan’s whole impression of a member.

(4) typesetting the video:

for dialogue subtitles, this involves finding a font that is readable by everyone and a style that will be visible against all backgrounds. it involves making sure they stay in the same place and are of the same style (all aligned left, a certain number of pixels from the bottom etc).

for sfx captions, this involves matching your english font to the chinese font used so the scene style isn’t incongruous and matching styles like outlines and shadows so that the colour scheme remains the same. in some cases, there is no space for the sfx translation, and typesetters have to blank out the original to make the translations visible. in many cases, they move, so typesetters have to animate the text, which takes extra effort.

for multiple-episode shows, typesetters have to make sure that the styling remains consistent and visible in all settings, which make the thought given to these choices all the more important.

in some teams, typesetters don’t speak chinese, and have to refer to transcriptions and corresponding translations to typeset correctly. this takes time. in the cases where the original video comes without chinese subtitles, typesetters have to decide in which order the noise and mayhem should appear on screen. this takes time.

and in the first place, this assumes that you have the software to do hard-subs - something not all of us have.

(5) encoding and posting the video:

this step takes the least effort but it still needs So Much Time - converting the aegisubs or premiere pro file into an .mp4 requires a media encoder, and adobe media encoder more or less takes three hours to encode a three hour episode. sometimes, it exports as an .mov and you have to handbrake it to get it to an .mp4 file, which takes extra time.

uploading it on youtube also takes time - it takes an hour to get a two-hour video uploaded, and it takes another few hours for it to process so that you can publish it in 1080p.

some of our laptops don’t have enough processing power to go through a three hour video - even encoding a half-hour episode can slow down our laptops so much they’re pretty much useless until it’s done. some of us even don’t have a media encoder on our laptops and have to run to computer labs to get it encoded. and if the closest one is on campus twenty minutes away and it’s snowing outside? good luck.

people who gif casually or translate in blocks of text on twitter don’t have to deal with steps (2), (4) and (5), and that’s where the difference lies - even if they’re capable of translating things, the sheer amount of effort and time it takes can deter people from trying.

in addition, most of the time, the content we sub is copyrighted so we can’t even monetise the eng subs - we get nothing out of subbing.

the reason why we do it anyway is because we love the show or the people on the show and want to share that with an international audience. we’re fans and for some of us, that’s justification enough to put in the time and effort needed to get more love and attention for our faves.

and that’s why we appreciate it when people ask us, “hi, would you be interested in subbing this show?” most of these requests are polite and include an “only if you want to” add-on (which frees us from the obligation to agree), and it lets us know that you’re following our faves and lets us know what kind of content you’re interested in. most of the time, most of us don’t even need a ‘thank you’ in the comments (although they are very much appreciated), because if we see comments laughing over a certain member’s actions, it means someone else is loving our faves too and to me, it makes the effort worth it.

i understand people asking, “why does it take so long to sub?” out of curiosity, because before i joined my subbing teams, i knew nothing about the process. but going, “why is it taking so long to sub?” is different, and demanding that a show be subbed when it takes us ten hours of work to let you enjoy a twenty minute video? that’s not fair.

tl;dr: don’t underestimate the amount of effort it takes to sub a show. subbers have their own lives and are not obligated to work on your schedule.

if you’re still thinking about demanding subs faster, consider joining the subs team. otherwise, shut up and enjoy the fact that fans are putting in time and effort for your entertainment for free.

#vivi yells into the void #translations #anyway i'm tired of fans complaining that things take time #especially when you don't know the subs team members personalyl #i know a lot of people complain about yhsubs not updating but one of the translators is in premed and her schedule has been Insane this year #we're in the same club and one of my friends is her roommate and i still barely see her #and to those asking about the new trainee18 show?#i'm the only one translating for it and i've been packed this semester i havent even watched past episode six #much less sub episode three

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jonathanbogart · 7 years

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Melodier: Nordic Corporatist Pop and New Wave

Part IV. Youtube. Previously (I, II, III). Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Finnish pop between 1981 and 1987. Tracklisting below, notes after that.

Elisabeth, “En sømand som dig”

Doe Maar, “De bom”

Belaboris, “Kuolleet peilit”

Lustans Lakejer, “Diamanter”

Lillie-Ane, “Meg selv”

Arbeid Adelt!, “Lekker westers”

Geisha, “Kesä”

Det Neodepressionistiske Danseorkester, “Godt nok mørkt”

Cherry, “Vang me”

Tappi Tíkarrass, “Kríó”

Eva Dahlgren, “Guldgrävarsång”

Svart Klovn, “Knust knekt”

Het Goede Doel, “Net zo lief gefortuneerd”

tv-2, “Vil du danse med mig (nå- nå mix)”

Lolita Pop, “Regn av dagar”

Cirkus Modern, “Karianne”

Madou, “Witte nachten”

Tuula Amberla, “Lulu”

Grafík, “Þúsund sinnum segðu já”

Klein Orkest, “Over de muur”

Di Leva, “I morgon”

Melodier: nordic corporatist pop and new wave

So far in this survey, I’ve been looking at pop scenes in languages I may not entirely speak, but am at least comfortable with. Moving into northern Europe means I’ve left the Romance family behind, and am at the mercy of fan transcribers and Google Translate if I want to understand the lyrics to the songs I enjoy. Lyrics aren’t everything (I couldn’t tell you what some of my favorite songs in English are about) but they’re enough that I’ve at least tried to look up everything I’m presenting for you in this series.

This entry collects together a bunch of nation-states that aren’t necessarily related culturally or historically. Scandinavia only refers to three countries: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Adding Finland and Iceland makes the “Nordic” countries; but adding in the Netherlands (and Dutch-speaking Belgium, or Flanders), as I have, isn’t anything as far as UN statistical calculations are concerned. They all fit together in my head, though, because they are all stable, prosperous, and socially liberal Western nations with Germanic linguistic roots (except Finland), NATO (except Sweden and Finland) and EU (except Norway) membership, and an extensive welfare state linked to strong unionized labor and government oversight of business: the “corporatist” social organization of my subtitle.

They are all also collectively central to white supremacists’ imagined European identity, and their liberal welfare policies are frequently cited (by racists) as unworkable in more heterogeneous societies. So i’m a little hesitant to be extremely fulsome in my praise here, lest anyone get the wrong idea. For the record, money, access, and individual creativity have far more to do with making great pop music than genetics.

Still, there is undoubtedly an enviable Northern European pop tradition. A lot of that can be traced to a single act: the Swedish ABBA, who borrowed liberally from US and UK pop forms to build a global pop empire based on careful production and universal sentiments. Thanks in part to their pioneering efforts, as well as Dutch acts like Shocking Blue and Golden Earring, a great deal of Northern European pop music was produced in English, with local languages often reserved for traditional folk, comedy records, sentimental ballads — or punk rock. There was particularly a gender-based split here: female Dutch, Danish, and Swedish pop stars were, like Frida and Agnetha, more likely to sing in a universal and generic English, while male rockers could afford to be poets and philosophers in the vernacular. (This is a generalization; but the phenomenon is by no means exclusive to northern Europe, or even across languages.) But regardless of language, there was a Nordic emphasis on slickness of production that means that this mix may, record for record, sound the most expensive of any in this summertime European excavation.

Which is another way of saying it’s the most pop. The low-density Scandinavian countries have few urban populist music traditions like Portuguese fado, Spanish flamenco, French musette, Greek rebetiko, or even Italian canzone napoletana: Protestant hymnody, fishing songs, and a rather austere nineteenth-century European concert repertoire are the most prominent native cultural influences. When American, and especially American Black, music made its midcentury European Invasion (far stronger and more lasting than any Invasion US pop ever suffered), it gave Northern European youth an emotional as well as a physical pop vocabulary. This, the second generation of European rock, made it perhaps more political and personal, but by no means less international.

Because pop is an international language, even when the lyrics are not. Although the subfocus of these mixes has been “new wave,” meaning the sometimes eccentric and often electronic music made under the twin influences of punk and disco, there was less of a noodly self-important rock tradition in these nations than in the English- (or Italian-) speaking world for a new wave to rebel against. Pop thrills remained consistent; only the tools changed.

“Melodier” is the Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian word for “melodies,” and it came to mind because the annual pre-Eurovision national pop contests in the Nordic countries are mostly named some variation of the Swedish Melodifestivalen.

The linguistic breakdowns in the mix, roughly following population counts, are as follows; six Dutch (of which two are Flemish), four Swedish, three each Danish, Norwegian and Finnish, and two Icelandic. Fans of twenty-first century Scandinavian pop may hear some material that presages later developments: a lot happened between ABBA and Robyn, and I’m excited to possibly introduce you to some of it.

1. Elisabeth En sømand som dig Genlyd | Aarhus, 1984

The coastal peninsula-and-archipelago nation of Denmark has been a seafaring one since the Vikings, etc. — but this song isn’t about those ancient sagas, but more recent colonial history, as the lover “Jakarta Danny” is presumably a merchant marine in the service of the Dutch East India Company. Elisabeth first became known to the Danish pop audience as the frontwoman of Voxpop, a Blondie-like pop group, and her first solo album in 1984 is a quiet classic of sultry mid-80s pop moves. This, the leadoff track, uses naval metaphors for sex: the title means “A Seaman Like You,” and the next line is “sailing in me.” The video makes it even more explicit, in more ways than one. She’s still active (her whole catalog is on Spotify), and often does children’s music now.

2. Doe Maar De bom Sky | Amsterdam, 1982

The two-tone wave in the UK had a corresponding wave in the Low Countries and Scandinavia: goofy white dudes are drawn to ska music, as Orange County can attest. Doe Maar (“go ahead,” with connotations of anger or sulkiness) were the Madness of Holland, with a string of skanking, socially observant hits. “De bom,” one of their biggest, means “The Bomb,” and is about the hideous irony of being told to go to school, get a job, and save for retirement, all under the threat of nuclear annihilation.

3. Belaboris Kuolleet peilit Femme Fatale | Helsinki, 1982

The Finnish girl group Belaboris (named for Lugosi and Karloff) was manufactured by producer Kimmo Miettinen, a Malcolm McLaren-esque figure who hired girls to sing and look pretty while a hired band played new wave music. “Kuolleet peilit” (Dead Mirror?) is a minimal-disco jam with a detached vocal by Vilma Vainikainen that looks forward to spacy twenty-first century house: in Finland, such synthpop was known as “futu,” short for futurist. When Belaboris had a second big hit in 1984, it was as an entirely different set of pretty girls.

4. Lustans Lakejer Diamanter Stranded | Stockholm, 1982

In the twenty-first century, Swedish pop is synonymous with a certain ruthless muscularity, often considered the result of pop producer Max Martin’s heavy-metal past. But even here in the early 80s, fey New Romantic band Lustans Lakejer (Lackeys of Lust) takes time out from frontman Johan Kinde’s baleful sneering about diamonds being a girl’s best friend for a flashy guitar solo that fits into glam, post-punk, and metal traditions. Lustans Lakejer were a novelty in late-70s/early-80s Swedish pop, a well-dressed band who proclaimed that their clothes were as important as their music; when Kinde had finally had enough of posing, he dissolved the band, only returning to the name occasionally as a solo act over the years.

5. Lillie-Ane Meg selv RCA Victor | Oslo, 1983

If I were approaching these mixes sensibly, I’d only be including music that had been reissued on CD, or was available on streaming platforms, or something. But having access to the more eclectic and unremunerated catalog of YouTube has ruined me: once I’d heard Lillie-Ane, I couldn’t not include her. She’d been the voice of Norwegian synthpop trio Plann, but her classical training and avant-garde sympathies made her solo material — what I’ve heard of it, which is not enough — weirder and more galvanizing than the rather derivative music she’s still better known for in Norway. She died in 2004; her swooping voice and dense harmonies on “Meg Selv” (Myself) deserve wider appreciation.

6. Arbeid Adelt! Lekker Westers Parlophone | Brussels, 1983

Flemish Belgium in the 1980s is justly famous for its industrial-music scene, with acts like Front 242 and Neon Judgment pioneering sounds that would form the basis of many electronic-rock hybrids in the 1990s. Few of them sang in Dutch, however, apart from Arbeid Adelt!, whose early records were prankstery lock-groove new wave. Once Luc van Acker (later of Revolting Cocks) joined, though, things got harsher, and “Lekker Westers” (Yummy Westerners), with its satirical singsong melody over dissonant grooves, is halfway between their Devoesque beginnngs and the industrial harshness that put Belgium on the map

7. Geisha Kesä Johanna | Helsinki, 1983

The all-female Finnish trio Geisha only released a single EP during their brief existence, but because it was on the legendary Helsinki indie label Johanna, they’ve been compiled and fondly remembered by Finnish rock fans for decades since. “Kesä” (Summer) is of a piece with the moody, dry sound of Finnish goth rock of the period, but its danceable rhythm and spectacular clattery all-percussion instrumental break suggest that they had a lot more to offer beyond being a distaff Musta Paraati.

8. Det Neodepressionistiske Danseorkester Godt nok mørkt Genlyd | Aarhus, 1986

A Danish band that began as an art-installation soundtrack and ended as a sampladelic pop act, DND (for short; their full title, as might be presumed, translates as The Neodepressionist Dance-Band) were rather inspired by the Talking Heads’ combination of dance rhythms and irony-laden cultural critique; their debut album was called Flere sange om sex og arbejde, or More Songs About Sex and Work. This song, “Good Enough [in the] Dark,” features leader Helge Dürrfeld mutter-rapping about the limits of perception while a passionate saxophone wheels endlessly and a sassy chorus chants the title.

9. Cherry Vang me Vertigo | Utrecht, 1982

Cherry Wijdenbosch is, if not the first person of color to appear in these mixes (which reflects my desire to keep back some key acts from former colonies for later inclusion around the globe more than any unadulterated whiteness of 80s European pop), is certainly the first Black woman. Of mixed Indonesian and Surinamese (which latter is to say African slave) descent, she had a couple of jazz-inflected Nederpop hits in the early 80s before becoming a cabaret act. Her debut single, “Vang me” (Catch Me), is a breezy but clear-eyed love song that borrows some of Jona Lewie’s dry music-hall delivery and adds a Manhattan Transfer kick to the middle eight.

10. Tappi Tíkarrass Kríó Gramm | Reykjavik, 1983

The eighteen-year-old singer, with her clear, youthful, and powerful voice, is nearly the only reason anyone has heard of this post-punk band; if she had not gone on to front bands K.U.K.L. and Sugarcubes, not to mention her own global superstardom as a mononymic solo artist, Tappi Tíkarrass might be an undiscovered gem rather than a pored-over Da Vinci Code by which adepts seek to unlock the mysteries of her sacred genius. This song, which predicts the soft-loud dynamics of 90s alt-rock with almost a shrug, is, according to internet Björkologists, the cry of an elderly man searching for his tern.

11. Eva Dahlgren Guldgrävarsång Polar | Stockholm, 1984

Discovered on a 1978 talent show, Dahlgren wouldn’t be a true pan-Scandinavian star until her 1991 adult-pop classic En blekt blondins hjärta (A Bleach Blonde’s Heart), but I really like her 1984 album Ett fönster mot gatan (A Window to the Street). The title of this slow-burn anthem, the leadoff track, can be translated as “Gold-digger’s song,” and is a reference to an early twentieth-century Swedish hit about Swedish immigrants failing to strike it rich in America: Dahlgren interiorizes the sentiment, making it a song about a streetwalker who dreams of finding a place where she can “kiss my brothers and sisters.” She would come out as gay in the 1990s, and is married to her partner of many years.

12. Svart Klovn Knust knekt Uniton | Oslo, 1983

Probably the most legendary Norwegian minimal-synth (I almost said synthpop, and then I remembered a-ha) single, “Knust knekt” (Shattered Jacks, as in the playing card) is a miniature masterpiece of mood. The lyrics, as far as I can determine, are standard post-punk gloom about moral corruption, but the sound and image of Svart Klovn (Black Clown), the alter ego of Svenn Jakobsen, are among the most striking in all Scandinavian pop.

13. Het Goede Doel Net zo lief gefortuneerd CNR | Utrecht, 1984

Dutch new wave duo Het Goede Doel (The Good Cause) were second only to Doe Maar in popularity, with a string of sarcastic, melodic hits that occasionally remind me of mid-period XTC. The opening orchestral hits belie the crooning tenderness of this portrait of callowness and privilege (the title is “Just So Sweet [and] Wealthy”), only tipping its satiric hand when Henk Westbroek sings on the prechorus that naturally he wanted to marry his mother.

14. tv-2 Vil du danse med mig CBS | Copenhagen, 1984

Akin to U2 in their longevity, success, and consistency (they’ve had the same four-man lineup since 1982), tv-2 are perhaps the most successful Danish band ever. Formed from the ashes of prog-hippy band Taurus and new-wave band Kliché, they started with an industrial sound that gradually brightened: this song (Will You Dance With Me) is one of the signature sounds of mid-80s Scandinavian pop. With muttered verses about how shitty men are after the initial bloom of romance is over, the chorus (and its saxophone riff) returning constantly to the moment when he asks her to dance is a sharp and poignant evocation of memory.

15. Lolita Pop Regn av dagar Mistlur | Stockholm, 1985

The small city of Örebro in inland Sweden was far distant from the Paisley Underground scene swirling around Los Angeles in the early 80s, but a band with the same influences — the Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, the Beatles — formed there, and with crisp Stockholm production seemed to predict the alternate-tuned 90s of Tanya Donelly and Letters to Cleo. “Regn av dagar” is “Rain for Days,” and the lyric is similarly 90s-depressed, while the rock band behind singer Karin Wistrand chimes and chugs along.

16. Cirkus Modern Karianne Sonet | Oslo, 1984

The songs I’ve chosen from Norway are all representative of more left-of-center pop than the more mainstream work I’ve chosen from Sweden and Denmark. Partly that reflects the the fact that Norway was just a smaller regional scene, but partly it’s that Norwegian pop is not well documented online. Cirkus Modern were a moderately successful post-punk act who produced two albums and an EP, which makes them by far the most prolific Norwegian act represented here: “Karianne” is a joyfully raucous (and slightly unsettling) jam that reminds me of when the Cure went pop circa “Lovecats.”

17. Madou Witte nachten Lark | Antwerp, 1982

The Dutch musical genre of “kleinkunst” (literally “little art”) can be compared to the German “kabarett” (cabaret) but includes folk-musical forms and socially critical lyrics. Madou, an experimental Flemish band centered around singer Vera Coomans and pianist and composer Wiet Van de Leest, brought kleinkunst into the new wave scene, with dark songs about abuse, incest, and suicide. “Witte nachten” (white or sleepless nights), despite its vaudevillian bounce, is sung from the perspective of a child whose mother shares her bed to escape the father’s fists.

18. Tuula Amberla Lulu Selecta | Turku, 1984

I may have stretched the definition of new wave to the breaking point with “Lulu” — the jazz manouche violin and general 1930s air (at least until the crisp Cars-y electric guitar solo) might sound too much like a nostalgia act for the rest of this mix. But Tuula Amberla was the lead singer of gothy post-punk band Liikkuvat Lapset, and the lyrics, written by doctor and songwriter Jukka Alihanka after a poem by sculptor and architect Alpo Jaakola, are about the decadent nightlife of modern Helsinki, as the video makes clear.

19. Grafík Þúsund sinnum segðu já GRAF | Reykjavik, 1984

Iceland’s vibrant and highly original music scene has gotten really short shrift from this mix, thanks to its tiny population. There’s lots more to dig into where this came from. But when I ran an initial survey of European music of 1984 some months ago, this sparkling gem of a pop song stood out immediately. Part Huey Lewis (that shiny production), part Prefab Sprout (those lovelorn melodies), all Grafík, perhaps Iceland’s premier pop-rock band of the 80s (at least until the Sugarcubes came along), “A Thousand TImes Say Yes” is a plea for total romantic commitment that comes across in any language.

20. Klein Orkest Over de muur Polydor | Amsterdam, 1984

One of the key songs of the Cold-War 80s, “Over de muur” is sometimes classed as a protest song, but if so it’s hard to parse which side it’s protesting. Making a clear-eyed examination of the repressive idealism of the Communist East as well as of the gluttonous “freedom” of the Democratic West, singer Harrie Jekkers’ real sympathies are with the birds who can fly over the Berlin Wall at will, as he imagines a day when the people will be able to do the same.

21. Di Leva I morgon Mistlur | Stockholm, 1987

Born Sven Thomas Magnusson, he adopted the stage name Thomas Di Leva when he joined the punk band the Pillisnorks as a teenager. His next band was Modern Art, and he went solo in 1982, at the age of 19. One of the most fascinating and creative Swedish pop stars of the early 80s, he drew inspiration from glam, electronic experiments, traditional pop, and eventually, Eastern mysticism. Those New Age leanings are all over “I morgon” (Tomorrow), which combines an up-to-the-moment U2 chug with Di Leva’s early-70s Bowie wail to create an extended, lightly trippy meditation on being, time, and the unknowableness of reality. He’s since become a New Age guru and life coach; but his early music is still really interesting.

Okay, that’s it. Join me next time when I’ll be looking at the Neue Deutsche Welle (and the Neue Österreichische Welle, and the Neue Schweizer Welle). I’m over the hump: there are three mixes left to go in this series. Thanks for reading and listening. If you want to talk to me about what I’ve compiled, or what I’ve said about it. I’m around.

#my mixology career

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staxilicious · 6 years

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One of the bloggers I follow did a review of their own accomplishments for this year, along with a list of goals for the coming year LAST YEAR, and so reblogged that with how that played out and then the same for this year, which got me thinking about my own lists for those things.

The months between July 2015 and the end of December 2016 were the worst months of my life, no hyperbole. My goal for all of that time was “live through this, keep my cat alive through this, not lose myself in this process.” At the end of 2016 I had a 5x10 storage unit that was FULL, a shed at a friend’s that was about the same size and also full, my apartment so full of boxes that the only things I could get to were the bathroom, my bed, some (but not all) of my clothes, the “kitchen”, and my desk, plus the garage of the house where I live filled with boxes. My goals were to get through all of those things and get back on track with my creative pursuits and spend more time with my loved ones.

What actually happened in 2017, political dumpster fire aside, was that I spent the entire year dealing with the health repercussions of those 18 months of constant extreme stress. I have a number of health conditions that are all exacerbated or triggered by stress (which it would be tedious to detail here) and all of them were tripped, plus I had brand new body things that happened including 2/3rds of my hair falling out between November 2016 and February 2017 (it did start growing back in around the end of February and is now at the length where it is ALMOST long enough to go into my ponytail but not quite). All of which left me with the overall impression that this year was a wash on ANY accomplishments, but then I stopped to really think about it.

After some consideration, I realized that I did get a few things accomplished this year:

- I met and spoke with quite a few of the people who live in my neighborhood, including half the people who live along the cul de sac where I live.

- Read over 300 books. It was more but the ipad I was using to do so has crashed and so the exact number and names of those books is out of reach right now. (to be fair, mostly as audio books)

- Did some more work on learning to compose music

- Wrote some poetry

- Took a lot of photographs, including taking several walks (in warmer weather) specifically to take photographs.

- Did a series of product photos for someone’s webstore.

- Won NaNoWriMo

- Began learning Spanish this summer and have progressed far enough that I am catching things in Spanish language conversations I run across in the world, and understanding about a third of any Spanish language programs I am watching (making it more possible for me to watch Spanish Language programming without having to focus on subtitles 100% of the time).

- Made myself several necklace/earring sets to wear with my current wardrobe

- Began sculpting with clay again.

- Got The Band Back Together. (got my old IRC crew back together and using slack to be in touch like the old days – this was a major undertaking and involved bringing a lot of people together to contact all of those folks who I don’t have contact info for. This was long overdue.

- Actually did get through one of those storage units worth of stuff (I know this because I have more room in my apartment now than I did at the beginning of the year, and the friend sold their house so all of my stuff stored there was brought here).

- Created a City game setting for D&D/Pathfinder games to run a live game and online game in (which has involved a LOT of work, and illustration as I have done all of the maps by hand, and created other illustrations for how things work in the city), and begun running the live game there.

- Started gaming again on a weekly basis.

- Drew a several new pieces

- Actually got back to cleaning up pieces that I drew a while back and then left hanging. I have been making major strides with getting pieces finalized again.

- Started being more active on Tumblr again.

- Moved from LJ to Dreamwidth (although this is something I need to post to more, I am sure).

- Spent time with my sister.

- Saw a fair few movies *in the theatre*. I think I averaged one every other month this year, which is a LOT more than the previous 2 years.

- Got the first step done for several projects that I have been dying to work on for several years now.

- Got another Fairy Gothchild <3

- Spent a lot of quality time with an old friend, helping them get healthier.

- Got some mending done.

Which is a not insubstantial amount of accomplishments for a year I felt like I did NOTHING AT ALL, but it took really putting these things into words to see that. If you feel like your year has been a whole lot of nothing, stop and consider what you have done this year and how you would describe it to other people. You might be surprised at just how much you have done.

My goals for the coming year include:

- Becoming fluent enough in Spanish to understand song lyrics. (which, given that songs are as fast or faster than speaking speed and distorted, is pretty damn fluent)

- Speak more regularly with my sister and neicephew (the latter will be easier now that we are both on discord)

- Get through all of the boxes of all of the things so I can actually use my table, and just reduce the amount of stuff I have (including getting things out of storage so I don’t have to pay for it).

- Make a lot of art. Drawings, sculpture, music, poetry, photographs, etc.

- Big Project Stuff (see “got the first step done” above)

- Get my mother’s writings transcribed and edited

- Get my mother’s patterns scanned, transcribed, and edited

- Get back to spreading my mother’s ashes in the places she asked me to (there are SEVERAL)

- Begin to learn Korean

- Read the Qur’an

- Do a lot of editing (I owe 2 friends edits on their novels)

- Spend time with friends just hanging out together.

- Get through the books on the TBR shelf.

- Get back into promoting the Bath Salt store.

#year in review #2017 #2016 #2015 #things I have done

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