#this video just slapped me back to 2016 when jackson was doing the most to annoy eric | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lunapaper · 3 years

Text

The year was 2010. Emo was just starting to die out (long live the scene). I was studying to become a secondary school teacher, and Katy Perry was shooting whipped cream out of her boobs...

Second albums, more often than not, fail to live up to the hype. And yet, Teenage Dream has somehow endured.

While Perry’s 2008 debut, One of the Boys, launched her into the mainstream, it really hasn’t aged all that well. On tracks like ‘Self Inflicted’ and ‘Fingerprints,’ she tries way too hard to emulate Paramore’s bold pop punk. On others, she attempts to rebel against her gospel roots by turning the bawdiness up to 10.

It can also come off pretty juvenile at times. The singer was almost 25 when she sang on the title track: ‘So over the summer, something changed/I started reading Seventeen and shaving my legs/And I studied Lolita religiously/And I walked right in to school and caught you staring at me.’

But let’s be honest: Even though it’s been declared ~problematic~, you still jam out to ‘I Kissed A Girl’ when you hear it, don’t you? I hadn’t listened to ‘Ur So Gay’ before this, either, but its slinky, jazz-infused vibe absolutely slaps.

Like Teenage Dream is also a product of its time, presenting pop at its most sugary, hook-laden and bombastic. It managed to spawn 5 No.1 singles, the second album in history to do so after Michael Jackson’s Bad, as well as a documentary, Part of Me. There’s even a deluxe edition, cleverly titled The Complete Confection. It was Perry at her peak.

You know the title track, of course. Evoking images of cherry red lipstick, tight denim and driving down an empty highway in summer, Perry desperately clings to the memory of young love, breathlessly pleading ‘don’t ever look back, don’t ever look back.’

‘The One That Got Away,’ meanwhile, is its bittersweet sequel, Perry's lovesick nostalgia now tinged with regret. Yet, the only thing I really remember about the song is the video starring Cassian Andor himself, Diego Luna, as Perry’s past love, the beautifully dishevelled and tortured artist of my dreams (Dear God, that penetrating stare...) He’s also the only reason why anyone bothered to watch Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, if it wasn’t already obvious.

First single ‘California Gurls,’ on the other hand, is pure pop exuberance at its most campy and carefree, indicative of a more innocent time when it wasn’t driven by algorithms or social media. ‘Firework’ is still a go-to empowerment anthem for just about every kind of montage imaginable. ‘ET’ (featuring a pre-’presidential’ Kanye) is heavily-synthesised cyber pop that doesn’t get nearly enough love.

But Teenage Dream, in retrospect, has quite a few misses. ‘Peacock’ is just one big, long, glitchy dick joke. ‘Not Like The Movies’ is big ballad schmaltz. The brassy soft rock of ‘Hummingbird Heartbeat,’ meanwhile, opens with a hell of a line: ‘You make me feel like I'm losing my virginity/The first time, every time when you're touching me.’ And I’m pretty sure ‘What Am I Living For?’ is partly plagiarised from Justin Timberlake’s ‘My Love.’ Even Pitchfork awarded Teenage Dream a rather tame 6.8 in their recent retrospective review.

By the time Perry released Prism in 2013 – her ‘darker, moodier’ record - she had shifted further into ‘inspirational anthems.’ There was the inescapable mega-hit ‘Roar,’ the saccharine power ballad ‘Unconditionally’ and the Eastern-tinged ‘Legendary Lovers,’ complete with wellness and spiritual motifs.

But it wasn’t without its bangers: ‘Dark Horse’ (featuring Juicy J) jumped onto the trap pop bandwagon just in time with its subterranean bass and eerie, otherworldly synths. Even the slick, 90s-indebted ‘This Is How We Do’ has a certain charm.

Prism also marked the point where Perry’s invincibility began to wear off. Where the masses once lapped up her candy-coated antics, they were now calling her out for wearing braids in the video for ‘This Is How We Do’ and dressing up as a geisha during a performance at the American Music Awards.

And they would only get louder during her era of ‘purposeful pop.’ Released in the aftermath of the 2016 US election, Witness was meant to cement Perry as ‘Artist. Activist. Conscious’ - as her Twitter bio read at the time. She had joined Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. On Instagram, she was quoting the likes of Socrates and Plato. She was Woke now, and she was telling anyone who’d listen.

Yet you’d be hard pressed to find much trace of this ‘purposeful pop’ on Witness, bar the first single, ‘Chained to the Rhythm.’ Written with Sia and Max Martin, the singer implores listeners to ‘put your rose-coloured glasses on and party on’ amid whirling, colourful synths.

The rest of the record, however, is made up of either soppy, overly sentimental ballads (‘Save As Draft,’ ‘Pendulum,’ ‘Into Me You See’), awkward lyrical turns and CHVRCHES/Purity Ring knock-offs (‘Hey Hey Hey,’ ‘Roulette,’ ‘Deja Vu’).

Funnily enough, Purity Ring’s Corin Roddick produced some of Witness’ better tracks: ‘Mind Maze’ and the soaring ballad ‘Miss You More, along with ‘Bigger Than Me.’

Final track ‘Act My Age,’ meanwhile, feels like a pre-emptive strike against the criticism Witness would inevitably receive (‘They say that I might lose my Midas touch/They also say I may become irrelevant/But who the fuck are they anyway?’).

Then there’s the godawful ‘Bon Appetit’ (featuring Migos) with its food-related double entendres. It was ‘Yummy’ before ‘Yummy’ existed. Seriously, I just wanna see Orlando Bloom say he likes this song with a straight face...

But I will still defend ‘Swish Swish’ to the death. Do the lyrics suck? Yeah, but Perry’s never been the strongest lyricist. But its pulsing 90s house beat does a lot of the heavy lifting, along with Nicki Minaj’s spitfire verse.

The promotional rollout for Witness, meanwhile, proved just as messy. Among the most infamous was a 72-hour livestream, where voyeurs got to witness Perry sleep, meditate, do yoga and welcome a random assortment of guests, including Gordon Ramsey and activist DeRay McKesson. Then there was the meme-laden video for ‘Swish Swish. She literally served herself up on a platter in the clip for ‘Bon Appetit.’ She tried reigniting her feud with Taylor Swift on James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. Needless to say, it reeked of desperation.

Looking back, though, you can’t help but feel a little bad for Perry, trying so hard to please only for it to blow up spectacularly in her face. So devastated, it sent her to the Hoffman Institute, which offers an abridged version of therapy. As she later told the Guardian:

‘I think the universe was like, ‘OK, all right, let’s have some humble pie here […] My negative thoughts were not great. They didn’t want to plan for a future. I also felt like I could control it by saying, ‘I’ll have the last word if I hurt myself or do something stupid and I’ll show you’ — but really, who was I showing?’

But although Witness lacked the perkiness of Teenage Dream or the cartoonish charm of One of the Boys, it shines best on its darker moments.

‘Dance With The Devil’ has the kind of smoky allure that wouldn’t look too out of place on a BANKS album, while ‘Power’ is a revelation. Produced by Jack Garrett, what could’ve been yet another dull empowerment ballad is turned into a gritty, groaning slab of vaporwave pop, with sultry sax riffs that sample, of all things, Smokey Robinson’s ‘Being With You.’ It’s electric as fuck. You believe it when Perry sings: ‘’Cause I'm a goddess and you know it/Some respect, you better show it/I'm done with you siphoning my power.’

If the singer had just done away with the whole ‘purposeful pop’ concept and stuck with Garrett, Roddick and Terror Jr’s Felix Snow as her core producing group, Witness probably wouldn’t have been half the failure it was. It could’ve had a chance to grow on people, the kind of slow burn Perry could’ve gotten away with at this point in her career. The cyberpop dystopian feel also could’ve gone hand in hand with her newfound wokeness, echoing people’s fear and anger in the aftermath of Trump’s win. But alas, we’ll never know...

While the rollout for Witness over the top, Smile’s was lacklustre and wildly inconsistent.

First single ‘Never Really Over’ came out a whole 15 months before the release of Smile to little fanfare, along with a hippie-inspired video to match. ‘Harleys in Hawaii’ later followed, which also stuck with the flower power aesthetic. Other singles - ‘Daisies’ and the title track – seemingly came and went without a trace.

So how did Katy Perry get to this point? And is there any chance of coming back?

It’s hard to say. A lot of artists go through a rough patch or two: Miley's twerking antics divided audiences when she released 2013’s Bangerz. Taylor Swift’s reputation divided audiences. Only in recent years has Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP been vindicated. Such is the nature of music and pop culture in general. It’s fickle, just one vicious cycle after another; an endless quest for trend-bait that'll never end.

Right now, disco pop is going through a renaissance, while hyperpop reigns supreme. Dua Lip and Charli XCX are basically untouchable at the moment. TikTok has taken over from Top 40 radio when it comes to breaking hits, while the gap between album releases has also grown shorter and shorter. Even the nature of fandom has changed, shifting from old-school elitism to the bloodsport that is ‘stanning,’ along with an unhealthy amount of ‘endless simping’ (to quote a close friend of mine).

Perry, meanwhile, has failed to keep up, choosing to play it safe in order to avoid further scrutiny. But in doing so, she strips away the humour, the mischief and other idiosyncrasies that fans fell in love with in the first place.

But what choice did she have? As Junkee’s Sam Murphy notes in his own piece about Perry’s rise and fall:

‘At that point, you have two choices as a popstar — hunt for relevancy or make what comes naturally to you. Perry chose the former and came unstuck. She inserted vague wokeness into her songs as cancel culture infiltrated pop, tacked on rap features as hip-hop became the dominant commercial genre, and worked with producers who may have been able to find her credibility.’

(Full disclosure: I started writing my piece on Perry back in December 2020, so the timing of Murphy’s piece and mine is purely coincidental).

Even if you don’t believe in cancel culture, no one actually wants to be cancelled. It’s just not good for PR, especially for someone with an image as glossy and as carefully put-together as Perry’s. Even now, she continues to atone for Witness, telling the LA Times: ‘Having more awareness and consciousness, I no longer can just be a blissful, ignorant idealist who sings about love and relationships […] Even my travels have afforded me a new perspective on cultures, class systems and the inequality around the world, not just in the United States,’ though she carefully avoids the subject of politics on Smile.

But redemption is possible. Swift – Perry's one-time nemesis - was a total pariah back in 2016, mocked for her Girl Squad, for diddling the Hiddles while on the rebound from Calvin Harris and criticised for remaining coy on her political leanings. Now she’s earning indie cred with two of 2020’s biggest albums, folklore and evermore, and has thrown her support behind a number of social causes.

The devil works hard, but Swift’s PR team work harder. I might not be her biggest fan, but Taylor works Kris Jenner levels of mastery when it comes to rebuilding public sentiment. Thanks to her newfound indie cred, you’ve almost forgotten about the pastel atrocity ‘Me!,’ her 2019 duet with that insufferable drama kid cliché, Brendon Urie. Shifting her songs away from petty grievances to more original storytelling was also a smart move.

But while Swift has managed to move on, Perry seems to have fallen into the same adult contemporary trap as Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera and Pink, one that ensnares many female artists over 30 (Though many have also managed to escape – Gaga, Taylor, Beyonce, Rihanna, Kesha, Robyn...)

As ‘woke’ as the industry and fans at large might think themselves to be, they’re still pretty ageist. There's still an expectation to ‘mature’ your sound as you age, to become more ‘serious.’ No more fun, no more experimenting, boomer. But when you do end up filing away the edges, you’re called dull, generic and past your prime. Perry said as much on the aforementioned ‘Act My Age. You just. can't. win.

And yet, many female artists over 30 have created some of their best work yet in just the past year or so: Hayley Williams made the dramatic shift from pop rock to low-key, Radiohead-inspired tunes on her solo debut, Petals For Armor. Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters was hailed by critics as her most bold, urgent and visceral. Jessie Ware’s What’s Your Pleasure? was a cut of understated disco pop elegance. Carly Rae Jepsen, meanwhile, released an equally stellar companion to 2019’s Dedicated.

At this point in her career, Perry could afford to follow a similar path to that of the Canadian singer. Once the meme value of ‘Call Me Maybe’ wore off, along with her mainstream appeal, Jepsen finally had a chance to discover real creative freedom, pushing her sound to greater heights and earning critical acclaim, all without having to compromise her love for catchy hooks and bold synth pop arrangements.

A couple of years ago, a Reddit user made a post about participating in a focus group held by Perry’s label to discuss why she’s ‘no longer one of the[ir] most notable female pop artists,’ and ‘what can [they] do with her image or marketing to make you care about her again?’

It’s depressing to think that an artist as accomplished as her needs a focus group to help solve her identity crisis. There really is no easy answer. Hopefully, Perry will be able to return more vibrant and assured than ever, on her own terms...

-Bianca B.

#music #katy perry #longform #opinion #new #Bianca B

0 notes

everysuperherofighting · 7 years

Text

Best Albums of 2016

I think we all know how we feel about 2016, though I will say that on a personal level it was actually pretty good, and involved a lot of positive personal development, though also a fair amount of death, and I’m not talking about all the celebrities right now. My aunt, grandfather, and former band instructor all passed away this year.

As far as music, my tastes feel like they fall on the same continuum they always do, though there seem to be a few more old guy rockers than usual, which I guess means I am no longer aiming for “Noisey” but rather “Rolling Stone.” This is probably also personal: I am not an old guy yet, but I am getting closer and I am also becoming aware that I will probably not accomplish all of my artistic goals within the next 5 to 10 years, and so am becoming increasingly open to artists staying relevant into their middle age and beyond.

RIP all the folks, RIP all the artists and celebrities, RIP all the people in Syria and Yemen and the Philippines, and all the people killed in terrorist attacks in Europe and Africa and the Middle East, and killed in shootings (police, mass, and otherwise) in the United States, and RIP the short term possibility of having a federal government that is at least potentially responsive to the needs of marginalized people. Here are the best albums of 2016, according to me:

Image via the Hold Up music video

1. Beyonce - Lemonade.

This album was cathartic when it was released at the beginning of the year, but now that we’re at the end we probably need it even more.

Though largely about infidelities within an interpersonal relationship (dammit Jay), with a heavy smattering of race commentary (particularly in the videos) and empowerment feminism, the frustrations and self-empowerment in the face of all adversaries expressed in these songs transcend the specifics. Especially in a year determined to put us in our place, to make us feel worthless or powerless.. Whether a cheating lover, an orange race-baiting huckster masquerading as politician (and ascending to the highest office in the land), the goddamn fucking forces of white supremacy/the patriarchy/global capitalism or our own private struggles with self-doubts and mental illness, this album had something to offer, if nothing else than a reminder to hold our heads up and say “fuck ya’ll.”

I didn’t like every song on this album but look: When I saw a room full of women, middle fingers raised, jamming out to “I’m Not Sorry” like a giant “fuck you” to whatever it was that was fucking their day up, telling them they weren’t valuable or whatever, I realized that it didn’t necessarily need to be for me.

Rubbery dancehall, Nahleans jazz, futuristic (though I guess present now) R+B, diva voice: Beyonce does that thing where she overdubs like 20 different vocal tracks over one another, but her voice is already so powerful it sounds like a chorus of Amazonians or gods. And of course there’s the image of Beyonce walking around smashing car windows with a baseball bat in the “Hold Up” video, which now seems to be remarkably prescient.

The biggest pop star in the world right now has our back. We could do worse.

Watch “Hold Up”

2. Anderson .Paak - Malibu

Deceptively breezy soul and funk that inherently understands the political power of a block party. Like so many artists before, Anderson .Paak understands that sometimes just getting by is a revolutionary act, and thus this album often seems like a celebration of the awe one feels at their own continued existence. Some pretty good jams for fucking also.

Watch “Come Down”

3. Schoolboy Q - Blank Face

A gangsta rap album that absolutely nails the paranoia and sense of menace that must accompany the lifestyle. The vibe alternates between blazed out soul samples and claustrophobic, almost manic moments of paranoia. Sometimes you’re smoking the Kush and then sometimes there’s a black SUV in your rearview. Schoolboy Q rides over all this with straight-faced hood talk and almost gleeful depictions of acts of depravity, like so many others grasping power in whatever avenue is available to him. Kanye West has a show stealing feature and Vince Staples continues to shine, but I’m all about those Jadakiss and E40 bars.

Watch “John Muir”

4. Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition

Beats that sound like they were compiled from the intro to old VHS tapes and people banging on trashcans. Little oft-kilter touches mirror the descriptions of substance abuse, the pitch-heightened background voice in “White Lines,” B-Real’s blitzed nursery rhyme delivery of the hook on “Get Hi.” Not that much music can probably still scare your cool boomer parents, but I’d nominate this one.

Watch “When It Rain”

Image via the Nobody’s Baby video

5. Sheer Mag - III

Sheer Mag sounds like the best basement band in the world, grimy rock n roll made by people who got punk but also grew up on Thin Lizzy and Jackson Five. Guitar solos that sound liberating instead of masturbatory and powerhouse vocals from Tina Halladay about love and heartbreak, like someone’s memory of what 70s rock n roll was like, inevitably better than it actually was.

Watch “Nobody’s Baby”

6. The Falcon - Gather Up The Chaps

Technically this is a punk rock supergroup, with members of the Loved Ones and Alkaline Trio, but it feels very much like Brendan Kelly’s vision, a chance to get a little grittier than the Lawrence Arms and indulge in his ever present artistic interest in the guy puking in the alley, then asking you if you know where to score some coke. There’s a song named after the video of David Hasselhoff drunkenly eating a cheeseburger, and though in a different band this may be a gimmicky (and like, really really out of date) reference to internet culture, here it comes across as a recognition - a dark moment is a dark moment no matter how meme worthy it becomes.

Watch “Sergio’s Here”

7. Jeff Rosenstock - Worry

Massive sing alongs, noisy genre hopping (or combining), and huge power-pop hooks that always seem to be just on the verge of descending into chaos. Jeff Rosenstock has often managed to make whatever he’s going through personally seem to speak to larger scale generational woes (I’m pretty sure there were at least two albums about not wanting to get a job, which came out at the same time that I and most of the people I know also didn’t want to get jobs). A reoccurring theme here seems to be the gentrification of places that you love, which is connected to the experience of getting older and feeling like you’re missing out. Jeff has definitely crafted his own “sound” at this point, so when he switches styles to the straight genre homage in the three-song punch of “Bang On the Door,” “Rainbow” and “Planet Luxury” (garage punk, third-wave ska and hardcore) in 3 blistering minutes, it’s a perfect reminder of all the music we (well, me) grew up loving.

Watch “Wave Goodnight To Me”

8. Kamaiyah - A Good Night In the Ghetto

Remember when people used to call beats “slappers?” Probably only if you were into Bay Area hip-hop circa 2007. Anyway, this shit slaps.

Watch “Out the Bottle”

9. YG - Still Brazy

Similar to how A Good Night in The Ghetto feels like an amalgamation of several decades of Bay Area hip hop, this is puuuuuure fucking LA fat bass, eerie keyboard sampling G-funk. Gangsta rap has always been political. Have I written that before? It’s worth saying more than once. Those last three songs though. FDT will obviously have a lot of shelf life, but “Blacks and Browns” and “Police Get Away Wit Murder” are sharp contributions to the tradition of “fuck this shit” also.

Watch “FDT”

10. Run the Jewels - RTJ3

A rush of weird beats, shit talk, and surreal imagery, hip-hop dispatches from a dystopian future, but one that feels weeks rather than years away. El-P and Killer Mike are honestly not that similar stylistically, (El-P is more from the highly conceptual east coast underground school, Killer Mike is more the southern testifying and telling straight truths school) but their mutual love of the game has always made this work and they are both world class shit talkers.

Watch “Talk To Me”

Image via the Chili Town video

11. Hinds - Leave Me Alone

Garage… pop I guess? that feels close to the vein, emotionally. I don’t mean heartbreak, though that’s here too, but also friendship, drinking wine in the sun, with surfy guitar melodies. There’s something that sometimes happens with some lady bands, where people kind of get into some sort of perceived naiveté or innocence or something, so I’m going to assume these women can fuck you up.

Watch “Warts”

12. Pup - The Dream Is Over

The frustration of reaching your mid-20s, realizing that you have not accomplished any of your goals and that you don’t have any prospects. In song form. It would sound like a kiss-off if the singer wasn’t desperately grasping for change.

Watch “DVP”

13. A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service

Classic Tribe components still here - the swing in the rhythm, the walking bass lines, motherfucking Busta Rhymes(!), but with a foot firmly planted in the present. Did they used to swear this much? I don’t remember. Extended music breaks. Guitar flourishes. Q-Tip is clearly the ringleader, wearing the role more comfortably than ever, but with a kind of quiet humility that comes from age. Yeah, we still here, shit still sucks, but sometimes you find those little moments, you know?

Watch “We The People”

14. Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker

Is there hope for salvation before death? Or just further disappointment and failure? An album to drink wine to in a dark room, alone but for ghosts.

Watch “You Want It Darker”

15. Drive-By Truckers - American Band

Pretty sure the Truckers have always been angry and political, it’s just never lined up with current events quite this overtly - but there’s always been a real siding with the have-nots, the people screwed over by bad economics, and the (not just white) working classes, though sometimes this manifests as concept albums about Lynard Skynard. Still, with a band that clearly flirts with a Red State target audience, at least sonically, and judging from the youtube comments on some of their videos, hanging their hat so clearly on the “blue side” is a risky move and one that should be commended. Here we get stories about the founder of the NRA murdering a Mexican teenager in the 20s, the shooting at Umpqua community college, hypocritical religious folks, and Black Lives fucking Mattering.

Watch “Surrender Under Protest”

16. David Bowie - Blackstar

To be honest, I thought this sounded a little bit too much like Pink Floyd the first time I heard it (plus a sax player) but the sultriness of cuts like “Lazerus,” the keyboard line in “’Tis a Pity She Was a Whore” that sounds like it came out of an 80s fantasy movie, and the weird vocal flourishes and marching rhythm of “Girl Loves Me” won me over. Bowie has left this mortal coil, and either ascended to a tinsel covered 70s movie set or an 80s computer game about going to the moon, but it’s definitely some kind of heaven.

Watch “Lazerus”

17. Death Grips - Bottomless Pit

A soundtrack for glitchy meme art, ordering 2CI off the Silk Road, and those computer generated DeepDream images, while MC Ride bellows avant-garde street poetry. I’ve never been sure if Death Grips are railing against or with the shitposting internet culture that’s embraced them. Some of these tracks are just fucking metal though.

Watch “Eh”

18. clipping - Splendor and Misery

Breakneck raps over the sound of an airshaft opening on a spaceship. This is supposedly a concept album about a slave revolt in outer space. Musically this equates to old spirituals and malfunctioning computers.

Watch “Air Em Out”

19. The Coathangers - Nosebleed Weekend

In the music video for “Nosebleed Weekend” the women in the band crash a party of hipsters to punch everyone in the face, but then the video ends with them probably trying to keep a straight face while they get covered with buckets of fake blood. Tough sounding surf punk, much about heartbreak.

Watch “Nosebleed Weekend”

Image via the Victim of Me video

20. Descendents - Hypercaffium Spazzinate

There’s a lot of older musicians on this list for whatever reason (all the dead guys I guess,) but a few lyrics about dietary changes aside, this band could have stepped wholesale out of their 1994 variation. Fast, hooky, with the most underrated bass lines in punk.

Watch “Victim of Me”

21. Paul Simon - Stranger to Stranger

Alright, this one’s a little NPR but I will say that I think Paul Simon sounds a little more of-kilter, a little moodier than he sometimes does. There are dark things around the edges in this one, whether it’s the ghostly guitars on the title track, or the way his funny song about getting stuck outside a club you’re supposed to play suddenly starts alluding to class uprising, a buildup that feels both surprising and also strangely inevitable.

Watch “Wristband”

22. Mikey Erg - Tentative Decisions

A lot of emotionally earnest music (dare we bring up emo?) gets slammed, essentially for being melodramatic. It’s a difficult balancing act, but I’ve always felt like the Ergs managed to avoid this, and here Mikey Erg continues that streak on his first solo album, with tastefully poppy tunes full of yearning melodies and (more) broken hearts, ala Big Star or an early Beatles album. When I saw this guy live a few years ago, it made my friend get back together with his ex-girlfriend.

Watch “Faulty Metaphor”

23. NOFX - First Ditch Effort

There is no way I’m not putting an album that has a song where Fat Mike sings about being a fetishistic crossdresser in my top 25.

Watch “Six Years On Dope”

24. Ramshackle Glory - One Last Big Job

It’s amazing how many people’s favorite band this is with virtually no mainstream recognition. Like, even Bomb the Music Industry put out stuff with Asian Man, who’ve put out Alkaline Trio records and stuff. And yet this (and Patrick Schneeweis’s other projects) is like Bob Dylan to thousands of kids across the country. I knew something was up when all the kids at the Rainbow Gathering I went to (2011) were playing Johnny Hobo covers. Anyway, this is their last album, and as such is a somewhat slow, contemplative affair. Pat’s always been excellent at espousing anarchist ideals while also representing that problems and hypocrisies that accompany radical lifestyles. Swan song for a true alternative.

Listen to “Face the Void”

25. AJJ - The Bible 2

Very much continuing ideas first developed on Christmas Island, a collection of noisy rock/pop tunes with upbeat melodies and lyrics about losing your shit, dirty middle schoolers who hang out by themselves in construction sites, and the Herculean task of feeling kind of ok with yourself.

Watch “Goodbye, Oh Goodbye”

1 note · View note

junker-town · 6 years

Text

What the hell is Ray Lewis talking about?

The Hall of Famer linebacker is America’s most confusing motivational speaker.

Ray Lewis deserves all the credit we can give him for his football career. Middle linebacker isn’t a position that lends itself well to sexy stats, but if you need a number to explain to the people at your fantasy draft about Lewis’ bona fides, use this one — the only player in NFL history with at least 30 interceptions and 40 sacks.

The doughy, old gatekeepers who decide which players get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame actually did something right when they decided Lewis was worthy of enshrinement on the first ballot.

The only downside to their decision is that it subjects us to another awkward public display of another thing Lewis is famous for — inspirational speaking.

Rousing locker room speech is really the practice of finding the right cadence and tone. The words don’t have to matter as long as there’s some mix of important terms like “our house, brotherhood, God, momentum,” etc. Lewis’ sideline speeches were apparently very powerful and complete nonsense, as pointed out by Joe Flacco. And yet, somehow Lewis has managed to make a career of speaking his mind.

Here, without further commentary, are my own picks for the most confusing, problematic and uncomfortable things Ray Lewis has ever said.

His Hall of Fame speech

It hasn’t even happened yet, but we got a sneak peek during Thursday’s Hall of Fame game.

Also, it’s going to last at least 45 minutes, AT LEAST.

Here’s what he said when NBC let him filibuster instead of showing Lamar Jackson play:

“This is why I never change, that moment always — and you’ll hear it a little bit tomorrow — but that moment always ends with the honor of God. It always does. So when I throw out my chances, it’s like ‘gah we did that ... we did that.’”

Huh?

Can’t wait ‘til Saturday!

On the subject of momentum

“People don’t really know how huge momentum is. Momentum is huge.”

It really is.

youtube

Ray Lewis prevents crime

Lewis has some zany sociological theories:

Ray Lewis said the contagious positive energy surrounding his induction reminds him of his playing days. "When I played, crime went lower in Baltimore," Lewis said. "It’s like, nobody needs to be mad now. It’s like everybody wants to be happy and celebrate."

— Jamison Hensley (@jamisonhensley) August 3, 2018

The NFL also prevents crime

With a player lockout putting the 2011 season in jeopardy, Lewis laid bare the dire consequences, as he foresaw them.

“Do this research if we don’t have a season — watch how much evil, which we call crime, watch how much crime picks up, if you take away our game,” he told ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio.

“There’s nothing else to do Sal.”

Well, there’s baseball ... okay, nevermind.

So much for solidarity

I can’t imagine Lewis’ fellow union members loved the sound of Lewis stumping for owners with that whole crime warning. I’m sure they were absolutely thrilled with what else he had to say about players fighting for a new collective bargaining agreement.

“It’s simple, we really got to remove pride. Seriously. There’s no other reason the issue is going on. That’s why I don’t get into words and all that other stuff, because it takes away from life ... itself.

I know the main reason players didn’t hold out longer was not because of Lewis’ admonishment, but it certainly doesn’t help the cause of his fellow players, especially since most players who pass through the league never get the kind of contracts Lewis signed during his career.

Ray Lewis mashing words together is funny. Being shitty is not funny.

Lewis is confused about Kaepernick

Speaking of shitty, let’s not forget the low point of Lewis’ career as a television talking head (seriously, what a terrible idea that was), which came just last year when he once again went to bat for owners, specifically Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, criticizing Colin Kaepernick for speaking out against police brutality and racial inequality.

He actually started criticizing Kaepernick in 2016, with Lewis-isms like this:

“I understand what you’re trying to do, but take the flag out of it. [...] I think if Colin really just steps back, because to affect change, if you don’t have a real solution, if you ain’t seen as a true activist to go into these hoods and do these things on a daily basis and not just jump up and protest because you’re sick of this one thing …”

He failed to mention the “real solution” of Kaepernick pledging one million dollars of his own money, not to mention the effort to start a national dialogue over the issue.

He teed off on Kaepernick again last fall, following a nonsensical debate on Fox Sports’ Undisputed. He made Skip Bayless look reasonable! Then, posted an even weirder video on Twitter.

“If you do nothing else, young man, get back on the football field and let your play speak for itself. And what you do off the field, don’t let too many people know, because they gonna judge you anyway, no matter what you do, no matter if it’s good or bad.”

Lewis missed the part where Kaepernick WAS trying to play football again, but teams, including the Ravens, were blackballing him.

And that wasn’t even the end of it. Lewis made himself look like a fool over the whole affair, a grandstanding egotist.

Do not mention deer antlers, even with your hat!

That wasn’t the first time Lewis had beef with Kaepernick. He ago was apparently damaged because of a hat — yes, A Hat! — that Kaepernick wore after Super Bowl XLVII, when Lewis’ Ravens beat the 49ers.

Kaepernick wore a Milwaukee Bucks cap. Lewis reportedly took that to be a slap at him because of the whole flap over the whole deer antler spray Lewis allegedly used to help himself get over a torn triceps.

That incident has always been a touchy subject for Lewis. It’s also a good way to get him to stop talking.

Ray Lewis is here for Odell

Kaepernick wasn’t the only player Lewis counseled via the media. He had some words for Odell Beckham Jr. too.

“Where there’s no God, there’s chaos,” Lewis said on The Herd. “Odell has removed God from his life. This is a kid who grew up under the covenant of who God really is. And everything that he’s doing, he’s crying out for help.”

Uh huh. When asked about reaching out to Beckham, it got even weirder.

“It’s not what he said, it’s the commitment he started to make. So we started to make those phone calls, we started to have conversation. And then I started to see [that] he started to distance himself a little more, a little more, and a little more. And the moment — just listen to me, Colin, I don’t care about religion, I’m talking about a foundation. When your foundation is disturbed, when everything you’re doing is the opposite of what’s got you to this place, then you’re making your own bed hard.”

Okay then!

Conspiracy theories!

“I’m not gonna accuse nobody of nothing -- because I don’t know facts,” Lewis said, according to USA Today’s Nate Davis. “But you’re a zillion-dollar company, and your lights go out? No. No way.”

As with everything, Ray Lewis managed to bring it back to Ray Lewis.

“Now listen, if you grew up like I grew up -- and you grew up in a household like I grew up -- then sometimes your lights might go out, because times get hard. I understand that. But you cannot tell me somebody wasn’t sitting there and when they say, ‘The Ravens (are) about to blow them out. Man, we better do something.’ ... That’s a huge shift in any game, in all seriousness. And as you see how huge it was because it let them right back in the game.”

A Tom Brady hot take for the ages

Brady and the Tuck Rule

“The only reason we know — I’m just being honest — the only reason we know who Tom Brady is, is because of the tuck rule. There’s no such thing as a tuck rule,” said Lewis.

Water polo is apparently for weak fools who need hope.

“But we don’t need no hope. Y’all can keep your hope because we’ve got enough hope over here. We’re packing our bags, and we’re not packing our bags to come play water polo,” Lewis said when asked about playing the Jets in 2010.

Water polo is actually a very difficult sport to play.

“Pissed off for greatness”

“‘Cause if you ain’t pissed off for greatness then that means you’re OK with being mediocre.”

That’s what he told the Stanford men’s basketball team before an NIT tournament game.

That was just the main highlight. He opened up with what I can only assume to be one of his rejected Successories submissions.

“If tomorrow wasn’t promised, what would you give for today?”

Credit for quotes he didn’t even come up with

It says something about your reputation as a motivational speaker when long-standing clinches are wrongly attributed to you.

Lewis did not make up “stand for something, or else you’ll fall for anything” but the Ravens gave him credit for it anyway.

Ray Lewis was against Joe Flacco before he was for him

Lewis is either bad TV or unintentionally really good TV. Either way, questioning Joe Flacco’s passion for the game probably got him a quick phone call from Bisciotti. Lewis backtracked on it pretty fast.

Yes, he brought that back to himself too.

“It was just me being frustrated of watching something that I had control over for so many years, which was men and inspiring them to go on and do things.”

He also said this in a confusing direct appeal to Flacco:

“You’re a man, and you put your pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else. Listen, from a man, you’ll never hear it again. Sorry for ever even calling out your name in the context of making you try to be anything that I am or anything that you’re not.”

Weapons, God, you know, that kind of stuff

After beating the Broncos on their way to the Super Bowl in 2013, cameras got an excited Lewis riffing after the game.

“No weapon formed against me shall prosper, no weapon.” He hugged Peyton Manning, and then launched right back into it.

“No weapon, no weapon, God is amazing.”

I’m sure I’m missing more than a few, so if you have a favorite non-sensical Ray Lewis speechifying moment, drop it in the comments.

0 notes

omcik-blog · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/3-good-closing-lines-3-bad-closing-lines/

3 Good Closing Lines, 3 Bad Closing Lines

When you’re stuck, a great closing line may get things moving. (Photo: iStock)

Here’s another installment in our effort to bring time-tested sales, marketing and product knowledge articles to the eyes of new readers

The original version of this article ran on Aug. 4, 2016. In it, Ed McCarthy talked about the art of starting and ending effective sales conversations.

Sometimes clients and prospects get stuck. They agree that your proposal makes sense and would benefit them, but whether it’s for an annuity, insurance product or investment account, they just can’t get to “yes.”

Related: 7 Ways to Convert Community Involvement Into Leads

Good closing lines can make the difference in those cases. They let the client see the situation from a different angle and work through their hesitancy, which helps them get unstuck. There are risks with closing lines, though. Many of them have been around for so long that they have become wince-worthy clichés. Use them and prospects might see you as a hard-sell hack. Other lines are so tacky that they border on rude and offensive. Even well-intentioned humor can backfire.

It’s also important to tailor closing lines for the prospect’s generation. Boomers usually don’t mind a direct close so it’s OK to flat out ask for their business. Millennials are different, though. The ABC (Always Be Closing) model turns them off; they prefer the ABH (Always Be Helping) approach. These clients came of age with much greater access to pre-purchase research resources than boomers had. Consequently, they are often well-informed about product features and instead want to learn how a financial product or advisory relationship meets their needs.

Good closing lines

“It’s OK if you decide not to work with me.”

Advisor Darin R. Shebesta, CFP with Jackson/Roskelley Wealth Advisors Inc. in Cave Creek, Arizona, makes this offer to prospects. It sounds like an anti-close but it’s effective from several perspectives. First, it shows that Shebesta is not going to hit them with a hard sell for his services. That realization can make prospects more comfortable and it improves Shebesta’s image as a professional in their eyes. Think about it: When was the last time your doctor tried to sell you something? Second, it reassures prospects that the firm is sufficiently successful that its future doesn’t depend on signing up every person who walks in. “It’s almost like a weight is lifted off their shoulders because they don’t like having to make a difficult decision like this,” says Shebesta. “The majority I have said that to have opted to work with me.”

“Whatever reason you give me for not doing this today will sound pretty ridiculous to your widow.”

Clark Randall, CFP with Financial Enlightenment in Dallas, Texas, uses this blunt line with existing clients. He explains that most of his clients go through an initial financial planning process before he recommends any products and planning first usually eliminates any significant pushback to his recommendations. But when he does make a recommendation for an insurance product, he uses these phrases as a call to action. “If they are backing off long-term care or disability insurance, which is a more likely scenario, I would say, ‘If not this, then what?’” he adds. “We are looking for solutions–don’t mix the two up. The insurance is not the problem; it is the solution.”

“If I’ve answered all your questions, are you ready to (fill in the blank)?”

Sometimes the best closing line is to simply and directly ask the customer if he or she is ready to buy. Boomers in particular prefer straight talk to multiple soft closes and other jaded approaches. Like millennials, many of them do extensive background research on important purchases and don’t need to be sold. Demonstrate that you are a knowledgeable professional, answer their remaining questions and then ask for the business. If they’re ready to buy your product or retain your services, they’ll say so.

Maybe she needs to rethink what she’s saying to the clients. (Photo: iStock)

Bad closing lines

“Do you want your kids changing your diapers?”

As far as long-term care insurance closing lines go, this one always makes me cringe, says Craig Roers, marketing manager, Newman Long-Term Care. This approach tends to shut people down immediately. Instead of discussing all the positives a long-term care policy can provide, it focuses on one of the crudest situations imaginable. Rather than talking about the positives for a caregiver—the financial and physical resources—it focuses on the recipient only and tries to get them to buy to avoid embarrassment. Roers adds that he has yet to hear of this line working.

“You’ll be dead by the maturity date, anyway.”

Years ago I worked for several brokerage firms and overheard this line. Another broker was trying to sell a long-term annuity by phone, but the prospect was balking because he believed the annuity’s surrender charges extended too far out for someone his age. Advisors know this can be an irrational objection because the products allow for no-charge withdrawals so they’re not completely illiquid. The broker was attempting to make a joke of the objection with this line but it backfired. Throwing someone’s inevitable demise back at them is insensitive and ineffective, though, and most people don’t appreciate the reminder.

“If you don’t buy this, you’re stupid!”

Another gem from my brokerage days. When the firm’s bond traders wanted to move an issue out of inventory, management would slap on an additional commission for a limited time to generate sales interest. If you’ve seen the hilarious Charles Schwab 2002 commercial with the line, “Let’s put some lipstick on this pig,” you get the picture. (The video is on YouTube.) A broker was pitching the hot bond to a client in a voice sufficiently loud to carry through the office. After delivering this bullying closing line, she slammed the phone down and hung up on the client. Maybe the pig needed a different shade of lipstick.

— Read 7 Ways To Sell More By Presenting Better on ThinkAdvisor.

0 notes